Leo Baeck (1873-1956), was a German rabbi and scholar whose efforts during the Nazi-era is a prime example of the complexities of war and the harsh decisions that were forced to be made constantly by people in power. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family, Leo’s father, Rabbi Samuel Baeck, was rabbi in Lissa, and his great-grandfather was Rabbi Abraham Placzek, chief rabbi of Moravia. Leo’s personal religious affiliation was enigmatic, he wore tefillin daily, was shomer shabbat, but served as rabbi of all of Reform Jewry in German and after the war in London.
In 1933, once the Nazis rose to power, Baeck served as president of the united German Jewry, where he attempted to defend the Jewish community from Nazi oppression. He was not deported from Germany until Jan 27, 1943, when he was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he was one of the few who managed to survive the war, though three of his sisters were murdered. Leo Baeck had many opportunities to escape Germany, but refused to leave his fellow Jews, and remained with them to the very end.
A collection I acquired recently contained an unusual surviving document, an envelope sent by Leo Baeck from the Theresienstadt concentration camp, to Saly Mayer (1882-1950), leader of Switzerland’s Jewry and the head of the Joint Distribution Committee in Switzerland. The letter seems to have been sent by messenger, as is not stamped or marked. In Theresienstadt, Baeck gave lectures and attempted to lift the spirit of his fellow inmates. He was sharply criticized by Hannah Arendt, who accused Baeck of withholding information about the Nazi atrocities from the Jewish community and fellow inmates. An Auschwitz escapee, Siegfried Lederer, informed Baeck of the gas chambers and death factories of the Nazis, but Baeck decided that it was better for the inmates not to be aware of the death that awaited them, to avoid sowing despair. Baeck believed that having Jews police their brethren in the ghetto would be more humane than Germans in full control, though Arendt argued that resulted in more harm and brutality. After the war, Baeck served as rabbi in the North Western Reform Synagogue, in England and taught at Hebrew Union College.
