“Bedsheet” bride at the Ferramonti Concentration Camp

Aging Jewishly – What our traditions teach us about growing old

By Rabbi Barbara Aiello

The sound of the shofar reverberates throughout the camp as inmates collect breadcrumbs and fill a wooden bucket with water in preparation for Tashlich.

A week earlier, camp women put the finishing touches on a wedding gown fashioned from a bed sheet with a veil crafted from mosquito netting. The wedding gown had been used before — actually, it had been altered 23 times because it was shared among the 24 Jewish brides who married under the chuppah in, of all places, a WWII concentration camp.

It happened in Southern Italy at the Ferramonti Concentration Camp, where two rabbis, who were also camp inmates, not only officiated at weddings but conducted High Holy Day services in each of the three synagogues that had been built and were regularly in use within the confines of the camp itself.

As we approach New Year 5783, it’s something to think about. After two years or more of Zoom services and maybe even more years before that, when our Jewish observance was marginal, it’s somewhere between mindboggling and affirming to consider how the traditions of our youth survived against incredible odds.

Although the Jews were held prisoner in the Ferramonti Camp, amazingly they were never harmed. With the blessing of a compassionate and courageous camp commandant, the Jews set about doing what we’ve always done; in the face of disaster, persecution, deportation and loss, we turned tsuris to simcha, in this case, by making a Jewish community.

"Bedsheet" bride at the Ferramonti Concentration Camp

Photographs displayed in the camp museum feature Jewish brides wearing the bedsheet gown and bridal veils made from the mosquito netting that camp administrators faithfully distributed to the Jewish inmates.

The rabbis are pictured as well. When they weren’t officiating at wedding ceremonies or naming one of the 21 babies born in the camp, we see them leading Shabbat and festival services, sounding the shofar, shaking a makeshift lulav and etrog or reading from a Torah scroll that had been smuggled into the camp.

“It is a little-known story that needs to be told,” says Simona Ciliberti, administrator of the Ferramonti museum, which boasts an extensive collection of artifacts and photographs that offer visitors a glimpse of camp life — a life that included a Hebrew school, a camp newspaper, social organizations, family vegetable gardens, a drama society, soccer teams and three synagogues — orthodox, reform and Zionist.

So it was, that on Oct. 6, 2019, 75 years after Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services were held openly at the camp, the shofar sounded again — this time in recognition of and gratitude for the Italian soldiers and local villagers who supported and protected the Italian Jews, the Eastern European Jews and Jewish survivors of the ill-fated ship, the Pentcho, who comprised the Ferramonti prisoner population.

“If Jews could worship in the Ferramonti camp, then we should demonstrate just what they were doing,” said Angela Yael Amato, concert violinist and board member of Congregation Ner Tamid del Sud, the synagogue located near the camp that serves southern Italy as the first active synagogue in Calabria in 500 years.

Along with her son, Alessandro, who is an award-winning cellist, Ms. Amato arranged and performed traditional music that would have been played at the services and festivals held regularly at the camp. The program concluded with the duo’s moving performance of the Kol Nidre melody and Avinu Malkeinu, musical selections that are among the most familiar of High Holy Day melodies.

Serving as Ba’alat Tekiah, I had the honor of sounding the shofar, the traditional ram’s horn that inaugurates the Jewish New Year. As long low blasts filled the meeting hall, many guests were moved to tears. We sensed that each of the shofar’s four distinct tones represented a celebration of life, love, courage and the religious freedom afforded nearly 4,000 inmate Jews 75 years ago.

“Nothing can absolve Italy from its unholy alliance with Hitler,” said Caterina, a young mother who brought her two children to participate in the reenactment of the original Ferramonti High Holy Day services. “But the world must know that, even though Italy’s leadership aligned with the devil, the villagers who lived here would not permit any harm to come to the Jews.”

Simona agrees and takes it a step further when she says, “When Jews around the world learn of Ferramonti’s Jews, possibly it will renew our sense of pride in the resilience of our people. Maybe it will bring more Jews back home.”

Note: Rabbi Barbara will conduct Rosh HaShanah services at the Ferramonti Camp. The service is in person for local Italian residents and will livestream for those around the world. Write Rabbi@ RabbiBarbara.com for details.

For 10 years, Rabbi Barbara Aiello served the Aviva Campus for Senior Life (Sarasota, FL) as resident rabbi. Her most popular columns are now published in her new book, “Aging Jewishly,” available on Amazon books. Rabbi Barbara now lives and works in Italy, where she is rabbi of Italy’s first Reconstructionist synagogue. Contact her at Rabbi@RabbiBarbara.com.