hear iamb on the first night of hanukkah
On Thursday, December 10, 1942 Anne Frank wrote about the “comical sight” of sausages — that she watched be ground, seasoned, and squeezed into casings by Mr. Van Dann — dangling from the ceiling that made everyone who saw them burst into laughter. She also wrote about the dirty state of their kitchen and how Dussel had an eye infection he was dabbing with a chamomile tea bag. She then went on to describe what it was like to watch Dussel work on his first dental patient’s mouth at his practice. “The whole scene resembled one of those engravings from the Middle Ages entitled Quack at Work,” she explained. She didn’t know that less than two years later she’d be transported to Auschwitz.
Tonight, as I watched the flame of the shamash give life to the first night’s candle, I thought back to the entries in Anne’s diary that referenced flickers or beams of light. From Anne catching Pim sitting “in the one ray of sunshine coming through the window” while she peeled boiled potatoes on Thursday, December 10, 1942 to the comfort she found in candlelight on Wednesday, March 10, 1943 when the sound of planes and shooting became too much to bear. But light was also a source of fear and distress for Anne. The light from the fire used to burn their waste in the Annex and the flames from German air strikes were constant reminders that they were in danger. Darkness and light were both…
