Number 59 and Number 95077 - Reflections inspired by the death of Henry Morgentaler

"I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion is already born – RONALD REAGAN

In the eyes of the Third Reich administrators in the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, the numbers tattooed on the left forearms of Jewish prisoners was a means of identifying and keeping track of the millions of Jews who were being herded into these facilities like cattle, by train, day after day. But numbers meant more than that.

To the henchmen of Hitler, the Jews were nothing, the veritable scum of the earth, ethnic debris – not human, no personhood, merely numbers. After the forced disembarkation from the trains, Jews were systematically shoved into one of two lines. Most women, children, older men, and those who were unhealthy were sent to the left. This was the lineup that led to immediate death in the gas chambers and cremation in the gas ovens. The smoke stacks of Auschwitz burned day and night as more than one million Jews were exterminated there.

When Henry was forced off the train he and his brother Abraham were screened and pushed into the lineup on the right. Fate, as some would call it, had been on their side, they would live and become prisoners of the camp. Day in, day out, at Auschwitz, this was the process. “Go to the right! Go to the left!” came the order. The Jew had no choice.

Born in 1923, now in his 20s, Henry Morgenthaler would be systematically processed at Auschwitz and given a number, ink-tattooed on his left forearm it would read, ‘95077.’ This was a hellish, dehumanizing and warped methodology of cataloging prisoners. To the Jew who embraced the ancient scriptures of the Torah, it violated the commands of the Almighty, “Do not cut your bodies for the dead, or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.” (The Bible, Leviticus 19:28)."

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Number 59 and Number 95077 | Column | Opinion | Pembroke Daily Observer