At the request of a delegation
of rabbis from
the Displaced Persons camps, a monumental
nineteen-volume edition of the complete Talmud was
published in Munich-Heidelberg in 1948 — only
three years after the war ended — to
help meet the religious needs of Holocaust survivors
in the American zone. It is dedicated to
the “United States Army,” which
provided the opportunity and the means for
its publication. Shown below is the title
page of this extraordinary work, which connects
the Holocaust with the hoped for rebirth
of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
At the bottom of the title page is a depiction
of a Nazi slave labor camp flanked by barbed
wire; above are the palm trees and the landscape
of the Holy Land. The legend reads: “From
bondage to freedom; from darkness to a great
light".
