The eight-day celebration of Hanukkah began last night. It is tradition to publicize the miracle of the Maccabees by placing the menorah in a window for all to see. In 1932, in the town of Kiel, Germany, Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner and his wife Rachel set their menorah in a window facing the Nazi party headquarters across the street. Rachel took this picture to document the juxtaposition of the menorah and the swastika. The Nazis took control of Germany the next year.
Rabbi Posner, Rachel and their three children left Germany for the Holy Land in 1933. Rabbi Posner managed to persuade many of his congregants to leave as well.
For 51 weeks of the year, the menorah belongs to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. But each year, right before Hanukkah, the family takes the menorah back and puts it to good use.
Rabbi Posner's great-grandson, Akiva Baruch Mansbach, now uses that same menorah every year. Read the Posner's story at the New York Times. -via reddit
(Image credit: Shulamith Posner-Mansbach/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)