I've been learning a lot about my family history. My great grandfather was an orthodox Jew and he was captured by the Nazis and sent to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp, to be starved to death. There is a story in my family about his time there that I remember hearing since I was a child which I only just a few months ago was able to verify as true.

The story goes like this:

At Bergen Belsen, Opa Han (this is what we call him, Opa means grandfather) used to teach Torah. This was of course strictly prohibited. On his last day in the camp, the day he was to be released, Opa Han was ordered to take a shower for de-lousing. He went for his shower and when he came back, his humash (bible) was discovered by a guard.

The guard shouted "To whom does this book belong?"

My great grandfather was of course fearful, but he answered back "It is mine."

Then the guard handed him back the book and said to him "Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim v'et ha'arretz."

This is the first sentence of the Torah, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." He never found out who the guard was or how he could have known Hebrew, but nevertheless he was of course grateful for being saved.

I have been thinking much about this story. I don't know why but it seems to spend a lot of time sitting in my head, begging to be interpreted. I find myself saying the words aloud to myself several times to myself throughout the week, hoping I'll have some realization of their meaning.

While I don't believe that everything happens for a reason, I do believe that life is often poetic and some things call out to be assigned meaning and purpose and that it is important to take time contemplating the things that happen to us and around us and attempting to discern meaning and extract wisdom from them.

So, my question to you is what could this story mean? What does it say? I have thoughts but none I've been able to concentrate into a coherent thesis. I know it's a parable for something or at least it could be.