Purimfest 1946: The Nuremberg Trials and the Ten Sons of Haman

The small letters, tav, shin, and zayin in the list of Haman’s ten sons (Esther 9), with the combined numerical value of 707, are seen as a “prophetic” code hinting to the future hanging of the ten Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg trials in the year 5707, which Julius Streicher declared as “Purimfest 1946” before he was hanged. What is the origin of these small letters?

Dr.

Emmanuel Bloch

Dr.

Emmanuel Bloch

Dr. Rabbi

Zvi Ron

Dr. Rabbi

Zvi Ron

Categories:

Purim

Streicher and the Nuremberg “Purimfest”

Twenty-four defendants were tried at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals (Nov 20, 1945–Oct 1, 1946). Two were acquitted, eight were given prison sentences, and twelve were condemned to death. Of these twelve, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia,^[1] and Herman Goering committed suicide before he could be executed. Given their military status, the ten men asked for the firing squad, but to underscore that their crimes went beyond mere military offenses, the court decided on the more common death by hanging.^[2]

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Kingsbury Smith^[3] of the International News Service was chosen by lot to represent the American press at the executions.^[4] He reported Streicher’s final moments and last words as follows:

As the guards stopped him at the bottom of the steps for identification formality he uttered his piercing scream: “Heil Hitler!”^[5] The shriek sent a shiver down my back… As he reached the platform, Streicher cried out, “Now it goes to God.” He was pushed the last two steps to the mortal spot beneath the hangman’s rope. The rope was being held back against a wooden rail by the hangman. Streicher was swung suddenly to face the witnesses and glared at them. Suddenly he screamed, “Purim Fest 1946.”…

The American officer standing at the scaffold said, “Ask the man if he has any last words.” When the interpreter had translated, Streicher shouted, “The Bolsheviks will hang you one day.” When the black hood was raised over his head, Streicher’s muffled voice could be heard to say, “Adele, my dear wife.” At that instant the trap opened with a loud bang. He went down kicking.”^[6]

Apparently, Streicher could not help but notice the parallels of the hanging of ten Nazis and the hanging of Haman’s ten sons.

The Nazi’s Preoccupation with Purim

As historian Martin Gilbert notes, the Nazis were well aware of the Jewish holidays and used “Jewish festivals for particular savagery; these days had become known to the Jews as the ‘Goebbels calendar,’”^[7] and many atrocities were committed specifically on Purim.^[8]

In Zdunska-Wola, for example, on Purim 1942, ten Jews were hung by Nazis “in revenge for Haman.”[9] On Purim of 1943, the Nazis fooled the Jews of the Piotrkow ghetto—a demonic version of a Purim prank—by asking for ten Jewish volunteers as part of an alleged exchange program for Germans living in Palestine, and then shot them all.^[10]

Julius Streicher himself, founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly German newspaper Der Stürmer (“The Stormer”), featured a lengthy report on March 1934 (Der Stürmer 11): “The Night of the Murder: The Secret of the Jewish Holiday of Purim is Unveiled.”^[11] On the day after Kristallnacht (November 10, 1938), Streicher gave a speech to more than 100,000 people in Nuremberg in which he justified the violence against the Jews with the claim that the Jews had murdered 75,000 Persians in one night,^[12] and that the Germans would have the same fate if the Jews had been able to accomplish their plan to institute a new murderous “Purim” in Germany.^[13]

In 1940, the best-known Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda film, Der Ewige Jude (“The Eternal Jew”), took up the same theme.^[14] Hitler even identified himself with the villains of the Esther story in a radio broadcast speech on January 30, 1944, where he stated that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews “could celebrate the destruction of Europe in a second triumphant Purim festival.”^[15]

Jews and Nazi-Purim Parallels

The Jews at the time also saw parallels between Purim and the events in Nazi Germany. Already in the 1930s, European Jews connected Haman and Hitler, taking particular joy in the Megillah reading, especially at the hanging of Haman’s sons, interpreting it as the eventual downfall of the Nazis.^[16]

Hitler as a modern version of Haman appears in Purim plays going back at least to 1934,^[17] and this image figures prominently in the first Purim celebrations held by Holocaust survivors.^[18] Rabbinic letters at the time refer to him as the “known Haman” of the time.^[19] Photographs of the Purim celebration at the Lansberg DP camp show multiple versions of Hitler hanging in effigy in the fashion of Haman.^[20]

Unsurprisingly, therefore, an editorial on the Nuremberg trial in the Tel Aviv daily newspaper HaBoker (Oct 16, 1946, p. 2) as well as a front-page article in this paper discussing the Nuremberg trials (Oct 18, 1946) refer to the Nazis as “sons of Haman.”

The Nuremberg Trials Coded in the Megillah

In a letter to the newspaper Shearim, April 12, 1967,^[21] Aharon Goldberger noted that the list of Haman’s ten sons (Esth 9:7–9) contain three letters that according to tradition are written in smaller script: tav, shin, zayin, whose numeric value in gematria is 707 (400+300+7). This, he argued, is a hidden reference to the Jewish year (5)707, during which the execution of the ten Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg took place.

Goldberger writes that “unfortunately I do not remember who pointed this out to me.” While some attribute the teaching to R. Mordechai Schwab,^[22] others to R. Aharon Rokeach^[23] or R. Michael Ber Weissmandl,^[24] the teaching is generally brought without any attribution.^[25] The teaching gained prominence in the 1980s, with the publication of Nosson Munk’s article in the March 1986 issue of the American Orthodox magazine Jewish Observer as well as in two articles in the Israeli Charedi newspaper Yated Neʾeman (“The Faithful Peg”).^[26]

At the same time, this teaching was popularized through its use in outreach work— as part of Aish HaTorah Discovery Seminars and similar programs—in the context of demonstrating the divine origin of the Torah.^[27] From there, books, articles, and lectures^[28] propagate the idea that the letters are a prophetic prediction of the Nuremberg trial.^[29] The Esther code has even inspired a best-selling French book, presented as investigative journalism,^[30] and an American thriller in which an FBI agent deciphers Queen Esther’s prophecy with the help of a rabbi and finally arrests a serial murderer.^[31]

Creative Additions to the “Code”

Depending on the publication, the core teaching (ten sons=ten Nazis, small letters=Hebrew date) is often supported with further ostensible points of contact between the Purim story and the Nuremberg executions:

The large vav—The name Vayzata is written with a large vav, which is understood as a marker of the sixth millennium, thus filling out the year 5707.

Haman’s Daughter—The suicide of Hermann Goering is said to correspond to the death of Haman’s daughter before the war, as recorded in the Talmudic legend (b. Megillah 16a):

כי הוה נקיט ואזיל בשבילא דבי המן חזיתיה ברתיה דקיימא אאיגרא סברה האי דרכיב אבוה והאי דמסגי קמיה מרדכי שקלה עציצא דבית הכסא ושדיתיה ארישא דאבוה דלי עיניה וחזת דאבוה הוא נפלה מאיגרא לארעא ומתה והיינו דכתיב ...והמן נדחף אל ביתו אבל וחפוי ראש אבל על בתו וחפוי ראש על שאירע לו

When he (Haman) was going along the read by Haman’s house (leading Mordechai on the king’s horse), his daughter who was standing on the roof saw him. She thought that the person riding was her father and the one going before him was Mordechai. She took a chamber pot and threw it on her father’s head. She dropped her eyes and saw that it was her father, and she fell from the roof to the ground and died. And this is what it means when it says (Esth 6:12): “…and Haman returned to his home in mourning and with his head covered.” He was mourning for his daughter and his head was covered with the contents of the chamber pot.^[32]

Hoshana Rabbah—This is an especially fitting day for the execution of Nazis as according to Midrash Tehillim (17:5), this is the day that the angels announce that the Jews are victorious,^[33] and it is the day according to the Zohar (Tzav 31b) that judgment of the world is completed.

ואת—That each son’s name is preceded by the accusative marker ואת (veʾet) teaches us, based on the homiletical principle of finding meaning in this particle (b. Ketubot 103a), that something more will occur, namely, the execution of the next set of ten enemies of the Jews.^[34]

The Hanging—The hanging of the Nazi criminals as opposed to death by firing squad was part of the divine plan to highlight the connection to the Purim story. Indeed, why else would Esther have insisted on the already deceased sons of Haman being hanged?

Tomorrow—Esther asks for the sons of Haman to be hanged מָחָר “tomorrow” (Esth 9:13), a veiled reference to the much later hanging of the ten Nazis.

All of these connections are creative embellishments of the core “code” of the three small letters; tav, shin, zayin in the names of Haman sons. But what do we know about the history of these small letters?

Haman’s Ten Sons: The Uniqueness of the List

The list of Haman’s sons is treated as an unusual biblical text in several ways. A well-known custom, going back to Talmudic times (j. Megillah 3:7), is the requirement to read the list of Haman’s sons in one breath.

ר' חייה בריה דר' אדא דייפוי ר' ירמיה בשם ר' זעירא: צריך לאמרן בנפיחה אחת ועשרת בני המן עמהן

R. Hiyya the son of R. Ada of Jaffa, R. Jeremiah in the name of R. Zeira: “They (=the list of Haman’s ten sons) must be recited in one breath, and [the words] ‘the ten sons of Haman’ with them.”[35]

After noting this rule,^[36] the Babylonian Talmud explains (b. Megillah 16b):

מאי טעמא כולהו בהדי הדדי נפקו נשמתייהו.

Why? Because their souls all departed together.

This passage is also written in a special format.

Stacks of Words

The Jerusalem Talmud states that the sons of Haman should be written as stacks of words (j. Megillah 3:7):

ר' זעירה ר' ירמיה בשם רב שירת הים ושירת דבורה נכתבין אריח ע"ג לבינה ולבינה ע"ג אריח עשרת בני המן ומלכי כנען נכתבין אריח ע"ג אריח ולבינה ע"ג לבינה דכל בינין דכן לא קאים...

R. Zeira, R. Jeremiah in the name of Rav: “The Song of the Sea (Exod 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judg 5) should be written space atop brick and brick atop space. The ten sons of Haman and the kings of Canaan (Josh 12) should be written space atop space and brick atop brick, because such a building cannot remain standing….”^[37]

After noting this rule,^[38] the Babylonian Talmud offers a slightly different explanation (b. Megillah 16b):

מאי טעמא? [אמר רבי אבהו:]^[39] שלא תהא תקומה למפלתן

Why? [Rabbi Abahu said:] “So that there will be no rising from their fall.”

The Jerusalem Talmud expands on how the columns should be formatted:

א"ר יוסי בי רבי בון צריך שיהא איש בראש דפא ואת בסופה שכן הוא סליק^[40] ונחית כהדין קינטרא.

R. Yossi son of Rabbi Bun says: “[The word] ʾish (“man”) must be at the top-(right) of the column and [the word] veʾet on the left, so that it rises [or “is tight”] and drops like an iron-tipped staff.”^[41]

In other words, the left column should consist only of the word ואת, making it a perfectly straight line.

Vayzata with a Large Vav

A third unique feature, recorded in b. Megillah 16b, is:

אמ' ר' יונה אמ' ר' זירא האי וו דויזתא צריך למיזקפיה ולמימתחיה.^[42]

Rabbi Yonah said that R. Zeira said: The vav of [the name] Vayzata must be straightened on top and extended downwards.”^[43]

As it did for the other two rules, the Bavli includes a reason:

מאי טע[מא]? כולהו בחדא זקיפא איזדקפו.

Why? Because they were all impaled on one pole.^[44]

Medieval interpreters debated the meaning of this injunction. Some argued that it refers to how the letter is read, the speaker must elongate the sound,^[45] others that the requirement is to write the letter without the horizontal line on top (i.e., like a pole),^[46] while the majority assume the letter should be large, extending farther down than most vavs. Perhaps both a flap top and an extended bottom are both implied, thus giving it the form of a long stick upon which a body is impaled.

Do the MSS Follow the Rules?

Two manuscripts, a 13^th/14^th century Sephardic megillah (Parma 2836), and a Bible completed in 1494 (Paris, hebr. 29 [folio 386r]) follow all the Talmudic prescriptions about how to write this section of the Megillah. (Notably, Parma 2836 also has a small shin in Parmashta, but no other small letters.)


Parma 2836	Bible 1494 (Paris, hebr. 29)

Other medieval biblical manuscripts don’t follow these rules consistently. For example, the Leningrad Codex (1008 C.E.) does not have a unique looking vav in Vayzata.^[47] While it does have the sons of Haman in two columns, the right column doesn’t begin with איש but with מאות איש, two words instead of one.^[48] A Sephardic codex dated to the 14^th/15^th century (Cambridge Add. Ms 652 [folio 302r]) has the elongated vav but the column begins with ואת, not איש, and ends with ויזתא instead of עשרת. Most significantly, it has the ואת column on the right side instead of the left.


Leningrad Codex	Cambridge Add. Ms 652

The Small Letters of the Megillah

The use of small letters, unmentioned in the Talmud, begins to appear in medieval times. The earliest text we have for this is a late 1^st millennium pseudonymous composition listing all the small letters in alphabetical order, known as מדרש עקיבה בן יוסף על אותיות קטנות וטעמיהן “Midrash of Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef on Small Letters and their Reasons.”^[49] It is part of a corpus of such works attributed to Rabbi Akiva since he is famous for offering homiletical interpretations of such small nuances (b. Menachot 29b). Here is the list of the small letters of the Megillah:

זיי"ן, ויזתא ז' קטנה, לפי שהמן הלשין בשבעה דברים.

The zayin of the name Vayzata is written small, because Haman slandered seven times the Jewish people.

רי"ש של פרשנדתא קטנה, שנתמעט ונתלה.

The resh of the name Parshandata is written small, because he was lowered and hung.

שי"ן תי"ו של (פרשנדתא) [ס"א פרמשתא] קטנות.^[50]

The shin and the tav of (Parshandata) [or: Parmashta] are written small.

In this case, the gematria would be 907; the resh adds another 200. Notably, the text lists four small letters, and they all appear in the ten sons of Haman, specifically in the names of Vayzata, Parshandata, and Parmashta. (They are always limited to these three names.)

A related text, מדרש עקיבה בן יוסף על אותיות גדולות וטעמיהן “Midrash of Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef on Large Letters and their Reasons,” mentions the vav of Vayzata, familiar from the Talmud, and two further examples from other parts of the Megillah: the chet of חור (Esth 1:6) and the first tav of ותכתוב (Esth 9:29).^[51]

Medieval Germany

The earliest halakhic work that codifies any small letters in the Megillah is that of the German sage^[52] R. Eliezer ben Joel haLevi (Raʾaviah ca. 1140–1225) in his compendium on the Talmud (Megillah, §548):

אל"ף שבפרשנדתא קטנה, דפרמשתא גדולה, ויש אומר היפך.

The aleph in Parshandata should be small, in Parmashta, it should be big. Some say the opposite.^[53]

Raʾaviah’s tradition is unrelated to the Rabbi Akiva list, but his contemporary, R Elazar of Worms (ca. 1160–1238), records the practice in the list, minus the small resh of Parshandata,^[54] and gives a different explanation for them (Rokeach §235):

תסיר ח' של חור שהיא גדולה שלבש ח' בגדי כהונה שאין חיור כמותן אבל ממעשה דמרדכי ואילך ה' אותיות משונות שתזו"ת בגי[מטריה] כתב זאת זכרון לכך משונין בגודלן ובקרוין.

Put aside the chet of chur (“white,” Esth 1:6), which is big to teach us that he (Ahasuerus) wore the eight layers of the priestly garb, which are unequaled by anything in whiteness. But from the appearance of Mordechai and on there are five strange letters, shin, tav, zayin, vav, tav. In gematria^[55] this equals “Write this as a remembrance” (Exod 17:14). This is why they are unusual in their size and how they are read.

All three small letters, together with the large vav and the large tav—the latter of which is not part of the ten sons of Haman text—has a combined numerical value of 1113, the same value as the first three words God commands Moses about Amalek, כתב זאת זכרון “write this as a remembrance,”^[56] highlighting the connection between the Megillah and the Amalek story already implicit in the Megillah itself.^[57]

France and Provence

In France, the earliest evidence we have for small letters appears in the late 12^th century expanded version of the Machzor Vitry,^[58] which includes all three large letters, plus the small zayin of Vayzata.^[59] Around the same time, R. Avraham ben Natan of Lunel has small letters in all three names and plus a large yod in Vayzata, not found in earlier sources (Sefer HaManhig, “Laws of Megillah” 1.250):

תי"ו זעירא פרשנדתא... שי"ן זעירא פרמשתא... וי"ו ויו"ד רבתי וז' זעירא ויזתא...

Parshandata has a small tav… Parmashta has a small shin… Vayzata has a large vav and yod and a small zayin…^[60]

The first halakhic source to record the small and large letters as we have them today was R. Aaron ben Jacob HaKohen of Lunel (early 14^th cent.) in his Orchot Chayim (Laws of Megillah and Purim, §17):

ואלו האותיות הגדולות והקטנות שבה ח' של חור כרפס גדולה ו' דויזתא גדולה ת' ראשונה של ותכתוב גדולה ז' של ויזתא קטנה ת' דפרשנדתא קטנה ש' דפרמשתא קטנה.

These are the large and small letters in [the Megillah]: Chet of “white [chur] and green” is big; vav of Vayzata is big, the first tav of “and she wrote [vatikhtov]” is big; the zayin of Vayzata is small; the tav of Parshandata is small; the shin of Parmashta is small.^[61]

The practice of writing small letters in the sons of Haman ossified not long after this, thanks to Johannes Guttenberg’s introduction of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century.

The Mikraot Gedolot

In Venice, Daniel Bomberg’s press printed the first edition of Mikraot Gedolot (the Rabbinic Bible) in 1516–1517. His second edition (1524–1526) became the basis for the widely diffused printed biblical text. In preparation for this printing, the publisher, Jacob ben Ḥayim ibn Adonijah (1470–1538), devoted immense efforts to clarify the biblical text, based on the manuscripts in his possession.

When deciding on the correct layout for the Megillah, Jacob ben used the version of the tradition which appears in the Orchot Chayim as his source, and thus the small tav of Parshandata, the small shin of Parmashta, and the small zayin of Vayzata, together with the Talmud’s large vav in that same name, became the accepted standard.

For a while afterwards, halakhic works, including the Shulchan Arukh (Orakh Chayim 691), made no mention of these small letters,^[62] nevertheless, as time went on, this tradition was taken for granted and other traditions that had been common for centuries were soon relegated to the unknown world of manuscripts and obscure halakhic texts.^[63]

New Explanations for the Small Letters

In addition to the explanations for these unusual letters in the medieval sources, some later rabbis offered new suggestions.^[64] For example, Rabbi Mordechai Zvi Adler of Uglya (late 19^th/early 20^th cent.) in his Ir Mivtzar, explains that the small letters in the first two sons indicate what each specifically did to oppress the Jews.^[65]

...כתיב כאן בשם פרשנדתא אות ת' זעירא לרמז כי מאתו יצאה הגזרה אשר גזר המן אביו לבטל את בנ[י] י[שראל] מת[למוד] ת[ורה] אשר החיוב עלינו ללמד דבר אחד ת' פעמים...

The name Parshandata here is written with a small tav to hint that he was responsible for the decree Haman his father made against the Jews learning Torah, regarding which we are obligated to learn one matter 400 (tav) times…

... ע[ל] כ[ן] כתיב בשם פרמשתא אות ש' זעירא רומז כי ע[ל] י[די] עצתו גזר המן אביו לבטל מבנ[י] י[שראל] תפילין אשר מצוה להניחם ש' ימים בשנה...

…This is why the name Parmashta is written with a small shin, to hint that it was based on his advice that his father Haman forced the Jews to stop wearing tefillin, which we are commanded to wear 300 (shin) days a year.

For Vayzata, Adler offers a mystical explanation: Vayzata tried to gain astrological power by “having sex six (vav) days a week” (היה פתו"ח בתשמיש בכל ו' ימי החול), except for Shabbat (the 7^th day, zayin), during which he would refrain.[66]

R. Joseph Messas of Fez (1892–1974) in his responsa Mayim Chayim 1 (Orakh Chayim 294), writes that each of these three sons of Haman were known by their birth name as well as a nickname formed by dropping one letter.^[67]

The Khmelnitsky Pogrom in 5408

While these explanations look for symbolic, numerological, or even historical significance, in the 18^th century, the Dutch-Jewish Historian, Menahem Mann ben Solomon Halevi Amelander (d. 1767) suggested an explanation that had contemporary significance for two of the large letters.

The Khmelnytsky pogroms, a series of pogroms against the Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky as part of the 10-year Cossack-Polish War, began in 1648. Throughout the region, Jewish communities were destroyed, with thousands of people being killed and/or displaced.^[68] When discussing these pogroms, Amelander noted in his historical work Sheʾerit Yisrael,^[69] that some kabbalists see a hint to these massacres in Megillat Esther:

וחכמי האמת אמרו כי גזירות המן אשר נתבטלה בעת ההיא חלה בשנת ת״ח. וכן אותיות ת״ח נרמזים במגילה באותיות גדולות תי״ו של ותכתוב אסתר המלכה וחי״ת של חור כרפס וה' ינקום נקמת בני ישראל.

Those with mystical knowledge have said that the decrees of Haman, which were cancelled at that time, took place in the year (5)408. And this is hinted at in the letters tav and chet that are written large in the Megillah: the tav of “and Esther wrote (vatikhtov) and the chet of “white (chur) and green.” May God avenge the Jews.

These two large letters have the combined numeric value of 400 (tav) and 8 (chet), the year the pogroms began, (5)408. The Esther code follows in the footsteps of Amelander in finding contemporary meaning by seeing the letters as marking a date.

The Barnum Effect

The attempt to find contemporary significance in these small and large letters relies to some degree on the Barnum effect, i.e., when people see general characterizations as related specifically to them.^[70]In reality, none of the details in the Megillah point to a hidden prophecy about the Nuremberg trial.

The small letters do not go back to the Megillah’s origins, but to the late first millennium. The large vav, which goes back to rabbinic times, originates in a playful attempt to make the letter look like a pole for impaling. Moreover, the sixth millennium would have been marked by a heh not a vav.^[71] As for Esther’s request to hang/impale the sons of Haman, this was a standard way in ancient times of humiliating one’s enemy by displaying their corpse.^[72]

The rest of the supporting arguments, such as Goering’s suicide, the repeated use of the accusative marker ואת, and the executions happening on Hoshana Rabbah, rely on midrashic creativity to make the connections. The same is true regarding the so-called “strange details” of the trial such as why they were hanged as opposed to shot,^[73] and the fact that only ten Nazis were executed.^[74] So why is this Purim Code so popular?

Proving the Bible

In its first appearances, the main point of the Purimfest teaching that Megillat Esther predicts the Nuremberg trial,^[75] was to demonstrate that, as unfathomable as it is, the Holocaust is part of God’s plan.^[76] While this is still an important aspect of the teaching, its popularity today, in discovery seminars and other such formats, is due to a paradigm shift.

For centuries, biblical texts have been used to predict events in hindsight. In premodern sources of this type, the truth of the Bible is a given and its passages are used as prooftexts to explain the significance of later events.^[77] In the modern age, however, the significance of the Bible itself is what needs to be supported.

Nobody needs a proof that the Holocaust was a significant event, or that the Nuremberg convicts were evil. What people of faith need is proof that despite the secular world in which we live, the Bible is indeed the word of God. The correspondence between the Megillah’s small letters and the Nuremberg trial are meant to prove that God is indeed running the world, and that Esther, the traditional author of the Megillah, spoke prophetically about this horrible future slaughter of her people.^[78] This, in turn, supports the truth of the Megillah and, by extension, the Torah and Judaism.

The fact that this teaching became so widespread in the Orthodox Jewish community, despite its ambiguous origin and its reliance on vague connections, indicates that the need it fills is a real one, turning the Holocaust from an event causing one to question the existence of God to an event “encoded” in Megillat Esther, which in turn affirms the divinity of the Bible and God’s plan for history—for those looking for such an affirmation.^[79]

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March 16, 2022

Last Updated

November 24, 2024

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Footnotes

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Published

March 16, 2022

Last Updated

November 24, 2024

[1] It turns out he was dead, but at the time, people thought he was still at large.

[2] Telford Taylor, The Anatomy of Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (Skyhorse 1992), pp. 601-607.

[3] On Smith, see William Taft, Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Journalists (London: Routledge, 2016), p. 188.

[4] Kingsbury Smith, “The Nuremberg Trials: The Execution of Nazi War Criminals”, International News Service, October 16, 1946.

[5] He was the only one of the Nuremberg Nazis to say this. Randall Bytwerk, Julius Streicher: Nazi Editor of the Notorious Anti-Semitic Newspaper Der Sturmer (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001), pp. 1-2.

[6] This report formed the basis of the report in Clark Kinnaird, It Happened in 1946 (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1947), p. 99, which in turn appears to be the source for most other books that appeared later. There are minor differences in the translation and order of Streicher’s reported last words, but in all versions “Purimfest 1946” is part of, but not, his very last words. See the versions in Azriel Louis Eisenberg, Witness to the Holocaust (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981), p. 578; Roy Martin, Inside Nurnberg (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 2000), p. 81; Jon Lewis, ed., The Mammoth Book of How It Happened: World War II (London: Constable and Robinson, 2002); Terry Breverton, Immortal Last Words (Quercus Publishing, 2010).

[7] Named after Joseph Goebbels, the chief of the Reich Propaganda Ministry, who was seen as responsible for fanning the flames specifically on Jewish festivals.

[8] Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (New York: Collins, 1986), 297-299. This fact is noted even in some rabbinic discussions of the Purimfest teaching, see David Russof, Yisrael v’haZemanim, Kislev-Adar (Jerusalem: 2011), p. 406.

[9] Isaac Neuman, The Narrow Bridge: Beyond the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), p. 81.

[10] Similar incidents also occurred in Czestochowa, Radom, and Szydlowiec. Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 91.

[11] Die Mordnacht: Das Geheimnis des jüdischen Purimfestes ist enthüllt. The original text can be accessed here.

[12] Editor’s note: For a discussion of the problematic nature of this text, see Meylekh PV Viswanath, “The Megillat Esther Massacre,” TheTorah (2016).

[13] Randall L. Bytwerk, Landmark Speeches of National Socialism (Texas A&M University Press, 2008), 91.

[14] The movie can be viewed here (Purim appears from minute 45:00).

[15] Philip Goodman, The Purim Anthology (Philadelphia 1949), p. 4. It can be read here.

[16] See Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 85-86, where Joachim Prinz, who served as rabbi of a Reform congregation in Berlin in the 1930s reports:

Never had I heard such applause in a synagogue when the names of Haman’s ten sons were read, describing their hanging from the gallows…Every time we read ‘Haman’ the people heard ‘Hitler’ and the noise was deafening.

[17] Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 90.

[18] Horowitz, Reckless Rites, 91–92.

[19] See for example in Zvi Rothberg, Yosef David Rozmarin, eds., Nitei Neimim (Lakewood: Machon Mishnas Rabbi Aaron, 1999), 1.346.

[20] Dan Stone, The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), xv [images 11 and 12].

[21] Aharon Goldberger, “Remez b’Megilla”, Shearim (April 12, 1967), p. 3 [columns 3-4, bottom of the page]. Shearim was the newspaper of the Orthodox Poalei Agudah movement.

[22] R. Mordechai Schwab (1911–1994) of Monsey. Nosson M. Munk (“Megillas Esther and the Nuremberg Trial,” Jewish Observer [March 1986], 56–57 [p. 56]) says that R. Schwab told him that he “once overheard in Jerusalem.” In contrast, Shabbtai Weiss, Mishbetzot Zahav (Jerusalem: 2013), 236, [n54], states Rabbi Schwab himself—misidentified as R. Shimon Schwab—came up with this idea.

[23] Rabbi Aharon Rokeach (1880-1957), the fourth Belzer Rebbe, escaped from the Nazis and came to Israel in 1944 and rebuilt Belz Chassidut. For this attribution, see Munk, “Megillas Esther and the Nuremberg Trial,” 56; Avi Shafran, “Fighting Irony with Irony: A Contemporary Purim Story,” (February 8, 2002); Zvi Kahana, “Wondrous Hints From our Sages Regarding the Terrible Events of 1939”, אוצרות ירושלים [Treasures of Jerusalem] 214 (1977): 223. These sources, however, only understand Rokeach to have connected the small letters to the downfall of the Nazis in general, and not to the Nuremberg trials.

[24] Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl (1903–1957) was famous both for his rescue efforts during the Holocaust, and his teachings based on what would be later be termed Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS), popularly known as “Bible codes.” For this attribution, see Alexander Firestein, Yalkut Divrei Assaf (Jerusalem: 2001), 46 [§16]; Moshe Menachem Ludmir, Yagdil Torah – Megillat Esther (Jerusalem: 2013), 75; R. Eliezer Ginzburg, Ginzei Hamelech on Megillat Esther (Brooklyn: 2000), 152, who says that “people say (אומרים)” it in the name of R. Weissmandl; Chaim Alexander Neiman, “Leika Midi d’Lo Remiza b’Orayta” [Wondrous Hints Regarding Events in the Holocaust Years], Or Yisrael 29 (Tishrei 5763/Sept 2002), 217. Yechiel Michel Stern, Otzar haYediot (Jerusalem, 2010), 2.172; Chaim Weissmandl, Ish Chanudot (Monsey: 2007), 281–282; Yosef Chaim Ohev Zion, Ata Baati (Jerusalem: 2014), 210. Notably, the Nuremberg teaching does not appear in any of R. Weissmandl’s writings, and was first attributed to him in 2002. Nevertheless, R. Chaim Alexander Neiman wrote that Weissmandl taught him the Purim Code directly, saying that it was his idea. While the Nuremberg teaching is not itself an example of ELS, it is often mentioned in the context of other “Bible codes,” and viewed as part of that genre. See for example Eran Ben Ezra, Sefer HaHochachot (Tel Aviv: 2014), pp. 126-130.

[25] See for example, Shimon Avigal, Parperaot b’Shiva Shearim (Bnei Brak: 1992), 75, 181, who gives as his source רשב"ז (רשום בזכרונותי, “written in my notes”), the term he uses for teachings he heard without attribution; Avraham Frankel (Shufra d’Parasha – Shmot [Kiryat Sefer: 2007], 144) writes that it is a tradition from earlier generations (מורשת אבות); Ezra Tukochinsky, (Kitrei Otiot [2009], 188), writes that “it has been heard” (מפי השמועה); Yechiel Rosner (Pitgam Hamelech [Bnei Brak: 2012], 74) writes “I heard” (שמעתי). Adi Cohen has a detailed and illustrated version of the teaching in his Anachnu Lo Levad ([Lotus, 2007], 196-199), but, uncharacteristically, includes no references in the back.

[26] The first appeared anonymously in Mosaf Shabat Kodesh Yated Neeman (19 Adar, 5747/1987), 12, and points out that the mood of the Jews at the time was decidedly not one of joy at all, but rather sadness and mourning over the millions of Jews who were killed. The second was S. Michaeli, “Mihu Amalek?”, Mosaf Shabat Kodesh Yated Neeman (14 Shevat, 5749/1989), 5.

[27] It appears in the many editions of the booklet used in Discovery Seminars, and according to Aish HaTorah’s Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld “it definitely goes back 25 years, possibly to as early as they were teaching Discovery Seminars” (personal communication with ZR, March 18, 2018). Christian minister Perry Stone in his “Bible code” book, Breaking the Jewish Code ([Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2009], 46), notes that he “first learned of this code in 1987 while visiting Israel.”

[28] A recent example is, Daniel Glatstein, “Purimfest 1946 and the Ancient Origins of the Purim Codes,” OU.org (March 7, 2022).

[29] An article in Kulmus 26 ([Sivan 5765/2005] 7), claims that these three small letters are “without a doubt” the most famous of the small letters in the Bible. See also, Paul Steinberg, Celebrating the Jewish Year: The Winter Holidays (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2007), 176; Raphael Ben Levi, Romance of the Hebrew Calendar (Xlibris, 2013), 494-495; Matityahu Glazerson Shem uNeshama (Jerusalem: 1994), 140; Migdalei hateomim b’Dilug Otiot b’Torah (Jerusalem: Yerid Hasefarim, 2002), 105; Zamir Cohen, Torah Min Hashamayim (Hidabrut, 2000), 20–23; Yoel Schwartz, Torat Hashem Temima (Jerusalem: 2007), 7. Non-Jewish works of this type also mention the code. See John Buckley, Prophecy Unveiled: Understanding the Past, Predicting the Future (Xulon Press, 2007), 137–140; Stone, Breaking the Jewish Code, 46–48.

[30] Bernard Binyamin, Le Code d'Esther (Interforum: 2012).

[31] Michael Danneman and Sarah Holst, The Esther Code, Married to a Yid, 2014.

[32] Yoel Schwartz, Megillat Esther – Dvar Yerushalayim (Jerusalem: 2001), pp. 12-13. Mordechai Benedict, Shearim Metzuyanim (Jerusalem: 2010), p. 142, note 22.

[33] Midrash Tehillim¸ Salomon Buber, ed. (New York: Om Publishing, Co., 1947), 129. This particular midrashic connection is brought in Zvi ben Menashe, “Yom Chittum haDin,” Yated Neeman, 14 (Tishrei 5749/1988), 3. Note, however, that Midrash Tehillim has the Jews defeating the Gentiles already on the first day of Sukkot.

[34] Ohev Zion, Ata Baati, 211.

[35] The same rule appears in Masekhet Soferim 13:5.

אמר רב אדא דמן יפו עשרת בני המן ועשרת צריך לממרינהו בנשימה אחת מאי טעמא כולהו בהדי הדדי נפקו נשמתייהו.

Rav Adda of Jaffa taught: “The ten sons of Haman and [the word] ‘ten’ must be recited in one breath. Why? Because their souls all departed together.”

[36]

אמר רב אדא דמן יפו עשרת בני המן ועשרת צריך לממרינהו בנשימה אחת

Rav Adda of Jaffa taught: “The ten sons of Haman and [the word] ‘ten’ must be recited in one breath.”

[37] These rules appear also in Masekhet Soferim 13:3. The most common custom is to have two stacks, but some texts assume three stacks or even four. See, for instance, the diagram in Raʾaviah (Megillah, §548), which has three stacks, and the second printed edition of Mikraot Gedolot (Venice 1525) which has four.

[38] B. Megillah 16b writes:

אמר רבי חנינא בר פפא דרש ר' שילא איש כפר תמרתא כל השירות כולן נכתבות אריח על גבי לבינה ולבינה על גבי אריח חוץ משירה זו ומלכי כנען שאריח על גבי אריח ולבינה על גבי לבינה

R. Hanina bar Pappa said: Rabbi Sheila from Tamrata Village offered this homily: “All biblical poems are written space atop brick and brick atop space except for this poem (=the ten sons of Haman) and the Canaanite kings, which [are written] space atop space and brick atop brick.”

[39] These words are absent in the Vilna printing but appear in most manuscripts.

[40] The Leiden manuscript has a scribal correction here, שניץ, tight or compressed, though the Sokolow Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (s.v. שנץ) doubts the correctness of the correction. Marcus Jastrow’s A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (s.v. קונטרא) suggests accepting this correction and further corrects the next word so that the whole reads שניץ ונחיץ “laced and corded.”

[41] This rule appear also in Masekhet Soferim 13:6.

[42] The text here follows MS British Museum 400, the Vilna printing quotes this in the name of Rabbi Yohanan. Another difference is that Vilna ends with כמורדיא דלברות “like the Lavrut canal.” There are other small differences as well.

[43] Tractate Soferim phrases the rule more like what we have in the Vilna printing:

אמר רב זעירא וי"ו דויזתא צריך למזקפיה כמדורא דדברות

Rabbi Zeira said: The vav of Vayzata must be elongated like the Dibruth Canal.

[44] While medieval interpreters imagine hanging, the biblical text and likely the rabbinic texts are picturing impaling, which was a common way of displaying a body publicly. See A. J. Berkowitz, “Was Haman Hanged, Impaled, or Crucified?” TheTorah (2021).

[45] The first to suggest this reading seems to have been R. Jacob ben Meir (R. Tam, ca. 1100–1171); see Sefer HaManhig, Laws of Megillah (Mossad HaRav Kook), 1.250. See also Piskei HaRid (ad loc.) and discussion in Ran’s glosses on Rif (ad loc.) and Ritva (ad loc.)

[46] One commentator that emphasized this point is Rabbi Aharon HaLevi (Ra’ah, ca. 1235–1290), quoted in Aaron HaKohen of Lunel’s Orchot Chaim, “Laws of Megillah and Purim” §18: לזקוף ראשו הכפוף “making its [usually] bent top straight.” Perhaps the fact that most medieval sages would have picture the sons hanging on gallows as opposed to impaled on a sharp stick led to the preference to keep the top of the vav extended out like gallows.

[47] National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg (EBP. I B 19a). See discussion in, Israel Yeivin, Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah (Society of Biblical Literature, 198o), 48. Unfortunately, the Aleppo Codex (Keter Aram Ẓova), several decades older than the Leningrad Codex, is missing the book of Esther (and most of the Torah as well).

[48] The texts of two other ancient manuscripts, Add. Ms. 5702 and Or. 2375, preserved at respectively Cambridge University and the British Museum, are identical to the Leningrad Codex. Mordechai Breuer, נוסח המקרא בכתר ירושלים ומקורותיו במסורה ובכתבי יד [The Biblical Text in the Aleppo Codex and its Sources in the Masorah and Manuscripts] (Jerusalem: Ḳeren ha-mesorah, 2003), 324. In contrast to the text itself, the מסורה סופית, the Masoretic notes at the end of the Leningrad Codex, signal a small shin for Parshandata, a small tav for Parmashta (but no small letter for Vayzata). This is more in keeping with the sources we will survey in the next section. To explain this discrepancy between the Masoetic notes and the main text of the Codex, Menaḥem Cohen, in his introduction to the Keter edition of the Mikraot Gedolot (Joshua-Judges, pp. 47*-49*), notes that the small and large letters noted by the Masorah are never reflected in the texts of the oldest manuscripts. The first lists of unusual letters, which initially appeared toward the end of the Masoretes’ period, were at first considered unauthoritative. Minchat Shai does note that the Masoretic notes in the beginning of Leviticus indicate that Parshandata has the small shin and Parmashta the small tav, so that the same letters are small but they are not in order. See Chaim Raaz, Masoret haTanach (Kiryat Sefer: 2014), p. 824.

[49] The works were known to the early French rishonim as well as some later sages, but were only rediscovered in modern times through the genizah. The full text appears in, Judah David Eisenstein, Oẓar ha-Midrashim (New York, 1915) 2.432–433; Shlomo Aaron Wertheimer, Batei Midrashot (Mossad ha-Rav Kook 1955), 2.478-488. For the discussion of dating, see Wertheimer, pp. 333, 467.

[50] The text ends with an obscure statement:

הסר פ' ור' וישאר שמתא.

remove the peh and the resh, and there remains the word shamta [“banishment”].

Wertheimer (ad loc) discusses the difficulty with this phrase. If Parshandata is the correct text—Wertheimer notes that it has better support in the manuscripts—then the remaining letters are שננדתא. If we also remove the small letters, shin and tav, what remains is נדא. If we read this word as if it were Hebrew spelling it would be נדה, which can also refer to banishment, i.e., a semantic equivalent to שמתא. Notably, the version of this midrash published in Shneur Zaks, Sefer Tagin (pp. 51–52 in the Rabbi Akiva midrash section), has this name spelled with a heh, פרשנדתה, which would work for this reading. Even so, this is a stretch. Moreover, why wouldn’t the change in all three letters come together, since they are all in the same name, and why remove the resh again, since we are already not counting the small letters. It seems, therefore, that this midrash works better with the Parmashta text, since if the peh and resh are removed, then the four letters that make up שמתא remain, albeit in a different order. This interpretation, however, assumes that the statement has no connection to the rule about writing small letters (since then the shin and tav would also be removed, leaving only mem and aleph.)

[51] The text reads:

[ו'] (ז') דויזתא במגילה גדולה, לפי שכולם (תנו) [נתלו] בנשימה אחת.... ח' חור כרפס ותכלת גדולה (חיור) [חור] היה במקדש ולא ימצא כמוהו לעולם... ת' ותכתוב אסתר קדמאה גדולה לפי שאמרה כתבוני לדורות.

The vav of Vayzata in the Megillah is large, because all of them were impaled in one breath… The chet of “white (chur), green, and blue [hangings]” (Esth 1:6) is large, since chur was in the Temple and there is nothing else like it in the world… The tav of vatikhtov “and she wrote” (Esth 9:29) is large, since [Esther] said “write me down for the generations” (b. Megillah 7a, Yoma 29a).

[52] In “The Third Yeshiva of Bavel and the Cultural Origins of Ashkenaz,” Ḥaym Soloveitchik notes that the first communities in Northern Europe were the heirs of customs, probably stemming from ancient Babylonian traditions. See Haym Soloveitchik, Collected Essays (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2019), 2.150-201

[53] This same view was recorded in the work of his student, R. Isaac ben Moshe of Vienna (ca. 1200–1270), in his Or Zarua (Megillah §373):

א' של פרשנדתא קטנה דפרמשתא גדולה וי"א להיפך.

The aleph in Parshandata should be small, in Parmashta should be big. Some say the opposite.

This view is also quoted by 15^th century German scholar, Maharam (Moses ben Isaac ha-Levi) Minz, responsum §61.3:

פרשנדתא, א' קטנה. א' דפרמשתא, גדולה. וי"א הפך.

In Parshandata, the aleph should be small; the aleph in Parmashta, big. Some say the opposite.

Apparently, this tradition remained normative in parts of Germany for centuries.

[54]

וכתבו במגילה אותיות קטנות וגדולות ח' של חור כרפס גדולה ו' דויזתא ארוכה ת' ראשונה דותכתוב אסתר גדולה ש"ת דפרמשתא וז' דויזתא מאותיות קטנות.

They wrote the Megillah with small and large letters. The chet of “white (chur) green” (Esth 1:6) is large, the vav of Vayzata is large, and the first tav of “and Esther wrote” (Esth 9:29) is large. The shin and tav of Parmashta, the zayin of Vayzata, are small.

Notably, the commentary on the Megillah attributed to R. Elazar of Worms makes no mention of unusually written letters in the list of Haman’s sons.

[55] This is the method of adding up the numerical valued of letters.

[56] Another place we see this same position is in MS Vatican ebr 123 (fol. 77r), circa 1400, which preserves the ending part of a list of large and small letters, perhaps taken from the Rokeach or from the Rokeach’s source text. In this case, the scribe garbled much of it:

ש֗ין ות֗יו של פרמשתא {וכן ז֗ של ויזתא} וכן ו֗ של ויזתא אבל זקפיה ו֗ת של ותכתוב {...} ש֗ת֗ז֗ו֗ת֗ בגימטרי' כ֗ת֗(ו֗)ב֗ ז֗א֗ת֗ ז֗כ֗ר֗ו֗ן֗ ב֗ספ֗ר ונכתב בספר.

Shin and tav of Parmashta, {and also the zayin of Vayzata} and also the vav of Vayzata, but making it stand out (=large), and the tav of vatichtov {…} [the letters] shin, tav, zayin, vav, tav have the same value in gematria as (Exodus 17:14) “Write this as a remembrance in a scroll,” and it was written in a scroll (i.e., the Megillah).

The absence of the zayin in the opening description must have fallen out due to haplography, since in its summary of the letters, the text includes a zayin before the vav (even though in the text, it comes after). The ellipsis represents an unreadable word. As for the exodus quote, the scribe made two errors. First, he spelled the word plene, but in Exodus (and in the Rokeach) it is spelled defective, without the vav, which is necessary for the midrash here, since including the vav throws off the gematria. Second, he included the word בספר “in a scroll,” which isn’t part of the numerical counting. (The MS is an Ashkenazi compendium of various books, and the page before this is blank. For a description of the MS and its contents, see Benjamin Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library Catalogue, Studi E Testi 438 [Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticano, 2008], 88–90.)

[57] Another German scholar, R. Meir ben Yekutiel HaKohen (ca. 1260–1298), quotes the practice of his teacher, R. Meir of Rothenberg (ca. 1220–1293), who seems to have a combination of the two customs:

וכן כתב שי"ן ותי"ו של פרשנדתא קטנות וא' גדולה וי"ו דויזתא ארוכה וזי"ן קטנה.

And so too he (R. Meir of Rothenberg) wrote [in his personal Megillah] the shin and tav of Parshandata small, the aleph big, the vav of Vayzata long, and the zayin small.

(Hagahot Maimoni on the Mishneh Torah, Zemanim, “Laws of Megillah and Chanukah” 2:12, §70.) Here we have five unusual letters in the ten sons of Haman, the oversized aleph from the alternative German practice, but without the corresponding small one, the Talmud’s long vav, the small zayin in Vayzata and small the shin and tav in Parshandata—not Parmashta.

[58] The Machzor Vitry was written by R. Simcha ben Samuel if Vitry (d. 1105), a student of Rashi. The expanded version appears to have been written by an early 13^th century scholar, who had two manuscripts, one with additions by R. Isaac bar Dorbelo (12^th cent.), a student of Rabbeinu Tam, and another with additions by R. Avraham ben Natan (Even HaYarchi; late 12^th / early 13^th cent.), and he combined the two. (See discussion in the Aryeh Goldschmidt edition, 1.49–51.) In this case, the addition was likely by bar Dorbelo since Even HaYarchi has other small letters.

[59] While the original 11^th century work references only the extended vav, as per the Talmud (Laws of Purim §5), the expansion adds the other two large letters from the other parts of the Megillah, as well as the small zayin (§10):

וח' דחור גדולה מכל האותיות. מאלפא רבתי, במסורת הגדולה. וכן ז' דויזתא זעיר. ות' דותכתוב אסתר. ווא"ו דויזתא גדולה כדא[יתא] במגילה.

The chet of chur is larger than all the other letters. From Alpha Rabbati (likely another name for the Rabbi Akiva list), and the Greater Masorah. And the zayin of Vayzata is small. And the tav of “and Esther wrote” [is large] and the vav of Vayzata is large, as it says in [tractate] Megillah.

The text makes no mention of any changes to Parshandata or Parmashta.

[60] He also has the other two large letters familiar from the list:

חי"ת רבתי דחור כרפס, תי"ו רבתי מתכתוב אסתר המלכה.

The chet of “white [chur] and green” is large, the tav of “and Esther the queen wrote [vatikhtov].”

[61] The tradition eventually made it to Spain in the early 14^th century, as it appears in the Sefer Tagey (Ms. Sassoon 82), of Shem Tov ben Abraham ibn Gaon (1283–1330) in yet a new form: small shin for Parshandata, small shin for Parmashta, small zayin for Vayzata.

[62] Orakh Chayim 691. Eliyah Rabba 691.9 explicitly notes the discrepancy between the “printed text” of the Megillah and the “halakhic text.”

[63] Other versions of the text continue to circulate, even if they are now in the minority. For example, the Soncino edition of the book of Esther endorses a version halfway between versions 4 and 7 above, but I have never encountered such a version in any medieval work. I do not know if the editor worked from another version of the large and small letters, or if he deliberately chose to create a hybrid. The critical apparatus suggests that other traditions still existed (small resh for Parmashta).

[64] See Zvi Ron, Sefer Katan v’Gadol (Jerusalem: Rossi Publications, 2006), 283-288, 300-305.

[65] Mordechai Zvi Adler, Ir Mivtzar (Szolyva: 1909), pp. 33b-34b.

[66] He writes:

...והנה ויזתא הלזה ודאי הלך אחר חוקי המזלות... ע[ל] כ[ן] כתיב בשם ויזתא אות ו' רבתי ונקודה פת"ח רומז שהוא היה מרבה בתענוגים גם היה פתו"ח בתשמיש בכל ו' ימי החול ואת ז' זעירא ונקודה קמץ רומז שביום ז' דהיינו ש[בת] ק[דש] היה ממעט בכל מיני תענונגים וכו' גם היה מקמץ בת[שמיש] המט[ה] היפך מבני ישראל כדי שיגן עליו המזל וכו' א[ף] ע[ל] פי כ[ן], לא הועיל לו כלום.

Now this Vayzata certainly followed astrological rules… therefore, the name Vayzata was written with a large vav and the patach vowel, to hint that he would pile on pleasures and was open (patuach) to sex all six days of the week. And the small zayin with the vowel qamatz hints that on the seventh day, that is the holy Shabbat, he would limit his pleasures, etc., and would shrink down (meqametz) his sexual relations, the opposite of Jews [who have sex on Shabbat], so that the constellations would protect him, etc. Even so, this didn’t help him at all.

[67] Mayim Chaim vol. 1 (Fez: 1934), 105a [Orakh Chayim, §294].

דבר זה בקשתיהו ולא מצאתיהו בכל הספרים אשר לפני, ואני אומר בדרך אפשר, שרוב העם היו קורין לפרשנדתא בחסרון ת' פרשנדא, והמיעוט היו קורין לו פרשנדתא בתוספת ת', כאשר יקרה בכמה שמות, ובפרט בשמות הנשים.... ולכן כשכתבה אסתר המלכה את המגילה, רצתה לפרסם שמו לכל, למרובין שהיו קורין אותו פרשנדא, ולמועטין שהיו קורין אותו בתוספת ת', ולכן כתבה אותה זעירא, להורות שיש מיעוט שקורין אותו בתוספת ת', פרשנדתא, כדי שלא יטעו באחר, ויאמרו שבן המן לא נתלה, וכן הטעם בפרמשתא וויזתא.

I have looked for an answer to this but haven’t found any in all my books, so let me suggest a possibility: Most people would call Parshandata “Parshanda,” without the tav, but a few would call him “Parshandata” with the tav, as happens with many names, especially women’s names… Therefore, when Queen Esther wrote the Megillah, she wished to make his name known to the masses who called him Parshanda but also to the minority who added the extra tav, therefore she wrote it small, to show that there are a few people who add the tav and call him Parshandata, so that people would not make a mistake and say that a son of Haman avoided being hung. The same reasoning applies to Parmashta and Vayzata.

In contrast, R. Meir Mazouz, a contemporary Sefardic halachic authority, rejects the idea that we can explain these letters: “There is no hint in the verses, and we do not have explanations for all the large and small letters in Tanakh.” Pninei HaParasha, VaYakhel (5774/2014), no. 722, p. 4.

[68] The Russian Jewish historian, Simon Dubnow (1860–1941) describes it thus:

The losses inflicted on the Jews of Poland during the fatal decade 1648–1658 were appalling. In the reports of the chroniclers, the number of Jewish victims varies between one hundred thousand and five hundred thousand. But even if we accept the lower figure, the number of victims still remains colossal, even exceeding the catastrophes of the Crusades and the Black Death in Western Europe. Some seven hundred Jewish communities in Poland had suffered massacre and pillage. In the Ukrainian cities situated on the left banks of the Dnieper, the region populated by Cossacks... the Jewish communities had disappeared almost completely. In the localities on the right shore of the Dneiper or in the Polish part of Ukraine as well as those of Volhynia and Podolia, wherever Cossacks had made their appearance, only about one tenth of the Jewish population survived.

Simon Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, trans. Israel Friedlander, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1916), 1.156–157.

[69] Menahem Mann Amelander, שארית ישראל [The Remnants of the Jews] (Amsterdam, 1743), 127–128 [ch. 28]. He conceived of his work as a continuation of the history of the Jews in the medieval Jewish historical work, Josippon. The book first was extremely popular, going through numerous reprintings and editions. See Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature: Old Yiddish Literature from its Origins to the Haskalah Period (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1975), 233–234; Jonathan Frankel, ed., Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume X: Reshaping the Past: Jewish History and the Historians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 20.

[70] For a brief description, see Kathleen D. Vohs, “The Barnum Effect, Psychology,” Encyclopedia Britannica (online edition).

[71] This is the same in English dates; we are in the 21^st century, but we begin with the number 20, not 21.

[72] Some illustrations: when Joshua won a decisive battle against five Canaanite armies, he killed their kings and hung them on trees until evening (Josh 10:26); in another skirmish, he did the same to the city of Ai and its king (Josh 8:29). King David, meanwhile, sometimes cut the hands and feet of his already dead enemies before publicly hanging their bodies (2 Sam 4:12). When the Philistines find King Saul already dead, they cut off his head and tied his body on the wall of the city of Beth Shean (1 Sam 31:10). David does this to the descendants of Saul to pacify the Gibeonites (2 Sam 21:9). Joseph's interpretation of the dream of the Egyptian chief baker assumes the practice (Gen 40:19), and the Torah goes out of its way to forbid allowing the practice to extend past the evening (Deut 21:22–23). The practice is also attested in Hammurabi’s Laws (§21). In sum, the public display of corpses may seem odd to modern eyes, but its reason is evident in the sociocultural context of the time.

[73] As noted, this was to make about point about their criminality. In any event, Haman’s sons aren’t executed by hanging, they are killed by the sword in battle and hung/impaled after death.

[74] Beyond what we mentioned earlier, about the fate of the other defendants, the small number of Nazi’s brought to trial was part of the allies calculation about how hard they wanted to be on former Nazis. Due to the need to keep Germany as a front-line state in the Cold War conflict against the Soviets, “few of the many thousand convicted Nazis, including those responsible for acts of genocide, were in prison after 1953.” Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes: US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg (Routledge, 2007), 7. See also, Gerald Steinacher, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 160-161. Thus, the small number hanged emphasizes the fact that “the sentences of the remainder were, in common with most other Nazi war criminals, subjected to politically inspired commutations of sentence and early release in the early 1950s.” Salter, Nazi War Crimes, 8. Specific Nazi leaders, such as Karl Wolff, Supreme Commander of all SS forces in Italy, were not prosecuted at the Nuremberg trials due to various deals made with the Allies, despite being responsible for wartime atrocities. The case is discussed at length in Michael Salter, Nazi War Crimes: US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg (Routledge, 2007), and in Gerald Steinacher, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 174–175. Through American intervention, he evaded prosecution at Nuremberg, and lived undisturbed in Germany until 1962, despite the fact that he would later be convicted of deporting 300,000 Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp, and of the deportation of Italian Jews to Auschwitz. Similar is the case of SS officer Wilhelm Hottl, who “faced an inevitable trial because of his involvement in the murder of the Hungarian Jews” but was spared persecution at Nuremberg due to his “willingness to collaborate with the Americans.” Steinacher, Nazis on the Run, 177.

[75] For example, Yoel Schwartz, Anshei Knesset Hagedola (Jerusalem: 2001), 58–59, who uses the teaching to prove that the Men of the Great Assembly, who he understands are responsible for the big and small letters, were endowed with ruach ha-kodesh.

[76] See for example Moshe Yaakov Klein, Ha-Kuzari Shel Zmaneinu (Bnei Brak, 2019), 291 where the Nuremberg teaching is brought as part of pages of other verses and sources demonstrating that the Holocaust is spoken about in the Bible.

[77] This is standard fare in Qumran pesherim, New Testament Gospels, and rabbinic midrash, which try to prove from the Bible that their beliefs are true. For instance, if the prophet Zechariah (9:9) said the messiah will enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey and a colt, thus Jesus entering Jerusalem on these animals is taken as evidence that Jesus is Messiah (Matthew 21:1–11). Rabbi Akiva sees foxes in the destroyed Temple and laughs, since now that Micah’s prophecy has been fulfilled (Mic 3:12), the prophecy of Zechariah that Jerusalem will again be populated (Zech 8:4) can now take place (b. Makkot 24b).

[78] Some attempts have been made to find a lesson in the connection to the Nuremberg trials. For instance, Shalom Aliasi (Manot Aharon [Tel Aviv: 2011], 338) suggests that the ten Nazis hanged at Nuremberg were reincarnations of the sons of Haman. Refael Rosenman sees this is teaching that the Holocaust was a remnant of the decree of Haman that was postponed rather than cancelled, as was suggested for the Khmelnysky massacre centuries earlier. (See Refael Rosenman in his books Roshei Besamim – Purim vol. 1 [Monsey, 2003], 208 [§117], 225 [§144], 305 [§245], and Siach Besamim – Purim [Monsey, 2008], 500, 555, 576.) Another example is Yehoshua Friedman of the Jerusalem Temple Institute, who offers a Zionist reading, that just as the Jews of Persia were lacking in their dedication to the Land of Israel and the building of the Temple, and were punished with Haman’s decree, the Jews of the 1940s were punished for again ignoring the Land of Israel and the building of the Temple. Haman’s plan comes to an end at Nuremberg, as in the following year (5708) the State of Israel was established. Yehoshua Friedman, Otzar Beit Hashem (Jerusalem: Machon Hamikdash, 2017), 148-151. Such attempts at finding meaning beyond just the “prophecy” itself are rare and not part of general presentation of the Purim Code.

[79] This article was adapted by TheTorah.com’s editors from Emmanuel Bloch, “The Code of Esther: A Counter-Investigation,” Ḥakirah 28 (2020): 129–145; Zvi Ron, “The Nuremberg Trial in Megillat Esther,” Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas & Experience 41.1 (2021): 31–46, with permission and input from the authors.