When I got a degree in history, everyone said the same thing, why? I’d tell them about how much I loved the past. It was the one thing that interested me the most, and everyone would say the same thing, you can’t eat that. Realistically, what do you do with a history degree? I told them there were tons of things I could do.
Then I graduated.
The reality was there wasn’t. My mom had a friend that worked at the World War 2 museum and said I should apply.
I got a job with their oral history department. They send me around to interview veterans and record their stories. It was pretty exciting until I realized not everyone had a Saving Private Ryan-type experience. Especially the ones that are still around. “It was the best time of my life.” “Me and the fellas played ball.” Blah blah. In my heart of hearts, I hoped for some crazy deathbed confession. Some dark story that a bunch of guys swore to take to their graves, but it never happened until today.
I was told I would go to Atlanta to interview this old Rabbi, Abraham Eichhorn.
I knocked at the door, and after a few minutes, this elderly man in a wheelchair opened it and invited me inside. There were cats everywhere, and based on the smell, I don’t think he cared where they pissed. He led me into the living room and offered me a seat. My choice was a moldy sofa or an old wooden chair sticky with cat pee. I opted for the couch.
This gig is pretty straightforward. Guys like this, who are alone all the time, have no one to talk to, so all I do is turn on the recorder and say “so,” and they’re usually off and running. This guy was different.
I went through the usual rigmarole, thanking him for his service, how we wouldn’t be here without him, and he’s the greatest generation, blah, blah. He nodded like he was about as tired of hearing it as I was of saying it. It was not a great start. I pressed record and asked him, “so.” He didn’t say anything. He stared at me like he was waiting for me to speak. So I prodded him with a few basic questions, where did he grow up? What did he do before the war? Finally, he loosened up a bit and asked if he could smoke. I told him I didn’t mind.
He lit his smoke and stared at the floor for a long time, and I was worried that maybe this was too much for him. It happens. He looked up and told me there was only one story he wanted to tell. One that has haunted him his whole life.
I have to admit. I was intrigued. Was Rabbi Eichhorn finally going to tell me the type of story I’d been dying to hear?
He asked me to grab a helmet off the shelf behind me. He told me it was his helmet during the war. On the front was a white cross, and a Star of David was above it. Rabbi Eichhorn pointed at the cross and said he always resented wearing that little cross on his head until the night it saved his life.
He said he was stationed outside France. They came to a small village. It seemed quiet at first, but that night they were attacked. They had set up a field hospital in a barn. He had spent all night helping to drag the wounded back to the barn. The ones who couldn’t be saved, he gave a blessing. Toward the middle of the night, he said it felt like he spent more time providing blessings than dragging the wounded back. There were so many dead. It was late, and he was exhausted. At some point, he lost track of where he was. He said the smoke was thick and obscured what little light the moon offered. The explosions and the constant stream of gunfire were deafening. All those faces of dead boys began to blend, their lifeless gaze staring past him into infinity.
Before he knew it, he realized he was no longer staring at the faces of dead Americans but the faces of dead Germans. He stopped, and looked around, lost and with no idea which way to go. He decided to try and retrace his steps. He saw some lights approach, so he hid till he could confirm if they were GIs or Germans. Before he saw them, he could hear them shouting in German, and his heart sank. He had heard stories about the camps and knew being a Jewish POW was not good. He shut his eyes and prayed. Then he could feel the light shine on him.
He opened his eyes and raised his hands. He said the Germans looked terrified, like he had caught them. One of the Germans pointed at his head and almost looked relieved. The Rabbi couldn’t figure out what they were pointing at till one of the Germans said, “Priest.” Eichhorn said he was so afraid he just nodded. They grabbed him and dragged him deeper behind the line.
Eichhorn said the one German who spoke a little English kept repeating they needed a priest, they needed help. He wasn’t sure what that meant or if they were taking him prisoner. All he knew was they didn’t shoot.
They dragged him to an old bombed-out farmhouse. The room was filled with maps and diagrams. Eichhorn assumed it was their headquarters for whatever they were doing out there. They took him into a back room, and he said the temperature seemed to drop so low he could see his breath. The room was lit only by candles, and the walls were covered with occult symbols. He had heard amongst the other chaplains about Hitler’s obsession with black magic, but he had never seen any sign of it until that night. There were other soldiers in the room. They all looked scared. The English-speaking German dragged Eichhorn toward the center of the room, where an American soldier was tied to a chair.
Eichhorn said the GI looked unconscious at first. His shirt was open with symbols carved into his skin. Eichhorn said he had never been so scared in his life. The English-speaking German told him they had made a mistake. Eichhorn didn’t know what that meant. Then the GI looked up and opened his eyes. Eichhorn said what he saw has been burned in his mind ever since.
The GI’s eyes had gone black, but his eyes weren’t glassy or wet. They didn’t reflect any light at all. They were like two dark voids of darkness. Eichhorn asked the man what his name was. The GI said, Aymer De La Croix. Eichhorn said he looked at the man’s dog tags, and they read Fredrick Thomas. Eichhorn said he asked the GI who Freddy Thomas was. The GI said, “there wasn’t room for Freddy anymore.” Eichhorn said, chills ran down his arms. He looked to the English-speaking German and asked them what they did. He said, “followed orders.”
Eichhorn paused and asked if I knew what a dybbuk was. I told him no. He said they were souls who tried to escape punishment for their sins. The Germans had invoked this spirit into the Thomas and were now scared of what they had done. Thomas killed two of them after the ritual, and they now feared for their souls, which is funny coming from a German.
Eichhorn said when he realized he was face to face with a dybbuk, he knew that one of the first things was not to show fear, which is easier said than done when surrounded by a room full of Germans. He was shaken with fear and watched as the dybbuk stretched the GI’s face to the breaking point to smile at him. There was an explosion outside, and the whole house shook. The Americans were gaining ground. Eichhorn knew it would be a matter of time until he would be rescued, so as selfish as it sounded, he figured he just needed to appease these Germans. The dybbuk continued to smile at him and turned its head. Those empty dark eyes pierced deep inside Eichhorn, and he knew no matter what happened, he couldn’t let this evil creature remain.
Eichhorn said he invoked the name of God and addressed the dybbuk by its name, Aymer. He asked it what offenses it had committed. The dybbuk squirmed in its chair. Eichhorn said he asked it again. The walls exploded with gunfire. Eichhorn dropped to the ground as he watched some of the German’s chest erupt from gunfire. The dybbuk laughed. A few remaining Germans ran out of the room to fire back at the Americans. The dybbuk sat undisturbed. Eichhorn said he saw an opportunity to run. He could have escaped through a back window with no Germans to watch him anymore. The dybbuk looked down at him like it could sense his thoughts. “Run,” it said. Eichhorn looked into those black holes and said, “no.” For the first time, the dybbuk looked scared because Eichhorn was no longer afraid of it. He stood up and told the dybbuk to admit its offenses. The creature squirmed, and the room began to shake. Whether it was from the explosions outside or the power of this evil being, Eichhorn didn’t know. The room darkened, and he could hear the whispered cries of a thousand voices begin to rise. The dybbuk screamed and asked Eichhorn for help. Again, he demanded to know its offenses. The creature spat in his face and laughed. The gunfire outside grew closer. Bullets whizzed on either side of Eichhorn and the tied GI. “Say your offense,” Eichhorn screamed once more. The creature screamed back in the chaplain’s face, “Murder.”
Eichhorn said now that he knew the offense, he could call out the spirit. He opened his Chaplain kit, which contained a small portable ark. He grabbed seven of the Germans’ candles and placed them around the dybbuk. The creature stomped its feet and screamed at Eichhorn to stop. It said the soul of the GI was not worth saving, to let it stay. Eichhorn emptied the portable ark and took out a small horn stored inside. He blew it seven times as the creature roared at him. The room shook again, and a crack in the wall opened. Eichhorn described it as if darkness could glow. He said it was like that pale silver light distortion when you close your eyes and still see a glow. The voices grew, and arms and heads reached from this crack in the wall.
Eichhorn bent down to light the candles as he heard more gunfire outside the walls. A German soldier ran into the room and fired from a window. He paused, saw the crack in the wall, and heard the screams of those trapped inside. The dybbuk cried out desperate pleas to be saved. The German soldier stood there, frozen in fear, as the wall exploded. The force blew out the candles and knocked over the tied GI. Eichhorn was blown into a corner of the room. He was dazed as he looked up at the sounds of screams. The German soldier had fallen toward the crack in the wall. Dozens of arms grabbed hold of him. Dark silhouettes of faces bit into his flesh. He screamed and reached toward Eichhorn as he was pulled into the void.
Eichhorn said it was as if everything had gone quiet outside as he looked toward the fallen chair and saw the dybbuk had escaped. Eichhorn could hear it somewhere in the darkness. It called out to him. It told him to run, to save himself. Eichhorn took out his matches and crawled toward the candles. He heard the dybbuk move around the room. Eichhorn said, his hands were shaking as he tried to relight the candles. He got two lit when the creature grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him into the darkness. Eichhorn invoked the name of God once more, and the dybbuk let go and ran back. He moved as fast as he could toward the candles and almost had them all lit when two American soldiers came in with their guns raised. Eichhorn put up his hands and identified himself. He told them to leave, not to come back until he said it was safe. The dybbuk stepped out of the darkness with its hands raised and said not to listen to Eichhorn, that he needed the medic. Eichhorn told them not to listen and that it wasn’t a man. The GIs didn’t know what to do. Eichhorn told them to leave. He had to finish the ritual.
The dybbuk growled at him. The GIs kept their guns aimed at him. Eichhorn lit the last of the candles, he begged the soldier to leave, but they wouldn’t. The dybbuk laughed. Eichhorn stood between it and the GIs and announced its offense. The dybbuk fell back to the ground. One of the GIs asked what was happening. Eichhorn said he warned them, but since they stayed, they should pray because he needed all their help. All light left the room as the crack in the wall reemerged. The dybbuk stood in front of this horrible dark light in silhouette as it tore into the flesh of the man it possessed. The screams and cries of those trapped in the wall clouded Eichhorn’s mind as he struggled to finish.
The two GIs dropped to their knees and started praying as Eichhorn began the final part of the ritual, speaking the seven combinations of the 42-letter name of God. The dybbuk howled and cursed at Eichhorn. As he spoke the last word, he watched as the creatures from the crack in the wall tore the dybbuk from the GI’s body. Eichhorn said he could see the cursed soul as these dark entities dragged it toward the ark. The soul reached for Eichhorn and begged him to save it. The entities threw the dybbuk into the ark and slammed the lid. He said in that instant, the wall sealed, and the voices vanished. Eichhorn said he and the two GIs stood in the darkness for what felt like an eternity. Thomas stood up and asked Eichhorn what was going on. The GIs took Thomas back to the field hospital. The three of them never discussed what they had seen or made any official report.
I sat back when he finished, unsure what to believe. Was this true? Eichhorn sat back and lit another cigarette. I asked him what had happened to the ark. He said he had sealed it and taken it with him. It was too dangerous to leave behind. It could never be opened. I asked where it was now. He pointed to a small box on the shelf behind him. My blood ran cold when I saw it was open. I asked, “I thought you said it was sealed?” Eichhorn smiled at me and said, “oh, is it not?”