In his writings, Abba Kovner utilizes different stories as a way to emphasize the key points of his arguments. In the Author’s Introduction to Scrolls of Testimony Kovner uses several stories about the experiences of Holocaust victims, but the most important is an old Chassidic story. This story focuses on the evolution of ritual and story as generations pass. At first, when Baal Shem Tov feels as though a great trouble is about to befall the Jewish people, he goes into the forest with a stick and a coarse sheepskin coat. There, he locates the secret oak tree, lights a fire beneath it, and says a special prayer. This results in heaven granting mercy and protecting the Jewish people. In the next generation, another befalls them. A pius Jew takes a black cloak and goes to the same tree and says the same prayer. His prayer is answered as well. This pattern continues for a few generations until the prayer is forgotten, the tree cannot be found, and the forest’s location is unknown. By simply telling the story of the Baal Shem Tov and what happened many generations ago, the Jewish people were forgiven and spared form harm. This story comes at the beginning of the selection just after Kovner’s main point: “The Holocaust has a place in the historic consciousness of every Jewish generation, wherever it may be”. He is trying to emphasize that even though we may forget the specifics of the Holocaust, we must not forget the human experiences. It is such a crucial moment in time where all of Judaism was in jeopardy of ceasing to exist.
Kovner continues by showing us examples of stories that we must not forget. These are too numerous and lengthy to include an analysis of each, as it is not entirely essential to understand Kovner’s main idea, but one of the more moving stories is that of the man visiting a Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Here, a television reporter records a video of a man displaying that his tattooed number is only one numerical digit higher than the one on display. The number on display belonged to the man’s bunkmate. He says that the empty uniform was the last number required to complete the German daily quota, and that same day the crematorium ceased to function. The man is unable to articulate any further response but was clearly experiencing extreme emotional distress. By sheer luck or the will of God, his life was spared but his bunkmate’s life was not. As generations pass, we will continue to lose all of those who still have numbers on their arms and eventually, we will forget the victims, the places they were tortured, or any number of specific details pertaining to World War II and the Holocaust as a whole.  Instead, Kovner would argue that even though we forget the details, we must remember what happened. Like the pious Jews in the Chassidic story and their safety from harm, we must pass on these stories. By doing so, we can remember the most important part: what actually happened to victims of the Holocaust. Kovner makes special note that these human stories are not essential to all of the typical historical questions: How did it happen? Why did it happen?
