Gunther Aron stood proudly beside the giant Chanukah menorah in Santa Fe, N.M. With hundreds of people, a mixture of Jewish residents, Mayor David Coss and other city officials, and staff members of the local Chabad-Lubavitch center, looking on, he made the traditional blessings and lit the candles corresponding to the fifth night of the Festival of Lights. His job completed, he took a step back, savoring a moment that decades ago, could only have been a dream.
“It would [have been] please to my parents,” the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor said later, “to see me perform this public lighting.”
Aron, who handcrafted the one-of-a-king six-foot tall steel menorah at Santa Fe’s Holocaust and Intolerance Museum, lost many of his family members to the Nazis, including his parents. But he survived the horror because of them. When he was 14 years old, they enrolled him at a Berlin trade school, where he learned the art and skill of welding. Shortly after Kristallnacht, the school transferred Aron and other students to England, where he lived out the war.
He moved to Chicago in 1948 and worked in a jewelry shop as a craftsman. At the same time, he studied at the Chicago Art Institute and the Institute of Design. He began crafting Jewish ceremonial objects, harboring a special fondness for menorahs. Over the years, he fashioned hundreds of the special candelabrums.
When, as a retiree living in New Mexico, he donated one to the Santa Fe museum, board member Jade Gordon pushed for him to be honored at this year’s menorah lighting. All told, several artistic menorahs – Illan Ashkenvi and local artist David Mittle designed two of them – would be lit during the public festivities organized by the Chabad House and the city.
Rabbi Berel Levertov, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Santa Fa, saw a message in Aron’s contribution, especially during a season known for its short days.
“As one who lost many of his family members, he has created menorahs which bring light to the darkest time of the year,” stated the rabbi.
Aron’s Jewish sculptures can be found in exhibits from Berlin to Amsterdam, Toronto and New York. He keeps an album of pictures of his exhibits, which he freely shows to visitors. But his emotion reached a peak as the Santa Fe crowd stood in awe, watching this energetic, elderly man light the menorah.
“It reminded me of Chanukah in my hometown of Jastrow,” he said. “Every year, Father used to light the candles in our home. It was a small menorah, about 15 inches high. It reminded me of the good times and our traditions in my home back in Germany. It was very reminiscent of my young days.”
He pointed out that he didn’t need assistance as he lit the menorah.
“I still remember the blessings from my childhood,” he said.
Turning to the message of Chanukah, Aron said that public ceremonies such as his emphasized the miraculous nature of Jewish survival.
“It is quite meaningful, this idea of Jews celebrating their religion in public,” he explained. The Syrian-Greeks “wanted the Jews to cease from practicing their religion, to eat pork and to not circumcise their children. The Jews rebelled, and because of them, we can practice religion. Today, there is still Judaism.”
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