Hitler's identificationwith Haman, and even before that with Haman’s ancestor Amalek, was fully justified
When Hitler declared war on the United States, in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor — as misbegotten a decision for him as Haman’s decision to build a gallows 50 amos high upon which to hang Mordechai proved for him — he accused President Roosevelt and the Jews of “preparing a second Purim.” In a radio address to the nation in early 1944, when the Allies were already bombing Berlin, Hitler warned of a “second triumphant Purim festival” if the Nazis lost.
Most remarkably, the Nazis fully identified with Haman. Historian Martin Gilbert, in his magisterial The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, details how in Eastern Europe, the Nazis carried out mass murders of Jews near to Purim on the calendar, or on Purim itself.
And on at least two occasions, ten Jews were hung on Purim day to avenge the ten sons of Haman. In the Polish town of Zdunska Wola, 30 miles west of Lodz, the Gestapo demanded from the Jewish Council ten young healthy Jews “for work.” Subsequently, the Jewish Council was ordered to bring them to a place where the gallows had already been prepared and to hang them with their own hands. All the Jews of the town were forced to watch the sight of their fellow Jews writhing on the gallows.
In the Polish city of Piotrkow, on Purim day, the Jews legally living in the ghetto were told that there would be an exchange of ten Jews, who had to possess university degrees, for ten Germans living on a settlement in Palestine. That evening, the Jews thus selected were driven to the Jewish cemetery to be executed. But there turned out to be only eight, so the cemetery watchman and his wife were added to bring the total of those executed to ten — again in revenge for the ten sons of Haman.
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