In his commentary on the Haggadah Maaseh Nissim Rabbi Yaakov of Lisa famously asks: If someone were released from prison and subsequently imprisoned again would he invite his cell mates to gather with him to celebrate the day of his initial release?
Yet the servitude of Mitzrayim was hardly the last time that Jews were enslaved by another people. The Babylonian Persian Greek and Roman exiles followed. The Promised Land flowing with milk and honey has been ours for but a brief portion of our national existence.
Still Jews have gone on celebrating the Seder even in the midst of the most brutal oppression whether hiding in caves from the Romans or in dark cellars evading the Inquisition.
Even in the Nazi death camps Jews collected kernels of wheat grain by grain in order to bake matzos. Despite working endless days at backbreaking labor on a diet about half of subsistence level they traded away their major source of sustenance for less nutritious matzos. Others who could not find matzos exchanged their bread and soup for raw potatoes to avoid eating chometz even after being told by rabbanim that pikuach nefesh considerations required them to eat bread.
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