Almost Too Late      

But there is another way to sustain the memory of the Holocaust, overlooked for younger segments of the population and taken for granted by older segments. This means of memory is visceral and visual; at the same time, unthreatening and age-appropriate.

And almost too late.

Not too late, however, for the friends of Chazzan Zachary Kutner. He is 99 years old now. He is an amazing blessing. Last Shavuos, when he led the davening for Yizkor and Mussaf, it was as if 30 years had been peeled away — so powerful was his voice, so evident his kavanah, as it has been all these decades.

Chazzan Kutner is no doubt one of the very, very few who survived seven (!) selections by the accursed Mengele.

Roughly five years ago, Chazzan Kutner led an ordinary weekday Shacharis. When the davening was over, the person sitting in back of me, who was visiting his adult son in Denver, was crying. I was puzzled and asked why.