Dark History - 25: Twisted Holiday Tales You’ve Never Heard: Dark History Holiday Edition

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Pour some hot coco, slide on those comfy socks and gather ‘round the fire because it’s chilly willy out there. Week after week, we talk about the most horribly dark stuff on this show. So, we’re switching it up a bit. Today, Bailey gives you her first ever ANTHOLOGY episode with four SHOCKING holiday stories you’ve never heard. Don’t worry - they’re still SUPER dark, but there’s a bit of hope in each tale, too. Episode Advertisers Include: SimpleSafe, StoryWorth, Hello Fresh, and Wicked Clothes. Learn more during the podcast about special offers!  For 10% off go to Wickedclothes.com and use promo code DARKHISTORY.

Hi friends! I hope you're having a wonderful day today. If you're watching this over on YouTube, welcome to the little holiday set! Woohoo! If you're not watching, sorry about it, my name is Bailey Sarian and I would like to welcome you to the Library of Dark History holiday edition. Yeah! This is a safe space for all the curious cats out there who think, hey, is history as really boring as it seemed in school? Oh, no, hey, this is where we can learn together about all the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories

we never learned in school. It's the holidays, Yippee-Kai-Yai, I love the holidays. There's so much going on. There's lots of like holiday movies. Oh my God, holiday movies are my favorite. I love a good hallmark, rom-com. Sign me up. We have Joan here.

Joan is dressed up for the occasion. So holidays, yay! But with that being said, there's Christmas Hanukkah, Kwanza, don't forget Kwanza, and sometimes people just don't even celebrate holidays, and that's okay, too. You know? Now anyways, as we've all have learned together,

it kind of seems like everything has a dark unknown history to it. That's the show, hi. And the holidays are honestly no exception. So today we're gonna do it a little differently, and instead of focusing on one story, I'm gonna share little bits of dark history of the holidays. Yeah, it's gonna be so fun You ready Joan? Okay, great you go girl

So let me open up my dark history book to the chapter of Caroling yeah Carol your neighbor. Yeah, what she up to we're gonna find out. Oh here it is. Oh Caroling. Yeah, Carol, your neighbor. Yeah, what's she up to? We're gonna find out. Oh, here it is. Oh, caroling, singing, holidays, traditions, we love that. Okay, so the holidays are all about different traditions and there's one tradition that I kind of love and that's caroling. Yes, I love it because my voice is just so beautiful. Everyone needs to hear it. La la la la. See, I know.

I just blessed you. You're welcome. And although I could just serenade you all episode, instead let's get into the dark history of the holiday tradition that includes alcohol, breaking the law, and riots. Yeah, caroling. Fun, huh?

Let's go back to that. Caroling started all the way back in Europe in the 1400s. Oh yeah. Back then, Christmas was nothing like it is today. It wasn't celebrating just the one day, but celebrating lots of little holidays throughout the whole month of December. Now within all these little holidays, there was one big celebration which was actually a festival known as Saturnalia. This festival is where the tradition of gift-giving originated.

Back then, it was mostly gag gifts, yeah. In addition to playing like nasty tricks on each other, Saturnalia included a huge feast where people would like dance, sing, drink, but the highlight of satanelia were role reversals. Yeah, this is real fun, let me tell you. The rich and poor, the master and the servant, they would trade places. Yeah, like wife swap, but in real life, but also with the status and class. Fun! It was a time to blow off steam

for a lot of people and imagine having to wait for that one time of year where you could truly feel like a human being, you know. It's actually kind of sick. It's pretuisted. One of the big traditions during this was something that they called waselling. Yeah. The way it worked was that everyone would get a special cup and this cup was called a wasale. Then they would go from door to door in the rich neighborhoods and when they got to the houses they would sing a little song. As a reward for the song the rich people would fill their cups with booze. And sometimes they would also give like gifts or even food. Honestly, it sounds more like trick or treating, but way better because alcohols involved. Now, nobody

saw this as begging, and it was just like a happy holiday exchange. So many believe that this was basically the birth of Christmas caroling. And you might think, well, is that it? That's not very dark, Bailey. You promised me riots. We'll call your tits. We'll just get started. So as the church came into more and more power, all of the traditions of the Winter Festival started to fade away. And that included caroling. So when the pilgrims came from Europe, they decided to take their anti-Christmas feelings with them. But one day, the governor at Plymouth Rock discovered that some people had taken Christmas day off to celebrate.

Gasp. How dare they? And so the governor got so pissed that he demanded that everyone go back to work. Again, money over everything. Yeah, this would be the way it was for the next few decades. I mean, shit, people still work now in the holidays. The pilgrims eventually completely outlawed Christmas. They even took it off their calendars.

There's even a court record from 1672 of a woman getting busted for celebrating Christmas. Yeah. Apparently she was going from house to house caroling, and along the way was parting with everyone she met. She was charged with grief and disturbance of peaceful minds. Can you imagine? Being locked up for having like a good Christmasy time. So no surprise, people didn't really like the Christmas ban and these villagers felt

like the rich owned them and it was time to do something about it. So they decided to go door to door protesting with their waselling cups, singing songs, expecting alcohol and gifts from the houses. And they weren't singing the same happy songs about friendship and the holidays everyone being cheerful. Oh no, of course not. You see the song lyrics started to get a little more aggressive and suddenly their singing transformed into flat out threats. Now what happens when people are drinking and they're upset? Well, that's right.

They probably get rowdy. So this turns into a small riot of people walking the streets, firing rifles into the air, yelling, playing loud music, and breaking into people's home if they refuse to give them gifts. That actually sounds like a party. In the end, it was really hard for the Church to fully suppress Christmas and stop the traditions. Now by the Victorian era, in the early 1800s, Christmas had become a super popular again. And along with Christmas came the rebirth of caroling. But industrialization changed everything and toy making exploded. Gift giving sort of became the big thing for Christmas, booting caroling out. She was old news that carol. Unfortunately, the carolers didn't bring

caroling back as big as it used to be, but they did bring Christmas back to America in like a super big way. So next time you're getting cozy around your Christmas tree, you need to be thankful to a bunch of drunk people who just wanted to go around the neighborhood and sing. Because without them, you would probably still be doing that. Honestly, it sounds more fun than getting gifts. Like, I don't want another coloring book.

I get it, they're easy to give and stuff, but I really don't need another coloring book. I get it. They're easy to give and stuff but I really don't need another coloring book. I could take some alcohol. You know what? beggars can't be choosers. Welcome back. As you can see if you're watching this on YouTube, Joan, she's really into the holiday. She got dressed up. She did a little outfit change. Joan, you are working it girl. Yeah. Who are you? Oh, your Charles Dickens? Oh, you look just like him. You look so good. So if you were listening closely, you kind of felt an element of

trick-or-treating to the last story. Going house to house, demanding some goodies, while at least some booze. Well, this next story is also kind of inspired by that spooky sentiment. But I'm aware this is a holiday episode, not Halloween, so just go with me. Because you see, back in the Victorian era, there was a tradition at Christmas time that doesn't really exist anymore. A good old-fashioned Christmas ghost story. And today we're going to bring that tradition right back. Now I know you're thinking ghosts, Bailey, really, it's Christmas, not Halloweeny, but hang on because the weirdest thing about this isn't that it's a spooky ghost story. The weirdest thing is that the next

story actually indeed happened. It was reported multiple times by the New York Times. So take the ghost part here with a bit of suspicion, but I promise I wouldn't tell a story about something if it wasn't true. Welcome to the haunting of 136 Clinton Avenue. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Spooky. We like spooky stories. Okay, so setting the scene. It's Brooklyn, 1878. Cobblestone houses. The start of the gilded age. Oh, incredible. I know. I wish I was there. Christmas is a relatively new thing for people here because if you remember from the caroling story, it had been illegal for a while, but after the Civil War ended, it started to become more acceptable to celebrate Christmas.

It was like a good excuse to get together with the whole family. You know, yay. Stores sold many of the same decorations we have today, like mistletoe, stockings, ornaments, you name it. And entire houses would be lined up covered in decorations both inside and out. Fun! So one day a man named Edward F. Smith was putting up Christmas decorations with his family at his house at 136 Clinton Avenue. So he's putting up his decorations and then the doorbell suddenly ring. Or it rang. Ding dong! Ding dong!

You know, now this wasn't necessarily unusual since Edward and his family had been renting the house for two years and everybody in the neighborhood knew them, plus it's Christmas time, you know. So maybe Edward expected some good old holiday cheer when he opened that door that day. But to his surprise, there was nobody there. Mmm, weird, you know? And so he went back to putting up decorations with his family. But then there came another ding-dong. Once again, Edward went to the door, but again nobody was there. At this point Edward was starting to get annoyed.

The ringing continued throughout the night night and eventually there was a violent bang, bang, bang at the back door. But every time Edward checked it out, nothing. Ooooooooh! And this kept happening every night, multiple times per night. Edward slowly became obsessed with finding out what the hell was going on. Now Edward, he didn't believe in no ghosts and goblins or anything like that. But his wife certainly did. From the beginning she was convinced that that house was haunted and she wanted to leave as fast as she could. But Edward was not ready to give up that house.

That's his house. So Edward starts sprinkling ash and flour along the path to the door, expecting to find footprints left behind after the doorbell ring. Moments pass and then ding dong. Mm-hmm, there better be a goddamn person at the door. Excited, Edward ran to open it and plot twist. What is it? It's not a surprise. There was nobody there! Nobody there.

And even creepier, there were no footprints at all. And the doorbell kept ringing completely at random for hours. Edward was running out of options here. His family couldn't find the source of the mystery ding-dong and he was losing sleep. And his wife, she just kept insisting that it was a ghost. Because that's what we do best. We're like, baby, it's a ghost. It's a fucking ghost.

She wouldn't let it go. You know, it was fucking a ghost. Anyways, he wasn't convinced. So eventually, he calls up the cops and he's like, hey, you need to look into this. Somebody's ringing my doorbell and it's pissing me off. Now believe it or not, in the 1800s, it was actually a pretty normal thing for people to

contact the police with their concerns over what they thought was a haunted house. Everything was a ghost. Everything was a haunting. But every time they looked into it, well, everything was usually bullshit. You know, there is an answer to everything. But what couldn't be argued was that something was indeed happening. So the police chief and an investigator went into Edwards House to check it out. For the first hour they were there, it was complete and total silence.

But then ding dong. I mean maybe the doorbell was just broken. Did they check that? I don't know. Anyways ding dong. Okay. And the cops heard the doorbell, So they ran to the door themselves. They opened it up. Nothing. Nothing was out there. Okay? And like Edward, they tried position themselves at both doors to immediately open them. Like as soon as a ding dong happened or bang, bang, bang,

they would open it right away, you know? So they waited. It would happen. Nobody was there. Nobody. Maybe someone broke the ding dong. Oh, wait, what about the bang, bang, bang, though? Okay, well, I'll give you that. Pipes, pipes, cold pipes. I just solved the mystery. Joan, no ghost, no ghost. This freaked the cops out, though, okay? So they went back to the station and then the next night they came back out with a bunch of other cops. I don't know what their logic was. I imagine that they're like, hey, this house is like super haunted. You guys like, you gotta come out and check this shit out.

You know, you just want to like, to prove to their friends. So two cops set themselves up right behind the front door with another cop across the street watching the same door. So they were in the position, but didn't hear anything until ding-daw, bing-bang-bang. The doorbell rang and the back door rattled at the same exact time. Yes! The cops immediately opened the door again only to find nothing. The officer across the street, he also saw nothing. So the cops watching the back door, they also saw nothing. The men went to the living room to discuss like what had just happened, and the captain and detective were still talking

and a brick suddenly flew through the dining room window, shattering the glass. flew through the dining room window, shattering the glass. Drummer, drama, drama. Immediately, the cops ran to the side of the house, but the only person there were the officers stationed outside, and they swear they hadn't seen anyone or anything. Now, this is kind of a funny sight note, but when the New York Times reported on this story,

they said there was this rumor around town that the ghost really hated police. Yeah, it was like he was pissed. Quote, this was the most serious demonstration the invisible agency had yet made and can be accounted for on the theory that the ghost wished to show its contempt for the Brooklyn police." End quote. Cool. Partion ghost. Anyway, the police started tearing the house apart, searching for anything that might solve this goddamn mystery.

They tore apart the walls, the curtains, they even ripped all the Christmas decorations apart, but still, they found nothing. So at this point, Edward decided he knew the source of the problem. Ghosts aren't real. Clearly the person behind this was Satan. Duh, make sense. So he calls up a priest to perform an exorcism and on Christmas Eve after three straight weeks of haunting, the ding-dongs and bang-bang-bangs stopped for good. The Smith family were now able to enjoy Christmas together.

Yay! The good news for Edward and his wife was that the ghost or Satan never came ringing again. Now every few years this infamous house goes up for sale, and every real estate website featuring the property at 136 Clinton Avenue mentions the same old thing, a nice old Victorian home, charming lots of natural light. Oh, and BTW, maybe there's a bit of a haunting here. It's been happening since the 1800s, but no big deal.

Have you seen the fireplace? It's gorge. And now we're gonna go back and guess what, Joan costume change. Are you rude off Joan? That's so cute. You're so innovative. Did you make this outfit yourself? You got a hot glue gun. Girl, win. Okay.

Cute. She's so cute. Look at her. I'm trying to steal the show. Who should think she is? I'm telling to steal the show. Who she thinks she is? Telling the show or something? To my show, Joan. I could easily murder your ass. Okay, you're replaceable. I am not. Okay, so now we're going to leave the 1800s behind, did by 1800s, and now we're going to fast forward to World War I, where an event called the Christmas Trouce of 1914 happened. And this truce pissed off a whole lot of military leaders.

So World War I started in 1914. Over 30 countries were involved, and it took place all over Europe. Everyone kind of thought that because it was the biggest war anyone had ever seen, it would be over by December and like everyone would get to go home for Christmas. But the war actually continued for four years and it was just a total blood bath. Okay. One of the things World's War One was known for is the trench warfare. This is where the armies would dig deep-ass ditches and basically live out of them for months at a time while shooting at each other for months on end. Yeah, as you can imagine, life inside the trenches, it was not the best, okay? When you wanted to

sleep, your pillow was a pile of mud. Food was awful and there usually wasn't enough of it. Water would pull up in there and nobody was ever to stay dry or get proper sleep and let's not even talk about where you went to the bathroom because probably where your pillow was at, you know? If you got injured, you were going to get one of three things, an infection, an applicationutation, or dead. Just like pick your boys and which one do you want?

And if you were super lucky, you got all the above. Fun. So as December of 1914 rolled around, people realized this wasn't going to be over by Christmas. They realized they were going to spend the holiday in the shitty trenches, far from home and without a single candy cane. Enter to the scene the fucking Pope, okay, on December 7th. So he is out here suggesting a temporary pause in the war just to celebrate Christmas. Yeah, he's like fuck world peace. Christmas. That's the Pope. He's like fuck yeah, Christmas.

But the military leaders of the country's thought this Christmas pause was a bad idea. Okay, they were like, kumbaya Pope, but no, no, we're not doing that. Like pass the rifle. It doesn't really make any sense. Well, the soldiers and the trenches had their own ideas and they decided they were going to have their own unofficial Christmas truce. They needed a damn freaking break. So on Christmas Eve, the German and British troops started seeing Christmas carols from across the battlefield to one another from their trenches. It's kind of funny, it's because they're about to kill each other, but they're still celebrating.

Like, what is this world? Why can't we just be friends? I don't know. The soldiers couldn't actually see where the singing was coming from. All they could see were dead bodies, smokey skies, and razor wire lining the entire battlefield. But they were like,

but we didn't manage to hear that singing. Oh, and soon like the battlefield was filled with sounds of soldiers singing Silent Night. I think this is supposed to be a kind of sweet story, but it's like, are you fucking kidding me? It's such a, like, what would you call this? What would you call this?

Like a... I don't know, let's circle back with a word. Now historians believed the Germans started the truth, because Germans, I guess, love Christmas. Let me know down below if that's true Germans. And the British would see German soldiers rising from their trenches to put up Christmas trees as they were singing. It was also said that these German soldiers had a whole band going on. Yeah, so now band comes out.

There was a guitar and accordion, someone showed up with a freaking tuba. Like where do you get a tuba in the middle of a war? I don't know, but yay. And at least one German soldier would take his accordion all the way to the middle of the battlefield and I nailed it and you know it. There's actually like a super famous photo of a guy playing it while German soldiers are decorating a Christmas tree. Again, trying to be super cute about it, very hallmarked card, but it's not when you

really think about it because it's still war. Well, the next morning was Christmas Day and all of the German soldiers emerged from the trenches and walked into the middle of the battlefield. At first, all of the Allied soldiers thought was like some kind of trap, but more German soldiers came out holding a sign that said, you know shoot, we know shoot. Suddenly all the soldiers started to come out of the trenches. Everyone was able to forget about the violent battle they had been fighting for the last five months and instead they're like yay Christmas.

This is such an eyebrow. As the day went on, all the soldiers started exchanging presents, cigarettes, British candy, German beer, French wine. I mean, it's a fucking... This sounds like Thanksgiving, doesn't it? After the gift exchange, the soldiers started to play soccer, El Futball, in the middle of the battlefield. Someone brought a ball to World War I, probably the same guy who had the tuba, honestly. So the Germans and the British made some

goalposts and had a friendly soccer game. Then they drank a cup of tea and they called the war off. No, I'm just kidding. There was just like for one day they did this. But the Christmas spirit wasn't just at this one battlefield. Word spread and soon several other soccer games and truces spring up across the Western front in Europe. Now because we can't have nice things,

not everyone was crazy about the truce. That me, I'm on that team. I'm not crazy about it. It sounds like propaganda, honestly. The generals and world leaders were super pissed off about it. War was expensive and as we know, it's always about the money, right? Plus, they were all worried that the soldiers were going to go soft by making friends with the enemy and that they wouldn't have the edge to keep fighting, right? There was one German soldier who said, quote, such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor left? Oh, and his name was Hitler. Adolf Hitler. Ever heard of him? I don't know. I guess he like, he was a big deal, and well or two, I don't know. So I heard.

Okay, so Christmas came to an end, and everyone went back to their trenches. At the end of the truce, it was said that a Welsh captain fired three shots into the air, raising a flag that read Merry Christmas, and on the other side of the battlefield, his German counterpart raised a flag that said, thanks. I said, thank you, but like, thanks!

Both men rose above the trenches and saluted each other. Finally, the German captain fired two shots into the man across the way, and the Christmas truce of 1914 was over. Non-discayne that didn't happen. They fired two shots into the air, and then later on, they went and all killed each other Okay, so I guess as it's supposed to be a happy Christmas story, but I ain't buying it

But I'm sharing it with you just to let you know that it happened so you can make that judgment call, but Joan, I don't know It just seems a little sus I don't know. It just seems a little sass. All right, so we all know what happens after World War I. There was something called World War II, okay? Now this is a topic that every history class dives deep into.

And honestly, I mean, it's for good reason. It changed the world forever. We're not going to focus on a battle or any of the governments involved. There are like four million movies which have already done so. So instead we're going to focus on the Jewish prisoners and how their celebrations of Hanukkah and the concentration camps would end up becoming a light of hope for many years to come. So the year is 1944 and one of the German concentration camps was

Bergen-Belsen, which it's estimated that 120,000 people were in prison there and we're not going to get into the super gruesome details but famine, mass murder, and torture were daily occurrence. There are many stories of people being resilient and bravely doing things to try to give others hope so they could find the strength to survive these camps. One of these people was a 61-year-old's man named Reb Schmelka. He was a devoted rabbi who people knew as a super-friendly man and offered encouragement to everyone inside the camps.

Despite all of the horrors of the Holocaust, Reb Schmelka kept his faith and wanted to help others do the same. The holidays were nearing and the rabbi was concerned about being unable to celebrate Hanukkah. Hanukkah in case you don't know is the festival of lights. The tradition is to light a menorah and say a prayer to commemorate the rebuilding of the temple. Religious texts say that what was special about this event was that the Jewish people only had enough oil for their candles to burn for one night. But the candles ended up lasting for eight nights instead. So, Reb Schmelka wanted to celebrate this holiday with the people who lived in his section of the camp.

But there was one big problem. The Reb needed some oil and a menorah. He asked the same question to everyone he could. Like, can you get us a little oil like you know someone who works in the kitchen? But he was just having no look at all. And as Hanukkah was quickly approaching, the clock was ticking. So Reb, Smelka's idea here was super simple.

He figured he would still create some kind of Hanukkah celebration without the lights, but he knew that having the lights would bring everyone a little bit of comfort and hope to help them push through. The day before Hanukkah, Reb, Smelka was working his normal job at the camp, which was removing dead bodies from the barracks. But that day, he received new orders to head to different barracks. While he was walking around a field, he tripped when his foot got caught in a little hole in the ground. When he looked closer into the hole, he noticed that there was something buried in the ground.

Now, he looked around to make sure there were any guards watching, and then he knelt down and wanted to check out what it was. And you guys, it was a small jar of oil. It was the oil for Hanukkah. He reached into the hole again, and there were also eight little cups and eight little strings of cotton. This is literally what he needed to make his menorah. In other words, Reb Smelka had fallen upon his very own

little Hanukkah miracle. Reb Smelka was overjoyed. He couldn't believe what he found, buried in a concentration camp of all places. So he carefully hid the menorah back in the hole and went about his day. He was determined to find the person who buried the menorah supplies. Like, who were they? Were they so alive? Had they been transferred to another camp?

So he started to go around to the other barracks and asked people like, hey I found some oil in a menorah, do you know who did it, who hid it? Nobody knew. The Reb couldn't find this mystery person. People started to think the trauma of the camps had finally made the rabbi's mind just go. Like he was sounding a little loo-loo-go. But the next night everyone discovered that Reb Schmelka wasn't insane because when they entered their barracks he had set up the menorah and the lights complete with the oil. Now if this celebration hadn't been discovered it would have been an immediate death sentence for everyone involved. But despite this everyone

was able to have a moment of comfort as they watched the flame flickering in the dark. Reb Schmelke recited the blessings and said some prayers. Some smiled, others cried, but what was important was that they felt very hopeful. For every night of Hanukkah, they were able to meet, like the menorah, recite the blessings and prayers, and feel the sense of hope again. In April 1945, just a few months after Reb's Hanukkah miracle, the war finally ended and the camps were liberated. Reb Schmelka was fortunate enough to have survived the camp. Years later, he visited the United States where he met a survivor of the war named Rabbi Yoel Tidalbaum. Now, Rabbi Yoel was one of the most famous rabbis in America,

and it helped rebuild the Jewish community after the war. So, Rabbi Yoel mentioned that he had also been a prisoner at Bergen-Belson around the same time. It was a big place and they never seemed to cross pass while they were both at the camp. The two of them got into talking and Rabbi Yoel mentioned that he was lucky enough to be rescued just four days before Hanukkah. But right before he was rescued, he had buried Hanukkah supplies he had brought along to the camp, anticipating that he would still be imprisoned during Hanukkah. Reb Yoel said he was sad his menorah never got used in Reb, Reb Schmelke was like, oh my

god shut the fuck up, like, oh my god, wait till you guys tell you, I am the one that found your hidden Hanukkah's a prop supplies and they didn't go to waste. He told him that he literally stumbled upon them and was able to use the menorah to lessen the darkness for hundreds of Jewish people. Isn't that crazy? Small world, right? One thing I learned when researching this was that there are a bunch of other stories like the world where two stories, like these makeshift secret Hanukkah celebrations, helped a lot of different people throughout many different camps, and sometimes even in the same camp without even knowing it. Every second those candle lights flickered in the camps, these people were risking their lives.

Hanukkah is a Hebrew word that literally means dedication. By lighting the menorah in that camp that day, Rep Smelka and the other celebrating in secrecy were keeping the story of survival and defiance alive. Just a look that says such a touching nice story. That's just a nice little story. I don't know that other ones sounded like propaganda to me, but I don't know. I don't know, but okay. And the ghost story love. Oh, caroling love. Anyways, oh my god, Joan, that went so fast, girl. And that, my friends, is four interesting stories about the holidays. You know? Isn't that fun? That was a blast.

You know, during the holiday season, it's easy to get wrapped up in all the present, buying the presents and the presents. But you know, sometimes, you presents, and the presents. But you know, sometimes, you know, it's not about that, it's just a little things in life. Like propaganda and love and peace and ghosts and birds who wear costumes, you know, and we like that. Anyways, I hope you guys have a great day. You make good choices this week, every week, all the weeks,

and you know, be nice to each other. And now I'm gonna use all the money from these ad breaks to buy the house at 136 Clinton Avenue. Well, everyone, thank you so much for learning something new with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to be a curious cat like myself. And you know, ask questions. Get the whole story, you deserve it!

Now I'd love to hear your reactions to today's story, so make sure to use the hashtag darkhistory over on social media so I can follow along. Don't forget to join me over on my YouTube where you could actually watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs, and also catch murder mystery and makeup which drops on Mondays. Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Happy holidays and make good choices. Bye! Say bye. Jones says bye.

Bye! Happy holidays! Or not. Whatever. Dark History is an audio boom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kib J. Cubs, Junior McNally from Three Arts, Ed Simpson, and Claire Turner from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kibin, research provided by Tisha Dunston, Jed Bookout, Joyce Galuzzoo and Michael Obersd. Writers, Chad Book out, Michael Obersd, Joyce Gavuzo, and Kim Yegid. Oh, and me too, Bailey Sarian. A big thank you to our historical consultants,

Joe Inet, Rabbi Danny Strom, Lev Poplow, and Elizabeth Heimann. And also, I'm your host, Bailey Friggin Sarian. I'm your host, Bailey Friggin-Sarian.