Moshe approached his grandfather who was resting on a recliner in the living room. “Grandpa, my Hebrew school teacher wants me to ask you for a Chanukah story. He heard that you were in the Nazi work camps during the Holocaust and thought that maybe 
"Maybe you can tell us what Chanukah was like then,”he told his grandfather. 
you can tell us what Chanukah was like then.”
“No way,” said his grandfather gruffly, “do you think I have nothing to do but tell children stories?” and he turned his back on Moshe. “Moshe, you know your grandfather doesn’t like to talk about the Holocaust,” said his mother quietly. “Come into the kitchen and eat your supper now.”
Moshe and the other children were at the table when Grandfather joined them. “Put some butter on your corn,” Mother was saying to Shoshana. “It’s got too many calories,” said the pre-teen ager. “I don’t like butter,” declared four year old Shlomi. “I only like it on bread,” said Moshe. “Butter,” mumbled Grandfather, “butter. I’ll tell you a story about butter--butter and Chanukah in the camps.”
A sudden silence reigned. Their grandfather rarely spoke about his experience in Europe during the War. Even Mother stopped puttering around the kitchen and came over to listen.
“We were in a work camp, inside the ‘lager’ (concentration camp, ed.)”, he began. “I was maybe twenty, twenty one years old. The Nazis worked us to the bone. It was cold and wet and we didn’t have proper clothes. We dug ditches every day and if we didn’t meet their quota requirements they’d beat us pitilessly. Life was very, very hard.” You could hear a pin drop around the supper table.
“There was a young man with us, a Yeshiva student. They’d cut off his sidelocks, but he tried to keep all the Jewish laws. I wasn’t so religious then— but I couldn’t get over the dedication of that fellow, Yossel was his name.”
“We had to work every day, including the Sabbath. Yossel always made an effort to work in a different way (called a “shinuy” in Jewish law, ed.) so as to make a distinction between weekdays and the Sabbath. He’d dig with his left hand instead of his right, he’d walk back to the camp instead of riding in the tractor.” Grandfather shook his head in wonder, as though this had happened yesterday instead of 70 years ago.
“He said his prayers by heart every day, sometimes in the ditches, sometimes in the barracks. He’d recite to himself portions of the Talmud that he’d memorized as a child. Alhough we had a terribly hard life and very little to eat, he was always in good spirits. Everyone in the barracks liked him but we thought he was a bit strange for not being depressed like the rest of us.”
Grandfather looked at Moshe. “You asked for a Chanukah story. Here it is. Several 
‘If we all save our butter for the next few days we can light pats of butter.' 
evenings before Chanukah, Yossel talked to us in the barracks. ‘In a few days it’s going to be the holiday of lights. I think we should light the candles here in the barracks, under the sink where I hope no one will see them. I have an idea. I’ve made a kind of menorah (Chanukah candelabrum, ed.) out of a piece of metal I found in the field with cups made from spoons to hold the oil.' ‘We don’t have any oil,’ one of the men pointed out.”
“‘I’ve thought of that,’ Yossel replied. ‘If we all save our butter for the next few days we can light pats of butter in the spoon holders.’ ‘Are you crazy’, some of us answered. ‘We get so little food as it is. The butter, when we get it and when it’s not spoiled, is our only source of vitamins. We need those small pats of butter.’ ‘No way,’ I thought.”
Grandfather continued his story. “Apparently some of the men listened to Yossel, because on the first night of Chanukah there was his homemade menorah and two lovely little lights burning brightly under the sink—one for the shamesh (the candle used to light the others) and one for the first night. We all gathered around to look in awe at the tiny flames. We forgot that we were in the concentration camp; we forgot how hungry we were and how exhausted from the neverending work. I’ll never forget how we all sang Maoz Tzur together, very quietly, standing around those burning pats of butter.
The same thing happened the second night, and the third night. Even though I wasn’t observant then, I sang along with the other men. Many of us weren’t religious Jews, but seeing those brave little lights made us feel that somehow, in someway, we were overcoming the Nazi tyrants. We felt proud to be Jews, proud that we had succeeded in lighting the lights of our people’s fight for freedom. Those lights were our very own Chanukah miracle. Of course I donated my butter after that. We all did.”
Grandfather became silent, his look unseeing, his thoughts back in the concentration camp. “Then what happened?” asked Moshe. Grandfather sighed and returned to us.
A Nazi soldier burst into our barracks. ‘What’s going on here?’ he yelled. “On the fourth night a Nazi soldier suddenly burst into our barracks. ‘What’s going on here?’ he yelled. He saw that we were all gathered around the sink. He pushed us aside and saw the home made menorah and those little lights burning so brightly.
‘Who’s responsible for this?’ he shouted. Nobody said a word. The soldier ran out and brought back his officer and several other soldiers. ‘We’ll shoot every one of you if you don’t tell us who’s responsible for this,’ said the officer and took the safety lock off his revolver.
“That’s when Yossel spoke up. Loudly and clearly he said. ‘I’m responsible; I’m the one who lit the candles. It’s our holiday, the holiday of Chanukah, and we light candles every night for eight days.’ Those fiends then took Yossel out into the snow and shot him point blank.”
“Dad, you shouldn’t tell such stories to the children. They’ll have nightmares,”
Mother said. Grandfather shook his head and continued, unshed tears shining in his eyes: “How I hated those Nazis for what they did to that pure soul. I vowed to live long enough to avenge Yossel. G-d helped me so that I survived the War. I married your grandmother and had a family. Your uncle Yossel, my first born, is named for the Yeshiva student who gave his life to celebrate Chanukah.”
"Eventually, I took on Yossel’s traditions. First I started to light Chanukah lights each year, then I started to keep the Sabbath and eat kosher food, all in Yossel’s memory. I guess you could say that this is how I have avenged his death.”
The children sat quietly, thinking of the courage of that young, twentieth century Maccabee. Moshe went over to his grandfather and hugged him close.