‘A Jewish Soul Cannot be Shot!’

On 26 Teves 1973, at a grandchild’s tena’im, the Bobover Rav, Harav Shlomo Halberstam, zy”a, told something of his Holocaust experience, specifically about the time he and his son, the Bobover Rav, Harav Naftuli Tzvi Halberstam, zy”a, were imprisoned in Neimark, poland, in Sivan 1943. What follows is a tran of that riveting narrative.

Adapted by Rabbi Yishai Sofer

It would be impossible to retell in one night the entire miraculous story, with all its myriad details, of how we were saved. But perhaps, in honor of this simchah, the engagement of my son Harav Naftultche’s daughter, it would be fitting to show gratitude to the One Above and publicize just one aspect of our miraculous salvation.

We were smuggled across countless borders throughout our ordeal - from Lemberg to Bochnia, from Poland to Czechoslovakia, from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, from Hungary to Romania… And it wasn’t just crossing the border in the middle of the night. We had to swim through streams of water - all at the risk of being showered with bullets by the border guards. On seeing the flare of gunfire from the border patrol, who could have dreamed that we would survive, build families and eventually marry off our children? Therefore, out of gratitude to Hashem, I will share one ordeal that I experienced with my son, who was a bachur of twelve at that time.

Fleeing Bochnia

We fled disguised as gentiles, so at first glance we would not be caught. We had hired non-Jewish agents to smuggle us across the border. With us was my mother; my grandmother, the Limonover Rebbetzin; and other family members. Obviously, we traveled in separate wagons so that they wouldn’t realize we were from one family. Since Iwas dressed like a gentile, I hoped it would be difficult for our enemies to discern my Jewish identity.

Nevertheless, my heart was pounding as we rode along with our smugglers toward Neimark, where other smugglers were waiting for us.

We arrived at the border on Friday afternoon. I had in my possession gentile identification papers, as well as forged Hungarian citizenship papers. I kept my Hungarian papers well hidden, and I had some money with me as well just in case I would need to grease some pockets.

We were standing there at the border in Plashow and a number of officers were on guard there. They could not distinguish me as a Jew but they seemed to notice that Reb Naftulche had Jewish features. Since many Jews were giving away their children to gentiles at that time, the guards surmised that I was a gentile who was smuggling out a Jewish child. They pointed in Naftulche’s direction and hissed, “Mali Zhidak (little Jew).” Then they ran off to summon a higher-ranking officer.

The officer asked to see my papers and as he scrutinized them, I anxiously watched the people all around me board the train. I knew that if I missed the train and didn’t cross the border that night, all would be lost. So I turned to the officer and said in Polish, “I’m not coming with you! I have to catch the train!”

The officer insisted, “You’re coming with me.”

I mustered the gumption to answer, “Come board the train with me and I’ll show you everything there because I have to catch the train!”

I had in my possession a forged letter from the head of Bochnia’s Gestapo, authorizing me to travel. The handwriting, the signature and the SS insignia were all forged, but I took the chance and showed it to the officer.

“Herr officer,” I told him, “I have to go now.” Then I took out a thousand zlotys and handed it to him. When I saw that he was still hesitating, I added another five hundred and said to him, “Here’s 1,500 zlotys - now let me go. You saw my papers already.”This time it worked. Satisfied with his small fortune, he left me alone and I boarded the train.

We arrived in Neimark Friday afternoon. Packed into my rucksack were manus from my grandfather, the Djikover Rebbe, Harav Moshe Pshevorsker’s tefillin, and the Sanzer Rav’s walking stick. I guarded these items carefully, hoping they wouldn’t be confiscated at the border.

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The Last Journey of the Kedushas Tzion, Hy”d

Excerpted from Witness to History by Ruth Lichtenstein

Harav Bentzion Halberstam, Hy”d, Rebbe of Bobov, whose center was located in Galicia, Poland, and leader of the region’s Etz Chaim yeshivah network, was in danger. The German invasion meant that no leading Jews would remain untouched, and the Bobover Rebbe, who was later known as the Kedushas Tzion, was an obvious target. His flight from the Nazis began just one week after the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.

The Rebbe fled immediately to Soviet-occupied Lvov (Lemberg). Wary of the perils of religious life under Communism, the Rebbe and some of his relatives refused Soviet citizenship. They could not, however, circumvent the mandatory work requirement, so they sought jobs that would not require them to violate the Sabbath.

The Rebbe’s son, Harav Shlomo, was also known as the Rav of Bobov. Harav Shlomo first gained employment in a factory as a grounds inspector. But when increased security required him to search workers’ pockets to ensure that they had not stolen any materials, he quit, refusing to degrade the employees. Not long afterward, he found a job weaving baskets at home.

Within a year, the Halberstam men were joined in Lvov by their wives and children. But the relative calm enjoyed by Lvov’s Jewish inhabitants was shattered in June of 1940, when all Jewish refugees who had refused Soviet citizenship were slated for deportation to Siberia. The Rebbe’s son, Rabbi Chaim (Yehoshua) Shea Halberstam, and his wife and children were deported.

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The Rebirth of Bobov

Rabbi Yosef Shmuel Landau opens his treasure vault of memories and describes how the Bobover Rebbe, Harav Shlomo Halberstam, zy”a, rebuilt Bobover Chassidus after the Holocaust.

By Shlomo Stern

Can you share some background information about yourself?

I was born in 1922 in Bytom, Germany, [which] today is part of Poland. Two years later, in 1924, my parents moved to Ozwiecm, [the site of] the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. My life before the war is a story of its own, but today we’ll focus only on my connection to Bobov.

What was the level of Torah learning among Bobover bachurim during World War II? 

As refugees in Kishanov, Galicia, we Bobover bachurim started thinking about how we could get together to arrange some sort of learning schedule and give chizuk to each other. So Yehoshua Weitzenblum, z”l, and I started looking for a suitable place where we could gather.

We found a large empty room in an old house that was tucked into the corner of an abandoned courtyard. It was located quite far from the main street, hopefully away from the hawk eyes [of informers], and another benefit was that it had a side door, so that in the event we spotted German officers approaching, we could escape through the side door to a large field in back.

With pounding hearts, we climbed into the Bobover shtiebel through a broken window and smuggled out a few Gemaras and other sefarim to our hideout. Thus we were able to get together for a few hours each day to daven with a minyan and learn with chavrusos.

I have lots I could tell about those bitter years, but let’s try to devote this article to good things. Let’s fast-forward to May 9, 1945, the day we were liberated.

When did you reconnect to Bobov after the war?

It began in the Honems DP camp, located in Austria, where many of the survivors were Bobover chassidim, among them Reb Mendel Brachfeld, Reb Shaul Huterer, zichronam livrachah, and others.

I will never forget the beautiful Shabbosos in Honems, how we gathered together on Friday night and at shalosh seudos and celebrated Shabbos in the time-honored Bobover style.

Reb Mendel Brachfeld headed a yeshivah there with Reb Shmiel Margules, z”l. I still remember how, during the first Tishah B’Av [after the war], we didn’t have a Kinos with us, so Reb Mendel wrote down a whole section of the Kinos from memory - he still remembered the exact words even after so many years of suffering! We made copies of it and that’s what we read on Tishah B’Av.

Reb Shaul Huterer, z”l, was also one of the key figures in the camp who worked tirelessly to rebuild Torah and Chassidus after the war. He managed to get some Gemaras from Switzerland and he made copies for us to learn from.

How did I get to Honems? Initially I had been assigned to Fernwald, and from time to time Reb Shaul Huterer came there to spend time with the Klausenberger Rav, zy”a. During one of his visits, he saw me and remembered me from Auschwitz.

“What are you doing here?” Reb Shaul asked me. “Your place isn’t here. You belong with us in Honems. Come with me to Honems; we need you there.”

He managed to persuade me, and before long I packed my bags and joined him on his trip back to Honems. That was in 1946.

Afterward, when you went to America, how did you orient yourself in a strange new country?  

When our ship arrived in New York, representatives of HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] and the Joint [Joint Distribution Committee] were waiting for us. One of the representatives took us to a hotel in Manhattan, where we were told we would stay for a day or two before going on to Philadelphia. In the end, though, the plans changed and we were able to settle in Williamsburg [in Brooklyn].

Our first apartment was on the corner of Wythe Avenue and Clymer Street. The Satmar Rebbe, the Divrei Yoel [Teitelbaum], zy”a, also lived on Clymer Street at the corner of Bedford Avenue. At that time the Satmar beis medrash was located in the basement of the Rebbe’s house, and that’s where I davened.

I got a job at a salami factory, where I had to prepare the meats and put them through the machines. I worked for nearly eleven hours each day, six days a week, at a weekly salary of only forty dollars. One day when I was riding on the subway after a long day of work at the factory, I met Reb Yidel Eisen, z”l, who worked as a salesman in a bakery on the Lower East Side that was owned by Reb Yisroel Beigel, Reb Wolf Stuhl and Reb Leibish Wislicki, z”l.

We began talking, and when he asked me about my work, I told him about the grueling work that I had to do at my job and how I constantly had to go in and out of the powerful refrigerators, which caused me to get sick quite often.

Hearing my problems, Reb Yidel said, “Listen, Yosef Shmuel, you didn’t come to America in order to waste your kochos in a salami factory. I think you are much more suited to working together with us to build up the Bobover yeshivah in Brownsville.”

I accepted his offer, and the following week I started working in the yeshivah in Brownsville.

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Still Seeking Solace

It has been ten years since the passing of the Bobover Rebbe, zy”a, on Rosh Chodesh Av 5760/2000, but for Rabbi Moshe Aftergut, the wound is still raw.

By Yitzchok Cohen

Even a decade later, when this venerable chassid mentions the name of the Bobover Rebbe, he still finds it hard to add the words “zichrono livrachah.” Every reminder, every acknowledgment of his beloved Rebbe’s petirah evokes deep pain.

An unadorned elevator took us up to the apartment of Reb Moshe Aftergut, a native of Prezymsl, then in Poland, and a fiery Bobover chassid. The visit elevated us in many ways; Reb Moshe took us back to a time when survivors, shattered by the war, were trying to gather together the fragments of their lives, fighting valiantly to keep their spirits intact. 

On his living-room wall hangs a picture of his father, Hy”d. “When Reb Meir Shapiro of Lublin came to visit Prezymsl, he wanted to meet my father,” Reb Moshe tells us, his voice full of longing as he remembers his father.

It wasn’t easy for Reb Moshe to revisit those memories, to describe how the Bobover Rebbe, zy”a, took him under his wing like his own son in the wake of the nightmarish war. Over the years, Reb Moshe has composed many poems that reflect a yearning for what once was and that resonate with chizuk and emunah. The brief biography printed at the end of his compositions reads, “Composed by Moshe Aftergut, a diamond dealer and war survivor who was saved and raised by the Bobover Rebbe.”

Reb Moshe was also in charge of writing the Purim shpiels that were performed at the Bobover tisch. Each year the Rebbe paid him a fee, but Reb Moshe never touched a cent of that money; he put it all into an envelope that remains sealed to this day.

Looking around his apartment, we saw more relics of bygone years, including old photographs of the Bobover Rebbe, especially those highlighting his special relationship with Reb Moshe. In one photo, the Bobover Rebbe is introducing Reb Moshe at a dinner; the Rebbe’s hand is on Reb Moshe’s shoulder in a patent display of fatherly love. Reb Moshe showed us a collection of postcards that the Rebbe sent him on various occasions when he was abroad. We also saw three very old letters that were written in Yiddish by the Rebbetzin of the Kedushas Tzion, who was a daughter of Harav Shalom Eliezer Halberstam, Hy”d, a son of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz, zy”a.

Says Reb Moshe, “The Bobover Rebbe raised me like a son. I owe him both my physical and spiritual existence.”

When the Bobover Rebbe composed his famous kinos (lamentations) for the kedoshim of World War II, which he used to recite each Tishah B’Av, he gave Reb Moshe an autographed copy, as if to say, “We both suffered through those years together; let us find solace together.”

After the war, when Reb Moshe appealed to the American consul for a five-month transit visa, the latter asked him, “Why specifically five months?” Reb Moshe replied, “I suffered for five years, so please give me one month for each year.” The consul was moved to tears by this answer.

When Reb Moshe’s ship docked in New York harbor, he was stunned to find none other than the Bobover Rebbe and Harav Aharon Teitelbaum, later the Chenchkivatzer Rav, z”l, awaiting him there.

Several years ago Reb Moshe committed his memories to paper. During our visit he gave us those pages, laden with poignant recollections. Following is a translation of the Yiddish text.

Liberation

Between Lag BaOmer and Shavuos of 5705/1945, we were liberated at the Ebensee concentration camp by American troops. It’s hard to find the words to describe those moments, those days, those weeks. Death and devastation were all around us, but we were still breathing. Alive, but almost dead - our bodies ravaged by starvation and torture. When the head of the American battalion called out to us, “You’re free. You can go back home,” we looked at each other in confusion. Home? Where is home? Where do I go? Who am I?

Yes, we were liberated. We were freed from the miserable fear of torture and starvation, but we were trapped in a web of emotional torment. We feared life itself. When the sun rose in the morning, it could hardly warm our beleaguered spirits.

My fellow survivors and I decided to take leave of that accursed, blood-soaked land. We were transported on American army trucks to the Italian border, where we were taken to Modena, a quaint city that was home to prominent Italian academics.

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