First Visa Applications for Displaced and German Jews Filed with U.S. Consulate

http://archive.jta.org/article/1946/03/19/2744009/first-visa-applications-for-displaced-and-german-jews-filed-with-us-consulate

March 19, 1946


First Visa Applications for Displaced and German Jews Filed with U.S. Consulate

Frankfurt, Mar. 18 (JTA) –

The HIAS today began filling applications with the U.S. consulate here for visas for displaced Jews, available under President Truman's directives. At the same time, it began issuing corporate affidavits, of which he will provide 4,500.



The first affidavit was issued to Rabbi Leopold Neuhaus of Frankfurt, and his life. Both are survivors of Theresienstadt, and Rabbi Neuhaus is believed to be the only remaining rabbi in Germany. Their son is the rabbi of a New York City congregation.



All applicants must now wait until they are called up by the consulate for further action on their applications. It is hoped that the first transport of immigrants will leave for the United States in the first week of May.



The JDC office announced today that Cecelia Davidson, an immigration expert attached to the JDC, National Refugee Service and the National Council of Jewish Women was recovering in an army hospital at Marburg from injuries suffered in an automobile accident last week. Sylvia Neulander of the Jewish Agency, who was injured at the same time, has already been discharged from the hospital.



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"First Visa Applications for Displaced and German Jews Filed with U.S. Consulate." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 19 Mar 1946.

1,300 Liberated Jewish Children Due in England from Theresienstadt

http://archive.jta.org/article/1945/07/06/2867579/1300-liberated-jewish-children-due-in-england-from-theresienstadt
July 6, 1945


1,300 Liberated Jewish Children Due in England from Theresienstadt

London, Jul. 5 (JTA) –

The Central British Fund, a Jewish relief organization, today announced that 1,300 Jewish orphans from Theresienstadt will arrive in England soon. The children will remain here "until new homes are found for them," the announcement said. They will be placed in the custody of Jewish organizations and will be maintained by the Fund.



Citation - Click to see see this article's citation



"1,300 Liberated Jewish Children Due in England from Theresienstadt." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 6 Jul 1945.

Trial of Gestapo Leader Responsible for Death of Thousands of Czech Jews Opens

http://archive.jta.org/article/1948/02/25/3013170/trial-of-gestapo-leader-responsible-for-death-of-thousands-of-czech-jews-opens
Trial of Gestapo Leader Responsible for Death of Thousands of Czech Jews Opens


PRAGUE, Feb. 24 (JTA) –

The trial of Dieter von Wisliczeny, former Gestapo chief and advisor on Jewish affairs to the Slovak puppet government, opened today in Bratislava. Wisliczeny is charged with responsibility for deporting thousands of Czechoslovak Jews to death camps in Poland.



In 1942, the indictment against Wisliczeny says, the defendant promised to halt the deportation of Jews from Slovakia on condition that they pay a large sum of money to the Gestapo though him. The Jews, who had already been ruined financially, succeeded in scraping together $50,00 which they turned over to the defendant. Despite the bribe, the Jews were later deported to their death.



In his opening address the prosecutor said that Wisliczeny later participated in the mass deportations of Jews in Greece, Hungary and elsewhere in the Balkans. He was described as a follower and personal friend of Adolf Eichmann, chief Nazi "Jewish expert" who set up the notorious Theresienstadt, Oswiecim and other death camps.



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"Trial of Gestapo Leader Responsible for Death of Thousands of Czech Jews Opens." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 25 Feb 1948.

Commander of-jewish-concentration-camps-in-slovakia-sentenced-to-30-years-imprisonment

http://archive.jta.org/article/1947/05/28/3010271/mander-of-jewish-concentration-camps-in-slovakia-sentenced-to-30-years-imprisonment
Slovakia Sentenced to 30 Years Imprisonment


PRAGUE, May. 27 (JTA) –

Imrich Vasina, a former commander of Jewish concentration camps in Bratislava and in Sered, Slovakia, was sentenced today to thirty ## imprisonment by the National Court in Bratislava.



Thousands of Czechs and Jews from all parts of Czechoslovakia made a pilgrim## this week to Terezin, the fortress town which was converted by the Nazis into a concentration camp for Jews, to attend services in memory of the more than 20,000 ##sons who died there. Chief Rabbi Gottschall of Prague conducted the service for ## Jewish victims on the site of the former crematorium. Speakers included Vaclav ##ask, Minister of the Interior, Joza David, Speaker of the Czechoslovakian parliament, and other statesmen.



Two thousand Czechs who were prisoners in the Oswiecim death camp will return here next month to participate in memorial services for the 4,000,000 persons who were murdered at the camp. The museum which is to be erected on the site of Oswiecim ##ill contain a special Czechoslovak section, the establishment of which will be aided ## the Prague Jewish Museum.



Citation - Click to see see this article's citation



"Mander of Jewish Concentration Camps in Slovakia Sentenced to 30 Years Imprisonment." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 28 May 1947.

History_of_the_Jews_in_Slovakia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Slovakia
http://www.slovak-jewish-heritage.org/history-of-jews-in-slovakia.php
http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/cash/cash6.html
__________________________________________________________

10. • Trunk, Isaiah. JUDENRAT; THE JEWISH COUNCILS IN EASTERN EUROPE UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION. New York, Macmillan 1972. 1st Edition. Cloth, 8vo, xxxv, 664 pages, illustrations, 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Jewish councils--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century. Jews--Europe, Eastern--Politics and government. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945). In scarce jacket. Edgewear to jacket. Very good conditon in good jacket. (HOLO2-34-62) (ID #10694) $45.00.



Nitra


Nitra

Visitor Information

Informácie pre návštevníkov

Location / Lokalita:

Pri synagóge, Nitra

GPS: 48°18'41.50"N, 18°5'10.50"E

Mailing address / Poštová adresa:

Nitriansky informačný systém (NISYS)

Štefánikova trieda 1

949 01 Nitra

Contact details / Kontaktné údaje:

Tel.: +421-37-16 186, +421-37-741 0906

E-mail: info@nitra.sk

www.nitra.sk

Synagogue

The synagogue was built in 1908-1911

for the Neolog Jewish community.

It was designed by Lipót (Leopold)

Baumhorn (1860-1932), the prolifi c

Budapest-based synagogue architect.

The building is a characteristic example

of Baumhorn’s style. A mélange of

Moorish, Byzantine and Art Nouveau

elements, it faces the street with a twotower

façade. The sanctuary is a domed

hall supported by four pillars that also

support the women’s gallery. After

more than a decade of painstaking restoration

by the municipality of Nitra,

the building is now used as a center

for cultural activities. The women’s

gallery houses The Fate of Slovak Jews

– Slovakia’s national Holocaust memorial

exhibition. The synagogue serves

as a permanent exhibition space for

graphic works by the Nitra-born Israeli

artist Shraga Weil.
 
____________________________________________________
SERED

The Jewish community of Sereď traced its origin to refugees


fl eeing Uherský Brod after a pogrom in 1683. The

community reached its peak during the nineteenth century,

when it joined the Orthodox movement. In 1880, some

1,354 Jews made up about 27 percent of the town’s entire

population of 5,004. Local Jews were active in business and

they also owned the local sugar refi nery. During World War

II one of the three labor camps set up for Jews in Slovakia

was established here. Internment at the camp saved about

500 Slovak Jews from deportation. The camp was also, however,

used as a transit center for Jews being sent to death

camps in 1942 and 1944-1945. The last deportation left for

Terezín in March 1945. Plans are currently under way to establish

a large educational center and Holocaust memorial

museum here.
Vermes, Gabor. "The Slovak Dilemma in Austria-Hungary." Slovakia 25, no. 48 (1975): 105-17.

TISO, JOZEF


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Submit ContributionTiso, JozefJozef Tiso, (born Oct. 13, 1887, Velká Bytča, Austria-Hungary [now in Slovakia]—died April 18, 1947, Bratislava, Czech.), Slovak priest and statesman who fought for Slovak autonomy within the Czechoslovak nation during the interwar period and headed the German puppet state of independent Slovakia (1939–45) until he was overthrown by the Red Army and Czechoslovak Partisans at the end of World War II.



Becoming a prominent member of Andrej Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party after World War I, Tiso was a member of the Czechoslovak government from 1927 to 1929 and succeeded Hlinka as party leader in 1938. On Oct. 6, 1938, he became premier of autonomous Slovakia in the new federal Czechoslovakia, assuming the presidency after his country, under Adolf Hitler’s sponsorship, declared its independence (1939) to forestall annexation by Hungary.



Throughout World War II, though closely supervised by Germany, Tiso’s authoritarian government retained a degree of freedom of action, but it collapsed with the arrival of the Red Army in April 1945. He was tried and convicted for treason, suppression of freedom, and crimes against humanity and was executed in 1947.












Jelinek, Yeshayahu. "Dr. Jozef Tiso and His Biographers." East Central Europe 6, no. 1(1979): 76-84.



Murin, Karol. "Eight Fatal Days in the Life of Dr. Joseph Tiso." Slovakia 7, no. 1 (March 1957): 13-18. April 1945.



Sutherland, Anthony X. Dr. Jozef Tiso and Modern Slovakia. Cleveland, Ohio: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1978. 141p.



Sutherland, Anthony X. "Jozef Tiso and Modern Slovakia." PhD diss, Ohio State University, 1972.



Sutherland, Anthony X. "Tiso's Formative Years and Early Political Career." Slovakia 24, no. 47 (1974): 24-35.

Piestany,the community

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_slovakia/slo443.html

There was Zionist activity in Piestany from the beginning of the twentieth century, and in 1904 S. B. Rosner of Piestany was the delegate to the World Mizrachi conference in Bratislava. Jews were also active in town affairs, and in general society. Piestany was the birthplace of the Slovak Jewish author Geza Vermuth (1901-1956), who advocated Jews becoming strongly involved in their local community. Many Jews fought in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War, and some fell in battle.


The community also had a Talmud Torah. Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Vrba continued in office after the war. In 1919 he was among the founders of the Central Chamber of the Orthodox communities in Slovakia, and president until his death. In the1920's he established a yeshiva in Piestany with approximately 50 students. He was also active in general public life. Jews and non-Jews honored him very much. His varied activities made it difficult for him to fulfill his offices as a rabbi and head of a yeshiva The Dayan, Rabbi Issachar Shlomo Teichtal, the author of Em Habanim Smecha, and other books, was the acting rabbi, and he also directed the yeshiva. After many quarrels about the direction of the community, the central chamber of the Orthodox community in Slovakia nominated a community director of its own in 1928. In 1931 Rabbi Shlomo Teichtal, opened a yeshiva of his own, Moriah, which had more than 50 students, and it existed until 1942. After the death of Rabbi Kalman Vrba in 1932, Rabbi Benzion Yosef, son of Rav Shmuel David Unger (a descendant of a famous rabbinical family), was elected as the new Orthodox rabbi in Piestany. Rabbi Unger, too, opened a yeshiva of his own in Piestany. In 1920 a large branch of Agudat Yisroel was established in Piestany, including the youth movement, Tzeiorei Agudat Yisroel, and the girls' institutions, Bet Yakov and Yehudit.


HaShomer HaZair had an agricultural training farm for young people who wanted to live in Eretz Yisroel. There were also branches of WIZO, and the Maccabi Sport Association, (established in 1921, headed by Imrich Plus and Desider Komrosh). The Maccabi Club in Piestany, one of the biggest in Slovakia, was also a social center, mainly for youngsters. In 1929 the Zionists of Piestany collected 9,500 crowns as donations to the Keren Kayemet for planting a forest in Eretz Yisroel, in memory of Czechoslovakia's president, T.G. Masaryk. Just before the Fifteenth Zionist congress in 1927, 25 Shekels were sold in Piestany, 198 shekels before the Seventeenth Congress in 1931, and 370 shekels before the Twenty-First congress in 1939. We can learn about the proportions of the Zionist camp in the city from the results of the elections to the Eighteenth Zionist Congress in 1933: General Zionists: 40%, Mizrachi: 30%, Revisionists: 20%, and Eretz Yisroel Ovedet: 10%. The National Jewish Party was also strong in Piestany.




At the beginning of the 1920's there were five Jewish members on the City Council. In the 1928 elections, the National Jewish Party was the third in the city, with 545 votes (12.5%), which gave it 4 mandates in the Council. In the 1938 elections it got three mandates, and an Orthodox Jewish Party, the Democratic Jewish Party, got two mandates. According to the population census of 1931 there were more than 1,250 (13.5% of the city population) Jews. Only 530 of them listed themselves as Jews according to Jews as nationality. Most listed themselves as Slovakian and German. Jews were active in public life.

The Period of the Holocaust


As soon as Slovakian autonomy was established, the Jews were persecuted. On November 5, 1938, 88 Jews, inhabitants of the subdistrict (65 of them from Piestany) who lacked Slovakian citizenship were expelled to the No Man's Land of the Slovakia-Hungary border.



The members of the “Hlinka Guards” organized anti-Jewish riots at the beginning of March 1939, including robbery and destruction of property.



Radical elements in the local government insisted on expelling the Jews from the town, so that they would not “make the Slovakian spa unclean by their presence.”



There were more 1,500 Jews in Piestany in 1940. About 140 families were members of the Yeshurun community, led by Ferdinand Komelosch. Ignatz Fierst headed the Orthodox community, followed by Desider Weinberger. Alexander Rubin, a merchant, was nominated in 1940 as head of the other “Jewish Center” in the subdistrict.



Rabbi Benzion Unger still continued in his position. During 1941 the authorities closed about 260 Jewish businesses in Piestany and in the subdistrict. (Their total annual revenue was estimated at 36,000,000 crowns.) Another 45 large businesses with annual revenue of 26,000,000 crowns were given to Arizators. The majority of Jews remained without employment or sources of income. Many of them were restricted in October 1941, and sent to forced labor camps.



The expulsion from Piestany to death camps in Poland began at the end of March 1942. On March 24 the authorities hunted Jewish youths from Piestany and the surrounding area. Those captured were added to a transport to the Maidanek camp in the Lublin district of Poland. On March 27 the Jewish young women were concentrated for expulsion. About 60 of them succeeded in fleeing, but another 40 were captured, and were taken to the transit camp in Patronka. On April 1 they were sent from there on a sealed train to the Auschwitz extermination camp. On April 26, 1942 they began to expel families. About 330 Jews, inhabitants of Piestany and surroundings, were sent to Nové Mesto. On April 27 they were added to a transport from there to the Opole ghetto in the Lublin district. Another 369 Jews from Piestany and the area were sent on May 8, 1942 to the transit camp in Sered, and expelled from there to the extermination camps and ghettos in the Lublin district. In the summer of 1942 some other small Jewish groups were expelled from Piestany from the collection camp in Zilina to various camps in Poland. The Dayan, Rabbi Issachar, and Shlomo Teichtal and his daughters tried to go to Hungary during the expulsions, but they were captured. The rabbi of Nitra, Shmuel David Unger, succeeded in ransoming them at a very high price. About 90% of the Jews of Piestany and the sub district were expelled to Poland or ghettoes in the spring and summer of 1942, more than in the other sub districts of Slovakia.

When the expulsions stopped, 75 Jews remained in the city with protection documents. (28 families received special protection documents from President Tiso.) Another 80 Jews who pretended to be converts were saved from expulsion. The community reorganized, and the rabbis of the two communities remained in Piestany until September 1944. The central synagogue in Piestany was confiscated, and became a depot for the property of those who were expelled. The building of the local Jewish school was also confiscated, and turned into a Roman Catholic school. The Jewish community opened a small school in an improvised structure for the few dozen children who still remained in Piestany and surroundings after the expulsions. The director of the school that existed until the summer of 1944 was Alexander Mittelman. The city authorities reported to the Interior Ministry in May 1943 that 119 Jews remained in Piestany, and they insisted on expelling them, too. 210 Jews with protection documents were living in Piestany and its environs at the beginning of 1944.


After the suppression of the Slovakian revolt in September 1944, Piestany was occupied by a German S.S unit. Some Jews succeeded in fleeing on the eve of the occupation. The majority, among them the Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Benzion Josef Unger, the liberal rabbi, Rabbi Eleazer Arnold Levi, and the Dayan, Rabbi Issachar Shlomo Teichtel, were captured by the Germans and expelled through the camp at Sered to the camp at Auschwitz, and other camps in Poland. Rabbi Unger was murdered by the Germans in the Sered camp. Those who were lost during the Holocaust totaled about 1,500 of the Jews of Piestany and the subdistrict.

Former Theresienstadt Commander Escapes from American Prison Camp in Austria

http://archive.jta.org/article/1947/07/02/3009159/former-theresienstadt-commander-escapes-from-american-prison-camp-in-austria/
Former Theresienstadt Commander Escapes from American Prison Camp in Austria


Frankfurt, Jul. 1 (JTA) –

Anton Burger, former commander of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, has escaped from an American prison camp at Glasenbach, near Salzburg, it was reported here today.



The trial of 31 camp guards and doctors at the Buchenwald camp has reopened before an American military court at Dachau. It was postponed on June 16 to permit defense counsel more time to gather evidence. Among the defendants is Ilese Koch, wife of the former commandant, who is known as "Lampshade Ilse," because of her alleged hobby of collecting the skins of victime for lamp shades.



Citation - Click to see see this article's citation



"Former Theresienstadt Commander Escapes from American Prison Camp in Austria." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 2 Jul 1947.

The Unheeded Cry Part II

http://www.weissmandl.org/TheUnheededCry/UnheededCryText.htm
Rabbi Benzion Ungar, the rabbi of Piest’any. He was interrogated about Rabbi Weissmandl’s activities and how he had disappeared. Later he was taken out and executed while wrapped in his tallit and reciting Shema Yisrael

_
_

At the end of September, Brunner demanded that a number of Jewish leaders from Pressburg be brought to Sered "in order to organize social work there." For this purpose, he also demanded the immediate return of Rabbi Weissmandl. Actually Brunner wanted to get Rabbi Weissmandl out of Pressburg so that he would not be able to warn Pressburg Jewry that Brunner was planning their imminent expulsion and mass arrests. After Rabbi Weissmandl and several other leaders were transferred to Sered, some 1,800 Jews in Pressburg were arrested and sent to Sered.


OPEN NEGOIATIONS WITH ALOIS BRUNNER -R WEISSMANDL RISKED HIS LIFE -SENT WITH FAMILY ON TRAIN TO AUSCHWITZ

ON HIS RETURN TO SERED, Rabbi Weissmandl took his life in his hands and opened negotiations with Brunner. He tried to persuade him that the war was nearly over and that Germany’s defeat was a foregone conclusion; he suggested that Brunner should start preparing his alibi by preventing the expulsion of Slovakia’s Jews. He also promised him that a great deal of money would be deposited in his name in a Swiss bank. The discussion often became heated and in his excitement Rabbi Weissmandl even pounded on the table. Finally, Brunner decided to send Rabbi Weissmandl and his family to Auschwitz. Before Rabbi Weissmandl was put on the train Brunner had him photographed in twenty-two (!) different poses to ensure that should he escape he could be easily identified and recaptured. Brunner also sent special instructions how to treat him in Auschwitz.



Before he got on the train to Auschwitz, Rabbi Weissmandl advised a number of people to saw through the doors of the carriages and jump out; he even distributed small hand-saws for this purpose. He himself took a saw with him, concealed in a loaf of bread. He was convinced that if he could only reach Pressburg, he would be able to alert world Jewry to the renewed danger in which Slovakian Jewry was now placed. His heart was torn between his love for his family and his responsibility to the Jewish people.



After the train started its journey, Rabbi Weissmandl sawed through the lock of the carriage door in the middle of the night and jumped from the train with a troubled conscience. With great efforts, he succeeded in reaching a bunker in Pressburg where a number of Jews were hiding. When Brunner found out that Rabbi Weissmandl had not reached Auschwitz, he put a price on his head and began an intensive search for him. It did not take long for the news of his escape to reach the Jews in Sered and they were revitalized by the hope that he would do something for them. It was said that Rabbi Weissmandl wept day and night because he had not succeeded in saving the Jews and because his wife and children had stayed on the train to Auschwitz.



Within a short time, Rabbi Weissmandl made contact with Jews in other bunkers in Bratislava, who were suffering from a chronic lack of money. Rabbi Jacob Ungar, Rabbi Weissmandl’s brother-in-law, was hiding in a bunker in Nitra together with other Jews and was making great efforts to contact Rabbi Weissmandl. They published a classified ad in a Slovakian newspaper in Pressburg that "the Rabinger family was seeking Michael Medved (Rabinger – "the rabbi’s" and Medved means a bear – Dov – in Slovakian); a post office box number was given. The response was not long in coming. Rabbi Weissmandl made contact with the group, and by a special messenger, he sent them money, wine, matzot and raisins for Passover

A Jew named Funk, who had been an officer in World War I, came to Rabbi Weissmandl’s aid while he was in the bunker. Funk disguised himself a non-Jew and, with forged identity papers, roamed the streets of Pressburg freely. He dealt in foreign currency and had good contacts with various Germans and foreign diplomats. Funk used to visit the bunker and served as its contact with the outside world. As a result of Dr. Rudolph Kastner’s negotiations with the Germans, they agreed that the occupants of the bunker be transferred to Switzerland in a truck. The vehicle traveled from Slovakia to Austria and collected a number of Jews from various camps and also the wife and family of Rabbi Isaac Ze’ev Meir from a camp near Vienna. Four days before Pressburg was liberated by the Russians, the truck left for Switzerland and arrived safely.




AFTER HIS ARRIVAL IN SWITZERLAND, Rabbi Weissmandl suffered a massive heart attack and spent considerable time in the hospital. The terrors of the war and his deep despondency sapped both his physical and spiritual strength.



In the meantime, a few members of his family and some friends and students had returned to Nitra. They included his brother-in-law, Rabbi Shalom Moshe Ungar, Rabbi Isaac Ze’ev Meir and Rabbi Jonah Forst. These three made contact with Rabbi Weissmandl and asked his advice regarding their own future and that of the yeshivah. His advice was to renew studies in the yeshivah and he promised to find the funds for its maintenance.



Among the many friends who visited Rabbi Weissmandl in Switzerland was a former Nitra yeshivah student, Rabbi Reuven Monheit, who was an officer in the French army. Rabbi Weissmandl asked him to use his position and its authority to seek out Nitra students who had survived and to help as many Jewish survivors as he could. Monheit applied to the French War Ministry for permission to undertake this mission and was granted his request. He then devoted his energies to the rehabilitation of the survivors.



In 1946, Rabbi Weissmandl left Switzerland for the U.S.A. With the help of his friends and former students, he succeeded in renting a building in the vacation town of Somerville (N.J.) with the intention of starting a yeshivah there. After completing the transaction, he returned to Carlsbad in Slovakia to meet the yeshivah students. He stayed with them during the selichot period and Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi Weissmandl had been accustomed to fast during the selichot period and the Ten Days of Penitence between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur but, because of his weakened physical condition as a result of his heart attack, he had to forego that act of piety and ask that the vow implied in his fasting in previous years be absolved.
_________________________________________________________________________

After Rosh Hashanah the yeshivah, led by Rabbi Weissmandl, left for Paris by way of Germany. As they passed through Nuremberg, the news that several Nazi war criminals had been hanged reached the travelers and for the rest of the journey, which took seven or eight hours, Rabbi Weissmandl talked about the war to his traveling companions. Just before Yom Kippur, the party reached Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris, and lodged in one of the local hotels. Immediately after that Holy Day, Rabbi Weissmandl returned to the U.S.A. to continue preparations for the reception of the yeshivah students. In December 1946 the students left Cherbourg by sea; when they landed in the U.S.A. they went to Somerville immediately.




THE YOUNG MEN started their studies at once. Rabbi Weissmandl was in very low spirits; he used to roam through the rooms of the yeshivah as though in mourning with tears in his eyes. Fearful sighs would frequently escape him. In a letter he wrote to a student in 1950 he related: "There were days and years when in the suffering of my soul I prayed to the Almighty, as Jonah the prophet had done in Nineveh, saying, ‘And now, O L-rd, take my soul, for it is better for me to die than to live.’" At the end of every Talmudic lecture Rabbi Weissmandl spoke to his students about ethics and piety and made reference to the terrible calamity which had befallen the Jewish people. Rabbi Weissmandl relived the Holocaust in his heart continuously, wherever he was.



On Purim 1947, he tried to overcome his depression and fulfill the rabbinic dictum that ‘a man must drink (wine in order to be happy) on Purim," but he imbibed a little more than he should have. He stayed with the students six hours. At first he talked to them about the laws and significance of Purim and then turned to each one of them individually and reminded him of his parents and family who had not survived. He made personal references to each of the young men and begged them to continue the traditions of their fathers and thus perpetuate their memory.



Rabbi Weissmandl spent the Seder night of Passover alone; he was too troubled and pained to be able to sit with the rest of the yeshivah. He sat alone in an upper room while the yeshivah students celebrated the Passover Seder below. Occasionally, they could hear him weeping.



After Passover, the Rebbe of Satmar was invited to the yeshivah to give regular classes for seven weeks until after the Shavu’ot festival. Rabbi Weissmandl spent a great deal of time with the Rebbe, discussing scholarly subjects and talking about the war and its terrible suffering. These conversations had a calming effect on Rabbi Weissmandl; his pain became more internalized and he showed it less outwardly.



In the course of time, Rabbi Weissmandl remarried. His second wife was Leah Teitelbaum of Beregszasz (Berehovo) who was the sister-in-law of Rabbi Shalom Ungar. Only some ten persons, of whom most were rebbes or rabbis, were invited to the wedding.




Rabbi Weissmandl realized that in Somerville the yeshivah had little opportunity to expand so he began to look for a new location. A suitable site was found in Mt. Kisco, but the huge sum of money needed for the purchase was not available. After great efforts, Rabbi Weissmandl succeeded in raising the necessary funds, and the new campus was acquired. A new rural Jewish township was created around the yeshivah and then, after all the intensive activity invested in the project, the local authorities wanted to confiscate the entire property because the taxes on it had not been paid on time. It was only after a prolonged legal struggle that this threat was removed.



In addition to managing the yeshivah which he did for the rest of his life, Rabbi Weissmandl worked tirelessly at gathering documentation on the Holocaust. He accused the Jewish Agency, the Joint Distribution Committee and the World Jewish Congress of ignoring the appeals he had made during the Holocaust for the financial help with which he could have saved a great number of Jews.



When the State of Israel was established in 1948, he traveled to Washington frequently to express his opposition to it. He even published a pamphlet setting out his views on the subject.



For the latter part of his life, Rabbi Weissmandl suffered from chronic heart disease and spent long periods in the hospital. As soon as he recovered from a bout of illness, he returned to work immediately. He was incapable of resting.



In the winter of 1957 he was stricken by an extremely severe heart attack and was hospitalized for several weeks. After his release, he found it very difficult to travel to the yeshivah’s New York office because of his physical weakness; nevertheless, he did attend the Melaveh Malkah Banquet held to raise funds for the yeshivah. The first sentence of his speech on that occasion electrified the assembled guests, for he opened his remarks with a citation, "The Rock whose work is perfect’ – the first verse of the funeral service!




A few days after the banquet, he was back in the hospital and his condition deteriorated steadily. Even in the hospital he did not desert his responsibilities to the yeshivah and on the very day he died he sent a congratulatory telegram to one of his students who was marrying that day. In that telegram he wrote "From the straits I call out Mazel Tov!" On Friday, Kislev 6, 5717 (1957), he asked his visitors to leave his hospital room because he felt weak. One of his pupils noticed that he had reached out and taken hold of a book, Rabbenu Bachya’s Commentary on the Torah. He spent his last moments on earth reading the book he had bought with the money his grandfather had given him for his bar-mitzvah. Holding the book he loved so much, he returned his soul to his Maker.

The Unheeded Cry

http://www.weissmandl.org/TheUnheededCry/TheUnheededCry_Index.htm
Chapter 1: A Biographical Sketch




(Click here to purchase this book)



RABBI CHAIM MICHAEL DOV WEISSMANDL, known as Reb Michoel Ber, was born in Debrecen, Hungary on Marcheshvan 4, 5664 (1903). When he was still a child his family moved to Tyrnau (in Slovakian, Trnava); there his father, Reb Joseph, served as a shochet.



Although Tyrnau was a Christian town which contained many churches and a seminary for the priesthood (it was even popularly known as "Little Rome"), it nevertheless had a Jewish history. In the fourteenth century, it had been the home of Rabbi Isaac Tirna, who wrote Minhagim, an important book of customs (published in Venice, 1591). Before World War II there were approximately four hounded Jewish families in Tyrnau of whom more than half were Orthodox.



At first Rabbi Weissmandl studied in a local cheder but then when he was older, he commuted daily to the nearby town of Sered where he studied under Rabbi David Wesseley, who headed a small yeshivah there.



Reb Joseph Weissmandl had three sons and two daughters. Rabbi Weissmandl was the oldest and in the late years he always spoke of his father with deep affection and great respect. Once he revealed that his father was exceedingly meticulous in reciting the special midnight prayers (Tikkun Chatzot) and when he saw that his sons were asleep, he would weep and pray only that he merit devout and scholarly sons.

Rabbi Weissmandl suffered a great psychological shock when his father died in 1941. At that time he was living in Nitra. On a Friday, just before the onset of Sabbath, a stranger approached him in the street and asked him, "What was the name of the patriarch Abraham’s mother?" Rabbi Weissmandl did not understand the point of the question, so the stranger repeated it several times adding, "If you do not answer, you will be sorry." That Saturday night, he received the news that his father had died. Rabbi Weissmandl believed that there was a connection between his father’s death and the stranger’s question. Late the same night when he opened a book about the laws of mourning called "Mishmeret Shalom" he found the following sentence: " ‘Amatlai the daughter of Karnavo the mother of the patriarch Abraham’ is a remedy in a time of danger." He then understood that his father must have been ill at the time he was asked the question. Rabbi Weissmandl frequently told this story to his colleagues and pupils.


After his father’s death, Rabbi Weissmandl used to travel frequently to his mother’s home to comfort and encourage her. He was brokenhearted and became very introspective. He let his hair grow long as a manifestation of his mourning and only had it cut just before Shevat 14, when he traveled to the Sheva Berachot (marriage celebrations) of his brother-in-law, Rabbi Shalom Moshe Ungar. For the rest of his life, Rabbi Weissmandl remembered his father in love and pain.




AT THE AGE of twelve, Rabbi Weissmandl wrote an original lecture (p’shetel) to deliver at his bar-mitzvah. However, when his grandfather, R’ Menachem Meir Berthauer of Pressburg, arrived to take part in the celebrations, he offered to give the bar-mitzvah boy ten gold crowns if he would forgo delivering the lecture in public. The grandfather was a humble man who was fully aware of his grandson’s brilliance; therefore he was apprehensive that the acclaim which the boy would receive might turn his head and make him proud. Rabbi Weissmandl acceded to his grandfather’s request and used part of the money to buy Rabbenu Bachya’s commentary on the Torah. The circle of Rabbi Weissmandl’s life closed when he died while studying that same book.



The lecture he had prepared for his bar-mitzvah did not go to waste. Thirty-six years later he delivered it to the pupils at his yeshivah. He lectured for an hour and the audience was deeply impressed by his brilliance and erudition. At the end, he made an off-hand remark that it had been his bar-mitzvah speech which he had not delivered at his grandfather’s request.



For some time Rabbi Weissmandl studied at the yeshivah of Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky in Galanta but he gained the bulk of his education from Rabbi Samuel David Ungar, the rabbi of Tyrnau and later of Nitra. Since Rabbi Weissmandl was deeply attached to his first teacher, Rabbi David Wesseley, the transfer to Rabbi Ungar was psychologically very difficult for him. For two years he studied alone without attending the yeshivah in Tyrnau. Only after he realized Rabbi Ungar’s great humility and after he had heard the fervor with which he recited the Ahavah Rabbah ("Great Love") prayer, did Rabbi Weissmandl become attached to him. From then on, he remained Rabbi Ungar’s faithful and devoted disciple until they were separated in the final expulsion of the Jews from Slovakia in 1944.

While he was still a yeshivah student, Rabbi Weissmandl had an outstanding knowledge of the very complicated laws of mikva’ot (ritual baths which must be constructed according to exceedingly complex and rigorous rules) and of mathematical formulas required in order to build a mikvah (ritual bath). In fact, he helped in planning the mikvah which was part of the Tyrnau public baths complex.




In 1931, Rabbi Ungar was invited to become rabbi in Nitra and the young Rabbi Weissmandl tried to dissuade him from accepting the invitation on the grounds that Tyrnau was an ancient famous Jewish community. Rabbi Ungar, however, insisted on going to Nitra and articulated a strange feeling he had. "My heart tells me," he said "that there will come a time when there will not be a yeshivah in any other place but Nitra and I want to be there." When Rabbi Ungar moved to Nitra, his faithful student went with him.



As a seventeen-year-old yeshivah student, Rabbi Weissmandl published three short volumes of novellae (Talmudic interpretations) he had heard from his teacher. He did this on his own without obtaining Rabbi Ungar’s permission and when he realized that his teacher did not approve he cancelled his plans to publish further volumes which he had prepared.



For a number of years, Rabbi Weissmandl served as the "Chazor Bochur" in the yeshivah and as the "Gabbai de-charifus" (i.e., the student in charge of assigning students to lecture in-depth on Talmud every Sabbath) and in 1931 published a volume of his research called ""Hilchot Ha-chodesh""(the Laws of Fixing the New Moon). At times he worked on various inventions and intended to support himself from his inventions and be independent.



RABBI WEISSMANDL made several journeys to visit the great Torah sages in Poland and Lithuania. Among others, he visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, the Gerer Rebbe, the Chofetz Chaim and Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky. In Vilna, Rabbi Grodzinsky asked him, "Tell me, you come from a town near Pressbury, the city of the Chatam Sofer – do they still study Torah there as intensively as they did in the past?"

Since Rabbi Weissmandl did not have sufficient money for a prolonged stay in one place, he bought a railway tourist ticket which allowed him to travel all through Poland, when the train arrived at a town he would get off and visit the Jewish cemetery there or the rabbis and rebbes in that town. At night he would continue his journey.




Rabbi Weissmandl was an expert at deciphering ancient manuscripts and frequently compared them to printed versions. He traveled to Oxford, England, three times to continue his research at the famed Bodleian library collection of Hebrew manuscripts. On one occasion an ancient manuscript was brought to the library while he was there and the resident scholars identified its author mistakenly. Rabbi Weissmandl revealed the true author to the chief librarian and from then on he was treated with great regard. He was given the rare privilege of using the library’s facilities even when they were closed to the public. During his visits to Oxford, he recorded variant readings from the manuscripts as well as hundreds of unpublished rabbinic responsa which he intended to publish.



In Oxford, Rabbi Weissmandl became acquainted with a non-Jewish scholar who had a phenomenal knowledge of Talmud; he quoted entire tractates from memory. Rabbi Weissmandl was very impressed with his knowledge and memory but whenever he mentioned that scholar he used to say that his knowledge, although phenomenal, was artificial because one must sense the spirituality and inner meaning of Torah.



As a youth, Rabbi Weissmandl was an extremely diligent student and particularly spent days and nights in study when he was preparing a new edition of "Sefer Kikayon de-Yonah," a Talmudic commentary which the Nitra students were accustomed to study. In those days he slept very little, and for months at a time he never undressed to go to bed. In less than a year he reviewed the fifteen tractates of the Talmud included in the above-mentioned book which was ultimately printed by the governors of the Nitra yeshivah with Rabbi Weissmandl’s notes and emendations. At the end of the volume, he added notes to Sulchan Aruch Even Ha-Ezer on the basis of a manuscript he had discovered in Oxford. Rabbi Weissmandl also wrote an introduction to the book, giving the biography of its author and directing some pointed remarks in elegant style to those who were likely to criticize the book. In free translation, this is what he wrote:

It is a clear and indisputable truth that all possible excuses for mistakes – whether unintentional or deliberate – will be in vain. The supporter has no question while no answers will satisfy the critics. When a man wants to judge his fellow generously, he needs no aids and all the excuses in the world will not stop one who wants to do the opposite. Therefore, it is only logical and sensible not to vindicate oneself with pleas and supplications at the beginning of a book like a beggar, hat-in-hand …




Many glosses … were overlooked, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes by forgetfulness or because of lack of time or space. Clearly, if the book had been printed without notes or glosses at all, as it was in previous editions, nobody would have objected. However, now that it has been printed with corrections – to whatever degree we have succeeded – some readers will defend our efforts while others will take offense. This is no novelty; it has always been so …



This is what a publisher must tell every honest reader and he who thinks it in his heart must articulate it with his lips. Now, let all those who object rest easy, and let the critic not be consumed by bitterness. May he be blessed who accepts an honest answer and as for him who refuses to accept – let him be blessed too.

ON SHEVAT 14, 5697 (1937), Rabbi Weissmandl married Bracha Rachel, the daughter of his teacher Rabbi Samuel David Ungar. For the tenaim (engagement) party, which was held some time earlier, the bridegroom had returned from England, where he had been pursuing his research in Oxford. At the celebration, he gave a brilliant lecture which lasted for two and one half hours. In his discourse, he discussed the legal aspects of sivlonot (gifts which a man gives his future bride). At the beginning of his talk, he recounted that in Oxford he had found manuscripts containing several problems on the subject raised by an ancient Torah sage, Rabbi Simon Sharabi. Rabbi Weissmandl intended to resolve these questions. He proceeded to explain, on the basis of the manuscript sources he had discovered, the custom of the Jews of Oberland (Upper Hungary) not to commit the engagement conditions to writing.




Rabbi David Meisels of Satoraljuajhely, who was present at the celebration, was so impressed that he told the yeshivah students who were there that if one of them could repeat the lecture, he would ordain him as a rabbi on the spot. As a wedding gift, he granted the bridegroom rabbinical ordination and enthusiastically praised his Torah knowledge. Rabbi Ungar, the father-in-law, said that he had nothing to add and limited himself to saying, "The bridegroom is pious through and through!"



Both before and after his marriage, Rabbi Weissmandl was very active on behalf of the Nitra yeshivah, and in fact, he was Rabbi Ungar’s right-hand man. There were periods when he taught one of the classes in the yeshivah. In 1936 he gave the "simple lessons" which at that time studied the Talmudic Tractate Shevi’it. This class was intended for rapid surface rather than in-depth study to give the students a wider knowledge of Talmud. Rabbi Weissmandl, however, taught it in great depth citing dozens of external sources including manuscripts he had found in Oxford. When he would finish a subject, he used to say, "Everything I have said is ancillary to the subject and I have not yet touched on the actual subject!"

Even in his youth, Rabbi Weissmandl exhibited two clear character traits. On the one hand he was a serious, settled man and on the other he was capable of humor and gaiety. When he recited the kinot (dirges said on Tishah Be-Av), or when he described the tortures of hell in his sermons, he would weep bitterly and his audience would join him in weeping. But on happy occasions and particularly on Purim he would climb on the table and entertain the company with barbed witticisms and jokes.

He was a magnificent and persuasive orator. In the Nitra yeshivah it was customary to hold a meeting of all Rabbi Ungar’s former and current students every five years. In one such gathering in the 1930’s, men who had studied with Rabbi Ungar when he was a dayyan (a rabbinical judge) in Krompachy participated together with students from his days in Tyrnau and Nitra. This was a meeting of fathers and sons who had studied Torah at the same source. At these gatherings, Rabbi Ungar would address his students on matters of ethics and piety; the job of discussing the practical and financial situation of the yeshivah was left to Rabbi Weissmandl. On this occasion too he did his job. He had been in Vienna prior to the meeting, so the governors of the yeshivah sent him a message requesting him to return for the meeting and to prepare himself to tell the gathered students about the serious financial difficulties the yeshivah was facing. When he began his presentation, he told his audience about the governors’ message to talk about the needs of the yeshivah and added, "To what can this be compared? To a man with a toothache who people tell how to cry when the dentist hurts him! Does he need to prepare himself to cry!? When it hurts, you cry! The yeshivah has no funds. That hurts and that is why we are crying! There is no need to prepare yourself to cry – it comes naturally!"




Rabbi Weissmandl often accompanied his father-in-law on his journeys, and in 1935 they traveled to Eretz Yisrael. When he visited the Western Wall, he was overcome with religious fervor at the sanctity of the site and in a postcard to R’ Menachem Moshe Felsenburg he wrote: "Be Blessed with a blessing from Zion the Magnificent; from Zion out of which goes forth the Torah and whose holy stones are better than all the innovations of the Jews in our sacred land."



When he returned from Palestine, he preached a sermon in the synagogue of Zeirei Agudath Israel in Vienna, recounting what he had seen. With great emotion, he described the Mount of Olives where the dead are buried facing east because the Messiah will come from that direction. Rabbi Weissmandl also accompanied his father-in-law to the Knessiah Gedolah, the main convocation of the Agudath Israel world organization.


THE BURGENLAND RABBIS SAVED BY HIS EFFORTS
RABBI WEISSMANDL’S ACTIVITIES during the war constitute one of the most striking examples in Jewish history of total dedication and sacrifice in order to save Jews. Here, we will only describe his activities in general terms; in later chapters dealing with the Holocaust and the destruction of European Jewry we will go into detail.






In 1938, when Austria was conquered by Nazi Germany, the first victims were the Jews of Burgenland. They were stripped of everything they owned and expelled to Vienna, where they stayed without any means of support. Rabbi Weissmandl risked his life to travel to Vienna to consult there with the community leaders to see what could be done to help the deportees. The Nazis then gathered approximately sixty rabbis, mostly from Burgenland, and put them on a ship which sailed towards Czechoslovakia. The ship was harried from port to port, because the Czechoslovakians refused them entry and the Austrians would not take them back. Rabbi Weissmandl flew to England, where he succeeded in being received by the Archbishop of Canterbury (the head of the Anglican Church) and by the Foreign Office. He explained the tragic situation, and as a result of his endeavors the rabbis were granted entry-visas to England.

After the Munich Agreements (Sept. 30, 1938) and the Vienna Award (Nov. 2, 1938), parts of Slovakia were annexed by Hungary and a considerable number of Jews there were ruled to be "stateless" and expelled by the Hungarians into the no-man’s land between Slovakia and Hungary. In a telegram dated November 23, Rabbi Weissmandl turned to Samuel Hoare, the British foreign minister, and to the Archbishop of Canterbury and begged them to intervene on behalf of the refugees. In the telegram which was sent from Nitra, he said:




In the last five days Hungarian authorities have expelled thousands of Jews with great cruelty, in rain and darkness, to the no-man’s land along the Slovakian border. In our great trouble I beseech Your Excellency to intervene.



The Archbishop of Canterbury passed the telegram on to the Foreign Office on the same day and added a note saying that he had met Rabbi Weissmandl and respected him – "He is worthy of credence." On the following day, however, the Foreign Office rejected the plea. It advised that the telegram be ignored and not answered, since the subject was not included in the Munich agreements.



AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE Jews in Slovakia, Rabbi Weissmandl planned the emigration of several hundred Jewish families to Canada, among them families from Nitra and Tyrnau, but the plan was never realized. Later, Jews from Nitra and Tyrnau were among the first to be sent to Auschwitz, where they were forced to work in the construction of the crematoria and deal with the bodies of the victims. Ultimately, they too were killed. When they arrived in Auschwitz, instead of Canada, the people of Nitra and Tyrnau made a gruesome joke, "Well, we’ve arrived in Canada."



In 1942-1944, Rabbi Weissmandl was active in the Hatzalah (Rescue) Committee in Pressburg (Bratislava). The leadership of that committee included Rabbi Armin Frieder, Mrs. Gisi Fleischmann, Dr. Tibor Kov`acs, Ondrej Steiner and Dr. Oskar Neumann and others.




In February 1942, a notice was issued calling on all Jews born between 1897 and 1926 to register with the police in order to establish their "work capacity". Recognizing this as a Nazi ruse, Rabbi Weissmandl advised the yeshivah students not to register since it would then be easier for them to escape if necessary. He also called on all the Jews to prepare "bunkers" and hiding places to use, should the situation deteriorate.



In March 1942, deportations started from Slovakia to the Lublin area in Poland; from there the deportees were later transferred to Auschwitz. After some 58,000 Jews had been expelled, Rabbi Weissmandl succeeded, through a man named Karol Hochberg, in bribing the S.S. officer, Dieter Wisliceny, who was in charge of the expulsion of Slovakian Jews. For $50,000, the expulsions were halted for two years and in the meanwhile negotiations were underway to save European Jewry as a whole. This program was called the "Europe Plan."

In the course of his activities in the Hatzalah Committee from 1942 to 1944, Rabbi Weissmandl continuously traveled back and forth between Nitra and Pressburg.




Most of his week was spent in Pressburg doing committee work and only towards the Sabbath did he return to his family in Nitra. When he came home, he would give Rabbi Ungar a detailed report of his week’s activities and consult with him as to his future rescue efforts.



During one of his journeys in a railway train, a copy of the Neue Zuriche Zeitung containing an account of the murder of tens of thousands of Jews in the Nazi gas chambers fell from his pocket. He was arrested and charged with propagating hostile literature against the Germans, but managed to gain his release through bribery.



Rabbi Weissmandl’s arrest did not deter him from devoting himself to his stressful and dangerous rescue work. One day, because of the intensive tempo of his life, he suffered severe chest pains. The physician who examined him diagnosed a heart attack and ordered immediate hospitalization. He would have to rest for a prolonged period and cease all activities. However, two days later when he heard that a Jewish old-age home in one of the towns was in danger of liquidation, he immediately left his sick-bed and traveled to the town to save them from expulsion.



GRADUALLY, HEART-BREAKING LETTERS from the Jews who had been expelled to the Lublin area in Poland began to reach their relatives in Slovakia. In their letters, the deportees described the executions, sickness, cold and hunger which they suffered in their place of exile. They informed their relatives that for jewelry, clothing, and similar articles they could buy basic foodstuffs such as bead and potatoes from the native Polish population. Rabbi Weissmandl, together with other leaders of the Hatzalah Committee, purchased various items of jewelry and transferred them by messengers – often German officers and soldiers – to the Lublin area. The deportees acknowledged receipt of the shipments and sent letters back to their relatives by the same messengers. This aid and the contacts they made gave the deportees the physical and psychological strength to bear – at least temporarily – the terrible suffering imposed on them, thereby saving them from immediate destruction.

In 1943, one of the German messengers was arrested while he was in possession of a list which Rabbi Weissmandl had sent to the Lublin camp detailing how the shipment of jewelry should be distributed. As a result, Rabbi Weissmandl too was arrested and held for a lengthy interrogation by Kukula, an official of the Ministry of Finance. During that interrogation Rabbi Weissmandl told his interrogators everything that was happening to the deportees in the Lublin area; how old men, women and children were suffering and dying of cold and hunger. Rabbi Weissmandl explained that he had only wanted to aid these helpless deportees, and he argued that he had merely broken a minor law in order to help innocent people. When Kukula heard the description of the Jews’ suffering, even his stony heart melted and, with tears in his eyes, he sighed, "After all, I too have children." In the meantime, Rabbi Weissmandl was still imprisoned, and he tried to find a way to let his colleagues on the Hatzalah Committee know what he had admitted and revealed to his interrogators. He was afraid lest somebody else be arrested and wanted to avoid contradictions and discrepancies which might result from other interrogations. On Hoshana Rabbah (the last of the intermediate days of the Sukkot festival) he told his guards that he would not eat unless they allowed him to go to a sukkah to recite kiddush on wine. This was a ruse, since kiddush is not recited on that day. His wish was granted, and two guards took him to the sukkah of one of Pressburg’s Jews. When it became known, many people came to the sukkah and Rabbi Weissmandl, while pretending to recite the kiddush, gave his audience an account in Hebrew of what he had told his interrogators. After he was returned to prison, he had further conversations with Kukula who later permitted the Jews to send parcels to their coreligionists who had been deported to the Lublin area. Unfortunately, the arrangement did not last long, because the deportees were soon transferred to the death camps.


SERED  R WEISSMANDL AND FAMILY ARRESTED: SS OFFICER ALOIS BRUNNER

IN THE FALL OF 1944 the Partisans’ Revolt erupted in Slovakia; as a result, the Germans decided to put an end to Slovakia’s Jews and the deportations were resumed. On Elul 19, 5704 (September 7, 1944), a few days before the recitation of selichot (penitential prayers) in preparation for the High Holy Days, Rabbi Weissmandl, his wife and five children (4 daughters and a son) were arrested in Nitra. Together with the rest of the Jews, the Weissmandl family was taken to a camp in Sered, Slovakia. From this camp, transports were sent to Auschwitz. In command of the expulsion of Slovakian Jewry was a cruel SS officer named Alois Brunner. Eichmann had prevented Dieter Wisliceny, who had previously been in command, from returning to Slovakia.


Rabbi Benzion Ungar murdered
The Hatzalah Committee people were trying to find a way to return Rabbi Weissmandl to Pressburg, since they urgently needed his aid and advice in their work. The leaders of the Committee therefore informed the authorities at the Sered camp that they were required by the security services in Bratislava to prepare a special list of Jews and that without Weissmandl they could not do it. They requested that he be allowed to visit the capital if only for a short time and Rabbi Weissmandl received "a holiday" to go to Pressburg for one day. He did not return on time, so Brunner called in his brother-in-law, Rabbi Benzion Ungar, the rabbi of Piest’any. He was interrogated about Rabbi Weissmandl’s activities and how he had disappeared. Later he was taken out and executed while wrapped in his tallit and reciting Shema Yisrael.

Rabbi Weissmandl forwent the convenient safety of Oxford

In 1939, Slovakia became a puppet clerofascist state from 14 March 1939 to 8 May, 1945, as an ally and client state of Nazi Germany. It appears that at the beginning of 1939, Rabbi Weissmandl was at Oxford working on the manuscripts and it would have been convenient for him to stay the war in Oxford away from harm.








It therefore astonishes one that while at Oxford, Rabbi Weissmandel volunteered on 1 September 1939, shortly after the invasion of Poland by Germany together with Slovakia, to return to Slovakia as an agent of World Agudath Israel to help rescue the Jews of Slovakia and other Jews of Europe.







It is interesting to speculate whether Cecil Roth who had just returned in 1939 to Oxford as reader in Jewish Studies was an inspiration for him to return to Slovakia to aid the Jewish community there under the Nazis. It is known that as early as 1933, Cecil Roth was vocal and active against the Nazis, as he penned a letter of protest to the London Times against Hitler's declaration to boycott Jewish establishments.








ACQUAINTED WITH THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT AT OXFORD NOT AN ACCIDENT
Due to Rabbi Weissmandl having spent considerable amount of time in Oxford and likely became acquainted with the British establishment, it gave him the ability to assist with attempts to save Jews from the Holocaust.





ENTRY VISAS FOR THE SIXTY RABBIS FROM BURGENLAND

This happened when the Nazis gathered sixty rabbis from Burgenland, bordering Slovakia. Czechoslovakia refused them entry and Austria would not take them back, leaving the stranded on the border. Rabbi Weissmandl flew to England, where he was received by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Foreign Office, and succeeded in obtaining entry visas to England for the sixty rabbis, saving them from the Holocaust.







When the Nazis, aided by members of the puppet Slovak government, began its campaign against the Slovakian Jews in 1942, members of the Slovak Judenrat formed an underground organization called the Working Group. The group's main activity was to help Jews as much as possible, in part through payment of large bribes to German and Slovak officials.


This Working Group during the period of WWII was led by Rabbi Weissmandl after he moved back to Slovakia, together with Gisi Fleischmann.








The transportation of Slovak Jews was in fact halted for a long time after the Working Group arranged a $50,000 ransom deal with the Nazi SS official Dieter Wisliceny.







At Weissmandl's initiative the Working Group was also responsible for the ill-fated Europe Plan which would have seen in late 1942 large numbers of European Jews rescued from the Nazis by paying the Nazis one to two million dollars ransom to stop most transports. The Germans asked for a 10% down payment, which unfortunately was never made.







The Working Group played a central role in distribution of the "Auschwitz Report" in spring 1944, which ultimately led to its publication in Switzerland. That triggered a major Swiss grass roots protest in the Swiss press, churches and streets. It was a major factor in President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others threatening Hungary's Fascist regent Horthy with post-war retribution if he doesn't immediately stop the transports. At the time 12,000 Jews a day were transported to Auschwitz.



In 1944, Weissmandl and his family were put on a train headed for Auschwitz. Rabbi Weissmandl escaped from the sealed train by sawing open the lock of the carriage with an emery wire he had secreted in a loaf of bread. He jumped from the moving train, breaking his leg in the process, and hid in a secret bunker in suburban Bratislava, from where he was taken by Rudolf Kasztner and his Nazi associate Kurt Becher to Switzerland.








In 1946, Rabbi Weissmandl left Switzerland for the U.S.A, where he re-established the Nitra Yeshiva.

Rabbi Weismandl expert in Hebrew MSS

During his visits to Oxford, he recorded variant readings from the Hebrew manuscripts as well as hundreds of unpublished rabbinic responsa which he intended to publish. As an expert of Hebrew manuscripts, he gained much respect from the librarian, allowing him considerable access, during non-visiting hours, to the Hebrew collection for his research.








It appears that Rabbi Weismandl was not uninterested in the people around him while he was in Oxford. He related that he became acquainted with a non-Jewish scholar in Oxford, who had an exceptional knowledge of Talmud, allowing him to quote entire tractates from memory. It is likely he then would have also got to know other prominent Jewish members of the university community in the 1930’s, as Sir Isaiah Berlin, who had then received a prize scholarship at All Souls College.







His work in Oxford seems to have included, among other things, preparing a new edition of Kikayon de-Yonah, a Talmudic commentary, by 16th century Rabbi Jonah T’omim, who was born in Prague and acted as rabbi in Grodno and Pinsk, Lithuania. In 1648, because of the Chmielnick pogrom, Rabbi Teomim fled to Vienna, Nikolsburg, Austria, and finally Metz, Lorraine, before he passed away in 1649.







The editing new edition of Kikayon de-Yonah seems to have been for the publishing of the 3rd edition of Kikayon de-Yonah. The first edition was edited in Amsterdam in 1690 by the son of Rabbi T’omim, Joshua, and the second printing was in 1712 at Hanau, Germany.







In less than a year, according to his biography, An Unheeded Cry (Artscroll), Rabbi Weissmandl reviewed the fifteen tractates of the Talmud included in the above-mentioned book which was ultimately printed by the governors of the Nitra Yeshivah with Rabbi Weissmandl’s notes, glosses and emendations.







At the end of the volume, Rabbi Weissmandl added notes to Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) Even Ha-Ezer (Laws of Marriage and Divorce) on the basis of a manuscript he had discovered in Oxford.







The manuscript with these notes can be in fact found listed in Adolf Neubauer’s Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian and in the College Libraries of Oxford (Published 1886) entry number 761:1 (p. 149): “R. Yonah T’omim’s Novellae on Ebben ha-Ezer, and some other casuistic notes.”







Thus, it appears, Rabbi Weissmandl was not just comparing the second edition of this work with the original manuscript but intended to add an unpublished manuscript of the same author that was exclusively found at the Bodleian library.







In his biography it mentions his motivation to prepare a new edition of this work was due to the fact that students were studying this work as a basic text at the Yeshiva of Nitra in Slovakia, under the tutelage of his father-in-law, Rabbi Ungar.







It is therefore possible that Rabbi Weissmandl heard that there existed this additional rare unpublished manuscript by Rabbi T’omim in Oxford and this discovery and pursuit to publish it seems to have been a central reason for his travel to Oxford.







It is, however, interesting to note that the Bodleian Library doesn't appear to have in its collection the main work by Rabbi T'omim, Kikayon D'Yonah, on the Talmud. It would therefore seem that the comparing of the published edition to the original manuscript was not the reason for his coming to Oxford when working on the third edition of Kikayon D'Yonah but rather just for the publication of the additional unpublished manuscript on Shulchan Aruch that Rabbi Weissmandl wished to add to his new edition.







Indeed, from the following story about his ordination, it is clear that he was undertaking many different Hebraic academic studies as his purpose for coming to Oxford, in addition to the expanding of the the work of Kikayon D'Yonah.

His research and intense study of unpublished Hebrew manuscripts in Oxford in fact led to his rabbinical ordination before his wedding.














In January, 1937, (14 Shevat, 5697), Rabbi Weissmandl married Bracha Rachel, the daughter of his teacher Rabbi Samuel David Ungar. For the tenaim (engagement) party, which was held some time earlier, the bridegroom had returned from England, where he had been pursuing his research in Oxford.







At the celebration, he gave a brilliant lecture which lasted for two and a half hours. In his discourse, he discussed the legal aspects of sivlonot (gifts which a man gives his future bride). At the beginning of his talk, he recounted that in Oxford he had found manuscripts containing several problems on the subject raised by an ancient Torah sage, Rabbi Simon Sharabi.







Rabbi Weissmandl intended to resolve these questions. He proceeded to explain, on the basis of the manuscript sources he had discovered, the custom of the Jews of Oberland (Upper Hungary) not to commit the engagement conditions to writing.







Rabbi David Meisels of Satoraljuajhely (northern Hungary, near the Slovak border), who was present at the celebration, was so impressed that, as a wedding gift, he granted the bridegroom rabbinical ordination in appreciation of his deep knowledge of Jewish law and scholarship of the Torah.

Jewish Communal Life Virtually Non-existent in Much of Europe

http://archive.jta.org/article/1945/06/22/2867475/jewish-communal-life-virtually-nonexistent-in-much-of-europe-says-jta-correspondent
June 22, 1945

Jewish Communal Life Virtually Non-existent in Much of Europe, Says JTA Correspondent

New York, Jun. 21 (JTA) –

Declaring that in all the countries of liberated Europe which he had visited in the past nine months he did not find one deported Jew who wished to return to his homeland, Meyer Levin, Jewish Telegraphic Agency war correspondent, who has just returned home after covering the Allied armies in Europe since D-Day, said yesterday that Jewish communal life in much of Europe is virtually non-existent.



At a press conference here, Levin revealed that even among Jews. the Nazis practiced their theories of "superior" and "inferior" groups. Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, for instance, were sent to Theresienstadt, where conditions, although bad, were much better than those found by the Jews from other countries sent to Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Maidanek, or other camps in Poland and Germany. He said that the problem of recovering Jewish children placed in non-Jewish custody is acute and that strong efforts must be made if these children are not to be reared in non-Jewish religions.



Citation - Click to see see this article's citation



"Jewish Communal Life Virtually Non-existent in Much of Europe, Says JTA Correspondent." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 22 Jun 1945.

Polish Anti-semitic Students Delivered Jews to Gestapo During Occupation of Poland

http://archive.jta.org/article/1945/06/18/2867426/polish-antisemitic-students-delivered-jews-to-gestapo-during-occupation-of-poland

June 18, 1945


Polish Anti-semitic Students Delivered Jews to Gestapo During Occupation of Poland

London, Jun. 17 (JTA) –

Capt. Leon Peretz, a Jewish captain in the Polish Army who was liberated by American troops from a camp in Bavaria, today charged that Polish anti-Semitic students, members of the Nara Party, cooperated with the Germans during the occupation of Poland and delivered many Jews to the Gestapo.



Arriving in London, Capt. Peretz, who is a relative of the famous Jewish writer J. L. Peretz, told a press conference how he fought with a partisan unit battling the Germans in Poland, after he succeeded in escaping from a transport on route to the Sobibor death camp. He revealed that while working in the underground in Warsaw he forged identity documents for Jews, adding that about 30,000 Jews hid in Warsaw, using false documents, after the Germans liquidated the ghetto there following the Jewish uprising.



"Secret hideouts for Jews were maintained throughout the occupation," he related. "Three Jewish women and two men were kept in a walled-up room in a German factory in Warsaw and were secretly fed every night through a small hole. When one woman died, her body had to be cut into parts in order to be removed through the hole. The underground movement paid a thousand zlotys monthly for the upkeep of hiding Jews."



Capt. Peretz, who was twice wounded, witnessed the gruesome execution of his parents and brothers. He participated in the battle of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944, where he was captured by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp in Upper-(##). After long months of internment, he and other prisoners were marched 900 kilometers to a camp near Bad Neustadt, Bavaria. Four days after their arrival at this camp, the American troops occupied Bad Neustadt and liberated the internees.

Czech Court Trying Commander of Theresienstadt Camp; Jews Testify to Atrocities

http://archive.jta.org/article/1946/10/20/2744223/czech-court-trying-commander-of-theresienstadt-camp-jews-testify-to-atrocities

October 20, 1946


Czech Court Trying Commander of Theresienstadt Camp; Jews Testify to Atrocities

Prague, Oct. 18 (JTA) –

A charge that he was forced to confiscate the rings of Jewish prisoners and later drown them in a swamp was made today by a former prisoner named Hanus at the trial in Litomerice of Heinrich Joeckel, commander of a section of the Theresienstadt concentration camp.



Other witnesses revealed that Jewish political prisoners were treated in a more brutal fashion than other camp inmates. They declared that one prisoner, a Professor Levit, was tortured and his legs broken and then carried to a cemetery to be murdered. However, he revived and committed suicide before he could be tortured further. Other prisoners were forced to hang themselves with wire.



It was also disclosed that numerous officials in the puppet government witnessed the horrible tortures. One witness related how Joekel, himself, beat a pregnant Jewish woman on the abdomen until an abortion occurred.



Citation - Click to see see this article's citation



"Czech Court Trying Commander of Theresienstadt Camp; Jews Testify to Atrocities." Jewish Telegraphic Agency 20 Oct 1946.

Rabbi Michael Weissmandl: A Rabbi from Oxford’s Bodleian Library who saved Jews from the Holocaust

http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/1378317/jewish/A-Rabbi-from-the-Bodleian-Library-who-saved-Jews-from-the-Holocaust.htm
Rabbi Michael Weissmandl: A Rabbi from Oxford’s Bodleian Library who saved Jews from the Holocaust

By Rabbi Eli Brackman


Rabbi Michael Weissmandl: A Rabbi from Oxford’s Bodleian Library who saved Jews from the Holocaust







By Rabbi Eli Brackman







Michael Dov Weissmandl (1903–1957) was a scholar and expert of Hebrew manuscripts, who visited Oxford during the 1930’s, and played an instrumental role in attempting to save Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War.







This article will illustrate how Rabbi Weissmandl’s visits to Oxford served him his rabbinical ordination, possibly the first rabbi to be ordained from his research at the Bodleian library, and offered him the groundwork to attempt to help save tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis in Slovakia and millions in Europe.







Rabbi Weissmandl was born in 1903 in Debrecen, Hungary, and a few years later his family moved to Tyrnau, Slovakia. In 1931, he moved to the Slovakian town of Nitra to study under the rabbi of Nitra and dean of the last surviving yeshiva in Nazi occupied Europe, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar (1886 – 1945), whose daughter he later married.







Before moving to Nitra, he studied at the yeshivah of Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky, who was chief rabbi of Galanta, Slovakia, until around the First World War. (Rabbi Dushinksy was fourth or fifth cousin to political scientist Dr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, currently living in Oxford.)







Rabbi Dushinksy later moved to Israel and was known for his strong opposition to Zionism, and spoke to the newly-formed United Nations against the creation of the Zionist State.







In the 1930’s, in Rabbi Weissmandl’s work in deciphering Hebrew manuscripts and comparing printed works with the manuscripts, he travelled to Oxford three times to do research at the Bodleian library collection of Hebrew manuscripts. On one occasion he helped the librarian identify the author of a new manuscript they had just acquired and been misattributed by the scholars at the library.







This scholar was most probably Eric Otto Winstedt, who was Keeper of the Oriental Collection, including the Hebrew holdings, during the 1930's. As E.O. Winstedt was principally a Latinist and Gypsologist, rather than Hebraist, Rabbi Wessmandl's assistance must have been appreciated, as well as other rabbis who visited the Bodleain library earlier, like Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.







During his visits to Oxford, he recorded variant readings from the Hebrew manuscripts as well as hundreds of unpublished rabbinic responsa which he intended to publish. As an expert of Hebrew manuscripts, he gained much respect from the librarian, allowing him considerable access, during non-visiting hours, to the Hebrew collection for his research.







It appears that Rabbi Weismandl was not uninterested in the people around him while he was in Oxford. He related that he became acquainted with a non-Jewish scholar in Oxford, who had an exceptional knowledge of Talmud, allowing him to quote entire tractates from memory. It is likely he then would have also got to know other prominent Jewish members of the university community in the 1930’s, as Sir Isaiah Berlin, who had then received a prize scholarship at All Souls College.







His work in Oxford seems to have included, among other things, preparing a new edition of Kikayon de-Yonah, a Talmudic commentary, by 16th century Rabbi Jonah T’omim, who was born in Prague and acted as rabbi in Grodno and Pinsk, Lithuania. In 1648, because of the Chmielnick pogrom, Rabbi Teomim fled to Vienna, Nikolsburg, Austria, and finally Metz, Lorraine, before he passed away in 1649.







The editing new edition of Kikayon de-Yonah seems to have been for the publishing of the 3rd edition of Kikayon de-Yonah. The first edition was edited in Amsterdam in 1690 by the son of Rabbi T’omim, Joshua, and the second printing was in 1712 at Hanau, Germany.







In less than a year, according to his biography, An Unheeded Cry (Artscroll), Rabbi Weissmandl reviewed the fifteen tractates of the Talmud included in the above-mentioned book which was ultimately printed by the governors of the Nitra Yeshivah with Rabbi Weissmandl’s notes, glosses and emendations.







At the end of the volume, Rabbi Weissmandl added notes to Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) Even Ha-Ezer (Laws of Marriage and Divorce) on the basis of a manuscript he had discovered in Oxford.







The manuscript with these notes can be in fact found listed in Adolf Neubauer’s Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian and in the College Libraries of Oxford (Published 1886) entry number 761:1 (p. 149): “R. Yonah T’omim’s Novellae on Ebben ha-Ezer, and some other casuistic notes.”







Thus, it appears, Rabbi Weissmandl was not just comparing the second edition of this work with the original manuscript but intended to add an unpublished manuscript of the same author that was exclusively found at the Bodleian library.







In his biography it mentions his motivation to prepare a new edition of this work was due to the fact that students were studying this work as a basic text at the Yeshiva of Nitra in Slovakia, under the tutelage of his father-in-law, Rabbi Ungar.







It is therefore possible that Rabbi Weissmandl heard that there existed this additional rare unpublished manuscript by Rabbi T’omim in Oxford and this discovery and pursuit to publish it seems to have been a central reason for his travel to Oxford.







It is, however, interesting to note that the Bodleian Library doesn't appear to have in its collection the main work by Rabbi T'omim, Kikayon D'Yonah, on the Talmud. It would therefore seem that the comparing of the published edition to the original manuscript was not the reason for his coming to Oxford when working on the third edition of Kikayon D'Yonah but rather just for the publication of the additional unpublished manuscript on Shulchan Aruch that Rabbi Weissmandl wished to add to his new edition.







Indeed, from the following story about his ordination, it is clear that he was undertaking many different Hebraic academic studies as his purpose for coming to Oxford, in addition to the expanding of the the work of Kikayon D'Yonah.







His research and intense study of unpublished Hebrew manuscripts in Oxford in fact led to his rabbinical ordination before his wedding.







In January, 1937, (14 Shevat, 5697), Rabbi Weissmandl married Bracha Rachel, the daughter of his teacher Rabbi Samuel David Ungar. For the tenaim (engagement) party, which was held some time earlier, the bridegroom had returned from England, where he had been pursuing his research in Oxford.







At the celebration, he gave a brilliant lecture which lasted for two and a half hours. In his discourse, he discussed the legal aspects of sivlonot (gifts which a man gives his future bride). At the beginning of his talk, he recounted that in Oxford he had found manuscripts containing several problems on the subject raised by an ancient Torah sage, Rabbi Simon Sharabi.







Rabbi Weissmandl intended to resolve these questions. He proceeded to explain, on the basis of the manuscript sources he had discovered, the custom of the Jews of Oberland (Upper Hungary) not to commit the engagement conditions to writing.







Rabbi David Meisels of Satoraljuajhely (northern Hungary, near the Slovak border), who was present at the celebration, was so impressed that, as a wedding gift, he granted the bridegroom rabbinical ordination in appreciation of his deep knowledge of Jewish law and scholarship of the Torah.







In 1939, Slovakia became a puppet clerofascist state from 14 March 1939 to 8 May, 1945, as an ally and client state of Nazi Germany. It appears that at the beginning of 1939, Rabbi Weissmandl was at Oxford working on the manuscripts and it would have been convenient for him to stay the war in Oxford away from harm.







It therefore astonishes one that while at Oxford, Rabbi Weissmandel volunteered on 1 September 1939, shortly after the invasion of Poland by Germany together with Slovakia, to return to Slovakia as an agent of World Agudath Israel to help rescue the Jews of Slovakia and other Jews of Europe.







It is interesting to speculate whether Cecil Roth who had just returned in 1939 to Oxford as reader in Jewish Studies was an inspiration for him to return to Slovakia to aid the Jewish community there under the Nazis. It is known that as early as 1933, Cecil Roth was vocal and active against the Nazis, as he penned a letter of protest to the London Times against Hitler's declaration to boycott Jewish establishments.







Due to Rabbi Weissmandl having spent considerable amount of time in Oxford and likely became acquainted with the British establishment, it gave him the ability to assist with attempts to save Jews from the Holocaust.







This happened when the Nazis gathered sixty rabbis from Burgenland, bordering Slovakia. Czechoslovakia refused them entry and Austria would not take them back, leaving the stranded on the border. Rabbi Weissmandl flew to England, where he was received by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Foreign Office, and succeeded in obtaining entry visas to England for the sixty rabbis, saving them from the Holocaust.







When the Nazis, aided by members of the puppet Slovak government, began its campaign against the Slovakian Jews in 1942, members of the Slovak Judenrat formed an underground organization called the Working Group. The group's main activity was to help Jews as much as possible, in part through payment of large bribes to German and Slovak officials.







This Working Group during the period of WWII was led by Rabbi Weissmandl after he moved back to Slovakia, together with Gisi Fleischmann.







The transportation of Slovak Jews was in fact halted for a long time after the Working Group arranged a $50,000 ransom deal with the Nazi SS official Dieter Wisliceny.







At Weissmandl's initiative the Working Group was also responsible for the ill-fated Europe Plan which would have seen in late 1942 large numbers of European Jews rescued from the Nazis by paying the Nazis one to two million dollars ransom to stop most transports. The Germans asked for a 10% down payment, which unfortunately was never made.







The Working Group played a central role in distribution of the "Auschwitz Report" in spring 1944, which ultimately led to its publication in Switzerland. That triggered a major Swiss grass roots protest in the Swiss press, churches and streets. It was a major factor in President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others threatening Hungary's Fascist regent Horthy with post-war retribution if he doesn't immediately stop the transports. At the time 12,000 Jews a day were transported to Auschwitz.







In 1944, Weissmandl and his family were put on a train headed for Auschwitz. Rabbi Weissmandl escaped from the sealed train by sawing open the lock of the carriage with an emery wire he had secreted in a loaf of bread. He jumped from the moving train, breaking his leg in the process, and hid in a secret bunker in suburban Bratislava, from where he was taken by Rudolf Kasztner and his Nazi associate Kurt Becher to Switzerland.







In 1946, Rabbi Weissmandl left Switzerland for the U.S.A, where he re-established the Nitra Yeshiva.







As his former teacher Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky, Rabbi Weissmandl was also known for his strong opposition to Zionism, and also spoke to the newly-formed United Nations against the creation of the Zionist State. In his biographies it attributes this to the fact that he felt that the Zionist leadership allegedly frustrated some of his plans in rescuing Jews from Nazi Europe.







It seems that a possible reason for this was also due to his former esteemed teacher Rabbi Dushinsky’s influence, albeit for similar reasons.







Rabbi Weissmandl passed away in 1957.

Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl TO BE CONTINU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Dovid_Ungar
Shmuel Dovid UngarFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar
THIS EXTAORDINARY RAV WAS ORDAINED AT ENGLAND'S BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD I BELEIVE AND RETURNED TO SAVE HIS BRETHREN  AND WAS OF THAT HOLIEST GENERATION --I WILL CONTINUE HIS STORY

Position Rosh Yeshiva

Yeshiva Nitra Yeshiva

Began 1931

Ended 1944

Successor Rabbi Sholom Moshe Ungar

Personal details

Birth name Shmuel Dovid Ungar

Born (1886-11-23)23 November 1886

Debrecen, Hungary

Died 9 February 1945(1945-02-09) (aged 58)

Buried Piešťany, Slovakia

Nationality Slovakian

Denomination Orthodox

Residence Nitra, Slovakia

Parents Rabbi Yosef Moshe Ungar

Spouse Miriam Leah Fisher

Children Sholom Moshe

Yaakov Yitzchak

Benzion

Chaya Nechama



Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar (23 November 1886 – 21 February 1945), also known as Rabbi Samuel David Ungar, was the rabbi of the Slovakian town of Nitra and dean of the last surviving yeshiva in occupied Europe during World War II. He was the father-in-law of Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl, who relied on his guidance to contrive many schemes to rescue Slovakian Jewry from the Nazis.



Contents [hide]

1 Early life

2 Rabbi and rosh yeshiva

3 World War II

4 In hiding

5 Legacy

6 References





[edit] Early lifeUngar was the only son born to his father, Rabbi Yosef Moshe Ungar, the rabbi of the town of Pöstyén (today: Piešťany). He was a descendant of the Abrabanel.[1][2] Ungar's father died when he was 11 years old,[3] and he became a frequent guest at the home of Rabbi Kalman Weber, who was appointed Rav of Pöstyén in his father's place.



After his bar mitzvah, Shmuel Dovid left home to study at the yeshiva in Preshov headed by his uncle, Rabbi Noach Baruch Fisher. Later, he studied at the yeshiva in Unsdorf led by Rabbi Shmuel Rosenberg. He married his first cousin, Miriam Leah Fisher, daughter of Rabbi Noach Baruch.[3]



[edit] Rabbi and rosh yeshivaAt the age of 21, Ungar became the Rav of Korompa (today: Krompachy), and founded a yeshiva in that town. Five years later, he was asked to become Rav and Rosh Yeshiva of Nagyszombat (today: Trnava), an old and well-established Jewish community, which he served for 15 years.[3] It was during this tenure that he became known as one of the leading rabbis of Europe for his erudition and strict adherence to halakha. It was also during this time that Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl joined his yeshiva and formed a lifelong attachment to him.



In 1931, Ungar was approached by the town of Nitra, which had recently lost its chief rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Aharon Katz, with a request that he head that community. To sweeten the offer, the community promised to help him expand its yeshiva under his leadership. Weissmandl tried to dissuade Ungar from accepting the offer, arguing that it would be a mistake to leave an established community like Trnava for Nitra, which was only about 200 years old and had 3,000 Jews. Ungar, however, said he would go. "My heart tells me that the day will come when there will be no yeshiva anywhere in Slovakia but Nitra, and I want to be there when that happens", he said presciently.[4]



In Nitra, Ungar built up a yeshiva with nearly 300 students that eventually attracted students from Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria and Germany. He taught in the classic Hungarian style introduced by the Chasam Sofer, and although he did not set out to produce rabbis, some of his students did go on to become prominent rabbis in their hometowns.[3] He developed a close and loving relationship with each student and kept the connection after they left, conducting an alumni reunion every five years. Weissmandl married his Rav's daughter, Bracha Rachel, in 1937[5] and became Ungar's right-hand man in all aspects of running the yeshiva.



Besides his position as the chief rabbi of Nitra, Ungar was appointed vice president of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, the supreme religious body of World Agudath Israel, in 1935.[6]



[edit] World War IIJewish persecution began even before World War II in Slovakia, where the Munich Agreement of 1938 carved Czechoslovakia into separate states. Slovakia became a totalitarian state run by the Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, who allied with Nazi Germany and supported discrimination against his country's Jews. In 1942, deportations from Slovakia to Auschwitz via Lublin began. The first Jews were forced to leave Nitra on the Shabbat after Passover.



Ungar could have left Slovakia to save his life, but he refused to desert his community and his yeshiva.[3] Defying a Nazi order to remain at home on that first day of deportations, Ungar walked to the synagogue to spend the third meal of Shabbat with his flock.



After 58,000 Jews had been expelled from Slovakia, Weissmandl, in conjunction with the Working Group that he and other activists had established to try to save Slovakian Jewry, attempted one of the most ambitious rescue schemes of the Holocaust. With a $50,000 bribe to Dieter Wisliceny (Adolf Eichmann's deputy in the Jewish Section of the Reich Security Main Office and adviser on Jewish affairs to the Slovak government), the Working Group managed to halt the deportations until 1944.



Weissmandl also intervened with the Slovakian government to allow the Nitra Yeshiva to continue functioning as the only legal yeshiva in the country during the next two years. To assist students who were still being accosted and sent to forced labor camps, the yeshiva constructed hiding places under the bimah and above bookcases in its study hall in the event of Nazi raids. Often the warning came at such short notice that Talmuds would be left lying open on the tables as everyone fled and hid. Despite these disruptions, Ungar continued to teach and give weekly examinations as usual.



[edit] In hidingIn August 1944, the Nazis crushed a revolt by Slovak partisans who had never supported the Nazi Slovakian regime, and the German army entered and occupied the country. Deportations to Auschwitz resumed in greater intensity than before. The Nitra Yeshiva was liquidated on September 5, 1944.[6] By September 17, every remaining Jew in Nitra had been deported.



Ungar and one of his sons, Sholom Moshe, together with Rabbi Meir Eisler, had been vacationing in the forests of the Zobor Mountain near Nitra. When they heard that the yeshiva had been liquidated, they did not return to Nitra. They made their way to Bistritz, which was under partisan control, but when the Germans attacked that city the following month, they fled and spent the winter hiding in mountain caves and subsisting on starvation rations.[3] Ungar kept a diary in which he recorded his travails and prepared his spiritual will.



Throughout that winter of hiding in the forest, Ungar scrupulously observed every detail of halakha even though he was starving to death. He refused to eat bread or milk obtained from gentiles, or to even bread if there was no water for ritual hand-washing.[3] On one occasion he received some grapes, but would not eat them immediately; he insisted on saving them to make Kiddush on Shabbat. While terror and fear were others' constant companions, he was concerned with how to fulfill the mitzvah of hearing the shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah.



Ungar died of starvation on 9 February 1945 (8 Adar 5705).[2] He instructed his son where and how to bury him, said his last viduy (confession), and died. After the war, his son re-interred him in Piešťany, his birthplace, next to the grave of his father.[3]

SOURCE 3 MENTIONED IN THE SHORT ARTICLE  IN JTACONERNING HIS MURDER

[edit] Legacy
Two of Ungar's sons, Sholom Moshe (1916–2003)[6] and Yaakov Yitzchak, and a daughter, Chaya Nechama, survived the war. (Chaya Nechama later married Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Klausenberger Rebbe, in America in 1947.[7]) Another son, Benzion, the Rav of Piešťany, was taken to a prison camp in Sereď, where he was murdered by Slovakian military police. Ungar's rebbetzin, Miriam Leah, was also murdered, together with many other family members.[3] Ungar's son-in-law, Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl, survived the war.



Ungar's Torah writings were saved by a gentile woman who gave them to Ungar's son, Sholom Moshe, after the war. These were published under the title Ne'os Desheh ("Lush meadows", a line from Psalm 23; the second word in Hebrew, דשא, contains his initials, שמואל דוד אונגר).[3]



After the war, Rabbi Sholom Moshe Ungar was named Rav of Nitra by the survivors of that city and reopened the Nitra Yeshiva. In 1946 he and his brother-in-law, Rabbi Weissmandl, moved the Nitra Yeshiva to Somerville, New Jersey. In 1948 the yeshiva was moved again to its present site in Mount Kisco, New York.[6]



Rabbi Sholom Moshe Ungar's son, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar (named after his grandfather) is the current Nitra Rav and Rosh Yeshiva. Today the Nitra community has branches in Boro Park, Williamsburg, Monsey and Jerusalem, Israel.[6]



[edit] References1.^ "Today’s Yahrtzeits & History – 27 Nissan". matzav.com. 1 May 2011. http://matzav.com/todays-yahrtzeits-history-27-nissan-2. Retrieved 7 May 2011.

2.^ a b Paltiel, Manny (2011). "Gedolim Yahrtzeits". chinuch.org. http://chinuch.org/AdarI.php. Retrieved 7 May 2011.

3.^ a b c d e f g h i j Project Witness. "Harav Shmuel David Ungar, Hy"d, of Nitra". Hamodia, 17 March 2011, p. C2.

4.^ Fried, S. (3 June 2003). "A Cry from the Pages". Dei'ah VeDibur. http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5763/NSO63features.htm. Retrieved 7 May 2011.

5.^ Brackman, Rabbi Eli (2011). "Rabbi Michael Weissmandl: A Rabbi from Oxford’s Bodleian Library who saved Jews from the Holocaust". Oxford Chabad Society. http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/1378317/jewish/A-Rabbi-from-the-Bodleian-Library-who-saved-Jews-from-the-Holocaust.htm. Retrieved 7 May 2011.

6.^ a b c d e Tannenbaum, Rabbi Gershon (5 January 2011). "Nitra Reborn". The Jewish Press. http://www.jewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=46689. Retrieved 7 May 2011.

7.^ Landesman, Yeruchem. The Wedding that Changed Despair to Hope. Mishpacha, 11 November 2009, pp. 30-34.