R’ Zalman experiences miracles as he flees Charkov. * From the life of R’ Yehoshua Shneur Zalman Serebryanski a”h.
World War II began in late Elul 5699/1939. The Germans air bombed Poland and then sent in their soldiers and swiftly conquered the country. The Soviet Union, which bordered on Poland, quickly sent large numbers of soldiers in the direction of the new front and simultaneously began calling up reserves. One of the reserve soldiers who received a notice to report was R’ Zalman.
PROMOTING FAITH IN MILITARY CAMP
R’ Zalman first became acquainted with the military establishment about ten years earlier, in 5689. The “white card” that he managed to obtain in 5685 through the bracha of the Rebbe Rayatz saved him for four years, but now he was called up.
However, since he had been marked down as someone unfaithful to communist ideals, they were afraid to send him to the front, lest he become a spy for the west. For those unreliable citizens like him they had a special department called the “rear guard army,” in which they had to do hard labor for the military.
In these military camps, the communists in charge did their best to instill communist values. Until the communist era, most citizens, even gentiles, were simple people who believed in G-d. When they were asked, “How are you?” they would reply, “Thank G-d.” Their faith was superficial though, and the communist lecturers were able to confuse them with so-called proofs to the non-existence of G-d, G-d forbid.
R’ Zalman stood out among the boorish gentiles. As a clever and learned Chassid, he was able to respond to all the questions of the communist lecturers and to make a mockery of their so-called proofs. The gentiles who worked with him in the labor camp rejoiced to hear his clever responses and when he would finish, they would applaud, “Bravo Zalman.”
It was only in the early years that a soldier could contradict the communist leader. As time went by, the communists intensified their religious persecution and whoever dared to contradict them, could expect to be sentenced to jail and exile for the crime of undermining the government.
(For a short while, his wife was able to get him and some other Lubavitchers released from army duty. She did some research and discovered that the law requiring service in the rear guard applied only to people who don’t officially work or who work in a religious position, like a rav or priest (l’havdil), those whom the government considered parasites.
The military officials made a mistake regarding this law. Since R’ Zalman and his friends were considered religiously observant, the official considered them “rabbis” which enabled the government to draft them. R’ Zalman’s wife, Bracha, obtained a copy of the original wording of the law and went from official to official, until she reached the regional commander of the rear guard forces. After she proved that R’ Zalman and his Lubavitcher friends were registered as official workers in government factories and were not practicing rabbis, she obtained their release.
But in the Russia of those days, these legal proofs could last only a short time. A few years later, the military officials decided that they could draft R’ Zalman and his friends anyway. Once again, they were called every year to present themselves for training exercises in the rear guard army).
WHAT DID THE JEWISH POLITRUK ASK FOR ON EREV YOM KIPPUR?
In the summer of 5697, after the communist regime succeeded in imposing absolute terror over the citizens in the Soviet Union, they began drafting into the regular army even those who were marked as disloyal to communism. Terror of the government was so great that they no longer feared that the soldiers would try and spy for the west.
R’ Zalman was among those who were drafted. After undergoing fitness and aptitude tests, they decided to train him as a sapper who could blow up bridges and such during a war. Every summer, R’ Zalman had to show up for the reserves for several weeks in which he trained as a sapper.
As mentioned, when the war broke out, R’ Zalman was drafted and he began a round of intensive training for his mission to the front. In R’ Zalman’s division, as in the rest of the Russian army’s divisions, there were two commanders, a military commander and a political commander. This latter commander was called a politruk whose job was to oversee the soldiers’ loyalty to communist ideals. This politruk dogged R’ Zalman’s steps when he discovered that R’ Zalman kept kosher and did not eat from the mess hall. He said that R’ Zalman refrained from eating so that he would become weak and be sent home. However, R’ Zalman, who was a physically strong man, dismissed his comments and proved that he had the strength that a soldier needed, despite his not eating treif food, and that he was stronger than the gentile soldiers.
On Erev Yom Kippur, R’ Zalman asked the commander to exempt him from military training the next day and offered to do guard duty instead. The commander agreed, but emphasized that R’ Zalman also needed the permission of the politruk.
R’ Zalman approached the politruk apprehensively. People said he was a Jew who had abandoned religion, and surely he would figure out why R’ Zalman was asking for guard duty.
To R’ Zalman’s surprise, the politruk approved his request, but before signing it he said, “Zalman, I know the reason for your request. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur!” Then in an emotional voice he said, “Pray for me too.”
A SIMCHAS TORAH MIRACLE
R’ Zalman was going to be sent to the front two weeks later, the night of Simchas Torah. Whoever was sent to the front was very likely to be killed. Fortunately for him, a big miracle occurred. The plan was to send R’ Zalman’s division, along with a large shipment of weapons, to the front. By mistake, the weapons were sent before the division was ready. At precisely that time, there was a lull in the fighting and the commanders at the front said there was no need for additional soldiers, and the weapons that had been sent would suffice for the soldiers who were already there.
This wonderful news arrived the night of Simchas Torah, shortly before R’ Zalman was supposed to board a train for the front. The commander announced that everyone was free to go home for the time being. R’ Zalman immediately walked to the big shul for hakafos. His older son Chaim, who was standing on the steps of the shul, was surprised to see his father in the distance.
After Yom Tov they heard that the Russians had signed an agreement with the Germans to divide Poland, and so Russia stayed out of the hostilities for the meantime. A short while later, R’ Zalman was informed by the army that they had decided to transfer him from the sappers’ unit to the rear air defense unit. This unit was enlarged after the Russians saw the devastation the Germans inflicted on Poland, when they sent dozens of planes over Warsaw and bombed the city. The Russians decided to train thousands of soldiers for anti-aircraft defense in order to defend the cities in the rear during the war.
In the summer of 5700, when it came time for reserve duty, R’ Zalman was trained in anti-aircraft artillery fire. He also underwent training for fire containment, in case of fires that might result from aerial attacks.
FLIGHT TO SAMARKAND
In the summer of 5701/1941, the Germans violated the agreement they had signed with the Russians and they launched a large scale attack against the Russians. Russia, once again, joined the countries that were fighting the Germans, and all those subject to the draft were told to quickly report to their units.
R’ Zalman was in bed with a fever after coming down with severe pneumonia. R’ Yaakov Gansburg, a young bachur at the time, was staying in his house. When R’ Zalman heard on the radio about the outbreak of war, he begged him to run. R’ Yaakov listened to him and immediately traveled to Samarkand where he stayed for the duration of the war. Afterward, he obtained a polish passport and was able to leave Russia.
R’ Zalman could not flee both due to his health and because he held a red draft card that listed him as a soldier in the Russian army. The law said that all men from 18-40 had to have either a white draft card that indicated exemption from military duty or a red one that indicated that the carrier was an army draftee.
News about the Germans’ approach to Charkov was heard before Rosh HaShana 5702/1941. R’ Zalman and his family deliberated about whether to remain or run. In those days, Russians did not know that Germans were massacring Jews in the lands that they conquered and many Jews, who remembered the German soldiers in World War I, thought it was better to be subject to German rule than to remain under the Soviets.
In the meantime, R’ Zalman received notice from the army that as a soldier, his family was permitted, for free, to board a train traveling to the interior of the country, far from the front. After Yom Kippur, R’ Zalman consulted with three friends and they decided that R’ Zalman should remain and his family would leave.
R’ Zalman’s wife went with her mother and her three children, Chaim, Aharon and Nechama, on a train arranged by the army, and traveled to Saratov. It was a freight train and several families squeezed into each compartment.
German planes occasionally flew over and bombed the railroad tracks. This is why the trip that should have taken two days took eighteen days, and the food they had taken with them was not enough for the trip.
R’ Zalman’s son Chaim showed initiative and after discovering that one of the gentile families on board had a basket full of eggs, he bartered and took one hundred eggs in exchange for some items they had. Thus they were nourished by raw eggs for the remainder of the journey.
R’ Zalman’s father, his sister, and her two daughters, remained for a short time with R’ Zalman, but after a few days they also decided to flee. They paid a lot of money for places on a passenger train and also arrived in Saratov.
From Saratov, R’ Zalman’s family continued to travel on in the direction of Tashkent, where they stayed with their uncle R’ Benzion Shemtov. While there, his daughter became sick and could not continue traveling. She remained with her uncle, while her mother and brothers continued to Samarkand.
Shortly after they arrived, Chaim became sick with pneumonia that infected both lungs, and he was taken to the hospital. He saw the people around him dying like flies. There were so many dead that the hospital staff had no time to bury them all and the stench of the bodies wafted in the air. He realized that if he wanted to live, he had to get out of there quickly, but his temperature was very high and the doctors did not allow him to leave.
What did Chaim do? When the nurses came to take his temperature, he put the thermometer under the blanket where he shook it down, and then he gave it back to the nurse. After a few times that he returned the thermometer with reasonable temperatures, the doctors released him. He happily returned home where his family cared for him until he miraculously recovered. The one who helped him was Mrs. Sarah Kievman, who used her connections and obtained medications from America.
A BUTTER CURE
In the meantime, R’ Zalman remained alone, burning with fever, in his home in Charkov. On Shabbos B’Reishis, he felt stronger and he decided to go to shul. That day, the army had distributed the monthly salary to the soldiers and although he needed that money very much, he did not consider desecrating Shabbos for it and he remained in shul.
In the following days, as the German forces approached very close to Charkov, the Russian commanders realized that they would be unable to withstand the Germans and they told the soldiers to run away. Many of the gentile soldiers, who were unafraid of the Germans, did not flee but removed their uniforms and went back to civilian life. Although the Jewish soldiers had yet to hear of the German atrocities against their brethren, most preferred to flee and join their families in the interior.
The winter began and it was bitter cold outside. R’ Zalman, who was still sick, took along with him a handmade woolen tallis that was very thick and wrapped himself in it to protect himself from the cold. He fled Charkov through the forests that surrounded the city.
On his way out of the city, he met two Jews, relatives of his, who had connections in high places in the communist party. They told him that they had a horse and wagon with a large amount of food, mostly butter, which they had planned on selling on the black market. However, now they saw that the roads were full of mud and it was hard to travel in a wagon, and they preferred leaving quickly by train. They had gotten tickets from their friends in the party. They asked him to take the horse and wagon till Saratov and in exchange, he could eat from the food on the wagon.
R’ Zalman agreed and considered this outstanding divine providence. He traveled with the horse and wagon for two weeks and at night he stopped in villages along the way where he slept at the homes of the villagers and paid them with merchandise from the wagon. He ate a lot of butter, which greatly helped his infected lungs so that by the time he reached Saratov, he was completely healed.
R’ ZALMAN FINDS HIS FAMILY
After bringing the horse and wagon to the owners, R’ Zalman made inquiries about his family. He fortuitously met his aunt, Hinda Deitsch, the wife of R’ Menachem Mendel. She had been in Samarkand already and had returned to Saratov in order to take her daughter, Mirel Kugel, to Samarkand. She told R’ Zalman that his daughter Nechama was with the Shemtov family in Tashkent and his wife and sons were living in Samarkand.
As soon as he heard this, R’ Zalman set forth for Tashkent. He spent time in Tashkent until his daughter fully recovered and then took her with him to Samarkand.
YOU HAVE NO CHOICE: YOU ARE A DESERTER
R’ Zalman still wore his army uniform and held on to the document that stated that he was a soldier on leave and he had the right to travel throughout the country. After he settled in Samarkand, he was supposed to report to the military command in the district where they would certainly send him to the front. Most of the soldiers who had been sent to the front had been killed, and R’ Zalman did not know which was preferable – to go to the army or to remain in Samarkand and be in danger of being caught as a military deserter.
He consulted with a friend. The friend had experience and he wanted to absolve R’ Zalman of any doubt. He asked to see the red document and when R’ Zalman gave it to him, he ripped it. Now, said his friend, you have no choice. You are a deserter.
In order not to be caught in random identity checks carried out by the police, R’ Zalman grew his hair to give himself an older look and he added twenty years to his ID card. As a man of sixty, he was exempt from the army. A policeman once stopped him and after seeing his papers suspected they were forged, and ordered him to come to the police station. R’ Zalman bribed the cop who then released him.
When he had first arrived in Samarkand, he became sick again and was unable to work for a living. Having no other choice, his son Chaim went to the market and tried his luck at business. He was able to bring some bread home and mainly, products with fat that could heal R’ Zalman’s lungs.
Even during these difficult times, R’ Zalman ensured that Chaim learned Torah. He would get up at six in the morning in order to learn Gemara with a neighbor, R’ Eliyahu Chaim Roitblatt. It was very cold at that hour of the morning, even the water prepared for negel vasser was frozen, but nothing stopped them from learning.
R’ Zalman recovered half a year later and found work as a watchman in a factory. At that time, Yeshivas Tomchei T’mimim had opened a branch in Samarkand. R’ Zalman told his son Chaim to stop working and he sent him to yeshiva.
During the war, thousands of Jewish refugees from Poland stayed in Samarkand and the Russian authorities turned a blind eye to their religious practices. Those were years of relief, relative to the terrible years of persecution that the Chassidim suffered at the end of the 1930’s. R’ Zalman’s sons Chaim and Aharon learned with R’ Roitblatt and with R’ Moshe Robinson. Then Chaim went to yeshiva where he learned Nigleh by R’ Zalman Shimon Dworkin and R’ Eliyahu Plotkin, and Chassidus with the mashpia, R’ Nissan Nemanov.
After a while, R’ Zalman began to work in textiles in partnership with his friend R’ Naftali Junik. Like many Lubavitchers, they set aside large sums to support the Talmud Torah and Tomchei T’mimim, which operated in Samarkand and where hundreds of refugee children were educated.