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Just Revealed “Survivors” Speak of Rebbe’s Time in Paris

The Fontainebleau Archive

BROOKLYN , NY [CHI] — In researching for documentaries, the team at Jewish Educational Media (JEM) regularly uncovers little-known details of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s life. One such recent discovery will be the focus of an enlightening feature in JEM’s upcoming Early Years IV film.

“About three months ago Professor Shyman called and told me she’d found a pair of documents of considerable interest to us” says Early Years producer Yechiel Cagen. Shyman, an American researcher in France, has helped JEM locate archived documents since work on their Early Years documentary series began five years ago.

Watching her comb through boxes in the French National Archive looking for the name ‘Schneerson’ and other relevant terms, a curator suggested that Shyman visit the Fontainebleau Archive outside of the city. There, she discovered a French citizenship application by the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and a French ID card application from his wife, Chaya Mushka.

“These findings have added a new dimension to the process of piecing together the Rebbe’s pre-War and wartime experiences,” explains Cagen. “Knowing that the Rebbe applied to become a French citizen has allowed us to explore a new avenue of research for the Early Years project.”

Like the people of their generation, a tragic story of displacement accompanied the documents for decades. After the German invasion of France in 1941, the French archives were looted and transferred to Germany. In 1945, the papers were transported – with millions of others – to Soviet-Russia, just as similar trains brought Jewish survivors towards Poland, France and Czechoslovakia. For nearly fifty years, the files remained hidden in Moscow’s secret Osoby Archive. With the fall of Communism in 1992, diplomatic intervention brought them back to France.

The couple never became French citizens. However, after the unlikely journey, survival, and eventual discovery, the two paper “survivors” will be presented in the Early Years documentary. “We have turned to additional sources to interview, and we have an angle on the saga that was not previously known,” says Cagen.

Since her find, Shyman has continued to search both the National and Fontainebleau archives for information that could help complete the picture of the Rebbe’s and Rebbetzin’s time in Paris.

The Early Years IV will debut in fall, 2008. Until then, says JEM’s Cagen, “The Early Years research team in New York and abroad have gained another thread of information to follow about the Rebbe’s life.”


ID card application of the Rebbetzin – Chaya Mushka Schneerson


Citizenship application of the Rebbe – Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson

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10 Comments

  • asher

    Doesn’t the Rebbes’s application say he was born on March 1, 1895 (1 Mars 1895)? That is neither the year we know nor the Hebrew date, Adar 5, 5655.

    Am I reading that right?

  • CAshliach

    The Rebbe’s official documents (immigration, naturalization) list his B-date as 3/1/1895.
    The concensus among researchers is that is was done to avoid the draft in Russia.

  • to asher

    to be accepted in the college and be allowed to leave the country he had to make up a date that made him older so he had a fake birthday written on his ID

  • Inda Know

    Russia was using the Julian calendar when the Rebbe was born (not the Gregorian we use now.

  • mendel

    Ashar sh’
    you are reading it right!

    the date on official documents from the rebbe were different then the actual dates as we know them,

    also interesting in acuality the rebbe was 13 months younger then the rebbetzin,
    but on paper he was a few years older
    read other seforim and you will realise it.

    i on the other hand try to find a deep reason for this intresting date the rebbe choose,

    may we have the zechus to see the rebbe reaveal himself and lead us to the geulah!!!

  • A.H.

    Yes, the Rebbe changed his official birthdate – I’ve heard that this was sometime in the ’20s, in order to get out of serving in the Russian army. Since then, all of his papers – including, I believe, his American citizenship – have the 1895 date. Why he picked March 1, I don’t know.

    So for example, in Igros Kodesh, vol. 1, there’s a letter from the Rebbe (in French), to R’ Yisroel Jacobson, in which he gives these “official” dates for the purpose of getting visas; the date there too is March 1, 1895.

    (The Frierdiker Rebbe did something similar; his “official” date of birth was sometime in 1871, even though he was actually born in 1880.)

  • Anonim

    BS“D

    Yes, it is known that there is a discrepancy between the dates on the Rebbe’s documents and his actual date of birth. This was done to outwit the Russian army draft.

    I believe the Rebbe himself once said that ”I am not as old as it says on my passport”.