Weekly Story: The Great Exodus

by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon

As I have noted during the past year, I am presently working on the two-volume biography of the Frierdiker Rebbe. The last few weeks, I have been mainly focusing on the chassidim’s exodus from Russia, after WWII, and the Frierdiker Rebbe’s involvement in it. While, many chassidim wrote about their personal story, in the book HaYetzia HaGedolah (The Great Exodus), it describes in detail the tremendous effort and mesiras nefesh of the organizers. However, it only begins from the five organized groups that left from Lvov (Lemberg) in 5707, until their relocating in France (or elsewhere). It does not cover the exodus of close to the five hundred chassidim who left Russia in the months of Sivan, Tammuz and Av of 5706 (1946). So in total it was around one thousand chassidim (men, women and children) who left Russia in those eight months.

The following is from my notes / initial draft on this chapter in Lubavitch history. I would appreciate whoever can add additional pertinent information.

In July of 5705 (1945) Russia and Poland signed an agreement that allowed Polish citizens who fled into Russia, in order to escape from the Germans, to return to Poland. The Polish government then affirmed that this agreement applies to Jews also.

While this was officially only for Polish citizens, many Russian citizens legally took advantage of this, as it applied to the spouses of Polish citizens as well. Furthermore, some Polish citizens were willing to sell their passports, while others had passed away and their passports were found and utilized by replacing the picture etc..

When the chassidim heard about this development, they sent a message to the Rebbe in New York asking him if they should try to utilize this opportunity to leave Russia, as if they were Polish citizens. Those who had married Polish citizens had no problem and they left, as it was legal for them.

Initially, the Rebbe’s response was to see how it works out and not to go if you would have to stay in Poland. However, after the Rebbe was informed that it is possible to leave Poland and continue onto other countries, he gave his blessings, especially after General Eisenhower instructed American troops to assist these additional refugees.

Thus began the rush to escape Russia. Everyone realized that if they would be caught they would be imprisoned, but seeing that others had succeeded gave them the courage to attempt to as well.

Initially, individual chassidim left on their own, without even informing other chassidim that they were leaving. This included some of the leading chassidim, whom the authorities were looking for. However, most chassidim thought that the Rebbe was still in general against it.

But as more and more chassidim left and then additional answers of the Rebbe became known everyone understood that the Rebbe agreed to try or was even in favor of it. So even those rabbonim and mashpiim that told people not to go, now said to go, and they themselves went.

Additionally, the Communists began asking about the ones in charge of the chadorim etc., so it became clear that the authorities are determined to stop the chadorim and will imprison or even kill those they consider stubbornly religious, and therefore, if at all possible, one shall leave.

However, being that the chassidim did not speak a word of Polish, they were afraid that the real Polish citizens on the train would create problems for them, so to minimize the time they were on a train together, the chassidim in general decided to board the train by the border town of Lvov (Lemberg), and they would travel to Lvov on their own.

As noted, I only have the dates from after Tishrei 5707, not the dates of the earlier organized groups. For example the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana, left during Av.

On the second day of Sukkos the first organized group left from Lemberg. Being that they were fearful that the authorities knew about it and may arrest them, it was a small group of a few families, totaling just thirty-two people.

After their successful escape, more chassidim were willing to take the risk and two weeks later a second group of Fifty-seven people left on the 4th of Cheshvan. 

When everyone heard that the second group also crossed the border without incident, many more decided to go. A few weeks later they processed many applications and prepared to send off two hundred forty-four people.

When they succeeded in crossing the border, people felt that Russia doesn’t care and many more families prepared themselves to go. However, prior to their leaving they had a scare that almost shut down the entire operation.

One of the organizers, Mrs. Tzippi Kozliner (wife of Chazak –  Chaim Zalman Kozliner) who was involved in this communal effort of helping fellow chassidim and was responsible to present the documents and receive the transit permit, was arrested when she brought in all of the Polish passports with the affixed pictures of the chassidim to the office that issued exit visas, and the police confiscated them all. So now the authorities knew exactly which chassidim were planning on leaving, how they looked and what Polish names they were going to use. So there was a discussion of halting or even canceling completely their departure, and indeed because of this they didn’t board the train that was waiting to take them.

But then a week or two later, after giving the officials additional bribes, all the passports were returned. After much thought, it was decided to go forward and on Tes Kislev they all boarded a different train to Poland. Boruch Hashem after a tense two hours at the border, where their ‘passports’ were scrutinized, they were allowed to proceed.

After crossing the border, their relief was tremendous and they spontaneously broke out is song, singing the niggun of Pudah B’Sholom Nafshi.

On the 19th of Kislev, another group of eighty people left. Then on the ninth of Teves another group of seventy-five people left.

Some time later some additional chassidim tried to leave and they were arrested by the border, bringing an end to the exodus. By then Russia was furious and instructed Poland to arrest those who had escaped. But, Boruch Hashem almost all of them had already left Poland to the DP camps in Austria. However, two chassidim were arrested, and through Reb Yitzchok Goldin’s intervention they were declared bonifide Polish citizens, and released.

So all in all, around five hundred people managed to leave Russia those three months through this organized effort. However, as noted around five hundred chassidim left on their own, aided by the organizer’s, in the spring and summer before this first group left on Sukkos. So in total around one thousand chassidim left between Pesach and the following Teves.

However, such an operation doesn’t happen on its own. Who supplied the funding for the bribes as well as the exorbitant cost of room and board while they were waiting illegally in Lvov. How did they know how to navigate Poland and cross the border to the D.P. Camps in Germany and other countries? And what was the Rebbe’s involvement in all of this?

The individual families that left Russia in the spring of 5706 (1946) obviously left on their own. However, when it came to the organized groups there was an entire support team of individuals whose dedication and mesiras nefesh made this a reality. Many of them could have left on one of the five trains that managed  to leave, but didn’t do so in order to help others leave and when they finally decided to leave, for many of them it was too late.

This is referring the vaad in Lvov, which included Reb Yonah Kahn of Poltava, who was arrested the following year and passed away in exile, Reb Mendel Futerfas who was arrested on the following train and sentenced to twenty years in exile. There was Mrs. Katzenellobogen, known as Mumme Sarah who was arrested and passed away in prison and many others.

Each one of them made connections with officials who after accepting bribes signed off on the papers. They also found the places of lodging and often covered the rent until the trains left.

With each group that left the danger was becoming greater and the prices for passports and bribery was going up, so they appealed to all Anash in Russia to help. By the time the fourth train left they established a Beis din of twenty-three Rabbonim who paskened that everyone has to give whatever they have including their jewelry in a communal fund for everyone, and even then they were desperately short, and they borrowed promising that the Rebbe would repay it once you arrive safely in Poland.

Reb Yitzchok Goldin who had managed to escape to Poland earlier and decided not to go to a DP camp, but to remain there to help his fellow chassidim escape from Russia, succeeded in convincing the JDC to help the religious refugees and they gave him two thousand zlotys per refugee, a total of ten thousand dollars.

Hearing of the possibility of saving additional Jews, he sent that money to the vaad in Lemberg Lvov, and then feverishly raised the money from Anash in Europe and America to cover it and use it to help them once they arrived in Poland as it was originally given for. But when the refugees did arrive he needed to provide for them or else later refugees wouldn’t receive any help, as the supporters would say that he misled them, so he borrowed money and after a while had to pay back but he had no way to do it.

He wrote to the Rebbe of the situation and the Rebbe instructed him to go to a certain individual and ask him in the Rebbes name for the money. This is just one time that the Rebbe covered the expenses.

To navigate the refugees out of Poland arrangements were done mainly with the Israeli underground, who although their main interest was to help Jews smuggle into Eretz Yisroel, they assisted and guided them to the DP camps in Germany and Austria.

However, the chassidim wouldn’t do a thing without the Rebbe’s guidance, especially after they were initially told that the Rebbe was against this move and then he said wait for an opportune time and to communicate openly with him was impossible, so how did it work.

Every correspondence between the Rebbe and chassidim was written in code (to bypass the censors) and it had to be deciphered. For example the Rebbe wrote that it is better to stay where there is Sholom Bayis (tranquility in the house) instead of going to a place where there isn’t.

This was informing the chassidim that right now, in Russia the authorities are not bothering you, while many Jews who had returned to their homes in Poland, were disappointed. They found that their houses have been repossessed by others, sometimes their own neighbors, who weren’t happy to see them. 

Sometimes they just refused to let them in their own homes and chased them away, while other times they killed them. Initially, Poland didn’t allow a refugee who returned to go to other countries and the other countries weren’t interested in dealing with Russian refugees, when they had their own headaches.

But after Poland allowed their refugees to seek greener pastures and especially after General Eisenhower instructed the American army to allow refugees and especially Jewish refugees to enter the crowded camps then the Rebbe told them now is the time to go. This was also written in code; “Grandfather wishes to see you.”

But the Rebbe understood that for this undertaking to succeed, there has to be a support system for them. So in Tammuz of 5706 he sent Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson to France to help out. After conferring with Rabbi Zalman Schneerson who was helping those refugees who had arrived in France, he established an office in Prague, Czechoslovakia, which was geographically close to the various DP camps. 

He visited the chassidim and reported to the Rebbe of the situation. Two months later the Rebbe instructed him to return to his Shul in America and to find a replacement. Ultimately, the office he established in Prague, was given to Rabbi Sholom Mendel Kalmenson.

A short time later the Rebbe appointed Rabbi Binyomin Goredetsky to open an office in France to help all Jewish refugees and to be his spokesman to the JDC, which now was willing to assist the Rebbe in these endeavors.

Then the Rebbe sent his son-in-law, the Rashag to Europe. The United States government granted him a permit to visit any place in Europe he wishes and even gave him a vehicle to travel around Europe. Shortly after arriving in Europe, he visited the DP camp of Poking, Germany and elsewhere, finding out the information the Rebbe needed to know, in order to help them move on and settle.

However, there was another purpose to his trip. That was to see if somehow additional families of chassidim can be spirited out of Russia. Just as Russia had permitted Polish citizens to repatriate; they were now dealing with Czechoslovakia and Austria to allow their citizens who also had fled into Russia because of the war, to return. The question was would it be possible for some chassidim to be included in this? 

While we are not aware of any success in this endeavor, a second mission of his did succeed.

As noted Mrs. Tzippi Kozliner and others were arrested, and the Rebbe sent his son-in-law, to help free her and others. After consultation with those involved, it was decided that the Rebbe should spearhead the effort. His efforts paid off, Mrs. Kozliner who was sentenced to a ten year sentence, was freed after serving only one year. Reb Berka Chein, who was sentenced for five years, was freed after one year and two months and Reb Berel Gurevitch who was sentenced to two years of labor, was sent to Poland a year and three months later.

These three individuals were in the prison system of the local police by the Lvov border, and there the bribes and connections were helpful. However, the chassidim who were imprisoned once the government decided to shut down the exodus of chassidim, were being held by the higher echelons and there bribery couldn’t succeed as they were too many people watching it.

Seeing the disparity in both the living conditions as well as the spiritual aspects of the various DP camps, the Rashag instructed the Lishka (office) in Paris to first help those who needed it the most; the refugees that are in Austria and then those in Poking. 

The first thing was to get them out of a DP camp and the lishka arranged that they can come as refugees to France 

Although this was a tremendous improvement both in their living condition and especially in the availability of giving their children a chassidishe chinuch, the problem remained that they were in limbo, the fathers were not granted working papers and like thousands of others saw no future 

Out of frustration, they complained that they have been forgotten about or at least are not a priority. 

Being that Rebbetzin Chana was also one of these refugees who had arrived in France, her son, our Rebbe, flew there to greet her and bring her to America.

While waiting for her papers to be processed, he would farbreng with the chassidim and on Lag B’Omer at a farbrengen, someone asked him to remind the Rebbe about them. As a reply he addressed this thought and demonstrated how far from the truth this was.

 On Tes Kislev this year, the Rebbe’s nurse entered his room to administer some medication and she noticed that there was no movement. Concerned she called in the Rebbetzin, who rushed into the room and after not receiving a response, she said, “He is joining his mother,” and instructed some students to summon me.

I rushed over to my father-in-law, and noticed his lips were moving, Bending down, I heard that he was saying the shira, Oz Yushir. I motioned to everyone to leave and that there was nothing to be concerned about and I remained there. Two hours passed until he said, “They crossed over [the border]” and then he ceased saying the shira. 

That is when the large group of chassidim were being checked by the border, and you think the Rebbe is not thinking about you?!! Shortly afterwards a telegram arrived informing the Rebbe that the group arrived safely.

After bringing the refugees out of the DP camps, the Rebbe began his efforts of rebuilding Yiddishkeit and the Lubavitch presence in Europe, Eretz Yisroel and elsewhere, as will be discussed in later chapters.

Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and the author of numerous books on the Rebbeim and their chassidim. He can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com