Reb Mendel’s Life in Vivid Detail

In a new book My Gulag Life: Stories of a Soviet Prisoner, the moving stories of Reb Mendel Futerfas are told in vivid detail and he was known to tell them.

“Rough-hewn and unpretentious in his Russian cap and bushy white beard,” the jacket of the book says, “Reb Mendel Futerfas was a legend in his own time. He endured eight years in the Soviet Gulag and a seventeen-year separation from his family.”

With over eighty pictures and documents, many published for the first time, the book tells of Reb Mendel’s challenges, triumphs and the lessons he derived from them. 

“In one camp, I was assigned to raise pigs,” he said, “It was a dirty and unpleasant job, but compared to other work I had done in other camps, it was easy.” 

During one break, the other prisoners struck up a foolish conversation with Reb Mendel. He left and sat alone, but the others tried to cajole him into joining them. After a while, the book tells, he got very irritated and told them, “If the pigs we care for could speak, they would more or less be discussing the things coming out of your mouths.”

After that, Reb Mendel concluded, “they left me alone.”

In another story, Reb Mendel tells the story of how the Rebbe Rashab, when he was seven years old, “I traveled to Lubavitch each year to spend the High Holidays with the Rebbe Rashab.”

Named after his father, who passed away before he was born, was alone in the crowd. Suddenly, the Rebbe Rayatz approached him, “My father is looking for you.”

He told him to stand next to the Rebbe Rashab, and the Rebbe would tell me what he wanted. The Rebbe Rashab came in, immediately took note of me, and called me over. During Birchas Kohanim—when children typically stand under their father’s prayer tallis—the Rebbe Rashab said that he should stand with him under his tallis.

The book includes biographical sketches by Dovid Zaklikowski, and includes personal essays by Reb Mendel’s son, Rabbi Berel Futerfas, and his grandchildren. 

The new book is available Hasidic Archives and at a discount when ordered with In the Trenches: Stories from the Frontlines of Jewish Life .