Weekly Story: Write Your Notes in German

In the minhagim for Yud Shevat, the Rebbe writes we should relate to our children about the greatness of the Frierdiker Rebbe. So this weekthe story will be about the Frierdiker Rebbe and iy”h next week a story that is connected with the Rebbe.

There was a Jewish family that moved from Germany and settled in England some years before WWII. When their son graduated from high school, he informed his parents that he would like to continue his secular education and learn in a University. The parents weren’t happy and they tried to persuade their son, not to.

After long conversations, they all agreed that they will write to the Rebbe who lived then in Poland and ask him for his guidance. Whatever the Rebbe replies, we will abide.

The Frierdiker Rebbe’s reply was, the boy can attend the University, however, he should write all his notes in German, not English. The parents, although they didn’t expect this answer, kept their word and enrolled their son in a University. However, no one could understand why the Rebbe instructed him to write all of his notes in German.

Some years passed and WWII broke out. At one point during the war, the English government had a dilemma; “What should we do with the citizens that came from Germany? How are we going to know that they are not spies?

After much deliberation, they decided to expel all those who left Germany, in the past few years. They will be sent to the Island of Australia. There the people won’t be in a position to cause any harm as Australia is quite a distance from England. So they don’t have to imprison them there, there they would be able to live as they desire. Notices were sent to all German emigrants, including this family, that they have to board the boats that were chartered for this purpose.

They boarded the boats, taking along almost all of their possessions and embarked to this new frontier. This family also boarded the boat. A few days in the journey, the captain of the boat sounded an alarm; They were spotted by a German Submarine. He announced we must lighten the load and therefor all passengers may keep only one valise or box, everything else must be thrown overboard.

The people were scared for their life and obeyed this instruction and shortly afterwards there were hundreds, and indeed thousands of valises floating in the water.

Then to everyone’s fright, the German submarine rose out of the water and everyone became petrified. But to their astonishment and tremendous relief, the captain of the submarine signaled that they should proceed on their journey. No-one could believe their good fortune, but who was going to complain and they couldn’t fathom why the German submarine escorted them almost all the way to the Shore of Australia.

After the war ended, the captain of that German submarine published his memoirs and explained what had transpired. He wrote, We saw it was flying with a British flag and I positioned my to torpedo it. However, at that moment we remembered that a week or two earlier, one of our submarines brought down an enemy boat, but we later found out that it was full of German nationals, so we were being careful not to make a repeat of that mistake, as it caused a tremendous uproar in Germany.

Therefore when I noticed the suitcases and valises floating all over the water, I came up and ordered my men to bring in one valise, and we will inspect it. I opened it up in the presence of the crew members and they all were mesmerized by beautiful handwriting and high level vocabulary. We all concluded this must be a boatful of educated and cultured German nationals who were being banished from England, because they were once Germans.

So, not only wouldn’t I take it down, I wanted to make sure that no other boat harms it.

This my friends is the vision of the Frierdiker Rebbe, he allowed a Jew to attend University on condition that his notes are all in his native tongue. Because of this, countless of Jewish families wewre saved

Last year I repeated this story in Cheder Menchem in Los Angeles. And the Principal Rabbi Sholom Heidingsfeld said afterwards, when he was a student in a Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, a Jew from Australia made an announcement that he is inviting all Australian yeshiva bochurim to a special seudah. In midst of the seudah he explained, I am making this meal in order to thank Hashem for his great kindness and related how he was saved on that boat.

The author can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com