90. The Previous Rebbe Watches Chassidim Escaping Communist Russia From His Room In 770

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kindelech. Yud Shvat is around the corner, so I wanna share with you a story with the Friediker Rebbe and, uh, something that happened to my family. As you know, that the Friediker Rebbe, when he lived in Russia, had tremendous mesirus nefesh to hold up Yiddishkeit and Torah and mitzvahs amongst the thousands and hundreds of thousands of Jews . And he was imprisoned and, uh, he, he wanted Chassidim also to have mesirus nefesh. He asked Chassidim to go all the way to mesirus nefesh to keep up Torah and mitzvahs. My mother, alav ha-shalom, used to tell the story how they had mesirus nefesh not to go Shabbats in school, and how her father would take every Sunday the thermometer which you measure the temperature. He would put it, he would put it on the hot water so the temperature would go up high. Then he would go to the principal of the school and explain why his kids couldn't come to school Shabbats, 'cause they were all sick. And he showed her the thermometer, "See? That's the amount of temperature they had." But he did this every Sunday, and that became a little bit strange, and they became suspicious that, uh, why are they always sick on Shabbats? And one day a doctor came from Moscow, from the big city, and the school said that they need to, uh, check out the sickest children in the city, and my mother and her sisters were on top of the list. And they invited them to

02:04 come to the city hall where they lived, and the doctor, the big doctor, checked them out. You know, he examined them and he said there was nothing wrong with those kids. They're not really sick. It's Shabbats. They must be religious Jews, frum Jews. That's why they don't show up in school. And when the principal heard that, he sent a very, very serious message to my mother's parents and said that, "If you don't send your kids to school, we'll send you to Siberia, and your children will be taken to a orphaned place, a orphanage." It's a place where children without, children without, uh, parents live amongst goyim and they'll f- they feed them chazer, treif. So they were thinking, "What can we do?" My mother, her sisters, and her parents, "What can we do?" Then they came up with the idea, "Well, we'll have to go to school, but since we don't wanna be mechallel Shabbats, my g- my mother will have her finger cut. By cutting her finger she'll have a bandage that will show blood, and she'll tell the teacher, 'I can't write. Look, I ha- I hurt myself and I cut my finger by mistake.'" The teacher, the teacher's not gonna be able to do anything 'cause she's gonna see clearly that there's blood there on the bandage. But my grandmother didn't wanna do this. You know, a mother... It's very hard for a mother to go and cut with a knife the finger of her seven, eight-year-old daughter and, uh, do this

03:49 every S- every Friday so that by Sun- by, by Shabbats she could show the teacher the finger that is bleeding. But my mother would tell to her mother, "Please do it. It doesn't hurt." She would like, you know, tell her mother to do it. You can see how much mesirus nefesh the children had. The children were very excited about having mesirus nefesh for Shabbats and for kashrus. So my mother told her mother not to be afraid and it's fine, it doesn't hurt, because my mother didn't wanna write on Shabbats. And not because her parents told her so, 'cause she wanted it. She had to tell her mother to cut her finger. And so she would do this every Friday, she would cut her finger, and my grandmother couldn't look at it. She would turn her face the other way and cut the finger so she wouldn't have to see how she's cutting her little girl's finger. But my mother would say, "No, it's fine. It's fine. I, I love it," 'cause she didn't wanna write on Shabbats. The Friediker Rebbe managed to get mesirus nefesh even in the children. The children were excited to have mesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit. So we know what the Friediker Rebbe did for the Chassidim in Russia. He turned them all into great baalei mesirus nefesh, and even the children, as I said before. But then came a time when it became s- almost impossible. The, um, communist government of Stalin was very cruel and many Chassidim were captured and

05:25 sent away to Siberia never to be seen again. Many of them, we never saw them again. They were shot dead or they died from starvation or because it was freezing cold below zero, 40 below zero, and they would die from the frost, from the cold. Many thousands have died, uh, because they were Jewish, because they kept Yiddishkeit. So it became a decision that we should try to escape Russia. But how do you escape Russia? A Jew who lived in Russia could not leave the country. But there was one thing, if you were a Polish citizen, not a Russian citizen, but a Polish citizen, and you had a Polish passport, you could leave. So there was a very famous Hasid, Reb Mendel Futerfas, who printed fake passports, Polish passports, and put in them the name of the different Hasidim and their families and their children. And he gave out these passports to hundreds and hundreds of Hasidim. He said, "Listen, you pretend you're a Polish citizen. These are fake passports. When the police asks you what citizen you are, you say, 'I'm Polish,' so I should be able to leave." And thanks to that, hundreds and hundreds of Hasidim left in 1946, Taf Shin Vav. Many, many left Russia through these, uh, fake passports, but many were also caught because the KGB was spying on the people, and they found Hasidim that had fake passports. And when they got onto the train, before they crossed the border to go into Poland, the KGB would take them

07:03 off the train and send them away to Siberia. Many of them were never seen again. But my mother and her family wanted to leave Russia. It was the last train that was able to leave Russia. So many, many Hasidim wanted to leave on that last train. It's the last chance to leave with these fake passports. So only the last train left on a Shabbos. Now, these Hasidim have Mesirut Nefesh for Shabbos, but here they decided it's a one-time thing that we're gonna go on a train on Shabbos in order to be saved forever. We'll be able to keep Shabbos and Kashrus freely without being in danger. So the, all the Ch- Ch- Rabbanim and Mashpiyim of Chabad in Russia got together, and they made a Psak Halacha that all the Hasidim should leave as quickly as they can, and even if it's Shabbos. But one thing, they're not allowed to take with them any clothes or any belongings, anything. No money, no nothing, 'cause it's Shabbos. Only thing they can take is the clothes that they're wearing. They can, of course, be dressed in their clothes, and also Tallis and Tefillin. Tallis and Tefillin shouldn't leave behind. That's all they took with them, and hundreds of Hasidim got onto the train, but everybody knew that the danger is not over. In fact, the danger was getting bigger and bigger because as they approached the border of Russia with Poland, the train opened up, and there were the KGB officers with guns and dogs coming onto

08:47 the train to try to get Jews that they knew had fake passports off the train. And, um, so my mother says she remembers that when they got onto the train, they, uh... she could hear the pounding of people's hearts. People's hearts were, like, pounding from fear. People were... You know when people get very scared, your heart starts racing and pounding very hard 'cause you're very, very scared? So she could hear literally hearts around her pounding from so, so much fear. People were... You know, you knew that if they catch you by the border, and they have your name on a list, and they take you off the train, you'll be sent to Siberia. You'll never come back, or you may never come back. So they knew that when the train reaches the border, the KGB will one last time come onto the train, and we don't know what they're gonna do. And exactly that's what happened. They traveled for a few hours. They got to the border, and by the border the k- the police was right there, the KGB. They opened up the doors and started shouting with a piece of paper in his hand, and he said, "I have a list of many people here that are on this train that are traveling with fake Polish passports, and I t- I'm telling them now they must get off the train now 'cause if they don't, and I'm getting onto the train to pull them off, it'll be much worse." And they said basically

10:24 they're gonna get killed right away. They must come off as soon as their name is being called out. Now, unfortunately, many names of people on the train were on that list. My mother's older sister was on that list. My mother's first cousin, a woman, a mother of a small child, who was traveling on the train and holding her baby, was also on that list. And they were all called out by their names and say, "Please come off." And then the officer said, "Don't think you're gonna hide from me because I have pictures of you, and I'm gonna come on with my dogs and my other soldiers. I'm gonna have a flashlight. I'm gonna shine the flashlight in everybody's face and look at the picture, and if I recognize you from the picture, you'll be in a lot of trouble." And when they said a lot of trouble, it meant, Chas v'Shalom, you're gonna get killed. But it was decided before they got onto the train a few hours earlier, all the Hasidim decided that if your name is called, you pretend you don't know that this is your name. You act as if it's not you, and that's what everybody did. Nobody responded. They came onto the train with their dogs and their rifles and guns and flashlights, and they started shining the flashlight in everybody's face, looking deeply into everybody's face and looking at the pictures to see if they recognize somebody on the picture. My mother's first cousin had a picture of her,

11:57 a very clear picture, and they shone the flashlight in her face three times. They went through the whole train three times, and they've shone the flashlight in her face three times, and they had her picture in their hands, and they still didn't recognize her. In the end, no one came off the train. They couldn't-- For some reason, they couldn't fi- you know, recognize anybody, and they just closed the door and the entire train left. It was unbelievable, a nes min hashamayim. They crossed into Poland, and you can imagine that my mother says she was a young girl. She couldn't even imagine living in a, in a, in a country where you don't have to look over your shoulders every time when you walk the street, uh, see if the KGB is following you. The whole idea that you can be free and do mitzvahs and learn Torah, and you don't have to be scared was very, very, very strange, but it was very exciting. They were free now. This is the story that my mother told, but that's not the end of the story because a year later, the Rebbe, not the previous Rebbe, the Rebbe, our Rebbe, who was the son-in-law of the Friediker Rebbe, went to Paris because his mother came from Russia. She came through Paris, and the Rebbe went to bring and welcome his mother through Paris back to New York City. So the Rebbe traveled to Paris on Tu Bishvat nineteen forty-seven. In Erev HaBrakhin, the Rebbe told an amazing

13:35 thing, an amazing story that he himself had seen with his own eyes, and he described how one Shabbos a year earlier, the Friediker Rebbe was sitting in his wheelchair. As you know, the Friediker Rebbe suffered from a massive stroke after he came to America. It was all because of the suffering he had in prison in Russia. They were beating him, and from that he got very sick. Eventually, he had a stroke. That means he couldn't move or walk. He had to be in a wheelchair all the time. We couldn't even understand what he was saying. His speech was not very clear. This was the last years of his life. So one Shabbos morning, he says the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe, my father-in-law, was sitting in his wheelchair, and a nurse came in to ask him how he's doing, how he's feeling. The Friediker Rebbe had a nurse that was taking care of him. When she came in, the previous Rebbe didn't answer anything, didn't respond, didn't shake his head. Normally, he would shake his head even though he couldn't speak, but he would shake his head, you know, in a friendly way saying hello. This time he didn't say anything, was just staring, like in the space, staring. She thought it was a problem. Maybe there's something happened to him because when a person has a stroke and they don't answer, that means maybe they're getting another stroke. It's a dangerous thing. So she went quickly outside and told the family that the Friediker Rebbe,

15:08 I think there's something wrong with him. He's not moving. He's not answering. He's not responding. So the Rebbe says that I went into the room, to my father-in-law's room, and I looked at him. I see that he's moving his lips. He's saying something quietly. So I bent down to hear what he's saying, and he was saying Az Yashir from this week's parasha, the shirah that the Jewish people sang when they crossed the Yam Suf. When they crossed the Yam Suf, this was the last final time when they were saved from the Egyptians, right? Until Kriyas Yam Suf, they weren't totally saved from the, from Mitzrayim because when they left Mitzrayim, then Pharaoh chased after them. After Kriyas Yam Suf, they were truly free. So when the Yidden crossed the Yam Suf, and they saw the big nisim, that Hashem is really saving them completely from Mitzrayim, they sang the song, the shirah. The Friediker Rebbe was singing the shirah, saying the shirah word for word quietly, and he was going through the whole shirah once, twice, and three times, and then when he finished, he looked to the Rebbe, his son-in-law, and with a smile on his face he said in Yiddish, "Doch gegangen." They crossed. Baruch Hashem. Nobody understood what he was saying. But Motzaei Shabbos, that Motzaei Shabbos, they got a telegram from Poland where the Chassidim announced to the Friediker Rebbe that there was nis and nisim, but they all crossed the border, and not a single person was taken off the

16:51 train. So now everybody understood that the Friediker Rebbe knew that they were in a lot of trouble. That's why he was saying the shirah. And when he finally said the third time, the nes happened that all the doors of the train was closed, were closed, and the train left. So everybody realized that when all these Chassidim were on the train, and they were afraid, and they knew who knows what's gonna happen, and the Friediker Rebbe saw this. He was sitting in his wheelchair in Brooklyn in New York, and he saw, baruch hakodesh, that they were in trouble now. So he said the shirah, and with the shirah he brought down the nisim that saved all these Chassidim.