238. Reb Mendel's Incredible Mesiras Nefesh In A Russian Prison

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kinderlach. I'm gonna share with you a story today about the great Hasid and baal mesirus nefesh, Reb Mendel Futerfas. I'm sure you already know that Reb Mendel Futerfas sat in prison for many, many years, and he worked in a very difficult labor camp for prisoners inside Russia, in Siberia. It all started because he helped hundreds of Jewish Hasidish, Hasidisha families come out of Russia. He was helping them by giving them passports as Polish citizens. Now what happened at the time is that this was after World War II. As you know, the Nazis, the Germans, yimach shemam, conquered Europe, and they conquered first Poland, and all the Jews from Poland, when they saw the Nazis coming, they knew that the Nazis wanted to kill all the Jews. So they... Many of them, many of them fled into Russia across the border, and many of them ended up in Siberia, but they were sur- they survived. The Russians didn't kill you. They made you work hard, but you could survive. But the Nazis were going to kill you, so this was a, a blessing. It was a good thing that you could run into Russia and save your life. So this, these people stayed in Russia, these Polish, uh, refugees, Jews, they left-- they fled Poland from the Nazis and stayed in Russia till the war ended, which is, um, five years later. After five years, when the war ended, the Russians told that all the thousands and thousands of Polish citizens that fled into

02:15 Russia should go back to Poland. The Russians didn't wanna hold on to them. They said, "Okay, you gotta go back to Poland." So in nineteen forty-six, which was right after the Wor- World War II, uh, many Polish people and Jews, mostly Jews, were going back to Poland. And they were given... Not only were they given the right to go back to Poland, they were encouraged to go back. The Russians wanted them to leave. On the other hand, the Jews, the Russian Jews, were not allowed to leave. Hasidim couldn't leave Russia, and as you know, at that time was such a very, very difficult time for Hasidim and Russian Jews who kept Torah mitzvahs, that the Russians were literally making their lives miserable and arresting them and shooting them, killing them. It was a terrible time for, for, for, for Hasidim. So Reb Mendel Futerfas said, "Listen, now is a great opportunity because the Russian government is now allowing Polish Jews to leave the, the country. So we will pretend we're Russian. We're Polish J- we're Polish Jews. We'll, we'll try to get passports of Polish people and we'll print Polish passports." Also, sometimes they had Polish people that decided to stay in Russia, and the Russians give them permission, so they sold their old passports from Poland to, to Reb Mendel Futerfas and his friends. And then they used those passports for Hasidim to leave Russia as Polish citizens. They used the, the other person's passports. And so it was a great opportunity because they

04:01 had these trains, special trains, where thousands and thousands of Polish citizens were allowed to leave and were actually made to leave Russia. So if we can sort of mix with those, with that group of Polish, Polish citizens and find a passport that says we're Polish, then we can easily leave Russia. And after asking the previous Rebbe through a secret message that was sent to the United States, where the Friediker Rebbe was at the time, the message came back that they should do it, and hundreds and hundreds of families were able to smuggle out of Russia without the KGB catching them, including my family. My mother's family was also amongst those that were able to leave and escape Russia. Reb Mendel also managed to get his wife and children out of Russia with those tr- special trains that were designated for the Polish, uh, Jews, and they say smuggled out his wife and kids. For himself, he wanted to stay a little bit longer because he felt there was still more Hasidim that needed to leave, and they couldn't leave on those trains, so he tried to help them. So he said to his family, "I'll come later at a later time. You go." They left, and they ended up in England, in London. There was... The place where people took the train to leave Russia to go to Poland was a city that was called Lemberg. Lemberg is not far from Poland. It's in Russia. It was not far from the Polish border. So when

05:46 Hasidim wanted to leave Russia, they would come first to Lemberg, and then they would try to find tickets. And then when they had tickets, they would, um, find a passport. Reb Mendel would provide hundreds of passports for people who needed to leave Russia, Polish passports, so they would pretend to be Polish citizens, and that how they would leave. But now that most of the Hasidim were able to leave on these special trains. But what happened was that after a while, the Russians said, "Okay, I think most, uh, if not all of the Polish refugees," refugees are people that ran away from Poland, from the Nazis, "they all went back, so that's it. We're no longer making these special trains for these refugees that had to go back to their homeland, to Poland, and that's it. It's over." So now became a problem because as long as they had these special trains, which were special for all these Polish, these Polish, uh, citizens who had to go back, you could sort of mix in with them and say, "Okay, I'm also a Polish citizen." But now that's it. Those trains stopped. They were no longer available. Now if you wanted to leave to Poland, you had to go on a normal train with a ticket and, you know, as a regular passenger. So Reb Mendel realized that there is, these special trains are no longer available, which means a special, it was a special opportunity they had to go on those special trains, but now they

07:13 can't do this anymore, and there were still some families in Lemberg that wasn't, weren't able to get onto the trains. So Reb Mendel thought, "How can we get all the other families out of Russia?" So he decided, you know, he and six other Hasidim are going to try. They're gonna buy regular tickets on a regular train where, like, people who are, you know, respected people, normal people, Russian, uh, citizens, officers, would travel on these trains, and would buy regular tickets, and we'll get Polish passports. We'll buy the passports from some people who were Polish and then decided to change their citizenship to Russian, and we'll take their passports. And we'll see. We'll, we'll..." They'll-- They arranged that they will take the train till right before the Polish border. That means still inside Russia. It was a small town. There, they already connected with someone who is going to smuggle them across the border, maybe through a car or a wagon. He's gonna-- He knew how to get around the border, and they would get, end up in Poland like that. And they, Reb Mendel said to the people in Lemberg who stayed in Lemberg, he said, "When we get to the Polish side on the other side and we're free, we'll send you a special message by telegram." Telegram is like you send a message through the mail. It's like a, it's, it's like goes fast. "And in the message, we'll ma-we'll make like a, a code, a, a hint. We'll say, 'Oh, the, the,

08:54 the, the, the aunt Russia is healthy.' That would be the code. That would be, like, a code message." If we-- You couldn't say, "Hey, we crossed into Poland and it was successful." The, the, the KGB would right away find out that this was a, these were Hasidim who smuggled out on false passport. So they had to make a, like a phony kinda message, but it will be a sign. So they made up in advance that if you, we get, "If you get a message from us, uh, the Aunt Russia is healthy, that's a sign that we successfully were able to pass, so maybe you should also try to do the same. But wait till we send you the message because let's first see if it's successful." Reb Mendel and the other six Hasidim embarked on the train, and they traveled. Reb Mendel began to notice that there is a somebody or, or maybe a couple of people are staring at him, and wherever he moves, they look at him. And he started feeling uncomfortable. He felt that maybe it's the KGB is aware that he is who he is, w-who he's really, that he's not, uh, that he's, uh, not supposed to travel on this train. But he couldn't do anything anymore because he was already on the train, and the stop before the final stop, they were gonna stop at a small town right by the Polish border, but the, the train stopped first at a, a different town. And when it stopped at

10:23 that little town, a few officers came up onto the train and said to Reb Mendel, "Okay, you all g-have to get off. You're under arrest." And they arrested them. You can imagine that the Hasidim in Lemberg never heard back from Reb Mendel and his friends that they crossed the border. They waited and waited and waited, but no message came, so people realized something terrible happened. And indeed, they were arrested, and these seven Hasidim were put in a, in jail. Hasidim in Lemberg found out that they were in a, in a very, very difficult jail in Lemberg. Then they, they tortured them, and they wanted them to tell, as they always did, the KGB tried to force Hasidim that they took prisoners that they must tell on other Hasidim that also wanna leave Russia. "Tell us about other Hasidim so they can arrest them as well." But as you know, Reb Mendel and, and his friends would never, Chas v'Shalom, say anything about someone else. Chas v'Shalom, get him in trouble. So they literally were willing to suffer all the torture in the world just not to say a word. The first thing they did to them, they fed them very little. They gave them very little food. Literally, they were starving. And, uh, and also they wouldn't let them sleep. They would, like, wake them up after two hours of sleep, say, "You gotta come to interrogation in the office." And they would interrogate them for like five, six hours till they were so exhausted

11:59 and say, "Okay, you can go to sleep." After two hours, they woke him up again. So when a person doesn't sleep enough and doesn't eat enough, your mind gets weak. So it's easy to convince the person to, to do what you, what, what you want. In other words, the KGB tried to make the person weak physically, so they wouldn't be able to be strong and say, "No, I'm not gonna say anything." They'll, they'll, they'll say anything, everything they, they want you to say because you don't have the strength. The Mendel used to say this is the same as the Yetzer Hara. When the Yetzer Hara wants you to do an aveira, first it makes you feel weak, that you feel like I don't have the strength to say no to my Yetzer Hara, and then he gets you, gets you to do the aveira. A Jew shouldn't allow that to happen. Don't let him make you weak, feel weak. You have the strength. Hashem gives every neshamah the strength to overcome every, every difficulty of the Yetzer Hara. And so that's what they did, and it was terrible time because these first few weeks they, they couldn't sleep, and they couldn't eat, and they tortured them. They beat them, but Mendel kept his mouth shut, didn't say a word about any other Hasidims. "I don't know. I don't know." One of the interrogators was a Jew, but the Jewish communists were much worse than the goyim. They would like-- They hated Torah and mitzvahs, and

13:23 they wanted to get the, the Frum, the religious Jews, the Frum Jews, the Hasidim, into a lot of trouble, so they would torture them even more. So this one Jewish interrogator made Rebbe Mendel's life very, very miserable. He would, like, insult him during the interrogations. He would tell him, "You know, you think that you're a big hero. You know, I know that all the Hasidim Chabad, everybody knows that you made passports for everybody, and you saved so many lives, and you know that they are, they are now in, in France, in Israel, in New York. They all went out because of you. You're such a big hero, and everybody's gonna-- Soon you think you're gonna come out of Russia too, and everybody's gonna make you into a big hero and give you a lot of covets for what you did. You're gonna become a, a famous guy, a celebrity. But I'm telling you that's not gonna happen. You're not coming out of here. You're gonna die a miserable death here in this prison." In one of those basements, they had basements where they used to kill prisoners. Uh, after a while, they would decide, "Let's kill the prisoner," they would kill him, and they buried him in some kind of a hole somewhere in the, in the prison. He said, "You're gonna end up there. Nobody will ever know where you are. You're never going to become a hero." And he would speak to him like this over and over again. Rebbe Mendel said, "You

14:46 know, I never in my mind even had a dream of, of, of getting covet for what I did, you know? I, I did this because I knew it was important. It was Mesirat Nefesh that every Jew should have for another Jew." But they made up these stories. "You probably think you're gonna be a big hero, and it's not gonna happen. You're gonna-- You're not coming out of here. You're going to die eventually here. We're going to kill you." And you can imagine that this kind of talking to someone makes you feel very bad, and they hope that when you feel bad, then you finally give up, you know. You tell them everything they want. "Okay, okay, what do you wanna know? I'll tell you everything." 'Cause you don't want them to torture you anymore, but Mendel was strong. He kept strong even through the worst type of torture. One day he was interrogated on a Shabbos, and the, the interrogator was a Jewish interrogator, and he said to Rebbe Mendel, "Okay, you gotta sign here because you have to sign that whatever, whatever answers you gave me is true. You gave those answers. You have to sign." Rebbe Mendel said, "Listen, it's Shabbos for me. I don't sign on Shabbos." So the, the interrogator, "What do you mean you don't sign on Shabbos? You have to. I'm telling you you must. Who are you to tell me that you're not signing on Shabbos? You're a prisoner. W-we can kill you with a-- I can sh--

16:10 Here, as I have a gun, I can shoot you if you don't sign. What do you mean you're not gonna sign? You have to sign." Rebbe Mendel said to him, "Listen, Shabbos is over in, in an hour. Wait an hour, and I'll sign. I'ma gladly sign, but it's Shabbos. I'm not gonna sign on Shabbos. Impossible. I'm not going to sign on Shabbos." So the interrogator got angry, really, really mad at him, and he said to Rebbe Mendel, "Mendel, I'm gonna take your hand. I'm gonna bend your finger by force and put a pen in there, and I'm gonna make you sign. I'm gonna torture you till you sign the paper." And he started jumping on Rebbe Mendel and grabbing his hand and trying to force him, and Rebbe Mendel was quite strong. He fought. They didn't let him do it and fight-- It was fighting back. And, and the guy was ready to kill him. Just at that moment, a nes happened. Somebody walked into the room. He was a very important officer of the KGB, a goy. When he saw what was happening, that Rebbe Mendel, a prisoner, is being in a fight with a, with the interrogator, he said, "What's going on here?" The interrogator says, "Hey, this guy is a chutzpanik. He's a, he's a mechutzafa. He's a-- He doesn't, he doesn't-- W-I told him he needs to sign this document, and he doesn't want to." So Rebbe Mendel right away said, "Well, I told him I will sign the paper, but

17:32 actually by now it's only ten minutes away. Shabbos is over in ten minutes. I can sign in ten minutes, but I can't break my Shabbos." But the high-- It was a nes because that this very important officer, he was much more important than the interrogator. He said to the interrogator, "What do you care? Wait ten minutes. He just wants to wait ten minutes, so it's okay. Let him wait ten minutes. Well, why are you fighting with him?" And that's when Rebbe Mendel's life was saved. Another thing they did is they wanted to make people eat treif. They knew Rebbe Mendel and his, his friends, the Hasidim, they wouldn't touch treif. They would even starve not to eat treif. So they used to bring into the room when they had the interrogation a very, very special cooked treif meat and treif food, and they knew the prisoners were so starved. They're like cr- craving for food. They hadn't eaten in days. And when they put in the, the, the treif food, they hoped that they wouldn't be able to stop themselves, and they would eat the treif. And once you eat the treif, you feel like, "Ah, okay, I ate treif, so that's it. I'm no longer a, a good Jew," right? So they tried to make them. And Mendel says, "No. We knew that they'd dafke bring in treif food to make us eat, and we-- none of us touched that food." Now, here comes an amazing thing which shows how great Reb Mendel is.

19:03 This interrogator, this Jewish interrogator that was the worst, he was the worst interrogator, he was ready to kill Reb Mendel for not doing what he wants, was caught by the KGB doing something bad. I don't know what he did. Maybe he stole money, or he did something. He committed a crime, and they brought him to court. And part of the, the, the, the, the judgment against him, they would ask prisoners who he interrogated whether how he treated them. They wanted to see whether if, if, if he's a bad guy. So they asked Reb Mendel also, "How d- how did he treat you?" And of course, he was the most terrible interrogator Mendel ever had. And, you know, they asked him, "Was, was he treating you well?" And Mendel realized, "But he's a Jew. I can't tell, uh... What am I gonna tell about him and get him into trouble?" And he said nothing. Even though this guy beat him and insulted him and, and, and, and was r- almost killed him once, Reb Mendel decided, what does it say? The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, "We have to learn from Yosef how he treated his brothers." You remember the brothers of Yosef? When Yosef was seventeen years old, they sold him as a slave to the Mitzrayim. That's a terrible thing they did, right? Then, as you know the story, you learned the Chumash, mmm, years later, Yosef was already the second to the king of Paroh. He was in charge of Mitzrayim, and he

20:46 brought his family over, and he gave them food. And then Yaakov Avinu passed away. And then the brothers were afraid that Yosef is gonna take revenge with them, and Yosef said, "No, no. Chas ve'shalom. You think you did this? You didn't sell me as a slave. Hashem made it happen because He needed me to be here so I can give you food that I give you what, in a time of hunger." So the Alter Rebbe says that every Jew should be-- use Yosef as an example, that even if somebody wrongs you and tortures you, you should always believe it's really coming from Hashem. It's not coming from them. Hashem is doing it. Hashem has a reason why He needs to-- you need to go through the suffering, and Hashem knows why, and, and we don't question Hashem. This person is used as the messenger by Hashem, and therefore, a person should not hold it against him, against the person, but should know this comes all from Hashem. He's just an agent, just a messenger. And that's how Reb Mendel did. He, Reb Mendel followed this example of, from Yosef, that even though this interrogator made his life terrible, terribly miserably and suffering him, make him suffer, he didn't say a bad word about him to the KGB. And with that, he was able to spare him a lot of, a lot of suffering.