12 Pages of Tzemach Tzedek's Handwriting Disappeared; 3 Were Found

00:02 Two pages, of the Tzemach Tzedek was returned today to the library of Hagudas Hasid Chabad, the Central Lubavitch Library from the Russian Military Archive in Moscow. The Russian Military Archive returned pages from the Chabad collection in Moscow to the Chabad Library? Not yet. We still hope that should be very speedily, but not yet. So how was these pages from the military, Russian Military Archive returned to Chabad Library today? For that, I will have to tell you the long journey of these two pages in the last eighty-three years, starting in the winter of nineteen forty, Tov Shin, in the collection of the Friediker Rebbe in Otwock, until today when it came back. How it was in the Friediker Rebbe's collection, and then how it went to the American Embassy in Warsaw, and then how it went to the German Nazi Army, and then how it went to the Russian Army, and then how it went to the military archive of the Russian Army in Moscow, and then how the curator of the military archive sold them to one of the book dealers, and then how this book dealer tried to sell it in auction in Israel, and then finally how one of the Hasidim of Chabad purchased it back and returned it today to the Central Chabad Library. When the Friediker Rebbe was saved from Nazi-occupied Warsaw in the winter of Tov Shin, nineteen forty, he stored three large crates of manuscripts, mainly of the Rebbe, in the American Embassy in Warsaw for safekeeping till they

03:10 will have a chance to bring it with them to the States and return it to the Rebbe in New York. It was there for about two years till the American Army went into war against the Nazis. Then the Nazis confiscated the American Embassy in Warsaw and everything that is in it, including these three crates of manuscripts of Chabad. They divided it into two parts. The larger part, several hun- hundred of volumes of manuscripts in Halakha and Hasidus, they didn't find a special interest in that, and they put it for safekeeping in the public library in Warsaw. But several boxes, in all about twenty-five thousand pages, they felt they have some meaning for the history of the Jewish nation. They took it with them, and they included it into the museum that they prepared for the Jewish nation. It was in their hands for several years till the end of the war, where they were defeated by the American and Russian, Russian army. The Russian army took this material of the museum. They took it with them to Moscow, and they stored it in the milit- military of archive in Mos- Moscow, where for over fifty years, no one knew what's there. In the end of the twentieth century, we were notified that there are several boxes in that archive from the Chabad Rebbe . We tried to convince the Russian government to return it to us. It didn't help, so we approached them with the federal court in Washington that gave out a decree they

06:15 should return it all. Till today, we still didn't succeed them to return to us the material, not from the general library and not from the military archive yet. So at least they agreed to copy this part of the archive for us for a high price of more than a dollar for each page to copy. These Xerox copies of about twenty-five thousand pages are in this central library, Chabad library, since then. In several years later, in the year of twenty-oh-nine, we have edited and published a volume of the responsa of the Tzemach Tzedek according to these manuscripts that is still in Moscow that we have copies of. One of these volumes that was in the military archives, and we have the copy of it, we gave it the number of one thousand twenty-one. Includes halacha and responsa of the Tzemach Tzedek in his handwriting. But there are twelve special pages in that volume. There are pages of she'elot of rabbonim that sent a letter, a question to the Tzemach Tzedek. And on that page of the she'elah, the Tzemach Tzedek responded with his handwriting. Interesting that on the she'elah that he received, he wrote the answer, and afterwards it was bound in a volume together with his handwriting of other parts of halacha and responsa. In that same year, twenty-oh-nine, we were notified that twelve pages of this volume of Ksavot Kodesh of the Tzemach Tzedek was torn out from the original bound manuscript by the curator of the military archive, the Russian military archive in

09:37 Moscow, and sold them to a book dealer. We approached the court that gave the order that they should be returned to us by the book dealer, but we didn't succeed yet. He sold it in an auction, and two of these pages, of these twelve pages, was purchased by a Chabad Hasid and returned today to the central Chabad library. Where are the other ten pages that was torn out of the original handwriting bound volume and sold to a book dealer that he sold it in an auction to collectors? We still don't know. We hope, we really hope that very speedily these pages, together with the whole collection of Seforim and manuscripts of the Rabbeim that are still in Russia, should be happily returned to the Chabad central library, the library of Agudas Hasidei Chabad.