11321 - Elul 21 – Chabad History

00:00 The Yemei Chabad, um, the days in Chabad, we're talking about the twenty-first day of Elul, Chof Alef Elul, and this is unfortunately a sad day. Um, this is-- we're talking about nineteen thirty-nine. Uh, that is when the, uh, first... uh, the Second World War, uh, you know, started and, um, the previous Rebbe moved from Otwock, where he was, and he traveled to Warsaw on his route to, uh, Riga, to Latvia. Um, on the twenty-first day of Elul is when he left Otwock, and he went to Warsaw in order to continue his, um, journey. He wanted to get to, um, Latvia. He wanted to get to Riga, and the way to get there was through Warsaw. He had to go through Warsaw to get there. Um, as the war, Second World War broke out and the, uh, Germans, uh, yimach shemam, may their name be erased, they entered Poland and, uh, the Rebbe decided, the previous Rebbe at the time, he decided to leave Otwock and to go back to Riga, to Latvia, which he originally, when he left Russia in nineteen twenty-eight, he moved to Latvia, then eventually he moved back to-- then he moved to Poland, and then he-- in-- because in Poland, first he lived in Warsaw, then he lived in Otwock, and now he decided that he's gonna go back to Latvia. Is Otwock in Poland? Yes. On the twenty-first day of Elul, uh, in nineteen thirty-nine, this was Tuesday. That's the twenty-first day of Elul. At three in the afternoon, the

02:12 previous Rebbe left the city of Otwock in which he lived for four years. Many of the people of the city of Otwock came to say goodbye to the Rebbe and to be blessed by the Rebbe. But you can tell that the Rebbe was very, very, very bitterness. There was a lot of pain in his eyes. Uh, before he left the city, he said to the people that gathered, he said to them, "May you be healthy. Accept upon yourself the yoke of the heavenly kingdom. And the God-- And the king guards his servants. And we Jew, Jewish people are sons of Hashem. God will protect you wherever you may be, and Hashem will protect us wherever we are." And the Rebbe cried a lot at the time that he left the city of Otwock. When the vehicle in which the Rebbe and his family were on the way to Warsaw, uh, they began to bombard, the Germans began to bombard all the vehicles that were, uh, traveling. Uh, all the people left, abandoned their vehicles, and they hid on the side of the road. But the previous Rebbe said to his family members that they have nothing to fear since, as Rebbe said, "My father," which is Rebbe Rashab, "is working for us now." So he's, he's, he's working for us. Nothing to fear. When the previous Rebbe arrived to Warsaw, they found out that because of the war, there is no possibility to travel from Warsaw to Riga, and he needed to remain therefore in

04:07 Warsaw until the second day of Teves. It's approximately, uh, three months, uh, Tishrei, Cheshvan, and Kislev to the second day of Teves, and the f- the fifteenth, about three and a half months he stayed. It was miraculous how he was able to leave, um, Warsaw and then arrive in the Riga. Um, it was very, very, uh, terrifying days, those days in the beginning of the war to be in, uh, Warsaw as described by the Rebbe in other places. What happened then is that, uh, they had a, um... Uh, American government at that time has not yet gotten involved in the war, uh, didn't take sides, was neutral. The Germans were trying to sort of, uh, still work with the Americans, and the Americans put up a lot of pressure on them, and they, um, actually had a Jewish person who served in World War I dress up with the, uh, uniform of the, uh, German army. And, um, what happened was that the American consul in Poland, um, got instructions from Washington to extract the Rebbe and send him off to Riga. But, uh, the people came to look for the Rebbe, and being that they were afraid to reveal that the Rebbe is there, so strangers came saying, "Where's Rabbi Schneerson? Rabbi Schneerson?" And they said he's not there out of fear, but they didn't realize that these people came to actually save the Rebbe. And, um, and the Rebbe needed to go from In order to get to Latvia, to Riga, he needed

06:07 to actually go from Warsaw to, um, Berlin, into the lion's den, so to speak, and from there to make his way to, to Latvia. So this soldier who dressed in the, um, uniform of the, uh, German was able to miraculously-- They were stopped many times on the way, and he showed the people that there was an order from the German, uh, consulate that the Rebbe must be brought over there. Uh, they consider them being captives. They were like captives, but the-- There was the Gestapo, there was all these German soldiers. They wanted to, you know, stop this, the Rebbe on the route. And miraculously, uh, the Rebbe made it to, um, to Berlin, and then from there he made it to Riga, and then of course, Riga itself was later on... Uh, Latvia was also later eventually conquered by the Germans, Yemach Shemam, by the Nazis, and, uh. But the, uh, previous Rebbes at that time already left for the United States. He came to the United States in nineteen forty. Um, and that's how, uh, Hashem in his great kindness saved the, um, the Rebbe and the whole Chabad, uh, community, and the... Yeah, he wrote some of-- Some of it is written, you know. Uh, uh, and there's a lot of, a lot of historical facts, and now that we found out, there's a lot of documentation that came out recently. Um, the, um, also, you know, the books at that time got lost in all these journeys, uh, these traveling and the-

07:56 uh, were confiscated later on by the Germans. It's how we still have now the lawsuits about the books that the Russians later on took when they, um, you know, overran the Nazis, the Germans. So that's, uh, some of the things that have been taking place. But anyways, the twenty-first day of Elul is the day that the Rebbe, previous Rebbe, left Otwock, and he traveled to, uh, Poland, and then eventually he went to, um, Latvia, and then eventually to this country. So although I said it's a sad day, it's not really a sad day in the sense that that was actually the day that the Rebbe was freed, and he was able to, um, to, to save, and, uh, Hashem had mercy, and that's how we're here today, that, in that, in that merit.