As I wrote last week, my grandchild’s teacher assigned her class to interview Holocaust survivors. And so my grandchild called me and asked, “Bubba, can I come over to interview you?”
I began sharing some of her report with you last week and continue here from where we left off. (Please note that the references to “Zaida” and “Mamma” are to my parents – her great-grandparents.)
Conversations With Bubba Not long after the Germans arrived in Hungary they stuffed all Jews into ghettos. The street on which my great-grandparents HaRav HaGaon HaTzaddik Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, and Rebbetzin Tzaddekes Miriam Jungreis, a”h, lived became the center of the ghetto.
The Nazis brought people from all over and many of them stayed in Bubba’s house.
Many years later Bubba spoke in Hungary and when she went to visit the place of her childhood she was shocked to discover that the house she remembered was not a house but a little apartment. And yet Zaida and Mamma through their love for every Jew were able to make room for everyone.
There was a widow who was expecting a baby. The Nazis had killed her husband. Pregnant women were in great danger; the Germans would kill them right away. At great risk Zaida and Mamma hid her in their home. When it was time for her to give birth, Mamma delivered the baby, who was sickly and needed medication. My great-uncle Yanki jumped over the walls of the ghetto. It was extremely dangerous, but with Hashem’s help he returned with the medication in hand.
When the Jews in that ghetto were deported to concentration camps, that woman was sent to a camp near Vienna. In that camp Mamma’s father, the rosh hayeshiva HaRav HaGaon Tzvi Hirsch HaKohan, zt”l, was incarcerated. The Germans, who realized they were losing the war, desperately needed funds. Consequently they offered to make a deal and were willing to sell Jews for a certain price.
Rav Tzvi Hirsch was on the list to be sold but he gave up his seat on a freedom truck for the widow and her baby. She was seated on the truck next to the Tzelemer Rebbe, whom she ended up marrying. Her little boy became the esteemed Tzelemer Rebbe of today.
One night the Germans entered the ghetto and broke down Zaida’s and Mamma’s door screaming, “ Jews, get out get out quickly, quickly!” Zaida managed to take with him the Kisvei Yad – unpublished manuscripts on five tractates of the Talmud. They were monumental works going back seven generations to HaRav HaGaon Mordechai Bennet. Zaida also took with him the tefillin of the holy tzaddik the Menuchos Osher, HaRav HaGaon Osher Anshil HaLevi Jungreis, also going back seven generations.
Throughout his time in the concentration camps Zaida managed to keep these two priceless objects. Many laughed at him. “This is what you smuggled into the camps? You should have taken some food, some money, some jewelry. Were you thinking that you would be able to publish this manuscript in Bergen Belsen? And the tefillin – how would they help you?”
Bubba told me that despite the skepticism, every day at dawn men would line up at the risk of their lives to say a berachah on the tefillin.
In 1947, Zaida, Mamma, Bubba, and her brothers arrived in the U.S. with their great treasures – the tefillin and the manuscripts. Some years later Zaida got the manuscripts published. Those five tractates that were saved by Zaida are being studied by great Torah scholars today and the tefillin of the Menuchosh Osher are a treasured heirloom of the family that brings blessings.
The March to Bergen Belsen The Jews were transported to the concentration camps by cattle cars. Multitudes were stuffed into each car. There were no sanitation facilities. There was no food and no water.