“People went through hell out of this world, they lost a human photographer, their line of thought went completely wrong, they saw before their eyes one goal: to survive the day. You, the judge, have no ability to judge what the man who decided to become a capo and help the Nazis went through” | Issachar Zalmanovich on Founder of the Torah and Chesed, the famous Holocaust survivor Rebbe of Klausenburg
Issachar Zalmanovich, a follower of Sanz, is remembered every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the founder of the Hassidic court to which he belongs here in the Holy Land, the Holy Rebbe of Sanz Klausenburg, , Including his wife and 11 children. And so Zalmanovich writes tonight:
I did not get to know the Rebbe of Sanz, who has an abundance of life, and the spirit of the Rebbe was felt in every institution where I was educated throughout my childhood. The values I grew up with were values of seeing the good in every person, in the greatness of the soul and in our ability to recover even in the face of heavy disasters.
The greatness of the Rebbe Zia was known mainly due to his resurrection process. He survived the Holocaust after losing his 11 sons, his wife and his entire family. He remained lonely and destitute but never allowed himself to sink into despair.
After the war he rose from the dust, shook his followers and believers as well, re-established the Sanz Hasidism for glory with glorious institutions and the Laniado Hospital. He remarried and had 7 children and many descendants who themselves became a special rabbinical dynasty.
Even in the difficult days of the war, when people lost a human photographer – he always remembered the people around him. In preparation for Passover in Auschwitz, Rebbe Zia approached the superintendent of food distribution in the camp and asked that during the holidays he take his portion of bread and give it to another Jew who seemed weak and thin. In the same way, the Jewish rabbi saved him from immediate danger of death and also prevented himself from eating chametz on Passover.
After the terrible war, when the Rebbe had already settled in the United States, a Jewish capo who had aided the Nazis was captured and brought to trial. The same capo was also abusing the Rebbe himself, and for this he was asked to come to testify before the American court, the Rebbe vehemently refused to come and testify. When the judge saw that the Rebbe refused to come, he came to the Rebbe’s house himself to persuade him to take part in the testimony. Then the Rebbe explained to the judge: “People went through hell out of this world, they lost a human photographer, their line of thought went completely wrong, they saw before their eyes one goal: to survive the day. You, the judge, have no ability to judge what the person who decided to become To capo and help the Nazis. ” The judge accepted the Rebbe’s claims and dismissed him from giving the testimony.
This was the way of Rebbe Zatzokal, to find the good in every Jew and in every person, even those who made his life miserable. He saw a supreme value in the restoration of Judaism and the re-establishment of the world of Hasidism after the Holocaust.
Of blessed memory.