Education

Felix Goldschmidt (France), illustration of the laws of blessings for children in hiding

Rehabilitation – The Children of Buchenwald

Dear Judith,

In my mind's eye I see us in 1945, the stunned instructors, the confused children. Did you know this? As far as we are concerned, you belonged to another world. Everything separated us: the language, the material conditions, and above all - the memories.

Did you know Judith? We shared in your sorrow… You thought it was up to you to educate us, but the young among us knew twice as much about the value of things, about the nothingness of life, and about the brutal victory of death. Neither your age nor your authority impressed us… we felt stronger than you.

How did you do it, Yehudit? How did you manage to make a home for us? How difficult it was for you, wasn't it, how difficult it was for you and us to find a common path, a possibility of understanding…

These months and years… I often reflect on them. The first Shabbat meals. The trips. The evenings around the campfire. The singing. The conversations, I will never forget that Tishrei month I had in Ambloy. The Kaddish recited in the chorus.

The Yom Kippur fast. The joy, first external and artificial, and finally true joy that breaks through the barriers - Simchat Torah...

Indeed, the challenge was double, and yours did not fall short of ours. Logic said we would end in failure. And how, and in the name of what, could we act hand in hand?

We were lost, lacking a heritage, and our loyalty was reserved only for the dead.

Europe and the rest of the world celebrated its victory over Hitler's Germany without us… Every time someone from the outside world tried to get close to us, a wall was raised around us… We were still in mourning.

And yet, in a short amount of time, we were all on the same side.

To whom do we owe this miracle?

To you, you knew how to turn the children towards trust, to reconciliation, to the future and to society… Will you know one day what role you played in our lives?

Elie Wiesel in Judith Hemmendinger, The Children of Buchenwald

Education in the Lodz Ghetto

"Reading books in the ghetto - learning and reading, the People of the Book will not disappoint its historical name even when it is in dire straits" (Alter Schnor - Israel Itzinger).

In the first years, an educational system was maintained in the ghetto under the auspices of the Judenrat. The activities was conducted in the absence of adequate physical conditions: lack of classrooms, equipment, etc.

Alongside the educational system, youth movements and agricultural trainings were also activated in Marysin (near Lodz). Among the youth movements was Bnos Agudath Israel.

When the deportations began and Rumkowski introduced the labour policy, young people and children were also called to work, and the educational activity went underground.

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Gerscht - Educator, author, journalist, and businessman

Born in Lodz in 5667 (1907), he was highly trained in teaching Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He served as an educator at the Bais Yaakov Teacher's Seminary in Krakow. He continued his education and teaching work in the Lodz Ghetto. Postwar, he published his memoir "From the Straights" about his life in the Lodz Ghetto.

He wrote in his book:

I remember that on one of the evenings at the end of the winter of 5704 (1944) I happened to pass by a dilapidated house in the alleys of the ghetto and from some room came the sound of young children learning the Chumash (Pentateuch). I had not heard this sound for a long time, and it seemed to me like a message of peace from a distant world. I entered this room and saw about thirty young children crowded around a rickety table with books of the Chumash in front of them. The rebbe, a young and thin-faced man, watched over the children with a fatherly gaze as if he was afraid that an evil eye would rule over them.

I recognized some of the children who worked under my "supervision" in the factory all day and they, these young children, did not reveal their secret to me… In their healthy enthusiasm, they understood that in the future they had to get used to authentic Jewish life in the underground and they withstood the test.

During the hours when we were free from work, we took the children up to a special room, which was also disguised as a study room, and there we taught them reading and writing, as well as everything that was possible for us to teach them during this time of emergency.

(Y. L. Gerscht, From the Straights)

An educational activity in the Talmud Torah in Marysin, Lodz Ghetto

Felix Goldschmidt (France), illustration of the laws of Shabbat for children in hiding

Salo Carlebach – A worksheet for teaching Rashi script to his students in the Westerbork camp, Holland

Educational activity in the Talmud Torah of Marysin, Lodz Ghetto

The call of the Rabbis of Poland and Lithuania to save the Jewish girls and create Bais Yaakov schools

The Promised Land, never forgotten, in the hearts of both student and teacher

The teacher Stella and her students, Lodz Ghetto

To The Youth’s Heart

Leibel Kutner and his group devised different plans to attract the hearts of the boys of the group and all the young people associated with them - to the spirit of Judaism. They did this through various practical actions, such as praying together, learning Torah in school lessons, in long hearty feasts of singing and exaltation, instilling fear of God through general talks with the youth, and private conversations held by the group members with each and every child.

The power of a tune

It was not easy to take care of a boy like me. I rejected any closeness to any warmth that was offered to me, therefore when Leibel Kutner saw in me things that required correction, he knew that I needed to undergo "treatment from the roots" in the form of an open conversation. He placed the resposibility on one of the members of the group - Chanania Kozitz - and commanded him to keep an eye on me and know what is going on in my heart. He immediately smelled the first words I exchanged with him, Chanania smelled that in front of him was a hard nut to crack. That is why he let me go. I explained to Tomi that he had given up on the idea of talking to me. At one of the Shabbat meals, when the adults sat, as they did, at our table and mingled among the boys, they joined in the music, I didn't know it, but I was captivated by it until the end. At the end, I asked the person sitting next to me who composed this wonderful piece. The emotional strings of the music that I was listening to - awakened in my heart, after a years-long slumber, the war years.

I asked to hear the melody again. Chanania promised to repeat it a second time after the meal. We went out alone to the Santa Caesarea groves, went down to the bay and sat on a rock facing the beach, and as the waves of the sea roared in the background, Chanania began to sing "Kel Adon" in a pleasant voice, this time weaving the words of the song into the notes of the melody, in wonderful harmony.

I was fascinated. I looked at the moon in the blackened sky and heard his whispering voice finish the section "He gave them strength and valor to be rulers in the battle of the world". I was awakened by hidden emotions. At the end of the song, Chanania moved on to play the song "Zecharnu" that was sung in the Rebbe's study hall in the year 1937. Distant memories vibrated in my mind, who knows, maybe my father used to sing the song at home?… The song got louder and louder, my mind became clearer, my heart was opened, Chanania did most of the work of education that night, with the power of the tune.

(These Bones will Live - To the Youth's Heart, Baruch Lev)

Rabbi Alter David Kurcman with his students from an orphanage in Krakow prewar. Rabbi Kurcman was murdered in the Belzec death camp along with 300 orphans from the orphanage.

Children in a classroom in an orphanage in Czestochowa

Children in the Dieburg DP camp with members of the camp council in their classroom

The Teacher, Faiga Zeliczka, May G-d Avenge Her Blood

One of the excellent teachers of Bais Yaakov in Lodz was Faiga Zeliczka. Before the war, she served as a teacher at the Bais Yaakov seminary in Krakow, founded by Sarah Schenirer. In the Lodz Ghetto, this teacher lived in terrible poverty, in the house of her old and sickly father. Poverty ruled everything there. The Bais Yaakov girls heard and knew about her even from the days before the war and saw her as a great personality, above and beyond. Precisely in the days of hardship on the one hand, and moral laxity among the general population on the other hand, the people longed to hear her lessons, they wanted her to strengthen them spiritually, so that they would not sink into the abyss of the materialism of the ghetto.

Some of them got together and decided to ask Faiga Zeliczka to give them lessons in the Torah, in Judaism, and to strengthen their spirit so that they would be able to face the waves that endangered their Judaism.

These girls knew her financial situation, the poverty in which the noble teacher was looking, looked for a way to repay her, and somehow came to an arrangement that the teacher did not feel offended by.

Chaya Erlanger, who was a student of the teacher Faiga Zeliczka in the Lodz Ghetto, tells:

After a certain period, I also decided to join the class, and already at the first meeting I was fascinated by its high level, by the way in which she explained the matters she was lecturing on. The strength of the influence on us was unusual, simply during the hours we stayed in her shabby, unfurnished room, and we listened to her words, we were like in another world, sublime and exalted. The elation refreshed our souls, took us out of sadness, depression, and from everything we knew during the many hours of our life in the ghetto.

Her house consisted of only one room and its walls were always wet, because water was constantly dripping from the roof. There was a considerable distance between me and Faiga Zeliczka. A walk of more than half an hour. The classes were held at night, and I had to walk in the frost of 10-15 degrees below zero. The clothing and shoes were not suitable for such cold, and in fact my friend and I going to Faiga was out of great dedication. What's more, we usually walked on an empty stomach, really hungry, and even though our bodies were lean and thin, our legs had a hard time carrying them, and more than once our legs failed, but it was worth it, and how! For me it was a real win.

Indeed, Faiga Zeliczka had a special kind of charm that drew us to her shabby house so far from the central ghetto.

During the lessons, Faiga would guide us on how to relate to the events of time, disasters, and calamities, and taught us to understand to what extent the person with his lmitted knowledge is not able to explore, know, and achieve the ways of G-d and His actions, and that we have no choice but to accept them as our ancestors would have accepted the trials they experienced in their time, trials that came only to unite and distinguish this nation of ours among the nations of the world.

Along with this, Faiga was able to instill in us, in our hearts, a different view of life, and planted in us hope that other, better days will come, days when the earth will be filled with a knowledge, the knowledge of God.

Yes, in those difficult days, when there were already orphans among us, some without a father, and some without a mother, and the complete family support was lacking, we saw her as our spiritual guide. She knew how to peer into the soul of each of her students, and ignite her personal spark in each of us.

Every day after I left the class at Faiga's, as I made my long way back home, and passed through the ghetto, coming face to face with the terrible reality of life there, I was still immersed in Faiga's words and memorized them over and over in my head. They seemed foreign to me and different. I said then in my heart, and I almost always felt the words on my lips: "What do I really have to do, after the lesson in Proverbs, with all that my eyes see here and my ears hear? Perhaps it is another world? It does not belong here at all in this deep pit.

(Interview with Chaya Erlanger - Ganzach Kiddush Hashem Archive)

A class in Marysin, Lodz Ghetto

A class of Jewish girls in France. Most of the girls were deported to and murdered in Auschwitz in June 1943

In the Heidenheim DP camp, Germany

The Talmud Torah School in Marysin (Lodz Ghetto)

I was added to a group where there were religious children, the only group among 28 non-religious groups that Rumkowski founded in Marysin.

Two teachers were in the group: Treitel and Shlomo. Shlomo, who was in charge of the group's physical affairs, took Leibel Sternfeld, a young man who stood out for his initiatives and leadership, to help him, and from him we received the meals: in the morning a portion of bread with a pinch of margarine and a pinch of jam and a cup of tea. In the evening, he gave us a portion of bread with the addition of a margarine cube; sometimes we also received a newspaper-thick sausage…

Life in the group was conducted according to a fixed schedule: early awakening, prayer, hunger rations three times a day, and Torah study. From a decree issued by the Nazis that it was forbidden to teach Gemara, Treitel taught us the Book of Righteousness (Sefer Ha'Yashar) and the Path of the Just (Mesilat Yesharim), as well as Ethics of our Fathers (Pirkei Avot) and Yoreh Deah. And why the above-mentioned books? From the Baal Shem Tov who recommended studying in these books that inculcate good morals in a person.

It was not enough that we suffered greatly because of hunger, the winter also added to our burdens and we fought on two fronts: the front of hunger and the front of frost, and just as it was not possible to supply the stomach with food, so it was not possible to supply the fireplaces in the winter season, which devoured heating material without limit… the winter 1941 was a very brutal winter. The elders did not remember such a freezing winter. The sources from which heating materials can be obtained were blocked from us…

Twenty-three youth sat at a long table in an unfinished room, the windows blooming with ice flowers testified as a thousand witnesses that the cold in the room was unbearable, consumed all the edges, and then Leibel Sternfeld did a daring thing, took the risk and dismantled wooden beams from the roof of an uninhabited neighboring house, brought them to the classroom, and there was joy and delight and the pleasure of warmth enveloped us for an hour - or maybe an hour and a half - until the damned fireplace consumed all the embers and the cold attacked again. And Leibel Sternfeld? If the Jewish ghetto policemen had caught unloading the beams, he would have been sentenced to hanging for causing damage to the property of the Third Reich, because a house without beams could collapse...

If there is frost and no flour - there is no Torah. We stomped our feet on the floor to keep away the cold that was bothering our toes. We sang loudly, which is somewhat helpful for warming up the body, and we sang a song of praise to the Creator of the world:

"With the crown of the Torah

Said the Holy Creator

All of us Jews are crowned

Of all the nations in the world

We are the highest."

A weaving workshop in the Lodz Ghetto. Secret lessons were given in the room behind the workshop

Szydlowiec

In Szydlowiec, a group was organized under the leadership of a Jew, born in Vienna, whose name was Matityahu. I didn't know his last name - although he was a teacher and a rabbi, and we used to study together and never eat together - but we called him "Matis Vienner" (Matis from Vienna). Matis got married in Szydlowiec, about three months before the war… Matis grew up in a Jewish house, and when he was 14 years old, he went on a trip to Krakow, where he saw the religious life of the Gur chasidic people and fell in love with their way of life. Matis was a genius; he began to study the Torah and mitzvahs and after a few years became one of the prodigies among the Gur chasidim in Poland.

When the war broke out, Matis began to secretly organize religious life in Szydlowiec and on one Friday in 1940, he called me and his two brothers-in-law and told us that the situation could not continue like this, and therefore as a first step, we must establish a school that would operate underground. Matis said he needed my help, because I was a yeshiva student who was well versed in the laws of learning and can help with the education of the young people…

At first we were a handful of people - Matis' two brothers-in-law (Mendel and Moshe), Yosef Bruns, Herschel Tanenbaum, Nathan Ehrlich, and myself - and we began to organize very secretly. We looked for a quiet place where we could set up a school, and indeed after some time we managed to find an area surrounded by wooden fences, inside which stood a small house. We rented the place and then we gathered about fifty to sixty boys aged 10-14; we divided them into classes and that's how the school was actually established, which operated until the deportation.

Matis, his two brothers-in-law, myself, and a number of other people served as teachers… Matis' group was called "Matisovitses" and the yeshiva we conducted did not function like a normal yeshiva, but functioned more with the chasidic method of study. Little by little, inspired by Matis, who explained to us that we should not surrender to the life of emptiness and of course that we should not surrender to the Germans, and he knew the Germans better than the rest of us, we cut ourselves off from the environment and walked in full chasidic clothing without a patch on our sleeves. More than once we would walk the streets of the city at night, despite the curfew and even though we knew that the Germans would shoot us without hesitation if they caught us, but we lived the life of the Torah, every day from five o'clock in the morning, and tried to ignore what was happening outside.

When we started to operate the school, we only thought about the educational institution in our city. Luckily for us, the ghetto in Sydlowiec was flexible, meaning: the police were more liberal than in other ghettos, and the Judenrat also tried not to make our lives excessively difficult.

The rumour about the establishment of the school spread its wings, and not much time passed and young men who fled from Lodz, Warsaw, as well as from other cities and towns, and among them there were Gur chassidism… and thus our school became an underground chasidic center, and in fact a magnet for many who came to Sydlowiec.

A Torah lesson in a DP camp

The Talmud Torah school in the Feldafing DP camp

Warsaw

November 15th, 1941                                                                              

The children of Israel learn in secret. While they are small, they taste the taste of martyrs. Any place where there is a gathering of Jews, between old Jews and young Jews, going in and out is prohibitted. And maybe I didn't take care of all my needs. People come and go, including refugees and the homeless, in the thousands and thousands, who fled to the Jewish ghetto, which was filled to the brim like a cage full of chickens. Trade schools were opened in the former church buildings, or were rented out to individual tenants. The Judenrat was obligated by law to open schools for the children of Israel, even at their own expense, but because of the "infectious diseases" that affect the ghetto, the occupier does not allow them to open. This is nothing but a lie, and a complete lie said to themselves. The way the children of Israel are idle from officially learning: the barbaric conqueror enjoys it, and he is sure that a barbaric generation is growing up, without Torah and without education. But this is nothing but vain happiness. Our children are learning - but in moderation. Entire generations in Israel were accustomed to the Torah in austerity and the spirit of an entire people should not be imprisoned. Instead of schools, home complexes were created, complexes whose number of students reaches up to ten, and in some side room, on long benches, next to tables as is the custom of our teachers from time immemorial, the children sit and the teachers exist and make a living. This is how we live and study and make a living and there is nothing wrong with that: the Torah is Torah even though it is not official. Before the creation of the ghetto that the Nazis created in in our streets, we dreaded every leaf that blew. For every knock on the door, our hearts melt like water. But even then no harm will come to us. With the creation of the ghetto, the situation improved. And if they come - it is only for robbery and robbery. We removed the fear of them from our faces. And the teachers of Israel are busy with their teaching out of a feeling inner security that they and their students are almost out of any danger. Israel's police officers are skilled: and even if they discover a "forbidden Torah" they will not hand us over to the gentiles. And more. To a certain extent we even have a cover for the permit, that the Jewish "self-help" is allowed to open and manage an "education point" for the children of Israel. As mentioned: only In the name of education, but not in the name of teaching. It is permissible to feed them and instruct them; teaching them is forbidden. But since education is permitted, we also allow ourselves to study. In times of danger, the children learn to hide their books. And the children of Israel are vigilant. They know and understand that everything is prohibited when there is a question of a court of law: And it's all permitted when it is a risk to their lives. When they go to study the forbidden Torah, they modestly put their books and notebooks on their stomachs (tuck them in the place between their pants and their stomachs) and fasten the buttons of their coats and clothes. This is a tried and tested method. A kind of "smuggling" that is not easy to perceive.

(Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan)

Children in the Kovno Ghetto on their way to studies

A class of Jewish children and their teachers in the Westerbork camp

The Bais Yaakov Movement in the Lodz Ghetto

The Bais Yaakov movement in Lodz recorded a bright chapter for itself at that time, under the noses of the oppressors, the students of Sarah Schenirer held classes, meetings, taught Jewish Studies and more. The teachers who will not be forgotten: Faiga Zeliczka, Zlata Schnur, and more.

Necha Horowitz from Pabianice survived the large aktion in the city in the summer of 5702 (1942) and was sent along with her younger brother to her married sister in the Lodz Ghetto. She tells:

I was invited to participate in the meetings of the Bais Yaakov girls, at the home of the Weisgol family. I was 15 years old, the youngest among the participants. Despite the difficult conditions around, the girls used to sing and lift the difficult mood of us all. There I also heard words of Torah, and above all, I remember manifestations of devotion of the girls to each other. Only those who have personally experienced terrible and constant hunger can appreciate them. Each of us brought with her a spoonful (!) of sugar or flour for the sick girls or for those who suffered the most from poverty and hunger. And so, grain by grain, we collected the food items and managed to breathe some life into them.

(Interview with Necha Horowitz, Ganzach Kiddush Hashem)

The Jewish Spirit in the Warsaw Ghetto

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Orlean also lived in the ghetto and I went to hear his lessons. Rabbi Orlean lived in the ghetto without his wife and nine children who were left elsewhere in another small village. He sent them every groszen that he managed to earn, and in the end he stopped hearing from them.

I and twenty-three other former Bais Yaakov students brought food to Rabbi Orlean. But he agreed to accept it only on the condition that he would teach us. Therefore, we came to him for a lesson in Jewish morality, which became very popular, and we had to move to a bigger hall. His penetrating words sustained us more than our food sustained him.

I am writing about Rabbi Orlean with trepidation and fear. In what words can I describe his greatness, his blessed influence, and his personality? What can be said about a person who illuminated the world of my youth and gave me the true meaning of my life? What can I say about a person who strived to answer all my questions and doubts?

Rabbi Orlean was not only our teacher at the Bais Yaakov seminary in Krakow, but also our rabbi. He not only imparted knowledge to us, but also awakened our Jewish souls. He found the right language for a generation that was threatened by the poison of foreign cultures. In every class, in every conversation with him, I felt that the light of truth was touching me.

His every lesson is a challenge to our thirsty souls. He opened our minds and hearts. He taught us to understand our history and to realize that our Jewish identity can only be preserved if we do not forget our past.

Rabbi Orlean instilled in us the measure of gratitude and taught us to acknowledge the favour of G-d in everything He gives us. He instilled in us love for humanity and taught us to be more considerate of the needs of others. He planted in us the love of G-d.

He taught us that the Torah changes a person's actions and behavior. Every action can determine the future of our entire life.

Rabbi Orlean was a man who pursued the truth throughout his life. He lived the truth, and passed it on to us. He looked for the Divine spark in every person, certainly in every Jew. He was among the virtuous who set the highest moral standards and act according to them.

Rabbi Orlean was the source of happiness: the joy of life and the joy of serving G-d. From him we learned the meaning of "serve G-d with joy."

Even after he left us, he continued to live within us. He remained our inner guide. He planted in our souls the belief that within us burns a holy spark that no external force can extinguish. And we still breathe his faith in Providence. In our desperate struggle to survive, in the most bitter moments, his thought was with us and helped us move on. Our burnt souls asked him for help, and his faith in Providence carried us on to face the future.

It is impossible for me to evaluate the thoughts of Rabbi Orlean, but one thing I know: in the space of the deepest human failure, he tried to preserve within us the spark, the faith in the human race and in G-d.

Where did the inner strength of almost a skeleton of a teacher and his starving students come from? The Jew builds new hopes on the destruction of creation. It is enough for him to know that he is part of creation and that there is a Creator.

Faigaleh, Daughter of the Rabbi

When my memory brings me back to times gone by, I come across the holy name "Faiga Bat (daughter of) the Rabbi". This Faiga was a young woman of about 20, the daughter of Rabbi Beigel of Trochimbrod (Volhynia), who in September 1941, after the great pogrom in Vilna, was imprisoned along with all the Jews of Vilna behind the walls of the ghetto.

Faiga daughter of the rabbi lived together with a group of Bais Yaakov teachers and students from different cities and towns, in the house of the ritual slaughterer, Rabbi Aharon Jedidowicz, may G-d avenge his blood, at HaHakdesh Street 9.

From the first day she entered the ghetto, Faiga took on the task of organizing all the religious girls of the ghetto into a special circle.

The first young women to respond to the call were: Raizel Olinsky from Brisk, Shoshana Strobiniec from Mir, Leah Reis and her sister from Lutsk, Breindel from Pinsk, Rishel from Drovna, Bracha and her sister from Bialystok, Malkaleh from Polenka, Berkowitz from Lutsk, and Ruth from Frankfurt am Main.

Later Rebbetzin Schuv of Vilna and her daughter, Rebbetzin Barik and her daughter, Rebbetzin Berkowitz, Rebbetzin Koplovich, Rebbetzin Epstein, Rebbetzin Perlov, Rebbetzin Dertzin, Rebbetzin Levitan of Rakishuk and many others were added.

A large group of female participants in the group used to gather every day on Spitalna Street, to pray and say psalms as a group. The prayer and the recitation of the psalms were initiated by Faiga, daughter of the rabbi.

Every Shabbat, the group learned the weekly parsha (Torah portion) with the commentary of Rashi and other commentators, Ethics of Our Fathers in Yiddish, the laws in the Shulchan Aruch (book of Jewish law), and also various chapters from mussar (Jewish ethics) books.

The popularity of Faiga and her group grew day by day, and so was the number of listeners to her Torah and mussar talks. Rabbi Jedidowicz's apartment became cramped; it could not accommodate such a large number of women, and then the women's study hall had to move to another street, to the home of Rabbi Reis from Lutsk. Over time, Rabbi Reis's apartment also became too small, and thanks to the efforts of Rabbis Landoy and Jacobson, the popular kitchen was put at the disposal of the rabbi's daughter, Faiga.

The prayer, the study of the Torah, the ethics discussions, and the reciting of the psalms were intended only for women; However, we know of several cases where Faiga invited men as teachers or lecturers. One of them was Rabbi Yaakov Zelwin (or Zeldin), one of the greatest ethics experts in pre-war Poland.

A lecture on the subject "Shabbat - the Cornerstone and the Foundation of Judaism" was delivered to the religious women's group by the young religious poet, Chaim Semiatzki, may G-d avenge his blood; an ethics lesson by Yusel Bialistoker, and Shalom Schuv lectured on "Kiddush Hashem". Faiga daughter of the rabbi presented the male lecturers before the audience.

The walls of the "kitchen", where the meetings took place at 31 German Street, were covered with various slogans, such as "Generations are redeemed in merit of the righteous women of the generation", "Thanks to righteous women Israel was redeemed", "Jerusalem was not destroyed for them to profane Shabbat," "You will be holy," "Keep the Sabbath and the Sabbath will keep you" and more.

I had in my possession two manuscripts of Torah lessons written by Faiga daughter of the rabbi. The manuscripts bore with them an approbation and the signature of Rabbi Yaakov Zelwin of Lutsk, may G-d avenge his blood. One article bore the title "And Avraham came to pay homage to Sarah and to weep for her", on the parsha of Chayei Sarah. Another article was titled "And Yaakov placed a tombstome over her grave" on the parsha of Vayishlach. These two of her writings are found in the Historical Institute in Warsaw. Another article with the title "Everything that Sarah will say to you - you should listen to her voice," on the parsha of Beraishit, which I gave to the rabbi of Vilna after its liberation from the evil German rule.

Many of the girls in Faiga's group always carried small prayer books with them. On the inside of the covers of the siddurs it was written: "The Heavens and the Heaven of Heavens, the earth and all that is upon it were not created except for the use of man." And it continued with the phrase: "Unto you, O Lord, I will raise my soul" and also included the blessing: "Blessed are you, our God, King of the world, who sanctified us with his mitzvahs and commanded us to sanctify His name and the name of Israel in public."

At the same time, between the walls of the ghetto, desperation prevailed, Faiga was teaching the young lonely women how to maintain the ancient laws of Judaism and to preserve their ethics, purity, cleanliness, honesty and sanctity.

The great majority of the girls in Faiga's group did not work in the German workplaces so as not to desecrate Shabbat. They worked in the ghetto. Some of them were fictitiously registered as the wives of men who received special protection and they lived alone, although according to the rules of the ghetto government these "couples" had to live together.

Yosef Foxman, "Der Amerikaner," 9.8.1957, New York. Ganzach Kiddush Hashem Archive. Translated from Yiddish.

The Tomchei Temimim yeshiva in a DP camp

Children learning Torah in the cheder (Torah school for boys) in Tarnow

Girls who survived the Holocaust, studying in Lidingo, Sweden

The Talmud Torah school in the Ansbach DP camp

"Tiferet Bachurim" in the Kovno Ghetto

I accepted myself as a man of rescue. To strengthen the spirit of the oppressed and broken and to clothe their sadness….I organized for this "Tiferet Bachurim" and gathered together young and old boys to teach them wisdom and knowledge of Torah and pure reverence for G-d, and to plant in them eternal life and to put His love and reverence in their hearts and to do His will and serve Him wholeheartedly.

(Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, Responsa from the Holocaust)

Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Giblrater told about the Kovno Ghetto

As a child and member of Tiferet Bachurim, I can testify that every day we felt it would be our last day of living. We went to our work for ours, slave labour, and faced its difficulties over and over again.

Once, after I finished a lesson at Tiferet Bachurim, I went out with a friend to the home of the Schuv family. While walking and memorizing our learning, my friend stood up and said: "Master of the world, I do not have the audacity to ask you for life. All around me thousands are being killed and murdered, and how can I ask you for life? But not to have the privilege of being in yeshiva - I cannot give that up! Master of the world , I want to learn your Torah!" Then the two of us cried; I will not forget this my entire life.

These were the children of the ghetto who learned Torah. My holy friend perished in his hiding place when the ghetto was liquidated.

(Testimony of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Gibralter, Ganzach Kiddush Hashem archive)

Bais Yaakov in the Kovno Ghetto

I feel it is my duty to tell here about the activities of Bais Yaakov in the Kovna ghetto, headed by the well-known figure in the Bais Yaakov movement, Mrs. Ella Shmulewicz.

Who can describe the joy and sadness that were on the faces of the Jewish girls, when they would gather in the narrow room of Ella Shmulewicz on Formann Street number 8 not far from the famous Slobodka Yeshiva. There, in the narrow room, she would lecture them on matters of faith and trust in G-d and the great mitzvah of kiddush Hashem. "You must be strong, my dear daughters," answered Ella Shmulewicz in an emotional voice with tears glistening in her eyes, to a group of girls who came to ask whether to go to the forced labour of the Germans or try to find themselves a secret hiding place.

The members of Bais Yaakov accepted into their group many young women whose parents perished and their entire family had alreadby perished and the young women remained lost and bereft; the girls of Bais Yaakov succeeded in instilling in them a strength of heroism and courage to bear the severe suffering of ghetto life.

(Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, The Destruction of Lithuania)

Grade 2 students in the Cyprus detention camp

The Talmud Torah in Foerenwald, Germany

The Netzach Yisrael (Eternity of Israel) yeshiva for refugees in Saint Germaine, France

Bais Yaakov in the DP Camps

On Shabbat Nachamu (the Shabbat after the fast of the 9th of Av), we were called to a gathering. Many young women arrived as well as the distinguished guest, Rabbi Baumgarten. One of the members began to speak.

We arrived to you after six years. We survived despite the evil plans of the murderers. We remained alive as this is what Providence wanted...She heralded the rebirth of those who were soaked in their own blood - their rebirth to a new life.

We are the living witnesses to an unprecedented enormous tragedy.

Six years ago, we stopped working as teachers and educators. We were torn from thousands of bright girls and thousands of young and beloved friends.

Now we have come back to you, precisely today, on Shabbat Nachamu, the first Shabbat after the Churban (destruction of the Temple), when God came and comforted the people through the prophet.

(Shabbat Nachamu in Bergen-Belsen, Rivka Pinkeszewic)

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Shabbat Chazon (the Shabbat before the 9th of Av) in Bergen-Belsen

On a heavy summer day we gathered there. The remnant of the spirit of Judaism was gathered to observe

And to recite Kaddish...not Kaddish with regular words, but Kaddish with actions

Those that lead to reviving the Jewish splendor of the past.

Precisely in the death camp, a place where Jewish morality and morals collapsed.

Until now they were alone, standing in the corner… Now they are gathering from all the camps.

Young men are preparing for a new life.

And the women? We also join in and hear the voice of the Bais Yaakov teachers.

We live and want to live a pure Jewish life.

We call to work with a common goal,

To raise the morals and level of character of the Jewish youth as a whole.

(Shabbat Chazon in Bergen-Belsen, Rivka Pinkeszewic. Yiddish Newspaper)

Lodz Ghetto

Children in the play area of Marysin, Lodz Ghetto

A lesson in a class in Nazi Germany

Janusz Korczak’s orphanage