Rabbi Yochanan Safranai, 89, from Kfar Chabad, was a young man, a resident of Rotterdam, Netherlands, when World War II broke out.
He will never forget the difficult night when German air force planes destroyed large parts of his city, in preparation for the rapid conquest of Holland. Together with his parents and two sisters, he went down to the shelter and from there listened to the words of encouragement from the Queen of the Netherlands, who days later told Tammut and her family to England.
This, of course, was only the beginning. This was followed by five terrible years of hunger, cold, and great terror, during which John was forced to say goodbye to all his close friends.
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One by one, Jacob Benjamin Spanier, Hari Barclay, Chaim Elyakim Herman, Kurt Jung, Benny Jacobs, Louis Cohen, Sonjo Rokach and the rest of the group were taken from their homes. They were first taken to the Westerbork transit camp and later to the Auschwitz and Sobibor extermination camps.
How many of them will Yohanan return to meet at the end of the war, what happened to the rest, how did the supreme providence navigate Yohanan's own life, what was the promise he made to his best friend on the eve of the war and was he actually able to keep it?
The answers to all these questions and more can be found in the new book by author Rabbi Zalman Ruderman, 'The Promise' – an authentic human story, which is also an extraordinary and heartbreaking documentary.
The book is published by 'Yefa Nof' and is available in chain stores and other select bookstores.
