Chilling: The Rebbe of Sanz, zt"l, tells how he was saved from the horrors of Auschwitz

July 29, 2020   

""I have to tell the public, I haven't told it yet.". His secret: Earn a prestigious degree without preparatory school and without prerequisites • Want one too? I was in the camps, and I didn't want to eat tripe. I arrived in Auschwitz on Friday, they immediately ran us out of the cars and started beating us with clubs and ran us inside the Auschwitz camp. We arrived in Auschwitz at ten in the morning. They brought us something to eat, food that was called "meat". Whether there was really meat there or it was straw... I don't know, but that's what it was called (that it was meat). Everyone wanted to eat, and they called out to me too: "Rabbi, come eat! Come eat!" [youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HalJHJKGa28" width="600" height="400" responsive="yes" autoplay="no"] I said: And why do I eat tripe? What are you talking about? Here in the house of the wicked one, I eat tripe?! Isn't it enough that everyone robbed and took from me, everything that I have in spirit and soul, I also eat tripe?! I didn't want to go, and I fasted that Friday all day. On Saturday night I was already very weak, I lay down, I couldn't get up anymore. On Shabbat, there was another call to come and get food, and I didn't go. I didn't go. I stayed sitting there. The hut emptied out, no one was there anymore, and I was left there alone. Suddenly a well of tears opened up in me. I would never cry, because if God wants it that way, so be it. Whatever God wants, I am also satisfied. But then on Shabbat afternoon, I woke up crying: "Lord of the Universe, you took everything from me, I was left naked and barefoot, without shoes and without clothes... without anything! And I am lying here among the Gentiles, and how should I go and eat trifles?! I don't want to eat trifles, Lord of the Universe!" And so, while I was crying there, while I was alone in the hut, someone came running to me and asked: "Are you the Klausenburger rabbi?" I was very frightened, because it was forbidden to know that I was a rabbi, because they killed the rabbis immediately. If they even knew about someone being a rabbi, he was immediately murdered, most of the time, ninety-nine percent of the time! I was very frightened. Meanwhile, another messenger arrives: "Rabbi, you must go, someone is standing at the door waiting for you." Is he waiting for me? Well, it's impossible to hide anymore. I didn't know if it was the SS or a Kapo, but I have to go to the door. When I get to the door, a man is standing there and says to me: "Please tell me, was Rabbi Makshanov your uncle?" I look at him. How does he know that I am here, and he also knows that Rabbi Makshanov was my uncle? May the holy Rabbi Makshanov protect us! I tell him: Yes... and what can I say to him, no? He said: "I brought you bread and a plate with marmalade so that you will have something to eat." I look - if he had given me then, according to the monetary values ​​of our time, half a million - it would be worth nothing [in comparison to what he gave me]. He brings me bread to eat... a large loaf of bread, with a large plate full of marmalade. "Here you go, take this to your place and eat." So, I sat down in my thoughts, I see that indeed I see that there is a God in the land even here! The Holy Creator is also here! And how did this man know that I was in Auschwitz, and went to bring me bread to eat? Behold, I am right, therefore, in that I do not want to eat trifles! So I took upon myself, no matter what, everything in the world [that does not pass me by], I will not eat trifles! If the Blessed One sends me kosher bread with marmalade, what? And why should I eat trifles?! God forbid! I looked for some water to wash my hands and said Kiddush over the bread. I already had something to do Kiddush over on Shabbat. I never saw that man again, ever! Only that one time he brought me the bread, and no more! And God helped me in this way. I was with that wicked man for a whole year, and I cannot thank and praise one out of a thousand thousand and a great many tens of thousands, all that I went through. How many times did they want to kill me, and how many times did I already lie on the ground to be... and I survived all of this, and without any rapes or molestations! And also, as I think, almost without desecrating the Sabbath! Heaven protected me.".