Bidspirit auction | Collection of Photocopied Letters Sent

Collection of Photocopied Letters Sent by Rebbetzin Sheina Horenstein to Her Father the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch During the Holocaust – Otwock, 1940-1941 / Photocopied Letter of Rebbetzin Malkah Zunis (Sister-in-Law of the Rebbe Rayatz) – Never-Before-Published Letters - Collection of photocopies of unknown letters from the Holocaust, addressed to the Rebbe Rayatz, from his family who remained in Nazi-occupied Europe. Seven letters from Rebbetzin Sheina and R. Menachem Mendel Horenstein (daughter and son-in-law of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch) and a letter from Rebbetzin Malkah Zunis (daughter of R. Avraham Schneerson of Kishinev and sister-in-law of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch). [Otwock and Kishinev, 1940-1941]. To the best of our knowledge, the original letters have not survived. What remains is only a photocopy on ordinary paper of the original postcards. The information in the present letters is known from no other source, and it grants a rare glimpse into the lives and suffering of R. Mendel Horenstein and his wife Rebbetzin Sheina daughter of the Rebbe Rayatz, in the last days before they perished in the Holocaust. The letters in the collection are written in German, Polish, and Russian. Attached is a professional English translation (from 1999). The collection includes: • Seven photocopied letters from Rebbetzin Sheina Horenstein, youngest daughter of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch. In the margins of some letters are short additions by her husband R. Menachem Mendel Horenstein and her nephew Yekutiel Yaakov Yosef (Kobi) Lis (son of R. Kalman and Sarah Lis, who was orphaned and adopted by his childless uncle and aunt R. Mendel and Rebbetzin Sheina). [Otwock, 1940-1941]. German, Polish and Russian. The letters were addressed to her parents, the Rebbe Rayatz and Rebbetzin Nechama Dina, and to the secretary, R. Chaim Lieberman (one of the letters is addressed to the Chassidic activist R. Mordechai Chefetz in Riga). The letters were first sent to Riga in independent Latvia, where the Rebbe Rayatz and his family escaped in the first months after the war broke out; the rest of the letters are addressed to the Rebbe Rayatz after he reached the United States and began to live in 770 in Brooklyn, New York. The front part of some post cards have Nazi postmarks and stamps. Rebbetzin Sheina (Sonya) Horenstein (1904-1942), the youngest of the three daughters of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch. In 1932 she married her cousin R. Menachem Mendel Horenstein (his mother, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, was the daughter of the Rebbe Maharash of Lubavitch). At the outbreak of World War II, Rebbetzin Sheina and her husband R. Mendel left Paris, returning to Otwock, Poland in order to assist his elderly and sick parents. During this period, their father and father-in-law, the Rebbe Rayatz, made extensive efforts to save them from extermination at the hands of the Nazis, but despite worldwide international efforts to attain visas for them to leave for Poland, he didn't succeed. Whereas the rest of the family had a Latvian citizenship, R. Menachem Mendel Horenstein and Rebbetzin Sheina were Polish citizens, and in 1942 they were murdered in the Treblinka death camp (together with their nephew Yekutiel Yaakov Yosef Lis). In order to spare him from distress, the Rebbe Rayatz was not informed of their deaths until his passing in 1950. The present collection is a particularly rare documentation that has never before been published of the last days of Rebbetzin Sheina and R. Menachem Mendel Horenstein in Nazi-occupied Otwock. In her letters, Rebbetzin Sheina describes the harsh conditions of life, the chilling cold and the lack of food and warm clothing. She writes of the difficulties in attaining food packages and asks to be sent clothing, essential food and pictures of the family. She also describes the efforts to attain visas to leave Europe through Italy. She details her fear for the fate of the family, of her concern for the health of her father, the Rebbe Rayatz, and her attempts to contact her two sisters, Chana and Moussia. She further writes of the harsh conditions endured by her Chabad neighbors – the Bespalov, Friedman, Garfinkel and other families, who were suffering extreme malnutrition and weakness, and asks for urgent aid for them. In the margins of some of the letters, R. Mendel adds short sentences with greetings and blessings for good travel and wishes for the holidays. Some of the postcards conclude with several words by their adopted nephew, the child Yekutiel Yaakov Yosef Lis. • Photocopy of a letter from Rebbetzin Malkah Zunis (daughter of R. Avraham Schneerson of Kishinev) to her sister Rebbetzin Nechama Dina (wife of the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch). Kishinev, [1941]. Russian. The letter is addressed to the home of R. Berel Chaskind in Brooklyn, New York. In the letter,