Bidspirit auction | Awe-inspiring Letter on the Founding

Awe-inspiring Letter on the Founding of the First Yeshiva after the Holocaust! Bergen-Belsen, 1945 * “With hearts filled with joy, we inform His Distinguished Honor, that after many difficulties, we, the remnant of the talmidim of the yeshivos of Poland, have succeeded in founding here, in the Bergen-Belsen camp, the living heart of the Jewish nation — a holy yeshiva!” A letter of tremendous historical importance, from the Rosh Yeshiva of Bergen-Belsen, the tzaddik Rabbi Gershon Liebman, and the yeshiva’s secretary Rabbi Yoel Meir Potoshewitz, describing the establishment of the yeshiva, its purpose, and its very existence. The Bergen-Belsen Yeshiva was the first yeshiva in Europe to be founded after the Holocaust, in which all Torah institutions had been destroyed. Rabbi Gershon and Rabbi Yoel founded it in the month of Av, in 1945, with only ten students, possessing but a single Gemara, Beitzah, whose leaves they tore out and divided among the students! Most of the talmidim were orphans, of father, or of mother, and some of both, may Hashem avenge their blood, and had grown up in the war years without guidance or Torah. Rabbi Gershon gathered them with boundless love and educated them in the path of Torah. The present letter was written only a short time after the yeshiva’s founding — in Elul 5705 (August 1945), less than four months since the place had served as a notorious concentration camp under Nazi rule! Thus wrote Rabbi Gershon and Rabbi Yoel in their immortal words describing the background of the yeshiva’s founding: “These talmidim, natives of Poland, Romania, and Lithuania, gather as survivors of the various detention camps in accursed Germany, who have grown up during years of wandering, without Torah or religion. And yet, despite the spiritual challenges and the immense trials they faced — the detention camps with their dreadful tortures — their spirits are not broken. On the contrary, they are all the more ready, with vigor and pride, to continue the age-old tradition of Torah study in public, for the glory of our people. They thirst to drink only from the eternal spring, and they learn Torah and Mussar with remarkable diligence.” Further in the letter they beseech the recipient to assist and to arouse rabbanim on behalf of this holy endeavor, “to improve the lot of our young men, broken and downtrodden, and to enable them now to study in tranquility…” They request sefarim for study: Gemaros Bava Metzia (30 copies), Shulchan Aruch, Shitah Mekubetzes, Pnei Yehoshua, and sefarim of Mussar — Chovos Halevavos, Mesillas Yesharim, Shaarei Teshuvah, and the Sefer HaMaamarim of the Mashgiach Rabbi Yerucham of Mir. The letter is signed by the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Gershon Liebman, and by the secretary, his right-hand man, Rabbi Yoel Meir Potoshewitz. At the bottom of the letter Rabbi Gershon added, in his own handwriting, an additional note of eight lines, emphasizing that the matter is of utmost urgency — “a case of real pikuach nefesh for the klal, for the decline and demoralization are beyond description. Woe to the eyes that must see it and to the ears that must hear it.” At the top of the letter appears a greeting and signature by Rabbi Shlomo Beumgarten, a rav from London, who headed a delegation of four rabbanim who went from England to the camps of the Holocaust survivors. Much has been written of the spiritual greatness of the Holocaust survivors and their self-sacrifice in reviving Torah and mitzvos. Here is an authentic letter, written from the very heart of Bergen-Belsen itself, announcing that the voice of Torah has once again been heard in the hall of a yeshiva, for the first time in devastated Europe! Bergen-Belsen Camp, Sunday, Parashas Nitzavim (17 Elul 5705 / 26 August 1945). The main body is in the handwriting of the secretary Rabbi Yoel, signed by Rabbi Gershon and Rabbi Yoel. At the head of the second leaf is an additional letter of eight lines entirely in Rabbi Gershon’s own handwriting and signature. A second document is included, written on the official stationery of the Bergen-Belsen Yeshiva , regarding its administration and the efforts to obtain visas to America, in the handwriting and with the signature of Rabbi Yoel Meir Potoshevitz mentioned above. Circa 1946–1947. A total of [2] documents. Various sizes. Condition: Generally good, with slight wear typical of letters from that time and region. _____________ The letter was sent to London, to Rabbi Zeidel Smiatitzky, one of the outstanding talmidim of the Mir Yeshiva and son-in-law of Rabbi Moshe Schneider, Rosh Yeshiva of Toras Emes – Schneider. Rabbi Zeidel greatly assisted this yeshiva and many other Torah institutions established thereafter throughout Germany and Poland. _______________ The Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Gershon Liebman zt”l (1905–1997), was a remarkable man with extraordinary spiritual strength. Even while imprisoned in the Vilna Ghetto, he founded a yeshiva!