It is well-known the words of the Satmar Rebbe zt”l, who was once asked for a brachah and he replied, “Find a person who has numbers on his arm who is still frum – from such a tzadik you should ask for a brachah!” There are many such tzadikim who survived the Holocaust and the concentration camps, including Rav Avraham Yitzchak Sicherman zt”l, who served as the manhig ruchani (spiritual leader) in the Romanian town of Sesht (near Sighet) and was taken away to Munkatabor by the accursed Nazis. His miraculous tales of survival both during and after the war are truly inspiring.
Immediately after the American liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in 1945, many emaciated inmates who managed to survive years of torment at the hands of the German beasts now died due to the kindness of the liberating soldiers. These troops were shocked, horrified, and reduced to tears at the gruesome sights that met them, but also tragically oblivious to the effects of real food on the digestive systems of the poor, emaciated human skeletons. They threw cans of meat and other heavy foodstuffs to the walking skeletons from their army provisions. The inmates fell upon them and, being as famished as they were, devoured the heavy foods. Alas, their internal systems could not handle the overconsumption of fats after years of food deprivation and they fell violently ill. Sadly, many did not survive this ordeal at the exact moment of freedom.
Luckily, Rav Avraham Yitzchak understood the gravity of the situation. He grabbed a bag of sugar thrown at him from the army trucks and went right back to his barracks. He took out one sugar cube and slowly let it melt on his parched tongue. Magically, like a modern-day IV drip, within minutes, as the sugar entered his bloodstream, he felt new life surging and coursing through his emaciated body. He ate a few more cubes and felt his strength returning. Instantly, his thoughts turned toward the Klausenberger Rebbe, Rav Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam zt”l, who was interned with him in the Feldafing DP camp. Shoving the bag of sugar into his pockets, he quickly offered the Rebbe to partake. The Rebbe gratefully ate a few pieces of the sugar, and he too was revived. Nearly on the verge of death from starvation, the Rebbe’s eyes were dimmed and by ingesting the sugar cubes, he felt fresh vitality and life coursing through him. Looking at Rav Avraham Yitzchak, he smiled and exclaimed “Ma’arta es ha’einayim – You have lit up my eyes!” At that moment, words were superfluous.
A short time later, as others were scrambling to start living like humans again, Rav Avraham Yitzchak had some other concerns to attend to. With cunning ingenuity, he somehow managed to procure a small bundle of shorn lambswool. Taking a long stick, he installed a bent nail at the tip of the stick. Twisting the wool between his thumb and forefinger and winding it through that nail hook by pulling and twisting the strands of yarn, Rav Avraham Yitzchak was able to fashion a pair of woolen strings. His sister Rachel cut a hole in the middle of rectangles of white cotton material and finished the edges. Rav Avraham Yitzchak then strung and wound the woolen strings onto the four corners of the garment, fashioning the first pair of tzitzis created totally “lishmah” in a Displaced Persons camp.
Once again, he hurried over to the Klausenberger Rebbe and presented him with this most precious gift, a brand new priceless talis katan with handmade arba kanfos. The Rebbe looked at him with awe and gratitude and accepted the gift. He put it on and made the brachah. After donning his first pair of tzitzis after years of only the striped prisoner uniform adorning his frail body, it was a moment of unprecedented k’dushah and simchah. Rav Avraham Yitzchak made a second pair for himself and felt the sweet bliss of fulfilling a mitzvah that was out of reach for such a long time. (Incidentally, his sister Rachel, who survived the war in a different camp, met someone who told her that she looked just like the “tzitzis-maker” in Feldafing, which led to her reunion with her brother!)
Fast-forward 50 years. Though not a youngster anymore, Rav Avraham Yitzchak insisted on running down to his basement storage, where he still kept his antique tzitzis stick and proudly demonstrated to his granddaughter the simple and crude mechanism by which he produced tzitzis for his fellow liberated inmates in Feldafing and Fehrenwald (Fernvals).
May Hashem gather us together mei’arba kanfos ha’aretz.
L’ilui nishmas Rav Avraham Yitzchak ben Yosef Moshe zt”l
Rabbi Dovid Hoffman is the author of the popular “Torah Tavlin” book series, filled with stories, wit and hundreds of divrei Torah, including the brand new “Torah Tavlin Yamim Noraim” in stores everywhere. You’ll love this popular series. Also look for his book, “Heroes of Spirit,” containing one hundred fascinating stories on the Holocaust. They are fantastic gifts, available in all Judaica bookstores and online at http://israelbookshoppublications.com . To receive Rabbi Hoffman’s weekly “Torah Tavlin” sheet on the parsha, e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
