["Towards Shabbat Malkata" – Rav Kowalsky]
This was at the beginning of the terrible Holocaust, at a time when no one had yet imagined the cruel and exciting catastrophe that was coming. World War II began on the 17th of Elul 1939, with the invasion of Poland by the German army. Within a few weeks, hundreds of thousands of people fled from all the cities and suburbs, and reached the capital, Warsaw, the last Polish stronghold. Tens of thousands of Jews fled from all over Poland and concentrated in Warsaw. They hide there from the horror of the incessant German bombardment. The sound of the noise was deafening, tons of explosives 'fell' from the German planes flying in the sky, and all those who wanted to live fled to a nearby bunker whenever they could, in order to stay alive and not join the growing death toll...
On the eve of Sukkot, Poland surrendered. The German army withdrew its heavy bombardments, the sound of the cannons fell silent. There was a tense silence in Warsaw's space, and the people slowly began to emerge from their holes, examining their wounds and looking at the ruins of their homes. It was a day of surprising calm after weeks of shocking bombings, and on the other hand, a day of immense pain in the revelation of the extent of the destruction, and the enormous damage to homes and property. Among the Jewish refugees in Warsaw was Maran HaRav Z of Brisk, zt"l. He too fled here in the midst of the crisis, and he, like his fellow Jews, came out of the basement where he was hiding on the afternoon of Sukkot. Robbery and vandalism were unfolding before his eyes, hundreds of Jews were murdered and no one even knew when, enormous damage, all the streets were literally sworded. And then, in the midst of the inferno, in the midst of the horror, we saw a rare and astonishing sight. While the foreigners were busy controlling the damage and wanting to rebuild their destroyed homes a little, a large group of Jews were busy with something else entirely. No more and no less, when they came out of the bunkers and despite the horrific scenes of destruction that were revealed to them, none of them went to take care of their homes or their wounds... One thing was at the top of their minds, in which they were busy. The survivors rushed through the rubble, eagerly searching for parts of sides or fallen curtains, greenish branches, and beams that had survived the bombings. Their eyes sparkled when they found kosher thatch, their injured legs danced lightly in the construction of the sukkah.
