“Rav Elchonon.” These two words contain a world of meaning. Rav Elchonon Wasserman was a gadol baTorah, leader of his generation, the rabbon shel kol bnei hagolah. Today, when we read the words he wrote over seventy years ago, it seems that he possessed he gift of prophecy.
Rav Elchonon was a talmid of the greatest luminaries of that generation, the pride and joy of Telz and Brisk, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ohel Torah in Baranovitch, and one of the foremost Torah leaders in the Jewish world. He was a man who waged the battles of Hashem and of the Torah, and whose teachings were collected in such classic works as Kovetz Shiurim and Kovetz Maamarim. The story of his martyrdom has long been recorded in works of history and is read with reverence and awe.
It was the month of Tammuz, after the Shabbos of Parshas Chukas, in the year 5701 (1941). That is what we know, but some details are unclear: Was he taken to his death on Sunday, the 11th of Tammuz, or on Monday, the 12th? And was he murdered on the day he was captured or on the next day? Furthermore, did his death take place before or after shkiah? All of this affects the question of when his yahrtzeit is. In several places, I saw that historians determined that the date of his death was the 11th of Tammuz, 5701, but that is clearly a mistake. Other sources place it on the 13th of Tammuz based on the assumption that he was taken away on Monday and was murdered at night. That may be correct, but some dispute that version of the story.
Rav Elchonon viewed the Chofetz Chaim as his rebbi. In many of his writings, he refers to him as “hakadosh baal haChofetz Chaim zt”l.” He once remarked, “It is impossible for us to perceive the full scope of the Chofetz Chaim’s greatness, since he used his brilliant mind to determine how to conceal his special qualities. How can we, with our puny intellects, hope to outsmart him?”
The talmidim of the yeshiva in Radin grew accustomed to seeing Rav Elchonon attend the Chofetz Chaim’s drashos. Rav Elchonon would drink in his rebbi’s words, reviewing them over and over. Once, on the Yomim Noraim, a talmid commented that the Chofetz Chaim had repeated verbatim a drashah he had delivered the year before. Rav Elchonon disagreed. “This year,” he said, “there were eight new words.”
Everyone agrees on where and how it happened: Rav Elchonon was taken by bloodthirsty Lithuanian soldiers from the home of Rav Avrohom Grodzensky Hy”d. In her book, Ve’emunascha Baleilos, Rebbetzin Wolbe, Rav Avrohom’s daughter, relates, “On one of the days after the pogrom, when we were still holed up in our house behind locked doors, and while rabbonim, yungeleit and bochurim slept and learned in pairs in every room of the house, three Lithuanian partisans with their guns drawn suddenly burst into the house. They opened the front door abruptly, and they were inside the house before we could react. In the entranceway, Rav Elchonon Wasserman Hy”d was standing (not sitting) and learning with a chavrusah. The Lithuanians were enraged by this sight of Jewish men, especially rabbonim, who were still learning. Aiming their weapons at him, they began screaming, ‘Don’t move!’
“They ran wildly from room to room, even to the second story, and they gathered all the men they found. Some of the men managed to hide and were not discovered. Roaring like wild beasts, the soldiers gathered thirteen men, including my beloved brother Zev, who was only 21 years old; my uncle, Reb Shabsi Vernikovsky, who was a rebbi at the yeshiva of Lomza, along with his son Mordechai; and, of course, Rav Elchonon Wasserman. We, the women and girls, begged the cruel Lithuanians not to take them away. I was the oldest among the girls and I tried to explain to them that rabbonim were not Communists.”
Rebbetzin Wolbe describes how she pleaded with the murderous soldiers to spare Rav Elchonon’s life. The soldiers replied that they would accept her claims if she showed them documents to prove them. The young Rivka Grodzensky raced up the stairs to find some sort of evidence that they were not Communist agents. As she looked through the window into the inner courtyard of the house, though, she saw all the men being taken at gunpoint to their deaths.
At the end of that chapter, Rebbetzin Wolbe relates, “We found out only later that on that very day, those 13 rabbonim and bnei Torah met their deaths al kiddush Hashem. It was the 12th of Tammuz, 5701, and we were told that the place where they were murdered was the Seventh Fort.” According to her memories and the accounts they received at the time, the men were taken into captivity on Monday and were murdered that very day, before nightfall. To this day, the rebbetzin observes her brother’s yahrtzeit on the 12th of Tammuz.
The month of Tammuz was one of the times when the anti-Semitism in Kovna reached its peak. Rav Mordechai Zuckerman relates, “Just a few days later, the Lithuanian rioters had reached the pinnacle of their cruelty. On the night between Wednesday and Thursday, the evening of the first of Tammuz, 5701, the partisans crossed the bridge leading from Kovna to Slabodka and began attacking the Jews. The rabble that arrived in Slabodka included members of the cream of Lithuanian society: students of universities and gymnasiums who were suddenly transformed from educated, advanced human beings into wild predatory beasts. Armed with rifles, knives and axes, they made their way from house to house, mercilessly slaughtering the young and the elderly, mothers and small children alike. Over one thousand Jews were murdered in cold blood on that awful night. One of the dead was the rov of Slabodka, Rav Zalman Osovsky, who was murdered by a Lithuanian marauder who broke into his home while he was sitting and learning Torah. The glorious sight of the rov sitting before an open Gemara, immersed in his learning, infuriated the beastly murderer…
“Another victim of those riots was Rav Yonah Karpilov, the illuy who was known in the yeshiva world by his nickname, ‘Yonah Minsker.’ He was a talmid of Yeshivas Mir, who had remained in Kovna after the yeshiva departed for faraway Shanghai. He was murdered at the entrance to the yeshiva building. When our master and rebbi, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, was informed of his death, he wept bitterly and exclaimed, ‘Woe to the land, for a great man is gone. We have lost a piece of the Torah!’”
Over the following nights, there were more acts of violence committed by Lithuanian rioters in other parts of the city. The murders were accompanied by unspeakable acts of barbarity. Homes were torched with their residents still inside. People were drowned in the Viliya River. Over 2,000 people lost their lives in these riots in all sorts of barbaric ways. The men of the chevrah kadishah worked with great mesirus nefesh, literally taking their lives into their own hands as they went from home to home to collect the dead and bury them in the old cemetery in Slabodka.
“At the end of those two dreadful weeks, on the 12th of Tammuz, 5701, the women and children were released from the Seventh Fort, and the 3,000 or so remaining men were mercilessly gunned down in the courtyard by the German Gestapo and their Lithuanian cohorts.”
With that, Rav Mordechai comes to his account of how Rav Elchonon was taken away to meet his death. “Rav Elchonon’s yeshiva had left Vilna for Smilishoki,” he relates. “When he found out that the Bolsheviks were looking for him and planning to torment him, he fled to Kovna and stayed at the home of Rav Aryeh Malkiel Friedman [father-in-law of Rav Shneur Kotler, Rav Chaim Sarna, and Rav Yaakov Volpe], who lived in the apartment above Rav Avrohom Grodzensky.
“Rav Elchonon made tremendous efforts to leave the blood-soaked continent of Europe, but when he finally managed to obtain a visa, his son, Rav Naftoli, broke his leg, which delayed his departure. Meanwhile, the Germans conquered Lithuania and it became impossible to leave the country.
“During the daytime, Rav Elchonon learned at the home of Rav Avrohom Grodzensky which served as a makeshift bais medrash, while the bnei yeshivos who lived in the area would gather there from time to time and take solace in the company of the gedolei Torah who had gathered there.” Those bnei yeshivos included Rav Mordechai himself.
One of Rav Mordechai’s recollections of those days is an incident when Rav Avrohom asked Rav Elchonon to deliver a shiur in halachah. “A shiur?” Rav Elchonon exclaimed. “In these turbulent times?” But Rav Avrohom was insistent. “I am not asking for just any shiur. I am asking for you to deliver a shiur on the topic of the hour – the sugya of kiddush Hashem!”
Rav Elchonon acquiesced to the request and asked for time to prepare the shiur. He closeted himself in his room for a long time, and when he finally emerged, his face was aflame with passion. He delivered his shiur, a profound lecture on the subject of kiddush Hashem, with great reverence. “A few days later,” Rav Mordechai adds, “on Sunday, the 11th of Tammuz, three Lithuanian murderers burst into Rav Avrohom’s home. Rav Elchonon was standing in the vestibule and learning with Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Zaks. Rav Elchonon and another 12 talmidei chachomim and tzaddikim who were in the house at the time, and who did not have an opportunity to escape and hide, were taken away to the Seventh Fort.
“Throughout this time, Rav Avrohom was lying on the sofa in the room, consumed by sorrow and immersed in his thoughts. The intruders thought that he was ill, and since they didn’t have a car with them, they did not take him away. So it was that he was saved, bechasdei shomayim, for just a few more years, to light up those dark days for the bnei aliyah who gathered around him.”
The group of 13 kedoshim who were seized that day included the bochur Zev (Velvel) Grodzensky, who was 21 years old; Rav Moshe Chaim Zaks and his son; Rav Moshe Reiss, Rav Dovid Goder, Rav Shabsai Vernikovsky and his son, Mordechai; Rav Yitzchok Gefen, and others. They were part of a group of about 3,000 Jews from Kovna and the surrounding areas who were rounded up and herded into the Seventh Fort. The prisoners were held in the courtyard of the fort for about a day and a half, kept in the heat of the blazing sun and lacking any food or drink. They were packed so densely into the courtyard that they were unable to even sit. Only the women and children were allowed inside the building.
Rav Mordechai’s account concludes: “The next day, on the night leading into Tuesday, the 13th of Tammuz, 5701, those holy tzaddikim were murdered in the Seventh Fort, along with 3,000 other Jews who were seized by the Lithuanians. May Hashem avenge their blood.”
Rebbetzin Wolbe is certain that the date of the murders was the 12th of Tammuz, the day when she observes her brother’s yahrtzeit, while Rav Mordechai was confident that the deaths occurred that night. According to his account, the yahrtzeit is the 13th of Tammuz.
“These are the final words which R’ Elchanan spoke to his students when they were interrupted in their study of maseches Nedarim and rushed off to sanctify the Name of Heaven with the surrender of their souls… on that bitter day of the 11th of Tammuz, 5701.
“R’ Elchanan spoke quietly with his usual composure. His voice was no different than always. He looked very serious but altogether normal… He did not attempt to part specifically from his son, R’ Naftoli, but spoke to one and all, to Klal Yisrael. He said: ‘In Heaven, they apparently consider us tzaddikim, since we have been chosen to atone with our bodies for Klal Yisrael. Therefore, we must repent wholeheartedly…’