Rav Yoel Gold related a story. In the unstable days before World War II, 14-year-old Rochel Salgo’s father passed away. Rochel’s mother was unable to keep the family together, and she sent Rochel to Budapest to live with her late husband’s brother, Rav Yosef Salgo, and his wife. Rav Yosef was a Rosh Kollel, and a devoted Chasid of the Kerestirer Rebbe, Rav Meir Yosef Rubin. The Salgos would collect money and send donations to the Kerestirer Rebbe, and once Rochel was old enough, she became the one who would bring the money to the Rebbe. Every month, she would go to the Budapest train station and make the 90-minute trip to Kerestir to deliver her uncle’s gift. Her visits were so regular that the Rebbe and his attendants eventually grew to expect them. They were impressed with the young girl from Budapest and her dedication to Tzedakah.
Meanwhile, the political situation in Europe grew more and more perilous by the day. War was imminent. And then, Rav Yosef Salgo passed away in Budapest. In a tribute to his devoted Chasid, the Kerestirer Rebbe and two Gabbaim made the trip north to Budapest for the Levayah. They were unsure of when they would be able to return, so they only purchased one-way tickets, so that they would not be bound to a specific train schedule.
Tens of thousands of Jews visit each year the Kerestirer Rebbe’s grave
But from one minute to the next, the world dissolved into chaos. In the middle of the Levayah, Germany arrived in Budapest. Trapped, the Rebbe asked if anyone was willing to go to the train station and purchase return tickets to Kerestir, despite the soldiers spreading throughout the city, rounding up the Jews. Rochel volunteered to walk into the lion’s den. There were soldiers everywhere, and she could not see how she would be able to make it out alive.
All the Jews in the Train Station Had Been Captured
One Hungarian soldier approached her and asked, “Are you Jewish?” Unable to lie, Rochel nodded. He barked at her, “What are you doing here? Go home!” Somehow, Rochel removed herself from his presence. She ran to the other side of the station and purchased three tickets to Kerestir. But on her way out, the Nazi invasion reached the train station. Within a few moments, all the Jews in the station had been herded into a circle. They were surrounded. The clock was ticking, and at any moment, one of the soldiers could shoot her without explanation.
But then what would become of the Rebbe? Seeing a trustworthy-looking non-Jew, Rochel approached, handed him some money, and asked him to deliver the train tickets to a specific address. It was Hashgachah that she did so, for Rochel never went home again. That same day, she was deported to Auschwitz.
The Kerestirer Rebbe Was Able to Escape Hungary to Safety
Meanwhile, the Kerestirer Rebbe fled Budapest. He and his family escaped the country and made their way to safety in the United States. In her later years, Rochel Salgo, now Rochel Fleischmann [after having survived the Holocaust and making a new life in the United States], made Aliyah from America. After a tumultuous life, she moved to Eretz Yisroel to settle in peace, adopting a calm, unhurried routine. She was always careful to finish all her preparations for Shabbos by 12 o’clock on Friday, and by 11 in the morning, she would be waiting calmly by the phone for her children to call from the United States to wish her a good Shabbos. Almost seventy years after her deportation to Auschwitz, Rochel Fleischmann passed away early on a Friday morning in Yerushalayim. She was to be buried with her husband in Rechovot, an hour and a half away. Her children were in a race against the clock, afraid that the medical personnel would drag out the process to complete paperwork. But minutes later, the hospital inexplicably released the body. A high-ranking Knesset member had called to say that he would take responsibility for the legal implications. The family never found out who it was.
A Quickly Held Levayah Before Shabbos
They headed for the Bais HaChaim (cemetery) immediately. Clearly, someone wanted to repay Rochel’s devotion to Shabbos. The Levayah (funeral) was held in a rush, scheduled for Rochel Salgo as the young girl in Hungary. At 4:30 in the afternoon Israel time, two of Rochel’s children, Mayer Fleischmann and Leah Sara Miller, were stuck in America, watching the Levayah on live hookup at 9:30 A.M. With ten minutes to go before the Levayah would begin, Mayer’s Rav called and said that performing a Chesed Shel Emes for his mother from across the ocean might not be as simple as it seemed. If he wanted to say Kaddish together with the mourners at the graveside, and of course he did, he needed to get a Minyan in his house. Mayer panicked. They were at the outskirts of Boro Park. There were three adult men in the house: Mayer, his son, and his brother-in-law. They had less than ten minutes to find seven more. Just then, Leah Sara remembered about the small Chasidishe Shtiebel that was on the corner. She asked her husband to run down the block and check if there was anyone still there.
Seconds later, he was running back up the block followed by five young men, all of whom were yelling rapidly into their cell phones for their friends to join them. By 9:27, they had a Minyan. With his brother onscreen, Mayer joined in saying Kaddish for his mother. When the Levayah had concluded, the Aveilim sat down to begin sitting Shivah, and the young men who had completed the Minyan became the first Menachamim.
The Connection with the Kerestirer Rebbe’s Offspring
It was only then that they realized the significance of what had just happened. Five of the men who had made it possible for them to say Kaddish were, in fact, the grandson and great-grandsons of the Kerestirer Rebbe himself. Rochel Fleischmann had risked her life to send the Rebbe and his family to safety, and his family had given her an escort on her final journey!
Reprinted from the Parshas Devorim 5784 email of Rabbi Yehuda Winzelberg’s Torah U’Tefilah.
