During the Holocaust, R' Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal wrote: “When I fled the land of hell to save my bare soul, I was unable to take any personal belongings with me. I was even forced to leave my R' Tam tefillin. The only thing I rescued was my Rashi tefillin... I simply could not part with them because they are worth more to me than anything in the world, they are irreplaceable. I bought them when I was young before the First World War and gave them over to the famous, perfectly righteous scribe, R' Chaim Sofer of Munkatch to have them rewritten. This is why they are so precious to me, and I do not make the slightest move without them. When I arrived here in the capital (Budapest), I was missing R' Tam tefillin as well as a tallis. I hereby express gratitude to my dear friend, the perfect Tzadik, son of saints, R' Yisrael Dovid Margolis Schlessinger, Rav of Linas Tzedek here (in Budapest). Through his efforts, R' Chaim Mordechai Stern gave me a very beautiful pair of R' Tam tefillin. This truly gave me new life because now I had two pairs of tefillin.” He then writes that he praises his affluent friend R' Wolf Reichman for giving him a tallis with which to daven.
On Purim 5702 (March 3, 1942), during the Holocaust, the Jews were given a few moments to eat toward nightfall and wanted to fulfill the mitzva of eating the Purim meal. However, the only food was black horse-bone soup, without any bread. R’ Ephraim Oshry ruled that they could fulfill the mitzva of the Purim seuda with this soup, since even according to those who say that one should have bread at the Purim seuda, that is only where bread is available. When the Jews present there heard this, their eyes lit up at this opportunity.
In regard to the enslavement in Mitzrayim, it says ויאנחו בני ישראל מן העבודה ויזעקו, they groaned because of the work and they cried out. R’ Shmelki of Nikolsburg interprets this as groaning and crying out because of their inability to serve Hashem! That is despite the crushing labor they went through!
