Rabbi Dov Eliach: “Each person is a world unto himself. Each person came from a totally different background. To me that’s exactly what makes each of their stories so interesting. After all is said and done it comes down to personal responsibility — how much a person takes upon himself —that rises above all.” (Photos: Ouria Tadmor)

Ileft the house undercover of darkness climbing over fences and cutting through yards until I had left the town behind. My plan was to enter the nearby forest and find somewhere to hide but just then a young Jewish man who collaborated with the Russian police apprehended me and ordered me to accompany him. Showing me his pistol he threatened to shoot me if I resisted.

“When I recall this incident and think about it I assume he must have been a Heaven-sent messenger — perhaps Eliyahu Hanavi himself — otherwise how does one explain what a young man was doing outside the town all alone at three o’clock in the morning? Just imagine what would have happened had I managed to reach the forest as I intended! I would have been exposed to any number of life-threatening dangers: first wild animals; second any Lithuanian gentile could and probably would have shot me; and third I had no food or drink with me. Besides all these hazards the Germans invaded three days later and slaughtered the Jews… so my arrest by that young man was literally a Heavenly miracle!

“The young man led me to my lodgings and instructed me to pack my belongings. I crammed all my things into two bundles and we left for the police station. The NKVD officers ordered me to empty out my pockets. They found my Polish passport my visas and a letter from home written in German. I heard one of them telling another ‘Looks like we’ve managed to capture a spy.…’ Then in a voice heavy with sarcasm he began singing a Russian song whose message I only understood later: ‘I’m not afraid of Siberia ’cause Siberia is alsoRussia...’”

—Rav Simcha Hochgelernter an alumnus of yeshivos Chachmei Lublin Baranovich and Kamenitz in an excerpt from Tales of Devotion entitled “Suffering and Miracles”

Tales of Devotion Rabbi Dov Eliach’s newest release and the third in his Holocaust-era trilogy aptly describes the author’s own commitment to his years-long project of tracking down survivors and compiling their personal accounts of keeping one step ahead of the Nazis and the Communists — and preserving their Yiddishkeit at all costs.

The vast majority of Jews living today were born after World War II. With the exception of those who lived behind the Iron Curtain and a handful of other lands they have never experienced the deprivation degradation and daily fear for one’s life that Reb Simcha Hochgelernter the protagonist in the above memoir experienced. Nor have they seen G-d’s hand quite as openly as he did.

Reb Simcha’s trials and tribulations trying to keep a step ahead of the Nazis and the Communists are one of six new stories recorded for posterity in Tales of Devotion the third in Rabbi Dov Eliach’s Holocaust-era trilogy and recently released in English.

Tales of Devotion would aptly describe Rabbi Eliach’s commitment to this project. He has been tracking down survivors for almost 30 years compiling their personal stories of life and death in the cities and shtetls of prewar Europe — be it the chassidishe life in Lublin the yeshivishe life in Lithuania or the balabatishe life in Pressburg — sometimes in multiple interviews then painstakingly fact-checking and researching the relevant historical background.

Rav Simcha Hochgelernter: “My plan was to enter the nearby forest and find somewhere to hide but just then a young Jewish man who collaborated with the Russian police apprehended me and ordered me to accompany him.”

For Rabbi Eliach chronicling the historical record of this grim and devastating chapter in Jewish history was just one of his goals. His main ambition was to give honor to and preserve the legacies of people who the more they suffered physically the higher they rose spiritually. 

“The common denominator in all of my stories is that these were Jews who were moser nefesh to preserve their Yiddishkeit under conditions of war no matter where they fled to or no matter what predicament they found themselves in” Rabbi Eliach says.