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21 Kislev - Who Saved the Satmar Rebbe?

from Torah Jews  http://www.truetorahjews.org/
"Kastner testified at his own trial that his main concern had been “that most of the Zionist leadership should leave Budapest with the transport.” Even those 1684 Jews that eventually went on the transport were released only thanks to huge sums of money and valuable objects, collected by the Jewish communities of Hungary – mostly by the Orthodox in Budapest.
The fact that so much of the money came from the Orthodox was the main reason why Kastner was forced to include in his list some Orthodox rabbis, notably the Satmar Rebbe, for whose seat the Orthodox activist Chaim Roth personally paid a huge sum. Rabbi Yonasan Steiff and Rabbi Shlomo Tzvi Strasser were also included.
Despite all the money paid on his behalf, Kastner at first refused to save the Satmar Rebbe, knowing that he was an enemy of the Zionist party. He only agreed to do it at the insistence of his father-in-law, Dr. Joseph Fischer, head of the Jewish council of Cluj (Klausenberg).
Later, when they had reached freedom in Switzerland, Dr. Fischer approached the Rebbe and said, “I am sure the Rebbe understands that we did not plan to include him on the list of the privileged. Everyone knows that the Satmar Rebbe is a sworn enemy of the Zionists. But I will tell you the truth. One night in Klausenberg, my mother came to me in a dream and warned me to make sure to include the Satmar Rebbe in the list – and only then would there be hope of all the people escaping.”
When the Rebbe told this story years later, he noted that Fischer’s mother had been a religious woman who covered her hair and kept the commandments of the Torah, and his father had been a Torah scholar. He was the uncle of Rabbi Yisroel Yaakov Fischer, who was later a member of the anti-Zionist religious court of Jerusalem.
At every stage of the way from Budapest to the Swiss border, it was not Kastner but the Rebbe and his followers who ensured the success of the effort. The train was stopped for two days at the Austrian border, then was sent the other direction, and then stopped again in the middle of nowhere. The Jews got off and sat on the ground near the cars. Some of them asked the driver where they were going, and he replied, “Auschwitz.” Fear seized everyone, and they looked for ways to notify the rescue committee in Budapest.
The Rebbe arranged for a Jewish girl who didn’t look Jewish to travel to Budapest and notify Chaim Roth. Roth together with Kastner ran to Eichmann and cried that they had betrayed him. Eichmann smiled and replied coolly, “It seems there was a mistake. We ordered the train sent to a camp in Auschpitz, in the Sudetenland. Someone wrote Auschwitz instead. Don’t worry, if they go to Auschwitz I’ll give you another train.” Roth protested that he had given a lot of money to save a certain great rabbi who was on the train. Eichmann said, “Listen, this was not my mistake, but if you bring me more money I’ll try to correct it.” Roth brought another large bribe, and only then was the train turned around and sent to Bergen Belsen, where they were held for five months while the Nazis waited for more money from the Jews of the free world.
How did the Jews of the free world get the message? When the train stopped in Bratislava, Slovakia, the Rebbe spoke to the local Jews and asked them to spread the news of their predicament. Shlomo Gefen, a follower of the Rebbe, wrote to his brother-in-law Moshe Gross in Switzerland. He in turn notified the Orthodox rescue committee in Switzerland, led by Yitzchok Sternbuch, who sent the news around the world. Orthodox Jews in America turned to the War Refugee Board in Washington. Rabbi Michael Weissmandl in Slovakia and his fellow rescue workers never ceased to alarm the world about the danger to the transport, until the money the Nazis wanted was finally collected.
The Joint Distribution Committee had the necessary amount of money, and it would not have been hard to get the trucks the Nazis wanted. The only obstacle was the head of the Joint in Switzerland, Dr. Solly Mayer. He refused to use any money to buy trucks for the Germans, arguing that the S.S. was using this as ploy to drive a wedge between the Allied nations fighting Germany. Germany, he said, would make sure the Russians knew that America and England were supplying them with trucks to use against Russia. Solly Mayer even refused to allocate any money to free the prisoners in Bergen-Belsen. Even Kastner could not understand Mayer’s cold-hearted attitude."



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