The Lost Notebooks That Saved Their Lives

When dark clouds began gathering over Europe before World War II, a group of yeshiva (Torah academy) students managed to escape the growing danger in Germany and fled to England. With Hashem’s kindness, they made it out before it was too late. They hoped to finally find peace. But their relief didn’t last long.

The English authorities, suspicious of anything German, mistook these young Jewish students for spies. In a heartbreaking twist, they were deported—not to freedom—but to the far-off land of Australia. Strangers in a foreign land, they were put on a ship alongside criminals being exiled from England. These criminals took one look at the yeshiva students in their traditional Jewish clothing and decided to make their lives miserable.

The harassment grew worse with each passing day. Then came the worst moment of all. The criminals decided to throw all the belongings of the yeshiva students into the sea. Everything they had managed to bring with them—gone in an instant.

But what hurt the most wasn’t the clothing or supplies. It was their precious notebooks—full of Torah thoughts and teachings they had learned in their yeshivot, including words from the great Roshei Yeshiva (yeshiva heads) of that generation. These writings were treasures of the soul, things they had learned and worked on for years. They begged the attackers to leave those holy notebooks alone. But the attackers were unmoved. The pages—years of Torah learning—were thrown into the endless sea. The students cried as they watched them disappear beneath the waves.

Then, just moments later, something terrifying happened. German warships appeared in the distance. Shells and gunfire exploded around the ship. It looked like the end had come. They were moments from being sunk.

And then, the shooting suddenly stopped. The ship kept sailing. No one understood why.

Forty years passed. Then, an interview with the German naval commander who had led the attack was published. His words revealed the hidden hand of Hashem behind everything:

“We saw the ship and believed it was an enemy vessel. I gave the order to destroy it. But then we noticed small suitcases floating toward us. We feared they were bombs or coded signals. We brought them aboard and opened them—inside were notebooks written in German. That made us pause. If the people on that ship were Germans, we might be attacking our own. I immediately ordered a stop to the bombing, and we let the ship go.”

Those notebooks—the very ones the yeshiva students mourned—had been the very reason their lives were spared.

In that moment, forty years later, they saw clearly: what had once felt like unbearable pain was actually the miracle that saved them. It was a message from Heaven—there are no accidents. What feels like a loss may be the greatest salvation.

This story reminds us of a core belief in Judaism: everything Hashem does has a purpose. Even when we don’t understand why something painful is happening, we trust that it’s part of a bigger plan. Sometimes, what breaks our hearts now becomes the very thing that saves us later.