"I Survived Hitler and Stalin, and Three Words from the Rebbe Saved Me from Despair"

The author, Rabbi Moshe Gutman, tells a remarkable story about a few words from the Slonim Rebbe that saved a young man from assimilation.

It was during World War II when the situation for Jews worsened, and the followers of Slonim made every effort to rescue their Rebbe from the danger zone. The Rebbe adamantly refused to flee and leave his followers behind.

During the rescue attempts, the followers informed him that it might be possible to arrange for a large group of followers to leave Europe together. Only then did the Rebbe agree to the idea. Therefore, they began preparing the passport for the Rebbe.

Photographer Moshe Zahevetsky, a resident of Baranavichy, asked the Rebbe to come to his home, as he had a darkroom there where he could take a suitable picture. The Rebbe came to Moshe's house and was brought into the dark room. The camera was an enormous, cumbersome machine set on three sturdy thick legs. The subject positioned themselves in front of the camera in the dark room, and additionally, the photographer spread a thick black curtain to darken and covered under it both the photographer and the camera, except for a narrow slit left for the camera's lens. They were concealed from view, left alone unseen.

When the flash went off, the Rebbe, with burning passion from his heart, said: "Moshe, Moshe, remember! One can close oneself in a dark room. Covered. Invisible. But the impression remains!" (The Rebbe spoke in Yiddish, here is the translation). As the Rebbe said these last words, he repeated them with sacred fire and a tremendous roar, looking towards the young man standing across from him in the darkness: "The impression remains!"

Decades passed. The Rebbe was killed in the Holocaust after refusing to flee and leave his followers without a leader, and Moshe suffered through the torments of the Holocaust and subsequently under the wickedness of communism. "I survived Hitler and Stalin. After the harsh war, I lived behind the Iron Curtain. I was completely cut off and wandered far from my ancestral heritage until I thought I had forgotten my Judaism," says the elderly Moshe. "As I was about to establish my family, I faced the temptation of assimilation into another nation, believing I would have no qualms. I was even making practical preparations for a wedding with a Russian girl. During the wedding preparations, I suddenly heard deep in my mind the cry of the Slonim Rebbe: 'But the impression remains!' and it stood before me."

"No matter how I tried to shake it from my mind, I couldn't. It chased me to every corner I turned. It stood before me, blocking my ability to wander in foreign fields, until I was left with no choice but to build my home with a proper Jewish woman," Moshe concludes his personal story.

Courtesy of the 'Dirshu' website.