THE REBBE’S PUPIL

“The Rebbe taught us alef-beis.” * The Rebbe would visit the Steiner home in Nice and teach the children. * Exclusive to Beis Moshiach.

The Rebbe, at that time the son-in-law of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, came to the house where we lived and taught me and my sister. He wore a beret and his beard was short. He would sometimes eat with us.”

That is what eighty year old Mrs. Ruth Bezek, who lives in the center of Eretz Yisroel, had to say. During the Holocaust, her family fled to Nice in France where she learned alef-beis with the Rebbe.

Ruth does not like to talk about that period, when her family escaped from Austria to France and lived as refugees under complicated circumstances and under constant suspicion. But her testimony provides another element to the Rebbe’s secret work during the war.

Mrs. Bezek’s story is not known to researchers of that period and is being told for the first time. It is only natural that we were unable to verify it since the people who would have been able to do so are no longer living. However, despite the decades that have passed since then, her memory is clear. She remembers small details, names and dates from events in the years that followed that I was able to verify. Here is the story as she related it.

ESCAPING TO VICHY AND FROM VICHY TO NICE

First some historical background for the period in which the Rebbe lived in Nice, so we can understand how the Rebbe came to teach little girls in their home.

On the eve of World War II, the Rebbe and Rebbetzin lived in Paris. When the Nazis approached Paris, many Jews escaped to Vichy, including the Rebbe and Rebbetzin. At the end of the summer of 1940, they were able to leave Vichy which was under Nazi occupation for Nice in southern France which was safer. The area was under Italian rule and many Jews found a safe haven there in the hopes that the Italians would save them from the Nazis. The Fascist Italian government, despite its collaboration with the Nazis and being actively against the Jews, was unwilling to send Jews in its territory to the concentration camps.

The Rebbe and Rebbetzin lived in Nice (which was called Nizza at the time) for eight-nine months until the beginning of the summer of 1941. For part of this time, the Rebbe and Rebbetzin lived in a rented apartment in a small hotel which was near the train station. It was very dangerous here too and they did not go out to the street much. There were days that the government announced a curfew and the Rebbe hardly went out except on Shabbos when he went to daven in the beis midrash in a big hotel that was full of Jewish refugees.

Notwithstanding all the danger, the Rebbe and Rebbetzin made efforts to help many Jews, materially and spiritually. Despite the Italians’ attitude, there were limitations to religious activity in Nice.

The Rebbe in France

HELPING THE REFUGEES

R’ Yaakov Moshe Rothschild, who lived in Nice at the time, was in touch with the Rebbe and even obtained pas Yisroel for him. There was one bakery in the city which was run by a Jew but he was not Shabbos observant. The Rebbe asked R’ Yaakov Moshe to light the oven and to buy for him that which would be baked immediately thereafter. The Rebbe used this bread for lechem mishna on Shabbos and Yom Tov.

The Rebbe engaged in acts of chesed for the many refugees in Nice. Over the years, some examples came to light. Here are a few:

A Jewish woman wanted to escape from Nice and the Rebbe helped her obtain forged papers to enable her to safely make her way through Nazi checkpoints. The woman eventually made aliya.

R’ Mendel Notik, who served as an assistant in the Rebbe’s household, told several stories that the Rebbetzin related that demonstrate the Rebbe’s great acts of chesed at that time. In order to be able to rent a room in a hotel, the person had to show that he had at least $100 (a large sum for that time). The Rebbe would look for Jews who were walking around the city without a roof over their heads and would give them a $100 bill so they could find shelter.

The problem was that the Rebbe did not have much more than the $100 bill. So what happened was, the person given the bill would go to a hotel and when he had secured a room, he would return the bill to the Rebbe who would then look for another Jew to help in the same way. The Rebbetzin said this developed into a major project. Over time, other Jews helped the Rebbe in this rescue work.

Another story from R’ Mendel: The Nazi government confiscated all the gold in the country and whoever still had gold was required to turn it in. Anyone caught with gold was executed. A Jew who possessed numerous gold ingots figured the Rebbe would not be suspected and no search would be conducted of his home. He asked the Rebbe to hide the gold in his house and the Rebbe agreed.

There was so much gold that it filled an entire closet. When the situation worsened and they began conducting searches even in the area where the Rebbe lived, the Rebbetzin was afraid and suggested that the gold be transferred to a safer place. The Rebbe’s response was, “It’s a Jew’s money and we won’t touch it.”

PRIVATE LESSONS

Now we come to new testimony that is being publicized here for the first time, about the Rebbe teaching young girls in their home.

At the time that the Italians controlled Nice, there were strict religious restrictions which included studying religion. Therefore, some Jews organized small learning groups so they would not be discovered by the authorities. Professor Rina Posnansky, director of the department for Holocaust Studies at the University of Beer Sheva (who published dozens of books and articles about the history of Jews in France during the war) wrote:

“It was illegal to have religion classes in Nice. In order to circumvent this, we arranged small groups of two or three children and we gave them private lessons on Jewish subjects.”

Ruth Bezek was born in 1935 and during the time that the Rebbe taught her, she said she was only about five and therefore her memories of that time aren’t extensive. But the fact that the Rebbe taught her is something she heard from her father many years later.

“I was born in 1935 in Vienna. My parents were Alexander Klonimus and Stella Steiner. They were part of the religious community whose center was the Schiff Shul. My father ran a metal factory and my mother took care of the house. My grandfather, R’ Morris Leitner, was the head of the community. In 1938, after the Anschluss, the Nazis took over Austria and my grandfather, who was rich, was arrested. Adolf Eichmann, who led the terror campaign against the Jews of Austria, demanded that he turn over all his wealth to them, but my grandfather refused and after a week of hell, he was released. He told his family to leave the country immediately for he realized that a tragedy was imminent. He warned us, ‘Wherever you go, don’t register as members of a community so they won’t catch you.’

“My parents, along with me and my older sister, fled to Czechoslovakia and from there we went to Italy until we arrived in Nice in France. We listened to my grandfather and did not register as members of a community. We lived in the Cimiez neighborhood in a large apartment building; I think we lived on the second floor. Life was terrifying and this was so even though we had money; the danger was existential, not financial.

“Where did we have money from? Having run a metal factory, there were large sums of money deposited in various banks. Before we left Vienna, my father withdrew all the money and bought diamonds which we hid in a big doll that we emptied of its contents. I kept the doll, and at the various checkpoints nobody considered that a treasure lay within my toy. Now and then, my parents would sell one of the diamonds and that is how we managed during that difficult time.

“It was 1940 when the Rebbe came to teach us and he taught us for three months. People were afraid to have Jewish children out on the street and so he taught us at home. I was a little girl and I did not ask many questions and I did not know who this man was, but over the years, my father told us that he was the Lubavitcher Rebbe who was the previous Rebbe’s son-in-law at the time and was staying in Nice.

“The Rebbe taught us the alef-beis out of a book, I think a siddur, and he also drew the letters. He came on his own and asked my father if he could teach us. All the years, my father highly esteemed him even though I don’t know whether, after he became Rebbe, my father kept in touch.

“I remember that he wore a beret and had a short beard and sometimes he ate with us, because apparently the kashrus was satisfactory to him.”

MY TEACHER WAS MISS KARASIK

“My family then escaped from Nice to Bordeaux where we spent time in a detainment camp. We somehow got to Spain and from Spain to Portugal and then to North Africa. After endless travels and travails, we arrived in Cairo and went from there to Haifa. That was at the end of 1941.

“When we arrived in Eretz Yisroel, we settled in Tel Aviv. With the diamonds he hid, my father bought a juice factory and a house at 48 Rothschild Boulevard. He was in touch with the Sadigora Rebbe and davened in the Chug Chasam Sofer shul of R’ Mordechai Yaffe Schlesinger.

“I went to Beis Yaakov in Tel Aviv where my teacher’s name was Karasik [Rebbetzin Devorah Ashkenazi, the mother of R’ Mordechai Ashkenazi, who taught in Beis Yaakov before she married and was called Mora Devorah Karasik].”

Sources: Interview with Mrs. Ruth Bezek, the series on the rescue of the Rebbe from the Holocaust – Chabad B’Shoah, “L’Hiyot Yehudi B’Tzorfat.”

Photo of Mr. Steiner – from his daughter’s pictures

I heard the story through R’ Binyanim Braun, a Chabad Chassid in Munich.