Lighting Up the Night - Part 2: A Chanukah Miracle in Bergen-Belsen - Rabbi Paysach Krohn

[Music] so I want to tell you a beautiful story and I just printed this story in a new book that just came out and it's still Chanukah you can still buy ten copies before tomorrow and in this book which is called illuminations of the market there are many many beautiful beautiful stories and there's a story in there about a man whose name was Rishabha shmeil shin Itzler and they called him reps Milkha and he was in bergen-belsen that's he was a Constitution person and he told the people in bergen-belsen he said to them and the barracks don't worry that there will be candles we're going to be able to light the Chanukah candles when it comes to Chanukah and they said don't be ridiculous we're in a concentration camp the Germans will never let us and he said you've got to have faith listen to me I am Telling You that we will be able to light Chanukah candles now what I want to tell you now I don't say in front of little children because it's too horrible but everybody here is mature and so I want to explain to you the job that this rubbish in its load of schmell Kuznets lore had in the concentration camps many of you know that I take tours to Poland and I hope that one day all of us will be able to go together we go to the holy places of the synagogues of the ROM or Ram erisa lists we go to the yeshiva of Reb may appear oh we go to the gravesite of the river EE Mela and then we also go to some of the concentration camps now in the concentration camps and we have been in these rooms there were siphons where they would pack people 200 people in a room that can hold 30 or 40 and those people were told that they're gonna have a shower they're gonna get clean and they're gonna go out to work but of course when they were in the room it wasn't a shower it was gas and they were joking and they choked to death and they were screaming and crying and after they died the bodies were piled up on a wagon and rock monoliths lon rubbish mocha he had to walk with the wagon and take them to the Crematory of those dead bodies and that's where they were burnt to ashes and that's a half a mile walk we have walked this walk many many times with different people in Auschwitz and in my donek and he would cry when he would walk along the wagons because he knew many of the people in the barracks and he had to make sure that none of those dead bodies fell off the wagon and one night one lady afternoon every day he took the same path and he almost tripped and he looked down there was like a bump in the earth this bump was not here the day before he doesn't understand that why was this bump here how did it get here it looked like somebody was hiding something in there but he didn't want to go look for it because go see what it was because they were Nazi guards behind him so he waited until later and he went out to look what was in that lump of Earth and he saw the most unbelievable thing he could not believe it there was a little cup of oil and there was little strands of wool for they wrote for wigs and little cups who put it there and to me this is the best part of the story that he covered it up and he left it there in other words he obviously realized in a second there must be some Jew who was hiding this so even though that I told the people that they're gonna have candles or oil for Hanukkah and I would look like a hero but I'm not gonna do it at the expense of another Jew who left it there so he covered it up and he goes back to the barracks and he said that anybody hide oil or wicks nobody knew what he was talking about they thought he was dreaming now listen to this it was the 20th day of Kislev the 21st day of Kislev he goes out he sees nobody came to take it 22nd 23rd 24th it's an before Hanukkah and nobody came to take it so he figured for whatever reason this Jew who was hiding it he's not coming back for whatever reason I'm gonna go get it and he goes and he digs it up and he brings back this cup of oil with the wicks and he says to the people that will tithe listen to me I'm gonna say that but aha we'll all answer Amen I'm gonna light the candles and the people were crying they couldn't believe it and they said the three blessings especially the chef Leon oh that they lived they couldn't believe that they lived to see a mitzvah and the worst situations and every night they had Hanukkah oil and the wicks this happened in December of 1944 in April of 1945 those that were still alive were liberated liberated meant that they were sent free to go wherever they wanted and some of these people went back to the countries that they came from this rubbish melka schnitzel er went back to Hungary now he lived in a city it's called chubber and he became to know to be known as the chopper off at the chopper rabbi and many people would go to him to get blessings eventually he moved to Israel in 1951 he came to America and he came to Brooklyn and he came to visit the satmar rebbe reb Uriel Teitelbaum now the reason that he went to visit the Satmar because as satmar rebbe was also in bergen-belsen and they were talking amongst themselves and crying all the terrible things that they had lived through and after a long discussion of reviewing everything that happened to both of them until their friends that they lost the satmar rebbe says you know there's something that i always feel bad about he says Rebbe what is that so the Rebbe says you know I bribed one of the guards and he let me hide some oil and wicks and I feel bad that they were never used because I was liberated he said Huff olive Kissling deferred 21st day of Kislev and when I'm snitched on the chopper of heard is he said what are you talking about you wanted to do a good thing and I sure made it that I should find it and we lit those wigs and we lit that of oil and because you went out of your way to hide it so many Jews were inspired and they cried and they hugged each other and the satmar rebbe said look even in our time I shed made another miracle with oil in the month of his life now I have a wonderful son-in-law his name is Han anya kramer and he's a genius in videos and animation and what we did we produce something called living lessons maybe one day i'll give it to you live you'll be able to see it it's five stories about Hanukkah that i tell and he put it to animation and this was one of the stories now we got it costs thirty thousand dollars to produce so I got it donated from different people and then we gave it three tutorial miss aura term essaouira is a wonderful total organization around the country around the world and we gave it to them so that people should be able to go teachers all over the world could go on to their website and show it to classes and people were able to see it and one night after it's on Thomas or.org a guy calls me a friend of mine a friend of mine from Williamsburg and he says to me wherever I crawl I'm sitting here crying with my father I said why his name is Hamish litzler and this was his great-grandfather he said we never knew that the whole world knew the story and now I'm sitting here with my father in the hospital and we're watching this thing in animation so this is a true story and it brings out a very very important point and that is that when you want to do something good Hashem is gonna help you as the raw who spoke rabbi you did as he spoke before I did sometimes you just need patience you have to wait but if you do a good thing a chef is gonna help you and you're gonna be rewarded and sometimes you might not see the good result as the satmar rebbe didn't see it but it was a great result and he gets the reward because he put that away