Satmar Rebbe and the Holocaust ; what really happened?
Satmar is one of the largest Chassidic groups in the world. Its origins are in Hungary/Transylvania and the one who is responsible for its success is a charismatic Rabbi named Yoel Teitelbaum (1887-1979).
He began his Rabbinic career in Hungary and Transylvania. In his last Rabbinic post as the Rabbi of Satmar he was wittness to the beginning of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry under the Nazis. While most of his followers perished in the Shoah, he survived (thanks to the Zionists which he never failed to rail against) and went on to rebuild his Chassidus in Israel and America.
Exactly what did he did during the years following up to the Shoah is a question that has never been and never will be addressed honestly and openly by his spiritual heirs or indeed by Charedi Jewry in general.
The following is my translation and adaptation of two Hebrew articles which sheds more light on the subject.
The first one is from the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon December, 2004:
What motivates members of Neturei Karta to show their support for a modern-day Hitler? This extreme sect and their abominable views was inspired partly by Yoel Teitelbaum also known as the Satmar Rebbe. David Shain was the former editor of the Hungarian daily newspaper Oikelt and one of a few non Chassidim who got to know him quite well. Shain recalled what he had heard from Rudolf Kastner the head of the Zionist Organization in Hungary and the one who ultimately rescued the Satmar Rebbe from the Nazis.
"he seemed surprised to see me" recalled Kastner. I informed him that the Zionist organization -which he had fought against his whole life- procured a seat for him on a special train which was to leave Hungary to freedom . "I am against against Zionism? Replied Teitelbaum "I only wanted to bring some Yiddishkeit to the Jewish people". (here we see Teitelbaum downplaying down his virulent anti-Zionism -a fact well known throughout Hungary- in order to partake of these same Zionists 'good graces' while leaving his naive followers to die).
In a different article, Israeli Shoshi Greenfeld painfully remenisces about her family in Hungary and how they were misled by the Satmar Rebbe as well:
סבתי ניצולת שואה, היא הגיעה מהונגריה, והייתה חסידת סאטמר.
בעיצומה של המלחמה, כאשר היהודים כבר הושמדו בפולין, ולפני שהגיעו המרצחים הנאצים להונגריה,
ניגש אבא שלה אל הרבי מסאטמר, הרב יואל טייטלבאום, ושאל אותו אם לעלות לארץ ישראל, והאם
יש צורך לברוח מהונגריה מפני הגרמנים.
הרבי הורה לו, ולעוד חסידים רבים ששאלו באותו עניין, להישאר בהונגריה.
כשהגיעו הנאצים נמלט הרבי ברכבת קסטנר.
הוא הציע לאביה של סבתי להצטרף אליו, אבל סבא רבא שמואל סירב. ''יש לי משפחה עם שמונה ילדים קטנים, איך אוכל לעזוב אותם?" אמר לרבי "לאן שייקחו אותם, גם אני הולך''.
הרבי מסאטמר כידוע ניצל.
סבא רבה שמואל, ואשתו ביילה, עם שבעה ילדים וילדות, נרצחו בתאי הגזים.
שרדה רק ילדה אחת- סבתא שלי.
סבתי עברה עשרה מדורי גיהינום במחנות ההשמדה, היא ניצלה ועלתה ארצה.
Free translation: My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and also a follower of the Satmar Rebbe. While the Holocaust was raging in Europe and most of Polish Jewry had already been liquidated, she asked the Rebbe whether she should flee Hungary for Pre-State Israel lest the Nazi threat hit Hungary as well.
The Rebbe categorically forbid her from leaving and told her and all his other Chassidim in no uncertain terms to stay in Hungary. As is well known, he himself fled Hungary in time with the Kastner train. When he offered my great-grandfather safe passage along with him, he (my great-grandfather) refused and vowed to stay with his family till the end.
The Satmar Rebbe was of course saved but my great-grandfather, his wife and seven children all perished. The only one who survived was my grandmother who went through seven circles of hell and emigrated to Israel.
This shameful and utterly cowardly and treacherous behavior is remembered well by Teitelbaum's landtsmen (literally, someone from the same town). Journalist Yossi Klein- Halevi in his book Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist recalls his father who grew up in the same town as Teitelbaum (he would call him "Teitelshmuck") calling the latter a traitor who sold out his people to save his own skin.
Some lessons that should be learned from this:
1.Be careful who you call a Gadol
2.Even authentic Gedolim can be wrong- sometimes with tragic consenquences.
3.There is no transparency or accountability within Charedi Judaism when it comes to "Gedolim" (especially the Hungarian Chassidic brand). No matter what they do, they will always be infallible.
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4 comments:
I have heard that the name 'Satmar' comes from the town that it was originally started in- The town of St Mary
True or false
Isa from FailedMessiah
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 05:13:38 -0500
From: zellig@aol.com
Subject: Satmer and St. Mary?
Hasidic sects are often known after the towns where their rebes started to
"reign." So we have the Bobover khsidim, Gerer, Lubavitsher, Satmer (or
Satmar), Skverer, and so on.
In the Indianapolis, IN, weekly _Nat'l Jewish Post & Opinion_ (Jan. 3, 1996,
p. 10), in the column "Digest of the Yiddish Press" the ludicrous statement
resurfaced that the name of the Satmer khsidim derives from the Rumanian town
St. Mary.
Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, in response to a question submitted to the _Jewish
Language Review_ (Haifa) wrote: "It is high time that this myth, concocted by
Rumanianless English-speakers in the United States, be exploded: Satmer (not
"satmar" as one sometimes sees) is the Yiddish name of Satur Mare, a city in
Rumania whose literal meaning is 'big town.' It has absolutely nothing to do
with St. Mary" (J.L.R., Vol. 2, 1982, p. 302, R909/1).
This "digester" (a rabbi) knows little Yiddish, as I indicated in these pp.
some time ago, as when he referred, for example, to "Aleykhem's House" as if
Aleykhem were Sholem Aleylhem's last name, and constantly keeps referring to
Yiddish by the schizographic name "mame lashon," instead of mame-loshn.
As one who writes a weekly digest of the Yiddish press it would behoove the
rabbi to check some evidently etymological nonsense before "digesting" it,
and, occasionally, consult an expert in Yiddish, in this case indeed Dr.
Schaechter, the famous Yiddish philologist, editor of the YIVO publication
_Yidishe Shprakh_, author of several Yiddish textbooks for students, and
recipient of the Itsik Manger Prize.
Zellig Bach
You want to have a good laugh ?
Look at what Gershon Tannenbaum, a liar and swindler formerly residing in Federal prison, just wrote in his Jewish Press propaganda column, about Satmar Hassidim.
http://www.thejewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=26573&mode=a§ionid=14&contentname=My_Machberes&recnum=1
"The risking of arrest and possible jail time for disorderly behavior and breaking the peace, as much as they may have wished to, is just simply not in the nature of Chassidim."
Obviously Gershon the swindler has adopted the big lie technique.
You want to have a good laugh ?
Look at what Gershon Tannenbaum, a liar and swindler formerly residing in Federal prison, just wrote in his Jewish Press propaganda column, about Satmar Hassidim.
http://www.thejewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=26573&mode=a§ionid=14&contentname=My_Machberes&recnum=1
"The risking of arrest and possible jail time for disorderly behavior and breaking the peace, as much as they may have wished to, is just simply not in the nature of Chassidim."
Obviously Gershon the swindler has adopted the big lie technique.
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