25 Shvat was HaRav Pogramonsky's 55th yahrtzeit.
Excerpted by B. Re'eim
R' Mordechai was invited to attend a bris taking place
in France, after the war. R' Mordechai set out on a Friday
together with another Jew. They grew so immersed in divrei
Torah that they became confused about their destination
and got off the train at the wrong stop.
"I'm afraid we're lost," sighed the companion.
Nonplussed, R' Mordechai exclaimed, "Look at what a beautiful
world Hashem has created! How lovely are these trees and
everything all around us. Do you know, a Jew never gets
lost," he offered as a side comment, and continued to praise
the scenery.
A German student approached them and told them that they must
get on the next train in order to reach their destination.
After they had boarded it, R' Mordechai turned to his travel
mate and said, "It is written by Hagar, `And she went and she
strayed' (Bereishis 21:14). Rashi comments there that
she returned to the old ways of her father's house. How does
Rashi know this? Chazal learn this from a gezeira
shava, since it says [when Yaakov is discussing with his
mother his going to Yitzchok disguised as Eisov], `And I
shall seem in his eyes as a deceiver [one who misleads]'"
(Bereishis 27:12).
R' Mordechai continued, "A Jew never loses his way or makes a
mistake. Wherever he happens to be, he understands that he
was brought there by Heavenly design. It is Hashem's will
that he be there at that time, in that place. There is no
mistake about that. What then, is losing one's way? If a
person goes to a place where Hashem would prefer he didn't
go, a place that is against the will of Hashem. He is
sidetracked, misled along the wrong path. If the Torah says
that Hagar strayed, it must mean that she strayed from the
right, G-dly path, and reverted to her idolatry."
Only Hashem...
R' Mordechai once entered a beis medrash in Paris.
Within minutes, he was surrounded by yeshiva students. His
message to them was: "It is important to toil. How was it in
the Kovna ghetto? There was no honor, no wealth, no property,
no security, no jobs, no stature, no plans for future
security, no purpose, no way out. No tomorrow. Only you
— and Hashem. Think of a life, an existence, like that.
Only you — and He. Nor Du und Hashem Yisborach; Nor
Du und Hashem Yisborach, meir gornit. Only you —
and Hashem. Nothing else..."
He paused, totally immersed in the thoughts he had evoked and
remained thus, steeped in reflection.
"I Don't See Bombs..."
When he was in the ghetto, and afterwards too, he used to
say, "I see no bombs. I only see the sayings of Chazal." Or,
"I see no Germans. I see no partisans. I only see the verses
of the Torah surrounding the ghetto. — `If only with a
strong hand will I rule over you' " (Yechezkel
20:33).
Parchments Burned
When he talked to Maran HaGaon R' Avrohom Shapira
ztvk'l, author of Dvar Avrohom, about the
troubles that were increasing by the day and the loss of hope
that everyone was experiencing he, notwithstanding, was full
of hope.
R' Avrohom once asked him, "What?! About [that particular
trouble] too?"
And he replied, "Parchments are being burned, [but] the
letters are flying to Heaven."
Secular Jews from the Kovno ghetto told after the war that R'
Mordechai gathered groups in the ghetto and infused them with
a spirit of hope not to despair. They testified that they
survived thanks to his encouragement, even though they
continued to be inveterate apikorsim.
Believers, Sons of Believers
Before Pesach the residents of the Kovna ghetto were
carefully, painfully, slowly, saving matzos for the
upcoming holy days. A Kinder Aktzia took place in the
ghetto just then. Children were seized, torn away from their
parents and brutally murdered before their very eyes. Many of
the parents were so horrified, so crazed with grief and
despair, that they took the precious matzos which they had
succeeded in baking with great effort, and threw them out of
the windows, together with siddurim and
Chumoshim.
When R' Mordechai was told of this terrible reaction he was
duly shocked, but he saw their act in a different light.
"That is not a show of heresy. In fact, it is emunah.
They still believe — only they are angry with their
Father..."
A Suspicion of Theft
People in the ghetto were constantly relocated from one
apartment to another. When R' Mordechai was assigned a
different place, he was reluctant to sit on the chairs in
that apartment, for fear that the owner still nursed hopes of
returning one day. In that eventuality, he would now be using
the furniture without his permission, in which case it would
be a form of theft since the owner retained his rights.
R' Mordechai was hiding from the authorities and was not
legally registered as a resident. Therefore, when he was
given food rations he refused to accept them, saying that
since he was not registered, the food was not given for him
[but for someone else]. Whenever food was brought, he would
interrogate the person thoroughly to find out where it had
come from before he allowed himself to eat.
The question arose in the ghetto concerning money that was
left behind by people who had been seized by the Nazis and
either taken away or directly murdered, leaving no heirs.
Some rabbis declared that it was permissible to take since it
fell into the category of something lost in the sea, where
there is no hope of it being normally retrieved.
R' Mordechai refused to have benefit from any such money
whatsoever, lest there were still some heirs alive, somewhere
in the world. (Rav Y.A. Gibraltar)
Toil for Torah
Maran the author of Dvar Avrohom ztvk'l once sent a
sum of money to R' Mordechai via two young men. He asked them
if they had found R' Mordechai immersed in study and they
replied, "No, he was pacing the floor."
The Rov of Kovno laughed. "What do you think? That one must
be holding onto a gemora in order to study? He knows
everything by heart!"
The Remaining Camp Shall Survive
Towards the end of the war, the Nazis established camps
around the ghetto in order to be able to supervise the goings
on in the ghetto more strictly.
On the last Yom Kippur of the ghetto, R' Mordechai addressed
the minyan where he prayed and told the people that he
knew that they would be taken away to difficult camps where
there was a slim chance of survival. Only one "from a city
and two from a family" might remain alive when it was all
over. He advised families to separate, rather than remain
together, for this would increase the chance of someone
surviving. Some members should remain behind in the ghetto
and others should allow themselves to go to the work camps
right outside it. He was taking the advice of Yaakov Ovinu,
who also divided up his family before the encounter with
Eisov. Others, however, said that this was not a strategy at
all. "It is all one big camp," they argued. "What difference
does it make in the chances for survival — here or
there?"
Then the Germans announced in spite of the war that they
intended to destroy the ghetto altogether and transfer all of
its inhabitants to work camps. The question arose whether
people should try to go into hiding or to let themselves be
taken to the Dachau camp. Maran R' Avrohom Grodzensky
ztvk'l said that he was for going into hiding. "They
will try to kill us wherever we go. Better to extend our
chances by hiding, than going straight to the death camp.
This way we can postpone the death and gain some life."
R' Mordechai felt otherwise. "If they wanted to kill us, they
would do so here, rather than go to the trouble of
transporting us all." R' Mordechai remained, in the end,
since he was too weak to travel, but most of those who went
to Dachau did, in fact, survive.
The Miracle of the Survival
There was a righteous Jew in the ghetto by the name of R'
Avrohom Yitzchok Winkelstein zt'l. Some yeshiva
students who learned with him brought him to R' Mordechai,
who had such an impact upon him that he became exceptionally
precise and punctilious, especially in monetary matters. All
the good traits that were discerned in him were, people said,
a reflection of R' Mordechai's blessed influence upon him.
As the Russian army advanced, the Nazis began liquidating the
ghetto. The question then arose whether to try to hide from
the Germans — or go to the camps. R' Avrohom
Winkelstein and R' M. Zuckerman tried to hide together with
the Mashgiach, R' Avrohom Grodzensky, but were not allowed
entry in the hiding place. R' Mordechai took them to the
apartment of the Kovalskys. They drew the curtain around R'
Mordechai's bed and opened all the doors in the hope of
deceiving the Germans into thinking that the apartment was
abandoned.
Then they looked for an additional hiding place in a small
space between the kitchen and the stairs. They made an
opening in the wall and covered it over and were able to hide
nine people there for a week. At night, one of them would
look out from the window and report what was going on
outside. One time, he heard a German soldier telling his
comrade, "Tomorrow they're going to blow up the whole place."
Nevertheless, they decided to remain and hope for a miracle.
On the following day, the Germans placed dynamite around four
buildings and set fire to them. Theirs was the only building
in which the explosives failed.
The Nazis then began searching throughout the apartments but
didn't find them. R' Mordechai then told the people to flee.
While they were running away, the Germans blew up their
building.
They fled the ghetto. To the right was the River Wilo that
separated Kovno from Slobodka and before that was an empty
field with bushes. To the left were homes of Lithuanian
gentiles. A youth who was with them went to the left and was
killed. R' Mordechai decided to turn to the right and that is
what they did. They kept on walking for two weeks along the
river bank, subsisting on carrots that grew there.
After two weeks, some Germans fell upon them and it became
clear that they had run away from the invading Russians, so
R' Mordechai and R' Avrohom Yitzchok Winkelstein were able to
return to Kovno, which was now under Russian control.
