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IN-
DEPTH FEATURES
To this day, writers and scholars
continue to dispute the
necessity of dropping the atom bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
to induce the Japanese government —
determined to
defend "the honor of the Japanese Empire" to the end
—
to surrender. The debate was renewed last summer, the
sixtieth anniversary of the dropping of the bombs. "Victory
or
death," was the Japanese' motto, but did hundreds of
thousands of
Japanese citizens really have to die?
Everything that transpires
in the world is primarily for the
sake of Am Yisroel. As the
world, last summer,
remembered the events that interested it, we
thought it
appropriate to focus our attention on the Torah world in
those days. This article focuses on what the end of the war
and the
Japanese occupation of China meant for the 25,000
Jewish refugees
sojourning in China during this period, who
did not know when and how
the war and the deadly bombing
would come to an end. The slogan in
the street was, "Down to
the last Japanese soldier."
The
following is a description of those harrowing times and
the horrors
of war chronicled in Volume 3 of Hazericha
Bepa'asei
Kedem.
*
While the yeshiva students of Shanghai were
waging the war of
Torah in the beis medrash night and day,
battles
between Japan and the US raged nearby, reaching their height
in the spring and summer of 5705 (1945).
At the beginning of Iyar
(late April) the fall of Nazi
Germany was complete. The Germans had
announced their
unconditional surrender to the Allies, bringing the
war in
Europe to an end. The roar of artillery fire stopped, and
quiet settled on the war-ravaged continent soaked with Jewish
blood.
Meanwhile, in the East, the fighting intensified. The
Japanese, in the spirit of their ancient tradition of
"victory or
death," continued to wage battle with dogged
determination, resisting
the Americans with the last of their
strength and contemptuously
rejecting every proposal for
surrender.
The Pearl Harbor days
were over for Japan. (The 64th
anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack
was last week.) The US
army had scored one victory after another,
taking over the
Pacific islands one after the next and constantly
forcing
Japanese retreats. The Japanese fought furiously, with the
courage of a wounded animal. They fought kamikaze battles,
falling
by the thousands. "Japan will never surrender!"
officials in Tokyo
kept repeating to the bleeding nation.
"The Japanese people are proud
and do not know the concept of
surrender."
Spring passed. The
American offense grew stronger, day by
day. The Philippine Islands,
which had great strategic and
economic importance — including
Manila, which was one
of the Japanese's main strongholds in Asia
— fell into
American hands. The front was coming closer to
Japan itself.
The invasion and conquest of Japan by US troops was
clearly
just a question of time.
Tensions on the east coast of
China also rose during these
fateful days. In order to make the
invasion of Japan easier,
the Americans decided to open a second
front on Chinese soil.
Knowing the Japanese would defend their
homeland down to the
last drop of blood and that victory would cost
them dearly,
the Americans decided to launch an attack on Shanghai,
which
was under Japanese occupation, forcing the Japanese to send a
substantial number of the troops there to defend the
area.
Shanghai was about to turn into a bloody battlefront. The
Japanese started making preparations to defend against the US
attack
with all their renowned determination. They had
resolved not to let
Shanghai fall into US hands and if
necessary, to turn it into a
second Battle of Stalingrad.
The name Stalingrad was synonymous
with the idea of valiant
defense. The Russians had displayed
unsurpassed bravery in
resisting the German army, which outmatched it
in strength
and numbers. Stalingrad was under siege for months,
hungry
and under heavy fire. The Russian soldiers, weak with hunger,
fought over every street and every house. The city was
pounded with
shelling and aerial bombing that killed
thousands of residents. The
Red Army sacrificed hundreds of
thousands of soldiers defending the
divided and besieged
city, but eventually prevailed. A significant
portion of the
German forces were encircled and taken captive and the
remaining German forces retreated and fled. This marked the
first
turning point on the way towards Germany's defeat in
Europe.
At
this point the Japanese made a defiant decision: Shanghai
would
become another Stalingrad. The city would not be
captured by the
Americans, no matter how much blood was
spilled. They began to
buttress the city with extensive,
precisely-placed reinforcements.
The main streets and the
side streets leading to them turned into
entrenched
positions. Rows of sandbags stretched as far as the eye
could
see. Machine guns and artillery guns were placed on building
rooftops. Trenches were burrowed the length of the sidewalks
a short
distance from one another and were set up for use as
combat positions
if necessary. Within a matter of weeks, all
of Shanghai turned into a
fortress.
Fear for the Future
Local residents
watched wide-eyed. The army's painstaking
preparations made clear to
them what lay in store. Pessimists
(and everyone was pessimistic by
then) were convinced that
when the American attack began, house-to-
house fighting
would take place in every nook and cranny; nobody
dared to
describe the price in blood these battles would
exact.
Reports from the battlefields further strengthened the
atmosphere of fear hanging in the air. The media related the
bitter
fate of Manila, which had been captured by the US
during this period.
The Japanese had fought very hard over
Manila, buttressing their
positions in every part of the city
and waging tough battles that
caused the local population
much suffering. During the final days
before the fall of
Manila, the Japanese command imposed a regime of
terror and
executions without trial. Any citizen suspected of
"espionage" or of sympathizing with the Americans was put to
death.
Whites were slaughtered as if they were made to pay
the price of
victory by the despised white enemy, the US.
In Shanghai, the
white residents (including the Jews)
wondered if they would suffer a
similar fate. A sense of
dread prevailed.
When summer began, the
fear of aerial bombing joined their
list of concerns. The US Air
Force began raining bombs on
various parts of the city in preparation
for the land
invasion. Every night, at almost the same time, the air-
raid
sirens would sound and frightened residents would rush to the
nearest bomb shelter. The main targets were the factories
serving
the military industry and the naval facilities near
the port, both of
which were in close proximity to the Jewish
ghetto. Ghetto residents
were terrorized by these bombing
forays, which would one day be
etched into their memories as
an ongoing nightmare.
The Japanese
aerial defense grew weaker from day to day.
Fierce battles were
fought over the skies of Shanghai in
plain view of the frightened
citizens. American planes began
to appear during the day as well,
dropping their lethal
payloads for hours on end. The deafening noise
of the
explosions became more frequent.
In the ghetto, where most
homes had no bomb shelter,
residents felt like they were stuck in a
deathtrap. When the
blood-chilling air-raid sirens began to sound,
many ran to
the nearby botei knesses. All-too-familiar with
the
sight of flames and pillars of smoke rising from the bombing
targets and the sound of entire buildings crashing down on
the
people inside, they would recite Tehillim
fervently. Between
one bomb and the next they kept prayer
vigils. In the face of death
they asked for Heavenly Mercy
and cried out to their Father in
Heaven.
Entire quarters of the city, particularly near the port,
turned into heaps of rubble. Flocks of bomber planes filled
the
skies, black and fearsome, seeding endless death and
destruction.
Thousands of residents of Chinese and Japanese
neighborhoods were
killed by the bombing during those
terrifying days. Dozens of Jewish
refugees were killed,
too.
The Jewish Ghetto of
Shanghai
Despite the loss of life, the people of the ghetto
witnessed
many open miracles during this period. Japanese weapons
manufacturers were located in close proximity to the ghetto.
With
bombing targets so nearby, the number of casualties in
the ghetto
could easily have been ten times higher, even
though the Americans
knew about and tried not to harm the
Jewish ghetto. Even at the
height of the calamity, Hashem's
Mercy was revealed to the remnants
of His people.
There were no bomb shelters anywhere in the ghetto
except for
one at the neighborhood police station next to Beis
Knesses
Ohel Moshe. That building had been converted into a hospital.
A white flag waved over the roof to prevent the Americans
from
bombing it. The truth of the matter was that the
Japanese also used
it as a military warehouse, packing in
large stores of guns and
ammunition. Numerous Jews from the
area would crowd into the
building's bomb shelter whenever
the bombs started to fall, hoping
they would be safer
here.
Using the spy network they had laid out
in Shanghai, the
Americans learned about the ruse and it immediately
turned
into a target for heavy bombing. Hundreds of helpless Jews
were packed into the bomb shelter, sure their time had come.
Miraculously, the building stayed standing and nobody was
injured.
No one could explain how the Americans had failed to
destroy the
building with their surgical strikes.
Yeshivas
Mir
The miracles that took place at Yeshivas Mir were
especially
fascinating. Like a kindly father, the Mashgiach would
frequently offer the frightened boys encouragement. Over and
over
again, he urged them to continue learning as always, to
focus all
their attention on Torah and not to be afraid of
the danger. "All of
the bnei Torah of Shanghai will
survive the bombings
unscathed, be'eizer Hashem," he
promised. "If suffering has
been decreed for them,
choliloh, they will have their share of
suffering
through the fear. Nothing bad will happen to any of
them!"
His powerful words planted tremendous bitochon in
every heart. At the time, the yeshiva was still housed in a
dilapidated building on Beacle Street. The building was so
unsound
it could easily have collapsed just from the
shockwaves from an
explosion. Yet while other sturdy new
buildings nearby were reduced
to rubble, the rickety yeshiva
building remained standing. At times
the walls and windows
shook and it seemed as if any moment the whole
building would
come tumbling down — but nothing
happened.
The day most etched into the memories of the yeshiva
students
was the 7th of Av 5705 (July 17, 1945). That was the day one
of the most massive bombing raids was carried out on the area
of the
yeshiva, a fatal bombing attack that wiped entire
clusters of
buildings off the face of the earth. The building
on Beacle Street
quaked so powerfully that the hundreds of
bochurim felt the
ground move beneath their feet. Many
of them closed their eyes,
fearing what would happen next.
But when the shockwaves passed, once
again the building
remained standing, as if mocking the enormous,
sophisticated
bombers trying vainly to harm it.
They breathed a
great sigh of relief, which was immediately
followed by grave
concern. A few of the yeshiva students had
been lying sick in their
rooms that day in one of the dorm
buildings and to their great horror
they found it had totally
collapsed. The bochurim raced
frantically to search
for their friends, certain they would have to
dig through the
piles of rubble to reach them and who knew what they
would
find?
Instead they were astonished to discover that all
four
bochurim who had been in the destroyed building were
safe and sound. Each of them had his own story of open
miracles to
tell.
One of the talmidim had felt very sick and spent the
whole day confined to his bed. Just moments before the
bombing, he
had gotten out of bed to step out into the
courtyard. The moment he
reached the edge of the courtyard
furthest from the building, the
bomb landed.
Another talmid, Yehuda Dickstein, had dozed
off in his
second-story room when the bomb hit. The floor of his room
collapsed, sending bed and bochur tumbling down. The
walls
and stones came crashing down on top and he found
himself buried
under the debris as darkness surrounded him. A
single sliver of light
flickered through a tiny crack.
Through superhuman efforts Yehuda
pushed the heaps of stones
far enough out of the way to create an
escape route.
Eventually, he managed to free himself. Dazed and
confused,
he suddenly emerged from beneath the rubble, still unable
to
grasp what had transpired. Only after he saw himself covered
with
dust and dirt, his face black with soot, did he begin to
realize he
had been buried alive. Except for a bump on his
head that healed
after a few days without treatment, he had
gotten out in one
piece.
He was elated and did not stop asking himself what he had
done to merit such a wondrous miracle. "Call me Zayin
Menachem Av,"
he told his friends. "That way I will never
forget the miracle that
happened to me on this day."
The third of the four also found
himself buried under an
enormous pile of rubble. Every floor of the
building was
completely destroyed, except for one flight of stairs
that
somehow remained standing. The bochur could not say
how
he wound up under the stairs at the moment the bomb hit.
Nonetheless,
he was buried in rubble, but the stairs stood
erect, suspended in
midair, protecting the bochur
lying trapped
underneath.
When his fellow yeshiva students arrived at the scene
and
began to dig through the rubble he found a way to signal for
them to come to him. Through chasdei Shomayim the
bochurim managed to extricate him unharmed. Afterwards
his
friends kept gathering around him, dumbfounded to see
that he had
gotten out without a single scratch!
The fourth survivor, R'
Elchonon Yosef Hertzman, recalls the
circumstances of his rescue: "I
wasn't feeling well on that
unforgettable 7th of Av, so I lay in my
room. I couldn't
decide whether or not to go to the doctor. To tell
the truth,
I was leaning towards not going because it was a mild
illness
and I hoped that with Hashem's help I would recuperate
without medical intervention. But for some reason my legs
started to
take me toward the doctor without me knowing why.
I was simply forced
from Above to get up and go, in order to
save me from the
devastation.
"Right at the time I was at the clinic the building
was hit
and totally destroyed. Later we learned that the Japanese
radio station in Shanghai was located right near the building
and,
determined to destroy it, the Americans were bombing the
area
heavily.
"After that day, the bombing continued, not ceasing until
the
Japanese surrender. They increased, becoming even more
frightful, as the US Navy prepared to invade Shanghai from
the sea.
But we were all miraculously saved from these
bombing, too. Words
cannot describe chasdei Hashem and
all of the miracles He did
for us constantly, day in and day
out."
Even the Chinese, who
literally worship wood and stone,
realized Divine Providence was
watching over the bnei
Torah. Whenever the air-raid siren
sounded they would
gather around the yeshiva students!
One of the
veteran talmidim, HaRav Moshe Binyomin
Bernstein zt"l,
also had fascinating stories to tell.
During the period of the
bombing, for some reason, one day
the learning took place in a
particularly ramshackle
building. When exceptionally destructive
bombing started,
most of the talmidim rushed to a nearby bomb
shelter.
Maran HaMashgiach HaRav Yechezkel Levenstein zt"l was
unfazed by the thunderous explosions and remained in his
place,
learning mussar with a clear head and marvelous
composure.
Other talmidim, including HaRav Bernstein,
stayed with him in
the building and the experience was etched
into their hearts until
their dying day. To them, it was
clear as day that his zchus
alone was keeping the
building from falling down.
"On that day,
we saw how right Maran the Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav
Chaim Shmuelevitz
zt"l had been when he said that
without the Mashgiach we would
not have been able to survive
the Golus. All of us clearly felt that
it was only through
the power of his tefilloh and the
zchus of his
tzidkus that we merited all of the
miracles and all of
these wondrous occurrences."
The Americans'
preparations for the big attack on Shanghai
remained in high gear.
The time was imminent. According to
rumors, a massive US fleet was
cruising in the Pacific,
waiting for the signal to launch an attack,
and thousands of
paratroopers were also standing by to provide aerial
assistance in the campaign to take over the city.
The Japanese
grew more nervous from day to day. They
continued buttressing the
city madly. Frightful machine guns
were installed on every rooftop
and trenches were dug into
the streets for kamikaze soldiers to use
as battling
positions. (Several of these positions were readied on
Chushan Street, as well, not far from the yeshiva.) The
Japanese
commanders kept saying they should fight over
Shanghai (which had
turned into a symbol of national pride)
down to the last soldier and
that they would never retreat.
Their plans included street fighting
in the heart of the
civilian population, which would mean a bloodbath
for the
men, women and children. Shanghai was about to turn into a
deathtrap for its residents.
The heads of the city's three
yeshivas were well aware of the
terrible danger and constantly sought
ways to save their
students. The most viable proposal appeared to be
to flee
north to the city of Tansin in the interior of the country.
This large city had a kehilloh numbering about 200
Jews who
had immigrated from Europe. They were willing to
take in the yeshiva
members with open arms and take care of
all their needs. Tansin was
located far from the coast, free
from the dreadful bombs and the
approaching front. Compared
to Shanghai, Tansin seemed safe and
serene. Many felt that
fleeing to it was the best option for
escape.
But the Mashgiach, HaRav Levenstein, differed. He weighed
the
matter and reached a firm decision: No. He explained that the
preparations and the journey would sever the talmidim
from
their learning for several days. According to his
psak,
bitul Torah was the greatest danger of
all, far more dangerous
than the American bombs and the
battles liable to take place in
Shanghai. During these
difficult times, the Mashgiach asserted
warmly, every moment
without Torah was to be regretted.
After
each of his decisions, through some fabulous means, we
invariably
discovered that it had saved the yeshiva from
calamity. His decision
on the Tansin question was further
proof of his
sagacity—"chochom odif minovi."
After the war, the
students found out that during this period
a bloody civil war broke
out in Tansin. The communist
underground tried to revolt against the
government. Vicious
battles were waged against the Nationalist Army
forces. The
two sides slaughtered one another ruthlessly, destroying
whole neighborhoods and spilling civilian blood in the
process. The
first to fall victim to both camps, the
communists and the
nationalists, were the white, foreign
residents. "Had we been tempted
to uproot ourselves from
Shanghai who knows whether any of us would
have survived,
choliloh?" said one of the talmidim,
when he
later learned of the danger we had been in.
Goral
HaGro
At the height of the debate, a group of students, like
on
previous occasions, decided to use Goral HaGro, a special
technique for reaching decisions. An exceptional talmid
chochom involved in the decision-making process had
experience
using Goral HaGro, such as before submitting
requests for exit visas
to the secret police in Vilna.
Once again he counted the pages,
the verses and the words in
the Tanach and again received an
astonishingly unambiguous
response. Hashgochoh protis led him
to Yeshayohu
37:35, which reads, "For I will defend this city
to save
it, for My own sake and for the sake of Dovid My servant."
This short, clear verse shed light on all of the questions.
We would
remain in Shanghai!
Under the circumstances, these words hinted at
the city of
Shanghai and the war that was about to break out in it.
It
contained a Heavenly promise to defend the city from the
battles
soon to take place. Shanghai's zchus was also
clearly
indicated in the verse— "ulemaan Dovid
avdi." The
servants of Hashem in the city were the
bnei Torah cleaving
with mesirus nefesh to
Hashem and His Torah.
Thus the
course of action was now clear: to stay in Shanghai,
as dangerous and
frightful as it seemed, and to await
chasdei Shomayim.
A
sudden calm settled on the chareidi community. The city no
longer
seemed like the mouth of a volcano ready to erupt but
a safe and
protected place. All who were let in on the secret
of the Goral were
certain that no evil would befall
Shanghai.
At the time, there
was no way of knowing how close the war
was to an end. Thousands of
miles away, in the nuclear
installations of the US, final
preparations were underway for
the dropping of the A-bomb on Japan,
the bomb that would
finally bring the six-year war to its end. Just
two weeks
after the Goral, the promise of safety and security came
true.
The final days of the war were filled with spiritual
fortification and tremendous yegiyoh in Torah. At the
end of
Menachem Av, the prolonged nightmare finally reached
its end when
Japan announced its unconditional surrender.
A horrific historical
event that became known as one of the
greatest tragedies known to
mankind brought about Japan's
final fall and its surrender to the
Allies. The atom bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the
deaths of well
over one hundred thousand people, the utter
destruction of
the two cities and endless suffering and pain for
years to
come.
Realizing there was no hope of ending the war
without
invading the Japanese mainland, which would entail massive
casualties, the US decided there was no alternative other
than to
use nuclear weapons—the most lethal weapon in
the chronicles of
human history. Only the atomic bomb,
President Truman and his Cabinet
held, would break Japanese
obduracy and force them to
surrender.
Unconditional Surrender
On Monday, 27
Av 5705 (August 6, 1945) the atomic bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima.
Three days later, on the last day of
Av, a second bomb was dropped on
Nagasaki. The Japanese
people took a brutal, crushing blow that
brought them to
their breaking point. On 6 Elul (August 15) the
Japanese
emperor announced that his country would accept the Joint
Declaration of Peace.
Reports of Japanese surrender quickly
spread around the
world. In the Far East, where the war had raged on
until that
very day and millions of people had undergone suffering
beyond description, the streets were brimming with joy.
For the
people of Shanghai, who had lost hope of surviving
the war, it meant
last-minute salvation from certain
destruction. The city went from
despair to jubilation. Many
Shanghai residents burst out in
uncontrollable tears of joy.
Friends and relatives fell on one
another with hugs and
kisses as tears slid down their cheeks.
In
the botei knesses the Jews offered ardent prayers
of thanks
and sang songs of praise and exultation. Many
people started to kick
up their feet spontaneously and it
seemed that even the walls were
dancing with them.
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