The Novardok Yeshiva in Exile in Siberia, Kazakhstan and the...

The Novardok Yeshiva in Exile in Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Caucasus – 1942-1946 – Large Collection of Letters from Yeshiva Deans and Students – Rabbi Yehudah Leib Nekritz, Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky, Rabbi Yisrael Movshovitz, Rabbi Chaim Zaitchik and Many Yeshiva Students Deported to Eastern Russia

Collection of over 150 letters (on postcards) sent by the students of the Beit Yosef Novardok yeshiva in Biržai who were deported to Siberia, to R. Eliezer Bentzion Bruk, dean of the Beit Yosef Novardok yeshiva in Jerusalem. [Siberia, Kazakhstan and North Caucasus (Russia), Łódź (Poland) and elsewhere, ca. 1942-1946]. Yiddish (a few in Hebrew and Russian).

The present collection is a rare and exceptionally comprehensive documentation of the students of the Novardok-Bialystok yeshiva during their deportation to the Siberian wilderness and in remote towns of Kazakhstan and the Caucasus, and on their way to Poland and the liberated zones at the end of World War II. In their letters, the students thank R. Bruk for sending aid packages from Eretz Israel, describe their arduous work, the difficult conditions and the pressing situation in the camps and kolkhozes; detail their lack of Jewish ritual objects and books; send greetings to their relatives and acquaintances abroad; seek accurate information on rumors of the Holocaust and what became of their friends and relatives; describe their hope for the defeat of the Germans and the victory of the Soviets and for the Jewish people to be avenged; write of their plans to leave Russia and return to their home in Poland on the way to Eretz Israel; and more.
The collection includes many letters from deans of the Novardok yeshivas and leading students, including: 11 letters from R. Yehudah Leib Nekritz, dean and director of the yeshiva, and his wife Rebbetzin Ettel Nekritz (daughter of R. Avraham Yoffen and granddaughter of the Alter of Novardok); three letters from R. Yaakov Galinsky (later the famous Maggid), a leading Torah scholar in the Novardok yeshivas in Pinsk and Kovel; two letters from R. Chaim Zaitchik, dean of the Novardok yeshiva in Buchach; letter from R. Yitzchak Orlansky, dean of the Novardok yeshiva in Pinsk and Kovel; eight letters from R. Refael Waldschein and his mother Rebbetzin Gittel Waldschein (wife of R. Yitzchak Elchanan Waldschein, the Shershover; sister of R. Chaim Shmuelevitz and granddaughter of the Alter of Novardok); letter of R. Moshe Roginsky, a dean of the Beit Yosef Kollel in Vilna; and many letters from yeshiva students (see Hebrew description for a partial listing).

The collection additionally includes: • Two letters with a Shanah Tovah blessing from the mashgiach of the yeshiva R. Yisrael Movshovitz and R. Yekutiel Fuchs. Prague, Tishrei 1946. • Lengthy three-page letter from R. Yechiel Fishkin of Rubiazhevichy (later Rabbi of Šiauliai) detailing some of his past during the Holocaust period and the news he received from the Novardok-Biržai yeshiva in exile in Russia (Ostia, Italy, Kislev 1945). • Letter from Rebbetzin Fruma Rappaport (wife of R. David Rappaport, author of Tzemach David). • Letter to R. Hillel Witkind. • Seven leaves (typewritten) with list of rabbis and students receiving aid packages, their locations and the date of sending of the packages. • Several envelopes.

Background
At the outbreak of World War I, when Russia annexed eastern Poland, including Bialystok where the Novardok yeshiva headed by R. Avraham Yoffen was located, the yeshiva students who refused to live under the Soviet regime fled to Vilna. When the Russians invaded Lithuania, the yeshiva students again fled to Biržai while attempting to attain visas to countries that were not occupied by the Germans or the Soviets. While R. Avraham Yoffen and a limited number of students managed to attain visas to the United States, the remaining students were offered Soviet citizenship; when they refused, they were deported to labor camps in Siberia (most of those students who were not deported were later murdered by the Nazis).
Some 60 yeshiva students were deported in two groups, one with R. Yehudah Leib Nekritz to Parbig and the other with R. Yisrael Movshovitz to Krasnoyarsk, both suffering from hard labor, harsh torture, starvation and illness, which, however, they bore with courage, continuing to study Torah and observe mitzvot in secret.
R. Movshovitz's group was released in 1941 and chose to settle in Merki, Kazakhstan, where they were obliged to perform hard and dangerous work in a kolkhoz where many died. R. Nekritz's group was released in 1944 and settled in a sovkhoz near Ipatovo. At the end of the war, all the deported yeshiva students left Soviet Russia for Łódź and various DP camps, later immigrating to the United States and Eretz Israel.
The two groups were first able to contact their yeshiva dean R. Avraham Yoffen in New York in 1942, who immediately began to arrange for aid packages with food, clothing and other necessities. R. Bentzion Bruk was one of the main initiators of the aid packages sent from Eretz Israel, and was also in continuous contact with the deported yeshiva students. The letters in the present collection, which come from the archive of R. Bentzion Bruk, were sent by the yeshiva students during these difficult years in exile in Russia.

Over 150 postcards. Varying size and condition. Filing holes.