I was a “Rabbi Schoenfeld Kind.” After the Kristallnacht pogrom of November, 1938, the British government declared its readiness to admit several thousand Jewish children into Great Britain. The Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council headed by Rabb Dr. Solomon Schoenfeld played a major and unique role among the various Anglo-Jewish refugee committees and refugee aid funds which engaged in bringing refugee children to England and supported them there. For the council had set itself the task not only to care for the physical welfare of the children but also to provide them with a thorough traditional Jewish education.
I was in the first transport of children brought to England from Vienna by Rabbi Schoenfeld. Most of the children were members of the Jugendsgruppe, the youth group of the Agudath Israel in Vienna. I did not belong to that group, but my late father had arranged with Julius Steinfeld, the prominent Viennese Agudist and rescue worker, for my inclusion in the transport.
We traveled by way of Holland. After a two day journey by train and boat, we arrived in London. This was toward the end of December, 1938.
From the Liverpool Street railroad station we were taken to North London, which was Rabbi Schoenfeld’s “home base.” Here was the Adas Yisroel, of which he was the spiritual leader. Here, too was the Jewish Secondary School, of which he was the principal. Here were also the offices of the Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council and the rabbi’s private residence.
Before long we met the Rav, as Rabbi Schoenfeld was respectfully called throughout North London and as we, too would call him forever after.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with friendly blue eyes and a red-blondish beard. He walked erect, his step was brisk, and his every movement exuded resoluteness. he was always dressed in black; black trousers and a black rabbinic coat. His headgear varied with the occasion; a large black yarmulke, a Homburg or a top hat.
We children looked upon him with a mixture of awe and admiration and exchanged stories we had heard about his rescue activities and the devoted care which he gave to the refugees.
On one occasion after he had received an urgent call for help he drove to the Home Office in Westminster late one Friday afternoon to urge the immediate issuance of visas for certain refugees. By the time he had finished his business at the Home office, the Sabbath had already begun. So Rabbi Schoenfeld made his way back to North London on foot, a walk of three hours.
He cleared his house to make room for the refugee children. Once it happened that a little refugee girl could not fall asleep. The Rav took her and another little girl into his big black car and drove them around the city until both of them had dozed off.
We were told that there was not much love lost between the Rav and the refugee committees of the Establishment. They called him “irresponsible” for bringing refugees to England without having the means for their maintenance prepared in advance. He in turn criticized them for not caring enough for the Jewish education of their wards.
It is true that often he did not have accommodation and board ready for the children until after they had arrived in England. But the Rav knew then what others still did not understand; that the command of the hour was to save lives, no matter how and by what means.
It was not long after our arrival that I must have come to his special attention. Most of the children from Vienna were of East European descent. We had been accustomed to waiting six hours between meat and dairy foods. When a group of the children was given milchigs after only three hours or so, as is the custom among West European Jews, they “revolted.” I happened to become a Redelsfiehrer in that “revolt,” which was soon settled. Probably because of some oratorical talents I must have displayed during the “revolt,” I was chosen to say a few words at an Agudist conference which took place at Woburn house in January, 1939. I spoke about the tragedy of the refugee children who had been brought to England by other committees and had been denied a Jewish education. Sometime later, on Purim I “starred” in a play performed by the refugees at the Stoke Newington Town Hall.
Whenever I met the Rav thereafter, he greeted me with a broad smile and a drawn-out “The-o-dor!” This is my German name, which appeared on the collective passport of our group.
I admired, indeed adored the Rav. Could one do otherwise if one considered his prodigious achievements in so many spheres- and he was only 27 years old?
As time passed, I learned more about the wide scope of the Rav’s rescue activities. Almost every day refugees arrived who had received their entry visas with the aid of the Rav: young people, yeshiva students, entire families. They came not only from Germany and Austria but also from Czechoslovakia and even from Italy.
Some of the refugees settled in various parts of London, and in other cities, too, but most of them established themselves in North London, which became “Rabbi Schonfeld territory.” Entire streets in the neighborhood were settled by Jews who either had been brought to England by the Rav or were affiliated with one of the organizations he headed.
I was a student at the Jewish Secondary School for only a short time. Among my less pleasant memories from that period is the “caning” I received from the headmaster one day, a typically British punishment.
Eventually I enrolled at the Etz Chaim yeshiva.
2.
In the early summer of 1940, after the Fall of France, when the Germans stood at the gates of Britain, the British authorities interned all enemy aliens. The great majority of the internees were refugees from Nazi oppression, but there was the fear that German spies might have entered the country in the guise of refugees.
Large numbers of the internees were deported to Australia and Canada, but most of them were held in camps on the Isle of Man.
I, too was interned. I was actually not an enemy alien because I had never been an Austrian citizen, even though I had been born and raised in Vienna. My parents had been Polish citizens. But when I arrived in England, the police registered me as an Austrian. When I protested, the officer said, “You were born in Austria, so this makes you an Austrian.” Thus I unwillingly became an Austrian, and after the war broke out, was classified as an “enemy alien” and eventually interned. I was held in several camps on the Isle of Man.
The first Jewish communal leader to visit the internees was the Rav. He took a special interest in their spiritual and religious needs. I still vividly remember his visit to the Onchan Camp on the Isle of Man.
When the news spread that Rabbi Schoenfeld had arrived at the camp, we all turned out to greet him. His imposing stature and dignified bearing inspired respect in everyone. The British soldiers who served as camp guards stood at attention as he passed them.
As for us, the mere sight of the Rav gave us new hope and courage. We knew that we had not been forgotten.
3.
After my release from internment, I returned to the Etz Chaim Yeshiva where I had great teachers, among them the late Rabbis Eliyahu Lopian and Nahman Shlomo Greenspan and Rabbi Arye Ze’ev Gurwicz. It was through this yeshiva that I came to know the late Dayan Yechezkel Abramsky. He and his wife Reizel were more than kind to me. For several years I was a steady guest at their home on Shabbasos and holidays.
The Yeshiva was located in East End but I continued to live in North London in “Rabbi Schoenfeld territory.” Thus I was able to follow the work of the Rav and to observe the growth of his institutions.
Even those who did not know the full extent of his activities could get some idea of them from reading the announcement of his Shabbat Hagadol derashot in the Jewish Chronicle. The announcement listed synagogues affiliated with the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and the hour at which Rabbi Schoenfeld would appear at each of them on that day. Since these synagogues were scattered throughout London, this meant that Rabbi Schonfeld would appear at each of them on that day. Since these synagogues were scattered throughout London, this meant that Rabbi Schonfeld had to traverse large parts of the city on foot.
4.
Soon after the war, the Rav again threw himself into new rescue activities. Once again childrens transports were brought to England. The Rav visited the ravaged Jewish communities of Eastern Europe and gathered Jewish children who had survived the war in the camps and in the woods, or who had been hiding in convents and in Gentile homes.
In the spring of 1948 I was on my way back to London from a visit to the Scandinavian countries. The Copenhagen Brussels train stopped for a while at the Belgian-German border. Not far from us stood a train that had just arrived from Prague. The train was filled with children–Jewish children. They stood at the windows, looking out with curiosity at the bustle of the border station.
On the platform, next to the train stood a tall, bearded man in UNRRA uniform. It was the Rav.
I got off my train, walked over to him and asked him whether I could be of any help. NO, he said, there was no need for help. And then he added, with a friendly smile spreading over his face,”Ah! The-o-dor! Do you remember how you were on a transport just like this one, ten years ago?”
5.
Jerusalem. Fall, 1954. I was on the staff of HaModia, the Agudist daily. One day, at the editorial office, I learned that the Rav was in Jerusalem. I was seized by a desire to write about him. I was then writing for two Hebrew dailies, one was HaModia, the other was the now defunct Herut. I had written for both papers on a variety of subjects, but never about the Rav.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, I had left England and joined the Israel Defense Force. I didn’t know whether the Rav had had a lot of naches from me during my last years in London… In the fall of 1945 the Beitar group which I headed wanted to hold a mass meeting in London’s Hyde Park to protest against Britain’s Palestine policy. In order to make sure that the meeting would be well attended, the group sent to the major synagogues telegrams to which the signature of Chief Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, the Rav’s fatherin-law had been appended without his knowledge. Moreover, I had been active in London in behalf of the Irgun… But I also did not know whether the Rav knew homwmuch I loved him.
So now, in Jerusalem, I wanted to interview him, to write about his achievements in the past and his plans for the future.
I started making telephone calls to find him. I had some clues about where he might be, but wherever I phoned I was told that he had been there but just left. In the end, I gave up. But then, did I really have to interview the Rav in order to write about him? didn’t I know him well enough?
So I went ahead and wrote my HaModia article without him. It carried the headline, “The Savior of Tens of Thousands.”