The fall of Amalek

freidasima

Mon, Jun 16 2008, 3:10 pm

Thank you Chossidmom!!

This shows us something, the importance of "lo tosifu velo tigreu mimeno".
Don't add, even as a "hiddur" because it can mess up things and cause the whole thing to do the opposite of what it should have done.

The story as appears in Hamodia is not believable. Period. Anyone who knows history knows that there was no way to get those things out of Europe. Could be that the guy was an SS officer, but then, he wouldn't have been able to get memoribilia of himself with Hitler out of Europe, he would have had to flee for his life, take a different identity and leave absolutely everything behind. Anyone who remembers all the testimonies about the John Ivan Demyanuk case (maybe some of you were too young, that was in the 1980s) remembers reading all the stuff about how if you were really SS you couldn't take anything out if you came to America because you had to hide absolutely everything.

However, the second version of the story as Chossidmom writes it, is totally believable and can teach us many a good lesson.

Hiddurim, when it comes to stories can be dangerous. Even when it is meant for good things. DONT DO IT.

Happens to be a technique used often in the Charedi community and it boomerangs. The most famous example is that of the famous story of the 93 Bais Yaakov girls of Cracow who according to the story, chose to die a martyr's holy death instead of being given over to nazi soldiers. I'm not going into the issue of whether it actually happened or not, but the original letter that was ostensibly smuggled out of the ghetto said that the nazis rounded up 93 girls and told them that the next day they were about to be given over to German soldiers. I've seen copies of the original letter, Yiddish written in German letters. "Deutsche Soldaten" it says...it was once published decades ago in an Aguda Bulletin...

And then what happened? In many Charedi publications, both in America and in EY, it was decided that to day "german soldiers" wasn't enough...so they decided it sounded better to say "SS officiers"...sounds familiar? Like Chossidmom's story...

So what happened? People started jumping on the story, frum and especially frei, and survivors as well, saying that if it was SS men it could never have happened because SS men especially were bound to keeping the race pure and it would have never officially been done (this was supposed to have been done officially) to let SS men near Jewish girls...so that the whole story of kiddush hashem is false. There were a lot of scandals about it in the 1980s...until someone came up once again with the original letter showing that it was just "german soldiers" which could have also been ukranian soldiers in the german army who were around in galicia at the time...anyone with parents or grandparents who were there during the war like my father, just ask them, they remember the ukranians...who also manned the concentration camps like Auschwitz, Belzec,...actually Ivan Demyanuk like people...

True or False, by changing the story and making "german soldiers" into "SS officers" they did a great disservice to the charedi world in particular and the survivors in general and especially the korbonos who DID die on Kiddush Hashem for real...and they were so many...

ChossidMom

Tue, Jun 17 2008, 4:18 pm

I asked Nachman and here is his answer:

Quote:

The fact is that the differences in the way that I originally wrote the story (based on the way I heard it from my source) and the way that it actually happened, are not that far apart. Reb Chaim really did say Amalek, the people really were killed, they really were German, there really was literature about Hitler in the house. The only real difference was the picture, which doesn't change the story in a major way. That was why we played it down.
There is more to the story which I cannot go into in a public forum. If anyone would like to contact me privately, I could give them some more information.

NS

You can pm me for his email address if you want it.

Motek

Sun, Jun 22 2008, 7:16 pm

ChossidMom wrote:

Every single story he writes in Hamodia is 100% TRUE.

I think the general story is true but not all the details. I wish they were!

The version you posted from his email is different in many ways from the way he originally wrote it, so the stories in Hamodia can't be 100% true. For example, now he says that R' Kanievsky said "Amalek." In the story, the answer came in the mail. It makes a difference, something we can see on R' Kanivesky's letterhead or something said orally. There were other differences like in how the accident happened.

I am sure he intends to convey the story properly and is at the mercy of those who tell him stories. They can be inaccurate, as he told you.

It takes away from the credibility of a story when the details keep changing and you see the story in different forms. But I do enjoy his stories.