Bidspirit | автомобильный аукцион Unlike Any Other: Rare Letter | 27/8/2023 Winner'S

Unlike Any Other: Rare Letter from the Holocaust from the Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Heiman to the Gaon Rabbi Ozer Grodzinsky in Vilna Under Fire - ”Our distress was great when we heard the word that the Nazis, may their names be obliterated, were dropping bombs on the glorious city of Vilna” Especially rare letter, unlike any other ever seen, entirely handwritten and signed by the renowned gaon Rabbi Shlomo Heiman, one of the leading rashei yeshivah  in Lithuania and then in the United States. The letter was sent in the midst of the Holocaust to the rabbi of the entire Diaspora, the gaon Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky in Vilna under fire, just a few months before the latter's passing. New York, 1940. The letter was sent, as mentioned, during the Holocaust. After the Nazis invaded Poland an unceasing stream of refugees led from Poland to Lithuania. The gaon Rabbi Chaim Ozer wrote about this terrible period in his introduction to Shu”t Achiezer  Part III: ”Our people is in a terrible situation. Not even in the Middle Ages was there a situation like this. The entire Diaspora is like a bonfire. Study halls and Torah scrolls are burned in the streets and our enemies declare harsh new decrees, ordering us to break our faith. Large and prominent Jewish communities are uprooted from their places and the gates of other countries are locked in their faces. We have become a mockery, a disgrace, to be shamed and humiliated. We do not know what each day will bring; immense distress surrounds us, killing and murder, exile ... The entire Jewish people is drowning in rivers of blood and oceans of tears. We are oppressed and broken - Oy! What will become of us!” During that same terrible period, three gedolei hador  in Lithuania who carried the Jewish people on their shoulders were snatched at once, as if Divine Providence took them at the last minute before they would have been murdered by the Nazis, may their names be obliterated, and desecrated with their impure hands. The first to pass was the gaon Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibowitz, author of Birkat Shmuel  (5 Kislev, 1939), then the addressee of this letter, the gaon Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky (5 Av 1940). The gaon Rabbi Shlomo Heiman mentions the passing of these two shepherds in this heartbreaking historic letter of lamentation 'The bitter eulogy for the passing of the pious gaon R' Baruch Dovber z”l and the pious gaon Rabbi Shimon Shkop z”l.' Refer to the Hebrew catalog text for a brief biography of the gaon Rabbi Shlomo Heiman and the addressee the gaon Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky . [2] pp, 24 cm. Official stationery, entirely handwritten and signed by Rabbi Heiman. Fine-very fine condition. Fold marks. Small ink smudge.