Heart-rending Letters from Jewish Women Holocaust Survivors
Ostia DP Camp. Italy, 1946
"Perhaps God will have mercy already on His persecuted people,
And we will receive a cure for our many troubles,
And we will soon come to our holy land,
And we will merit to hear the word of G-d in Jerusalem."
A collection of letters from the women of the ‘Sarah Schenirer kibbutz’ established by Holocaust survivors in Ostia, Italy, near Rome.
The letters are replete with historical information about the situation of Jewish women on the kibbutz – about the new girls who arrived at the kibbutz with only the clothes on their backs, about the women who immigrated to Palestine and were arrested by the British, about the aid packages they were going to receive, and more.
These righteous women went through all the horrors of the Holocaust and yet their pure faith in the Creator of the world is evident from every line of the present letters. They write movingly:
"We eagerly await the true redemption and salvation of all our persecuted people, after all the terrible tragedies that have befallen our souls."
Most of the letters were written by the secretary of the kibbutz, the
righteous
Mrs. Chaya Graz (Lieberman), daughter of the mashgiach of the Telz Yeshiva, Rabbi Nesanel Yosef Graz, one of the closest students of the Alter of Kelm. Her brother is Rabbi Zevulun Graz, Av Beis Din of Rechovot. She married Rabbi Meir Lieberman in Ostia in 1947. She is mentioned by Rabbi Chizkiyahu Yosef Mishkovsky in his description of the kibbutz in Ostia (HaTzofeh, April 8, 1946).
The collection contains three letters and a printed greeting card:
1-2: Two letters by Chaya Graz
3: Letter signed by Blima Friedman, Sarah Weiss, Feige Kalman and Chaya Graz
4: A printed New Year card for the year 1947 by ‘Kibbutz Meshek Hapoalot Bnot Agudat Yisrael’.
Ostia, Italy, 1946 [1946-1947]. Different sizes. Good condition. Two letters written on thin paper, small tears in the margins.
The letters were sent to Rabbi Yitzchak Zvi (Seidel) Semiatitsky of London, the son-in-law of Rabbi Moshe Schneider and a teacher in his Yeshiva Toras Emes-Schneider.
