During the German occupation of Hungary, members of the Zionist youth movements — “the Zionist underground” — played a major role in the rescue of Jews by the mass production of Aryan documents, distribution of authentic as well as of forged safe-conduct passports of foreign countries, smuggling Jews out of the country, especially to Rumania, and other actions.
Under the Communist regime in Hungary, one was not permitted to write about the activities of the Zionist underground. The collapse of Communism, brought about changes in this respect as well.
Last April the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Organization of Hungary dedicated a monument in honor of the Zionist underground — its heroes and martyrs — in Budapest’s 5th district, in a wooded area on the banks of the Danube.
The Jewish delegates from abroad who visited this monument last July 1, were addressed by fellow delegates Dr. Erwin Herlin of New York and Mr. Oscar Schoenfeld of Los Angeles, a former member of Hungary’s Zionist underground.
Following the seizure of power by Ferenc Szalasi — on Oct. 15, 1944 — the members of his Arrow Cross Party embarked on an extensive campaign of terror against Budapest’s Jewish population, arresting and murdering Jews and even breaking into buildings protected by foreign embassies. Young Zionists engaged then in daring exploits to foil the designs of the murderers.
Ephraim Dekel writes in his B’riha — Flight to the Homeland (p. 243); “Members of Zionist Halutz groups, disguised in Fascist uniforms and armed with weapons they had managed to obtain in the confusion following the Szalasi takeover, went from house to house, rounding up Jews,
For all that the public knew, these lads in uniform were Arrow Cross men rounding up Jews for deportation to the Ghettos or concentration camps. In reality, they were taking their supposed victims to hideouts, such as the bunkers of various underground organizations, the premises of sympathetic foreign embassies or the woods outside Budapest.
Frequently, young Zionists disguised in Fascist uniforms would stop Nazi collaborators on their way to the police station with Jews they had seized in the street or on public conveyances, and offer to take the Jews off their hands. Once the Nazi collaborators had vanished from sight, the Zionists would either escort their charges to one of the hideouts, or release them, sometimes slipping into their hands letters of protection from the Swiss or Swedish embassies, or other forged documents to help them evade arrest in the future.”
These actions were, probably, not only the most successful, but also the largest rescue operation carried out by Jews — with the help of others, such as the Swiss and Swedish Legations which offered protection to many thousands of Jews — in a German-occupied country.
It is, therefore, regrettable that Jews, generally, do not know much about the daring exploits of Hungary’s Zionist underground. Still fewer know of the part played by religious Zionist youth — Benei Akiva — in these actions.
Space does not permit us to describe in detail the activities of Benei Akiva in Hungary during the period of the German occupation, but, even when only touching on this subject, one must say a few words about one of the movement’s underground heroes: “The Rabbi in the Nazi Uniform” — Rabbi Pinchas (Tiber) Rosenbaum, the son of Rabbi Shemuel Shmelka Rosenbaum, the rabbi of Kisvarda.
(To be continued)
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 12, 1994
Rabbi Pinchas (Tiber) Rosenbaum was born in Kisvarda, a town in north-eastern Hungary, where his father Rabbi Shmuel Shmelka served as rabbi. He studied in Hungarian Yeshivot.
We talked about Pinchas Rosenbaum with Shmuel Abba Gross of Sepher-Hermon Press, Brooklyn, who grew up with Pinchas in Kisvarda and was an intimate friend of his.
“In 1944, after the German occupation of Hungary, we were drafted into a forced labor unit,” Gross recalled. “Rosenbaum founded a secret Benei Akiva group there. One day he was sent by the conmander to the Jewish community of Budapest to get clothing for some of the laborers who went around in Shmattes. In Budapest, he got in touch with the Zionist Underground. Shortly after he returned to the latter camp, forged identity papers were smuggled to him. Before long he escaped from our unit. Some time later Swiss safe conduct Passports, made out in my name and in the names of members of Rosenbaum’s group, were officially transmitted to our camp. We were sent under guard to a detention center in Budapest from where we were eventually brought to a Swiss Legation building — called the Glass House — on Vadasz Street.
“Rosenbaum saved my life by just providing me with a Swiss safe-conduct document,” Gross continued “But I know of numerous cases in which he risked his life — in those terror-filled days in Budapest — to seek out Jews in danger and bring them to safety. Here, in Brooklyn, reside quite a few Jews who owe their lives to his courage and dedication.”
I don’t want to burden you with hearsay stories.. “I will give you a book, Mahteret Hatzalah , which was published last year by Bar Ilan University and contains eyewitness accounts of Benei Akiva’s activities in Hungary under the German occupation.’’
Following are abbreviated extracts from the book:
“A striking example of bravery and devotion was Pinchas Rosenbaum’s service in the underground. He was the only surviving member of his family which had been deported to Auschwitz. He came to Budapest in the summer of 1944 and joined the rescue actions of Benei Akiva. A short time later he was named a member of the country-wide leadership of Benei Akiva and Torah VaAvoda. He played a central role in the rescue
operations. Armed and dressed in the uniform of an officer of the Arrow Cross troopers, he helped to free young Jews from labor camps and to get Jews out from the Budapest Ghetto houses, transferring them to the Swiss Legation building in Vadasz Street. This was accomplished with the help of forged documents and “orders” and with the pretext that the Jews he was “taking away” were going to be thrown into the Danube.”
‘‘Y. Lavi related that he escaped from his labor unit with the help of Rosenbaum who sent two Communists with a car to the labor camp. Jn the car were food and a change of clothing …”
In December 1944, Zvi Seidenfeld was caught by the Gestapo with forged identity papers. He was severely tortured and sent to a hospital. Pinchas Rosenbaum and another member of the Benei Akiva went to the hospital dressed in S.S, uniforms. On the way there they encountered an S.S patrol. Not carrying any S.S. ‘documentation,’ they bad no choice but to liquidate the S.S. patrol. They entered the hospital, freed Seidenfeld and also took along with them a Jewish guard who was standing at the hospital’s entrance. They brought both of them to Vadasz Street.”
(Addendum to above extract from book: S.A Gross heard this story personally from Rosenbaum, with the following addition: “It would not have been good policy to leave the dead S.S men, as they were, in the street. The police might have started a search We attached a notice to the dead bodies: ‘This is the reward for betrayal’ — making it appear that the S.S men were killed by the Germans.”
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 19, 1994
(Conclusion)
Following is an additional extract from Mahteret Hatzala
“Jenoe Fraenkel was the president of the Hungarian Mizrahi. He had been arrested by the Gestapo, but was freed after Dr. R. Kastner intervened in his behalf. After Szalasi’s seizure of power he was again in danger. One afternoon. Rosenbaum, dressed as an Arrow Cross man, came to his house He shouted at the concierge to show him Fraenkel’s apartment, because he had orders “to arrest that dirty Jew.”
The Fraenkels, hearing the shouting prepared to enter a hide-out, but then Jenoe Fraenkel said; “The voice is familiar to me! Let’s take the risk and go outside.” As soon as Rosenbaum saw them, he fell upon them and began pushing them out, in full view of the neighbors who had assembled. Outside the house another member of Benei Akiva kept watch.
He and Rosenbaum brought the Fraenkel family to the offices of the Red Cross, from where they were taken in a Red Cross car to the Swiss Legation building in Vadasz Street.”
The fear of the Fraenkel family lasted a few moments only. They recognized Rosenbaum immediately.
However there were cases when the “arrestees” didn’t know Rosenbaum nor was he able — because of the onlookers — to indicate to them his true identity. These people were terrified and panic-stricken until they could be told (or realized themselves) that they were not under arrest, but were being conducted to a place of safety.
“The actions and exploits of Rosenbaum — who became a legendary figure while still alive — served as a model for the rescue activities of his movement,” we read in Mahteret Hatzala (which was edited by Noemi Blank and Hayyiro Gnizi). “The members of Benei Akiva concentrated their rescue efforts on freeing Jews from deportation trains, labor camps and prisons.”
After the war, Rosenbaum was chosen to serve as rabbi of Kisvarda, a post which had been occupied by his father and grandfather. He didn’t officiate in that capacity
He accompanied the late Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog when the latter traveled through Europe, soon after the end of the war, in an endeavor to retrieve Jewish children from Christian homes and institutions, in which they had been placed during the Holocaust.
Later he worked in the Aliya Department of the Jewish Agency in Paris.
Following his marriage to the former Stephanie Stern, daughter of Reb Chaim Stern, who was one of the leaders of Budapest’s Orthodox community, he settled in Switzerland, where he was active as a financier
During that period he published the Hiddushei Torah of his father and grandfather, the manuscripts of which he found after the war in the deserted and destroyed home of his parents He also reprinted Sefarim of his ancestors.
Rosenbaum died in 1982 at the age of 58.
In 1990 the “Dr. Tibor Rosenbaum Pediatric Hemo-Oncology Unit” was dedicated at the Laniado
Hospital in Kiryat Sanz. His memory was also honored at the 13th Annual Dinner of the American Friends of the Laniado Hospital, held at the New York Hilton on February 18 of that year. At the dinner guests were shown a video: “Pinchas Rosenbaum — The Rabbi In The Nazi Uniform.”
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 26, 1994