Weekly Chasidic Story#1464 (5786-15) 9 Tevet 5786 (Dec.29, 2025)

"Nazi Prisoner #92740"

He was trapped with his family in the Kovno ghetto and avoided early deportation by living in a kitchen cabinet!

Why This Week? Today, The Fast Day of The Tenth of Tevet on the Jewish calendar, is the traditional occasion for the recital of the Mourners's Kaddish for the souls of the martyrs of the Holocaust whose date of death IS unknown.

Story in PDF format for more convenient printing

Nazi Prisoner #92740

Few survivors of the Holocaust remain with us. Their lives and experiences tell a story not only of man-made atrocity and silence in the face of unspeakable evil and willful ignorance of events for personal or national agendas, but also a story of families for the next generation. While the horror is past, like the numbered tattoo's on their arms it left an indelible mark on the Jewish people. Today, we live with the scars of the survivors, and the strengths of the survivors. Certain fears have rightfully become a part of our family and national psyche, and certain strengths to overcome the greatest of obstacles. I write this in loving memory of Nazi Prisoner #92740…

Mr. Chone (redacted)
Born - July 15, 1917 in Utena (Lithuania)
Nationality - Stateless
Survivor of : Stutthof Concentration Camp & Dachau (Mulldorf sub-camp) Concentration Camp

Nazi Prisoner #92740 was a Jew born in Lithuania. He grew up with two brothers and a sister. He attended the Ponevetz yeshiva until it was shut down by the war, at which point he somehow returned home.

Soon after, he was trapped with his family in the Kovno ghetto and avoided early deportation (to work camps for able bodied men) by living in a kitchen cabinet!! One brother had left a few years earlier for South Africa (avoiding the Holocaust). His remaining brother was not so lucky, and he never saw him again.

His mother and sister kept him fed (barely), while he sewed and cooked and hid. As the ghetto was gradually being liquidated, his sister escaped with a small group into the woods and joined the Jewish partisan's, fighting back against the Nazi's. He didn't see her again for 40 years (she survived but was trapped behind the Iron Curtain after the war, being expelled to Israel in the late 70's when her daughter protested in the Soviet Union, but that's another story).

He was eventually deported from the Kovno ghetto to work camps, and then to the infamous concentration camp Dachau. How he survived almost a year in Dachau we don't know. We do know that he traded 2 weeks of food rations for a pair of tefillin, and while working in the kitchen somehow hid some children in the large 'coffee' pots, keeping them alive.

He was liberated by the 92nd Signal Battalion of the United States Army on April 29, 1945, having entered Dachau from the labor camps on August 22, 1944. He spent 6 years in the Displaced Persons camp Feldafing, run by the U.S. provisional governing authority in Germany. During that time he assisted the numerous Jewish orphans and was instrumental in starting both the camp girls and boys Jewish schools. He also provided religious services and eventually became a camp staff member, a paid rabbinical post. (Prisoner #92740 was a young ordained rabbi from Ponevetz, as well as a trained shochet [ritual slaughterer]).

Having no home or family to return to, he worked to contact his brother in South Africa or family (an uncle) that had emigrated to the U.S. before the war. He was eventually successful in contacting his uncle in the U.S. and in obtaining sponsorship both via his uncle and the Vaad Hatzala to come to the U.S.

He arrived, started life anew, such as he could. He eventually married, having the honor of having 2 great rabbonim at his wedding. Rabbi Naftali Carlebach (the father of Reb Shlomo Carlebach) wrote the tenoyim (engagement contract). Rabbi Yosef Kahanaman, the Rav of Ponevetz, the great rebuilder of the yeshiva in Israel, had only 5 students who survived the holocaust from the yeshiva in Lithuania. Prisoner #92740 was one of those. The Rav honored him by performing his marriage ceremony.

While Prisoner #92740 did his best to rebuild his life and live as normal as possible, his daughter speaks of his lifetime terrible fear of dogs, always sleeping in a tiny balled up position, terrible fear of loud noises, and a great difficulty with emotional closeness.

He worked in the U.S. as a rabbi, shochet, mashgiach (kosher supervisor) and cantor, and was known as a Torah scholar. As a cantor, he was in special demand for the high holy days, where his prayer's had a depth of feeling that we cannot comprehend.

His parents were murdered, as was one of his brothers. He didn't know the status of his sister for 40 years, after which she and her family emigrated from the USSR to Israel and contacted him. They were briefly reunited in the late 70's.

He eventually made contact with his brother in South Africa, but his brother passed away before he could afford to visit.

He was buried at his request in the holy land, Israel, with a simple marker. His Torah and Mesorah (tradition) live on, a link in the chain forged in the fires of hell, through his daughter and grandchildren, and through his oldest grandson (born after he passed away) who carries his name.

Today one of his grandchildren is serving on the Lebanese border, defending against the evil ones.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: Slightly modified by Yerachmiel Tilles from a post in 2025 on the RealTime WhatsApp group by founder Akiva Marks: "I wrote this eleven years ago in 2014-- prescient--when my youngest daughter asked me, 'Is it true that Hamas wants to kill us with another Holocaust? I'm afraid.' My oldest daughter strongly suggested I re-share it."

Why This Week? Today, Tuesday Dec. 30, The Fast Day of The Tenth of Tevet on the Jewish calendar, is the traditional occasion for the recital of the Mourners's Kaddish for the souls of the martyrs of the Holocaust whose date of death is unknown.

Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.

To receive the Story by e-mail every Wednesday--sign up here!

"Festivals of the Full Moon"
("Under the Full Moon" vol 2 - holiday stories)
is now available for purchase from ASCENT
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *