“Give her the fruits of her hands; and let her be praised in the gates by her very own deeds.” (Proverbs 31:31)
Introduction:
In a previous letter, we began to discuss how
our prayers are to awaken within us the
potential to care for others and to empathize
with their suffering. In this letter, I will
share with you some information about the loving
life of Sarah Lederman, a religious Jewish woman
who “lived” her prayers. She passed away last
week at the age of 105. May her memory be a
source of blessing and inspiration for all of
us.
Dear Friends,
During the late 1930’s, Sarah Lederman lived
with her husband and her two young children, Dov
and Leah, in Warsaw, Poland. Although the
majority of Polish Jews were very poor, the
Ledermans were considered to be middle-class. At
the beginning of World War II, when the German
army invaded Poland, they began rounding up the
Jews. These events caused Sarah to become
separated from her husband, but she somehow
managed to escape Warsaw with her two young
children and cross the border into the Soviet
Union. The Soviet Union put her and her
children, along with other Jewish refugees, in a
slave labor camp, and even the children were
forced to do hard work all day. When the war was
over, she and her children returned to Poland,
and she discovered that her husband was in
Israel.
In gratitude to the Creator for their survival,
she decided to devote herself to Jewish orphans
who had eluded the German extermination by
living as non-Jews in Catholic orphanages or as
part of Catholic families. When the war ended,
most of these children’s custodians balked at
returning them to surviving family members or to
Jewish institutions. One can imagine the great
grief of the surviving relatives and other
concerned Jews when the Catholic foster parents
or orphanages refused to allow these children to
return to their people. The Ashkenazi Chief
Rabbi of the Jewish community in the Land of
Israel, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, met with the Pope in
an effort to get his help in getting these
children released, but the Pope refused to get
involved.
Sarah Lederman threw herself into the work of
rescuing these children and returning them to
their people. Until she was able to smuggle them
out of Poland, she took care of the children in
an orphanage, and with love, gentle patience,
and tenderness, she helped them to rediscover
their Jewish faith and traditions. She and a
group of the children, including her own two
children, were in a transport that hoped to
reach the Land of Israel. At the border of
Czechoslovakia, however, she was arrested by the
Polish authorities and imprisoned, but the
children, including her own two children,
managed to safely cross the border.
The story of her family’s miraculous escape from
Warsaw and how she and her two children managed
to survive in Russia, as well as the amazing
stories of how she managed to return hundreds of
Jewish orphans to their people, is told in the
book, “These Children are Mine,” which is
written by her son, Dov Lederman (Feldheim).
With remarkable dedication to historical
accuracy, the background of this book provides a
well-researched and authoritative account of
Jewish middle-class life in Poland at the
outbreak of World War II, the little-known story
of Jewish refugees in Russia, and the difficult
and dangerous life of Jewish refugees in
post-war Poland. Even after the war, the Jewish
survivors who returned to Poland experienced
anti-Semitism, including pogroms.
Where did Sarah Lederman get the faith and
courage to enable her to defy and outwit the
oppressors of her people? The beginning of an
answer can be found in the story of Sarah
Lederman’s own family background. Her father was
a Chassid, a follower of the Rebbe of Radzin. He
was highly regarded by the Rebbe, who would
spend hours discussing matters of importance
with him whenever the Rebbe visited Warsaw. Her
father’s Torah values had an enormous impact on
Sarah, especially his honesty in business, and
his concern for the poor and the downtrodden.
For example, her father manufactured cloth
ribbons; however, the demands for his
merchandise were not too steady, and there were
times when there were no orders at all. During
such slow periods, his shop, like others in the
trade, remained idle. It was then common
practice for factories and firms to employ
workers only so long as the demand lasted and
then to fire them when the last order had been
filled. In those times, when unemployment
compensation was non-existent, this was
tantamount to reducing the workers to begging
for their bread, if they did not want to die of
starvation. Her father would have none of this.
Any worker that he hired was told that the wages
in this workshop were slightly below the
standard wage for the trade, but once accepted,
the employee would be assured of a salary for
the entire year, irrespective of the number of
days he would actually work.
After she got married and had two children,
Sarah Lederman hired as a governess for her
children a young Jewish woman named Rachelka,
who was a member of the outlawed Communist
party. Rachelka’s boyfriend was also a
Communist, and he was put in his prison because
of his illegal political activities. Sarah
helped her governess send her boyfriend food and
books when he was in prison. Sarah’s son, Dov
Lederman, writes the following about his
mother’s relationship with Rachelka:
”Rachelka would often tell Mother that judging
from the way she treated those in her employ,
she would have made a good Communist. For her
part, Mother was also quite unhappy about the
prevalent treatment of the working class, who
toiled long hours for low pay, at times under
unhealthy and even dangerous conditions. She
even sympathized with the fiery proclamations
about the need for change, but being deeply
religious, she rejected Communism, with its
materialistic-atheistic notions of Utopia.”
(These Children are Mine)
Rachelka later married her boyfriend who became
a high-ranking official in the Polish government
after the Communists took over Poland. It was
Rachelka who persuaded her husband to help Sarah
Lederman leave Poland and settle in Israel,
where she was able to rejoin her two children,
along with many of the children that she had
rescued from Catholic homes and orphanages.
Dov Lederman writes that his mother tried her
best to keep tabs on the children she had
shepherded through the difficult transition from
wartime to normal life – as normal as their
lives could ever be. They would often stop by
the bakery where she worked for a chat. These
visits afforded both parties great happiness and
satisfaction. And he adds: “To them, Mother was
family, and over the ensuing decades she was the
honored participant at many happy occasions
celebrated by her former charges” (Ibid).
The following message of the Prophet Isaiah
therefore has a special and personal meaning for
Sarah Lederman’s beloved “children” who were
able to return to their roots:
“Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who
gave birth to you.” (Isaiah 51:2).
Shalom,
Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen (See below)
Related Comments:
1. I recently heard from Rebbitzen Leah Feldman, Sarah Lederman’s daughter, the following story: An older girl that her mother had rescued arrived in Israel, but she became depressed and would not eat. The authorities wanted to send her to a psychologist, but her mother had a different strategy. She understood the sense of loss and loneliness that was causing the girl pain. She therefore took the girl into her home and gave her tender loving care – making sure to give her many hugs and kisses before the girl went to sleep. She began feeding the girl and managed to persuade her to begin eating again. She later helped the girl to get married, and today the girl she rescued is a proud grandmother of children who are living a Torah life in the Land of Israel.
2. A day after Sarah Lederman passed away in the hospital in Bnei Brak, her great, great-grandson was born in the same hospital.
Sarah and her two children managed to escape the
Holocaust and to also survive the slave labor
camps in Russia. Today, Sarah’s many
grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great,
great-grandchildren are living a Torah life in
the Land of Israel. Rebbetzen Feldman mentioned
that her mother’s many descendants can no longer
fit into a single room; thus, when there is a
family reunion, they need a hall.
3. “These Children are Mine” by Dov Lederman is
published by Feldheim:
www.feldheim.com.