Rebbetzin of the World   

A Childhood Interrupted

The Jungreis family had heard the rumors about the atrocities perpetrated in Poland and Slovakia by the most “enlightened” and cultured nation of the 20th century, the Germans, but like so many of their Hungarian Jewish brethren, they reassured themselves; these rumors couldn’t be true. It seemed impossible. Unimaginable.

But when the impossible became reality, and the Nazis began rounding up and imprisoning Hungarian Jewry, Rabbi Avraham HaLevi Jungreis ztz”l and his wife, Rebbetzin Miriam Jungreis a”h, took their young family and traveled from their hometown of Szeged — where Rabbi Jungreis was chief rabbi — to Nádudvar to visit the family patriarch, Rabbi Yisroel HaLevi Jungreis Hy”d. The Jungreis family had illustrious yichus, tracing back to the days of Dovid Hamelech, and it was the most natural thing in the world to seek comfort and guidance from the previous generation at a time of crisis.

For a young Esther, the trip meant spending time with her beloved zeide in his study, surrounded by his holy seforim, savoring a treat of sugar cubes dipped in tea. But on this trip, as her zeide held her on his knee, she watched in horror as he started crying. Running to her father, Esther alerted him that her zeide was crying. And then her father began to weep, too.

“Come,” he said to her. “Let’s take a walk, and I’ll explain to you why Zeide is crying.” Putting her coat, scarf and boots on for her, he took her outside to the deep snow.