After the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia after World War II, Alexander Feuerstein — Shulem Alter ben Aryeh Chaim, — knew that he would have to make a drastic move if he wanted to help save the vestiges of Judaism the new Soviet leadership was bent on destroying. He paid with his health and with every shattered bone in his body. But years later, alone in a senior citizens’ home with nothing but his tefillin, his Chumash, siddur, and Tehillim, he finally reaped the rewards of his bravery and sacrifice.
The smoke had already settled over Eastern Europe and Shulem Feuerstein who had survived slave labor camps in Slovakia Poland Ukraine Hungary and Yugoslavia returned to his home village of Koromla near Sobrance Slovakia. He soon realized that he was the only survivor of an extended Orthodox family from eastern Slovakia and southeastern Galicia. One brother was shot in front of him when they were in a labor camp together; another brother was buried in a mass grave that he and his group were forced to dig before they were shot; his mother and sisters were sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.
There was no one left. Not an uncle not a cousin. Shulem knew that only by remaining faithful to his Creator could he maintain the connection with his beloved slaughtered family. Without that death might as well overtake him too. But the Communists had taken over Czechoslovakia and were on the warpath to destroy any vestige of religion. He had survived the horrors of war. Would he be able to maintain his standards of devotion under the Communist regime?
Meanwhile Shulem had set himself up as a supplier of goods between Slovakia and Prague. One night as he was sleeping in the woods near Bratislava close to the Austrian border his siddur and tefillin at his side he woke up to a painful kick in his side. He opened his eyes and everything went black. There towering over him stood a border guard smiling wickedly. “We’ve got you!”
“In that moment” said Shulem Feuerstein “I knew my life was teetering in G-d’s hands.”
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