The Miracle Officer

He leaned back in his chair. “Santo Rabino [holy rabbi]!” he exclaimed. “You know, I helped to rescue him from that ghetto. In general, I helped to rescue Jews. I admit that I did it all for money. Today, everyone talks about Schindler’s List. I did the same thing as he did”

Rebbe Aharon of Belz and his brother, Rav Mordechai of Bilogray, were surrounded by angels on their miracle flight out of Poland in the thick of war, with a price on their heads and the Gestapo at their backs. But while many of the stories and wonders of that journey have been rehashed by chassidim for years, one fact remained a mystery: who was that Hungarian officer who drove the group across Poland, evading checkpoints as if they were invisible? Sixty-five years ago this month, the Rebbe revealed the identity of his savior. And for sixty-five years, that revelation was hidden. Until now.

Almost seventy years have passed since the Rav Aharon of Belz and his half-brother the Rebbe of Bilgoray zy”a were whisked out of Europe and set foot on the earth of the Holy Land. The journey that rescued them from the Nazi claws could only be labeled miraculous but even today some pieces of the puzzle of that esoteric chapter in their lives remain hidden.

Much has already been published — in both English and Hebrew — about the numerous wonders that were wrought for the Rebbe; his brother Rav Mordechai of Bilgoray; and the Rebbe’s attendant Reb David Shapira on that hair-raising escape path so strewn with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. British researcher Yosef Israel illuminates the background drama in great detail in his 2005 book Rescuing the Rebbe of Belz (ArtScroll). But one point was never clarified until now: Who was the mystery Hungarian officer who drove the group across Poland into Hungary bypassing checkpoints and evading scrutiny in a way that could only be described as supernatural and what became of him after the war?

As the Rebbe himself said on occasion every Jew who survived the inferno must have been accompanied by angels on either side. How many Heavenly guardians watched over the group on their own flight through Poland to Hungary? Hashem’s Hand revealed itself on a daily basis taking the entourage through barriers that could not logically be passed along dangerous roads and through borders swarming with the forces of destruction — and eventually bringing them to Eretz Yisrael where the shoot of the majestic chassidic court that once was Belz would sprout and flourish anew.