“Unlikely Allies: The Shocking Nazi Mission to Rescue a Jewish Leader that Shook History”
At the time, the establishment of a traditional Yeshiva in the United States was not a popular one, with American Jews viewing such establishments as outdated holdovers from the Old Country incompatible with progressive American values. As a result, Schneerson dismissed the United States as too irreligious and returned to Riga, where he remained until 1934 when he again relocated to Otwock, a suburb of Warsaw. Then, in September 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, and this is where our story finally begins.
Initially, Schneerson refused to leave Otwock, remaining to tend to his community as best he could. But once it became clear that the Polish Army could not hold out much longer, Mordecai Dubin, a Chabad follower and member of the Latvian parliament, arranged for Schneerson and his family to settle in Riga. However, to reach the Latvian capital the Rebbe would have to reach Warsaw and catch a train north – a perilous 60 kilometre journey along a road frequently bombed and strafed by Luftwaffe aircraft. Nonetheless, the now 59-year-old Rebbe, overweight and suffering from multiple sclerosis, left Ostwock along with his family and a group of devoted followers – only to find the Warsaw Train Station destroyed. They were thus forced to seek refuge among Chabad followers in the Warsaw Ghetto while day after day German aircraft systematically flattened the city’s Jewish neighbourhoods. It seemed only a matter of time before Schneerson and his family were either killed or arrested.
But across the Atlantic, an unlikely rescue was being organized. Though at the time the Chabad movement in America was small, a small group of followers led by Brooklyn rabbi Israel Jacobson managed to hire Washington lobbyist Max Rhoade to petition for the Rebbe’s relocation to the United States. Rhoade contacted dozens of politicians including Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis; Sol Bloom, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives; and New York Senator Robert Wagner, who on September 22 sent a telegram to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull informing him that:
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