Rabbi Chaim Meir Kahana and his wife Gertrude Once I was traveling with my family from Ukraine to Israel after visiting the places in which my ancestors used to live and one of the Ukrainian flight attendants ordered us to get them checked to make sure they fit the size of carry-on allowed on board   Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter One of our bags was an inch bigger than allowed I handed the flight attendant my credit card My children and I emptied the bag and were refunded the money He asked me my name and what I was doing in Ukraine I told him that my name is Ariel Kahana and that I was on a heritage trip in Ukraine was born in 1910 in the village of Viseu in northern Romania and was destined for greatness from a young age He studied in the yeshivas of the Vizhnitz Hassidic dynasty moved to Chernivtsi in the Bukovina region and for the first time in his life encountered secular He soon joined Agudat Yisrael and became the party's secretary in the city and the editor of the Haredi newspaper an ultra-Orthodox young woman who had been invited by Agudat Yisrael from Hamburg to train ultra-Orthodox teachers in Chernivtsi The Kahanas led a simple life in Chernivtsi The parents continued to be active in the Jewish community Gertrude was not particularly excited about raising children Rabbi Kahana was also in charge of distributing immigration permits to the land of Israel with the intention to immigrate at a later date He kept four such permits for his family but eventually gave them to another member of the community who was in dire need Those permits turned out to be the last ones to be handed out by Agudat Yisrael in Chernivtsi and so the family remained in the city with no ability to escape from the persecution that was lurking around the corner The Red Army invaded the town in 1940 and made a name for itself by confiscating the majority of the Jewish community's property it turned out to be nothing compared to the Nazi-Romanian occupation in 1941 they imposed never-ending decrees against the Jews Lottie traveled back to her parents to the Beclean village in northern Romania Yehuda remained with Chaim Meir and Gertrude the Jews of Chernivtsi were sent to a small ghetto My grandparents set up a make-shift soup kitchen in the building's basement in which they made food for the needy The basement was also a shelter in which the family hid when the city was being bombed "I remember the sounds of the bombings to this day," he often told us and Ukrainians led hundreds of Jews to their deaths later on foot to the frozen plains of Ukraine In a book my grandfather wrote towards the end of his life he described the horrors he had experienced – the frost Jews were forced to cross the wide and deep Dniester River where thousands of Jews before them had drowned My grandfather and his friends buried Jewish bodies in a nearby forest Jews were also ambushed on the road by the Ukrainians who tried to snatch from them the few belongings they had left Someone grabbed what my grandmother was holding in her arms too When the thief realized that my grandmother wasn't holding a valuable belonging "We saw in her eyes how her strengths diminished and abated," grandfather wrote The next morning he dug his daughter's grave with his bare hands about 400 km (250 miles) east of Chernivtsi Someone recognized him and returned him to his parents who were shocked by grief over the loss of their daughter His uncle Yehuda helped him warm up and thus saved his life A turning point occurred when Yehuda and Chaim Meir disguised themselves as construction workers and obtained a residence permit in an abandoned Jewish home in the Yampil ghetto but also a group of other Jews my grandfather took under his wing on the way and yet the resourcefulness of Chaim Meir and Yehuda saved the family from starvation and extreme cold One day Yehuda sold needles that he had brought with him the next the two built an oven for a local resident Conditions became a little bit more bearable when spring arrived My grandmother recovered and began teaching her son and other children about the weekly Torah portion and to read and write My grandfather managed to procure some money which they used to buy food and clothes for the tiny community that was created when the Nazis were pushed back by the Soviets the heads of the Romanian government started to look for ways to save face by making up for their crimes together with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee they transported orphaned children to ghettos in Transnistria in 1944 as the outskirts were safer than the cities my grandparents decided to send my father on one of those trains where he would live calmly with his extended family until the end of the war my father Michael and my grandmother Gertrude went to a train station in the town of Mohyliv-Podilskyi near Yampil "We thought it would be a short farewell which would end soon," my father said to me "Who would have thought it would turn out to be so fateful?" The train ride turned out to be a nightmare "We were crammed into cattle trucks," my father said A third of the carriage turned into a toilet The suffocation and the smell were terrible It was one of the most shocking experiences of my life that I can remember." my father bid farewell to the young girl who accompanied him and was transferred to another train accompanied by a non-Jewish maid who was sent befriended the German soldiers who were on the train The soldiers enjoyed the German he had heard from his mother and taught him paper folding – an art many years later he taught to his children my father was supposed to continue to Beclean but couldn't he would have been taken with his grandmother Nazis were carrying out the rapid extermination of Hungarian Jewry they had to flee again from German planes that were bombing the region and the screams of the victims," my father said I almost suffocated when people fled the inferno and trampled each other." uncle Yehuda arrived from Yampil and said that Chaim Meir and Gertrude remained in Chernivtsi They feared that my grandmother would not survive the hardships of the trip to Romania and wanted to arrange a home for the family first Lottie returned from the displacement camps in which she stayed after Auschwitz She headed a group of Agudat Yisrael pioneers and told my father Michael The Jewish state had not yet been established and mature for his age and decided to set out on the journey 4,000 people were crammed into the Knesset Israel ship that left from Italy on Nov Lottie used to say that the pressure was worse than in Auschwitz "Even the space between the bunks was smaller than in the camp," she said a confrontation broke out between the Jews and the British soldiers my father found himself in a new land yet again They stayed in Cyprus for about six months until fate knocked on the door again – my father won the lottery by receiving an immigration card to Israel distributed by the British his aunt was not allowed to join him without a ticket after lengthy correspondence between the uncles they decided not to miss out on the opportunity my father arrived in Israel on a British ship alone That is how Jews in the Diaspora perceived the land of Israel at the time: heaven Relatives on his mother's side came to visit my father but were not financially able to raise him following another correspondence between uncles it was decided that my father would be sent to the religious Hafetz Chaim kibbutz near Gedera Little Michael left on a bus from Haifa to Tel Aviv alone He was supposed to transfer to another bus at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station but got lost He wandered the streets in tears until a wealthy ultra-Orthodox Jew and the next day put him on the right bus to the Hafetz Chaim kibbutz As a 9-year old he was adopted for the third time by relatives Jup and Tzala Auerbach The high school studies my father completed in Jerusalem and returned to the kibbutz during vacations he began to earn a living as a counselor at an orphanage in Jerusalem fulfilled his dream of studying economics at Hebrew University His family members immigrated to Israel over the years Chaim Meir and Gertrude returned to Chernivtsi to rebuild the devastated Jewish community My grandfather set up a Torah-learning school and a fund that helped the many widows and orphans with housing and he declared an all-out war on religion Grandfather realized that the Soviet rule was closing in on him He kept his activities to a minimum and tried to cross the Iron Curtain with my grandmother after having survived the hardships of the Holocaust the secret service of the USSR at the time but refused to reveal his "accomplices in the crime" of rehabilitating the Jewish community He was transferred from jail to jail and interrogated again and again He ended up hospitalized in the jail hospital on the verge of death until a judge sentenced him to seven years of harsh labor in Siberia To these were added two more years of "exile" in Chernihiv on the border with Belarus he managed to preserve a Jewish way of life: he smuggled tefillin into the camp She lived in a cramped and neglected neighborhood so relatives from Israel and Switzerland secretly sent her money and medicine she was offered the opportunity to leave the USSR alone and reunite with her young son in Israel "I knew Michael was alright," she later said no one would ever know what happened to him." she sent food packages to her husband in jail She loved him so much she even traveled to Siberia once "Those were the days of comfort and hope between us," grandpa wrote "Three years after parting with our only son she gave me a picture of him and letters that he wrote." She contracted severe pneumonia and was hospitalized in Chernivtsi which included amputating one of her lungs and moving her heart out of place The only consolation for Chaim Meir and Gertrude throughout the years was the correspondence with family in Israel My father and uncles in Israel updated my grandmother on what was happening to them and vice versa through secret writings as the Soviet censorship was eyeing them closely someone from Chernivtsi immigrated to Israel and had a more detailed update on the family's life back there or brought more coded letters that had to be deciphered In 1951 my grandfather was released from Siberia but he had two more years to spend in Chernihiv my grandfather resumed his Jewish activities immediately Upon returning to Chernivtsi after two years grandfather remained true to his Judaism and once again integrated into the secret life led by the tiny local ultra-Orthodox community and the construction of a mikveh in the synagogue He also began to give secret lessons to a boy named Ben-Zion Vishtzky whose father was imprisoned for Jewish activities "I didn't think that I would merit to see another Jewish child study Gemara," he told the boy and he and his friends came to my grandfather's Gemara lessons cut off from their only son who they had not seen for a decade the hardships of the Holocaust and the Soviet government – the only thing my grandparents wanted to do was to immigrate to Israel the USSR authorities repeatedly rejected their requests to leave the country and reunite with their son in Israel my father and uncles approached everyone in Israel about obtaining permits for my grandparents "It became a regular practice," my father said the wife of former US President Franklin D Roosevelt and a symbol of the struggle for human rights The matter reached its peak when my father was once again taken for interrogation by the KGB "We know everything you do," the interrogator snapped at him "There is no point in submitting more requests and you will never see your son." My grandmother was interrogated as well "The world was dark for us," my grandfather wrote in his book "We were shocked to the depths of our souls Twenty-two years we waited to move to Israel 17 of those we did not see our only child." My grandparents then sent my father a recording The recording included many quotes from rabbinical literature They said that they were praying for my father's well-being and asked him to continue to walk on the path of the Torah When my dad and uncles heard the recording it was clear to them that Chaim Meir and Gertrude lost all hope of leaving the USSR he received a telegram with the words: "We received a permit to immigrate to Israel." Thus "Those were the days of euphoria," my dad said Chaim Meir and Gertrude crossed the border into Hungary and from there traveled to Austria The Israeli ambassador in Vienna personally hosted them and helped them with anything they needed 19 years after having been separated from their 5-year-old son Michael My grandparents lived for many more peaceful years in Jerusalem My grandfather dedicated his life to Soviet Jews He established an international foundation that operated for decades and sent thousands of food and aid packages to his friends in Chernivtsi and other cities in the USSR Grandmother worked in education in the ultra-Orthodox sector She was in charge of a home for girls who left their homes and began teaching the weekly Torah portion again Their house was full of guests from the USSR they had five grandchildren and even got to see two great-grandchildren my grandfather said that the USSR was founded on lies and predicted its collapse He was privileged to witness that before he died my grandmother told us that she had "finished her job in the world" and passed away six months later My father grew up to be a senior official at the Finance Ministry He and my mother were among the founders of the Beit El settlement and are blessed with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren today I thought of telling all this to the Chabad Jew who helped me save 70 euros – that my wife and I visited Chernivtsi "I know who your grandfather was," he told me Your grandfather used to teach him Gemara in Chernivtsi after he returned from Siberia My father-in-law speaks of him all the time."  Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories Jewish Agency Chairman Major General (Res.) 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Analysis  Archaeology Blogpost Business & Finance Culture Exclusive Explainer Environment Features Health In Brief Jewish World Judea and Samaria Lifestyle Cyber & Internet Sports Diplomacy  Iran & The Gulf Gaza Strip Politics Shopping Terms of use Privacy Policy Submissions Contact Us The first issue of Israel Hayom appeared on July 30 Israel Hayom was founded on the belief that the Israeli public deserves better more balanced and more accurate journalism [contact-form-7 id=”508379″ html_id=”isrh_form_Newsletter_en” title=”newsletter_subscribe”] one of the most important companies in the Romanian metallurgy industry was sold at a public auction for 7.5 million euros to Intertranscom Impex SRL The new owner plans to restart production and to retransform the factory in one of the main employers in Beclean following a comprehensive and rigorous process to identify viable investors for one of the companies that played a key role in the metallurgy industry we set the stage for the continued efficient development of the metallurgy industry in Romania and we manage to save another important objective from the history of Romanian business,” said Andrei Besoiu The factory sold is located at Strada Valea Viilor no The asset is represented by the wire production factory for hard and soft wires respectively derivative products from wire organized the public auction on January 25 at the headquarters of Prime Insolv Practice SPRL scientists conducted archaeological excavations at the western wall of the Luy Lau ancient citadel in the northern province of Bac Ninh aiming to explore the historical and cultural values hidden in the citadel Vietnam currently ranks fifth among Asian U23 teams information and models of 87 Buddhist national treasures currently preserved in museums and relic sites across the country are on display The New Zealand Herald has run an article by journalist Cath Johnsen affirming that Vietnam offers one of the kindest cultures in the world held in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Vietnam–Hungary diplomatic ties aimed to strengthen connections between young overseas Vietnamese in Hungary and their cultural roots The exhibition features a dome made from do (poonah paper) combined with recycled plastic and steel to create a space that is both soft and strong The International Martial Arts Tournament welcomed participants from 11 African countries that are part of the African Vovinam – Viet Vo Dao Confederation alongside representatives from several European nations and Vietnam Deputy Minister of Culture of Venezuela Alí Alejandro Primera will perform renowned songs praising President Ho Chi Minh during an art programme titled “Forever Ho Chi Minh” on the occasion of his 135th birthday (May 19 The oil on canvas "Property of a Lady of Title" was the top-selling item at Sloane Street Auctions on May 2 and marked the first Vietnamese artwork ever auctioned at the house Vietnam will be one of 11 hosts of the AFC Asian U23 Cup 2026 qualification Coach Nguyen Dinh Hoang of Vietnam will bring 14 players who have practised hard at intensive training courses and friendlies in Vietnam and Japan to China for the AFC Women’s Futsal Asian Cup 2025 The Berlin exhibition presents a chronological narrative of the war through the eyes of artists and photographers who lived through or deeply studied the war from the early days of revolutionary movement to the great victory on April 30 Ha Long Carnival 2025 unfolded in three acts each weaving Quang Ninh’s cultural heritage into a vivid tapestry of performance The elaborately choreographed performances captured the spirit of local residents invited attendees to explore the locality's breathtaking natural beauty themed “Unity and Inclusivity for Human Dignity: Buddhist Insights for World Peace and Sustainable Development,” will take place in Ho Chi Minh City from May 6 to 8 expected to draw 1,200 delegates from 85 countries and territories Hanoi has mobilised hundreds of billions of VND for the restoration preservation and promotion of local cultural heritage every year transforming the treasures into engines for sustainable tourism development and Tourism Suansavanh Viyaket emphasised that the victory on April 30 was not only a triumph for the army and people of Vietnam but also a shared victory for the united forces and the special combat alliance between Laos and Vietnam not only won the final stage of the 37th National HTV Cycling Cup which concluded on April 30 in Ho Chi Minh City but also secured his place as the overall champion of the prestigious tournament The oil on canvas "Property of a Lady of Title" will be the first Vietnamese artwork on auction at this distinguished auction house It was on display at a solo exhibition of Vu Cao Dam in London in 1960 hosted by the prominent Frost & Reed Gallery titled “Mua xuan thong nhat” (the spring of reunification) serves as a profound tribute to previous generations soldiers and civilians who made great sacrifices for the country’s freedom and independence The exhibition showcases 42 photographs and propaganda posters created by Cuban artists reflecting Cuba’s heartfelt solidarity with Vietnam during its prolonged struggle for national defence 2008 by the Ministry of Information and Communications Email: vietnamplus@vnanet.vn Reproduction in any form is prohibited without written consent At least as far as the buildings that will rise on our planet are concerned even if it is the last thing that will rise from the ground And if we recently presented you with the finalists for the best and already realized architectural solutions as part of the 2015 World Architecture Festival this time we present you with the category of buildings competing for the title of the best building of the future World Architecture Festival 2015 not only celebrates the existing architecture but also looks into future at least as far as it goes architectural solutions READ MORE: World Architecture 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