Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Hadassah Carlebach

In this Oral History Testimony, Hadassah (Schneersohn) Carlebach shares some of her memories of her front row seat to her father Rabbi Schneour Zalman Schneersohn’s extensive rescue activities during and after the Holocaust through his efforts to rescue Jewish children. For Jews in the Soviet Union, like the Schneerson family, the antisemitism of the mid-20th century did not begin with Hitler’s rise to power. As Chassidic family that moved from Leningrad to Moscow, the Schneersohn’s were witness to the prevalent antisemitism around them. Rabbi Schneersohn worked before the war helping connect local Jews in need with money arriving from American philanthropists. He also worked clandestinely to shelter Jews in their small apartment, for which he was arrested sixteen times. After years of persecution, the Schneersohn family immigrated to Palestine in the mid-1930s. After only a couple years living in Jaffa, the family moved back to Europe, but this time to Paris. Rabbi Schneersohn created the Association des Israélites Pratiquants (AIP, also called Kehillat Haharedim), as well as starting a kosher soup kitchen, synagogue, and Hebrew school. After the war began, her father was assigned to run a kosher children’s home, the Chateau des Morelles in Brout-Vernet. Following the German invasion and the start of deportations, Rabbi Schneersohn, his family, and the children in the school traveled around southern France, fleeing from place to place in search of safety. During this time, Hadassah worked as both a cook and a teacher for the children. By late 1943, many of the children were either hidden in various places in France or smuggled into Switzerland. After the war ended, the family tried to return to Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1947.