Typed Letter Signed “W. Godfrey,” Archbishop of Cius, Apostolic Delegate Confidential communication from the Holy See to Chief Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz concerning the whereabouts of Chief Rabbi Samuel David Ungar of Nitra

(HOLOCAUST).

November 20th

London

1944

Samuel David Ungar, Rabbi of Nitra (1886-1945) and his son-in-law R. Michael Dov Weissmandel (d.1957) organized an underground network in their native Slovakia to assist Jews escape deportation during World War II. They received on occasion, cooperation from the Catholic clergy. Rabbi Weissmandel tried in vain to alert the free world to the ongoing extermination of European Jewry, later recounted in his tragic memoir “Min ha-Meitzar.” Upon his capture by the Germans, he leapt from the train deporting him to Auschwitz and was able to survive the war, later settling in the United States where he re-established the Nitra Yeshiva in Mount Kisco, New York. His father-in-law, Rabbi Ungar, who went into hiding in the forests near Nitra, eventually succumbed to starvation and died in February, 1945. See EJ, Vol. XVI, cols. 418-419; Vol. V, col.1197; N.Z. Friedmann, Otzar Harabanim, p. 403, no.19492; p. 275, no. 13153 In this letter from the Holy See, routed through the Apostolic Delegate in London, the Chief Rabbi J.H. Hertz of England is informed that “the person concerned [Chief Rabbi Samuel David Ungar] cannot be traced, but there is every reason to believe that he evaded capture and has found a safe refuge.”