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Nachman Weissman
(z"1.) as a soldier in the
Israeli Army.
ACTIVIST NACHMAN WEISSMAN
By Israel Leichter
Nachtsche Weissman
was an activist, for such
was his nature. When
he did something, he
did it with his full heart
and soulin both his
private life and in his
communal activities.
Nachman was not
one to delve into spiritual
things, but he did
accomplish much in
practical affairs, first in
his own shtetl and later
on a much broader
scale. Libivne had a hachshara kibbutz of the
Hechalutz movement, and Nachman played
a very important part in this kibbutz, especially
in raising funds for its upkeep, not such an easy
accomplishment in a small town.
The members of the hachshara earned a
great part of their upkeep by doing lumber work.
Nachman helped them get such work and at
times even put his own shoulder to the wheel.
When the chalutzim (pioneers, being prepared
for Palestine at the kibbutz) were given an amount
of work they could not possibly handle by themselves,
he would organize young sympathizers
from the shtetl to help saw and chop the 220 or
so yards of wood.
Nachman's energy helped Jews after the
Holocaust. He himself was lucky to have spent
the entire time of the great Jewish catastrophe
in the Soviet Union, where he did suffer,
though not as bitterly. Right after the war, he
returned to Poland to become active in the
Bricha (an organization that took Jews illegally
353
across the borders), helping them in their torturous
trek to Palestine.
Nachman was sent to one of the most important
areas of the Bricha activities, on the border
between Poland and Czechoslovakia, where he
became a leading comrade of the Ichud party,
which consisted of General Zionists responsible
for maintaining the area and helping Jews Cross
the border in safety.
During the day, Nachman was occupied with
keeping order in the big house, where the survivors
would sometimes be given lodging; at night,
he and his comrades would be busy loading trucks
with Jews, helping them cross the border in secret.
I do not know where he got all the energy to
do this hard, exacting work.
When the Bricha center had to be closed
after it became impossible to keep its activities
secret any longer, Nachman went to Warsaw
to work for the Joint [American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee]. He was in charge of
distributing food and clothing, an activity of
special importance to survivors in Poland, as
well as to those Jewish repatriates streaming
into Poland from Soviet Russia. In addition to
food, spiritual nourishment also was needed
to give hope to the despondent and
Nachumtsche performed this mitzvah [good
deed] with a full heart; he worked for the Joint
for about two years.
But the most important and most difficult
work Nachman did after the Holocaust was finding
and rescuing Jewish children from the hands
of gentiles who had hidden them during the time
of the great misfortune. Some gentiles brought the
children back to their Jewish families; but others
were stubborn and insisted on converting the