We Think of you as an Angel: Shaul Weingort and the Rescue of Jews During the Holocaust
It seems like a dream or a fairy tale…My dear children, you can be at ease…Do you have any idea what Shaul has done for us? (Rabbi Shabtai Rapaport in a letter to his children).
Shortly before World War II broke out, Dr. Shaul Weingort, a young Polish rabbi, arrived in Switzerland to live with the family of his future wife. Although only in his mid-twenties, Rabbi Weingort, a graduate of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary, was already considered a brilliant scholar. In the years that followed, Shaul Weingort sent letters to many of the greatest minds of the Jewish world. The topic of those letters, however, was not one of Talmudic interpretation or Jewish Law; they were meant to save lives. Weingort’s extended family was among millions of Jews who had come under German rule as a result of the occupation of Poland. The rabbi began to send aid packages with food, medication, and religious items. When the deportations to death camps began, however, foreign citizenship became the only way to escape and Rabbi Weingort, in cooperation with others, worked tirelessly to supply as many people with these life-saving documents as possible. We Think of You as an Angel sheds light on the previously unknown story of Shaul Weingort’s efforts to create an aid network that delivered food, provided South American passports, and gave hope to his family and hundreds of other Polish Jews in an attempt to save their lives. Rabbi Weingort died tragically in 1946, and this book is a tribute to his unique personality and heroic deeds during World War II.
