by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Many of us are talmidim, children, or eineklach of those who were known as Alter Mirrers.  Unfortunately, most are gone.  What follows is a small vignette in their history.

When the talmidim of the Mir Yeshiva received their visas, American Jews raised money for their train tickets on the Trans-Siberian Railway  (It was raised on Shabbos because it was an immediate case of Pikuach Nefesh).

It was the fall of 1940, The Talmidim of the Mir yeshiva in Poland traveled across the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok in a trip that took over two months. From there they traveled to Japan.

They travelled across the full breadth of Russia and took a ship to Kobe, Japan.  They were frightened and had no idea what the Russian communists had in store for them.  Even on the ship toward Japan, the Russians placed a soviet officer with them until they reached international waters.  Another ship that had followed them took the soviet officer off of their ship.  When this happened the Mir Talmidim realized and knew that –  finally – they were truly free.

The words to the song here are:

We, we, we Yiddilech, we, we, we Yisroeliklach, [plural]

We, we, we..  we we we, Yaankovlach [plural]

A nation, a small one

Nothing like it in this whole world

They have very nice midos

There is no nation like this in the world..

They remained in Kobe, Japan for 7 months before being settled by the Japanese Government in Shanghai, China.

The author can be reached at [email protected]