[PHOTOS BY JDN IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Thousands of Satmar Chassidim gathered at the Marcy Avenue armory in Williamsburg on Wednesday December 2nd 2015 to mark Kuf Alef Kislev, the day Hagon HaRav Yoel Teitelbaum ZATZAL, the founder of Satmar Chassidus in America, escaped from the Nazis during the Holocaust in 1944.

The Satmar Rebbe, known as the Divrei Yoel,  was among over 1600 people who were transported out of Hungary by train due to the efforts of Rudolf Kastner, one of the leaders of Budapest’s Vaadat Ezra V’Hatzalah, who brokered a deal with Adolph Eichmann to let the passengers leave in exchange for a large sum of money, diamonds and gold. While Eichmann reneged on the deal and had the train sent to Bergen Belsen, the train was finally released after four months of negotiations and the passengers finally obtained their freedom when they arrived in Switzerland.