Mr. Reichberg: A Lamed Vovnik (36er)? The Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland
It is said that in every generation, 36 (Lamed Vov1) Tzadikim2 walk on this earth. They hold this world together; they are the pillars of humanity. Without them, humanity would be destroyed. These 36 Tzadikim are unaware of who they are, and we do not know who they are. We do know that without them; we would not exist.
I was getting frustrated with Mr. Reichberg. However, no other travel agent was willing to assume this assignment. In fact one travel agent, who wrote genealogy books about the Shtetls in Europe, told me that Ukraine was a dangerous place. I should not go alone with my 78-year-old Mother. She suggested that I go in October, instead of my targeted August date, when she leads a group tour. I knew better than to fall for that claptrap. My neighbor, who was the director of a prestigious Yiddish institute, assured me that Ukraine was not dangerous.
And here I was on the phone with Mr. Reichberg. I hired him two weeks earlier, and we did not have hotel reservations, plane tickets or a visa to Ukraine.
My friend Duvid was instrumental in referring me to Mr. Reichberg. In desperation I called Duvid. “Duvid, for nearly fifty years Hasidim crossed into the Iron Curtain4 to visit Kevarim5, especially the Kevarim of the Rebbes. Who organized these trips?”
Duvid instinctively responded, “Mr. Reichberg, of course”, and immediately gave me his contact information.
Mr. Reichberg was very friendly on the phone but, after two weeks, we were not making progress with plans. I answered his question stated above saying that Duvid connected us, but I knew he would not remember Duvid or his family.
I took a different approach to answering Mr. Reichberg’s question by playing Jewish geography:
“Perhaps you know Shimon Geller from Boro Park?” “You are related to Shimon?” “He is my first cousin once removed. My Mother and him lived on the same compound in Mszana Dolna.” “I have been davening next to Shimon every Shabbos for nearly thirty years!” “You’re Bobov?”6 “Yes.”
The next day everything was arranged: visas, plane tickets, and hotels. Mr. Reichberg arranged that his Polish driver pick us up at the airport and take us wherever we wanted to go. He even generously offered us his personal suite at the hotel in Krakow.
The trip was cathartic, a life changer in so many ways.
Since returning, I have called Mr. Reichberg before all the major Jewish holidays, five times a year.
Mrs. Reichberg always answered the phone and was so welcoming to hear my voice. We always talked a bit.
During the course of the subsequent years, when Mr. Reichberg was in his early eighties, Mrs. Reichberg would say that Mr. Reichberg was not well, but he gave Mrs. Reichberg specific instructions to put him on the phone with me when I called before Yontif7. This happened more than once.
Once I told Mr. Reichberg that I wanted to contribute to tzedakah or a Gemach8 in his honor. He said, “Give it to me.” I hesitated. I thought he was kidding, but that was not his style.
“What do you mean by giving it to you? You run a travel agency, everyone in Brooklyn knows that.”
He then continued by explaining that the travel agency was a facade. In 1960, the Bobover Rebbe9 instructed Mr. Reichberg to save the Jewish Kevarim that were destroyed in Europe. Hence Reichberg Travel was created.
During this conversation I realized that this is the same Mr. Reichberg I have been reading about on the internet all these past years, during the 1990’s. He belonged to a loose net group of people preserving Jewish gravesites in Eastern Europe. These projects had the full support of the United States government at the time.
When I mentioned this connection to Mr. Reichberg, who did not use a computer, he asked me to send him the information. He was surprised to hear about it. I mailed hundreds of pages.
One holiday, during one of my preholiday calls, Mr. Reichberg sounded down and worn out. Being concerned, I noted this to him. He proceeded to tell me that he went to a town in Poland that was planning to build a shopping mall. Reportedly, part of the shopping mall was to be built over a mass grave.
Mr. Reichberg met with the mayor of the town, congratulated him on the town’s progress, and asked him if the mayor was aware that the mall was going to go over part of a mass grave.
Together they went to the construction site, and the mayor showed him the large area where the mass grave was demarcated. Mr. Reichberg was gracious to the mayor. Mr. Reichberg was a good diplomat and received the mayor’s blessing to check and verify whether the area marked off was correct. Mr. Reichberg had a special machine that could x-ray the ground in search of human bones.
“Mr. Chapnick, the mayor was right, but the mass grave extended far beyond the marked area; it went as far as the eye could see.” One could feel the human pain Mr. Reichberg was feeling. In fact, I too was not myself that Yontif.
In 2011, Duvid called me to tell me Mr. Reichberg was niftar, passed away. Thousands attended his funeral. It had been a couple of years since I called him. I knew he took ill all those years, but the news hit me very, very hard.
I have been thinking about Mr. Reichberg during those years, before and after his death. I still talk and think about him till this day.
Mr. Reichberg changed my views about humanity. He wasn’t a bragger. He was a simple travel agent to many. He walked this Earth, did wondrous things, performed mitzvot, and asked and said nothing in return. He was never awarded the “Humanitarian of the Year” award, given only to undeserving people who were certainly not Tzadikkim.
I cannot vouch for it, but I firmly believe that Mr. Reichberg may have been one of the Lamed Vavniks. I became a better person because of the crossing of our paths.
May His Memory Continue to be a Blessing for all of us- יְהִי זִכְרוֹ בָּרוּךְ .
1 Lamed Vov are two Hebrew letters. Each letter has a corresponding number . The sum of these letters total 36 (Lamed = 30 and Vov = 6, hence 36).
9 Each Hasidic Dynasty (except Breslov and Lubavitch) has a Rebbe who leads it
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
A Hartseken Dank (heartfelt gratitude) is extended to Mr. Reichberg’s grandson, Ben Zion Reichberg, for insuring the facts were correct in this article and for providing me with photos. Ben Zion Reichberg continues the mission of his grandfather. This time, not under the guise of a travel agency, but directing a non-profit agency. Zichronom (trans. “we remember them) is dedicated to preserving Jewish Cemeteries and Jewish Cultural Places in Poland ( zichronom.org).
Dziękuję (thank you) also goes to internationally famed photographer Agnieszka Traczewska for reconnecting me to the Reichberg family, namely Ben Zion Reichberg and for providing her photographs of Mr. Reichberg. Ms. Traczewska is a film producer and photographer based in Poland. Her famous book, “A Rekindled Word”, is a series of photographs devoted to the world of Hasidim (http://www.agnieszkatraczewska.com/ ). She is in the process of working on a new, and unique, photographic project concerning the Hasidic world.
Finally, last being best (אחרון,אחרון, חביב), My Dear Friend of over a quarter of a century, Duvid Katz, who not only helped me on my first journey to Poland and Ukraine, but was the spark to my many frequent journeys since then.
