In a recent world still filled with mutual mistrust, lack of respect and biologically motivated hatred a story of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lay sounds like a sci-fi tale.

Born in Poland, a little boy could share a fate of millions of other Jews perished in Holocaust as Buchenwald gates shut behind him, greeted by a camp SS commander pointing at a chimney as only an exit from this extermination fascist facility.

The Lubavitch s Memorial , by M. Kerjman

His older brother hided him, a short small eight year old in a back-pack to avoid being murdered even prior arrival.
In Buchenwald, he had been attracted to Russian PW either of similarities between Polish and Russian languages or, as Rabbi said, intuitively feeling a kindness of these people, of a twenty year old Fedor mostly.

Fedor knowing a boy was Jewish saved him from freezing by making near-invisible hat used to cover a boy head while prisoners were kept in pyjamas on camp plats during hours in chilly winter, stole and fed him a food, covered with his body as SS guards tried to murder them before liberation.

Although Fedor wanted to adopt a kid, a SU citizen was returned to the USSR and a Jewish boy had been sent to Poland from which he immigrated to Palestine and all his entire life searched for his Russian saviour, having young soldier’s photo and knowing his name only.

These days a dream became a reality and a former Israel Chief Rabbi has met relatives of Fedor Mihajlitchenko (or Mihajhenko) of Rostov, Russia.

A Soviet soldier passed away two years ago.

It is good to once again hear that Israelis/Jews are thankful and grateful for good coming from around a world of which Slavic Russia is too frequently being described as an ace of a devil only.