In the momentous meeting of Breslov elders at the home of our Rebbe, the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit”a, in honor of the yahrzeit of the Breslov leader of the previous generation, Rabbi Levy Yitzchak Bender zt”l, Rav Berland spoke about the self-sacrifice to get to Uman during the period of Soviet rule.
Rav Berland shlit”a: “After Rabbi Levy Yitzchak Bender zt”l was in prison in Soviet Russia for a half-year – from parashat Vayera until Zachor HaBrit [the selichot which are said on the night before Rosh HaShanah], on Zachor HaBrit he was freed on Thursday night. The Soviet interrogator Kopinov – the head interrogator in Uman was called Kopinov…
“I was there with Gavriel Grossman and Nachman Berland under arrest. We were then under arrest in prison; like Rabbi Levy Yitzchak was under arrest, we were also under arrest.”
Rav Gavriel Grossman shlit”a: “After this we went up to the second floor.”
Rav Berland: “Right.”
Rav Grossman: “I said to you that there’s no one here, so let’s go home.”
Rav Berland: “Yes, you went to check. You saw that the gate was open.”
Rav Gavriel: “I said to Rav Berland that the investigator is a Jew – the high-up one.”
Rav Berland: “Yes, he was mamash a Jew. They left us in the courtyard after they finished interrogating us, because in our visa it was written ‘Kremenchuk.’ I said to write in the visa as many cities [as possible]. I told him that I wanted to visit all the cities.
“I told the interrogator, ‘We wanted to go to Kremenchuk, not Uman. The driver erred.’
“The driver said in English, ‘I can’t go there. You ordered [to go] here.’ The driver said, ‘I can’t go to Kremenchuk. I’ll take you to Uman and from there I’ll find you a car to Kremenchuk. I can [only] go until Uman.’
“This was the driver that we found in Kiev. He said, ‘Fine. This is already a detour.’ We said, ‘It’s not important. The main this is that we proceed and leave Kiev.’ Then we reached Uman.
“They stopped us at the taxi station and we searched for a taxi to Kremenchuk. There was what to discuss, because it was written in the visa Kremenchuk. I told them, ‘We’re on the way to Kremenchuk.’ The driver said, ‘But this [Uman] isn’t our destination. By accident, we came to Uman’ – like people who accidently go to Shechem [Nablus]. We got lost on the way.”
Rav Grossman: “After this, we were there by Rabinovitz.”
Rav Berland: “Yes, Rabinovitz. We reached there – twenty hours from Moskow. We travelled twenty hours from the Kremlin. I went with Gavriel. At the Kremlin we took a taxi.”
Rav Berland continues, explaining the awesome danger that there was in that trip, how the Russian government still remembered the past and took revenge, despite the passage of decades:
“There was someone who wasn’t from Breslov, who travelled just before Rabbi Levi Yitzchak [to Russia], and they opened up his file. He received seven years in jail. He was with Israeli passports, so they opened up his file from fifty years ago.”
