Do you mind sharing?
There were 6 of us, we learned at the kerestier shtiebel, we we're known as the cheder.
I grew up watching and talking to many of the admorim of the last generation.
I was a chabad kid, I didn't understand who Reb shlomole of bobov was or the beirach Moshe of satmar.
But the survivers burned in me a fire of yiras shamayim, hisbonenus and devaykus!
There was a man we called the kavana man, he would daven untill noon,he'd shukle and shake and throw his hands in the air. His story? He was in the gas Chambers, he davend "God, save me" And at the last minute a German officer came and said he needed 50 workers and this man prayed every day as if it were his last.
I remember lipshitz from Chicago, he survived Treblinka, he told me how one Chanukah in the Warsaw ghetto his brother wanted to go to the mikva. They snuck out and found a lake, they had to break the ice. I don't recall what happened to the brother.
But one yid made the most impact on my life, one day we were playing outside and it was hot. I went in to get a cup of water and then I went into the shul to see what was up.
There was a bentch by the mizrach wall, it was in between the shtenders of the rebbe Reb shlomole of bobov and one by the wall to the left that Reb shamshon and other characters used.
And that day, seated on this bentch was a man in chasidishe rebbishe malbush. His face was red, in a stare of incredible devaykus, kipnei malach hashem.
His payos long and wet, seemingly from having just gone to the mikva.
Yet here was a man who was clean shaven. I said to rabbi grosz, how can there be a rebbe who is shaved. He told me this is the holy kaliver and told me his story.
If I'm yarei shamayim today, even the slightest. It's because I looked at the holy kaliver and saw what mangle yimach shemo did to him.. and saw his yiras hashem and truly Reb yollish was right...
Over the years I wanted to visit the kaliver and tell him the impact he had on me.. but I was scared..
Zichrono tzadik livracha!