page_title: Elchonon Wasserman
section_title: Death in the Holocaust
hierarchical_section_title: Elchonon Wasserman / Early life and education / Death in the Holocaust
caption_attribution_description: English: 7th Kaunas Fort. Holocaust in 1941: commemoration stone. Lithuania. Русский: VII форт. Холокост в 1941 г.: памятный камень, г.Каунас, Литва
context_page_description: Elchonon Bunim Wasserman was a prominent rabbi and rosh yeshiva in prewar Europe. He was one of the closest students of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan and a noted Talmid Chacham. In the interwar period, he served as rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Ohel Torah-Baranovich.
context_section_description: When World War II broke out, Wasserman fled to Vilnius (Vilna). In 1941, while on a visit to Kaunas (Kovno), he was arrested by Lithuanian Nazi sympathizers with twelve other rabbis and sent to his death.
  Wasserman was taken and murdered by Lithuanian collaborators on the 12th of Tammuz, 1941, in the Seventh Fort of Kaunas Fortress. Before he was taken he gave this statement:
  "In Heaven it appears that they deem us to be righteous because our bodies have been chosen to atone for the Jewish people. Therefore, we must repent now, immediately. There is not much time. We must keep in mind that we will be better offerings if we repent. In this way we will save the lives of our brethren overseas. Let no thought enter our minds, God forbid, which is abominable and which renders an offering unfit. We are now fulfilling the greatest mitzvah. With fire she [Jerusalem] was destroyed and with fire she will be rebuilt. The very fire which consumes our bodies will one day rebuild the Jewish people".
  There was no monument,  just a marker to the pit where, with others, he was shot. 
  Wasserman had discouraged emigration to the United States or Palestine, viewing them as places of spiritual danger. He was particularity critical of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine and claimed, "Anti-Semites want to kill the body, but Zionists kill the soul. Better to die than consort with the Zionists."
caption: Monument to the victims of the massacre at the Seventh Fort (July 1941)
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