Newly found letter shows Martin Buber’s concern over the fate of Polish Jews in 1945
On February 5, 1945, some Hebrew University scholars launched an appeal to fellow faculty members encouraging them to mobilize for European Jews

Mere days after Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945, some Hebrew University of Jerusalem scholars, including renowned philosopher and university’s founding father Martin Buber, sent a letter to fellow faculty members and employees encouraging them to mobilize to help European Jews, especially the Jews of Poland, a newly discovered letter shows.
“The remnants of our people in Poland, a land that for centuries was the heart of world Jewry, cry out to us from countless places,” reads the document, originally written in Hebrew. “They plead for dignity to cover their nakedness and for sustenance to preserve their fragile lives.”
The letter, dated February 5, 1945, was found in the Hebrew University’s archives in the preparation works to celebrate the university’s centennial (the university was officially inaugurated on April 1, 2025).
“We, the employees of the Hebrew University — an institution that Polish and Diaspora Jewry did so much to sustain — stand bound by deep and steadfast ties to the surviving fragments of European Jewry,” the letter adds. “We have chosen to express these bonds by wholeheartedly participating in the effort to send aid packages to our suffering brethren.”
Signatories of the appeal included Prof. Shmuel Hugo Bergman, Prof. Andor Fodor and Prof. Joseph Klausner.
Prof. Ofer Ashkenazi from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a historian, told The Times of Israel in a phone call that the letter was significant because “we are talking about the most distinguished professors at the university of the time.”

“They got away from Europe early enough to escape the Holocaust, and some of them might have also not felt so close to Polish Jews before the war, but at that point, things were different,” he added. “They felt responsible for the survivors, affirming their shared fate.”
Born in Vienna in 1878, Buber became interested in Zionism as he was still pursuing his philosophical studies and, for a period, was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. In 1902, he co-authored a pamphlet outlining the need and structure for a Jewish university with biochemist and future Israeli president Chaim Weizmann and Zionist leader Berthold Feivel. Forced by the Nazis to abandon all his teaching activities in Germany, Buber moved to British Mandate Palestine in 1937. He was appointed professor of social philosophy at the university, a position he held until 1951.
Prague-born Bergman, also a philosopher, promoted a movement advocating for a “dual-national” area where Jews and Arabs could live in complete equality together with Buber. He served as the first rector of the university between 1935 and 1938.
Fodor, a biochemist originally from Hungary, joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at the invitation of Weizmann to establish the university’s chemistry and biochemistry departments.
Klausner was a historian and Hebrew literature professor originally from Lithuania. He was a great-uncle of Israeli author Amos Oz.
Poland was home to some 3.3 million Jews in 1939. Only 380,000 survived the Holocaust.

According to Ashkenazi, at the beginning of 1945, the scholars of Hebrew University knew that Jews had been murdered in the millions, even though they didn’t have the full details of what was happening in the death camps in Europe.
“The letter was sent after the Soviets liberated Auschwitz,” noted Ashkenazi. “Even though the Nazis tried to cover their crimes up, enough was known to understand that an enormous tragedy had occurred.”
Ashkenazi pointed out that the letter should be also read within the context of the contemporary political climate of the yishuv — the Jewish communities in British Mandate Palestine.

“During the war, the yishuv experienced a complex debate about its responsibility towards what was happening in Europe,” Ashkenazi said. “One side, led by David Ben Gurion, maintained that the priority of Jews in Mandatory Palestine was to create a Jewish nation-state, and there was not much they could do to help European communities. Those who believed the opposite were relatively marginal.”
“At the end of the war, Ben Gurion was accused of lack of leadership on the issue,” he added. “Others were left with a deep sense of guilt, feeling that while they were living relatively quiet lives, Jews in Europe were slaughtered and they did not do anything about it. I believe this is also an important layer in considering the scholars’s appeal for the Jews of Poland. They needed to show that they cared.”