At precisely the moment of life or death for some prisoners during WWII, a strange coincidence directed their fate toward life. Amazing coincidences continued after the Holocaust in the strangely serendipitous ways some friends and family found each other again.
Saved by a Prayer—What Are the Chances?
Laizer Halberstam, a 5-year-old Jewish boy in a Polish village, violated an unspoken rule by befriending a non-Jewish boy. Halberstam taught his friend a Jewish prayer, and his friend taught him a Christian prayer. When Halberstam was 15 years old, he was fleeing the Nazis under a Christian alias. A soldier who examined his papers said to him, “You say you are a good Christian? Well then, why don’t you recite a Christian prayer for me now, one that all good Christians should know by heart?”
The soldier chose a prayer for Halberstam to recite, and luckily it was the one Halberstam knew. He still remembered after 10 years, and it saved him.
This is one of the stories collected by Yitta Mandelbaum, co-author of the book, “Small Miracles of the Holocaust: Extraordinary Coincidences of Faith, Hope, and Survival.” Dr. Bernard Beitman, a psychiatrist and founding father of Coincidence Studies, commented on this story in an email to Epoch Times: “We can ... raise the question of base rates. How many little Polish boys had exchanged prayers with each other? Then how many Jewish Polish young adults who were fleeing the Nazis were asked to recite a well-known Christian prayer?”
A Life-Saving Encounter With an Old Friend
David Paladin was sent as a spy behind Nazi lines. He was a Native American, and Native American languages were used to communicate reconnaissance information so the transmissions would remain unintelligible if intercepted. Paladin was captured.
