A Willaimsburg row house, maybe 616 Bedford Ave
Training the Leaders of Klal Yisroel
Everything was thoroughly organized. The Pirchei groups in Williamsburg all met in the building at 616 Bedford Avenue, the hub of most of the Zeirei activity. The different age groups met separately. Each group was known by the name of a godol. Pirchei sported a Gerrer Rebbe group, a Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch group, a Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld group and others.
The Pirchei was run like a club, and with great seriousness. Records and minutes were kept of everything important. The Pirchei kids were given a sense of importance, and Mike especially spoke to them very openly. He stressed that they were to see themselves as future leaders of Klal Yisroel, and treated them as such. Many of those boys did go on to positions of importance in the life of American Jewry.
The War Effort
During the war he was completely dedicated to saving Jews, to a degree that is literally unimaginable to us today, but was recognized by HaRav Aharon Kotler. HaRav Moshe Aharon Stern zt"l, former mashgiach of Kaminetz Yeshiva in Jerusalem, recalled that R' Aharon told him that he must not even take time out from his activities to daven shacharis! Mike begged R' Aharon to at least allow him to come to davening from borchu to the end of Shemoneh Esrei, and R' Aharon agreed to that.
His wife once told HaRav Stern that during the war years he gave his time for hatozlas Yisroel to such an extent that she saw him only once a week, on Shabbos. During the week he ran to Washington, to Albany, to wherever he could to save Jews.
He gave his whole heart and strength to save Klal Yisroel. Rav Aharon Kotler once said that if anyone can say "Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom haze," that we have discharged our responsibility to do whatever we can to save Jews, it is R' Melech Tress.
During the early years of the war, from about 1940 to 1942, Mike used to go to Washington weekly to try to speak to people in Washington to help the Jews of Europe. He tried the State Department, the President, the Vice President and anyone who would listen. Often he would go by himself, though sometimes such figures as Rav Eliezer Silver or Irving Bunim would go too. He would spend a day or even two days, trying to do something. At this time Congressman Blum was very helpful in saving refugees and securing various documents.
Upon returning to New York, Mike would often go straight from the train station to 616 Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, to lead the weekly Pirchei group. He was drained and exhausted from his efforts, and often hungry too. Kosher food was not easy to come by in Washington, and he ate only food he took along. Still, Pirchei was important and Mike found the koach to come.
What would the week's Pirchei activities be? Usually a story of a godol, maybe some halacha, much like a Pirchei group today. But then there was an important difference. Mike would often describe his trip to Washington, and even cry to the young Pirchim about the difficulties of Klal Yisroel, and how so many people could be saved if the doors were not closed.
Refugee Suppers - Melave Malkas By Another Name
The boys rose to the occasion. At twelve to fourteen years of age they were doing things that adults do now. To raise money for the rescue work, they made "banquets" that they called "Refugee Suppers." They were really melave malkas to which they sold tickets.
What is the recipe for a Refugee Supper?
The boys went around. They went to Shlomo Weiss' bakery to ask for a donation of challahs. They went to Flaum for herring. They went to the markets downtown that were the major produce suppliers for all New York City, and got donations of cases of grapefruits and other fruit that they had to schlepp back with them on the subway to Williamsburg. To top it all off they went to Kirsch's soda, which would donate a few cases. All the food was donated. All money went for refugees and rescue work.
Who came to these Suppers?
Again, the boys went around. In those days the Lower East Side of Manhattan was a center of Jewish life in New York. Social activities were important, and almost everyone belonged to one or more "chevras". These were social groups, shuls, landsmanschaften, and all manner of various special interests that met regularly, often once a week on motzei Shabbos.
The Pirchei boys would go to these meetings, and ask for permission to speak to the group about refugees, about saving Jews in Europe. These were young boys, many not older than twelve. Usually they were allowed to speak. Once given the floor, the boys delivered an impassioned plea to help the Jews of Europe. Rabbi Gavriel Beer today recalls that he was often moved to tears when talking to these groups.
The point was to sell tickets to the "Refugee Suppers." The price was $1 a ticket — a considerable sum when most people earned fifteen to twenty dollars a week, and twenty-five dollars a week was already a good job. But the "chevras" responded to the youthful appeals, and they often bought five or ten tickets, and sometimes as many as twenty tickets! The suppers could raise as much as eight hundred dollars to save Jews!
A Bren for Yiddishkeit
Elimelech Tress was a big influence on hundreds who are today bnei Torah, living all over the world. He opened up the higher spheres of human existence to them, showing them that there is much more to life than the American dream.
Camp Aguda started then too, in middle of the war. There was no money, but Mike would personally guarantee payment. More than half the campers paid little or nothing.
At Camp Aguda, Mike would spend nights from 8-11 sitting near a forest in the dark singing niggunim of machshovoh, songs about the Beis Hamikdash, about Am Yisroel and its purpose in life. He opened up the Jewish heart of the boys around him, giving them a new, deep and noble picture of Yiddishkeit.
Emunas Chachomim
It is remarkable how many of those who knew him say the same thing: that he was mevatel himself to every godol and every tzaddik. He swallowed their words and followed their advice. This approach was deeply embedded in his being.
The Aguda worked very hard to bring HaRav Menachem Zemba to America. They succeeded in securing a visa for him. Unfortunately, on the way to the ship he was killed.
The telegram with the heartbreaking news came to the Aguda office at 616 Bedford. As the word spread, everyone was upset, but when it reached R' Melech, he fainted on the spot.
Looking After His Boys
Despite his shouldering the troubles of Klal Yisroel, Mike did not lose touch with the needs of individuals. One of the Pirchei boys was going to learn in Cleveland, in the Telshe Yeshiva. He was not yet 15, but he was leaving on Monday for Cleveland. Since he knew the family well, Mike was aware that the father was sick and hadn't worked for a long time. After the Shabbos group, he called over the young soon-to-be yeshiva bochur after the Shabbos group and told him that he should come in the next day.
When the youngster came in the next day, Mike gave him two checks, each for $35. "With one buy a round trip bus ticket," he said. "Use the rest for spending money at the yeshiva."
Seventy dollars was two weeks' salary in those days! But Mike knew what was needed and did not hesitate to supply it.
After the War in Europe
After the end of the war, relief workers could get an officer uniform and rank from UNRA so that they could work effectively in the military atmosphere of post-war-torn Europe. Mike was one of the first three to go over, together with HaRav Eliezer Silver zt"l.
Within a few days, the delegation of relief workers came. The authorities arranged hotel rooms for them. When they arrived it was late at night, and they went right away to check into their hotel. That is, two of them went, for Mike disappeared. Times were very uncertain, and they were afraid that something awful may have happened.
Looking for him high and low, they finally found him sleeping on a bench together with the "displaced persons." Waking him up they said, "R' Melech, we have a hotel room for you. Why are you sleeping here?"
"I came to see the condition of my brothers," he replied. "If I sleep in a hotel and eat there, I will not know how they feel. I want to be with them!"
Rav Yitzchok Leuchter zt"l, principal of the Chinuch Atzmai school in Bayit Vegan and also of the Beis Yaakov there, was one of the major mechanchim of Israel. The reputation of his graduates in the yeshivas is among the best. He was in that concentration camp when Mike arrived.
He wanted to meet as many people as he could. One person came over and gave him sholom (or vice versa). Mike looked at him and fainted. When he revived he said, "Ihr zeint the Stoliner Rebbe, nein? (Aren't you the Stoliner Rebbe?)"
The man did not look like a rebbe, but Mike was close to the Stoliner chassidim and he had seen pictures and recognized him. For years no one in the camps knew that he was the Stoliner rebbe. If they had, they would have given him special treatment, but that, apparently, was not what he wanted.
Mike gave away everything that he had, remaining with only the clothes on his back. He gave away his shaver, his tefillin, his extra clothes — everything. He was supposed to get the next plane out, but he had to stay a few days longer than expected.
For those days he had only one set of clothing and he couldn't shave. This was no small thing for him, since he always dressed well. Still, he knew that the unfortunates in Europe needed the things more than he, and he did not mind returning to America looking wild and unkempt.
Suspicious Deposits
After leading Zeirei for a number of years, Mike became head of Agudas Yisroel. A few years after the war, the Aguda was in a very bad state. Drained by the war years and the resettlement afterward, they could not meet their financial obligations. They had issued bonds that they couldn't pay. They had hundreds of thousands of dollars accumulated debt from the war and after the war. They had to seek protection from their creditors while they reorganized their affairs.
The Aguda was given breathing space, but their books were thoroughly audited by the Attorney General of New York State, in order to see that the "bankruptcy" was honest, and not the result of some individual's siphoning off funds into his own pockets.
The audit was a very thorough one and went back several years. In addition to the records of the Aguda itself, the financial affairs of the major officers were also examined, to make sure that everything was in order. One of the young lawyers conducting the audit who admitted that he was not favorably disposed toward Agudas Yisroel, later confided that most of the books were in fine order, but there were a number of discrepancies.
He found, for example, that they might have been an entry of $4,800 in the Aguda bank account, with no record of the source of the funds. But when the auditors searched further, they would find that Mike Tress had "coincidentally" sold stocks that day for that same amount. There were a considerable number of these mysterious deposits, and each of them coincided, to the penny, with a Tress sale of stock, or a mortgage on his house, and even a second mortgage.
End of Part I
