Letter by Rabbi Zalman Bloch - Telz, Winter of 1941

Letter by Rabbi Zalman Bloch - Telz, Winter of 1941
Letter sent from Telz to Jerusalem, in the course of World War II, to Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, signed by three students of the Charedi Seminary for Teachers in the city, with a request to arrange immigration certificates. On the second page is another letter (12 lines) handwritten and signed by Rabbi Zalman Bloch. Telz, [winter of 1941].
The students of the Charedi Seminary for Teachers write that they remain the last seven students at the educator's institute in Telz. They request that Rabbi Sorotzkin rescue them and fulfill the mitzvah of "redemption of captives", since they too are Torah students who strive to "dedicate our strength to charedi education".
In the interesting letter written by Rabbi Zalman Bloch to his uncle Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin concerning the difficult situation in which "we are engaged and occupied with rescuing the yeshiva students". He sends him regards from Rabbi Zalman's son Rabbi Baruch Sorotzkin [later head of the Telz Yeshiva in the US], who in those troubled days wed the daughter of his cousin Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch and immediately fled Lithuania to the US via Siberia and Japan (see previous item): "I will use this opportunity to bless…the lofty head of the yeshiva and our dear aunt Rebbetzin Miriam upon the marriage of their dear son, our beloved Baruch. Today I have returned from Vilna, and have accompanied them on their successful journey… Also my brother and sister-in-law were in Kovno. G-d should bless them with success in all their endeavors…".
Rabbi Zalman Bloch (1886-1941), son of the head of the Telz Yeshiva Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch, served as mashgiach of the yeshiva. [His father, Rabbi Y.L. Bloch and his uncle Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin were the sons-in-law of the founder of the yeshiva, Rabbi Eliezer Gordon]. He perished in the Holocaust in Tamuz 1941, with most of his family, rabbis and student body of the yeshiva, who were brutally murdered by the Germans at the occupation of Lithuania. His daughter, wife of Rabbi Mordechai Gifter who later headed the Telz Yeshiva in the US, survived.
3 pages, 21 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains and filing holes.