Chilling letter sent by Rabbi Yehoshua Krohn after the terrible fire in his apartment that left him with nothing. He decorated the letter with colored adornments and wrote the text in scribal print. “And now my soul requests … that your pity be aroused for me … since I am old, depressed and without source of livelihood, and due to the fire here in Menachem Av of last year, I did not manage to save anything from the entire house; it all was food for the fire, and only through the pity of the Father of compassion did we manage to save our lives.” 1904.
Specifications: [1] leaf paper [4] pages. 21×33 cm. All in his hand and with his signature.
Condition: Very fine except for fold marks and a small tear.
Rabbi Yehoshua Krohn, rabbi of Brashov and Galician, suffered extensively. After he fled Russia for Poland, and was caught there with a false accusation, he sat in jail for a year and a half. He was known to care for orphans, and he raised his own motherless children after his wife died in his youth. And when he finally found rest at his son Yitzchak’s home in Lvov, the house burnt down, as written in this letter.