20 Elul
In 1942, the ghetto of Mir, Poland was liquidated by the Nazis. Mir was a center of Jewish scholarship in pre-War Europe, the site of the famed Mir Yeshiva that was founded in 1815. Jews first began to settle in Mir in the 17th century, and by the end of the 19th century, Jews comprised 62% of the town's population. The Germans captured Mir in June 1941, and executed large numbers of Jews. By May 1942 the remaining Jews were confined to an ancient fortress in the city and murdered. As for the students and staff of the Mir Yeshiva, they had fled to Lithuania with the fall of Poland in 1939. There, they were able to obtain visas from the Japanese consul-general in Lithuania, and made a miraculous escape across Siberia by train, arriving in Shanghai where they spent the remainder of the war years. After the war, new Mir yeshivas were established in New York and Jerusalem, which today is the largest yeshiva in the world with over 5,000 students.
