Last Great-Granddaughter of Rebbe Maharash Passes Away

By COLlive reporter

Mrs. Miriam (Mirik) Yuval (Taichman), the last living great-granddaughter of the Rebbe Maharash, recently passed away at the age of 91.

She resided at Kibbutz Yizrael in the Jezreel Valley near Afula in northern Israel.

Born in Poland, Mrs. Yuval was the daughter of R’ Shmuel Hornstein, the son of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, who was the daughter of the Rebbe Maharash, the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Her uncle was R’ Menachem Mendel HaCohen Hornstein, the youngest son-in-law of the Frierdiker Rebbe – married to his daughter Rebbetzin Sheina.

She grew up in a distinguished Chabad family whose lineage traced directly to the founders of Chabad Chassidus.

In her memoir, published in the booklet “Fragments of Memories,” Mrs. Yuval recounted her harrowing childhood during the Holocaust. Her father was active in the Warsaw Ghetto community, serving alongside Adam Czerniaków, head of the Jewish Council.

She recalled the fateful night before Czerniaków’s tragic death and the terror of the deportations that followed. Hidden in a sawdust cellar during one of the Nazi raids, young Miriam narrowly escaped capture.

She describes, “I was sick and lying in bed when relatives came to say goodbye. They were about to leave for Brooklyn, USA. The man was the Lubavitcher Rebbe (the Frierdiker Rebbe), my father’s cousin (his father and my father’s mother were siblings), his wife, and their two daughters, Chana and Mussia, with their families. They were not Polish citizens but Lithuanian, and perhaps thanks to that and the funds raised by Chassidim in America, they managed to obtain passports and visas.

“Their youngest daughter, Sonia, who was married to my uncle, did not join them. She refused to leave without her husband, and he in turn refused to abandon his widowed mother.

“In the winter of 1942, all the Jews of the town were executed, among them my grandmother, my uncle, and my aunt.”

Her parents later arranged for her to be smuggled out of the ghetto. A Catholic priest, a friend of her father, helped hide her with a Polish family across the Vistula River, where she lived in constant fear of discovery. From their window, she watched the Warsaw Ghetto burn during the uprising.

After the Second World War, efforts were made to bring her to safety. The Frierdiker Rebbe—her cousin—personally appealed to a non-profit led by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who in turn contacted British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin to arrange for young Miriam’s transfer to England.

She joined a British military flight to London, where she was reunited with relatives and began a new life.

Mrs. Yuval eventually settled in Israel, where she lived a quiet life devoted to education and remembrance. Her story, preserved in her writings, remains a powerful testimony to faith, courage, and survival.

She was predeceased by her parents and extended family, most of whom perished in the Holocaust.

Baruch Dayan Haemes.