Erev Yom Kippur 1931

On Erev Yom Kippur 1931 Rav Yechezkel was released, with a month in which to leave the country. According to Rav Elchonon Wasserman, the Chofetz Chaim used to recite five chapters of Tehillim every day for him. On that Erev Yom Kippur, the Chofetz Chaim did not say them, declaring confidently that the Rav of Slutzk was free.

Rav Mordechai Pinchas Teitz, who later became Rav of Elizabeth, New Jersey, went to meet him at the train station in Riga, Latvia. He searched the platform for a Rav of Rav Yechezkel's stature and saw no one who fit, and he was dismayed. Then he realized that a beardless man, trying to hide his face in his coat collar, was Rav Yechezkel himself. Just before releasing him, as a final humiliation, the Soviet officials had torn out his beard. Rav Yechezkel did not want anyone to see him without it, so Rav Teitz arranged private minyanim in the apartment until the beard grew back.