In 1951, my father, was imprisoned in a Siberian labor camp for trying to escape from Russia. He had dreamed of making aliya to Israel but was caught in his attempt and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor, leaving behind his parents, two sisters and a brother (imprisoned in another camp for a similar "crime").

The 1,000 men at my father's labor camp were put to work to build an electric station. About 20 of the prisoners were Jewish.

At the end of the summer, the Jewish prisoners yearned to observe the upcoming High Holidays. They had no shofar, Torah scroll or Tallit, but they had hoped they could somehow find a machzor prayer book.

My father spotted an engineer who came to work at the camp on certain projects. He believed the engineer might be a Jew.

"Kenstu meer efsher helfen" - perhaps you can help me?" he asked the engineer in Yiddish.

Most Russian Jews then were fluent in Yiddish. He saw the flicker of understanding in the engineer's eyes.

"Can you please bring us a machzor?" he asked. The engineer hesitated.

Such a transaction would endanger both of their lives. Even so, the engineer agreed to try. A few days passed.

"Any developments?" my father asked the engineer.

"Good news and bad news," he replied. He had located a machzor, but it was the only machzor belonging to his friend's father, and the man was furious when his daughter asked him to give it up. Maybe she told him why she wanted it, maybe not.

Father would not relent, however. Perhaps, he suggested, the man would lend him the book so he could copy it and return it in time for Rosh Hashanah.

In secrecy, the engineer handed the machzor to my father.

To copy it, my father built a large wooden box and crawled into it for a few hours every day. Hidden from view, he copied the book, line by line into a notebook. After a month, he had copied the entire machzor, but unfortunately the page of Kol Nidrei - Yom Kippur’s opening prayer - was missing.

My father returned the book, and autumn arrived. The Jewish prisoners learned the dates of the holidays from letters from home and, on the holiday, they bribed the guards, probably with cigarettes, to let them gather in the barrack for services.

With his handwritten prayer book, father served as cantor and recited each prayer, repeated by the others in low solemn voices.

Seven days later, they met again for Kol Nidrei. But despite their efforts, none of the worshippers could recall all the Kol Nidrei words from memory.

After nearly seven years in jail, my father, along with all political prisoners, was released, thanks to Stalin’s death. The only item my father took with him was his machzor.

He reunited with his family near Moscow, and later married. I was an infant when, in 1967, we were allowed to immigrate to Israel. The special machzor came along with us.

My father, who still lives in Israel, doesn't like to remember those painful years in Siberia. But on the rare occasions that I hear him tell a story, he tearfully states that he had never had services as meaningful as those in prison.

In 1973, he visited Brooklyn and presented his machzor to the Lubavitcher Rebbe as a gift.

A few months ago, I visited the Rebbe's library and found my father's machzor. I looked at the worn book with its fragile pages and Hebrew letters written with such devotion and determination. I copied it - on a copying machine.

Yom Kippur, as I lead services at the Chabad Jewish Center of Solon, Ohio, I will have with me the copy of my father's machzor, still missing the Kol Nidrei prayer.

My father couldn't recite Kol Nidrei during his years in prison. This year I will ask my congregation, and all of us, to say it for him and anyone else who may not have the opportunity to do so.