LEYB BERMAN

LEYB BERMAN (March 1, 1887-August 1944)

He was born in Karlin, Pinsk region.  He studied in a religious primary school and in a Talmud Torah.  In 1909 he was living in Lodz and Warsaw.  He served in the Russian military, 1909-1912; later, as a reservist during WWI.  In 1916 he was discharged and moved to Minsk.  He returned to Lodz in 1919 and was self-employed doing calligraphy and giving lessons in Jewish orthography.  His first publications were poems in 1904 in: Tog (Day) in St. Petersburg, Yidishe tsukunft (Jewish future), Telegraf (Telegraph), and Roman tsaytung (Fiction newspaper)—and later in the Bundist press.  He contributed to the following Lodz newspapers: Morgn-blat (Morning newspaper), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Tageblat (Daily newspaper), and prior to the beginning of WWII in 1939 to Haynt (Today) in Warsaw.  He also wrote children’s poetry and humorous pieces in prose.  He used the pen name “Graf Kali.”  Among his books: Gelekhter durkh trern (Laughter through tears) (Lodz, 1920), 32 pp.; Gezamlte lider (Collected poems) (Lodz, 1935), 64 pp.  He suffered from hunger in the Lodz ghetto, and that prompted him to join in the writing of humorous poems for Litsmanshtater tsaytung (Litzmannstadt newspaper) in August 1944.  During the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto, he was deported to Auschwitz where he was murdered.

Sources: Y. Rabon, in Lodzher tageblat (August 30, 1932); A. Taytelboym, Varshaver hoyf (Warsaw court) (Buenos Aires, 1947), pp. 157-58; Ts. Katsenelson-Nakhumov, Yitskhok katsenelson (Yitskhok Katsenelson) (Buenos Aires, 1949), p. 14.