YISROEL LEVENSHTEYN

YISROEL LEVENSHTEYN (1904-1942)

            He was born in Khelm (Chełm), Poland.  He attended religious elementary school and a Polish high school, and he later studied humanities at the Universities of Vilna and Warsaw.  From 1932 he was living in Warsaw, and he was a member of the young leftist writers’ group and a contributor to their legal and illegal periodicals.  He was the last secretary of the association of Jewish writers and journalists in Warsaw (in the new apartment at 13 Tłomackie St.).  He began writing stories and articles in the Chełm weekly newspapers Khelemer shtime (Voice of Chełm) and Unzer shtime (Our voice) over the years 1924-1929.  He later contributed articles about literature, including poems and translations of Polish revolutionary poets, to: Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Der fraynd (The friend), and Shriftn (Writings) in Warsaw; Literarishe tribune (Literary tribune) in Lodz; and Tribune (Tribune) and Di vokh (The week) in Lemberg; among others.  He translated Władysław Broniewski, Lider (Poetry) (Warsaw, 1934), 61 pp.; and he co-edited with Herts Bergner, Sh. Zaromb, and Kalmen Lis the journal Shriftn (Warsaw, 1936-1938).  He also published under such pen names as: Y. L-n and Yl.  At the start of WWII, after the Germans had entered Warsaw, he fled to the Soviet-occupied territory and later lived in Lemberg and the ghetto there, where he was murdered by the Nazis.

Sources: Z. Segalovitsh, Gebrente trit (Suffering step) (Buenos Aires, 1947), p. 25; B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 205; H. Shishler, in Yizker-bukh khelm (Remembrance volume for Chełm) (Johannesburg, 1954), p. 334.

Khayim Leyb Fuks