Yiddish Periodicals Published by Displaced Persons, 1946-1949

DISSERTATIONS YIDDISH PERIODICALS PUBLISHED BY DISPLACED PERSONS, 1946-1949 BY AYELET KUPER MARGALIOTH

PHD Dissertation by the same title submitted at the University of Oxford DATE 1997 SOURCE Courtesy of the Author

EXPLORE MORE DISSERTATIONS AT BENURI.ORG

Yiddish Periodicals Published by Displaced Persons, 1946-1949

Submitted to the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages of the University of Oxford in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Ayelet Kuper Margalioth Magdalen College Trinity Term 1997

Ayelet Kuper Margalioth Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages D.Phil Magdalen College Trinity Term 1997

Yiddish Periodicals Published by Displaced Persons, 1946-1949

This thesis is intended to demonstrate the existence of a vibrant cultural and literary life among the survivors of the Holocaust during their time as Displaced Persons (DPs) in Germany, Austria and Italy. It delineates their historical background, presents theoretical problems with which they may have been confronted, and explains the lack of previous academic research into their creative production. It then analyzes three representative literary journals from the period 1946 to 1949, when the DP population was at its peak: In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature and Art / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems), published in Rome between March 1947 and February 1949; Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim (From the Last Extermination: Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime), published in Munich between August 1946 and December 1948; and Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn (Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions), published in Kassel, Germany in January 1948. These journals were chosen because their editorial material reflected strong commitments to dealing with the political and especially the cultural issues of the day. These included the on-going examination of the possibility of Jewish cultural continuity, the drive for a Jewish state, and the attempt to come to terms with the immensity and horrors of the Holocaust. The thesis also includes an annotated bibliography of the contents of these three journals which is intended to improve their accessibility for future study.

Ayelet Kuper Margalioth Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages D.Phil Magdalen College Trinity Term 1997 Yiddish Periodicals Published by Displaced Persons, 1946-1949 Abstract This thesis is intended to demonstrate the existence of a vibrant cultural and literary life among the survivors of the Holocaust during their time as Displaced Persons (DPs) in Germany, Austria and Italy. It delineates their historical background, presents theoretical problems with which they may have been confronted, and explains the lack of previous academic research into their creative production. It then analyzes three representative literary journals from the period 1946 to 1949, when the DP population was at its peak. Finally, it presents an annotated bibliography of the contents of these three journals which is intended to improve their accessibility for future study. The first chapter presents a history of the Jewish Displaced Persons or, as they called themselves, the sheyres hapleyte, the surviving remnant of European Jewry. From a base of 60,000 to 80,000 concentration camp survivors in the spring of 1945, the DP population grew with the arrival of partisans and then of refugees from Eastern Europe, most of whom were Polish Jews who had spent the war years in the Soviet Union and then been repatriated. By the summer of 1947 there were 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish DPs in Germany, Austria, and Italy, an estimated 160,000 of whom were concentrated in the American Zone of Germany. There were early attempts to repatriate them to their countries of origin which ignored their unique position among the millions of European refugees, but they were eventually recognized as a separate national group and allowed to remain in the Occupied Zones. Unwilling to work for the German economy, they lived on p. i

material aid provided by the Army, the United Nations, and Jewish aid organizations. The Displaced Persons lived primarily in refugee camps, often on the grounds of former concentration camps, as well as in towns, children’s centres and hospitals and on collective farms. These encampments became communities, and the DPs created their own political and cultural organizations. As early as June 1945 they had begun to establish a representative council, and in the American Zone their Central Committee was officially recognized by the Army in September 1946. It concerned itself originally with the provision of basic physical necessities, but it was soon also involved in education, culture, publishing and Holocaust historiography. Zionist organizations also quickly appeared, reflecting the ideology of most of the DPs. Most importantly for the purposes of this thesis, the production of newspapers and journals began immediately after, and in some cases even before, the liberation of the concentration camps. The survivors considered culture to be a basic, urgent need. Despite the fact that intellectual aid from other Jewish communities was not forthcoming, they established their own post-war cultural life rooted in their pre-war existence. They wanted to share the understanding drawn from their experiences with the rest of the world, but nobody, not even their fellow Jews, was willing to listen to their words. The DPs were abandoned to their own cultural devices, and so they created a literary and intellectual life which contradicts many later assumptions about responses to the Holocaust. Chapter two enumerates and explains a range of theoretical arguments about Holocaust literature. Some critics have written that, morally, one cannot, or should not, write about the Holocaust. Others have been concerned with seemingly insurmountable linguistic and literary difficulties implicit in Holocaust literature, such as problems of metaphor and of narrative closure.Yet, paradoxically, many of these theorists are p. ii

themselves also Holocaust writers. Other theorists insist that there must be literature about the Holocaust in order to prevent readers from distancing themselves from its horrors or to establish a literary monument to the victims. The recognition that such writing does exist has not ended the debate, but it has created several new questions, including the effect of the Holocaust on individual languages and their possibly distinctive roles in the creation of Holocaust literature. It has also allowed the division of Holocaust writing into categories based on era and authorship, separating creativity during the Holocaust from the literature of the surviving remnant and from the writings of later authors who use the Holocaust as historical background. The early works by the survivors, the products of the Displaced Persons, have been the object of very little critical attention, and what little response they have engendered has often been dismissive and uninformed. There is, however, a view of Holocaust literature which is well-suited to an analysis of the DPs. This approach, delineated by David Roskies, places the Holocaust at the most recent and lowest point on the continuum of Jewish suffering rather than treating it as an event beyond the conceivable boundaries of Jewish history. In keeping with the long-standing evolution of the Jewish tradition of literary responses to catastrophe, the Holocaust could thus be related to the destruction of Jewish individuals and communities across the centuries, and the devastation could be described if not comprehended using traditional transtemporal archetypes. As confirmed by a survivor publication which was contemporaneous with those of the DPs, it is this relationship to the Jewish past which must strengthen their determination for literary production as a means of cultural continuity. The act of writing was a normative part of the tradition of which the DPs were the remnants, and their writing connected them with their past and provided them with cultural possibilities for a Jewish future.

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The third chapter presents an explanation as to why the DPs and their writings have thus far been largely ignored. It argues that, due to the precarious position of Yiddish, which has now almost entirely disappeared among the post-war generations of secular Jews, only works taught in the academy and available in translation are accessible to the vast majority of readers and even to many younger Jewish academics. The works which the creators of the Yiddish canon chose, in the decades following the Second World War, to teach in their university courses and to translate in their anthologies, have therefore become the only accessible texts of Yiddish literature. Yet these choices were inevitably affected by personal and sociological bias. The creators of the canon, particularly in America, were intent on improving the position of Jews within mainstream society and of Jewish studies, including Yiddish, within the university. They were therefore biased against texts which portrayed Yiddish as a language of people on the margins of society. The canon also came about in an era when the Holocaust was a taboo subject among most non-survivor Jews. While historical study of the era was acceptable, the destruction itself was seen as something from a different time and place unrelated to the lives of Israeli or American Jewry. The writings of Displaced Persons were therefore not embraced or even acknowledged by the Yiddish academy. As refugees in Europe and then in America, the DPs were the embodiment of the immigrant world from which the diaspora Jewish intellectuals were trying to escape; in Israel they were unwanted reminders of Jewish weakness. They were living reminders of the proximity of the Holocaust, bringing the destruction into the realm of the present and so preventing its confinement to history. The cultural productions were the remnants of a past which the academics of the period simply preferred to ignore. Under normal cultural circumstances, re-evaluations of the canon would eventually have uncovered the literature of the DPs along with other p. iv

categories of unknown material. Non-canonical works would still remain within the realm of a mass culture, and the entire syllabus would eventually have been reshaped to include and privilege those works judged to be important by later writers and critics. A new generation of scholars would make their names exploring newly-rediscovered authors and fill the pages of learned journals debating the relative merits of their academic specialties. This, unfortunately, will not be the case within Yiddish literature. Since only those works which exist in translation will be accessible, and the range of those texts will have been determined by earlier canonizers, the natural progression of re-evaluation and debate will not be able to occur. The need therefore exists for a canon of the non-canonical, a recognition of the historical, cultural, and possible literary importance of many works which will otherwise be lost forever. In the specific case of the DPs, in the absence of objective analysis, the question of the literary merit of their works remains open. The historical and theoretical importance of their works, however, is unmistakable, and these must be recovered from the margins of the hitherto ignored and therefore fully non-canonical. This recovery is the central task of this thesis, which therefore examines three of the literary journals which were produced by the DPs: In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature and Art / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems), published in Rome between March 1947 and February 1949; Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim (From the Last Extermination: Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime), published in Munich between August 1946 and December 1948; and Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn (Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions), published in Kassel, Germany in January 1948. There remain very few sets of DP journals, but these and others from the same era are accessible at the p. v

Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. All but Shriftn are also available on microfilm, as catalogued by Zachary Baker and Nina Warnke of YIVO for University Publications of America, and a full set of these microfilms are now available, among other places, in the Taylorian Library, Oxford. The journals discussed in this thesis were chosen because their editorial material reflected strong commitment to dealing with the political and especially the cultural issues of the day. These included the on-going examination of the possibility of Jewish cultural continuity, the drive for a Jewish state, and the attempt to come to terms with the immensity and horrors of the Holocaust. Such questions were dealt with explicitly in the introductory sections of the first issues of these journals, generally in the form of a declaration of purpose or ideological manifesto, and were periodically revisited during the lifetime of the journals. Chapter four presents the journal In Gang, whose editorial material was chiefly concerned with the necessity of culture as vengeance for, and monument, to the victims of the Holocaust, as well as for the continuing strength of the survivors. It was intended as a self-sufficient attempt to improve the creative life of the Jewish DP community in Italy by providing a platform for established writers and by encouraging new talent. Its editors saw In Gang as part of a greater cultural revival which included schools, libraries, theatres, and DP camp radio stations. In their efforts to promote such renewal they also emphasized their connection with their pre-war forerunners, placing the DPs’ writing in the context of European Jewish cultural tradition. The editors of In Gang were unable, however, to connect intellectually with their fellow Jews elsewhere in the world who had not suffered in the Holocaust. They bitterly resented being ignored, feeling themselves abandoned in their attempts to share the chronicles of their pain. Nonetheless, they continued to document their recent history as they waited in Italy to be allowed to reach their ultimate goal, the Land of Israel. Only in p. vi

their own country, they felt, would their culture be able to re-establish permanent roots, and thus to survive and flourish. The fifth chapter discusses the journal Fun letstn khurbn, which was primarily involved with documenting the Holocaust. The principal publication of the Central Historical Commission of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone, it was established to increase the visibility of the Commission and so to encourage submission of testimonies and documents to its archives. These were primarily personal testimonies from the Holocaust era, but the editors’ historical consciousness led them to also ask their readers for photographs, Nazi documents, and cultural products such as songs, poems, jokes, anecdotes and proverbs. They felt that they could in this way document the inner lives of the victims, thus individuating the faceless masses of the dead. The editors believed, as is made quite clear in the advertisements they published requesting material, that it was the duty of every individual survivor to immortalize his or her lost family, friends, and community with a monument of words, whether by writing a testimony or by contributing to the permanent record of the victims’ cultural output. In recognition of their unique historical situation, they also collected material from the DP camps, including newspapers, posters, and flyers. They were involved in the cultural life of the community and, as their writing of history presupposes, they felt a sense of continuity with the past that indicated the possibilities of their unmistakably authentic and vibrant communal existence. Chapter six examines the journal Shriftn, which embodied its editors’ conscious attempt to re-establish European Jewish culture in order to raise the spiritual level of the DPs. It aimed to re-integrate them into the Jewish world while salvaging the remnant of their pre-war cultural existence. As they waited with their readers for the freedom to leave for the Land of Israel, the editors turned to what they viewed as a traditional Jewish response, founding a forum for literary and artistic self-expression and creativity and thus p. vii

nourishing the people’s need for culture after their era of meaningless suffering. The creative impulse of such leaders, their vision of a purposeful future, enabled the survivors to perceive themselves as part of a community. The descriptions of DP cultural life within the journal show writers, artists, and actors constantly striving to improve both their work and their technical resources. The editors also emphasized the importance which all of these groups attributed to cultural education in reaction to the diminished numbers of established creative spirits. They insisted on the necessity of a renewal of creativity in order to establish a cultural base for the survivors, reclaiming as much as possible of their European past in order to build a future as a creative people. These chapters are followed by an annotated bibliography of the contents of all three of the journals which is included in the hope that it will increase the accessibility of these publications for future research. The material is first presented chronologically in full. Articles are then indexed by contributor and by major thematic issues within different genres. The thesis concludes with a summary chapter which also offers some comparisons among the journals discussed and surveys the major directions and sources for much-needed further work in the field of DP literature.

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Table of Contents List of Abbreviations

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Acknowledgements

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Section One: Historical and Theoretical Introduction Chapter One p. 4 A History of the Displaced Persons: Community, Identity & Commitment Chapter Two p. 31 Writing about the Holocaust: Theory and Practice Chapter Three p. 62 The Yiddish Canon: An Argument for the Study of DP Writings Section Two: Literary Journals Published by the Displaced Persons Chapter Four In Gang: Cultural Renewal, History and Zionism Chapter Five Fun letstn khurbn: The Need for History Chapter Six Shriftn: The Necessity of Culture and Creativity

p. 96 p. 119 p. 143

Section Three: Annotated Bibliography of the DP Literary Journals Explanatory Notes Chronological Listings In Gang Fun letstn khurbn Shriftn List of Contributors Listings by Genre Advertisements Bibliographies and Book Reviews Current Events, Minutes and Agendas Editorial Notices Essays, Letters and Speeches Folklore Histories, Biographies, Testimonies and Memoirs Photographs Poems, Stories and Play Excerpts Visual Arts

p. 165 p. 166 p. 193 p. 237 p. 243 p. 274 p. 296 p. 310

Section Four: Conclusion Chapter Seven Conclusion and Sources for Future Research Bibliography

p. 360 p. 369

p. 282 p. 290 p. 299 p. 308 p. 326 p. 342 p. 357

List of Abbreviations CC - Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany CHC - Central Historical Commission DPs - Displaced Persons FLK - Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsirezhim (From the Last Extermination: Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime) In Gang - In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature and Art / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems) Shriftn - Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn (Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions)

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Acknowledgements The Rhodes Trust provided the funding which allowed me to come to Oxford. The Rhodes Trust and the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages also provided travel funding for research purposes. Dr. Dovid Katz, Dr. Dov-Ber Kerler and Professor Jim Reed all shared in the supervision of this thesis. Their support and enthusiasm encouraged me to explore the possibilities of this field and they calmly guided me through the various stages of thesis preparation and submission. The staff at the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies, particularly Marie Wright, enabled the smooth production of this thesis. Lila Zia of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages led me through the bureaucracy required for submission. I am indebted to Professor Ruth Wisse for bringing DP literary journals to my attention and to Dr. Dafna Clifford for her enthusiasm. I am also grateful to the librarians at YIVO in NewYork, especially Zachary Baker, and to the staff at the National Yiddish Book Center and at the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem, particularly Emanuel and Tirza Margalioth for their long-distance help. Jill Hughes of the Taylorian Library and Brad Sabin Hill also provided much-needed bibliographic resources. My colleagues, family, and friends have been invaluable both academically and personally. I cannot fully express the debt of gratitude which I owe my mother for her help and support in this work and in all things. This work is dedicated in loving memory to my maternal grandparents Zygmunt (Zwi) Kuper and Yitke (Ida) Bruer Kuper, z’l, DP-lager Puch, 19461948.

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Section One: Historical and Theoretical Introduction

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Chapter 1 A History of the Displaced Persons: Community, Identity & Commitment When the Allied armies liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1945, during the final stages of the defeat of Hitler’s Germany, they found between 60,000 and 80,000 European Jews,1 most of whom were just barely alive. Many of them had survived forced marches from camps in the East where they would otherwise have been liberated much earlier by the approaching Soviet army, and from which they had instead been brought closer to the heart of the Reich for further slave labour and torture.2 Many were sick and ‘thousands were in such poor condition that they died within days or weeks of liberation’ by Allied armies ill-equipped to combat epidemics and starvation.3 Yet despite the terrible conditions prevailing in the first months after liberation, the first days and weeks following the arrival of the Allied armies already saw the re-emergence of an organized Jewish community and the reaffirmation of Jewish identity. In that short time a new identity also began to appear: specifically that of the Jewish Displaced Person, the DP. Over the years that the Survivors remained in their exile in Germany, as well as, to a lesser extent, in the rest of Europe, that new identity was strengthened by common political beliefs, shared deprivations, and communal activities, as well as by a near-universal hatred and fear of the European non-Jews who physically surrounded them. While the Displaced Persons remained firmly committed to the rest of the Jewish people, their sense of moral 1Pinson’s early work places the figure at 60,000 (K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany.

p. 103.), while Mankowitz’s later estimates point to this number being closer to between 70,000 and 80,000. (Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 3.) 2Thus, despite the proportionately large numbers of work and death camps in Poland, the Ukraine, and the Baltics, most Jews who survived the Holocaust in those camps were actually liberated from camps in Germany. Some were in fact liberated on the road between camps, as their guards fled in advance of approaching Allied soldiers. 3B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 3. For example, 18,000 people, mostly Jews, died at Bergen-Belsen in the first two months after liberation, ranging from 700 a day in mid-April to fifty a day in late May. At Dachau, sixty to 100 people were still dying every day twentyfive days after it was liberated. Some of these could not have been saved even by expert medical attention, but many others died because of the insufficiency of relief efforts. (Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. pp. 88-89.)

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abandonment by world Jewry led them to an increasing introspection and attempts at spiritual self-sufficiency. The actual term most often used to describe this population, Displaced Persons, was officially defined by the International Refugee Organization (IRO) of the United Nations as referring to ‘those who, as a result of the action of either Nazi or Fascist regimes or their allies in World War II, have been deported from, or have been obliged to leave, their country of nationality or of former habitual residence.’4 This definition included many non-Jews. Bernard Wasserstein cites a British estimate of 1,888,000 remaining Displaced Persons in September 1945, of whom only 53,000 were ‘Jews in camps in Germany, Austria and Italy.’5 He asserts, however, that the original development of the term Displaced Persons is in fact based on a recognition of Jewish special circumstances. He explains that the term was created because calling the Jews “refugees” could have been seen to implicitly endorse their claims that they could never return to their countries of origin, while simply calling them “Jews” might suggest prejudice. Neither the Americans nor the British were happy with either implication, and so a neutral term was contrived that ‘seemed to suggest that the people described had got involved in some demographic traffic jam which might easily be sorted out […] .’6 By the autumn of 1945, in view of their suffering under the Nazis and their immediate unrepatriatibility, the Jews had indeed been recognized as a distinct group within the category of refugees. After pressure from the Western media and a damning report to President Truman from Earl G. Harrison,7 they were moved, first in the American and later in the 4Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. p. 21. 5B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 16. This estimate is lower

than any estimate for May/June 1945, and can be attributed to the repatriation of Jews to Western European countries such as Belgium, France and Holland and to the emigration for the purposes of rehabilitation to other Western European countries, such as Sweden (which initially took in over 9,000 concentration camp survivors) and Switzerland (which took in up to 8,000 survivors). (These figures for Sweden and Switzerland are derived from Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. pp. 43-45.) 6B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. pp. 8-9. 7Harrison, the Dean of the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania, was asked by President Truman to investigate the conditions in the DP camps. He found that, in the summer of 1945, many Jewish

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British and French Zones of occupation, into separate Jewish camps, without barbed-wire fences and with extra food rations.8 As the other refugees emigrated, were repatriated, or integrated themselves into the populaces of the occupied countries, the unwanted, culturally distinct, intentionally unintegrating Jewish populations remained as DPs, and the term is now often used to refer to them alone. In the context of this thesis, the terms Displaced Persons and DPs both refer to Jews unless specifically otherwise indicated. This term, however, was not the one Jews generally used in reference to themselves, although they did call their encampments DP camps, which in Yiddish was partially transliterated and partially translated to yield ‘di-pi lagern’. Their name for themselves was sheyres hapleyte,9 which can be variously translated as the surviving remnant, the remnant that was saved, and the saving remnant. For the Survivors this was an ‘exalted’ name, ‘resonant with the consciousness of their place in Jewish history’ which over hundred of years ‘had taken on a thicker symbolic meaning.’10 Leo Schwarz explains that this term originates in the Biblical Book of Chronicles, where it describes the survivors of the Assyrian conquest of Israel.11 The term is first used to specifically denote Jewish refugees in Isaiah 37:32, where it is written 'Since from Jerusalem will emerge a remnant [Hebrew: shearith], and the rescued [Hebrew: u-pleyta] from Mount Zion'.12 Schwarz writes that

DPs were still being treated as prisoners. They were being held in unsanitary conditions, were still forced by necessity to wear their concentration camp uniforms, and were kept out of contact with the rest of the world. His report concluded in part that the Allies ‘appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them’, and he strongly recommended that Jews be treated as a separate group rather than, as had previously been the case, lumping them together with their nonJewish fellow countrymen (B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 14, citing the text of Harrison’s report from Appendix B to L. Dinnerstein (1982), America and the Survivors of the Holocaust. ) This last policy, of housing refugees by country without regard to religious group had, incidentally, often had the effect of placing Jews in the same refugee camps as their recent persecutors. 8B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. pp. 15-16. 9This term is transliterated differently by almost every author in this field, only some of whom treat it as a foreign term and thus italicize it. When citing from a text I will respect the form of transliteration and italicization used by its author; otherwise I will use this Yiddish phonetic transliteration as found in U. Weinreich (1977), Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary. . 10L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 299. 11The importance of this use of terms from and allusions to earlier Jewish tragedies as a means of categorizing and understanding events in modern Jewish life, most specifically in relation to the Holocaust, will be discussed further in Chapter 2. 12Thanks to Dr. L. Yudkin for pointing out this Biblical source.

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originally, in April/May 1945, it was simply ‘used to denote the Surviving Remnant of the Destruction during the Second World War; but as time went on, it came to be used with ideas and shades of meaning that are only partly suggested in the Saving Remnant […] a revolutionary spearhead in the movement for national redemption.’13 Abraham Peck expands on this idea, asserting that ‘the very nature of the intent of the She’erit Hapletah was to change the world and Jewish history, [and this] summons also a secondary meaning – that of salvation; hence the term, the Remnant that Saves.’14 Such claims of moral or political leadership aside, it is certain that the term denoted more than simply having survived the Holocaust. From as early as 25 July 1945, the date of the ‘Conference of the Representatives of Surviving Jews in Germany’ in St. Ottilien, a monastery and DP hospital in the American Zone, ‘She’erith Hapleita in Germany ceased to be a diffuse descriptive term and became an important component in the personal identity of the survivors carrying within itself both organizational and normative connotations.’15 Sheyres hapleyte ‘symbolized a new Jewish community,’ a ‘“national and sociological phenomenon”’16 which ‘refers to all surviving Jews in Europe’ but which ‘designates most particularly the collective identity of the 250,000 survivors who converged on the Occupied Zones of Germany and Austria between 1945 and 1949.’17 The name Displaced Persons, imposed upon them by the powers that were to decide their fate, left them ‘suspended between an unspeakable past and an uncertain future, their existence like a time-out of history,’ to be thought of ‘not as displaced, but as outcast.’18 By contrast, sheyres hapleyte was a selfchosen, self-identifying name, that expressed both their connection to their 13L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. Note to p. 18. 14A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah: The Purpose of the Legacy. p. 29. 15Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. pp. 11-12. 16D. Rosenthal (1990), She’erit ha-Playtah, The Remnant That Was Saved: Recalling the Liberation. p.

25. 17Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 1. 18L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 299.

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past and their hopes for the future.19 These links gave the Survivors the sense of rootedness in history that the term Displaced Persons denied them on the physical plane. In Germany and in the rest of Europe, the term sheyres hapleyte provided an important source of shared identity for all three groups which would eventually make up the DP population: the survivors who had been liberated from the concentration camps, those who had, often after some time in the ghettos, spent the war as partisans or in hiding in Nazioccupied territory, and those who had escaped behind the Russian front-lines for the duration of the war.20 These three groups formed three waves of DPs, each with unique sociological and demographic characteristics. The original DP population of 60,000 to 80,000 unhealthy concentration camp survivors consisted almost entirely of men and women between the ages of 18-45. There were practically no children and no older persons. Neither of these latter categories fitted into the slave labor program of the Nazis, and they were sent to extermination in t h e death chambers and crematoria.21

Within a few months they began to be joined by the partisans, who were in better psychological and physical condition than the concentration camp survivors and who improved the demographic spread of the DP population. While the partisans, too, were generally ‘young men and women, […] surprisingly enough they also brought with them infants and children,’ their own and orphans, whom they had hidden with them in the forests and in bunkers.22 This is reflected in changes in demographic statistics for the DPs over the first year following the liberation. In December 1945, after the arrival of the first partisans, there were still almost no DP children of pre-school age 19Another self-identifying term occasionally found in the literature is Amkho. Lucy Dawidowicz writes:

‘They also spoke of themselves as amkho. Amkho was a biblical word which meant “Your people,” that is, God’s people. Over the centuries that word also came to mean “the common people”. During the war, amkho became a watchword for Jews on the run, in flight from the Germans or other enemies, to signal to one another that they were Jews, even when disguised as non-Jews.’ (L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 299.) Once again we see the Jews looking to the past to give themselves a name resonant with the history of their people. 20A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah: The Purpose of the Legacy. p. 29. 21K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p. 103. 22ibid.

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(less than five years old), while only 3% of DPs were of school age (between the ages of six and seventeen). By the following summer these figures had improved slightly, to 2% of the population for the under-fives23 and 7% for the school-age children.24 However, by far the biggest demographic change, both in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of composition, came with the third wave, the refugees from Eastern Europe. Most of these were Polish citizens who had spent the war years in the Soviet Union and had then been repatriated to Poland; a few were Russian Jews, often Orthodox, who had used the repatriation to leave the Soviet Union. Some were survivors who, motivated by Bundist Internationalist ideology, had felt it their duty to help rebuild their native Eastern European countries, particularly Poland. They all soon found that anti-semitism had not disappeared in Eastern Europe with the fall of Nazism. Survivors returning to Poland, the Ukraine, and Slovakia, for example, often faced hostility and violence, and were known to have been ordered out of towns or even murdered.25 Between May 1945 and the end of that year, 353 Jews were killed in Poland, anti-semitic propaganda was published, and there were two pogroms.26 This terror foreshadowed the large pogrom of July 1946 in Kielce, near Warsaw, in which, out of a population of 200 survivors, ‘forty-one Jews were killed and fifty injured – some shot, others killed by axe-blows or stoned to death. Further deaths and injuries occurred in separate incidents in and around the city.’27 Wasserstein sums up the prevalent Jewish mood thus: […] the Jewish populations in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe needed little persuasion to leave. By late 1946 they were in a state bordering on mass hysteria. Observing the mounting hostility of the surrounding non-Jewish populations towards

23Part of this figure can also be accounted for by the high birth rates in the DP camps as soon as was

physically possible after the liberation; ‘by the end of the year [1946] the birthrate in She’erith Hapleita was one of the highest in the world.’ (Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 5.) 24Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 40. 25B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 8. 26ibid., p. 17. 27ibid., p. 24.

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them, they recalled that they had made the mistake in the recent past of staying put until it was too late. Most were resolved not to repeat the error.28

This growing fear fed the pre-existing Zionist tendencies of a large segment of the population. It also convinced many of the Internationalist Bundists who had not until then been disillusioned, even by the Holocaust, of the impossibility of establishing a secure home for Jews outside a Jewish state. Thus, with fear driving them out of Eastern Europe, and Zionist ideals setting Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel, as a goal, the remnants of Eastern European Jewry set off for Palestine via the ports of Italy and the DP camps of occupied Germany and Austria. This situation explains the departure of approximately 250,000 Jews from Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1948.29. Some of them then left for Palestine, and most of the rest joined their fellow Jews in the DP camps. By the summer of 1947 there were at least 167,531 DPs in Germany alone30, and possibly many more; estimates run as high as 211,460 in October 1946.31 Except for the large camp at Bergen-Belsen, almost all of these were in the American Zone,32 which itself is estimated as having had between almost 160,000 DPs at the end of 194633 to 175,960 in October of that year34. Some 70% of this number were from Poland with smaller groups from Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany. […] From mid-1945 until t h e beginning of 1947 some 140,000 Jews left Poland and made their way to Occupied Germany, the first station on the long exodus from Europe.35

28ibid., p. 27. 29ibid., p. 26. 30ibid., p. 27. 31Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. p. 43. 32After the improvements mandated in the Harrison report were made in the American Zone, many Jewish

DPs in the British and French Zones left for the camps in the American Zone. The British were entirely unwilling to treat the Jews differently from the non-Jewish DPs in their Zone, and in late 1946 were still refusing, for example, to set up separate Jewish camps. (Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. p. 99.) They in fact suggested at one point that Jews should be forced to work for the German economy and be fed German rations, a move blocked by the United States and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. (B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 31.) This fed the general perception that DPs were best off in the American Zone, and explains the large preponderance of sheyres hapleyte in that Zone. 33Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 5. 34Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. p. 43. 35Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 5.

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There they lived in ‘about sixty camps, small DP communities in over a hundred towns and cities, about a dozen children’s centers, several Jewish hospitals and sanatoria, and thirty farms used as training centers for wouldbe emigrants to Palestine […] .’36 Proportionately smaller numbers of DPs made their way to Austria and Italy, and thence further West. Figures from Austria and Italy indicate 34,000 and 18,000 DPs in October 194637 and 35,000 and 26,000, respectively, at the beginning of 1947.38 Other countries with substantial numbers of DPs during this period included France (30,000), Sweden (11,000), Belgium (9,000), and Holland (6,000); except for Sweden, these countries also contained much larger numbers of local Jews who had returned to their pre-war homes after the Holocaust. It was the large post-war wave of Eastern Europeans that restored the population statistics of the DPs to a reasonable balance. They were the healthiest of the sheyres hapleyte, particularly mentally but also physically, as they had never struggled to survive under Nazi rule. Among the emigrants were whole families, large numbers of children, including orphans, and many elderly people.39 The proportion of children among the DP population in Bavaria, for example, jumped from 1,800 out of 40,000 (4.5%) to almost 26,500 out of 140,000 (18.9%) during the year 1946.40 These DPs had also been able to maintain some sense of community throughout the war years, and had not been culturally decapitated.41 Their arrival was therefore important for the demographic and social normalization of the existing communities in the DP camps.

36L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 286. 37Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. p. 43. 38D. Rosenthal (1990), She’erit ha-Playtah, The Remnant That Was Saved: Recalling the Liberation. p.

26. 39K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p. 104. 40Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 40. 41K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p. 105. The term cultural decapitation has been used to indicate the deliberate removal from a society, by whatever means, of its social, intellectual and political elite. It is common, for example, in the discourse surrounding the conquest of French Canada by the British and the subsequent subjugation of the French population, peacefully culturally decapitated by the British-aided return of the French elite to France.

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These camps were, indeed, communities rather than merely encampments, and the DPs were not just isolated settlements but a united political and cultural body. The clearest indication of this is probably the organizational structure of the camps, which were governed by ‘elected committees that took responsibility for sanitation, employment, education and culture, sport and religious services.’42 These committees were then bound together within the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany (CC). This last organization grew out of the South Bavarian Zionist Conference of 24 June 1945, which ‘recommended the establishment of a representative council which would be able to speak in the name of all of She’erith Hapleita.’ This meeting was quickly followed by two more crucial gatherings. At the first of these, on 1 July 1945, ‘41 representatives of survivors in Bavaria assembled in Feldafing, drew up a constitution and elected a council of 21 members and a smaller executive committee […].’43 This was soon extended beyond the limits of Bavaria at the 25 July 1945 “Conference of the Representatives of the Surviving Jews in Germany” in St. Ottilien, which was held with ‘the participation of 94 delegates representing some 40,00044 Jews in 46 locations.’45 The actual Central Committee was chosen by the members of the Council of the Liberated Jews in Germany on 8 August 1945, at which time it was decided again to limit its sphere of influence to the American Zone ‘because of difficulties of communication between the various zones, […] while coordinating its activities with the Jewish centre in Bergen Belsen [the large camp in the British Zone].’46 After over a year of unofficial leadership of the Jews in the region, the CC was officially recognized by the American Army

42Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 6. 43ibid., p. 11. 44It should be remembered that this conference took place approximately three months following the

liberation, and thus before the large influx of either partisans or Jews from behind the Soviet lines. This number thus represents a large proportion of the then-DP population. 45Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 11. 46ibid., p, 31.

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on 7 September 1946 ‘as the representative of the liberated Jews in the Zone.’47 The Central Committee which was thus established, like the camp committees it was meant to work with and co-ordinate, was concerned with far more than just the political representation of the sheyres hapleyte. It took upon itself the responsibility for ensuring the ‘welfare and rehabilitation [of the DPs] while on German soil and acting to expedite their emigration to Palestine and other destinations.’48 The Conference in late July, after recognizing that emigration to Israel, the DPs’ ideal solution to all of their problems, would not happen immediately, devoted itself to ‘practical suggestions for the improvement of the conditions of survivors during the period they were forced to remain in Germany.’ It called for, among other things, ‘opportunities for education and vocational training’ and it ‘created the organizational infrastructure which allowed She’erith Hapleita to successfully absorb the tens of thousands of East European Jews who poured into the American Zone in 1946 and 1947.’ Within the first few days of its existence, that is, in early July 1945, the Council of Liberated Jews had already ‘set up seven departments in order to deal with the pressing concerns of She’erith Hapleita: health, food, living quarters, clothing, repatriation and the tracing of relatives.’49 The CC eventually added to that list, also setting up departments for ‘education, vocational training, cultural activities, the publication of a central newspaper, Undzer Weg, and the establishment of an Historical Commission to document the destruction of European Jewry.’50 Of course the material aid which these organizations needed for their operations, both centrally and within each camp, was not supplied solely or even primarily by the DPs themselves. The camps they were in were initially

47Y. Bauer (1970), Flight and Rescue: Brichah. p. 276. 48Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 31. 49ibid., p. 11. 50ibid., p. 31.

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run by the Army, and then by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which was later technically replaced by the International Refugee Organization (IRO) of the United Nations. Their efforts were soon supplemented by those of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency Mission from the Jewish Community in Palestine. The JDC, also known as the ‘Joint’, was at first prevented from doing relief work in the camps, which at that early stage were mostly former concentration camps and hospitals and contained almost only direct survivors in the direst need, by the American and British ‘military occupation authorities, who objected to independent activity by what was regarded as a sectarian group.’51 By the time the Allies ‘admitted them into the liberated areas only after protracted negotiations,’ thousands had died who ‘could have been saved by prompt medical care and sufficient supplies.’52 However, once the JDC was allowed into the DP camps, it shipped staggering amounts of relief supplies to Europe – nearly 30,000 tons in 1946 and over 40,000 in 1947. Most of the tonnage was high-energy foods to supplement t h e local diet: canned fish and meat, butter, fats, sugar. The balance consisted of clothing and shoes, blankets, medicines, surgical equipment, even textbooks and educational materials […]. The JDC’s major service was in emigration assistance, though visas to anywhere and certificates to Palestine were in short supply. With the support of t h e army and UNRRA, JDC also provided for the cultural and religious needs of the DPs – provision of s h e h i t a h [ritual slaughter of animals], kosher canteens, facilities for religious services, prayerbooks, religious texts, special foods for Jewish festivals, newspapers and libraries.53

The Jewish Agency concentrated less than did the JDC on physical and material rehabilitation, but it ‘played a key role in educational and cultural activities, vocational and agricultural training and the organization of immigration, legal and illegal to Palestine.’54 Needless to say, some of these tasks overlapped with what the CC and camp committees perceived to be their mandates, and there were sometimes

51B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 11. 52Z. Warhaftig (1946), Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaced Persons After Liberation. p. 88. 53L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 285. 54Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 33.

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bitter disagreements over control of various aspects of DP affairs, especially in regard to financial matters. The Jewish Agency, which concentrated on culture and education, was perceived as co-operating closely with the Central Committee, and its workers often represented the CC to UNRRA. However, the JDC has been described as having had ‘close but problematic relations’ with the CC.55 Ze’ev Mankowitz explains the situation in this way: The Joint, on the one hand, supplied the better part of the budget of the Committee while the latter, in turn, provided the Joint with a network of communications with the major centres of She’erith Hapleita. Nonetheless, throughout the period under review [1945-1946] an undercurrent of tension marred these close ties. At first t h e annoyance of the survivors focused on the limited ability of the Joint to provide relief, but in truth the matter cut much deeper. There was impatience with t h e legalism and bureaucratic niceties of the Joint workers and suspicion of an organization run by what the Zionists of She’erith H a p l e i t a perceived as assimilated Jews. Beyond this we find a deep anger directed at the representatives of those Jews who did so little to rescue their brothers during the Holocaust. These fluctuating tensions had one constant focus – which body would take t h e lead in the distribution of financial aid and goods to She’erith H a p l e i t a . The Committee wanted the Joint to use its structure to carry out its tasks and objected to the creation of a parallel apparatus that would undercut its influence. After so many years of futile helplessness here was a chance for the survivors to take matters into their own hands and have at least a partial say in the running of their affairs.56

Another issue which generated tension between the CC and the JDC was education, with a dispute over Zionist versus pluralist educational ideals eventually being resolved in favour of the Zionism advocated by the Central Committee and backed by the Jewish Agency.57 Similar arguments also took place on a camp level. In general, the level of tension was to a large degree determined by the personalities involved. Some JDC directors, such as Eli Rock and Lavy Becker, were open to the wide-spread participation of the DPs in their own affairs, while others, such as Leo Schwarz, were less willing to go along with the CC’s ideas.58 A similar relationship between personalities and tensions also beset the UNRRA directors of the various DP camps as well as other members of the aid hierarchy.

55ibid. 56ibid., p. 34. 57ibid., p. 41 58ibid., p. 34.

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Yet despite this continuous struggle to control, particularly financially, their own communal existence, the DPs had already managed to help themselves in many ways. They had refused to let their weakened state blunt their traditional sense of the need to provide for each other. Examples of this communal self-help exist from the very first days of freedom in the spring of 1945, and sometimes even ante-date the liberation. In the confusion of the last months of the war, underground groups arose in Dachau sub-camps and in Buchenwald to plan for the liberation, and in Buchenwald a Jewish self-help committee was created as soon as the camp was freed by the Allies. This committee ‘extended medical and material aid to the camp survivors and most especially to the 500 Jewish children who had miraculously been kept alive.’59 On 18 April 1945, ‘three days after liberation, a number of Jews met in Block 8 of Bergen-Belsen, driven by an inner compulsion to lay the basis for a Jewish community in an organized and independent manner.’60 Immediately after the liberation of Dachau, the leaders of a clandestine Zionist group in operation since September 1944 ‘created a Zionist committee which successfully fought for its recognition by the communist controlled International Committee that ran the camp, [and] started registering survivors for immigration to Palestine […].’61 While such groups evidently did involve themselves in political struggles, the needs of the individual members of the sheyres hapleyte were paramount. David Rosenthal, himself liberated from Bergen Belsen, writes: The fate of the individual has always been the concern of the organized Jewish community. […] Jews, after every catastrophe, have considered the feeding of children, the healing of the sick, the clothing of the naked, as the most urgent and constructive task. This idea prevailed also among the Jews immediately after liberation. […] The very chronology of events and the story of the assistance and cultural institutions of the She’erit Hapletah shows its “readaptation” capabilities to a normal life. Individuals among the survivors were the first to bring help to t h e “Musselmen” (a camp expression for those who were on the brink of death); the first 59ibid., pp. 7-8. 60D. Rosenthal (1990), She’erit ha-Playtah, The Remnant That Was Saved: Recalling the Liberation. p.

27. 61Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. pp. 9-10.

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to begin establishing order and a more equitable distribution of the food products t h a t were found in the camps after the retreat and defeat of the German army; the first to open schools, to issue newspapers; the first to organize religious life.62

The needs of the individual were not seen to be limited to food and shelter. Despite the dehumanizing horrors the survivors had suffered, or perhaps because of them, they included among their basic needs education, religion, and culture. The importance that the sheyres hapleyte placed on culture and intellect, and specifically on the written word, can perhaps most easily be seen in the early production of newspapers and journals in the camps. This process actually began during the war, in the Kaufering sub-camp of Dachau, where the same clandestine group which later created the Dachau Zionist Committee ‘against all odds succeeded in producing and distributing seven issues of their movement organ Nizoz prior to liberation.’ Every copy of this publication was hand-written in Hebrew by its editor. Its content ‘represents a remarkable attempt to articulate the implications for the Jewish “catastrophe” and to shape a Zionist strategy for the post-war period.’63 Nizoz (Spark) was the precursor of what would become a long succession of DP journals and newspapers dealing with the new political reality of post-war European Jewry. The first of these, Techiyat Hametim (Hebrew: The Resurrection of the Dead), was published on 8 May 1945 by the Jewish self-help committee in Buchenwald, which was then very much concerned with the ultimate physical destination of the DPs, divided as it was between Zionists and Bundists.64 Other important early publications included: Undzer Shtime (Our Voice), first published on 12 July 1945 in Bergen-Belsen, the first Yiddishlanguage newspaper in post-war Germany, written by hand and demanding that the DPs not be sent back to Poland but rather be allowed to leave 62D. Rosenthal (1990), She’erit ha-Playtah, The Remnant That Was Saved: Recalling the Liberation. p.

26. 63Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 9. 64ibid., p. 8.

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Germany for Palestine;65 Undzer Veg (Our Way), the Munich-based newspaper of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews, first issued, in Yiddish type, on 24 October 1945, which ‘within three months published a twenty-thousand copy edition’ and was intended to ‘express the national will’ of the sheyres hapleyte in Germany;66 and the Landsberger lager tsaytung (Landsberg Camp Newspaper), first published on 8 October 1945. This subsequently became a leading DP newspaper despite its base in a specific camp and ‘devoted considerable space to the inner life of the She’erith Hapleita and played a significant role in shaping public opinion.’67 Such newspapers contributed not only to the intellectual discourse within the DP community but also to the strengthening of the group identity of the sheyres hapleyte. This identity was also reinforced by the very nature of DP existence. Life in the DP camps was overwhelmingly communal. The most extreme examples of this type of existence were the kibbutzim, the small groups of Zionist, mostly young, DPs who were preparing together for life in Israel. Whether established as an agricultural community on their own farm or living in the midst of a larger camp, these groups ate, slept, and studied together and took their decisions collectively. Their members, particularly in the youth kibbutzim, developed close, family-like relationships within the group. This model, however, accounts for only the minority of sheyres hapleyte. Most DPs lived in larger, more diverse camps. Yet even there they were unavoidably bound together in communal life. They all ate the same food, which was provided by UNRRA and the JDC, sometimes in a common dining hall. They shared the hardships of refugee life: the boredom, the material deprivations, the lack of privacy, the anguish of the often fruitless searches for surviving relatives and friends, the worries and fears of an uncertain future. They also shared its few joys, such as rejoicing together in 65D. Rosenthal (1990), She’erit ha-Playtah, The Remnant That Was Saved: Recalling the Liberation. p.

37. 66L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. pp. 57-59. 67Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 24.

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the few children left to them and helping to run the schools and orphanages that were within the large camps.68 The DPs also involved themselves in the cultural life of the camps, writing stories and poems and producing newspapers, journals, books, theatrical productions, literary evenings, and even a movie.69 All of these strengthened their identity as a single sociocultural community. The sheyres hapleyte were also linked together by almost universal political agreement. The national destruction wrought by the Holocaust, coupled with the anti-semitism encountered in post-war Europe, particularly in Poland, convinced the vast majority of them that the Jews no longer had a place on European soil. Those who had been repatriated to their home countries had for the most part returned to the DP camps in despair and fear. The survivors felt an overwhelming hatred for the land of Germany, for the bloody soil of the country that had unleashed their destruction. Marie Syrkin expanded on this idea in her description of a visit to a DP camp: An evil paradox pervaded each aspect of DP existence: German earth provided the only available asylum and an SS barrack the only available dwelling.70 Yet in a deeper sense, the DP camp was a self-contained world with no fixed locality. […] “We are not in Bavaria,” one DP said to me “We are nowhere, suspended between heaven and earth.” It may have been “nowhere” but very near Landsberg [DP camp] lay Dachau.71

The DPs wanted nothing to do with the Germans72 around them. Writing in 1947, Pinson73 authoritatively states:

68A large number of children, particularly orphans, were not housed in the DP camps but rather in

special children’s homes; there were 5,703 children in nine such homes at the end of 1946. (Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 41.) 69A brief introduction to the range of their cultural production can be found in L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. pp. 55-62 & 292-297. 70At some DP camps established on the sites of former concentration camps the survivors were moved from their own former barracks into those of their former guards, which were now empty and in much better condition. For an example of this in practice, see M. Syrkin (1980), The State of the Jews. p. 12.) 71M. Syrkin (1980), The State of the Jews. p. 12. 72Most DPs did not particularly differentiate in this hatred between Germany and Austria, its partner in the greater German Reich. Such feelings did not, however, extend particularly to Italy, the other country with large organized DP camps. However, Italy developed as a DP centre primarily because of its ports, from which many hoped to travel to the Land of Israel; thus the Italian DPs, despite hating and fearing their surroundings less than did their compatriots in Germany and Austria, were nonetheless ardent Zionists. (See Chapter 4) 73Pinson wrote the article from which this is taken after serving for a year as Director of Education for the JDC in Germany.

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For the overwhelming majority of Jewish DPs, however, national bitterness against the people who are responsible for the extermination of six million Jews remains t h e predominant mood. This bitterness very rarely has led to active conflict with Germans; it has to date remained purely an intellectual and emotional attitude rather than an activating philosophy. For most Jewish DPs it means having as little to do with Germans as possible and carrying on whatever relations may be necessary in a purely formal and business-like manner.74

This hatred was coupled with a fear of Germans that had not for the most part dissipated after liberation. The poet H. Leivick vividly describes an incident which occurred during a visit to the large DP camp at Feldafing. The news that German hooligans were at the gates of the camp set off a pogrom panic throughout the populace, including Leivick and his companions from America. The youths were beaten off by the guards at the gate, no damage was done, and the camp soon returned to normal, but to his dismay Leivick was informed that such incidents occurred frequently. These physical threats, reminiscent of those suffered by Leivick in his youth in Russia75 and by many others in the camp, could only have increased their conviction that they had to leave Europe as soon as possible. If they needed further proof that antisemitism still lurked around them, this was provided by the US army, whose surveys of ‘German attitudes towards the Jews suggested that there were plausible grounds for concern.’ Support for the Final Solution was still reasonably widespread in October 1945, when ‘20% of those questioned supported Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies while a further 19% were generally in favour but felt that he had gone too far.’ Another survey found that, at the end of 1946, ‘61% of the German population were deeply imbued with racist feelings while 20% expressed opposition to anti-semitism.’ Even the American GIs were not immune to anti-semitism, especially after the units who had actually liberated and thus seen the concentration camps had been shipped home: ‘51% believed that there were some positive sides to Hitler’s regime while 22% believed that the Germans had good cause to carry out the final 74K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p. 113. 75Leivick’s experiences in the DP camps are vividly chronicled in H. Leivick (1947), Mit der sheyres

hapleyte. . This episode, including his memories of similar feelings at the approach of a childhood pogrom, is described on p. 269.

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solution.’76 The DPs’ fears were further exacerbated by German police raids on DP camps in early 1946, including one in which they shot and killed an Auschwitz survivor.77 Although the German authorities were eventually barred from entering DP camps, this did little to allay the fear felt by the sheyres hapleyte who were, as they saw it, still trapped in a hostile land.78 The DPs, therefore, rejected Europe as a possible home. They had relied on the civilized, democratic countries of the West for protection. They had placed their trust in the reason and enlightenment of European culture, and they now wished to abandon it, for it had failed them.79 ‘The promise of a new age, the hope of creating a better future [in Europe], died with the victims of the Holocaust. But one course of action remained - to leave Europe for once and for all […].’80 Most, in fact, rejected the entire notion of the Diaspora.81 They believed that the only solution, both for their immediate emigration needs and for the long-term security of the Jewish people, lay in the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Israel. Many DPs would have been Zionists even before the Holocaust, and all now saw the suffering that could have been averted if they and their families had left for Palestine earlier in the century or if they had been able to flee to, and had had the backing of, a Jewish state in their hour of need. By now ‘the question of Eretz Yisrael had gone beyond the domain of individual partisanship and had become a general matter for the whole

76Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 51. 77ibid., p. 52. 78The present author’s grandmother, for example, refused to believe that the local staff at a hospital near

the Puch DP camp, in Austria, would not kill her Jewish child, the author’s mother, who was in that hospital suffering from Scarlet Fever. ‘You can imagine how scared I was,’ she often said in later years, ‘my child in the hands of Germans. I thought I would never see her again.’ 79For the educated Jew, Germany had always represented enlightenment and reason. They saw it as the standard-bearer of European culture. The irony of the ultimate barbarism of the Holocaust emerging from this “most civilized” country was not lost on the Jews, who took it as a sign that Western civilization could not, even in its highest form, ultimately offer the Jews a secure home. 80Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 19. 81ibid., p. 18.

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community of survivors.’82 Thus all of the DP institutions were avowedly Zionist.83 Mankowitz sums up: The Zionism of the She’erith H a p l e i t a was primary and all embracing. Existentially it held out the promise of belonging and dignity; ideologically i t explained the background to the Holocaust, suggested a cognitive map of the present and mobilized the survivors to fight for the future. It combined the classic Zionist analysis of exile and antisemitism with new elements that came out of t h e Holocaust: the sense of obligation to the dead in general and to those who resisted in particular, the desire for revenge, the drive to leave behind both Europe and ideologies that had commended Jewish loyalties. […] it can be argued that nearly a l l the relevant surveys conducted between May 1945 and December 1946 indicated t h a t some 70%-75% of the respondents viewed Palestine as their desired destination. Those who chose to go elsewhere did so for a variety of reasons such as family, warweariness, impatience and a desire for material gain. Many of these survivors did not forgo their deep Zionist sentiments and supported the fight for Jewish independence even if they personally were not going to be involved.84

It is likely that, had entry to Palestine been made available earlier, a very large percentage of the DP population would have gone there immediately. By 1947, however, Pinson observed that, with the realization that Israel might not come into existence in the immediate future, there came a decline in the militancy of the opposition to migration to countries other than Palestine. Human and individual considerations began to be pressed more openly as against collective national interests, and many DPs are now very much more open to emigration to the U.S. or other Western countries than had been the case before.85

In fact over 300,000 European Jews did arrive in Israel from Europe between May 1948 and December 1951. This figure includes the refugees detained by the British in Cyprus, and a large number of other DPs, including among them 118,940 Polish Jews. In comparison, between 1945 and 1952, 137,450 Jews had arrived in the United States, about half of which were DPs. During approximately the same period, at least 46,000 DPs went to Canada, Latin America, and Australia, while over 2,000 stayed permanently in France,

82D. Rosenthal (1990), She’erit ha-Playtah, The Remnant That Was Saved: Recalling the Liberation. p.

27. 83Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 16. He adds that ‘significant anti-Zionist groups were weak and subdued in post-war Germany – committed Bundists and Communists generally made their way back to Eastern Europe early on while anti-Zionist groups were few and far between.’ (p.17) Such supremacy of Zionist ideology was also obvious in Italy, where strong attempts were made to exclude Bundists from the main Cultural Conference on the grounds that they were anti-Zionist. (See Chapter 4) 84Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 56. 85K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p. 118.

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Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium and under 3,000 were allowed into Britain.86 Zionism remained the central tenet of the ideological system of the DPs. Their experiences of the Diaspora led them to believe that it was the only answer not only for themselves but also for the rest of world Jewry, including the large American Jewish community. Yet, even beyond their Zionism, they wanted to create a revolution within the Jewish people, and despite their straitened circumstances they were willing to supply the political and moral leadership necessary for this task. They were to be not only the remnant that was saved, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the saving remnant. Despite their pain, the sheyres hapleyte wanted to be the remnant that saved not only their fellow Jews but the whole world. Elie Wiesel explains: What the survivors wanted was to transmit a message to the world, a message of which they were the sole bearers. Having gained an insight into man that will forever remain unequaled, they tried to share a knowledge with that world.87

The DPs wanted to create a ‘neo-humanism, [with] the ideal of the moral and social perfection of humanity.’88 Having witnessed the extremes of inhumanity in the abyss of the concentration camps, the survivors felt that their example must provide the ethical authority for a more humane existence. One survivor wrote of lying in a concentration camp dreaming of a future ‘based on feelings of equality and justice.’89 The DPs themselves would create a better world, for, as another survivor wrote, ‘we have the duty, to hold high the concept of humaneness, to open the eyes of others to our ethics […] we, the victims of the National Socialist barbarism, have always been and will be the carriers of humanity.’90 The words of yet another survivor retrospectively outline a detailed plan of action for the DPs: the goal of the 86B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. pp.3 2-33. 87From E. Wiesel (1978), A Jew Today. pp. 185-208, as cited in A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah: The

Purpose of the Legacy. p. 28. 88A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah: The Purpose of the Legacy. p. 30. 89I. Nementsik (1946), Hayor un farayorn. 90E. Landau (1946), Mir Yidn in di velt.

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sheyres hapleyte was to have been ‘in the avant-garde, in the front line of battle, a group which takes upon itself the task to stand watch, to protect, that the terrible, the murderous event, which once occurred, should never happen again.’ They ‘must strive to build a better future, a future that should be crowned with brotherhood instead of hate, understanding instead of antagonism, tolerance instead of malice.’91 This ‘revolutionary fervor that was part of the survivors’ ethos in the immediate years following their liberation’92 contributed in no small part to their successful rehabilitation. It provided them with a goal that could be striven for, through word and deed, even during their enforced sojourn in the Diaspora. Reform within world Jewry, with which they were gradually regaining contact, could be fought for as a first step towards change in the rest of the world. Representatives could be, and indeed were, sent to Jews in America, where they expected ‘to become the vehicle for revolutionary change within the Jewish people and within the world.’93 After their years as the targets of a regime of death and attempted dehumanization, the sheyres hapleyte wanted to use their experiences as a warning of the ever-present dangers of inhumane behaviour. They wanted to share the message of hope which they themselves embodied, the message of human resilience in the face of unimaginable pain and degradation. The survivors wanted to give some meaning to the death of their people by using it to prevent further tragedy and hate, and they were desperate to share their hard-won understanding of the world with anyone who was willing to listen. Yet almost nobody was willing to listen to the DPs. As far as the nations of the world were concerned, they were an annoyance to be dealt with as quickly as possible. The press, after a brief period of coverage of the enormity of their suffering, lost interest in their continued plight. Most 91D. Hirshtal (1963), Tse u-lmad. p. 31, translation adapted from A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah:

The Purpose of the Legacy. pp. 28-29. 92A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah: The Purpose of the Legacy. p. 29. 93ibid., p. 30.

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crucially, their fellow Jews wanted to forget them. American Jews were certainly willing to donate money for their care, but the existence of the Jewish refugees proved to be a continual embarrassment for their wealthier cousins.94 Rather than being accepted as moral and political teachers, they were seen as the poor relations who would have to integrate quietly into American society. Even American Jews who had been to Europe, like JDC Director Pinson, believed that the members of the sheyres hapleyte ‘must be swallowed up into the culturally creative Jewish communities of Palestine and America.’95 For as many as twenty years after the Holocaust, ‘American Jewry as a whole seemed uninterested in the survivor’s experiences.’96 The Yishuv, the community in what was soon to become Israel, was not much better. Bernard Wasserstein explains that, within Jewish communities after the liberation, there was a widespread if seldom explicitly voiced suspicion that those who h a d survived against overwhelming odds must have done so by ignoble or corrupt means. This line of thinking was particularly prominent among Zionists, whose ideology impelled them almost instinctively towards contempt for Diaspora Jews. David Ben Gurion, leader of the Palestinian Labour Zionists, expressed a widely held view: ‘Among the survivors of the German camps were people who would not have been alive were they not what they were – hard, mean and selfish – and what they have been through erased every remaining good quality from them.’97

There were of course some who took a more balanced and accurate view of the DPs. Yet the overwhelming emotions of both Diaspora and Israeli Jews when confronted with the DPs were guilt, shame, and fear,98 so if the DPs were, ‘in truth, a palimpsest on which all those involved could imprint their 94For a further discussion of the feelings of American Jews towards the survivors of the Holocaust, see

Chapter 3. 95K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p. 126. Pinson explains that the DPs could not be creative on their own because they lacked a trained “leadership élite”, which could only be provided for them by the American or Palestinian Jewish communities; until this was done, either by sending leaders to the DPs or integrating them into these other communities, the DPs would be incapable of all but primitive accomplishment. Such was the view of this important member of the American Jewish academic and organizational élite. 96E. Fogelman (1991), From Mourning to Creativity: The Second Generation of Survivors in Israel and the United States. pp. 32-33. 97Ben Gurion is cited in D. Porat (1991), Attitudes of the Young State of Israel towards the Holocaust and its Survivors: A Debate over Identity and Values. p. 162, here quoted from B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. pp. 3-4. 98That is, guilt for not having saved more Jews before and during the Holocaust, shame at having the poverty and misery of their co-religionists exposed to the scrutiny of the world, and fear that such a tragedy could occur in the civilised Western countries in which most of them also lived.

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values, hopes and obsessions’99 it is not surprising that most of the attributes ascribed to the DPs were negative. It is therefore also understandable that the intellectual and moral teachings of the much-maligned sheyres hapleyte were not of interest to their fellow Jews, either in the Diaspora or in Israel. They and their message were both ignored. The DPs bitterly felt this lack of regard and interest from their foreign cousins. Within five years of its conception it was obvious to them that the revolution within Jewry which they had so confidently envisioned was in fact never going to occur. They were increasingly saddened by

the

unresponsiveness of others to their urgent messages of humanism and hope, and ‘by 1950 a deep sense of disillusion and disappointment was already evident.’100 There were two aspects to the sadness this produced, social and personal. On a group level, the community had to deal with the pain of their survival having been once again denied any meaning. They had to face the knowledge that despite their best intentions they could not use their experiences to change the world, or even the Jews. This caused anger and frustration which was expressed in newspaper editorials of the day. On a personal level, however, rejection by the world, especially the Jewish world, caused individual despair. Many people had justified their own survival with the idea that they would use their lives to tell all that had happened to them and to their people, that they would be the voices of the dead. The gradual realization that no one wanted to listen to those voices caused much pain and despair. Leivick describes an encounter with a teacher in St. Ottilien who had lost her young two daughters to the crematoria and now occupied herself looking after orphaned children. She tells him: Not only once do I think, that I may not live while my two little girls lie somewhere burnt to ashes – but, when I once became sick, I wanted to became healthy again, afraid to die – – do you understand? […] Do you understand, I thought, that I am justified in staying alive, in order to tell about this to the wide world. The whole 99B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. p. 20. 100A. J. Peck (1991), She’erit Hapletah: The Purpose of the Legacy. p. 30.

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world should know – – but now I see, that the world doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear – – and my two girls keep calling to me – – if not for these children here, which are now all mine – – do you understand, all mine – all mine – – –101

She is in tears as she watches the children now in her care, but they are her only protection against the despair that enveloped her and many others when they realized that the world would never heed nor even hear their stories. This first crucial disappointment, that no one was willing to listen to the sheyres hapleyte, was coupled with a second, related frustration: that the Jewish communities of the world wanted to ignore not only their moral contributions but also their cultural needs. The DPs were desperate for any link with their Jewish cultural roots, and their hunger for books was the most obvious expression of this yearning. Books were so prized and so hard to find that, as Dawidowicz explains, in ‘occupied Germany you couldn’t prevent books from disappearing. Wherever there were books […] people pocketed them and carried them off.’102 The American Jews, through the JDC, were indeed willing to send food, clothing, and ritual items, but books were scarce and those that were sent were inappropriate; except for Hebrew textbooks sent from Palestine, the books received from the Americans and from the Yishuv ‘were woefully inadequate in quantity and very often showed little or no understanding for the needs of the Jewish DPs.’103 Still, much as they needed books and other written materials, the sheyres hapleyte were even more anxious for personal engagement with them by the rest of the Jewish cultural world. They wanted visitors from America and Israel to assure them

101H. Leivick (1947), Mit der sheyres hapleyte. pp. 132-133. Emphasis his. 102L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. pp. 316-317. 103K. S. Pinson (1947), Jewish Life in Liberated Germany. p.121. Pinson adds that the Jewish Labor

Committee and the Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO) did send some appropriate material. However, it should be noted that these organizations were not part of the organized aid community, and the YIVO, which still had strong ties to the European Jewish community (its headquarters had been in Vilna until they were destroyed by the Nazis), and which was not yet a well-entrenched institution in America, was particularly vocal in its criticism of other, wealthier and most established organizations for not doing enough to help the DPs on a cultural level. See Z. Shaykovski (1947), Yidn in Eyrope forshn zeyer umkum, 1939-1946. for an example of YIVO criticism of American Jews for cultural abandonment of the DPs, discussed in this case in relation to Holocaust documentation.

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that they were not forgotten, that they had not been written off by the Jewish people. The DPs were desperate for outside support for their cultural activities. Such support was, however, only minimally forthcoming. The early appearance of members of the Jewish Brigade, soldiers from Palestine who fought in the British army under the emblem of the Star of David, heartened the survivors, but they actually did little to help them in any way.104 The Yishuv did also send cultural workers to the DP Camps, some of whom were primarily concerned with preparing survivors for emigration to Palestine. These were appreciated by the DPs, but it was bitterly noted that the Jews in Palestine were the only community to send such workers.105 Where were the writers, thinkers, and activists from the Americas, particularly from the large and wealthy Jewish community in the United States? Leivick, along with his colleagues Israel Efros and Emma Sheyver, was a member of the first cultural mission from America, in the late spring of 1946, a year after the liberation. He was met with great warmth by the DPs, who were convinced that their situation should be of pressing interest to him, as they believed it should be to all Jews, and who were desperate for his encouragement. His were the first kind words from an first eminent intellectual which they had received in person. Yet there was also great anger directed at the rest of American Jewry for their perceived cultural abandonment of the sheyres hapleyte. Leivick recorded the frustrated responses of DPs to a symposium he conducted for the intelligentsia of the Landsberg DP camp in late April 1946. One speaker, identified as Altman, asked: Why, over the course of the whole year, did the Jewish writers and teachers from the whole Jewish world, and especially from America, not come to us, even to be with us for a little while, to live with us, to help us?106

104Y. Bauer (1970), Flight and Rescue: Brichah. p. 68. 105H. Leivick (1947), Mit der sheyres hapleyte. p. 277. 106ibid., p. 95.

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Another DP, Oleyski, praised Leivick and his colleagues for the close ties they had established with the DPs, but he too was scornful of the American Jewish community for their lack of interest in and help for DP culture. He wondered where the Americans have been during the year that the DPs have already spent in Germany.107 Such feelings of disappointment in the Jews of America and elsewhere were increasingly common among the DPs. Leivick’s trip failed to set an example for the rest of the Diaspora intellectuals, and the sheyres hapleyte were in the main left to their own cultural devices. They were still dependent on the JDC and UNRRA for their physical needs, but they were forced to become spiritually self-reliant. Left only with their European memories and their Zionist hopes, they built an autonomous culture rooted in the Jewish past of pre-war Europe but looking to a future in the Land of Israel. The many written artifacts which they were thus compelled to create for themselves spoke to and for their own community. Their lack of cultural contact with the rest of the Jewish world obliged such works to be intellectually self-sufficient, principally rooting themselves in the DPs experiences while remaining committed to their ideals of the Jewish future. In this inward-looking frame of mind, forced into spiritual and cultural selfreliance, they turned their creativity to the ethical and cultural questions which the Holocaust would later impose on the rest of the post-war world.

107ibid., p. 98.

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Chapter 2 Writing about the Holocaust: Theory and Practice There now exists an immense body of written work about the Holocaust. Vast numbers of histories, memoirs, essays, articles, novels, stories, poems and plays take the destruction of European Jewry and the moral, religious, and political implications of that destruction as their central themes.1 A large bibliography of Holocaust-centred criticism responds to the questions raised by these texts and explores the encounters of aesthetic creations with the depravity of the Holocaust and, more specifically, with the sacred silence its enormity seems to demand.2 The early question of the possibility of Holocaust literature has continued to inform the current debate and has been expanded to encompass the controversy over the authenticity and the literary value of different kinds of Holocaust writing. The critical discussion has also widened from arguments about the inadequacy of language to describe the Holocaust and include the effects of the Holocaust on specific languages and the distinctive use of certain languages in Holocaust literature. Others contend that, despite these debates, Holocaust literature should not be viewed as a new class of literary creations but rather as a continuation of a normative Jewish tradition of responding to catastophe 1See, for example, the following bibliographies: D. Bass (1970), Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn

khurbn un gvure. M. Bloomberg (1991), The Jewish Holocaust: An Annotated Guide to Books in English. A. J. Edelheit and H. Edelheit (1986), Bibliography on Holocaust Literature. A. J. Edelheit and H. Edelheit (1990), Bibliography on Holocaust Literature: Supplement. A. J. Edelheit and H. Edelheit (1993), Bibliography on Holocaust Literature: Supplement, Volume 2. P. Friedman (1960), Bibliography of Books in Hebrew on the Jewish Catastrophe and Heroism in Europe. P. Friedman and J. Gar (1962), Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure. J. Gar (1966), Biblyografye fun artiklen vegn khurbn un gvure in yidishe peryodiker: I. J. Gar (1969), Biblyografye fun artiklen vegn khurbn un gvure in yidishe peryodiker: II. M. Piekarz (1966), The Jewish Holocaust and Heroism Through the Eyes of the Hebrew Press, Vol. 1. M. Piekarz (1966), The Jewish Holocaust and Heroism Through the Eyes of the Hebrew Press, Vol. 2. M. Piekarz (1966), The Jewish Holocaust and Heroism Through the Eyes of the Hebrew Press, Vol. 3. M. Piekarz (1974), The Holocaust and Its Aftermath: Hebrew Books Published in the Years 1933-1972, Vol. 1. M. Piekarz (1974), The Holocaust and Its Aftermath: Hebrew Books Published in the Years 1933-1972, Vol. 2. M. Piekarz (1978), The Holocaust and Its Aftermath As Seen Through Hebrew Periodicals. J. Robinson (1973), The Holocaust and After: Sources and Literature in English. M. H. Sable (1987), Holocaust Studies: A Directory and Bibliography of Bibliographies. D. M. Szonyi (1985), The Holocaust: An Annotated Bibliography and Resource Guide. 2Texts of this sort which I have found to be particularly useful or interesting include A. L. Berger (1985), Crisis and Covenant: The Holocaust in American Jewish Fiction. S. D. Ezrahi (1980), By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature. B. Lang (1988), Writing and the Holocaust. L. L. Langer (1975), The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination. L. L. Langer (1995), Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. D. LaCapra (1994), Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma. D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. G. Steiner (1970), Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature and the Inhuman.

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through writing. A brief account of these arguments can be usefully set beside a discussion of

similar themes

in

an

essay

produced

contemporaneously with the DP journals. Can there be literature about the Holocaust? The debate about the possibility of Holocaust literature is often really about the morality of such writing and its possible effects. Many critics take as their starting point in this area the famous remark by T. W. Adorno: ‘After Auschwitz, to write a poem is barbaric.’ Adorno argues that such poetry would ‘squeeze aesthetic pleasure out of artistic representation of the naked bodily pain of those who have been knocked down by rifle butts.’ He also worries that an artistic re-creation of the Holocaust might give it an appearance of having had ‘some ulterior purpose. It is transfigured and stripped of some of its horror, and with this, injustice is already done to the victims.’3 Quoting this passage in his essay ‘Writing and the Holocaust’, Irving Howe adds further moral concerns inspired by Adorno’s words. He worries that artistic representation would ‘soften the impact’ of the Holocaust, that it would ‘domesticate it, rendering it familiar and in some sense even tolerable, and thereby shearing away part of the horror.’4 Other commentators have also expressed the fear that ‘the aesthetic stylization of the Holocaust experience, especially the condensed expression of verse, might violate the inner (and outer) incoherence of the event, casting it into a mold too pleasing or too formal.’5 Howe is also concerned lest the reader, or, in the case of film, the viewer, be ‘enthralled’ by, and gain ‘illicit pleasure’ from, an aesthetic experience inspired by the Holocaust, a condition he describes as ‘voyeuristic sadomasochism’.6 This idea that, in a whole range of ways, artistic creations 3T. W. Adorno (1965), Engagement. pp. 125, 126, 127. Translation taken from I. Howe (1988), Writing

and the Holocaust. p. 179. 4I. Howe (1988), Writing and the Holocaust. p. 180. 5L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 555. Langer’s italics. 6I. Howe (1988), Writing and the Holocaust. pp. 180-181.

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would belittle the experience of the victims, is echoed in Alvin H. Rosenfeld’s reading of Reinhard Baumgart, who objects ‘to Holocaust literature on the grounds that it imposes artificial meaning on mass suffering’ and thus negates some of the horror of the event.7 Similarly, Michael Wyschogrod, as quoted by Rosenfeld, writes: ‘“Art takes the sting out of suffering.… It is therefore forbidden to make fiction of the holocaust.… Any attempt to transform the holocaust into art demeans the holocaust and must result in poor art.”’8 The fundamental concern is that, by being allowed too close access to the Holocaust, writers and readers will no longer be as affected by its horror, and that this will diminish their perceptions of its victims’ suffering. There is also the fear that the use of the Holocaust in fiction might lead to a fictionalizing of the Holocaust, that is, that the line between fact and fiction might become blurred, permitting a comforting transfer of its more terrible aspects into the realm of myth or even of denial. Lawrence L. Langer writes that in Holocaust fiction, ‘Holocaust facts enclose the fictions, drawing the reader into an ever-narrower area of association, where history and art stand guard over their respective territories.’9 Yet the common use of eyewitness testimony within novels to grant them what James E. Young calls greater ‘documentary authority’10 may result instead in the weakening of the impact and authority of the original testimony. This worry is increased by novels, such John Hersey’s The Wall and Leon Uris’s Mila 18,11 which create pseudo-documentary sources on which they then claim to be based. These works further cloud the distinction between Holocaust fact and fiction, and may, for some readers, cast doubt on the authenticity of other, genuine texts.

7A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 14. 8From M. Wyschogrod (1975), Some Theological Reflections on the Holocaust. , as cited in A. H.

Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 14. 9L. L. Langer (1995), Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. pp. 75-76. 10J. E. Young (1988), Holocaust Documentary Fiction: The Novelist as Eyewitness. p. 202. 11The factualizing of fiction in these two novels is discussed in A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 66.

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Even beyond these issues of the moral problematics of Holocaust writing are the literary and linguistic difficulties which every artist must face. Another prominent thinker cited by Rosenfeld, Elie Wiesel, presents the argument that Holocaust literature is simply ‘“a contradiction in terms,”’ explaining that a ‘“novel about Auschwitz is not a novel, or else it is not about Auschwitz. The very attempt to write such a novel is blasphemy.”’12 The fact that Wiesel is himself one of the foremost writers about the Holocaust adds a paradox to his statement which makes silence an ideal rather than a possibility. This irrationality is reflected in many attitudes towards Holocaust literature, both in the paradoxes embraced by the many critics who are themselves Holocaust writers and by a common view of the basic irrationality of the Holocaust as a whole, which itself presents difficult problems of coherent literary portrayal. Kenneth Seeskin finds that, despite the debates about the nature of the Holocaust, ‘there is a great deal of agreement on one point – that it is fundamentally unintelligible’. He supports this claim with comments on the ultimate inexplicability of the Holocaust from Arthur Cohen, Emil Fackenheim, and Irving Howe.13 Dominick LaCapra also writes that the ‘Shoah was a reality that went beyond powers of both imagination and

conceptualization’; it

‘posed problems of

“representation” at the time of its occurrence, and it continues to pose problems today.’14 With this in mind, if the Holocaust was, as George Steiner writes, ‘the cancer of reason, the travesty of all meaningfulness,’15 how can one hope to write reasonably and meaningfully about it? How can one form what Irving Howe calls the ‘structuring set of ethical premises’ needed to integrate incomprehensible torture and horror into coherent creative output?16 12From E. Wiesel (1975), For Some Measure of Humility. , as cited in A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double

Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 14. 13K. Seeskin (1988), Coming to Terms with Failure: A Philosophical Dilemma. p. 110-111 14D. LaCapra (1994), Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma. p. 220. 15G. Steiner (1988), The Long Life of Metaphor: An Approach to the ‘Shoah’. p. 156. 16I. Howe (1988), Writing and the Holocaust. p. 188.

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Holocaust writers are further confounded by the problem of metaphor. Figurative language, while particularly necessary for poetry, is important for all genres of creative writing. Yet as ‘metaphor is the heart of verse,’17 Holocaust poetry, because it emerges from an experience so contaminated itself, exerts a special pressure on the poet’s imagination, plunging that faculty into a desperate search for metaphors to forge analogies with the incomparable, or an equally urgent venture to sketch the bleak landscape that remains in the absence of such analogies.18

LaCapra adds: ‘Auschwitz as reality and as metonym is the extreme limit case that threatens classifications, categories, and comparisions.’19 So writers must now struggle to find ways in which language can be used to describe an event in which, in Rosenfeld’s words, ‘in our own day, annihilation overleapt the bounds of metaphor and was enacted on earth.’ He cites as a possible law of Holocaust literature the idea that there are no metaphors for Auschwitz, just as Auschwitz is not a metaphor for anything else. Why is that the case? Because the flames were real flames, the ashes only ashes, the smoke always and only smoke.… the burnings do not lend themselves to metaphor, simile, or symbol – to likeness or association with anything else. They can only ‘be’ or ‘mean’ what they in fact were: the death of the Jews.20

The Holocaust destroyed the boundaries of possibility so that the most horrific attempt at metaphor might in fact literally describe reality, whereas a less terrible metaphor could in no way represent the suffering and death of the victims. Such difficulties clearly extend beyond the gates of Auschwitz to the myriad versions of unutterable pain and degradation within the Nazi universe. This problem is related to even more fundamental issues of the use of language in the wake of the Holocaust. Steiner, who believes that all postShoah language is ‘post-human’, ‘loud with emptiness,’ also concludes ‘that to

17L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 555. 18ibid., p. 558. 19D. LaCapra (1994), Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma. p. 65. 20A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 27.

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try to speak or write intelligibly, interpretatively, about Auschwitz is […] to misconstrue totally the necessary constraints of humanity within language.21 Most commentators, however, do not discuss the general possibility of language in the post-Holocaust era, but rather confine their worries to Steiner’s second concern: the inability of language, when metaphor is impossible, to describe the events of the Holocaust literally. As LaCapra suggests, normally functional ‘language may break down’22

when

confronting ‘“limit” cases such as the Holocaust.’23 For Langer, the Holocaust is ‘so far beyond the possibility of comprehensible cause that the tragic view of existence collapses beneath its weight, carrying with it the ruins of the language once used to explore it.’24 Alan L. Berger uses a passage from Primo Levi to contrast regular words which describe non-Holocaust existence and those which would be able to encompass the concentration camp experience.25 Levi himself differentiates between ‘free words, created and used by free men who lived in comfort and suffering in their own homes’ and the ‘new harsh language’ which, had the Holocaust continued, would have been created, a language which could express what it means to toil the whole day in the wind, with the temperature below freezing, wearing only a shirt, underpants, cloth jacket and trousers, and in one’s body nothing but weakness, hunger and knowledge of the end drawing nearer.26

These difficulties are compounded by further problems of literary conception of the Shoah. Langer asserts that the ‘Holocaust is a threat to art […] because the details of its human ordeal are so cruel that they are difficult to portray and nearly impossible to imagine.’27 Writers must abandon ‘all safe props’ and

21G. Steiner (1988), The Long Life of Metaphor: An Approach to the ‘Shoah’. p. 156. 22D. LaCapra (1994), Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma. p. 47 23ibid., p. 14. 24L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. pp. 635-636. 25A. L. Berger (1985), Crisis and Covenant: The Holocaust in American Jewish Fiction. p. 30. 26P. Levi (1961), Survival in Auschwitz. pp. 112-113. 27L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 472.

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reject the temptation to squeeze their themes into familiar premises: content and form, language and style, character and moral growth, suffering and spiritual identity, the tragic nature of existence - in short, all those literary ideas t h a t normally sustain and nourish the creative effort.28

The challenge of writing Holocaust poetry has increased still further because it is felt that the ‘traditional themes of lyric verse, such as love, nature, beauty, and even ordinary death, […] furnish insufficient inspiration to poets creating verbal tombs for a murdered people.’29 Similarly, within Shoah literature in general there is the problem of a ‘permanent rift between death in literature and mass murder in Nazi Germany […].’30 Tragedy, for example, is not possible for writers about the Holocaust; ‘since most of the victims they describe lacked agency in their fate, both the texts and characters are barred from the consolations of tragedy.’31 There can also be no successful narrative closure such as that achieved through ‘insight, reconciliation, maturity, or moral triumph […]. Creatures of Holocaust fiction are exempt from these consolations, since there is no way of imagining them into an inner tranquility without deceiving ourselves or betraying their heritage.’32 The normal rules with which we create and relate to fiction cannot apply to descriptions of life within a Holocaust universe lacking all logic and reason. In the end, as Langer notes, the expectation that one can ‘adjust from the real horror to its portrayal in art, while simultaneously accepting the premise that nothing essential has been lost or changed in the process’ may be ‘too much to ask, of writer or audience.’33 The critical question is asked by Berel Lang: ‘Placed in the balance with the artifice that inevitably enters the work of even the most scrupulous author, what warrant – moral or theoretical or aesthetic – is there for writing

28ibid., p. 6. 29ibid., p. 555. 30L. L. Langer (1995), Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. p. 1. 31L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 8. See also pp. 239, 474, 557. 32ibid., p. 237. 33L. L. Langer (1995), Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. p. 77. Langer’s italics.

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about the Holocaust at all?’ Yet whatever the worries of the many people who have written about the Holocaust, the problems have ‘evidently been outweighed for them by other evidence.’34 Their writings often respond to the dilemmas which they and others have proposed, as when Langer says that if ‘the Holocaust has ceased to seem an event and become instead a theme for prose narrative, fiction, or verse, this is not to diminish its importance, but to alter the route by which we approach it.’ LaCapra quotes Primo Levi: to ‘“say that it is impossible to communicate is false; one always can.”’35 Steiner counters his own beliefs about the insoluble problems of Holocaust language by saying that silence is a ‘suicidal’ option.36 Even more significantly, following the publication of his best known work of Holocaust criticism37 Steiner published ‘a provocative novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H., a tale of the purported arrest and interrogation of Hitler – discovered hiding in South America.’ He thus recognizes the usefulness of working ‘dialectically between speech and silence,’38 rather than insisting on the necessity of one or the moral primacy of the other. Leslie Epstein set this view against the argument for silence: ‘not that fiction, or the imaginative rendering of the Holocaust, flourishes or has even revived, but that, lest those who destroyed European Jewry remain in a crucial sense victorious, it must flourish.’39 This is based on the belief that the role of the creative writer is ‘to create a bond, a sense of connectedness between the reader and every aspect of the world that has been salvaged through imagination.’40 Such a bond is necessary to prevent each of us from

34B. Lang (1988), Introduction. p. 2. 35From P. Levi (1988), The Drowned and the Saved. pp. 88-89, as cited in D. LaCapra (1994),

Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma. p. 120. 36G. Steiner (1988), The Long Life of Metaphor: An Approach to the ‘Shoah’. p. 156. 37G. Steiner (1970), Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature and the Inhuman. 38A. L. Berger (1985), Crisis and Covenant: The Holocaust in American Jewish Fiction. p. 30. The novel is G. Steiner (1981), The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. . 39L. Epstein (1988), Writing about the Holocaust. p. 261. Epstein’s italics. 40ibid., p. 265.

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distancing ourselves from the horrors of the Holocaust and the suffering of its victims. Epstein writes that it is necessary that this distance, this gap, be closed if that fate, or something worse, is not to be repeated. […] the sense of responsibility and connectedness can be achieved only by the creative artist – and by creative readers as well. Only those who have t h e imagination to recognize what they share with the force of evil […] can fight fearlessly against it. And only this fight, this fearlessness, can give meaning to t h e suffering of the Jewish people and, in that sense, bring our millions of dead back to life.41

While Epstein’s conclusion, like all attempts to give meaning to the Holocaust, is somewhat controversial, his insistence that there must be Holocaust literature has been echoed by others. For Rosenfeld, silence would be a final Nazi victory. ‘If it is a blasphemy, then, to attempt to write about the Holocaust, and an injustice against the victims, how much greater the injustice and more terrible the blasphemy to remain silent.’42 These insistences and justifications seem to suppose that the literary world is waiting for a conclusion to the arguments in order to begin to write, or consciously not to write, about the Holocaust. Yet despite the theoretical wrangling, creative writers have been writing about the Holocaust since it began. Perhaps this is because, while the silence/speech paradox is never resolved, ‘the effect of the literature taken as a whole is to leap beyond it and, by being a living record of remembrance, to guard against a total obliteration.’43 Despite the literary problems for the writer, this writing does have an important memorial function. Even Wiesel, whose paradoxical opposition to Holocaust literature has already been noted, concurs that his own writing is ‘“a matzeva [tombstone], an invisible tombstone, erected to the memory of the dead unburied.”’44 Whatever the justification, many writers have decided that they could, and that they should, write about the

41ibid., pp. 269-270. 42A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 14. 43ibid., p .186. 44From E. Wiesel (1968), Legends of Our Time. p. 8, as cited in A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying:

Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 27.

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Holocaust, and such literature should be judged for itself rather than whether its author had the right to create it. Langer summarizes: The path to Holocaust literature is strewn with clichés bred by the conflict between “ought” and “is.” […] We need to believe that one ought not to be able to write about that defilement of human dignity, as if the act of writing would swell the trespass or soil the sanctity of the ordeal. Yet fifty years after the havoc, we have such an abundance of texts that Holocaust literature has grown into a genre of its own, needing neither excuse nor vindication.45

Such acceptance of Holocaust literature does not mean the end of all discussion. There still remain important issues of both language and literature. Much has been made, for example, of the effect of Nazism on the German language and of the special circumstances facing Holocaust writers, whether survivors, other Jews, or Germans, who create in that language.46 The special position of Yiddish in relation to the Shoah has also been explored. In 1935, Yiddish was the first language of 6.8 million Eastern and Central European Jews and 10.7 million Jews worldwide.47 As ‘the mother-tongue of the majority of the victims’48 and of the survivors, it is the language in which they wrote before and during the Holocaust and in which the remaining few continued to write after it. It is also the language most damaged by the war because so many of its speakers were murdered and so many of its cultural institutions demolished and because it so fully ‘registered the barbaric terminology as an inseparable part of the national consciousness of the Jewish victims.’49 For Howard Needler, Yiddish has a ‘privileged position’ among the many languages in which people have written about the Holocaust: Yiddish writing can ‘testify to the survival of Yiddish culture while attesting its destruction through that of the Jews who sustained it.’ It is ‘the restoration of 45L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 4. 46See for example the essays in the section entitled ‘Language Out of Darkness’ in G. Steiner (1970),

Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature and the Inhuman. , as well as his essay G. Steiner (1988), The Long Life of Metaphor: An Approach to the ‘Shoah’. and Langer’s discussion of Paul Celan in L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 599. 47U. Weinreich (1984), College Yiddish. p. 80. 48S. D. Ezrahi (1980), By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature. p. 97. 49ibid., p. 11.

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speech to them [the victims] in their own tongue.’50 For Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, although the language of ‘Yiddish writers, both survivors and those living in America or Israel who had been spared,’ was now ‘the embodied spirit of a dead people,’ it has at least one ‘final public task’: commemoration.51 Their urge to write about the Holocaust, and to do so in Yiddish, may therefore be strong, yet its authors are left with a radically diminished audience. They are also faced with a general version of what Rosenfeld describes as Jacob Glatstein’s dilemma, the question of how to continue as a Yiddish writer when most of the familiar Jewish world has been brutally destroyed.52 The only answer Rosenfeld can offer is ‘to become the watchman, to guard and preserve’ the ‘diminished thing’ that Yiddish now is, to make of it ‘a thing of beauty, to be fulfilled and cared for, watched over and preserved in its sacredness.’53 Yiddish, then, deprived of readers and constantly steered towards the subject of the Holocaust, must nevertheless be carefully nurtured both as a memorial to and an embodiment of the past, as well as the language of a dwindling but still persistent group of writers and readers. Language is not the only category by which we can divide Holocaust texts. They are often placed in three groups based on era and authorship. The first and most distinct of these groups contains the works written during the Nazi era by Jews suffering under German rule. The second category contains literature written after the Holocaust by the sheyres hapleyte, the surviving remnant, including both texts which describe the personal experiences of the survivors and those which respond to the experience of the Jewish people as a whole. These began to appear immediately after the Shoah and are still being written in the present day. The third category, then, consists of works 50H. Needler (1988), Red Fire upon Black Fire: Hebrew in the Holocaust Novels of K. Tsetnik. pp. 235-

236. 51S. D. Ezrahi (1980), By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature. pp. 98-99. 52A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. p. 124. 53ibid., p. 126.

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by non-survivors, Jews and non-Jews, whether fictional stories set against the background of the Holocaust or historical accounts of actual occurrences. Obviously, many of the arguments discussed above relate only to the latter two groups of texts. Most thinkers privilege those works written during the Holocaust as being above or beyond academic discussion of morality or aesthetics.54 The texts in the second category, those written by survivors, have also been received with reverence, especially but not only for their testimonial content. Rosenfeld asserts that ‘we confront the works of survivors in markedly different ways than we do the works of those who perished, just as we assume still another reading stance for writings about the Holocaust by those who were not there.’ We do not even necessarily pay greater respect to the writings of the dead, ‘for within the context of Holocaust literature the living often carry a knowledge of death more terrible in its intimacy than that ever recorded in the writings of the victims.’ The ‘most lacerating writings often belong to those who survived,’ those to whom ‘the task of not only recording but also interpreting, judging, and ever again suffering through the agony falls’ and for whom the ‘nightmare, in a word, is never-ending, and

54The argument has also been made that no Holocaust text should be the subject of critical reading.

Steiner, at the end of an essay which discusses several such works, concludes: “These books and the documents that have survived are not for “review.” Not unless “review signifies, as perhaps it should in these instances, a “seeing-again,” over and over. As in some Borges fable, the only completely decent “review” of the Warsaw Diary [of Chaim Kaplan] or of Elie Wiesel’s Night would be to re-copy the book, line by line […]. Until we know many of the words by heart (knowledge deeper than mind) […].’ (G. Steiner (1970), Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature and the Inhuman. p. 168.) Rosenfeld calls this position ‘unassailable, but […] almost impossible to sustain in an extended study of literature.’ He does, however, assert that there are problems with criticism on a practical level, ‘that we are yet to develop the kind of practical criticism that will allow us to read, interpret, and evaluate Holocaust literature with any precision of confidence. Older criticisms of whatever orientation or variety – Freudian, Marxist, formalist, structuralist, or linguistic – will not do here for any number of reasons. The largest is that the conception of man, or world view, embodied in psychoanalysis or dialectical theory or theories of aesthetic autonomy had almost no place in the ghettos and camps, which were governed by forces of altogether different and far less refined nature. As a result, it would seem a radical misapplication of method and intentions to search through literary accounts of Auschwitz or the Warsaw Ghetto for covert Oedipal symbols, class struggle, revealing patterns of imagery and symbolism, mythic analogies, or deep grammatical structure. Auschwitz no more readily reduces to these considerations than does death itself.’ (A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. pp. 9, 19.) This statement is of course an ideal, and he does not refrain from criticism even in the book from which it is cited. Much writing about Holocaust literature, including Rosenfeld’s and Steiner’s, can be seen as attempts to create the new, post-Holocaust criticism which he is advocating. There is a need for informed readings of Holocaust texts, keeping in mind that the aesthetic value of certain works, particularly those in the first two categories discussed above, should not be seen as the sole, or even most important, determinant of their literary importance.

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repeats itself over and over again.’55 Steiner also commends the words, and thus the texts, of the survivors, writing that they are of the dwindling few who can still possess ‘humane’ language.56 The privileged category of survivor literature can, however, be broken down further to distinguish the early writings of the survivors during their time as Displaced Persons from more recent texts. Aharon Appelfeld and the possibility of DP literature While these DP works have been the subject of very little study, there has some minimal critical response to their existence. Aharon Appelfeld’s Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth is particularly notable because he discusses his first-hand impressions of the cultural and psychological lives of the DPs in some detail. He writes that in ‘the days after the war […] there arose, inchoate and inarticulate, the first efforts at expression’57 but yet ‘people were filled with silence.’58 The reason was that the survivor did not know what to do with his experiences. They were more powerful than he, and in any case he saw only ugliness and degeneration in them. If he h a d been able to keep silent, he would have done so willingly, but something within him, and also his immediate environment, and, if you will, that impulse to seek a moral, did not let him rest.59

However, the problem arose that to write about the Holocaust is impossible, it’s forbidden, people said repeatedly, and you agreed with them, for this was also your own feeling. The first writing about the Holocaust was in the documentary style most suitable to journalism in t h e collective plural. To write about oneself, about one’s personal feelings, seemed selfish and vulgar.60

55A. H. Rosenfeld (1980), A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature. pp. 15-16. 56G. Steiner (1988), The Long Life of Metaphor: An Approach to the ‘Shoah’. p. 156. 57A. Appelfeld (1994), Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth. p. 35.

Appelfeld, an acclaimed Israeli novelist, was a child survivor and spent time in the DP camps as a teenager. 58ibid., p. 31. 59ibid., p. 13. 60ibid., p. x.

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Appelfeld concludes: ‘Artistic expression after the Holocaust seems repugnant, disgusting.’61 Yet it is precisely this artistic expression which he believes to have been vital for the survivors. He claims that the Shoah ‘challenged the existence of the self […] the murderers reduced the Jew to anonymity, a number, a creature with no face. […] Only a very few souls, courageous in their faith, were able to retain their humanity in the inferno.’62 Only art, which, in his words, ‘constantly challenges the process by which the individual person is reduced to anonymity’ will ‘redeem the fears, the pains, the tortures, and the hidden beliefs from the darkness’63 and can thus restore a soul’s lost humanity. Appelfeld says ‘the need for self-expression in a time of sorrow is ancient and long-standing, and is interwoven throughout the length and breadth of Jewish history.’64 ‘I believed,’ he writes, ‘and I still do believe, that only art has the power of redeeming suffering from the abyss.’65 Indeed, Appelfeld is giving voice to a curious combination of beliefs. On the one hand he is saying that art is what saves the souls of the artists, which gives them back a humanity which he claims the Nazis have stolen from them.66 Yet he proceeds to belittle or dismiss all forms of post-war artistic expression. He believes that post-war testimonial literature ‘is undoubtedly the authentic literature of the Holocaust’ but insists that it is not actually ‘literature as that concept has taken shape over the generations.’67 Basing his feelings on his own remembered experiences, he holds that only the child-survivors of the Holocaust, of which he was one, were able to form a coherent voice for creative expression because they had the necessary ‘unmediated relation, simple and straightforward, to those horrible events in 61ibid., p. 35. 62ibid., p. 22. 63ibid., p. 23. 64ibid., p. 27 65ibid., p. xv. 66The idea that most or even many Jewish victims lost their humanity while under Nazi rule is

controversial and is rarely voiced, even by survivors. It is usually considered offensive by survivors and their families, especially when said by a non-survivor. I will use this terminology for my discussion of Appelfeld, but I do not wish to imply that I myself support this view. 67A. Appelfeld (1994), Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth. pp. 29-30.

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order to speak about them in artistic terms.’68 All other immediate post-war art, theatre, and writing seem to Appelfeld to be repulsive. He dismisses the theatre troupes which, as late as 1950, still circulated in the DP camps, describing them as grotesque ‘cheap entertainment troupes’ as well as ‘ultimately […] more ridiculous’69 serious dramatic actors. Appelfeld claims that performers who evoked the past with performances of Yiddish classics justifiably caused such angry fusses that they were forced to stop their performances; in the case of one old actor, the uproar was so great that ‘the man left the stage in embarrassment, weeping.’70 Appelfeld also claims that the Holocaust literature which has ‘inundated us since the end of the Second World War’ consists almost entirely of ‘fantasies about the Holocaust […] commercial productions, perverted stories, and sensational and scandalous writings’.71 Even more significantly, he states that the DP journalists and writers brought to the Holocaust a

68ibid., p. 38. 69ibid., p. 33. 70ibid., p. 35. Dora Wasserman, C.M., founding director of the Montreal Yiddish Theatre and a member of

the Order of Canada for her contributions to the arts in that country, tells a very different story about theatre in the DP camps. Before the war she had trained for four years at the renowned Moscow Yiddish Art Theatre under Solomon Michoels and had worked for, among others, the Kiev Yiddish State Theatre, Herself a DP after spending the war years in Kazakhstan, she arrived at the Rothschild Hospital transit camp in Vienna with her Polish husband in 1946 and, in a hall full of refugees, stood up and began to sing a folksong. The response among the other DPs was so positive, with them clapping and singing along, that she was almost immediately asked to stay and entertain the ever-expanding numbers of refugees. Wasserman did this job for two years with the help of, at the least, a pianist and another actor from the Moscow Yiddish Art Theatre, Leon Yung. They, like other actors whom they knew, travelled around the Austrian DP camps from their base in Vienna. They performed plays and songs primarily from the classic Yiddish repertoire, including many short works by Sholem Aleichem and I.L. Peretz, as did the majority of theatre people in the DP camps at the time. In 1948 Wasserman moved to the Alein DP camp and then to the Puch DP camp. She continued to perform from there, both with and without Yung but with a troupe of up to five or six other actors, until she left for Canada at the end of 1949. She and her fellow-actors did this job for free, receiving only food, shelter, transportation and the satisfaction of entertaining their fellow refugees. Wasserman confirms that the troupe was kept busy performing at many events for her three years among the DPs, and that she had no troubles with the refugees she performed for, only personally with the circumstance of having to do her job in a land she strongly associated with Nazism. She also emphasizes that her most successful productions were classic one-act plays by Sholem Aleichem, and that the song which were most often sung in performance, by her troupe and the others which existed at the time, were the old, pre-war songs. (D. Wasserman, C.M. (11 August 1994), Personal Communication. D. Wasserman, C.M. (5 November 1995), Personal Communication. ) Appelfeld may be speaking from personal experience, but it is likely that his impressions of DP theatre as a somewhat isolated young teenager were not as accurate as those of an experienced theatrical professional. See also Sami Feder’s account of his involvement in post-war DP Yiddish theatre in S. Feder (1995), Gebaylte foystn. pp. 79118. It is interesting to note that his widely reviewed theatre (p. 118) had imprinted on its flag the words ‘Our duty - to carry light and culture ’ (p.79), and that it produced both new plays and revues (for an example, see p. 104) and traditional works such as Sholem Aleichem’s 200,000 (p. 113). Noted Yiddish author and survivor Yehuda Elberg, who disagrees with Appelfeld’s statements about DP theatre, adds that the sheyres hapleyte ‘wanted to laugh, needed to laugh,’ that ‘they needed and wanted culture and they built it.’ (Y. Elberg (15 January 1997), Personal Communication. ) 71A. Appelfeld (1994), Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth. p. 28.

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plethora of ‘misunderstandings and cheap simplistic interpretations.’72 Thus, even the survivors, who had unimaginable experiences to express, have their writings dismissed out of hand as not having any possible value. In truth, Appelfeld finds all attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust through art suspect except for the products of child-survivors such as himself. Despite the avowed necessity of art for the retention or retrieval of humanity, this schema leaves no room for anything created by the DPs, and so their literary contributions are barely acknowledged and deemed to be unworthy of any serious attention. Perhaps his memories as an angry teenage survivor, unable himself to find expression for his own suffering, have clouded his view of their possible worth? While Appelfeld is one of the most prominent writers of Hebrew fiction, it may be that his status as a Holocaust author and as a survivor are not enough to justify his harsh and extreme comments on the cultural life of the DPs. Langer writes that the call by one of Appelfeld’s fictional characters for a ‘“cease-words” […] reflects Appelfeld’s own fear that familiar but feeble formulas of solace or evasion would rush in to fill the void of understanding left by the Holocaust.’73 Appelfeld may, in Langer’s words, reject in his novels the idea ‘that the unsaid is necessarily unsayable.’74 Yet he is clearly asserting that no one but himself and his child-survivor peers should be allowed a voice. Langer no longer believes, despite Appelfeld’s fear, that only the true ‘literary artist possessed the stylistic and imaginative strategies necessary to gain at least limited access to the ravaged mansion of this catastrophe.’75 Nor, as Langer writes elsewhere, does he himself support the often cited cliché ‘that writers needed a decade or more before they could begin to imagine the horrors of the catastrophe […].’ Perhaps this is because, beyond his

72ibid., p. 35. 73L. L. Langer (1995), Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. p. 7. 74ibid., p. 125. 75ibid., p. 7.

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awareness of the better-known authors who did publish soon after the Holocaust,76 Langer now also recognizes the importance of seemingly lesser creations such as ‘memoirs, diaries and journals, and […] videotaped testimonies that in their own complex way invite us to interpret the various layers of memory through which the event was experienced by its victims and survivors.’77 While Appelfeld is dismissive and disparaging of Holocaust writing other than his own, Langer is open to the works produced in the immediate post-Holocaust era, both for their possible aesthetic value and for their conceptual significance. The Holocaust and normative Jewish responses to catastrophe While Appelfeld tries to deny the validity of most Holocaust literature and Langer attempts to justify it, others have taken an entirely different approach. Implicit in the arguments discussed thus far has been the assumption that the Holocaust was something completely new to human experience, that qualitatively as well as quantitatively it was something of an utterly different nature from anything suffered by people, and particularly by Jews, before that time. Hence the belief that the Shoah cannot be represented using the words, images, and genres which had functioned in the preHolocaust world, and that ordinary people cannot confront its unprecedented enormity. There is also, however, a school of thought that questions that apocalyptic hypothesis, that asserts that the Holocaust, although vastly beyond the scale of any previous destruction of the Jews, can be treated as the most recent and lowest point in a continuum of suffering stretching back two and a half millennia. This is particularly true of the literary responses to catastrophe, in which, according to this view, the survivors of the Holocaust,

76L. L. Langer (1995), Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. p. 4. 77L. L. Langer (1995), Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays. p. 7.

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by turning to the written word, ‘behaved as survivors of earlier catastrophes had behaved in the past […].’78 David G. Roskies puts the question, and his answer, thus: ‘Is the Holocaust an event or an Event? Does it admit of analogy or is it sui generis, an indescribable manifestation of evil that stands at the cataclysmic end of history? It now seems to me that to approach the abyss as closely as possible and to reach back over it in search of meaning, language, and song is a much more promising endeavor than to profess blind faith or apocalyptic despair. The alternative, to focus solely on the Event itself, succeeds only in robbing the dead of the fullness of their lives and in inviting the abstraction of the survivor into Everyman, the Holocaust into Everything. With emancipation and the loss of Yiddish and Hebrew everywhere but in Israel, Jews have let slip the cultural strand that always tied each catastrophe to the one before. The Jewish people are at the point of turning the tables on themselves, of allowing the Holocaust to become the crucible of their culture. I have set out to challenge this apocalyptic tendency by arguing for the vitality of traditions of Jewish response to catastrophe, never as great as in the last hundred years.’

The Holocaust, then, although a calamity of nearly apocalyptic proportions can nevertheless be approached and represented ‘within the ongoing saga of a living people.’79 The reaction to catastrophe, which, ‘of all Jewish traditions […] remains the most viable, coherent, and covenantal,’80 had maintained and responded to its ‘“deep structure” – of plotting disasters on a continuum, of rendering the single event transtemporal, and of acting on the subjective realities rather than the verifiable acts of destruction’81 – over countless previous generations. The ‘historical break – catastrophe as it was – was anticipated by the artistic process’ of the evolving Jewish response.82 An important element of this response is what Roskies refers to as the uses of archetypes in Jewish literature. These ‘historical archetypes, some biblical, some post-biblical […] could be reapplied to all future events.’ Such ‘archetypes were understood transtemporally; that is to say, they could be reenacted throughout time and place […]. Archetypes were the very basis of 78D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p. 6. 79D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe. p. 9. 80D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

10. 81ibid., p. 48 82ibid., p. 260.

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Jewish collective memory.’83 The two traditional ‘uses of the archetypes - one as literal recall, the other as sacred parody – have been around since the fall of the First Temple […].’84 Roskies asserts that old archetypes continued to be viable after the Holocaust, although stripped, as they had often been even before the Shoah, of their religious bases such as ‘belief in the covenant.’85 During the Holocaust, the older archetypes and the uses made of them had continued to function while a new archetype was being created to encompass that which could not be described by the old, such as the thoroughness and implacability of the Nazi regime.86 Thus the ‘traditional response of progressive archetyping could make room even for the Great Destruction.’87 Roskies does recognize that, for the thinker confronted with the Holocaust, the implosion of history through transtemporality and archetyping is not the only option, although he certainly believes it to be the correct choice. He admits that some writers, including some survivors, have taken the approach ‘that made the Holocaust the center of the apocalypse.’88 This discussion is taken up by Ezrahi, who divides those who write about the Holocaust into three categories: documentary writers, who see it as ‘a monumental clash of social or moral values on the plane of universal history,’ survivalists, who want ‘to convey and legitimate their own sufferings and commemorate the particular lives and deaths of their companions,’ and the Hebraic writers, who write in order ‘to place the Holocaust within the spectrum of Jewish suffering and, frequently, to commemorate the cultural universe that was destroyed along with the people.’ Thus, like Roskies, she sees that there is a ‘literary and philosophical tradition, in which centuries of persecution and a codified system of beliefs have shaped specific cultural 83D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe. pp. 3-4. 84D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

17. 85ibid., p. 208. 86ibid., pp. 220-222. 87ibid., p. 261. 88ibid., p. 226.

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responses to collective catastrophe, and historical events are absorbed into an inherited valuational framework’.89 However, she recognizes not only that other responses outside that framework are possible but that they can be valid as well. There has been, in sum, an immense amount of critical discussion about Holocaust literature, far more than could be adequately represented in a single chapter. There is not as yet, nor will there probably ever be, agreement on the place of the Holocaust and its literature in the history of the Jews and their creativity. Nor is there likely to be consensus on any of the other literary issues facing the student of the Shoah, whether problems of language, form, or moral basis. While most commentators in some way privilege the writings of the survivors, little has been said about their early responses to the problems facing their own attempts to write after the Holocaust. Beyond the material difficulties most DPs would have faced, they were at least partially aware of the theoretical problems implied by and in some cases negated by both the very act of writing and the contents of their creations. A fuller awareness of these issues is contained an essay written in Yiddish in Brussels and published in Paris in the spring of 1946. Despite not having originated in the organized DP community, it reflects the concerns and hopes of the surviving European Jewish population. In particular, as the introductory essay to a newly-created intellectual journal, it is concerned with the creative future of Jewish literary life after the Holocaust, an issue which necessarily involves the relationship between the Holocaust and artistic creation. ‘Our Task’ and the Jewish cultural imperative The essay, which opens the inaugural issue of Yidish: khoydesh-bleter far literatur kunst un yidish-visnshaft (Yiddish: Monthly Journal of Literature, Art and 89S. D. Ezrahi (1980), By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature. pp. 96-97.

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Yiddish Scholarship; hereafter Yidish)90 proclaims itself clearly as a manifesto with its title, ‘Undzer ufgabe’ (‘Our Task’).91 This short piece by Dr. Y. Glazer, which takes up just under two thirds of page two of the journal, deals concisely with the tragedy of the Holocaust, places it in its historical context, then discusses the demands which its legacy does and should make on those who survived it. The author uses Jewish and Classical imagery, the Bible, and Jewish history to create some meaning out of the destruction he has just witnessed by deriving from the catastrophe a mandate for the future. Glazer begins his essay with the Holocaust, the historical event which overwhelmingly colours his perspective on everything about which he writes. He calls it an incomparable catastrophe, taking the lives of nearly a third of the Jewish people, which now has the ‘tragic privilege’ of being the first nation to suffer so great a loss. This opening paragraph cannot possibly be intended as new information. It is impossible that in the late spring of 1946 there were people literate in Yiddish in Europe who did not know about the Holocaust. Since all Jews in mainland Europe had been endangered by Nazism, this journal, like all post-war European Yiddish publications, must have been written for survivors of the very destruction to which Glazer refers. The nature of his intended audience is confirmed in the second paragraph as ‘the survivors of such an indescribable massacre.’ He describes their grief (‘bowed head’) and anger (‘clenched fists’), actually his own as well, after being confronted with the reality of so much death. Glazer’s self-identification with his audience, notably his use of the first person plural in both the second and third paragraphs when addressing Holocaust survivors, continually reminds his readers that he is writing as one of them, not as an outsider but as one who can truly understand their pain and loss. He thus further legitimizes his writing as a source of ideas 90Y. Fridman (May/June 1946 - June/August 1948), Yidish: khoydesh-bleter far literatur kunst un yidish-

visnshaft. 91Y. Glazer (1946), Undzer ufgabe. Further references to this text are not footnoted. All translations from it are my own.

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embraceable by the survivor community, and presents the journal which he is introducing as the voice of the survivors. This also emphasizes the specific background which Glazer uses to develop and validate his opinions on literature and on the role he proposes for the remnants of the Jewish people. It stresses that his ideas are not naively based on pre-war ideals, but are instead the products of his attempt to come to terms with the destruction of his people and his culture. This is vital because of the problem which Glazer, like other post-war writers discussed above, must face, namely – is art possible after the Holocaust? Although his article, written before much of the world had even realized the nature and extent of the catastrophe, predates the general stream of literary debate on the subject, it anticipates and answers Adorno and the many who came after him. Glazer does not need to address this problem explicitly; the very act of introducing a journal of art and literature primarily by and for Holocaust survivors in 1946 Europe, covered as it still was with the stains of death and destruction, shows his commitment to the continuation of art in the wake of unimaginable horror. His emphasis on the connection of the Holocaust with his own writing shows that he recognizes his place in history and the theoretical incongruity which he seems to face. Yet this incongruity is only apparent, not real; Glazer uses the very questioning of the role of literature as the basis of his own statements, taking the impact of the Holocaust on art and culture as his reason to write. The effect of the Holocaust on Jewish culture, particularly in Poland, was devastating: ‘with the destruction of Polish Jewry, a rich and colourful Jewish cultural life was razed to its foundations.’ It was this culture, with its ‘constant influx of new energies,’ that had maintained European Jewish spiritual existence. Now most European Jews were dead, and their culture almost destroyed. Yet, fascinatingly, Glazer does not simply state this point. He illustrates it with an example of martyrdom, of dying for the Jewish faith, p. 22

not from the Nazi concentration camps but from the classical martyrology of the Jewish people, taught in religious schools and read on the Day of Atonement: the martyrdom of Rabbi Hanina ben Teradyon. The martyr, the Jew dying for his religious beliefs, is in fact a common figure in Jewish history and literature, and the story of Rabbi Hanina is one of the earliest and most famous accounts of dying for ‘Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of God’s Name.’92 His death is described in chapter 8 of ‘Mourning’ (Semahot), where it is written: At the time of his execution, they wrapped him in a Torah Scroll and set fire to him and to the Torah Scroll, while his daughter, throwing herself at his feet, screamed: ‘Is this the Torah, and this its reward?’ ‘My daughter,’ he said to her, ‘if it is for me that you are weeping and for me that you throw yourself to the ground, it is better that a fire made by man should consume me, rather than a fire not made by man [the fire of Gehenna]. For it is written: “A fire not blown by man shall consume him” (Job 20: 26). But if it is for the Torah Scroll t h a t you are weeping, lo, the Torah is fire, and fire cannot consume fire. Behold, t h e letters are flying into the air, and only the parchment itself is burning.93

The account of Hanina’s martyrdom also places him among the Ten Harugei Malkhut, the characters in a Midrash in which ‘rabbis, scribes, and high priests who had lived at different times were imagined as dying together at the hands of an archetypal tyrant.’ This ‘motley of rabbinic heroes […] was invoked at the most solemn moment in the calendar – on Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement] morning,’94 and would thus have been known even to secular Jews with only the slightest religious inclination. In this version of Hanina’s death, wet wool is placed over his heart so that his agony will be prolonged. The issue of the burning Torah scroll is brought up once again, only slightly differently. His students stood next to him, and asked, ‘Our teacher, what do you see?’ He replied, ‘I see scrolls of parchment aflame and letters flying up [through the air].’ Then he began to weep, and his students asked him, ‘Why are you weeping?’ He answered, ‘If I alone were being burned, it would not grieve me. But the scroll of Torah is now being burned with me.’95 92D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

29. 93D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe. pp. 46-47. 94ibid., p. 50. 95ibid., p. 65.

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This burning parchment is the aspect of Hanina’s death that Glazer singles out in his article, where he states that the ‘traditional figure of a Hanina ben Teradyon, who goes to the stake wrapped in the parchment-sheets of a Torah, was a thousand-fold symbol of the Jewish reality in Europe.’ Interestingly, nowhere in Glazer’s description does he explicitly mention that Hanina died for Kiddush Hashem. Had he done so, he would have created a parallel which asserted that the Holocaust dead had died for the sanctification of the Name of God. This is the view taken by survivors of other, earlier catastrophes involving Jewish mass death, such as the Chmielnicki uprising of 1648-996 and the massacre of the Jews of Mainz during the crusades, about whom one chronicler wrote ‘they were killed and slaughtered for the unity of the revered and awesome Name.’97 This outlook was no longer considered acceptable by the increasingly secular Jews of the post-enlightenment years during and after the Holocaust; for example, as Roskies points out, ‘Ghetto writers, with few exceptions, refused to identify destruction with […] some divine scheme for ultimate redemption.’98 Hanina’s statement that it is better to burn as a martyr than to burn in hell, which was meant as a comfort but is troublesome to the modern belief that no positive value can have been served by the death of innocent millions, is conveniently ignored by Glazer, who focuses only on the burning Torah scroll. No mention is made of the even more prominent martyr, Rabbi Akiva, whose death is noteworthy primarily because he greeted it as a way to obey one of God’s commandments he otherwise could not have fulfilled. Unlike Akiva, who looks inward and to the heavens in his moment of death, Hanina looks out at the world, at the future of Torah, of Judaism, and, by extension, of Jewish culture.

96ibid., pp. 107-8. 97ibid., p. 81. 98D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

208.

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It should be noted that the use of Rabbi Hanina ben Teradyon, as well as other early martyrs, as a means to understand more modern catastrophes is not limited to this publication or even to post-Holocaust writings. A particularly well-known example of such use of Rabbi Hanina is the reaction to the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, where the murdered synagogue attendant, Moyshe-Tsvi Kigl, was explicitly likened to him by a witness thus: ‘I saw this saintly man with my own eyes. His head of grey and his long silvery beard reminded me of one of the Ten Harugei Malkhut, of Rabbi Hanina ben Tardion.’ This martyred Jew was then incorporated into a memorial drawing by Ephraim Moses Lilien entitled ‘To the Martyrs of Kishinev,’ which is, as described by Roskies, ‘for the Jewish viewer – an auto-da-fé,’99 a term that also immediately conjures up the tortures of the Spanish inquisition. Once again the reference is to Rabbi Hanina: An old bearded Jew completely wrapped in a prayer shawl is being burned at t h e stake; an angel (Gabriel, perhaps), holding a Torah scroll and breastplate, is kissing the forehead of the martyred patriarch. The juxtaposition of flames and the Torah would further recall the martyrdom of Hanina ben Tardion.100

By invoking Rabbi Hanina, Glazer is partaking in the continuity of archetypes, of Jewish traditions and motifs, which Roskies asserts takes place in Holocaust literature. It is a reinterpretation of the old which maintains its attachment to the past. Although the Holocaust was, as described in Glazer’s first paragraph, a greater loss than had been suffered by any other people, he does not see it as an apocalyptic event which will destroy Judaism and Jewishness. Rather he hopes it is a terrible event which, though unforgettable, obligates renewed building on the cultural and literary traditions created by previous generations of suffering. Thus the archetypal technique introduces and supports a major theme of his article: the necessity of maintaining ties with the pre-war culture, thus enabling it to continue in spite of the

99ibid., pp. 84-85, 100ibid., p. 280. Roskies uses the transliteration Tardion rather than the more common Teradyon.

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Holocaust. The act of referring to a classical traditional source makes a valuable connection. More explicitly, the particular placement of this paragraph in the text, immediately after a description not of dying Jews but of a dying Jewish culture, supports the analogy of the burning parchment to the nearly destroyed culture of European Jewry. Hanina died, but the Judaism he taught lived on, for fire cannot destroy the spirit of a culture if there remain enough survivors to carry it forward. Hanina’s followers, inspired by his words, continued to teach the laws of God. Glazer thus uses an element of the very culture he fears is destroyed to carry his message about its salvation; he wants his readers to catch the letters that fly free from the parchment and not to allow them to fall through fingers numbed by despair. Glazer continues this technique of allusions to elements of Jewish history and literature in the next paragraph with a Biblical reference. If the Jews of post-war Europe ignore his call and remain frozen, silent, ‘like Lot’s wife, in a pillar of salt,’ in the face of a destruction many times greater than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, then, in Glazer’s view, the Nazis’ ‘devilish plan’ will have succeeded. They will not have destroyed all of the Jews, but they will have erased their culture from the face of the earth. Instead, Glazer urges, the survivors must become ‘hard, strong, and even more creative.’ As encouragement, he offers them another example, one which comes directly from their immediate past, from the ghettos and concentration camps. He writes that even ‘in the ghettos, in the most horrible living conditions,’ the sufferers ‘never stopped further spinning and weaving the fabric [lit: dress] of our culture.’ He calls those who clothe the lady culture ‘the most loyal sons of our people,’ for they have the most important yet hardest task. They must keep the spiritual life of their people alive, for if ‘the spiritual light of a people is eternally extinguished, the people must sink down […] and is ordained for destruction.’ Without their culture, the survivors are doomed despite their physical survival. If they abandon their creativity, they will have lost their p. 26

culture; they will also have abandoned their dead. The victims conveyed their knowledge that national survival depended on the continuation of spiritual life. It was ‘their last act of will, the testament of our heroes and martyrs.’ By merely presenting this continuation as the wish of the still-mourned dead for those who would survive, Glazer might only have infused the survivors with a sense of guilt for despairing and doing nothing. However, by presenting the suffering victims as having worked, in the midst of their own destruction, for the very cultural preservation which they desperately hoped would be continued, Glazer also proclaims that hopelessness and danger are not valid excuses for inaction. No matter how great the despair of the survivors, it could not outweigh the fear and helplessness in the ghettos and camps where, despite everything, cultural vitality was manifested and maintained. Having shown the necessity and the possibility of the survivors’ task, Glazer explores its nature with yet another metaphor. In this case, the allusion is not to Jewish legend but to Nazi rhetoric which was in turn derived from Græco-Roman classical mythology. The Nazis often described the Jews, as individuals and as a nation, in the form of various real and imaginary creatures, among them the Hydra, a ‘snake with many heads.’ What Glazer does not mention is that a Hydra regrows two heads for each one of its nine original heads that is cut off. It is thus a formidable opponent, one that grows stronger with every injury by increasing the number of its primary weapons of teeth and jaws, and one that is poisonous through to its very essence, its blood. The killing of the Hydra was one of the twelve labours of Hercules, and required that every head be individually destroyed and the stump burned out.101 It had to be destroyed quickly and completely for its opponent to be successful. The Nazis’ metaphor embodied their view of the Jews as a multivalent threat to their society which could only be averted by complete eradication. 101(1985), Hydra.

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Glazer takes this analogy and turns it round, using the Nazi claim of the nearly indestructible Jews as a cause of hope for the future. He wants the survivors ‘to take the holy vow, never to rest, until within the beheaded […] Jewry a flaming heart will once again begin to beat and a new clear-thinking head will grow.’ He hopes that the strong ‘Jewish Hydra’ will become a reality, as new thinkers, artists, and writers develop and bring new life into the otherwise dying body of Jewish culture. He conveniently ignores the fact that the Hydra was killed by Hercules. Instead, by using the oppressors’ language as a language of liberation, he reclaims this negative metaphor as a positive term of his own, which amounts to the overthrow of the Nazis in this small linguistic forum. In a sense, that the act of re-creating Jewish culture must by definition add to the Nazi defeat. This re-creation will not be perfect. Even Glazer admits that European Jews have little strength left, that most of their contributions, including his own, are likely to be weak. Yet, in the fight against the doom of fading away completely, they have no choice but to use what little they have, without allowing unnecessary modesty, fear, or despair to hold them back. ‘In such a time,’ Glazer writes, ‘all are called and all are fated.’ The DPs were capable of success if only they made the effort, as Jews have done across the centuries, and did not give up hope. This was their ‘duty,’ which they owed to those who fought for the continuation of the Jewish spirit all the way to the gates of death, whether by fire in Hadrianic times or by gas in the modern day. Glazer concludes his essay with a ray of hope. He exhorts the Jewish people to be as ‘an ancient rock’ which has weathered the storms of time and has no fear of wind and rain. He calls upon history, which has already shown that, unlike other peoples, ‘the Jewish people lives and will continue to live.’ The reader was thus entrusted with a sacred task, a duty to his people, both to the victims and to the survivors. He knew that he must use the creativity which remained within him to reinvigorate, and if necessary re-create, the p. 28

culture of Eastern European Jewry, through words, art, and song. This is the ‘Task’ in the title of the article; the ‘Our’ refers not only to the editors but to the readers as well. As the introductory piece to this particular journal, Glazer’s article also embodies an explanation of its editorial policy. On this level, as well as possibly excusing any mediocre contributions as examples of weak but necessary first attempts at cultural revival and preservation, he seems to be justifying the policy of combining articles about the Holocaust and its literature with sections on pre-war writers and their works. A question which arises about journals of this immediate post-war period is why and how survivors could possibly have wanted to focus their energies on discussions of the Fathers of Yiddish literature, or of the poetry of Avrom Reisen. Since Glazer’s emphasis, as has been shown, is on cultural continuity, the editorial policy of a journal for which he writes the opening statement must be to include articles which span the gap between pre-war Yiddish culture and its post-war remnants. The articles which seem almost sacrilegious to some, as though they were ignoring the bitter realities of post-war life are, for Glazer, a means of establishing the longed-for connection with the culture he is trying to save. Glazer and his colleagues at Yidish were not alone in their attempts to support the creative spirit, and particularly the literary impulse, among European Jews. While he and his co-workers were busy writing and rebuilding their lives in Paris and Brussels, others like him in the Displaced Persons camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy were also putting all of their energies into a Jewish literary revival. Three of these journals will be analysed in further detail. They are: In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature and Art / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems), published in Rome; Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte p. 29

fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim (From the Last Extermination: Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime), published in Munich; and Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn (Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions), published in Kassel, Germany. These journals provide glimpses into the struggle of survivors who were among the first post-war writers to come to terms with the Holocaust. They suggest, through their editorial writings and their contents, important responses to the issues raised in later critical writings, which have largely ignored their literary creativity.

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Chapter 3 The Yiddish Canon: An Argument for the Study of DP Writings Jewish cultural life in pre-Holocaust eastern Europe was vital and exciting. ‘Eastern Europe was the cradle of almost every important Jewish cultural, religious, and national movement and the area where Jewish faith, thought and culture flourished unsurpassed.’1 Europe was the physical and spiritual hub of the Yiddish language, which was spoken by most of the almost eight million eastern European Jews2 in this ‘region of greatest Jewish population and density’.3 It was the world centre of Yiddish literature, journalism, music and theatre. Rabbinic scholars and secular historians shared its towns and cities with writers of short stories for the Yiddish dailies and the stars of the Yiddish stage. This creative co-existence continued up to the brink of destruction, until the Nazis murdered almost all of these Jews, as well as their congregations, readers, and audiences. When the devastation was over, European Jewish culture had been nearly permanently uprooted and destroyed, and seventy-five percent of pre-war Yiddish speakers were dead.4 ‘The Holocaust not only destroyed much of the body of world Jewry; it also destroyed most of its heart, soul, and mind.’5 In the years after 1945, outposts of Yiddish cultural life still existed in the Americas, as well as rudimentarily in Israel, but they would now have to face the world without the nurturing guidance and the intellectual and numerical weight that had been provided by the Jews of the Yiddish heartland. ‘Yiddish literature had flourished during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, along with the culture of which it was a part.’ After the 1L. S. Dawidowicz (1967), The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. p. 5. 2L. S. Dawidowicz (1986), The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. p. 403. This estimate includes the pre-

war Jewish populations of Poland, the Baltics, the Protectorate, Slovakia, Hungary, SSR White Russia, SSR Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Russia (RSFSR), amounting to 7,940,000 people. The total pre-war Jewish population of continental Europe, including also Germany Austria, Greece, The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Finland, is estimated to have been 8,861,800 people. 3L. S. Dawidowicz (1967), The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. p. 5. 4J. A. Fishman (1981), The Sociology of Yiddish: A Foreword. p. 2. 5ibid., p. 60.

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Holocaust, however, with that culture in tatters, Yiddish literature faced an internal crisis. Most of its schools, libraries, and publishers were gone. Many of its writers were dead. Most crucially, a majority of its readers were dead as well. As of 1945, almost half of the world’s remaining Jews lived in the United States,6 which, according to the 1947 volume of the American Jewish Year Book, now held ‘first place in Yiddish culture’.7 Yet the question remained: ‘Could American Jews partially fill the great cultural void created by the destruction of eastern European Jewry [… and] ensure the transmission of Jewish values and culture to future generations.’8 Before the Second World War there had been a thriving cultural exchange across the Atlantic which had contributed to the creativity of both the American and European Jewish communities. Could American Jews keep the Yiddish language and its culture alive on their own? If not, what would happen to its literature? It was soon evident that the Yiddish language, bereft of its territory and of its predominant constituency, would not remain a mainstream Jewish American language. As Edward S. Shapiro explains, Jews born and raised in tightly segregated Jewish communities in central and eastern Europe […] spoke and read Yiddish […]. This was not true, however, of their children and grandchildren, who had been shaped by the American culture […] The American-born did not speak Yiddish, […] and had only a passing acquaintance with Hebrew and Yiddish writers and thinkers. […] Often there was little, culturally, to distinguish them from non-Jews.9

Despite the efforts of organizations such as the Congress for Jewish Culture and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,10 the condition of Yiddish culture in New York and the rest of the country became increasingly perilous. Few of the children and grandchildren of the immigrant Jews from eastern Europe spoke or read Yiddish regularly. […] The Yiddish-speaking population in America was elderly, and every year fewer people patronized Yiddish institutions and publications.11

6ibid. 7M. Starkman (1947), Cultural Activities. p. 175. 8E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 62. 9ibid., p. 195. 10ibid., pp. 65-66. 11ibid., p. 66.

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Yiddish had always been the language of the American Jewish immigrant population, and until the Holocaust the ranks of these firstgeneration Americans had been replenished by an intermittent stream of newcomers from Europe. Yet except for the approximately 160,000 Jewish refugees who arrived in America soon after the Holocaust, the large waves of Jewish immigrants to the United States since the Second World War have been almost entirely non-Yiddish-speaking.12 Anti-semitism, or the fear thereof, had also, before 1945, kept many Jews within the boundaries of Jewish neighbourhoods and thus, often, the Yiddish-speaking community.13 However, as American socio-cultural life became more open to Jews, particularly after the Holocaust, the younger generations became increasingly assimilated into the non-Jewish mainstream. Shapiro writes that even before the Second World War, many had found ‘little in their homes or schooling to convince them that Jewish culture was worth preserving in America.’14 ‘They had been raised as Americans and had no desire to remain within isolated Jewish ethnic and religious enclaves.’15 As these children of Yiddish-speaking immigrants left their parents’ Jewish neighbourhoods, they also abandoned what little Yiddish they knew. Unfortunately for Yiddish, the second generation identified it ‘with the impoverished and foreign world of the immigrant generation from which they had fled’16 and so perceived it as not being suitable for their roles in the larger American society. Only the ultraOrthodox, isolated from the secular world, maintained the use of Yiddish;17 they, however, had no interest in maintaining a secular Yiddish literary and artistic culture.

12ibid., pp. 125-127. 13ibid., pp. 28-59. 14ibid., p. 197. 15ibid., p. 195. 16ibid., p. 66. 17ibid., p. 67.

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Thus, if Yiddish culture, and in particular Yiddish literature, was to survive in America, the country with the most Yiddish speakers, two related things had to be accomplished. First, the status of the Yiddish language had to be raised, changing the perception of it from that of the vernacular of the immigrant ghetto to that of a modern world language, a language of culture, endowed with its own literature as are French, German and Italian. Second, Yiddish needed a mechanism of transmission beyond the ghetto and the Yeshiva, an enclave where it could be studied and its culture absorbed despite its lack of practical application in the broader American society. One way to attain both of these goals was the development of Yiddish as an accepted subject for academic study in American universities. Yiddish would be read and spoken by adults; its literature, in the original or in translation, would be read by those who would have chosen to study it because it was valued for its own sake, assigning I. L. Peretz relevance and worth as we do Geoffrey Chaucer and Aristophanes. Fortunately for Yiddish, the onset of its post-war decline as a spoken language coincided with the growth of Jewish studies in American universities. Before the Second World War there had been almost no Jewish presence in the university curriculum. Max Weinreich, one of this century’s leading Yiddish scholars, was given a post at City College not in Jewish studies but in the department of Germanic and Slavic languages, and he remained there officially as a Professor of German.18 There were only two Chairs in Jewish studies, at Harvard and at Columbia, and when the latter had been endowed in 1929 as a chair in Jewish history the other professors of history ‘made it quite clear that they were unconvinced that Jewish history was a fit topic for study at an institution with Columbia’s cachet’.19 In the mid1940s there were twelve full-time academics in this area; twenty years later

18S. Liptzin and S. S. Prawer (1996), Maks Vaynraych in Amerike: Tsvey Memuarn. pp. 26-28. 19E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 77.

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there were sixty-five, teaching mostly ‘in the traditional fields of Semitics, rabbinics, Hebrew, and Bible’ and only occasionally in the areas of ‘Jewish history, literature and Yiddish’.20 Despite this slow start, the decades that followed were periods of explosive growth, as ‘beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s and 1980, Jewish studies became part of the curriculum of hundreds of secular and religious colleges’21 and ‘the classical areas of rabbinics, Semitics, Hebrew and Bible were now supplemented by courses in philosophy, theology, history, sociology, the Holocaust, Yiddish, Hebrew, the Middle East, and literature.’22 Many overlapping factors in the Jewish and non-Jewish communities contributed to this growth, including the economic success of the post-immigrant generations of Jews, the increase in Jewish students applying to the major American universities, the reduction of discriminatory quotas after the Second World War, and the increasing interest among nonJews in what was often considered by them to be the third major American religion. Shapiro calls the resultant ‘breakdown in the isolation of Jewish studies from the other humanities […] one of the most remarkable occurrences in the history of post-Second World War American Jewry and the American University.’23 One of the side-effects of this flourishing of Jewish studies was the need to define precisely which courses would be taught under its auspices and to specify the contents of those courses. The early academics began, to quote Jacob Neusner, ‘“without a long tradition in our several universities, without a viable model for our courses or for our place in the curriculum” […].’24 When, despite ‘the university’s disdain for the study of Jewish culture,’25 20ibid., pp. 78-79. 21ibid., p. 76. 22ibid., p. 81. 23ibid., p. 76. 24From J. Neusner (1985), The Public Side of Learning: The Political Consequences of Scholarship in the

Context of Judaism. p. 41, as cited in E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 77. 25E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 78.

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Jewish studies became widespread, there was, to quote Marvin Fox, ‘“no one to control the quality and soundness of curricula and instruction.”’26 Individual professors, and, later, new departments, had to design instant courses, endeavouring to make them coherent and relevant. They had to capture the interest of students often heretofore unexposed to Jewish culture and teach them about its different aspects, but they also had to remain on guard against nay-sayers within the university. They knew that ‘most academicians assumed that Jewish culture was unworthy of serious academic study. To them, the term Jewish studies was oxymoronic. They identified Jewish culture with the economic and social impoverishment and superstition of the ghetto.’27 The early academics, then, the founders of departments and creators of programs, had to establish an academic syllabus that would stimulate and encourage their students and put to rest the accusations of their detractors. It will be shown here that the portion of this syllabus encompassing Yiddish literature, namely the material assigned, read and studied in university-level Yiddish literature classes, forms the basis of the modern Yiddish canon. This assertion is rooted in the well-established function of the academic syllabus as a foundation of the Western canon in general and the English-language canon in particular. Indeed, this notion is so well established that, in the introduction to their Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction, Ann Jefferson and David Robey suggest that literary theory is useful because it can create intellectual definitions of literature and assign literary value to texts, tasks which cannot be fulfilled by the ‘established canon of works officially certified as meriting academic attention’ because ‘such a canon is merely the product of custom and institutional pressure’.28 This casual reference to the literary canon as a product of institutions, namely 26From M. Fox (1986), Some Reflections on Jewish Studies in American Universities. p. 143, as cited in E.

S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 83. 27E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 78. 28A. Jefferson and D. Robey (1986), Introduction. p. 10.

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the school and the university, demonstrates the widespread acceptance of this paradigm. That does not, however, imply its triviality, for the rootedness of the canon in the academy has far-reaching implications both for its contents as a whole and for the survival of the individual works which are or are not included in it. This phenomenon has been clearly documented in the case of the growth of the English canon,29 but it is similarly structured across Western cultures, with details differing according to historical circumstance. Thus, before specifically explaining the canon’s development in English culture, John Guillory begins his article with another canon, from another age: the classical Greek canon as it existed in the Hellenistic era. He writes that the scholars of Greece and Rome had the dual ‘institutional project of disseminating not only literacy, but grammatical speech’ which was ‘undertaken in the classroom by means of a syllabus of literary works’. The works they chose for these tasks became canonical, ‘the classics’, because they represented an ideal of linguistic perfection to which their readers, students in the school, could aspire. This grammatical usage, which marked its producer as educated and thus as socially elevated, differed from the vernacular, which was viewed within the school ‘as a degeneration from that original standard of purity and correctness’ as found in the canonical texts.30 ‘Remarkably,’ Guillory writes, ‘the social function of the literary curriculum within the institution of the school continues to operate in much the same way two thousand years later.’ That is, the educational system still uses canonical texts both as mediators of literacy and as mediators of literary taste. This was particularly noticeable in the eighteenth century, which saw the entry of the middle class into the schools and the growing interest in the existence of a standard, educated, socially acceptable English dialect. In that 29This argument mainly follows the analysis as presented in J. Guillory (1990), Canon. and J. Guillory

(1993), Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. . 30J. Guillory (1990), Canon. p. 241.

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context, carefully selected anthologies of ‘literary texts were offered as paradigms for the speaking and writing of grammatical English.’31 Today, however, the dissemination of literacy and of the methods of literary interpretation and rhetoric is ‘divided between the lower and the higher levels of the educational system’. Reading and writing are taught in the school, while literature is taught in the university. Primary school students and many secondary school students learn basic language skills and Standard English from books written or chosen specifically to teach literacy, not for their literary interest. Later, when those who remain within the educational system come to study the major canonical works at the secondary or university levels of t h e system, they are then able to acquire a sophistication about language presumably greater than the simple literacy or Standard English of the lower levels. They learn a literary style of speaking or writing, which is more than merely correct, more than merely an accurate reproduction of such prose paradigms as are still used in ‘composition’ courses. This more sophisticated linguistic capacity is signaled in many ways […] which subtly broadcast the level of educational acquisition32

and thus of social standing. The two functions of literature have been divided, but the canon, as outlined by the university syllabus, still defines English literary culture. The history of the Yiddish canon follows a similar course. Until the Second World War, Yiddish was the primary language of instruction in Yiddishist secular schools that had existed in both Europe and America since the end of the nineteenth century.33 While the texts read in these schools are of interest, the primary result of their use would have been literacy production and historical study, not literary rhetoric and interpretation. Since, for the most part, neither secular universities nor Orthodox Jewish yeshivas accredited the academic study of Yiddish, other institutions contributed to the

31ibid. 32ibid., p. 242. 33For more information on education in Yiddish, including a discussion of the changes in and decline of

the Yiddish secular school in America, see J. A. Fishman (1981), The Sociology of Yiddish: A Foreword. pp. 40-48. For a discussion of Jewish education in pre-war Europe, see L. S. Dawidowicz (1967), The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. pp. 28-42, 82-85.

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spread of literature beyond the literacy stage, making possible the spread of various degrees of literary awareness and interest among the population. For example, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, formerly the Yiddish Scientific Institute, founded in the 1920s in Vilna and currently in New York, houses many thousands of texts about Yiddish and European Jewry, and has published a large number of books and periodicals in and about Yiddish.34 It should be noted that YIVO resembles a university research centre in organization, is committed to teaching and researching Yiddish language and literature, and is increasingly becoming intellectually indistinguishable from Jewish studies academia in the secular university. The Yiddish press, especially in the United States, was perhaps even more vital than the Yiddishist secular school system and its allied educational organizations for the spread of Yiddish literature to the masses. Benjamin Harshav, in his historical and linguistic analysis of Yiddish, The Meaning of Yiddish writes, that, starting in 1881, Yiddish literature in America was based to a large extent in the daily and periodical press, which included literally hundreds of publications […] The Yiddish press felt that promoting culture and knowledge was one of its chief responsibilities. It became a major vehicle for Yiddish literature and criticism, published the works of the best authors, and eventually gave many writers who were willing to practice journalism a livelihood and a forum in which to express their opinions on culture, politics, society, Jewish history, and world events.35

In a sense the press functioned similarly to an open, egalitarian university, providing a continuing literary and cultural education to the Yiddish-speaking masses, including both transplanted European intellectuals and the workingclass, the not formally educated garment workers of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Although a few such Yiddish newspapers and journals continued to be published in the second half of this century, and these still printed original literary works by writers of the calibre of I. B. Singer and Chaim Grade, the first signs of the decline of the Yiddish press can be traced back to 34E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 65. 35B. Harshav (1990), The Meaning of Yiddish. p. 165.

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‘as early as the 1920s, as eastern European Jews began moving out of the areas of immigrant settlement’.36 It mirrored the waning of Yiddish as a mainstream language. Yiddish, as a primarily vernacular, non-academic language, had a vernacular canon; its syllabus, while influenced by elementary school Yiddish texts, was made up primarily of the short stories, poems, and serials which were published in the press, the academy of the masses, as well as the books, plays, and films discussed and reviewed therein. Only after the Second World War, when the university became the last stand for Yiddish in America, did the developing academy with its choice of texts finally take over from the school and the press as the arbiter of the Yiddish canon. This canon fulfilled both roles normally assigned to canons in western cultures: the teaching of literacy and the instilling of literary language and culture. Its role in the teaching of literacy may be said to have increased, paralleling the role of the English canon in the teaching of English in the eighteenth century; students learning a language as adults are less likely to be content for long with simplistic primers and will have much greater motivation and capacity to work through literary texts, even in a second language, than most children first learning to read and write. The canon’s second role is no less vital here, for with the lack of a Yiddish mass culture, the only contact the reader is likely to have with Yiddish literary norms and the culture from which they derive is through the syllabus. Where else would they find Yiddish works except in the academy? In fact, the Yiddish canon may be more strongly entrenched than many others. In that sense it can be compared to the classical canons of Latin and Ancient Greek texts, in that for all three contact with their texts outside the academy is unlikely. Such works do not, indeed cannot, exist for students unless they are taught about them. Admittedly this situation is not absolute 36E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. pp. 65-66.

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with respect to Yiddish; small pockets of non-academic culture can be found with the right instructions on where to look, but for most students guidance to the non-canonical needs to be supplied by the academy as well. In her essay ‘Repossessing the Past: The Case for an Open Literary History’, Marilyn Butler argues against the continued use of the current depleted canon of Victorian literature ‘as the basis either for teaching university students or for pursuing literary research.’ She explains that it needs to be re-examined, since ‘some originally pragmatic choices acquired fixity because, by the mid twentieth century, if you are a dead author and not in the canon you are probably not in print’.37 Unfortunately for Yiddish literature, almost all of its writers are dead, accessible non-canonical texts are becoming increasingly scarce, and its canon is becoming increasingly immutable. Yeyde-Hesh Grossman, commenting in Oksforder Yidish I on the existence and restrictions of this increasingly invariant canon in Yiddish literature, remarks angrily that most Yiddish literary historians divide Yiddish literature into categories and then ignore those writers that do not fit into them.38 ‘One notices the tendency,’ he writes, ‘that where there is a category there is also a treatment of writers who fit into it, and the opposite: when there is no category there is also no description’39 of the writers in question. Without a theoretical framework signalling their existence, writers who are not included in the major anthologies, who are neither reprinted nor available in translation, remain unknown to later readers. Their existence is not denied but simply ignored, not maliciously or with the intent of falsifying the past, but because they fall outside the scope and categorizations of theory, outside the outlines of the syllabus and thus of the canon. Within the realm of Yiddish literature, this problem of scope is compounded by the issue of translation. While the twin ideals of Yiddish37M. Butler (1990), Repossessing the Past: The Case for an Open Literary History. p. 15. 38Y.-H. Grossman (1990), Farvos ignorirn di literatur-historiker A. N. Shtentslen? p. 92. 39ibid., p. 94.

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language literacy and of the spread of literary norms in the original language remain current, it is undeniable that many more readers are able to encounter Yiddish cultural production and its literary models in their own primary language (generally English). Fishman noted in 1981 that the growth of the study of the Yiddish language at the university had, at that time, ‘attracted only two thousand or so students at any one time over the entire world’. Despite the continued rapid expansion of Jewish and Yiddish studies since that period, it must also be recognized that the likelihood that Yiddish can be functionally mastered via college courses, even among those who do enroll, is apparently negligible (i.e. not appreciably more so, nor more permanently so, than it is with respect to achieving mastery of X language v i a college courses).40

One would, in fact, expect Yiddish to be a particularly challenging language to master as an adult, since it is difficult for the student to be immersed in a Yiddish-speaking environment for any meaningful length of time. It is thus not surprising that ‘most Yiddish courses offered in America are actually courses in Yiddish literature in translation’.41 In terms of Guillory’s dual canonical function, it could be suggested that while the Yiddish canon is becoming more important to the small-scale provision of linguistic literacy for those few who still wish to attain it, the function of the syllabus as a provider of linguistic literacy is diminishing as against its role as a provider of literary and cultural literacy, a role which is increasingly being fulfilled by Yiddish literature in translation. Clearly, just as, without becoming written texts, ‘oral works cannot otherwise enter the institutional field’, documents in languages unintelligible to many or most readers must be translated into an accessible, transmissible form in order to be usable within the academy. Yiddish literature in translation, most commonly in English, is certainly preferable to the

40J. A. Fishman (1981), The Sociology of Yiddish: A Foreword. p. 55. 41L. Prager (1981), Yiddish in the University. p. 542.

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abandonment of Yiddish literature in its entirety. Yet, as Guillory notes, although by suppressing the context of a cultural work’s production and consumption, the school produces the illusion that “our” culture (or the culture of the “other”) is transmitted simply by contact with the works themselves […] a text tradition is not sufficient in itself either to constitute or to transmit a culture.42

Ignorance of the circumstances of culture which surround a body of texts can easily lead to a misreading not only of individual texts but, perhaps more crucially, of the nature and contents of the body as a whole. Since it is no longer viable to study Yiddish literature within its living cultural context, efforts are being made in the lecture halls and seminar rooms to ensure that ‘lack of Judaic knowledge is […] compensated by critical sophistication’.43 However, a reader unfamiliar with Eastern European Jewish history and sociology could easily be led to believe, by the selection of texts provided, that, for example, all Yiddish writing in Tsarist Russia reflected only democratic or only communist philosophy, or that Yiddish writers in interwar Poland were all Zionists or all Bundists. By acts of omission, the culturally ignorant reader could be left with the erroneous impression that nothing in Yiddish of literary value was produced in Romania. The lack of intimate knowledge of the conditions experienced by the cultural group leaves the same reader no choice but to accept as important texts, or indeed as the only texts, those which are presented to the reader, unwittingly or not, as standard, important, or representative works. This exposure of texts to readers becomes even more definitive when the only texts that can be approached by most readers are those in translation, and so the power and hence the responsibilities of the translators and anthologizers become correspondingly greater. Just as a mistranslation or short omission can alter

42J. Guillory (1993), Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. p. 43. 43L. Prager (1981), Yiddish in the University. p. 542.

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the meaning of an entire work,44 especially if they occur in the only available version of it, inclusions, contextualizations, and omissions within the literary syllabus in translation can change the overall perception of Yiddish culture. The genre that has been most widely published in English translation is the short story. The standard introductory text is Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg’s A Treasury of Yiddish Stories,45 originally published in 1954 and somewhat updated and altered in 1990. Prager notes that this volume, along with other anthologies by the same authors,46 has ‘raised the level of translation immensely, without however substantially altering the fact that Yiddish literature in English has still a long way to go to achieve the highest standards.’47 Nonetheless, for many of its readers, this work is the definitive introduction to general Yiddish prose. As Irena Klepfisz writes in her recent Introduction to Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers,48 ‘in 1954 Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg defined and popularized […] “worldly” or secular Yiddish culture for English readers through their extensive introduction and selections in A Treasury of Yiddish Stories.’49 The range of Yiddish poetry available in English translation is similarly circumscribed. The current poetry equivalent of A Treasury of Yiddish Stories is Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse and Khone Shmeruk’s bilingual The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, first published in 1987 and reprinted in 1988.50 Ruth Whitman’s earlier An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Poetry51 has similarly been widely used at the university level.52 44See for example a key section of Lamed Shapiro’s ‘The Cross’ in D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of

Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe. p. 200 and in L. Shapiro (1971), The Jewish Government and Other Stories. p. 127. 45I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1990), A Treasury of Yiddish Stories. 46See for example I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1975), Voices from the Yiddish. 47L. Prager (1981), Yiddish in the University. p. 542. 48F. Forman, E. Raicus, S. Silberstein Swartz and M. Wolfe (1994), Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. 49I. Klepfisz (1994), Queens of Contradiction: A Feminist Introduction to Yiddish Women Writers. p. 22. 50I. Howe, R. R. Wisse and K. Shmeruk (1988), The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse. There is also another, earlier poetry anthology edited by Howe, in this case edited and selected with Greenberg: I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1969), A Treasury of Yiddish Poetry. 51R. Whitman (1979), An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Poetry. 52R. Whitman (1979), Preface to the Second Edition. p. xv.

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Howe and Greenberg make it clear in their Introduction that they consider the texts in their anthology ‘far from being an exhaustive selection of Yiddish prose’. They write that their ‘primary interest has not been to introduce individual authors; it has been to present a rounded sampling of Yiddish prose fiction.’53 Nonetheless, this attempt to encompass a broad scope, coupled with the scarcity of competing anthologies in English, turned Howe and Greenberg into instant, perhaps unwilling arbiters of the Yiddish prose canon. Similarly, neither poetry collection claims to be definitive: Howe, Wisse and Shmeruk cite reasons of space and of difficulties in the process of translation for omitting many of the poets who ‘have done work good enough to merit translation’54 and thus inclusion in their volume, while Whitman explains that the poems in her anthology ‘were chosen primarily because they especially fitted [her] hand and [her] taste as a poet’.55 Yet these anthologies were nevertheless assigned roles which they were inherently not capable of fulfilling and which they could nevertheless not avoid.56 Isaac Bashevis Singer’s comment in his introductory note to the second edition of Whitman’s book, that ‘no anthology can exhaust what Yiddish poets have been creating during hundreds of years’,57 is equally true of Yiddish prose fiction.

53I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1990), Introduction. p. 2. 54I. Howe, R. R. Wisse and K. Shmeruk (1988), Introduction. p. 47. During a more extensive discussion of

the choice of poets for this bilingual anthology, Wisse writes that ‘the transmission of Yiddish culture depended increasingly on interpresters like us, who exerted far more than the usual influence on what would live and what would languish in obscurity.’ She also concludes that ‘the precipitous decline of Yiddish within a generation makes translation a key to the culture that was created in the language.’ Yet she adds contradictorily that ‘editors and translators do not at all determine what shall live and what shall die, merely what touches us today.’ This last statement, while true under normal cultural circumstances, is clearly not viable with reference to Yiddish; with the aforementioned decline of Yiddish, the only Yiddish poetry available to touch future generations will almost certainly be that which has been translated and anthologized. (R. R. Wisse (1989), What Shall Live and What Shall Die: The Makings of a Yiddish Anthology. pp. 3, 29.) 55R. Whitman (1979), Translator’s Preface. p. xvii. 56At this stage in Yiddish academic development, any anthology that appears in English, of whatever quality, can quickly become a standard text. When the anthologies are sub-standard, this seriously affects the development of the canon. At this juncture, therefore, when Yiddish is highly vulnerable to the ideas of individuals, it can also be severely affected by sub-standard scholarship, which is a current problem in the field. This issue should not be confused with the canonical problems which are the result of individual choices, ideologically motivated or not, made by respected scholars with sound academic backgrounds. 57I. B. Singer (1979), A Note to the Second Edition. p. xvi

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Yet, in the absence of any other guidance, these books have become the basis of the Yiddish literature syllabus and thus of the Yiddish canon. The authors whom students go on to read more deeply are too often culled from their tables of contents, which become accredited lists of worthwhile writers. Even originally non-canonical works can be absorbed in this manner; this result is no more avoidable for often being unintentional, or indeed clearly unwanted. Sincerely as the editors of Found Treasures claim that it is their ‘wish that this book not be viewed as the definitive text on Yiddish women writers’,58 that same book is currently the first and only text on Yiddish women writers, and so will assuredly become as canonical as the older anthologies whose limited scope it bemoans.59 The editors’ worry, which in large part motivated this particular anthology, was about the complete loss of ‘the world of our mothers, our grandmothers, our great grandmothers’;60 this has been changed by the appearance of the book itself. The fear is now that those specific writers whom they have purposely or serendipitously included in their book will become the Yiddish female canon, and all others will be forgotten,61 for while the editors insist that Found Treasures is a ‘first book’,62 it may well not be joined by any other such texts. As a result of this particular anthology, one of the categories Grossman spoke of now exists for women, and so there may well be recognition of the status of women as Yiddish writers. However, as asserted by the editors of Found Treasures, ‘without translation there is no window […] their lives remain invisible, at best vague visions, sometimes footnotes, unmemorable and unremembered.’63 Due to demographic trends and the problems of 58F. Forman, E. Raicus, S. Silberstein Swartz and M. Wolfe (1994), Preface. p. 18 59I. Klepfisz (1994), Queens of Contradiction: A Feminist Introduction to Yiddish Women Writers. pp.

21-22. 60F. Forman, E. Raicus, S. Silberstein Swartz and M. Wolfe (1994), Preface. p. 17 61This is not to say that a sufficient number of anthologies representing a wide range of authors and genres could not create an appropriate and representative canon, but a single anthology cannot accomplish this task. A critical mass of works in the field is required for an appropriate range of texts to be published (and in this case translated) such that anthologists are relieved of the fear that the works which they exclude will be ignored permanently. 62F. Forman, E. Raicus, S. Silberstein Swartz and M. Wolfe (1994), Preface. p. 18. 63ibid., p. 17.

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second-language education, only those who are translated in this anthology are likely to have a voice in mainstream Jewish studies, in the university. Similarly, with other marginal groups the danger remains that preliminary representatives of a type of writer or a genre of writing, chosen from easily available texts or as personal favourites, will become perhaps unwarranted but immutable choices as the only accessible texts, whether through translation or re-publication. This is true not only for sub-groups within Yiddish literature, but increasingly for this literature as a whole. The individual choices made by translators and anthologizers mirror the decisions which had to be made by the actual inventors of the Yiddish academic syllabus: the teachers. The importance of teachers, particularly university professors, in the validation of works as canonical can be seen, for example, in the canonization of the English metaphysical poets by the New Critics in the middle of this century. Guillory explains that, while many later poets, such as the romantics and the modernists, had appreciated the metaphysical poets, they had become non-canonical in the eighteenth century due to the difficulty of their content and their incorrect grammatical and syntactical usage.64 However, it was only once the ‘judgments of the larger literary culture (the community of readers and writers)’, in this case Grierson and T. S. Eliot, were ‘seconded by the teachers’,65 in this case the New Critics, that metaphysical poets were brought into the canon. This recognition was achieved because the New Critics found a purpose for the metaphysicals; the modern theorists used this poetry to establish their idea of literature as beyond the explanations and constraints of ordinary language.66 The canon can thus be altered according to what academics wish to teach their students, with regard not only to the choice of individual authors but also to specific genres and eras of literary production. Such change can be 64J. Guillory (1990), Canon. pp. 245-246. 65ibid., p. 246. 66ibid., pp. 246-247.

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difficult to achieve in the face of decades or even centuries of accepted practice. The shift in English literature initiated by the New Critics is thought to have been facilitated by ‘the complex forces of democratization transforming the educational institution’,67 and other modifications would doubtless require similarly strong social and institutional pressures. The concerns and motivations of the academics involved are nonetheless crucial for the transformation of canonical norms. Their influence would be much greater if they were not constrained by accepted practice, that is, if the canon in question was being established rather than being merely transformed. As discussed above, the individual academics who established Jewish studies curricula in post-Second World War America, including those in the field of Yiddish, had to create their own reading lists and course outlines. Since, as we have seen, the boundaries of Yiddish literature in America had been primarily set by the Yiddish press, in conjunction with Yiddishist primary and secondary schools, these professors had no academically recognized basis on which to build a syllabus. The teachers could not simply turn to anthologies, because these texts evolved symbiotically with the courses for which they served as central material.68 The nascent anthologies and classes created demand for each other, and then went on to influence further editions and examples of the collections and courses which had originally inspired their existence. Additionally, given the small size of the Yiddish academic/literary community, the anthologies were often the creation of editors, such as Howe, Wisse, and Shmeruk, who are

67ibid., p. 246. 68That is not to say that Yiddish-language anthologies did not exist before this time. It should be

remembered, however, that most students would require several years of study before being able to make use of such texts. This was in fact the case during the first phase of the recent establishment of Yiddish studies at Harvard University. In the first, formative years of classes in Yiddish literature and culture, almost all students were restricted to English-language texts and classes were structured around those works available in English. Despite the number of students taking introductory Yiddish language classes as soon as they were offered, even post-graduate seminars were held in English, and, by necessity, discussed only texts available in English. This situation continued for at least one and a half academic years, during which time the present author took part in two such seminars, which were acknowledged to be unavoidably but severely limited by the texts available in translation.

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important academics, neutralizing the possible dialectic between these two decisive groups of canonical formulators, the teachers and the editors. The great responsibility involved in creating an academic canon was therefore coupled with an amazing level of freedom for the individuals concerned. These teachers did not have to counter, as the New Critics did, established notions of the constitution of canonical works, nor did they have to justify the inclusion in a set academic syllabus of works previously excluded from it. By the same token, the early Yiddish academics also did not need to account for the works which were deliberately or inadvertently excluded from their syllabi and so from the universities, their only currently effective centres of distribution.69 They were not forced to question such decisions by their students, whose contact with Yiddish literature would be mediated almost entirely by the syllabus, and, in the beginning, they were generally alone in their academic field within their departments. One can well conceive that works which fell outside their areas of interest could be ignored; texts which upset their perceptions of Yiddish or interfered with their comfort within the academy could be set aside and forgotten. Such texts included works which upset the paradigm shift which the Yiddish intellectuals were attempting to initiate in both the general and Jewish academic communities. Mocked by the non-Jewish world, Yiddish had become, as Benjamin Harshav explains ‘the externalized object of Jewish selfhatred’.70 Since, as outlined above, Yiddish had been viewed for many years as a low-status language, the effort required to establish legitimate Jewish studies within academia was compounded for teachers in the field of Yiddish by its particular reputation as the language of immigrants, of the poor and of

69Certainly there were obvious candidates for the syllabus whose absence would have been noted by

anyone remotely familiar with Yiddish, particularly the ‘classical’ prose triumvirate of Sholem Aleichem, Mendele Mokher-Sforim, and I.L.Perets. Their use in the schools, their popularity in the press, and their acknowledged importance to the writers who came after them made them easy choices. They also endowed Yiddish literature with the increased respectability that came with having its own classical tradition. Beyond these three, however, exclusion would have been much less noticeable and far easier to justify in the unlikely event that it became necessary to do so. 70B. Harshav (1990), The Meaning of Yiddish. p. 85.

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the uneducated. Yet apart from this larger cultural need to raise the position of Yiddish within the gentile community in order to broaden its support as an area of study, some of its academics also had more personal reasons for wanting to achieve this elevation of status. The impact of these individual motivations were instances of the truism that it is ‘not so easy to resolve the relationship between the scholarly and personal commitments of Judaic scholars, the vast majority of whom were Jews.’71 Shapiro writes of this in relation to the proposed role of teachers of Jewish studies as role models for Jewish students. That idea was part of the drive to create an American Jewish culture ‘sufficiently attractive so that Jews would voluntarily identify with the Jewish community and reject acculturation and assimilation’.72 For most Jewish students, this meant cultural icons and motifs in keeping with their strong ‘drive for middle-class status, education and professionalization’,73 which did not remind them of their immigrant background and historical marginality. This avoidance of history was widespread among academics as well as among their students. To ‘Irving Howe […] and other Jewish men of letters of the 1940s and 1950s [who] were children of immigrants […] immersion in American (and English) literature was a means for them to escape the immigrant milieu of their youth’,74 ‘a world that the intellectuals desperately sought to escape’.75 However, ‘as Norman Podhoretz remarked, the Holocaust had demonstrated “the inescapability of Jewishness”’,76 and many of these intellectuals returned to the Jewish background which they had been unable to discard completely.77 In keeping with their positions as academics, this return was often accompanied by an intellectual interest in fields of 71E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 84. 72ibid., p. 93. 73ibid., p. 128. 74ibid., p. 103. 75ibid., p. 197. 76ibid., p. 197, including citation from N. Podhoretz (1967), Making It. pp. 118-122. 77E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 197.

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Jewish studies related to their secular area of expertise; Howe, for instance, ‘edited several volumes of Yiddish literature’.78 Yet the original rejection of Yiddish and Jewish culture as low status would have left a residual longing for a highbrow expression of that culture, for proof that it was worthy of academic discourse and mainstream interest. It is therefore not at all surprising that these founding intellectuals privileged the expressions of educated high culture, the products of urbane authors such as I. L. Peretz and I. B. Singer who wrote primarily about life in semi- or anti-mythic shtetlekh [villages]. Yet they also recognized the writers who had raised themselves from their own childhood milieu of the immigrant piece-cutters and pressers who wrote for seminal and wide-reaching publications such as the Forward, Tsukunft and the Morgn-Frayhayt and whose lives mirrored those of the academics’ own parents. However, their interest in raising the status of Yiddish from the margins of mainstream academia, and thus increasing their own status in their half-unwanted roles as Jewish and Yiddish intellectuals, would have left them less interested than are academics in other fields of study in literary production along what were conventionally perceived as the margins of their own culture. The domination of the Yiddish syllabus by such individual interests was a predictable result of the situation and time-scale in which it was created. Once Yiddish made its first inroads into the academy, its canon had to be established immediately in order for it to quickly become like all other accepted, proper subjects. There was little opportunity to judge works with detached hindsight. Yet the entire era of modern Yiddish literature belongs to Harold Bloom’s on-going Chaotic Age,79 for which he refuses to present a set syllabus on the grounds that it cannot yet be properly selected. Instead, in his appendix to The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, he provides ‘a

78ibid., p. 198. 79H. Bloom (1995), The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. pp. 558-559.

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canonical prophecy’ which, though deliberately taking into account the opinions of other critics and writers, ‘reflects some accidents of [his] personal taste’.80 He recognizes that this is unavoidable, particularly because the lasting literary and theoretical implications of these works cannot yet be established. If such individual preference is openly used by a well-known literary scholar as a basis for a deliberate choice of texts for a suggested Western canon, it is not surprising that it should have been a factor in the hasty selection of a syllabus for Yiddish literary study. However, Bloom very clearly insists that he is only suggesting the basis for an eventual canon, an insistence which can be granted more credence than that of the Yiddish anthologists because he is writing as one of many competing theorists of the Western canon, at a time when that canon is an active topic for debate and discussion both inside and outside the academy; he is not creating a field but rather joining a vibrant cultural discourse. Due to factors outlined above, Yiddish academics did not have that luxury. They could not prevent the works they chose from becoming the canon without first being evaluated by posterity, and the haste in which their choices were made served to exacerbate and exaggerate their unavoidable reliance on individual opinions and prejudices. Fifty years after the Second World War, Yiddish literature has now found an accepted place in the American university. The haste and insecurity which characterized its creation as an academic subject are no longer important problems. Jewish studies programmes are expanding and, as Arnold J. Band wrote in 1989, they ‘are firmly established and seen as part of the establishment’.81 Yiddish programmes at major universities are growing apace. By 1981, Leonard Prager could speak of ‘the current prestige of Yiddish’. Students, who by that time would have been born in the 1960s, had begun to value Yiddish. They, and the generation that followed, were too 80ibid., p. 548. 81A. J. Band (1989), Jewish Studies: A Generation Later. p. 17, as cited in E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time

for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 85.

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young to be products of the immigrant ghetto, and were ‘without preconceived notions as to the nature and status of Yiddish’.82 The spread of Yiddish studies has encountered other difficulties, including unqualified teachers and incompetent basic scholarship.83 There are insufficient texts and other bibliographic resources.84 However, basic texts do now exist, courses have been put into place and coherence has been established. Before scholars take up the task of publishing the material needed to constitute the accepted syllabus, before they delve further into the lives and ideas of the canonical authors, they must re-evaluate the very nature of the canon they are studying. Fifty years ago, the canon was created in haste. It should now be thoroughly evaluated to ensure that choices made as temporary expedients do not become so fully enshrined as to become unquestionable. This reassessment cannot wait another fifty years, for by then the importance of accepted texts will have been enhanced by the academic system; the centre will have been strengthened at the expense of the margins. Those texts currently not studied may have disappeared from the academic world which, in the context of Yiddish, means that they will have vanished completely. Theorists argue that since the syllabus is an academic construct, works which are non-canonical are still legitimate cultural works, and should not be devalued as such for their status within the confines of the academy. In a discussion of the American core curriculum debate, Guillory points out that since non-canonical works are in every case either historical works (the objects of research or revaluation) or modern works (the objects of legitimation for the first time as cultural capital), they are in fact what all canonical works once were.85

Through their contention that, although the canon is rooted in the syllabus, the use of a work within the academy is not ‘a very satisfactory basis for

82L. Prager (1981), Yiddish in the University. p. 532. 83ibid., p. 544-545. 84ibid., p. 541. 85J. Guillory (1993), Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. p. 51.

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intellectual choice’,86 Jefferson and Robey, like Guillory, clearly imply that there are legitimate works of literature which are not in the canon. The exclusion of a work from the syllabus at any given time is not particularly significant, because, as Guillory explains, that list exists to provide an entrée into culture in general, and so the ‘assumption — that works not on the syllabus will never be read — is an entirely disreputable assumption for teachers to make’.87 Yet, as I have argued above, this same assumption is, for a number of sociological and pragmatic reasons, wholly realistic within the sphere of Yiddish literature, reinforcing the importance of its syllabus as a list of works which are read. Bloom argues, slightly differently, that the canon should be and is based on individual aesthetic choice. He believes that the canon, once we view it as the relation of an individual reader and writer to what has been preserved out of what has been written, and forget the canon as a list of books for required study, will be seen as identical with the literary Art of Memory.88

Yet if the individual reader can only be found within the academy, the individual aesthetic canon can be no more than a subset of that ‘list of books for required study’.89 The individual writer is even more problematic. If, as Bloom claims, that which we properly call canonical is delimited by aesthetic value, and defined as those texts which influence succeeding generations of writers,90 then the creation of a canon requires an ongoing, fertile literary tradition. Bloom writes: ‘The deepest truth about secular canon-formation is that it is performed by neither critics nor academies, let alone politicians. Writers, artists, composers themselves determine canons, by bridging between strong precursors and strong successors.’ While this statement devalues the important role of the academy in the establishment of the canon,

86A. Jefferson and D. Robey (1986), Introduction. p. 10. 87J. Guillory (1993), Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. p. 51. 88H. Bloom (1995), The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. p. 17. 89ibid. 90ibid., pp. 1 & 7-8.

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it correctly emphasizes the significance of influence on later writers as a criterion for canonicity. Such an evaluation can be performed only after sufficient time has elapsed to judge literary authority, which Bloom suggests is ‘about two generations after a writer dies’.91 In the absence of a vital cohort of writers to be influenced, as is increasingly the case within Yiddish literature, these evaluations are not possible. Texts must then be selected by critics and scholars, and can easily be chosen based on criteria other than aesthetic influence. Such decisions cannot be questioned by later secular Yiddish writers, for, pragmatically, they will no longer exist. Perhaps in a living culture, with a mass culture to maintain and enrich the non-canonical, and with a sufficient projected continued existence to allow works to be slowly judged by a host of future readers and writers who can spend their lives exploring the limits and margins of this culture, it would not be necessary to have what appears at first to be a contradiction in terms: an academically defined non-canonical. However, such an artificial creation is increasingly necessary in the university-maintained world of Yiddish literature. This list of that which is not on the syllabus, unlike such recent creations as the feminist or minority canons, is not necessarily meant to replace or even to join the current canon. Rather, it must contain those works which, for reasons of aesthetics, sociology, or chance, have not been included in modern Yiddish studies curricula. This would not immediately require a reevaluation of the Yiddish canon, which is necessary but difficult to achieve.92 It would, however, preserve the diversity of material required for such revisions to occur, allowing the syllabus and thus the canon to be changed as society and the academy warrant. This body of the non-canonical would also

91ibid., p. 522. 92Such a re-evaluation and/or an acknowledgement of the importance of the preservation of non-

canonical texts within the academy may now be possible. Many current Yiddish academics are too young to have participated in the original creation of the Yiddish canon and may thus be willing to question the decisions of their predecessors. Such questioning would be encouraged by the current atmosphere of cultural recovery which is prevalent on many North American college campuses, as exemplified by the creation of minority studies departments teaching allegedly lost subject areas such as women’s literature, Afro-Caribbean and African-American literature, and Latin American and Chicano literature.

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contain more marginal works, such as texts of questionable merit for the propagation of literacy and literary culture whose relevance is primarily historical or theoretical. In an on-going culture, these would generally be left to the archives, but in the dwindling world of Yiddish that would cause them to be entirely forgotten, as has already occurred with many such works. Such an ingathering of texts has already begun on a physical level, a useful precondition to theoretical discussion, at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, which collects all Yiddish books, periodicals, sheet music, and other publications, regardless of genre or level of literary achievement. One would hope that future educational programming made possible by this repository will focus, at least in part, on the large percentage of these works which are not generally studied or distributed. Accredited academic institutions, which already make use of the National Yiddish Book Center’s resources when purchasing Yiddish books, should commit themselves to an exploration of the thousands of unfamiliar texts which currently remain unremarked items in a catalogue and dusty volumes on warehouse shelves. Whether through these texts or by other means, it is necessary to bring to light some of this ignored, neglected material before it is lost forever. As Grossman has made clear, once the existence of the categories to which they belong is also forgotten, these texts will, for all practical purposes, no longer exist. The necessity of translating at least a group of representative texts in order to create such categories for the many interested students and academics who read Yiddish literature primarily or wholly in translation can also not be overestimated. Yet even if they are preserved, they will have already lost portions of their cultural context which disappeared along with the primarily Yiddish-speaking communities of Eastern Europe. As the last Jews (apart from the ultraOrthodox, who reject secular literature and culture) to have been brought up in these communities die over the course of the next decades, many more p. 26

aspects of these materials will become irretrievable unless they are documented. This disappearance of the last native Yiddish speakers, the last who might remember texts that the younger generation would not even know to look for, adds urgency to the creation of a second syllabus, of the exposition of the non-canonical. The many categories of texts which would have to be revived for such a syllabus include, as would be expected, many marginal components of Yiddish culture. One of these groupings, now almost entirely forgotten, can be labeled DP literature: the literary and cultural products of the Jewish displaced persons in post-Holocaust Europe. During the few years before the last DPs left for the Americas, Oceania, and especially Israel, this small group of refugees created works of literature, art, and drama. They published books, edited journals, composed music, and organized conferences on the state of their culture. Yet these works which they produced, often at great personal sacrifice93 and with the hope that they would faintly illuminate the Jewish experience during and after the Holocaust,94 have been ignored. It is, of course, possible that none of these works (in this context specifically the written texts), having been examined, will prove to be of lasting literary merit. Such an examination has not yet been performed, as the texts have gone almost unnoticed for the half-century since their creation. In any case, the historical circumstances surrounding their creation and the theoretical questions about post-Holocaust literature which they anticipate and to which they clearly respond95 demand that they be studied, both as a group of texts and as individual works, and then classified based on legitimate evaluation, not ignorance or academic and sociological politics.

93Yisroel Kaplan, for example, remembers giving up his food rations to his printers to pay for the printing

of issues of From the Last Extermination, the journal which is discussed in Chapter 5. (Y. Kaplan (3 April 1995), Personal Communication. ) 94As discussed in greater detail in Section 2. 95As discussed in Chapter 2.

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While it is difficult to measure the non-canonical beyond noting that the very existence of DPs after the war is largely unremarked, some concrete assessment can be made of the lack of DP literature in the Yiddish canon. For example, A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, whose importance for defining the canon is discussed above, includes a seventy-one page introductory essay which ‘provides some historical and critical background’96 to the field. Some brief mention is made in this essay of post-war Yiddish literary activity in the Americas, in Israel, in South Africa, and in London and Paris.97 Yet there is no indication, even in the brief references to the ‘Nazi experience’,98 that there was a short period after the Holocaust when Yiddish again lived in Central Europe, fragmented and fragile as that existence was, that Yiddish writers lived and wrote there and attempted to rebuild some small part of their literary past and future. This neglect of DPs in particular and of the Holocaust in general is also evidenced in the authors and stories selected for this anthology. In the biographical section, Isaiah Spiegel is the only writer whose experiences during the Holocaust are mentioned. With other authors, such as Chaim Grade, the editors fail even to mention the nature of their war-time experiences. Grade, for example, is described as writing in Vilna before the war and then as arriving in New York in 1948,99 with no reference to where he might have been in between, either during or after the war. The Howe and Greenberg anthology first appeared eight years after the end of the Holocaust, yet its only reference to Yiddish writing occurring during the Second World War is actually to writers in the Soviet Union whose location meant that they did not fall prey to the Nazis.100 A Treasury of Yiddish Stories 96I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1990), Introduction. p. 2. This introduction was originally written for the

1954 edition (I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1954), A Treasury of Yiddish Stories. ). It has, as noted in the Acknowledgments on p. v of the 1990 edition, been updated since only by the substitution of two paragraphs concerning old Yiddish literature. 97I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1990), Introduction. p. 71. 98ibid., p. 70. 99I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1990), A Treasury of Yiddish Stories. pp. 92-93. 100I. Howe and E. Greenberg (1990), Introduction. p. 67.

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also contains only three stories which even refer to the Holocaust: Spiegel’s ‘A Ghetto Dog,’ Grade’s ‘My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner,’ and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s ‘The Little Shoemakers,’ which is not primarily a tale of the Holocaust but which makes use of it as historical background. There is no mention at any point as to where and when these works were written. There is no indication anywhere that their authors might have had European contemporaries for at least the first few years after Liberation. This early post-war compendium would have been an ideal showcase for this new, postHolocaust writing, even if represented by a single piece of DP writing that would have indicated the existence of the genre. Instead, a reader of the A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, which is so often the first volume encountered by the student of Yiddish literature, is left with the erroneous impression that Yiddish writing disappeared from Central Europe not when the DPs finally left in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but with Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. Howe, Wisse and Shmeruk’s The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse is somewhat more open to confronting the Holocaust. It is stated explicitly in the section that precedes the introduction, entitled ‘How to Use this Book,’ that in this anthology ‘poets linked together in literary or geographical units… now stand independently, in accordance with the dates of birth. The introduction and the biographical notes should alert the reader to the necessary historical associations’.101 Its fifty-page introductory essay does, in line with this organizational system, devote two pages to poetry in reaction to the Holocaust, describing a tension between those arguing for silence and voices ‘along a spectrum ranging from hushed lamentation to strident outcries’.102 Yet of the four post-Holocaust poets mentioned in the introduction, only one, Abraham Sutzkever, actually spent the war years in

101I. Howe, R. R. Wisse and K. Shmeruk (1988), How to Use this Book. p. xxi. 102I. Howe, R. R. Wisse and K. Shmeruk (1988), Introduction. p. 41.

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Nazi-occupied Europe, and he had been spirited away to Moscow in 1943.103 The other three, Aaron Zeitlin, Kadya Molodovsky, and Jacob Glatstein, spent the war years in America.104 In fact, this entire anthology seems to suggest that Sutzkever has been the only Yiddish poet to write about the Holocaust from personal experience. Even concerning the two poets in the anthology who died at the hands of the Nazis, Yisroel Shtern and Yisroel Rabon,105 no indication is given as to whether any of their included poems were written during the war, and the content of the poems seems to indicate that they were not. The introductory sections do not even explicitly mention the production of poetic works in the ghettoes and concentration camps, much less in the DP camps by the survivors. The comments on post-war writing in the introductory essay are confined to the Soviet Union, Israel, and America. That poets, and other writers, wrote copiously during the Holocaust has been well documented elsewhere.106 The absence of literary works by DP in such anthologies similarly does not mean that they do not exist. Yet since almost none of the many writers from within the inferno were deemed worthy of inclusion in these canonical anthologies, and since their existence was generally ignored in the critical introductions by academics who have written and edited extensively in the field of Yiddish literature, it is not surprising that the even more marginalized writings of the DP camps were not even mentioned in these anthologies, and that the role of DP presses and DP journals in publishing war-time and post-war poetry was overlooked entirely. In the particular case, at least, of The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, this omission cannot be one of ignorance. Not only was Khone Shmeruk, one of the editors of the Penguin anthology, in Munich (the headquarters of the DPs in the American Zone of Germany) in the years after

103I. Howe, R. R. Wisse and K. Shmeruk (1988), The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse. p. 669. 104ibid., pp. 537, 319, 425. 105ibid., pp. 335, 553. 106Please see the bibliographies cited in note 1 to Chapter 2.

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the war, but he was also involved with education and publishing while he was there.107 He therefore must have been aware of the literary life that existed during that period, and of the texts which emerged from it. These DP texts were created at the time when Jewish studies were just beginning to enter American universities. As outlined above, there was great pressure on academics to present Jewish studies as a serious subject area, as far removed as possible from the immigrant ghetto. This applied especially to Yiddish, so much maligned as the language of greenhorns and associated with poverty, foreignness, and marginality. All of these characteristics were true of the DPs, survivors of a catastrophe which had chosen them to die for their Jewishness and then let them live, homeless and alone. It was only natural that professors of Jewish studies, creating their field as they taught it, did not deal with the literary and cultural products of this group of Holocaust survivors which, more than any other at that time, exemplified the otherness of Jews. In fact, the Holocaust, from which the DPs had emerged and which had obviously and fundamentally shaped their literary production, was itself a taboo subject for many years after the war.108 It was not actually forgotten, but, as Irving Howe wrote in World of our Fathers, remembering was felt to be ‘best done in silence, alone.’109 This opinion was not limited to the uneducated, but endorsed by Howe himself and, as he implied, by most of American Jewry.110 This was in some part due to a ‘failure of mere language’111 among the masses similar to that with which Howe characterizes 107D.-B. Kerler (20 April 1995), Personal Communication. 108E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 213. 109I. Howe (1976), World of our Fathers. p. 627. 110This was true not only of America but of Israel as well, where the desire to forget and to create a

Jewish life without the shadow of the Holocaust was perhaps even stronger than in America. Tom Segev writes of Israeli society that ‘after the war the yishuv’s condescending attitude to the survivors, a posture born of regret and shame […] gave rise to the great silence that surrounded the Holocaust through the 1950s. These were the years when Israelis refused to speak or even think about the Holocaust, almost to the point of denial.’ (T. Segev (1993), The Seventh Million. p. 513.) While the Yishuv did, as pointed out in Chapter 1, provide cultural and material aid for the DPs, it is debatable as to how much was provided out of a sense of guilt, how much out of political expediency in the quest for the foundation of the State of Israel (including the exigencies of Yishuv party politics), and how much out of actual good will. 111I. Howe (1976), World of our Fathers. p. 626

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much post-war literary effort.112 However, this silence was also partially attributable to a deep discomfort with the ramifications of the Holocaust for comfortable American Jewry, with guilt and fear adding to their feelings of sadness and horror. Howe writes: During the postwar years the life of American Jews was inherently ‘schizoid.’ At home: improvements in social and economic conditions, a growing sense of ease, comfort, security. Abroad: the greatest horror in the history of mankind, t h e destruction of six million Jews for reasons no mind could fathom, no intuition penetrate. How were these two elements of Jewish experience to be reconciled? The only honest answer was that they could not be: it was a division which anyone who retained even the faintest sense of Jewish identity would have to live with as best h e could.113

For many Jews, to live with such a division must mean setting the Holocaust in the past and going on, remembering but not allowing that memory to impinge on daily life. The gathering of ‘historical data concerning the Holocaust, driven by a kind of clenched meticulousness to scrape together every last unbearable fact’,114 was also an act which set the Holocaust into the past tense, sealed off from the present by the barrier between history and current events. Yet the survivors, still uprooted and wandering in Europe, breached this artificial barrier which ended all suffering instantaneously when the camps were liberated by the Allies. Situated at the margins of history, they intruded into the safe space created by American Jews which protected them from what happened then, bringing it into the time span, the post-war period, included as now. Their liminality, their state of being betwixt and between suffering and security, the dangers of the Holocaust and the comforts of postwar life, made them as threatening to American Jewish self-perception as was Yiddish. The two marginalities, of the DPs and of their language, reinforced each other. Yiddish could only remain unaffected by pushing the DPs even 112Cf Chapter 2. While Howe did eventually confront the Holocaust in his writing, his previously

described anxiety about its literature is clearly reflected in the discussion in the current chapter of his role as an editor. 113I. Howe (1976), World of our Fathers. p. 626. 114ibid.

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further towards the edge of acceptable Jewish experience. Forgetting the already known ‘relationship between Jewish creativity and marginality and alienation’,115 the academy kept the DPs both out of the syllabus and outside the generally acknowledged limits of literary production, lost in the emptiness, at the far edges of the non-canonical, from which they must now be recovered.

115E. S. Shapiro (1992), A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II. p. 196.

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Section Two: Literary Journals Published by the Displaced Persons

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Chapter 4 In Gang: Cultural Renewal, History and Zionism The journal In gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature and Art), later known as In gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems) (both hereafter In Gang),1 was published in Rome, Italy, between March 1947 and February 1949. Within the three volumes which appeared during that two-year period there were eight issues, all but the first and last of which comprised two or three numbers, for a total of fifteen issue numbers. These altogether contained 528 pages, with issues varying in length from thirty-two (for the first issue) to one hundred pages. The size of this publication is particularly notable relative to the small population of Displaced Persons in Italy as compared, for example, to the number of DPs in Germany.2 As described in Berl Kahn’s account of the beginnings of In Gang in his article ‘15 numern In Gang’ (‘15 Numbers of In Progress’) in issue fifteen, the founders of the journal had originally felt there to be no appropriate editorial candidates among them. In particular, those writers who were practised journalists were thought to be lacking in literary experience. An outsider, Shoul Reyzin, was thus appointed editor. He, however, left for England halfway through his work on the first issue, and his role was hastily filled for that issue by Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi and Berl Kahn.3 These two men were the only editors acknowledged on issue one. Eliezer Yerushalmi was born in Horoditsh, White Russia in 1903 and received a religious education. He obtained a high school diploma in 1915 and achieved a doctorate in the humanities after university studies in Kharkov, 1E. Yerushalmi, B. Kahn, B. Vind, A. Zaks and L. Bernshteyn (March 1947 - February 1949), In Gang:

khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2C. Yahil (1972), Displaced Persons (DPs). p. 78. 3B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. p. 2.

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Kovno and Koenigsberg. Yerushalmi then taught high-school language and history in Poland and Lithuania. He was a ‘member of the Jewish community of Shavel, of the Central Committee of the Social-Zionist Poalei Zion in Lithuania, [and] a participant in Hekhaluts [Pioneers, a Zionist youth movement] and the ORT [a vocational training organization] in Shavel.’ In 1941 Yerushalmi entered the Shavel ghetto. He organized and taught at the public school there, from 1942-43 served as a member of its Judenrat [the Jewish governing body], and collected testimony from Jewish refugees who arrived there. He escaped to the Partisans in 1944 and thence to service in the Red Army. He taught in Vilna under the Soviet occupation, moved to Lodz in 1945, became briefly involved in the Jewish Historical Commission there, and then left for Italy in an attempt to go to Israel. In Italy he was involved in refugee organizations, and in 1948 he represented the Jewish refugee writers in Italy at the first World Jewish Cultural Congress in New York. In 1949 he moved permanently to Haifa, Israel, where he ran a public high school. After periods of writing in German and in Russian, Yerushalmi began to write in Yiddish and Hebrew in 1927, and has since published ‘pedagogical and literary treatises, political articles, historical works, [and] stories’ in a wide range of journals throughout pre- and post-war Europe and America. He edited important historical material for publication, and also published many books of his own work, primarily Jewish and Holocaust history and his own creative literary writings. Some of these were translated into English, Spanish and German, and a number of them won prizes in Rome and in Israel.4 Berl Kahn5 was born in Telz, Lithuania, in 1911. After a religious Jewish education, he was certified as a teacher by Hebrew seminary in Kovno in 1930 and taught for four years. Kahn held leadership positions in Socialist 4E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. p.

303-304.

5While the title pages to B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher

literatur: Vol. 8. and B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. both list his English name as Berl Kagan, and despite the fact that his name is also sometimes transliterated as Cohen, he is known to have preferred the spelling Kahn, and Yiddish writers and scholars who knew him all refer to him as Berl Kahn. He will thus be consistently referred to as Kahn within this thesis.

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Zionist organizations and attended Zionist Congresses in 1935 and 1939. He started writing articles for the Kovno Socialist-Zionist Party newspaper Di Tsayt (The Time) in 1930, and from 1936-1940 served as an editor of Dos Vort (The Word), Kovno’s Socialist-Zionist daily newspaper. After the end of Soviet occupation of Lithuania, under which he had had to live illegally because of his pre-war political activities, he spent the first part of the Nazi occupation in the Kovno Ghetto, where he was active in underground Zionist movements. In 1943 he escaped to join the Partisans and remained with them until Lithuania was liberated by the Russians in August 1944. Kahn arrived in Italy in 1945, where he edited both Bederekh (On the Way), a Yiddish newspaper, and In Gang, and was active in DP politics. He left Italy for America in 1950. After teaching from 1951-1954, Kahn began working at the YIVO library in New York City, co-editing, among other works, Khurbn Lite (The Destruction of Lithuania) and publishing a book entitled A Yid in Vald (A Jew in the Forest).6 From 1967-1980 Kahn was a librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He contributed many entries to the Biographical Dictionary of Modern Yiddish Literature, for which he was also a co-editor of volume eight, and was editor of the Lexicon of Yiddish Writers, a one-volume update and correction of the eight-volume Biographical Dictionary which was published in 1986. He edited many books, including works by the well known writers Jacob Glatstein and Chaim Grade.7 Dr. Yerushalmi remained an editor of In Gang for the rest of its twoyear history, but Kahn was replaced by Bernard Vind, A. Zaks and Dr. Leon Bernshteyn for the four issues from two-three to eight-nine-ten. Despite the size of the editorial board, Kahn writes that most of the editing work for these issues was actually done by Vind. Both Vind and Zaks left the editorial chair after issue eight-nine-ten, and Yerushalmi and Bernshteyn were joined 6E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. p.

311.

7B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. pp. 308-309.

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by Kahn, in his second stint as editor, for the three final issues. It should be noted that Kahn stayed involved with In Gang during the year he was not one of its editors, as evidenced by his articles printed there during that time. This, coupled with his complimentary comments about Bernard Vind,8 one of the two editors with whom he did not act as co-editor, and the long service of Dr. Yerushalmi, indicates a constancy of purpose and a group unity within the community of writers who gathered around In Gang. This is also reflected in the continuity of themes discussed and positions espoused by the journal, particularly in articles written by its editors. Perhaps the most obvious of these themes, and that which In Gang was, by its nature, able to address most directly, was the implicit and explicit promotion of Jewish cultural life. This motif is present from the first page of issue one, in Yerushalmi and Kahn’s editors’ note entitled ‘Fun der Redaktsye’ (‘From the Editorial Board’).9 The first two-thirds of this piece is an impassioned argument for the importance of perpetuating European Jewish culture. Yerushalmi and Kahn set up the straw man of the skeptic, who declares a literary journal to be a luxury among the small and temporary Jewish community in Italy. They then lash out fiercely at such a negative suggestion. ‘Yes,’ they write scornfully, a literary journal is ‘a luxury, if culture is a luxury. It is however,’ they continue, ‘a luxury not of prosperity, it is a burden, it is a task, it is the fulfilment of an oath of a people.’ Their writing is not only for themselves and for their readers, who are their fellow remnants of European Jewry. It is also the necessary response to the final requests, scratched on ‘the walls of German prisons,’ screaming for vengeance in the voices of the murdered masses. In order to emphasize this point, the editors claim that having stopped thinking about their own existence, in the last terrible minutes of their lives, they, the Jewish martyrs, began to think about the future of the people. 8B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. p. 13. Also see B. Kahn (1948), Nokh undzer kultur-konferents. p.

5.

9E. Yerushalmi and B. Kahn (1947), Fun der redaktsye.

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Questionable as that statement may be, it reflects the editors’ beliefs that the revenge that the victims of the Nazis would thus have wanted was not just personal, for their own deaths and that of their loved ones. They wanted a special vengeance for the destruction of their cultural community and, as the editors write, such ‘vengeance is first and foremost, that not only do we live, but that we create,’ reviving ‘that, which a people creates first — culture.’10 The bitterness and thoroughness of the editors’ attack on their straw man suggest to the critical reader that perhaps the question of the existence of a literary journal had been the subject of real debate before the first issue of In Gang appeared. This suspicion is confirmed in Kahn’s ‘15 Numbers of In Progress’. In this article, written two years after the first issue was published, Kahn cites the original passage in the editors’ note which addressed the rhetorical question of the necessity of a literary journal. Secure in the knowledge that In Gang had justified the editors’ original confidence in it through its continued existence, Kahn is now willing to admit that there were justifiable concerns about such a publication. The question, ‘With whom will we create a literary journal?’ was only less worrying than the problem of who would read it? There ‘were great doubts about its necessity for the concentration-camped and ghetto-ized Jewish refugee.’11 Yet, as Yerushalmi argued in a 1948 speech published in issue thirteenfourteen of In Gang, Jewish culture was the air which we [the refugees] breathed. The Jewish person, even if a refugee, needed a Jewish school, a Jewish newspaper, a Jewish literary or cultural organization.

Culture was, in fact, exactly what the refugees needed for the strength to continue with their lives after the Holocaust. Yerushalmi goes so far as to say that knowledge of Jewish culture was responsible for physical strength and bravery as well as for mental and emotional fortitude. He states that the 10ibid., p. 1. These and all other translations from the text of In Gang are my own. 11B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. p. 1.

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Jewish heroes, who fight now in the Land of Israel for our freedom, like all of t h e Jewish partisan-heroes in the forests and ghettos were able to show their bravery only thanks to their rootedness in Jewish culture and their deep ties to the folktreasures of our people.12

This claim does actually have some basis in fact. A concrete example of bravery inspired by such rootedness is described by David Roskies, who discusses an anthology entitled Payn un gvure in dem yidishn over in likht fun der kegnvart (Suffering and Heroism in the Jewish Past in Light of the Present) ‘put out by the Warsaw branch of the Zionist Youth Movement Dror in JulyAugust 1940.’13 The anthology began with an excerpt from Asch’s Kiddush Hashem, then interspersed the classical sources with Bialik’s “In the City of Slaughter,” translations of Tchernichowsky’s “Baruch of Mainz,” Lamdan’s “Masada,” and the Secret Proclamation of the Odessa Group. The pogrom poems of Halpern, Markish and Leivick were listed in a two-page bibliography — to further steel the resolve of the young.14

Its themes included ‘self-defense… the Zionist revolution… [and] that the Jewish people had been sorely tested before.’ ‘Without this profound historical awareness,’ Roskies concludes, ‘there could not have been a last stand in the ghetto.’15 Unlike the Dror anthology, In Gang was never intended to incite people to fight physically, published as it was after the war’s end, among refugees who dreamed of the Land of Israel and were willing to defend it once they arrived there. Rather, it was intended to both inspire the courage of, and establish the resources for, creativity, a task to which it was eminently suited. In the face of the preceding years of destruction, any act of cultural renewal was a brave charge in the battle for a Jewish future. In this light, Yerushalmi and Kahn label continuing creativity as a victory, albeit seemingly pyrrhic, for the Jewish people, for it is proof ‘that European Jewry would not be erased from the earth.’ They write that 12E. Yerushalmi (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: derefn-rede. pp. 15, 16. 13D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

14. 14ibid., pp. 207-208. 15ibid., pp. 14.

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the Hitlerists did not achieve their goal — we are creative, we create cultural works, even on the road, even during a short stop, even in cabins or in barracks on t h e crossroads.

A humble attempt at a literary journal, even by a small community in transit, forms an integral part of this cultural rebirth, as does every poem and story within it. From this ideal comes a central tenet of the journal’s philosophy. The editors state that ‘every creative Jew, who remained alive, is a great victory for us.’ Thus, they declare, ‘to them we turn and for them and together with them we write.’16 This belief is given further expression in the three chief principles of the founders of In Gang, as enumerated in Kahn’s above-mentioned descriptive essay about the early days of the journal. All three of these goals seem to have been designed to promote the cultural development of

the entire

Jewish community by improving the creative lives of individuals and groups within it. Each was aimed at a different segment of the refugee population in Italy. The first principle, for example, stated that the editors wished to enable the publication of senior writers, those who had trained and written before the war, by providing a forum for articles involving analysis and critical evaluation, genres for which no other publication could find space. The second principle was a resolution to ‘create a platform where new talent could be disclosed and the young would be able to develop.’ The third principle, the most difficult to achieve, was to genuinely try to ‘fill the journal with material from local literary efforts’17 instead of with the works of outside authors. This last principle, referred to in the editor’s note in issue one as ‘autarky’18 or self-sufficiency, was theoretically not only a point of honour, but also a natural corollary to the above-discussed idea that every creative individual among the DP community was a victory for the Jewish people. Certainly the editors would have wished to ‘decorate […] every issue with the 16E. Yerushalmi and B. Kahn (1947), Fun der redaktsye. pp. 1-2. 17B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. p. 3. 18E. Yerushalmi and B. Kahn (1947), Fun der redaktsye. p. 2.

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names of famous Yiddish authors,’ but pages devoted to well-known, international writers would not then be available for the literary works of their ‘own young talents, of whom most had only recently aspired to forge a path to the great Yiddish literary world.’19 The opportunities created by selfsufficiency allowed for heightened individual expression. However, the editors did occasionally give in to the temptation of a recognizable outside author’s name, as evidenced both by the inclusion of foreign writers in the body of the journal and by Kahn’s own conclusion that while to a large extent In Gang fulfilled all three of their goals, it really only excelled in providing the platforms mandated by principles one and two. Consistent with these programmatic editorial policies, the editorial board also recognized the importance of community activities and institutions in advocating the creation and continuation of culture. The most obvious example of this was the 1948 Jewish General Cultural Conference, arranged by the publishers of In Gang, the Union of Jewish Writers, Journalists, and Artists in Italy, in conjunction with the Cultural Section of the Central Committee for Jewish Refugees in Italy. This conference served as a summary of past cultural events and attempted to map out the course of future activities among the DPs for as long as they remained in Italy. However, the conference was only for those who were already heavily involved in cultural activities. There were only fifty-five delegates representing the DP camps around Italy and eighty-two delegates from Rome, representing various cultural institutions, political parties, and administrative organizations, as well as a few individual cultural activists.20 Contributions to the conference by the editors of In Progress showed a strong belief in the importance of the education of the individual for the future of the cultural community. Two-thirds of Dr. Yerushalmi’s speech

19B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. p. 3. 20(1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye. p. 13.

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entitled ‘Undzer kultur-tetikayt’ (‘Our Cultural Activity’),21 which was presented at the 1948 Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy and then printed in In Gang , deals with the rapid progress of the DPs in Italy in establishing and then supplying materials for elementary and high schools, kindergartens, children’s homes and summer camps. In the remaining third of the speech Yerushalmi discusses adult education before concluding with a section about literary publications in Italy. Berl Kahn also devotes a prominent section of his post-Conference article about Jewish cultural life in Italy, ‘Nokh undzer kultur-konferents’ (‘After Our Cultural Conference’)22 to children’s education and another, shorter segment to evening courses and libraries for adults. In the same article he discusses at length the state of Italian Jewish publications, including In Gang. In the minds of the editors, the creation of their literary journal and the education of the masses of refugees were thus inextricably linked by their being joint agents of cultural activity. It was also acknowledged that there were important roles for activities other than formal education and for institutions other than schools and libraries. Kahn notes, for example, that drama clubs had the potential to become important forces in the cultural life of the DP camps.23 Yerushalmi discusses DP camp radio stations, which broadcast news, concerts and speeches for their residents, as well as drama clubs and even sports teams.24 Several other articles from In Gang also deal with this issue, including speeches from the Cultural Conference as printed in issue thirteen-fourteen. Sh. Epshteyn’s ‘Tetikayt fun di yidishe pleytim-kinstlers in Italye’ (‘Activities of the Jewish Refugee Artists in Italy’),25, for example, describes artistic activity from all spheres of the creative community. He mentions a public

21E. Yerushalmi (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: undzer kultur-tetikayt. 22B. Kahn (1948), Nokh undzer kultur-konferents. 23ibid., p. 3. 24E. Yerushalmi (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: undzer kultur-tetikayt. p.

28.

25S. Epshteyn (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: tetikayt fun di yidishe

pleytim-kinstlers in Italye.

p. 9

showing arranged by the visual artists, a large variety of drama clubs and a new theatre, choirs, a theatrical concert group, visiting actors from Israel and America, and even Yiddish movies arranged by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Not surprisingly, the artists he discusses advocated education as well as entertainment, and a committee of them arranged for those refugees whose artistic training had been disrupted by the war to be accepted by Italian art schools and by private teachers. However, their primary purpose was not pedagogy. As early as 1946, their goal was to ‘bring in, through word and song a bit of happiness among the large encampment of Jewish refugees,’26 while in 1948 this had expanded to wanting to ‘raise the cultural level of the local Jewish refugees and to improve their spirit.’27 They fought for culture not with words, not with high-flown ideas, but with the actual creative acts which they sought from their fellow refugees. Similarly, apart from all of the writing in In Gang about the support it provided for various other forms of cultural life, it is the physical existence of this journal, including its literary and journalistic contents, that most clearly show its advocacy for the continuation of Jewish creativity. As we have mentioned above, its publication was a moral victory for the group as ‘a witness to [its] creativity’28; the stories and poems it contains represented individual triumphs. However, it is easy to forget in this context that these fifty-four poems, five stories and two excerpts from a play were, apart from their symbolic meaning, also works of art in their own right, with their own merits, to be woven into the not entirely torn fabric of long-term Jewish culture. The editors evidently did not lose sight of this important point, for they continued to emphasize the literary content of their journal along with its increasingly theoretical works. This is visible both in the journal’s sub-titles, wherein literature is the only descriptive word to appear on every issue, and 26ibid., p. 29. 27ibid., p. 31. 28E. Yerushalmi (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: undzer kultur-tetikayt. p.

29.

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in its tables of contents, which almost always identify poems and stories as such. An even more convincing indication of the seriousness with which the editors regarded the nature and quality of the literary work in their journal was the large amount of space appropriated for a discussion of such writings in the summary of the contents of In Gang in Berl Kahn’s article ‘15 numern In Gang.’ Just over eight pages of this sixteen-page article, which dealt with history and personalities as well as contents analysis, were devoted to a critique of prose and poetry previously printed by In Gang, a figure which does not include the discussion of articles of literary criticism.29 This emphasis clearly indicates a distinct awareness of the importance of these areas to the editors. In their efforts to promote cultural renewal, the editors also did not forget to show the link between the current artistic works in their journal and their pre-war forerunners. In this spirit, In Gang published literary criticism about both pre- and post-war Jewish literature. Pieces about Sholem Aleichem30 and Chaim Nachman Bialik31 mixed with articles about Avraham Sutzkever,32 the shtetl motif in Holocaust literature,33 the Jewish Resistance movement in literature,34 and trends in modern Hebrew writing.35 Taken together, these articles helped place contemporary Jewish literature in the context of cultural tradition. This historical link was partly complemented by a spatial link, as the editors sought to acquaint their leaders with the Italian culture which surrounded them. For example, Bernard Vind’s article in issue eight-nine-ten36 discusses modern Italian literature, which few of his Yiddishspeaking readers would have been able to read in the original. Less related to 29B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. See pp. 5-13 30A. De Liu (1947), Di goles-prototipn ba Sholem Aleykhem. 31L. Losh (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Bialik — der vizyoner fun der

itstiker epokhe.

32L. Bernshteyn (1947), Avraham Sutskever mentsh un dikhter. 33B. Vind (1947), Dos shtetl un undzer khurbn-literatur. 34M. Kaganovitsh (1947), Der yidisher vidershtand in undzer literatur. 35S. Ernst (1948), Shtremungen in der moderner hebreyisher literatur. 36B. Vind (1947), Geshtaltn un shtremungen in der moderner italyenisher literatur.

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the actual written contents of In Gang but perhaps more accessible to its readers was the illustrated article about Roman art,37 linking once again to Jewish culture through its emphasis on Biblical motifs. Nevertheless, despite these forays into Italian artistic forms, the more important comparisons must have been with earlier Jewish creativity, the products of the culture which the DPs were trying to recreate even as they memorialized it. They did not worry, as intellectuals have since, about the possibility of writing about a vanished world on the morning after its destruction; they were not disturbed by the illusory paradox of writing about Sholem Aleichem when Kasrilevke, Boyberik and Anatevke had either been destroyed or rid entirely of Jews, for without their existence in books such Jews would have altogether disappeared from memory. Instead, they created new relevance in the writings of the past by using it to understand the present. It is significant that A. De Liu’s above-mentioned article about Sholem Aleichem concerns ‘Diaspora prototypes,’ which the author links to world literature through Don Quixote38 while keeping it firmly rooted in Jewish historical experience. Throughout the piece, its author explicitly links its literary content with the current Jewish condition. Similarly, L. Losh’s printed speech about Bialik is entitled ‘Bialik — der vizioner fun der itstiker epokhe’ (‘Bialik — the Visionary of the Current Era’).39 It was vital that these authors and their contemporaries not be abandoned by the remnants of the European Jewish community. In this context, reading about Tevye the Dairyman served both as memorial and as instruction for future generations dealing with, among other issues, the problems of the Diaspora. The world portrayed by Sholem Aleichem, Bialik, and their contemporaries had been physically destroyed. Now it could continue to exist only through its literary creations. 37S. Segal (1947), Biblishe motivn in der kunst fun Roym. 38A. De Liu (1947), Di goles-prototipn ba Sholem Aleykhem. p. 35. 39L. Losh (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Bialik — der vizyoner fun der

itstiker epokhe. p. 51.

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Yet the whole idea of continuing the European Jewish literary tradition, embedded in a grand rebuilding of Jewish culture, is incredibly optimistic. Even in the editors’ note to the first issue of In Gang Yerushalmi and Kahn acknowledge a more realistic approach to cultural survival. They write that the Jewish people are ‘weakened’ by their suffering, and their numbers are small. Nevertheless, they need to carry among themselves the ‘large cultural legacy’ of the millions of martyrs across Europe. Their task is ‘colossally hard,’ and even they recognize that it would be impossible to fulfill completely. Although the war is over, they have not yet found a stable environment in which the culture whose seeds they carry can once again take root. Still wanderers, they know that they will continue to lose bits of their past on their way home, wherever that will be. Yet although ‘much will be lost,’ they must persist. As they explain, it is this attempt that holds them together as a community: we want the world and first of all ourselves to be shown, that we are here, that we are a collective — because we value culture40

The publication of In Gang, designed ‘to revive and activate all that is capable, lives and is creative in’41 the DP community in Italy, is an important step towards this purpose. However, despite the resources and support it lavished on cultural revival, there were other difficulties which they would not be able to overcome. What the survivors could not have foreseen at the end of the war were the obstacles to their writing arising not from their own suffering, poverty, and lack of materials, but from the unwillingness of anyone else to listen to their words. Chroniclers of other Jewish catastrophes had, for thousands of years, found conventional outlets for their writings. From the destruction of the Temple, through the martyrs killed by Roman Emperors, French

40E. Yerushalmi and B. Kahn (1947), Fun der redaktsye. p. 2. 41ibid.

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Crusaders, and Ukrainian Cossacks, and up to the Pogroms of nineteenth and twentieth century Eastern Europe, writings by witnesses and commentators were studied and passed down across the generations.42 Such writings were an important form of cultural expression as the perceptions of tragedy transformed and were themselves transformed by archetypes of Jewish responses to suffering.43 Although this continued to be true even after the Holocaust, the unique combination of such phenomena as the complete destruction of a large, culturally diverse community, the absolute horror of the workings of that destruction, and, no less importantly, the rejection of martyrdom and of a religious framework governed by a just and merciful God, completely changed the frame of reference in which tragedy was perceived. Instead of endlessly memorializing the Holocaust, lighting remembrance candles, and reading from Lamentations, the modern secular Jewish culture that had already developed in Israel and America, while financially open to the desperate material needs of the survivors, wanted to continue their everyday lives without constant reminders of

the

unimaginable suffering of their European cousins.44 This problem was already obvious by mid-1947, as evidenced by Eliezer Yerushalmi’s article, ‘Elnt un Farvorlozt’ (‘Lonely and Abandoned’)45 in issue six-seven (August-September 1947) of In Gang. Yerushalmi writes that, following their brief stint as media phenomena, the sheyres hapleyte were now being ignored by all but their own publications. They were very disappointed, for it was not at all the reception they had expected. Of the survivors he wrote: We thought of ourselves as group messengers of six million tortured brothers and sisters; we justified our survival with the knowledge, that we would communicate the unending suffering of our martyrs, before death ransomed them; we would describe 42See, for example, the texts included in D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of Destruction: Jewish

Responses to Catastrophe.

43D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. as

discussed in Chapter 2.

44As discussed in Chapters 1 and 3. 45E. Yerushalmi (1947), Elnt un farvorlozt.

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the fear of death, that lurked over the Ghetto even on its “quietest” days; we would at the same time describe the heroic struggle, which every community, every camp conducted, for its existence to be maintained until the liberation. We, the few survivors, would eternalize the millions of the dead.46

Yet after their first few moments of fame, their ‘song of sadness grate[d] in the ears of those who want to forget and enjoy life.’ The ‘serious literary publications and societies’ tried to get rid of them, as did the newspapers, and the theatres would not perform their plays to an audience tired of sadness and horror.47 In effect, they were already being excluded from the Yiddish canon, and they recognized and dreaded this. They knew that, before the war, the primary method of support for writers and critics had been the open recognition and endorsement of their work by well-known older writers in established literary centres.48 Although the European centres had been destroyed, others had sprung up, notably in America, and many leading writers were still alive. Yet they were taking no interest in the refugees.49 In the small linguistic community that circumscribed Yiddish literature, being ignored by the acknowledged literary intellectuals, then only beginning to shape their official canon, meant being forgotten. Yerushalmi illustrates this crisis with the case of a chronicler who had managed to survive the liquidation of his camp. The day of their final liquidation, when all hope was lost, the others encouraged him to try to escape in the hope that, even if he was the only one to survive, he would be the one best suited to telling their story. ‘The already dead sought immortality of the soul in his book. They hoped that he would give their last greeting to their lucky brethren.’ Yerushalmi concludes: Could the unlucky have imagined that for years the chronicle of their pain and death would remain unpublished, because their luckier brothers have no interest in

46ibid., p. 29. 47ibid., p. 29. 48ibid., p. 28. 49ibid., p. 29. The important exception to this rule was H. Leivick. However, as has been discussed in

Chapter 1, his visits to the DP camps focused the anger of the DPs onto all the other cultural leaders who did not make any efforts on their behalf.

p. 15

reading it?50

With publication now difficult or impossible, the only remaining way for the refugee writers to liberate themselves from the burdens of their past was to try to forget. They buried their pain and, abandoned by most of the great writers overseas and by the world Yiddish literary community, were left ‘lonely and alone.’51 This pessimistic view must be balanced by the optimism of other writers, and, elsewhere, of Yerushalmi himself, about the possibilities for literary revival. Yet if Yerushalmi’s qualms in ‘Lonely and Abandoned’ were only partially justified, they still mean that many important works were never published, or even written, due to a lack of encouragement and interest. The ‘writers of the surviving remnant were not strong enough to fulfil [their] task’52 of documentation without such support. This, as Yerushalmi recognized, had important implications for future historical and literary writing. Even if, as he modestly suggested, their talent was not sufficient to create the ultimate memorial to the murdered six million, even if there was no modern Jeremiah among them, only the survivors themselves could accurately describe their suffering.53 Yerushalmi asks: Can even the most brilliant poet comprehend that, which we lived through? Can even the greatest man of imagination conceive that, which happened to us during the war?54

In this context, the writings of the surviving remnant were crucial independent of their literary merit. Whether great art or the writings of survivors coping half-articulately with others’ deaths and their own survival, their ‘portrayals, stories, dramatizations… communicate the spirit of the times more than dry descriptions.’ Such creations were essential even if only as the 50E. Yerushalmi (1947), Elnt un farvorlozt. p. 29. 51ibid., p. 30. 52ibid., p. 29. 53ibid., pp. 29-30. 54ibid., p. 30

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necessary ‘raw material’ to be used by a later ‘poet or prophet’ in the preeminent work of Holocaust literature which would ‘shake the world’s conscience.’55 The serious concern that without the memoirs, stories, poems and plays of the survivors there could be no other accurate Holocaust history or literature is another recurrent theme in In Gang. Yerushalmi and Kahn had obviously clearly recognized this problem by the time they published their first issue in 1947. In ‘From the Editorial Board,’ at the start of that issue, they used the exigency of the collection of materials for historical study as their explanation and justification for the inclusion of memoirs and Holocaust related materials, both by professional writers and by other survivors, in a journal concerned with the Jewish future. While they recognized that they were not in a position ‘to write the great, synthetic work’ about the Holocaust, they were quite adamant that it was their ‘task, like the task of the entire sheyres hapleyte, that future historians and novelists should not lack materials.’ Acutely aware of their place in history, they wrote that it was everybody’s duty, that everything that occurred in those dark days should be made permanent for future generations. Everyone should write what he saw and what h e heard — it is a task of colossal importance.56

Clearly, this imperative had to be emphasized continually in order to counterbalance the frustration of being ignored by the world external to the community of survivors and the very few outside research institutions that were interested in their history and in their current plight. At the 1948 Cultural Conference, for example, Moyshe Kaganovitsh took the opportunity of his speech ‘Arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye bay pkh"kh’ (‘Work and Attainment of the Historical Commission of the Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers’)57 to discuss this issue once 55ibid., p. 30. 56E. Yerushalmi and B. Kahn (1947), Fun der redaktsye. p.2. This issue is also dealt with in Chapter 5. 57M. Kaganovitsh (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung

fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh”Kh. The PKh”Kh, or Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and

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again. He drew attention to the fact that in no other place would the survivors have such favourable conditions for collecting and imparting to future generations t h e materials about [their] martyrology and heroism in the last world war, as… in Italy.58

Kaganovitsh then backed up his plea for the preservation of historical materials with quotations from both religious and secular Jewish sources. He cited the Biblical injunction to forever remember the misdeeds of Amalek, a nation which had attacked Israel in their days of wandering in the desert and which is mythologized in Jewish tradition as a nation which eternally endeavours to bring total destruction upon the Jews. He then paired this commandment with the last words of the historian Shimon Dubnov, one of the great European Jewish intellectuals, who demanded, as he was taken by the Germans to be killed, that ‘Jews write and record.’59 Kaganovitsh concluded his speech with the prescription that the refugees use the time they have in Italy to ‘collectively eternalize the memory of the tragically murdered millions for the generations, which will come after [them].’60 The speech following Kaganovitsh’s at the Cultural Conference, D. Kupferberg’s ‘Yivo-arbet in Italye — baricht’ (‘YIVO Work in Italy — an Account’),61 deals with a similar historiographical process. The historians at YIVO, the Yiddish Scientific Institute, realized very early in the process of documenting the events of the Holocaust that the post-war lives of the survivors, particularly while they still shared a current communal identity as Pioneers, was ‘a non-political Zionist framework for veteran combatants.’ (Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 44. 58M. Kaganovitsh (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh”Kh. p.38. This is not strictly true, as the same conditions applied in Germany and Austria at the time. However, allowing for hyperbole, it is true of the case of the DPs as a whole. 59M. Kaganovitsh (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh”Kh. p. 38. In her biography of Dubnov, his daughter Sophie DubnovErlich wrote: ‘Later a rumor began to pass from mouth to mouth that, as Dubnov walked to his death, he had repeated: “People, do not forget. Speak of this, people; record it all.” Of those who could have heard those words hardly one is alive today. Only the legend lives, no less truthful that the life itself.’ (S. Dubnov-Erlich (1991), The Life and Work of S. M. Dubnov: Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish History. p. 247.) 60M. Kaganovitsh (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh”Kh. p. 38. 61D. Kupferberg (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Yivo-arbet in Italye — barikht.

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refugees, were also worthy of historical study. By 1948 they had already collected 4537 documents from before, during and after the war, published, as well as their many books about the Holocaust, a study of the Jewish refugee press in Italy, and were preparing several other studies of refugee life. Aware that the founding of the State of Israel meant that the DP camps would soon be closed as the refugees left for their new state, YIVO launched an appeal for copies of camp publications and committee archives to be deposited with the Institute for safe-keeping, ‘in this way to guard it for Jewish cultural-historical study.’ Kupferberg emphasized the importance of even ‘a letter, a placard, an advertisement or a wall-newspaper… [that] in future years such things [could] obtain great cultural-historical significance.’ Not a single document must be lost, he added, because every document could ‘tell of the Jewish destruction and the Jewish struggles under the Hitlerists’ rule, and also about the life of the surviving remnant.’62 This imperative, echoed throughout In Ga ng either explicitly or through the publication or review of historical material and memoirs, complemented its editors’ cultural goals. It ensured that the creative work of the survivors, as well as war-time creations of the inhabitants of the ghettos and camps, would be seen in the context of the history of their time as well as of the culture that came before it. Historical study was at the same time broadened to include cultural history, documenting the very creative society the editors were trying to preserve through art. As we have seen, the significance of the survivors’ artistic production was seen by the editors as three-fold: that they were able to be creative at all in light of the attempts of the Nazis to destroy them; that they were able to keep alive, at least in part, the culture of pre-war European Jewry; and that they produced creative works of artistic merit in their own right. The drive for historical

62ibid., pp. 38-39. For a discussion of YIVO’s contemporary involvement in collecting Holocaust and DP

documentation and an example of appreciation of its work coupled with anger at other organizations for failing to do the same, see Z. Shaykovski (1947), Yidn in Eyrope forshn zeyer umkum, 1939-1946.

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documentation had a simpler reasoning — to memorialize the dead and acknowledge the war-time terror and post-war hardships of the living. These two interconnected issues of artistic production and historical documentation were central to the ideological basis of In Gang. There was also a third issue with which the editors of In Gang were very much concerned: Zionism.63 As Berl Kahn notes in his ‘15 Numbers of In Progress,’ even the name of this journal was picked to indicate its Zionist stance. From the beginning of the process of deciding on a title, there was one feature which everyone involved thought was of crucial importance: its ‘emphasis on the temporariness and on-the-road-ness.’64 It was intended to make clear that for the Jewish refugee community, Italy was only a waystation. In their editors’ note in issue one, Yerushalmi and Kahn comment that ‘the Jewish refugees, and together with them the group of writers… did not accidentally wander’ to Italy after the war. Their goal, according to the editors, had been to get as close as possible to the land of Israel, which was soon to become the State of Israel. This involved settling along the Italian coast, near ports where they might be able to board a ship to ‘their dreamedof land.’ It is in agreement with such Zionist sentiments that the editors announce an important segment of their editorial policy. Speaking here on behalf of both themselves and their people, they assert that the journal ‘will come to express… the grief of our homelessness and the ardent longing of Jewish people for [their] own home.’65 References to Zionism are sprinkled throughout the eight issues of In Gang. Of the thirty thousand Jewish refugees who had already left Italy by the summer of 1948, those who were not interned by the British in Cyprus for having attempted to enter Palestine are described by Yerushalmi as fighting for the surviving remnant’s ‘freedom in the mountains of Judah, 63See biographies of Eliezer Yerushalmi and Berl Cohen, above, for evidence of this concern outside the

scope of this journal.

64B. Kahn (1949), 15 numern In Gang. p. 2. 65E. Yerushalmi and B. Kahn (1947), Fun der redaktsye. p. 2.

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Galilee and in the Negev.’66 The description of the setting of the 1948 Cultural Conference mentions that it was decorated with blue and white flags and banners saying ‘Long live Israel’ in Hebrew and Yiddish.67 The first resolution of that conference, co-sponsored, as mentioned above, by the publishers of In Gang, was to send greetings to the newly-established government of the State of Israel.68 Perhaps understandably, after the cruel suffering endured by these Jews in the Diaspora, Zionism was not even considered to be a matter of debate among the refugees in Italy; Kahn writes in issue thirteen-fourteen of In Gang that invective against the Bund, a social-democratic organization, at the Cultural Conference for being anti-Zionist should have been condemned as a matter of pluralist principle and as an example of self-serving party politics, but the only real defence he ascribes to the Bund is his claim that it was no longer really anti-Zionist.69 Other articles concerning Israel include Michal Asaf’s ‘Di araber un undzer ufboy-verk’ (‘The Arabs and our Construction Work’),70 D. Segulim’s ‘Prese un teater in erets-Yisroel’ (‘Press and Theatre in the Land of Israel’),71 and Yerushalmi’s ‘Goles un erets-Yisroel’ (‘Diaspora and the Land of Israel’).72 Thus Zionism, the necessity of support for cultural survival after the Holocaust, and the importance of historical documentation of the Holocaust, together form the basis of the beliefs and policies of the editors of In Gang. As discussed above, the latter two issues are tightly intertwined; they are also closely related to Zionism. Israel represented not only a physical homeland but also a site for the potential renewal of the almost-vanished culture of Eastern Europe Jewry. Practically speaking, it seemed to the refugees that rooting their re-emergent culture in a permanent home would cause it to 66E. Yerushalmi (1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: derefn-rede. p. 15. 67(1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: der seyder-hayom. p. 14. The text on the

banners was ‘zol lebn medinas Yisroel’ in Yiddish and ‘T’khye medinat Yisrael’ in Hebrew.

68(1948), Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: hakhlotes. pp. 47-48 69B. Kahn (1948), Nokh undzer kultur-konferents. See pp. 7-10. 70M. Asaf (1947), Di araber un undzer ufboy-verk. 71D. Segulim (1947), Prese un teater in erets-Yisroel. 72E. Yerushalmi (1948), Goles un erets-Yisroel.

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bloom faster and larger. Less would be lost during shorter wanderings; permanent institutions could be set up to guard the documents of the past and the cultural fruits of the present. Unfortunately for this surviving remnant, not all of these hopes were to be fulfilled. The Jewish refugees were all able to immigrate to Israel after its creation, and that State did establish a vibrant Jewish culture. Yet to a large extent this came at the expense of suppressing some aspects of European Jewish culture, particularly Yiddish and the Holocaust. In fact, while Jews both in Israel and America established important permanent libraries, archives, and institutions of Jewish learning, Yiddish, and with it much of pre-war European Jewish culture, has been almost abandoned outside academia.73 The story of the surviving remnant, attempting to recreate their lives in European Displaced Persons’ Camps in the years after the Holocaust, has also been all but forgotten. This is slowly changing, thanks in part to the availability to researchers of the material collected by YIVO and other institutions after the Second World War. Attitudes, too, are changing, as a generation of scholars comes of age who are sufficiently removed from the circumstances of the Holocaust, of immigration, and of post-war attempts at assimilation both in Israel and in America. Perhaps in the coming years we will be able to achieve at least one of the as yet unfulfilled dreams of the DPs: the complete documentation not only of the torture of the Holocaust but also of the plight of its survivors and their attempts at cultural rebirth.

73See Chapter 3.

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Chapter 5 Fun letstn khurbn: The Need for History The journal Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun Yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezshim (From the Last Extermination: Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime; hereafter FLK)1 was published in Munich, Germany by the Central Historical Commission (CHC) of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone (CC) between August 1946 and December 1948. The official circulation frequency, as listed on the inside back cover of issues 8 through 10, indicates that it was supposed to appear monthly, but in fact only ten issues were published during that twenty-seven month period. Inter-issue periods ranged from one to nine months, a discrepancy which is easily attributable to production difficulties such as will be discussed below. All ten issues that were published look technically professional and are aesthetically pleasing. They range in size from thirty-six pages in issue 1 to 186 pages in issue 10, which includes a large section of summary material and an index. The other eight issues, however, were between ninety-eight and 118 pages in length, and the full series adds up to 1091 pages. It should be noted in this context that the first issue is foliosized (19.8 cm x 28.1 cm), while subsequent issues are quarto-sized (14.6 cm x 21 cm). Print size remains comparable throughout, and therefore the first issue is closer to the others in the amount of text printed than it would appear to be from the figures mentioned above. While the first three issues do not indicate how many copies of each were printed,2 issues 4, 5 and 6 have circulation figures of 8000 copies each indicated on their inside back covers,

1Y. Kaplan (August 1946 - December 1948), Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn

beysn natsi-rezhim. 2In his summary in issue ten, Feygenboym indicates that 12000 copies of FLK were published. In context he is most likely referring to issue one, although this is unclear. (M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 168.)

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while issue 7 indicates 5000 copies, and issues 8, 9, and 10 indicate 7500 copies each.3 This journal was a product of the large and vital DP community in the American Zone of Germany. In particular it was the creation of two people: Yisroel Kaplan and Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym. Kaplan alone is listed as editor on the front covers of the journal, as well as on several back covers, first pages, and tables of contents, and he is named as the ‘responsible editor’ in the official publication data in issues 4 to 7 and as ‘responsible publisher’ in the same context in issues 8 to 10. While Feygenboym is credited for his articles in the tables of contents (although not for Activity Reports and Chronicles, which are often signed with his initials), he is officially listed only as ‘contributor,’ and that only once, in the publication data section of issue 8. Kaplan, however, credits Feygenboym as his co-editor.4 When Lucy Dawidowicz, in her memoirs, refers to FLK, which she helped Kaplan and Feygenboym publish during her time with the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), she describes it as ‘their journal’; elsewhere, she talks about the journal’s ‘editors’5 in the plural. The Biographical Dictionary also lists a third man, Yakov Oleyski, as a co-editor of FLK.6 Although Oleyski was involved with FLK in some capacity, contributing an article7 to issue nine, any other

3Some small differences in the availability and, primarily, presentation of publication data exist between

issues 1 to 3, 4 to 6, 7, and 8 to 10. This seems to be due to the particular requirements of the organizations which, at different times, had to authorize the publication of FLK. Lucy Dawidowicz explains that the official permission which all publications were obliged to have due to military government regulations was, in the Munich region in 1946, being “issued by the Information Control Division (ICD) of the Press Division of the Office of Military Government for Bavaria (OMGB)” under the auspices of USFET (U.S. Forces European Theater) in Frankfurt. (L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 289.) Issues 1, 2 and 3 appear to have no such authorization, only the imprimatur of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany. All other issues have some formal authorization printed on their inside back covers. Issue 4, 5 and 6 were published under DPPublications License US-E-3, OMGB Information Control Division. Issue 7 was published by Authority of letter HQ IC CAD dated 14 July 1947 AG 383.7 GEC-AGO, an irregular situation which was corrected in the next issue. Issues 8, 9, and 10 were authorized by the governing body which succeeded the OMGB, and are thus listed as having been published under EUCOM CIVIL AFFAIRS DIVISION, Authorization NumerUNDP 228. 4Y. Kaplan (3 April 1995), Personal Communication. 5L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. pp. 304, 290. 6S. Niger, Y. Shatski and M. Shtarkman (1956), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 1. p. 102. 7Y. Oleyski (1948), Di fakhshul in Kovner geto.

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involvement on his part is unverified within the journals, by Kaplan, or by Dawidowicz.8 Yisroel Kaplan was born in 1902 in Volozhin, in White Russia. The son of the rabbi and writer Yehoshua Kaplan, he studied at religious Jewish elementary schools and yeshivas (rabbinical seminaries). He left in 1919 for Kovno, where he qualified as a teacher in 1921 and as a historian in 1932. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Yisroel Kaplan taught at various Jewish schools.9 He also worked as a journalist in Kovno.10 During the war years he was in the Slobodke and Riga ghettos and in the Kaiserwald and Dachau concentration camps. After his liberation he helped to found the Munich Central Historical Commission (CHC), where he worked until his immigration to Israel in 1949. Aside from his work with FLK and some other editing work, such as his contributions to Shriftn which will be discussed in Chapter 6, while in Munich Kaplan also began to gather materials about the Holocaust in Lithuania.11 He wrote books, such as Dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem (Jewish Folk-Expressions under the Nazi Yoke),12 and lectured about his work.13 Dawidowicz, meeting him in 1946, describes him then as a small lively man, probably forty-ish, prematurely gray. He had weighed sixty pounds at the time of his liberation. He wore thick-lensed glasses to improve h i s poor vision. He was a man of many words, whose sardonic humor made his loquacity entertaining.14

After his arrival in Israel, where he still lives, Kaplan co-edited journals, contributed to anthologies, and wrote and published a number of books,

8Oleyski is, however, listed as an editor of another journal published by the CC, the Landvirtshaftlekher

vegvayzer (Agricultural Instructor), which appeared in 16 issues between May 1946 and June 1948, as well as of several non-CC publications. (Z. M. Baker and N. Warnke (1990), A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Jewish Displaced Persons Periodicals from the Collections of the YIVO Institute. pp. 7, 9, 10.) 9B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 8. p. 93-94. 10L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 304. 11B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 8. p. 93-94. 12Y. Kaplan (1949), Dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. 13Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. 14L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 304.

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collections of short stories, and textbooks.15 He is currently working on a collection of short stories.16 Feygenboym was born in Byale-Podlask, near Lublin, Poland, in 1908. He went to a religious Jewish elementary school, then trained as a merchant and as a bookkeeper. He also wrote for two periodicals, Podlyaser lebn (Podlask Life) and Byaler vokhnblat (Byale Weekly). During the war, Feygenboym was in the Byale and Meritsh ghettos, was saved from an execution in 1942, and escaped from a transport to the Treblinka concentration camp in 1943. He hid in a bunker in Byale until the end of the war, and there he wrote about Jewish experiences under the Nazi regime. After the war he was one of the first to bring materials to the Polish Central Historical Commission (Polish CHC) in Lodz, which documented the Polish Jewish experience during the Holocaust. In 1945 he arrived in Munich. Like Kaplan, Feygenboym helped to found the Munich CHC.17 Dawidowicz describes Feygenboym in 1946 as ‘thirtyish, tall, brown-haired, brown-eyed, with a bushy mustache, a vigorous man, whose modesty belied his initiative and energy.’18 Feygenboym also went to Israel in 1949, and there wrote books about the Holocaust in Podlyase and in ByalePodlask.19 These two men were the core of the CHC. Feygenboym had proposed the idea of a historical commission, based on the Polish CHC, to the Central Committee (CC) soon after his arrival in Munich in December 1945, and he and Kaplan had it set up by August 1946.20 In the Activity Report at the end of issue ten of FLK, which presents a brief history of the CHC and a summary of its activities during the three years of its existence, Feygenboym writes that

15B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 8. p. 93-94. 16Y. Kaplan (3 April 1995), Personal Communication. 17E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher

literatur: Vol. 7. p. 342. 18L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 304. 19E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 7. p. 342. 20L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 304.

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the CHC began its work, in December 1945,21 at a corner table in the CultureOrganization of the CC.22 As a subsidiary organization of the CC, the CHC was later given an office in the CC building, a requisitioned German villa… [where a] large room on the first floor, once no doubt an elegant drawing room, served as a library, meeting room, and rehearsal space for a theatrical group… The Central Historical Commission, on the top floor, had three rooms – one for its office; one for receptions, exhibitions, meetings; and a tiny room cluttered with piles of archival materials, handwritten eyewitness accounts by Jewish survivors and German documents found in the bombed-out Nazi chancelleries in Munich.23

Yet the physical location of the CHC was still a problem as late as May 1947, and most likely continued to be so for the life of the organization. In his published speech of 12 May 1947, In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet (In Daily Historical Work), given at the Assembly of Historical Commissions in Munich,24 Kaplan complains that they still lack an appropriate locale for their work, and that their archives are therefore in danger of being lost or destroyed due to poor conditions. One of the CHC’s rooms had been requisitioned from them,25 and the shelves which they had built with great difficulty had been taken from them and dismantled to build benches and tables for use elsewhere.26 This emphasis on space, and particularly storage space and shelving, which is unusually intense for a journal, becomes more understandable with the realization that the CHC was not founded solely, or even intentionally, 21Elsewhere (Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun

di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 6.) Kaplan writes that the CHC began work in November 1945, but both Dawidowicz and Feygenboym use the December date, and that is the date which I will continue to use. 22M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 163. 23L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. pp. 304-305. 24This Assembly is one of a number of such events organized by CHC. They also participated in other conferences, including the first European Conference of Historical Commissions in Paris and the 1948 World Jewish Cultural Congress in New York. A number of items at the exhibition concerning Jewish children in Europe, which was held in conjunction with the 1948 YIVO Conference in New York were contributed by the CHC. ((1948), Khronik. pp. 113-114.) The CHC also mounted its own exhibition about Jewish life under the Nazis. This was shown at the Third Congress of Displaced Persons in the American Zone, in March 1948, and was accompanied by a printed catalogue in five languages. Besides its work on FLK, the CHC published several books and printed the journal Shriftn discussed in Chapter 6. (M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 167-169.) 25It is unclear as to whether this is one of the three rooms Dawidowicz described, or if the requisition had already occurred prior to her arrival. 26Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 6.

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with the aim of producing a journal such as FLK. Its primary purpose was always archival. Feygenboym’s proposal to the CC had been for an organization whose ‘main function would be to gather testimonies of the experiences the Jews had endured under the Germans.’27 The CHC was to be the ‘institutionalized expression’ of the ‘overwhelming concern with the past’ of the Surviving Remnant in Germany.28 When it was launched it was assumed that, at most, it would ‘collect a certain number of testimonies, a few documents from the German archives, and perhaps also some anti-Semitic literature.’29 ‘Already at the founding meeting of the CHC it was stressed that within the activities of the institution there could be no thought of publishing any material; i t was already clear by then that we were too poor in intellectual ability such as would enable us to issue publications.’30

Instead the CHC set out to amass documents and data, and to this end to establish a network of regional historical commissions. These branches, approximately fifty of which eventually existed throughout the American Zone of Germany,31 were supposed to distribute questionnaires, gather testimonies, and serve as collection points for the CHC in Munich. With representatives within each community, they were assumed to be able to muster local support and cooperation. One might suppose that, had there been adequate support in the community for the CHC’s efforts, FLK might never have been created to publicize its work. Such support as actually existed was deemed insufficient.32 In his first issue Kaplan, thanking those who had helped with the CHC before this first publication, describes them as having gone ‘against the total cultural

27L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 304. 28Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 38. 29M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 163. 30ibid., p. 168. 31ibid., p. 163. 32Mankowitz writes that the requests for testimonies placed by the CHC as advertisements in the local

press did in fact get a good response (Z. Mankowitz (1987), Main Hebrew Text. p. 309.) but the number of testimonies received was evidently not enough for Kaplan and his CHC colleagues.

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congealment surrounding them’.33 Writing a year later, Kaplan cites an example of immediate post-liberation doubts on the subject: And why should we allow you to found a historical commission? Then will you sit in such a commission and write about how a young man chased a girl in the rye?… Then will you gather information, who was a Kapo, a Lager-Ãltester – so what practical person looks for trouble for himself?…34

Feygenboym explains that, for example, there was a complete lack of help and support from the surviving German Jews, who at the time of the final issue still had not shown any interest in the CHC’s work. Within the larger DP community of Eastern European Jews, the period immediately after the liberation was dominated by ‘a specific negative attitude toward institutions such as historical commissions.’35 As the CHC’s outreach strategy was not particularly successful, they eventually realized that they ‘had to create a grandstand in order to come into direct contact with the community and to persuade it to work with the historical commissions.’36 This decision to publish a journal was made in spite of the many obvious production difficulties which they foresaw. These included paper shortages, a lack of Yiddish linotype, which meant that early issues of FLK had to be set by hand, and red tape surrounding the issuing of publication licences.37 New problems also arose within the CHC to compound those which had troubled its earlier archival work. It was still felt that they lacked the intellectual strength necessary to publish a journal.38 With most of the intelligentsia murdered, the CHC had to train its own staff, but the high turnover rate of DPs meant that no sooner had someone acquired the necessary skills to make a useful contribution than he would find some way of leaving Europe, forcing the CHC to begin anew with another trainee. 33Y. Kaplan (1946), Undzer pruv. p. 1. 34Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 5. 35M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 163. 36ibid., p. 168 37L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. pp. 289-290, 304. 38M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 168.

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There were also problems of competition, both with individuals in the DP camps who were engaged in the macabre business of dealing in photographs and documents for profit, and with other journals, as for example with an unnamed editor who condemned the publication of FLK out of fear that the few Holocaust photographs published therein would damage the sales of his own photo-journal.39 Despite these difficulties, FLK evidently succeeded in its set task.40 The explicit goal of the journal, as stated in Kaplan’s introductory article to issue one and restated almost verbatim in his speech of 12 May 1947, nine months and five issues later, was ‘to find the way to every Jew of the surviving remnant and inspire him to give the Historical Commission a testimony of his experiences under the Nazi regime’.41 Kaplan also wanted each survivor to submit ‘folklore-creations from that time and in general every historical document which he possesses.’42 Clearly, it was the archive, not the journal, which was the ultimate goal. Feygenboym writes: That the journal fulfilled its task is confirmed by the fact that, as soon as i t appeared, the activities of the historical commissions were strengthened and there was a greater and greater influx of historical materials from Jews in all corners of t h e American Zone.43

39Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. pp. 4, 6-8. 40Many outside the Munich CHC thought FLK to be a success at the time. In 1949 Philip Friedman wrote that FLK was a well-printed, serious historical work whose contents maintained a higher level than those of the other DP publications. His only criticisms were that Kaplan and his associates edited most of the testimonies they published for style and grammar, which in his view lessened their documentary value, and that FLK, while representative of the Holocaust experience, did not live up to his ideal of scientific rigorousness in its selection and analysis of testimonies. (P. Friedman (1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: II. p. 151-152.) Lucy Dawidowicz thought highly enough of the testimonies in FLK to translate some of them for a book she intended to publish in New York, (L. S. Dawidowicz (1991), From That Place and Time. p. 323) and most of these were eventually published by Leo Schwarz in The Root and the Bough along with many other survivor accounts, including unpublished material from the CHC archives. (L. W. Schwarz (1949), The Root and the Bough: The Epic of an Enduring People. ) Also, as early as November 1946 YIVO in New York had written a letter of congratulation to the CC concerning FLK. They wrote that they wished the journal was longer and that it came out more often, and added that Kaplan and Feygenboym deserved hearty congratulations for their important work. The letter was signed by, among others, such literary cultural luminaries as M. Weinreich, Y. Shatski, Y. Opatoshu and H. Leivick. (M. Weinreich and Y. Shatski (1946), (Briv). ) 41Y. Kaplan (1946), Undzer pruv. p. 1. See also Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 22. 42Y. Kaplan (1946), Undzer pruv. p. 1. 43M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. p. 168.

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Feygenboym goes on to discuss other measures of the public reception of FLK, but his primary assessment of the success of the journal is based on the gathering of materials, and thus on the growth of the CHC’s archives. As the journal is primarily a means and not an end, the testimonies, photographs and Nazi documents which it contains, while very important in themselves as the raw material for historical research and as examples of the material which the CHC was created in order to gather, can be treated, despite their obvious worth in other contexts, as essentially interchangeable representations of the contents of the CHC’s archives. They are therefore not particularly individually useful for the study of the journal as a whole. For the purposes of this study, the focus must be on regular features from the editors. In particular, F L K will be examined in the light of CHC advertisements, Activity Reports and other direct statements by the editors, especially those in the first and last issues of FLK. As will become clear, these materials point to two main goals for the CHC archives. These were, first, to make possible future historical work by providing documentation of the Holocaust, and second, to record the culture and spirit of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.44 Regarding the first of these aims, documentation, it should be noted that the worry that the history of the Holocaust might be lost for lack of testimony was not as far-fetched then as it may appear now in the light of the large numbers of Holocaust studies written over the past fifty years. As Feygenboim explains, some Jews had thought that, because of the openness with which the Nazis had committed their crimes, it would be easy to write a history of the period; there would be tens of thousands of living witnesses among the non-Jews in the countries where the Holocaust had taken place who could write histories

44This is briefly suggested in the English Abstract to Zeev Mankowitz’s Ph.D. thesis, where he writes:

‘The drive to document the Final Solution and internal Jewish life during the Holocaust, which marked numerous survivor communities, was presented as an urgent task of She’erith Hapleita [the Surviving Remnant].’ (Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 38.) Please note that FLK is also discussed within in main body of his thesis, in Z. Mankowitz (1987), Main Hebrew Text. pp.312-314.

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or at least bear witness to the destruction. They thought that the rest of the world would, after such a catastrophe, concern itself with the history of Jewish suffering. Yet, Feygenboym claims, it was soon obvious that the Jews must, once again, be responsible for recording their own destruction. By the summer of 1946 he had written that as early as our first steps after the liberation we were disappointed. It was shown, that not only are they, our neighbours, not ready to provide objective information, facts and impressions but the opposite, they take pains concerning the Jewish tragedy to diminish it.45

With the destruction in Europe not only of individual Jewish communities but of an entire civilization, along with most of their religious and secular records, the Jews were left with nothing but their memories. It soon became apparent that steps needed to be taken by the Jews themselves to ensure the perpetuation of the history of European Jewry and that of its total destruction. Undoubtedly there did exist one source of historical records on the murder of European Jews. This was the Nazi archives, augmented by wartime German documents and photographs which had, after the war, sometimes ended up in the private possession of survivors. Yet the mind rebelled against using these papers as the sole witness to Jewish destruction. They could indeed supply dates, numbers, and other morbid details. But what could they show of the inner lives of the Jewish victims within their living nightmare? In the first issue of FLK, Feygenboym asked, ‘How will people be able to set down our suffering-filled and torture-filled lives? From what will people be able to know about our heroic deeds and how will people determine our attitudes to our torturers?’46 The only possible solution, he concluded, was the archive of testimonies which the CHC was collecting and which he was promoting in FLK.

45M.-Y. Feygenboym (1946), Tsu vos historishe komisyes? 46ibid.

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After the initial issue of F L K , with Feygenboym’s and others’ introductory essays exhorting the reader to contribute to the CHC, the tone of the journal becomes less obviously prescriptive. It would have been possible to ignore the unspoken implication that the articles published in subsequent issues were examples for other survivors, to encourage them to respond with testimonies of their own. The CHC needed to continually remind its readers of its real goals, of their real duties, yet it wanted to avoid the repetitive and difficult task of writing cajoling or commanding essays for every issue demanding more material. A continuous stream of such articles would have alienated readers. More practically, they would have taken up two precious resources: the scarce time of hard-working editors and their helpers and the small amount of paper allocated to each print run. The solution, which allowed small amounts of otherwise unusable space to be filled with a minimum of effort and a maximum of effect, was a series of increasingly hard-hitting advertisements. The CHC’s advertisement campaign began as early as issue one, but the notices in that issue were long and wordy. They were also mild in tone, asking politely and promising quick service and gratitude on the part of the Historical Commission. These appeals include the only occasion in FLK when the CHC asks specifically for details of the perpetrators of the Holocaust: ‘[…] Submit the names of our murderers. […] When submitting names of murderers describe in detail their deeds; submit if you know where they come from, their prior employment, their military or party rank, their current addresses.’47 This, within an advertisement for more general testimony concerning Holocaust experiences, is clearly aimed at finding, and thus prosecuting, those implicated in crimes against humanity. One can only speculate why this line of inquiry was not continued within the context of FLK. Perhaps it was felt that, while within their scope intellectually, it was 47(1946), Anons.

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beyond their practical ability to follow up this material. They and their readers might already have been frustrated with the little progress that seemed to be being made in punishment of identified perpetrators beyond the grandiose Nuremberg trials, which were themselves viewed ambivalently by the DP community.48 Or perhaps they were told to leave such investigations to the proper authorities and their designated assistants, such as the Nazi and War Criminals section of the Judicial Department of the CC.49 In any case, such questions were later not even to be found on the standardized historical questionnaire which the CHC prepared, nor on any of their other surveys.50 Even the record of names of Nazi murderers and of Jewish traitors, kept as part of a more general card catalogue, was not completed because of lack of staff.51 Among the other appeals in the first issue, the request for photographs and other documents from the Nazi era stands out only for embodying the polite and helpful spirit of all of the notices in that issue. It promises that all such material brought to the Historical Commission, once copied, will be ‘with thanks immediately returned.’ This tone is seemingly continued in a request for songs from ghettos, concentration camps, and partisan groups. It invites the survivors who know and can sing such songs to come to CHC’s offices in Munich and sing them into a recording device. Thus, the advertisement concludes, such songs can be ‘immediately immortalized on a gramophone record.’52 This single word, fareybikt, from the verb meaning to immortalize or perpetuate, literally to make eternal, everlasting, timeless, is the key to the true aim of the CHC, its journal, its meetings and it speeches. 48Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. pp. 47-48. 49This organization is discussed in Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 50. As this other

organization did exist to document perpetrators, the CHC may have taken the opportunity to allocate its scant human resources to the emptier field of the documentation of victims and survivors. 50One of the ways in which the CHC functioned was to send out a variety of surveys and questionnaires to regional Historical Committees and other relevant organizations. Depending on the nature of the survey, these organizations were then supposed to either fill out the forms themselves or pass them along to their members or others in their local communities. The completed forms were then supposed to be sent back to Munich. See (1948), Historisher fregeboygn. 51M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. pp. 165-167. 52(1946), Anons.

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The Central Historical Commission wanted to provide the material to write not just a history, with dates and places and outlines of events, much of which could have been gleaned from German records, but a people’s history, a folkhistory, a history of every one of the six million dead. It wanted to immortalize in its archives the names of every person in a family, of every notable member of a community, of every community in every region of Europe. It strived to make them immortal on newsprint, photographic emulsion, catalogue cards, and gramophone records. It needed to make them immortal because it would not be long before ‘the Jews of eastern Europe entered the realm of myth.’53 It needed to make them immortal before the survivors would die still clutching the details that would preserve the martyr’s immortality. Never before had forgetting been such a concern. Previously, when one person had been martyred, or one town destroyed in a pogrom, the survivors, the neighbours of the dead, in the next street or the next town, would be able to bear witness, to write down the events, to set yortsayt54 dates and says mourning prayers. The survivors could be re-integrated into the same or a similar society.55 No longer. The only neighbours this time were the non-Jews, and they were, as Feygenboym explained, unwilling to bear witness. The Jewish community had lost not only its members but its very being as a community, and with it the mechanisms that had preserved its memory for so many centuries: its pinkes, or community diary; the diaries of community leaders; more recently, the writings of its authors, essayists, critics, trained historians. The editors of FLK and the staff of the CHC were reaching towards this tradition. The historical self-awareness of centuries of 53D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

224. 54A yortsayt is the anniversary, according to the Jewish calendar, of the date of someone’s death. On this date the immediate family of the deceased traditionally lights a special candle and says the kadish, a prayer associated with mourning. 55There are extensive discussions of traditional Jewish responses to catastrophes in D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe.

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Jewish life in Europe had to be rekindled just once more in order to chronicle its own destruction. This need for history is phrased in specifically Jewish terms, emphasizing the self-conscious search for continuity in commemoration as there could no longer be in Jewish life. In his greeting to the Munich CHC published in the first issue of FLK, Dr. Philip Friedman, then the director of the Polish CHC, speaks of their historical work as ‘an important contribution to the large Yizker-book’ which they will have to write.56 Such memorial books had been written about Jewish communities for centuries, but the great Yizker-book which would have to be written after the Holocaust, a Yizker-book not for a town but for a people, would have to explain not only the catastrophe but also the civilization that had produced such books as a normative response. The very act of imagining such a typical pre-war text was in itself a step into the past that could now only be reached through words and memories. Another pre-war text, touched on briefly above, was the pinkes (plural: pinkosim). This communal ledger or diary was an established historical mechanism of pre-war eastern-European Jewish communities. Feygenboym mentions pinkosim as one of the methods of ‘making Jewish life permanent’,57 that is, of leaving a permanent record of Jewish culture and history. Kaplan, too, invokes this traditional method of immortalization in his speech of 12 May 1947. He explains the important status of the pinkes in pre-war towns, and strongly encourages every DP community to create one. Again, this is not only a step forward into the Jewish future but a look towards the past, for he suggests that every pinkes begin with an introduction about the Jewish past in that place. About the fate of the previous Jewish inhabitants; do not forget to mention the one-time community institutions (schools, hospitals, cemeteries etc.) and what conditions they are in now. One must

56P. Friedman (1946), Bagrisungs-vort. p. 1. 57M.-Y. Feygenboym (1946), Tsu vos historishe komisyes? p. 2.

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record right at the start the arising of the new community, from where and how t h e Jews in that place came together, the first Jewish committees, etc.58

In this they would in part re-create the missing past and its lost documents, while simultaneously creating a new community with a new history. They would be placing themselves within the tradition while using it to memorialize those individuals and communities which no longer existed, who could not write their own histories. This theme of immortalization of the dead and of their communities continues throughout the CHC’s advertisements in FLK. In issues six, eight, and nine we find the exhortation to build ‘a matseyve at least with some lines of chronicle!’59 The word matseyve means gravestone, from the Hebrew word matseva, which can mean both tombstone and monument. Thus, the CHC is declaring that, with a few short lines of writing, by filling in a questionnaire, the survivor can erect a monument, an everlasting memorial, to those who do not have tombstones, whose graves are unmarked and shared with hundreds of thousands of others, or whose ashes floated out of chimneys and silently coated the streets of neighbouring towns.60 By becoming part of history their lives will no longer be anonymous, their faces no longer nameless. Someone will read their name, someone will write it, and someone will wonder about their life, their dreams, their death. This is what Kaplan and Feygenboym wanted to be able to do, and to enable their successors to do: to see people instead of numbers, a community instead of the name of a 58Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 22. A similar idea is reflected in the post-Holocaust production and publication of Yizker bikher (memorial books) which describe in detail, which pictures, maps, and essays, Jewish life in individual towns and cities from the arrival of the first Jews until the destruction of the Jewish community in the Holocaust. See for example the Yizker bukh for the present author’s grandfather’s town in Poland, Z. Amir, A. Ben-Yoysef, K. Brand, A. Pshepyorski, D. Pshepyorski, Y. Vays, S. Zabludovitsh, P. Zhulti and Y. Zhulti (1961), Vengrov: a denkmol far di umgekumene. 59(1948), Anons. (1947), Anons. 60Elsewhere Kaplan cautions that ‘writing history and memorializing the dead are two completely different things.’ In context, this does not mean that testimonies do not or should not act as memorials. Rather, Kaplan is expressing concern about the practice of inserting names of people who were not present into testimonies simply in order to have their names in print. He insists that such ‘humanism’ defeats the purpose of testimonies, which is to record the truth as factually and as meticulously as possible. (Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 14.) This does not undermine the meaningfulness of the testimony as a monument to those who should be and are mentioned therein.

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town. They had recognized the unavoidable fact that they needed the memories of every surviving Jew in order to even begin to achieve their goal of an archive both of the destruction and of the destroyed. In the face of this necessity they began to phrase their requests for information more strongly, using the language of debt and responsibility. The charge to erect a monument of words and paper does not stand alone. It is clearly stated as what the ‘honour and memory of your destroyed community deserves and demands from you, the surviving remnant’.61 The first half of that quotation, the ‘honour and memory of your destroyed community’, is irrefutable. Every community deserved a monument, a continuing place in Jewish memory. Every town had had innocent children, hard-working parents, religious families and student reformers. Every village had earned honour, whether by the manner of its existence or that of its destruction. The second half of the quotation, the ‘demands’ from ‘the surviving remnant’, is where the true obligation lies. The appeal uses the singular form of ‘you’, dir. This implies that preserving memory is not a group obligation, which one may leave to one’s more eloquent neighbours. Nor is it something which may be left to the eminent persons among the survivors, who would have been addressed in the honourific plural. The memorializing of the dead requires action, requires testimony, requires a place in history that only each survivor, and thus every survivor, can and must undertake to give them. The individual survivors are being told by FLK that if they do not bear witness there will never be a monument to their communities, that those honoured memories will be shamed by their inaction. In case the message was not conveyed strongly enough in that advertisement, it was reinforced by a similar one, which in issues 6 and 7 began: ‘Have you already fulfilled your duty towards your closest martyrs to 61(1948), Anons. (1947), Anons.

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immortalize their suffering in a testimony?’.62 In issues 8 and 9 the same notice was modified to say ‘suffering and heroism’.63 Again we have the idea of duty, this time to individuals instead of to communities. We have the mental image of dead parents, siblings and children waiting patiently for the sole testimony which can eternalize their lives and their pain. In both of these sets of advertisements, Kaplan and Feygenboym show themselves prepared to use any means necessary, including but not restricted to emotional pressure and appeals to the survivors’ sense of guilt, to achieve their ultimate end of laying the foundations for a social history of the Jewish people just prior to and during the Holocaust. The idea of a social history, and more particularly a cultural history, brings us to the second main goal for the CHC archives: to record and disseminate the culture created during the Holocaust. This aim is closely related to the first, of creating a historical record, but it indicates a need to dig deeper into the experiences of a people, to understand not just their deaths but also their lives under a regime of pain and torture. Kaplan writes: For a destruction, however, on such a scale as ours, for the destruction of a people, it is much more important to know the inner experiences, the spirits of the people itself, among the masses, and also from as many individuals as possible.64

It was in search of such a description that FLK and the CHC were to put a large emphasis on songs and on what they called ‘folklore’.65 This category of materials can be defined, from examples given in part of a CHC advertisement that appeared in issues one, two, eight and ten of FLK, as consisting of ‘jokes, sayings, legends, anecdotes, [and] predictions’.66 In the first three of these notices, the request for this material immediately follows a request for songs from the Nazi era, tying the less obvious forms of culture 62(1947), Anons. (1948), Anons. 63(1948), Anons. 64Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 23. 65Specific folklore sections appear in issues one, two, six, and ten, and ghetto or camp songs appear in all ten issues. 66(1946), Anons. (1948), Anons.

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to this medium of more easily recognized importance. Holocaust-era songs were still being sung in the DP camps, as they continue to be sung elsewhere to this day. The other types of cultural material were in large part already being ignored, a situation which Kaplan blames on the newly-formed DP intelligentsia, who, he claims, saw such creations as ‘nonsense’.67 Kaplan makes several impassioned pleas for the importance of this material.68 For example, he describes its contribution to Jewish spiritual resistance during the Holocaust in his introduction to the article ‘Dos folksmoyl in natsi-klem’ (‘Jewish Folk-Expressions under the Nazi Yoke’), which appeared in the folklore section of the first issue of FLK. He states that ‘sayings, jokes, anecdotes’ and the like ‘were the good balm for the concealed hearts and depressed spirits’69 of the suffering Jews, helping strengthen the ties of the individual to the group. Kaplan also claims in that article that folklore was enhanced by the encounter of various subgroups brought together in the camps, speaking with different accents or in different languages; such cultural interplay could only have served to strengthen the sense of group identity which the Nazis were trying to destroy. In the post-war era, both songs and folklore must take on the burden of conveying to the future the culture and spirit of the imprisoned Jews. Again self-consciously recognizing the historical importance of

his

experiences, in 1947 Kaplan explicitly states that, while other objects can remind us of the physical outcome of the Holocaust, ‘we must however not forget also the soul of people, the activity of their spirit […] At that moment we especially have in mind the upstart folklore of ghettos and camps.’ He goes on to explain:

67Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 18-19. 68He also turned a collection of such material, mostly sayings, into a book, first published in 1949 (Y. Kaplan (1949), Dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. ) and later enlarged for re-publication in 1982 with an introduction and summary in English. (Y. Kaplan (1982), Dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. ) 69Y. Kaplan (1946), Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. p. 22.

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Uniform for the people in the ghettos and camps was not only the daily ration of bread and hate, torture and fate, but also their entire world-concept and national creative potential. One of the national revelations under the Nazi yoke was the upstart folklore. Through the ghetto-songs, sayings and anecdotes the people from there receive a spiritual local colour, character. From the superficial masses emerges the community, the people.70

Kaplan’s continuing emphasis on cultural unity links the survivors back to their former membership of a community, and reminds the reader that spiritual life did not, indeed could not, stop, despite the horrifying conditions under which it was lived. The folklore he is espousing gives us the tools to examine that spiritual life, to individuate the members of the mass and to perceive them instead as a community of Jews, and thus in some fundamental way connected to the Jewish communities of the post-Holocaust world.71 Kaplan’s emphasis on folk-songs, many of whose authors are unknown, and on such small forms as jokes and sayings also reinforces the sense of creation as a communal activity. This was not literature for the intelligentsia, elegantly refined and quietly appreciated. This was creation by and of the masses, and it proves the continuing cultural existence of a whole people. It is almost as if Kaplan is anticipating later doubts about the possibilities of creativity in the hell that was the Holocaust and answering them with a fantastic array of cultural production. He insists that the ‘process of folk-creation, even in the worst situations in the ghettos and camps, also did not stop.’ He does add the caveat that this activity was not always recorded or preserved. While in the ghetto it was generally possible to obtain writing materials in many camps just the possession of writing paper or a pencil was linked with t h e gallows. To the daily control-searches at the gate were added the incessant propelling from one camp to another, and in the camp itself on the other hand […]

70Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 18. 71In this context it should be noted that Kaplan and Feygenboym were also interested in chronicling the institutions of Jewish culture during the Holocaust, such as ghetto theatres, choirs, and schools, as can be seen in articles published in FLK. This subject is dealt with both in articles specifically about such institutions and as part of more general discussions of communities. (See, for example: Y. Segal (1946), Der ershter kontsert in Vilner geto. Y. Eyger, Y. Fridman and S.-D. Figer (1946), Radom. Y. Oleyski (1948), Di fakhshul in Kovner geto. Y. Gurevitsh (1948), Kovner geto-orkester. )

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switching people between the barracks… All these things made writing in the camp or gathering whatever materials almost entirely impossible.72

Even things that were recorded, both in the ghettos and in the camps, were often burnt or lost or otherwise destroyed. Nonetheless some people did manage to rescue scraps of writings from the Holocaust era, whether on their person or buried for later retrieval, and many others emerged with scraps of songs and anecdotes preserved in memory. Kaplan himself had struggled to record events during his time in concentration camps.73 His historical self-consciousness, his curiosity and his drive for remembrance through knowledge remained with him throughout the war and beyond, informing and driving his post-war activities. His sense of history and of culture told him that ‘words and sayings have their time, season; they arise, pass away, and can also arise again.’74 Given the specific nature of the circumstances surrounding their creative response, it was likely, however, that most or all segments of Holocaust-era folklore would not arise again once they had disappeared from use and then from memory. He and Feygenboym needed to chronicle the communal creations of the Holocaust before they were overshadowed by post-war culture. While it was likely that a few works of the Nazi era would be remembered, the world would inevitably find it easier to forget all but a few relics of Jewish creativity during the Holocaust. A few famous ghetto diaries, modern and literate, a few immensely shocking post-war discoveries buried among the ruins of the crematoria, these might remain, but the individual voices of the masses, raised both in hope and in despair, would disappear.

72Y. Kaplan (1946), Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. p. 22. 73Levi Shalit, who was in Dachau with Kaplan, is recorded as having said that Kaplan ‘made notes for

a humorous book about the Nazis while he was in the camp.’ (L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. p. 78.) H. Leivick records Kaplan as saying that he was caught in camp with a scrap of paper and a bit of pencil and that he was hanged for this offence but miraculously survived. (H. Leivick (1947), Mit der sheyres hapleyte. pp. 200-201.) 74Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 19.

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The self-consciousness which drove the CHC to maintain a wide range of cultural artifacts from the immediate past also caused their realization of the historical importance of their own current situation. Kaplan and Feygenboym knew that their situation was transitory, and that the DPs would soon disperse.75 ‘Every one of us’, Kaplan wrote, ‘is sitting on his luggage. And not just to move oneself, to travel somewhere nearby […] but – to the Land of Israel, Cyprus or even to Uruguay.’76 This made their selfdocumentation no less urgent than the chronicling of the destruction that had created their situation. Their own folklore and cultural creations, their committees and publication and institutions, while different from those of the Nazi-era, were also transient, and they were also representative of the inner existence of their creators. Thus the CHC combined its investigations of Holocaust-era culture with an attempt to chronicle the spiritual life of the DPs as it took place, recognizing both as unique and important eras in the history of communal Jewish creativity.77 Kaplan and Feygenboym used many of the mechanisms which were set up for Holocaust research to explore DP life. With an active DP press reporting on events and reactions to them, testimonies were not as important as for the Holocaust period, but the CHC still collected 1732 DP documents, mostly photograph of Jews in post-war Germany and Poland. One of the many surveys which they sent out to the regional Historical Commissions concentrated on DP publications in the American Zone of Germany.78 Aside 75It should be noted that this transitory nature of the DP experience played an important role in creating

Kaplan and Feygenboym’s sense of urgency about their work. Kaplan explains that in the DP camps, surrounded by others who had shared their experiences, the DPs could confirm their reasonably-fresh memories of still-recent events and verify details of their testimonies and of songs, anecdotes, etc. with survivors from the same town, ghetto or concentration camp. This physical proximity was, as Kaplan knew, only a short-term phenomenon. (Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 9.) The CHC’s wish for immediate testimony may also have been affected by the twin worries that, over time, the survivors would begin to forget details and that their perspectives on the events of the Holocaust would change. 76Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 4. 77The DP-era archive also includes a collection of post-war Neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic literature (See, for example, Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 21.). These fit temporally but not thematically with the rest of the materials in this archive, and they are less interesting than the other collected documents in terms of a study of the DPs themselves. 78M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt. pp. 164, 167.

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from its catalogue in every issue of FLK of Holocaust related articles in current DP newspapers and journals other than itself, the CHC also maintained what was supposed to be a comprehensive archive of DP publications. These were supposed to be collected through donations to the CHC. F L K ran regular advertisements saying: ‘All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc.’ (from issue 6 the wording is changed to ‘to the CHC or to the local Commissions’) and ‘All committees and organizations are requested to send in their old wallnewspapers to the historical commissions.’79 However, the necessity of inserting one or both of these advertisements in every issue of FLK from issue three onwards seems to indicate that the process was not running as smoothly as could be hoped. This suspicion is confirmed by Kaplan’s remarks in May 1947 that, although at first glance collecting DP publications would seem to be an easy task, since ‘Jews live together, [with] so many committees and leaders’, nevertheless ‘the thing is still far from being arranged.’ He complains: ‘Before we wheedle out of an editorial board the required number [of copies] of one of its newspapers! There are truly limitless difficulties in establishing complete sets of the newspapers. […] The organizations are also stingy with their flyers, appeals’. Kaplan warns that this is something that they ‘will also regret of course, but, as usual, too late.’80 As with the testimonies he also worked so hard to collect, Kaplan and his colleagues were trying to save their fellow survivors from their own lack of foresight. They knew that by the time most members of the Surviving Remnant realized their own historical importance, not only as survivors of the Holocaust but as creators of a new, if only 79(1946), Anons. (1947), Anons. (1948), Anons. 80Y. Kaplan (1947), In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe

komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. p. 21.

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temporary, Jewish community, it would be too late to sufficiently document their past. It is as if Kaplan and Feygenboym realized that it might be years, perhaps even more than a generation, before the DPs became a topic of study and debate. Once again the historical self-consciousness of the CHC guided it successfully, this time in its aim to provide later researchers with access to the little-known world of the Displaced Persons. Yet the CHC’s affirmation of the existence and importance of a cultural and spiritual life among the DPs actually goes beyond the chronicling which it championed. The very creation of FLK speaks to a vibrant and active community. This journal, through the CHC, was an arm of the Culture Organization, which was a sub-committee of the CC. The fact that there was a Culture Organization, or even a Central Committee of Liberated Jews, set up in 1945, is itself astonishing. Moreover, FLK remains with us as proof that such resilience really did exist. The very act of creating such a journal, despite its terrible subject matter, is an optimistic continuation of a culture many had thought would be destroyed. Their writing of history presupposes a sense of continuity, an assumption of interest in the Jewish past and of its relevance to the Jewish future. Their involvement in the cultural life of the community, through exhibits and book-publishing and conferences, shows not just a theoretical interest in a possible culture but a practical involvement in an unmistakably authentic communal existence. Even their historical chronicles seem to be offered up as irrefutable proof to later researchers and theoreticians that the Surviving Remnant had a vibrant, active, and interesting cultural life.

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Chapter 6 Shriftn: The Necessity of Culture and Creativity The journal Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn (Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions; hereafter Shriftn)1 was published in Kassel, Germany in January 1948.2 The first and only issue of this journal, of which 2000 copies were printed, consisted of 168 pages and contained both written and artistic works. It was published by the Writers’ Group of the sheyres hapleyte3 on plates set by the Central Historical Commission (CHC) of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany, with financial support from Temple Israel of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The journal was originally intended to be published quarterly,4 but further editions never appeared, possibly due to the foundation of the State of Israel later in 1948 and the subsequent departure of the DPs from Germany. The cover page of Shriftn indicates that it was edited by Ben-Tsion Hibel and Dr. Philip Friedman, while Leonard Prager’s bibliography of literary and linguistic periodicals lists Shloyme Berlinski and Yisroel Kaplan (the editor of FLK), as additional co-editors.5 Although Berlinski and Kaplan, like Friedman, were members of the management committee of the Writers’ Group which published the journal,6 and each contributed an article to Shriftn,7 their editorship is not indicated anywhere in the publication itself,

1B.-T. Hibel and P. Friedman (January 1948), Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. As there

is an English-language table of contents at the beginning of this journal, I will be using the titles provided therein to refer to articles from the journal. I will, however, use modern transliteration for the names of editors and contributors instead of the awkward transliteration provided. In cases such as that of Dr. Philip Friedman, where the individual has later established an accepted English spelling of his name, that spelling will be used instead. 2Tsemah Tsamriyon notes that Shriftn was created after the failure of an attempt to publish a literary journal in Regensburg and the failure of another literary journal which appeared in Munich, which was M. Gelbart (August 1947), Khoydesh-bleter far literatur un kritik. He also mentions that there were technical problems in the text related to poor proof-reading. (T. Tsamriyon (1970), Ha-Itoniyut shel Sheerit Hapleita be-Germania ke-Bitui le-Ba’ayoteha. p.75.) 3On the inside back cover of the journal the name of this group is listed in English as ‘the Writer’s Group of the Sherit Haplatah’, but the grammatical error and clumsy transliteration in that translation do not reflect any problems in the original Yiddish name. 4P. Friedman (1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: I. p. 97. 5L. Prager (1982), Yiddish Literary and Linguistic Periodicals and Miscellanies. p. 145. 6(1948), Khronik. p. 161. 7S. Berlinski (1948), Bam toyer fun gan-eydn (prolog fun a drame). Y. Kaplan (1948), Heyflekh shpliters.

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and their contribution was presumably limited to their known roles of writers, committee members and, in Kaplan’s case, provider of printing equipment through his control of the CHC.8 Hibel and Friedman, the two men who definitely were editors of Shriftn, each also supplied an article for it beyond the pieces required of them as editors of a new journal. Hibel’s contribution, an essay entitled ‘Di shlikhes fun der yidisher literatur’ (‘The Mission of Jewish Literature’),9 was in keeping with his life-long interest in Jewish literary theory and practice. Born in Warsaw in 1909, Hibel was a long-standing member of the Social-Zionist ‘Poalei Zion’ party. While still in Warsaw he worked for the journal Dos Vort (The Word), where he wrote about literature and the theatre. After the war and a brief post-war period in Berlin, Hibel arrived in Munich, where he coedited Shriftn. While in Munich he also served as co-editor of the newspaper of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews, Undzer Veg (Our Way). As part of his work for that publication, Hibel was able to return to his original vocation of literary and theatrical criticism. He left Germany for the United States in 194910 and died in New York in 1974.11 Friedman’s article for Shriftn, ‘Di forshung fun undzer khurbn’ (‘The Study of our Extermination’),12 also reflects the nature of his primary involvement in Jewish cultural life. Born in Lemberg in 1901, he studied at the local Gymnasium, then received a teaching certificate from the Hebrew Institute in Vienna in 1922 and a Doctorate in History from the University of Vienna in 1925. He taught in Jewish schools and gymnasia in the towns of Volkovisk and Koniz and in the city of Lodz. He remained in Lodz, where he also taught at YIVO, for 14 years. Friedman spent the war years in Poland.

8The technical involvement of the CHC is also discussed in M.-Y. Feygenboym (1948), Barikhtn tetikayt.

pp. 168-169. 9B.-T. Hibel (1948), Di shlikhes fun der yidisher literatur. 10E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. pp. 120-121. 11B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 217. 12P. Friedman (1948), Di forshung fun undzer khurbn.

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After his liberation there in the autumn of 1944 he went to Lublin and cofounded the Polish Central Historical Commission. He devoted the rest of his career to the subject of the Holocaust. During the years 1945-6 Friedman lectured on Jewish History at the University of Lodz and served as the Director of the Historical Commission. After this period he left Poland for Germany, where he worked at the Nuremberg trials and organized the Education Department of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). It was at this time that he co-edited Shriftn and, slightly later (1948-9), served on the editorial board of Hemshekh (Continuation),13 another journal of literature and art.14 He also wrote several articles for FLK, including an introductory greeting in the first issue.15 In 1948 Friedman left Europe for the United States, where he taught Jewish History at Columbia University, ran a seminary for Yiddish teachers, and founded and ran the bibliographical section of YIVO and Yad Vashem until his death in 1960. During the last years of his life he also published many books and articles,16 edited the extensive Yad Vashem/YIVO bibliography of Hebrew books about the Holocaust, and co-edited its Yiddish equivalent17. When Shriftn was founded, Hibel and Friedman were already busy with other work in the DP camps. Friedman particularly had to balance his official JDC business, his research into DP cultural life,18 and his writing for many sheyres hapleyte publications. Yet these men found the time and energy to create an impressive new journal. They chose to devote themselves to this 13E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher

literatur: Vol. 7. p. 486-489. 14P. Friedman (1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: I. p. 97. The journal is J. Gar (April 1948 - January 1949), Hemshekh: shriftn far literatur, kunst, kritik un kulturgezelshaftlekhe frages. The presence of Philip Friedman on the editorial board of this journal indicates a link between the demise of Shriftn and the start of Hemshekh, but a causal relationship has not been proven. 15P. Friedman (1946), Bagrisungs-vort. 16E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 7. p. 486-489. 17P. Friedman and J. Gar (1962), Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure. P. Friedman (1960), Bibliography of Books in Hebrew on the Jewish Catastrophe and Heroism in Europe. 18This research is preliminarily reported on in P. Friedman (1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: I. P. Friedman (1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: II.

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task despite their other pressing obligations, because to them and to their contemporaries, the foundation of Shriftn was not merely the start of a new publication. This journal was an integral part of their conscious attempt to reestablish European Jewish culture in order to raise the spiritual level of the DP community. Every publication, every concert and theatrical performance, contributed to that effort of cultural restoration and rehabilitation. In this context, Shriftn was a small step towards the re-integration of the sheyres hapleyte into the Jewish world and towards the salvaging of the remnants of their pre-war cultural existence. This viewpoint is immediately evident in the editors’ note19 at the start of the journal. Hibel and Friedman, survivors and leaders among the remnant of European Jewry, saw themselves as waiting with their people for their only possible physical redemption, ‘an opportunity to return to the Land of Israel.’ They felt that they were still ‘imprisoned’ in the Diaspora. Their socio-political framework was the mass longing of a people trapped in the land of their killers, in the heart of what all too recently had been the Nazi state, ‘every phase of which’ only served to remind them ‘of the merciless hand of the gallow master and the noble march of the martyrs.’ Yet the editors, like the other authors who wrote for the introductory issue of their journal, were not content only to dream about external salvation. They were determined to use their own meagre material and spiritual resources to improve the cultural conditions, and consequently the internal welfare, of their people. Thus while they awaited the exodus of the Jews from Germany, Hibel and Friedman founded their own forum for Jewish self-expression and

19The editor’s note is actually published twice, in Yiddish and in English. In Yiddish (B.-T. Hibel and P.

Friedman (1948), (fun der redaktsye). ) it stands alone, but in English (B.-T. Hibel and P. Friedman (1948), (editor’s note). ) it is appended to the larger Forword (A. J. Klausner (1948), Forword. ). The two versions are identical in content. They differ in the conflation of five paragraphs in the Yiddish into three in the English while retaining all of the same sentences which, in all cases but one, remain in the same order. Certain sentences are idiomatically different between the two languages, but their meaning is the same. Unless otherwise noted, all citations are directly from the English version (p. ii) rather than translated from the Yiddish version (p. iv). In the interest of simplicity, these citations are not footnoted.

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creativity. They denied that such an act was in any way an unusual reaction to their predicament, claiming instead that their establishment of a literary journal in the ruins of post-war Europe was a conventional, normative reaction to their situation. They wrote: ‘Strange and hated as this land is to us, we are nevertheless children of tradition – “The People of the Book.” That tradition compels us to issue this Literary Journal.’ Distancing themselves from any form of controversy by their appeal to the past, the editors supply a ready answer, drawn from one of the oldest and best-known aspects of traditional Jewish life, to those who would perhaps have frowned on such an act of cultural creation in the land of their murderers. Tradition does, in fact, bear out Hibel and Friedman’s claims. Jews have always responded to suffering with chronicles and creativity.20 The post-war condition, wherein of the ‘many artists and writers only a few survived,’ was not an excuse for betraying that tradition, losing a precious thread from within the tattered fabric of Jewish culture. Therefore the few writers and artists who remained had to recreate a vital living culture. To do this they needed to nurture their words and drawings carefully as precious seeds saved from the cataclysm. The survivors had to collect their creative strength for this new purpose forced upon them by the destruction. As explicitly expressed in the Yiddish version of the editors’ note, ‘it is exactly these energies’ which Hibel and Friedman ‘want[ed] to gather and concentrate around this journal.’ The ideal response of the survivor, they implied, was not mute anger and sorrow but a hand, guided by a heart and a mind steeped in memory of both the suffering of the dead and the pain of the living, raising a pen to continue the fragments of the culture of European Jewry. Yet, even given that the depleted ranks of writers still felt drawn to the norm of creative Jewish responses to catastrophe, there remains the 20See the discussion of David Roskies and normative Jewish responses to catastrophe, Chapter 2. The

implications of Hibel and Friedman’s argument for Roskies’s thesis is also summed up in Chapter 7.

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theoretical suggestion that the Holocaust made art, including literature, impossible, particularly when such art was intended to deal directly with the destruction.21 In what is potentially their most controversial statement, Hibel and Friedman clearly refute this argument, claiming further that their experiences ‘challenged’ and ‘fed’ them ‘with new content.’ Although the theoretical issue may not have been current among the DPs at the time, their words leave no room for misunderstanding: not only was writing after the Holocaust possible, such writing was necessary to ‘respond to the challenge’ of the times. ‘Time has,’ as they write in Yiddish, ‘ploughed up new layers’ of topics for their writing. This is not a callous statement. Their words do evoke the language of fertility and rebirth, but only within the context of acknowledged yet unimaginable death and destruction. The contents of Shriftn were not envisaged as lurid plots or superficial characterizations of suffering martyrs, but rather as the pure embodiment of the purpose which filled the sheyres hapleyte, impelling them to write. The Holocaust gave the DPs more than stories and memories. It gave them a reason to create in their need for the culture which they were attempting to re-establish. This belief in the necessity of cultural re-creation is also reflected in the ‘Forword’,22 a short essay in English by Abraham J. Klausner. Originally from Denver, Colorado, Klausner had trained as a Reform Rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio before working at a Temple in New Haven, Connecticut.23 As a US Army Chaplain already in Germany at the end of the war, he was assigned in late May to the 116th Evacuation Hospital stationed at Dachau in order to minister to the survivors and to bury the dead.24 When the 116th was transferred out of Dachau he committed himself to remain despite his official orders and so attached himself to other units stationed 21See the discussion of the statement on the impossibility of art after Auschwitz, Chapter 2. 22A. J. Klausner (1948), Forword. Since the ‘Forword’ is only two pages long, and in the interest of

simplicity, citations taken from this text used in the context of its analysis, below, will not be given footnoted page references. 23A. J. Klausner (15 January 1997), Personal Communication. 24Y. Bauer (1970), Flight and Rescue: Brichah. p. 57.

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there.25 As Yehuda Bauer explains, Klausner soon became ‘a unique case of a roving chaplain with a very tenuous link to various units, an unofficial liaison between the Army and Jewish DPs,’and his ‘special contribution was to activate an organization that would represent the liberated Jews and be effective, ultimately, both as an expression of the people’s will and as an instrument of administration and negotiation’26 – the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany (CC). He also took on such varied and daunting tasks as compiling and publishing five volumes of the names of the survivors27 and acquiring old German and American uniforms to provide the sheyres hapleyte with clothes and shoes.28 After his years in Germany Klausner returned to the United States, where he served as the Provost of Hebrew Union College and worked as a congregational Rabbi. He is now retired and living in New Mexico.29 Despite his status as an American and as an Army Officer, Klausner’s devotion to the well-being and self-determination of the sheyres hapleyte was quickly recognized and he was soon accepted into the DP community. As Ze’ev Mankowitz notes, ‘the indefatigable Chaplain Klausner provided the Committee with a bewildering variety of valuable services and was viewed as belonging in every sense to She’erith Hapleita.’30 As early as 1946 MoysheYoysef Feygenboym wrote that the ‘name Klausner is particularly popular among the sheyres hapleyte. […] In recognition for his great doings for the sheyres hapleyte in its time the CC chose him as its honorary chairman.31 By the spring of 1947 even H. Leivick, a visitor to the DPs, knew that ‘Rabbi Klausner, thin, nimble, with energetic restless eyes, had experienced the rare honour of becoming among the sheyres hapleyte of the American Zone almost 25A. J. Klausner (15 January 1997), Personal Communication. 26Y. Bauer (1970), Flight and Rescue: Brichah. pp. 59, 60. 27(1946), Khronik. p. 36. 28Y. Bauer (1970), Flight and Rescue: Brichah. p. 70 29A. J. Klausner (15 January 1997), Personal Communication. 30Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. p. 33. 31M.-Y. Feygenboym (1946), Khronik. pp. 100-101.

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a legendary figure.’ His popularity stemmed not only from his helpfulness and energy but from his taking ‘part in all joys and pains of the camp-Jews.’32 Klausner was one of the most beloved members of the DP community, and he had worked towards the needs and goals of the DPs since their liberation. In his written work of the period, particularly his ‘Forword’ to Shriftn, he can therefore be assumed to be speaking from intimate knowledge and understanding of their situation. Klausner’s ‘Forword’ appraises the circumstances in which Shriftn and its contemporaries appeared, explains its meaning to the survivors, and indicates the importance of creativity in the destroyed world of postHolocaust Jewish Europe. It succeeds in placing the journal in its cultural context as much through narration as though exposition, with Klausner allowing the journal and its creation to take on mythic, near-Biblical status. This style is already evident in the first line of the piece: ‘There were moments packed with drama in the post-Liberation history of the Jewish people in Germany.’ With this one sentence Klausner has historicized the era within which Shriftn was published, and thus within which he must still have been writing. It implies a considered reflection of the past, and suggests that the recounting of a key dramatic moment is to follow. The reader is not disappointed. After a brief interlude in which the author dwells upon the meaning of his forthcoming story, the narrative begins, sounding almost like a fairy-tale: ‘In the very early days when Camp Feldafing was still a collecting point for the liberated, a young man pleaded for the establishment of a Yiddish newspaper.’ From this the reader assumes that the tale is set in the DP camp at Feldafing, in the American Zone of Germany, sometime in 1945. The Feldafing camp newspaper, Dos fraye vort (The Free Word), was indeed established in October 1945, with a monthly illustrated supplement, Feldafinger magazin (Feldafing Magazine), later known as Untervegs (On The 32H. Leivick (1947), Mit der sheyres hapleyte. p. 134.

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Way) first appearing in December 1945.33 There are also interesting parallels between Klausner’s story and that of the founding of Undzer Veg (Our Way)34 by Levi Shalit with Klausner’s support and material help. Similarities include Shalit’s excited proposal to Klausner that the CC needed a newspaper, which was made on 1 July 1945 in front of the Feldafing Assembly Hall.35 Yet it soon becomes evident that the identity of the newspaper in question is not important. Klausner does not want to tell a single story. He is not particularly interested in the specifics of the establishment of this newspaper, although he does manage to throw in the facts of the case, such as the ‘six or seven thousand squeezed into’ the camp at Feldafing. He wants instead to relate an archetype for the revival of the creative spirit among the surviving remnant of the Jewish people. The details are incidental, important only in their interchangeability among camps, towns and regions. The hardships suffered at Feldafing after the war were no less painful for being typical, but that they were so typical extends the value of the story to the other survivor communities. Klausner, in generalizing his tale and removing it from the confines of a single episode, is writing a modern myth, delineating the archetype of the creative survivor, leading others back to their lost spiritual and cultural existence. His tale has a simple structure. It begins with a people deprived of all but the possibility of a future, ‘victims still dressed in their concentration camp garb’ with ‘an insatiable craving for food.’ Despite their liberation, they were not yet free, surrounded as they were by ‘barbed wires’ and ‘armed guards.’ Even the description of their sleeping conditions is quietly evocative of the concentration camps from which they had so recently been released, with ‘bed placed on top of bed.’ While they were no longer threatened with the brutal physical and mental violence of the death camps, their lives are here 33Z. M. Baker and N. Warnke (1990), A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Jewish Displaced Persons

Periodicals from the Collections of the YIVO Institute. p. 9. 34This newspaper is discussed in Chapter 1. 35L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. pp. 20-21.

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initially described as devoid of the inherent humanizing elements of society. These were people reduced to the most basic of needs, for whom the ‘problem of each day was food, clothing and the whereabouts of family members.’ At this point Klausner progresses from having referred to the survivors specifically as ‘a population of six to seven thousand’ individuals, first to calling them by the general plural noun ‘victims’, and then to naming them as a single unit, ‘the people’. This nomenclature, while reminiscent of the Bible and the language of myth, also created the momentary illusion of Klausner’s ‘people’ being the Jewish People as a whole, adding to the mythical aura of the statement and increasing the general validity of his message. ‘The people,’ he writes, ‘were perplexed’ by ‘the nature of the liberation.’ Life after the Holocaust was not as they ‘had imagined’ because their unimaginable suffering had changed the pre-war world beyond recognition. As individuals, the survivors needed a new vision of the future. As ‘the people’, they needed leaders to grant them that vision. They were ‘schooled in faith,’ and so did not give up their only resource, which was hope, yet they were too crushed to utter a word ‘in challenge of their fate.’ Rather, they waited patiently for ‘their messiah,’ searching each ‘official and visitor that entered the camp […] for news of freedom.’ In Klausner’s view, the people of Feldafing needed a saviour, and thus by extension the whole of the sheyres hapleyte was in need of redeemers. Klausner presents his prototypical saviour in the next paragraph of his narrative: the young man of the story’s introduction. He had not arrived from the outside, like the driver ‘dressed in Army khaki crouched behind the wheel of a battered sedan.’ The outsider had the power to dispense material goods, but he was not the visionary whom the survivors needed. The sedan’s driver, on his own initiative, could only have provided the negatively defined freedom from fear which the Allied military had already generally established p. 10

in the camp, but not the positively defined freedom of the spirit that accompanies creative humanity. In contrast, the insider would be able to complete the process of the liberation of his people with his knowledge of and connection to the inner beings of the survivors. Klausner’s young man was definitely one of the survivors, part of the group whose spirits he needed to redeem. He is described as ‘thin and hungry looking’ and he was, as his compatriots were, ‘dressed in the striped garment of the concentration camp.’ Yet he was not entirely of the people. While the people surrounded the sedan ‘in a circle of humanity’ he ‘stood upon a mound that rose off to the side of the narrow road.’ He was distinct, apart from the others, their unnominated and unnamed leader. The mythical stature given him by his lack of an individual name, by his identity only as ‘the young man,’ by his position raised above the crowd, is complemented by his ‘tall’ physical stature and by allusions within the description of him to other legendary leaders. He is plainly stated to be ‘lincolnesque,’ which from an American such as the author immediately implies the idealized freeing of a nation after much hardship and strife by a plain man of intelligence and integrity. Unlike the confused crowd, capable only of listening, he was, from his mound, able to speak to the man in the sedan on their behalf, a Moses leading his people from slavery, through the desert of despair, to the promised land of a meaningful future. Yet the most important difference about this young man was neither his physical separateness nor his willingness to take the initiative and speak on behalf of people. He is defined as special, as crucial, because he had a vision for the future, not only for himself but for all survivors. His thoughts were not limited by his war-time fantasies of what would happen after the liberation, but rather extended to an understanding of the present situation of the sheyres hapleyte. Thus he conceived a plan for the spiritual rebirth of his people. He presented his idea with absolute certainty, smiling ‘knowingly and above and beyond the tragedy which surrounded him.’ He spoke for the p. 11

good of his fellow victims, caught up in the dual tragedy of the physical death of millions coupled with the threat of the death of the spirit of the survivors, and no one seems to have contradicted his claim, his simple pleading statement: ‘“We are in need of a newspaper!”’ A simple request, a small boon to be granted, yet also the first step within the process of the returning of culture and spiritual creativity to the survivors at Camp Feldafing. ‘That paper appeared […] and the printed word circulated.’ The encampment had its ‘weekly miracle.’ This was not an isolated example. The story, although based on reality, finds its truth as an archetypal myth through the continued repetition of its motifs. ‘There were many such moments,’ Klausner writes. The cultureworkers, the writers, poets and editors, the artists, the actors and directors, created a renewed culture from the ashes of the old. The young man’s story was repeated, with hundreds of different permutations, in DP camps across Occupied Europe. Every camp had its leaders, its visionaries, its saviours, to lift its occupants back towards daylight. Not all were young men, but all must have displayed courage and vision. Throughout the sheyres hapleyte community, those who had the spiritual strength led their fellow-survivors to the meaningful existence which they craved. Not all created newspapers, for this was only a means to an end, but all pursued that vital end of providing what Klausner refers to as ‘purposeful living.’ This necessity of finding meaning in existence is highlighted, fable-like, at the start and at the end of Klausner’s story. At the outset he makes clear his belief that ‘the will to survive which sustained a number of concentration camp victims was coupled with the will to survive for purposeful living.’ The continued certainty of this need for purpose, however unarticulated, which the young man must have recognized within himself and his fellow survivors, gave him the ability to speak so confidently on their behalf. How better to accomplish this among the People of the Book than through ‘the p. 12

printed word’? It suddenly seems more understandable that concentration camp survivors, still in need of food and clothing, fashioned type, found paper, and printed their own newspaper. They were providing themselves with a different sort of nourishment, traditional foods for the parts of themselves they had long had to ignore in the quest for physical survival. The era of suffering without meaning was over, and the creative impulse was being returned to the people. Klausner ends his ‘Forword’ with an epilogue to this parable-like tale, in which he uses the publication of Shriftn as a further case of the restoration of meaning to life through the printed word. He asserts that there were many such moments in the creation of a purposeful life, and that the ‘appearance of this first issue of a Literary Journal is one of them.’ He does not predicate the importance of this journal on its being the first literary journal to be published by the DPs, which it was not, nor does he base his judgment of its interest on the literary merit of its articles. That is not to say that Klausner disparages the quality of the contents of the journal, many of whose contributors went on to have distinguished careers in prose, poetry, and journalistic writing. Yet he wants their work to be judged by a different standard. ‘As interesting and dramatic as the article may be,’ he writes of the individual works within Shriftn, ‘the name of the author, in each instance, suggests a story far more interesting and dramatic than that of his pen.’ This is not an apologia, but an indication that, in the face of extreme crisis, the act of writing, and thus the force of character necessary for such creativity despite the years of suppression and attempted dehumanization, was more important than any actual product of that creativity. In common with Hibel and Friedman, Klausner believes that the true importance of Shriftn is in its meaning for the spiritual redevelopment of its writers and its primary intended readers, the surviving remnant of European Jewry.

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This interpretation is supported by Klausner’s descriptions of the members of both of these solitudes, with the former teaching the latter how to dream of a future. The writers ‘huddle together,’ finding solace in each other’s existence, ‘waiting patiently’ for the fruition of the cultural rebirth whose seeds they have sown. Their self-redemption was begun by their ‘dreaming,’ which in this context is not a passive act; after the Holocaust, it took courage even to dream. It was then fully realized by ‘clothing their dreams in printer’s ink,’ sharing them and thus creating hope for their fellow survivors who could no longer do this for themselves. This mass of victims who had ‘forgotten how to dream’ could thus be ‘guided’ towards a meaningful future through the creativity of the artistic few. The literary journal can thus be seen as a beacon of the human spirit in the Jewish cultural darkness of post-war Europe. Life is thus redeemed, made meaningful, given purpose through the writings and drawings of the survivors - through art. Klausner concludes with the belief that the contributions of the pathbreaking creative spirits will some day be acknowledged. He writes that ‘the time will come when the story of these dreamers […] will be told in all dramatic detail.’ Whether or not their words and pictures are judged by posterity as being of enduring artistic merit, their legacy for the future of the inhabitants of the DP camps, for the culture of the remnants of European Jewry and indeed of the entire Jewish People, is unmistakable. This holds true for the editors and authors of Shriftn as well as for those of the scores of other publications which appeared within the sheyres hapleyte community. In this sense Shriftn is not unusual, nor was it meant to be. As part of the mainstream of Jewish cultural renewal, it reflects the hopes and ideals of a generation pulled back from the abyss. The creative impulse of their leaders, their vision of a meaningful future, enabled the survivors to see themselves once again as part of a purposeful cultural community.

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Praise for these creative spirits is evident throughout both Klausner’s ‘Forword’ and Hibel and Friedman’s editors’ note. Such theoretical writing would not have been amiss in almost any journal of the period. Shriftn, however, as its full title makes clear, was expressly intended to deal with art, and more specifically, but not exclusively, with literature. The creativity explicitly advocated in its introductory material should, if the editors were consistent, be reflected in its contents. This is indeed the case, with the range of items selected for and printed in the first issue of Shriftn indicating a broad conception of Jewish culture and an appreciation of its variety. Among the written works there are sixteen poems, seven short stories, one historical memoir, one section of a play, one cultural survey, and five essays. The essays deal with historiography, theatre, and literature. There are also fourteen reproductions of works of visual art, including ten drawings or paintings, two sculptures and two wood-carvings.36 The level of DP creativity shown by this panoramic array of cultural production in the journal reinforces the prescriptive message of its introductory texts, with the works published serving as proof of the possibilities of the spiritual renewal which the journal advocates. More extensive proof of the success of this cultural re-creation is presented at the end of the Shriftn, in an eight-page article described in the English table of contents as a survey of the ‘Cultural Life of the Shaarith Haplaitha’.37 As this piece is not attributed in any way, it can be assumed to be, at least in large part, by the journal’s editors, Hibel and Friedman. The survey, or ‘Chronicle’,38 speaks to the future prospects of European Jewish culture better than any prescriptive essay or theoretical discussion, 36Due to the nature of the reproductions in the journal, it is not possible to differentiate between the

materials used for the drawings and/or paintings. It is also difficult to be absolutely certain that the two images which are probably photographs of sculptures are not in fact reproductions of paintings or drawings of such sculptures, whether real, imagined or remembered. The wood-carvings, however, are indicated as such in the list of ‘artistic reproductions’ ((1948), Kinstlerishe reproduktsyes. ). 37(1948), Khronik. Unless noted otherwise, the information in the following paragraphs is derived from this article. Only direct citations will be specifically attributed. 38This is the direct translation of its Yiddish title, and is an article/section title frequently encountered in DP journals.

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complementing the more abstract ideals presented at the front of the journal with an array of facts about the current situation. Specifically, it summarizes the history of four organizations active among the survivors at the time that Shriftn was published, presenting post-war Jewish creative life not as an abstract possibility but as a fait accompli. By examining the issues presented within these cultural histories, we arrive at a clearer picture of the state of the creative collective within the surviving remnant of European Jewry, particularly within the DP camps of the American Zone of Germany. The first organization to be discussed, to which the first half of the article is devoted, is the Writers’ Group of the sheyres hapleyte, under whose auspices Shriftn was published. According to the survey, this group was begun in June 1946 and was officially founded and legalized through the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone (CC) on 7 August, 1946. It provided an umbrella organization for writers, both literary and journalistic, as well as for visual artists. A permanent management committee, consisting of seven members, was established at its second general meeting. These seven administrators are all represented in Shriftn, and were all prominent members of the community of cultural activists. They include Friedman and the above-mentioned Kaplan and Berlinski as well as the authors Sh. D. Bunin and Hershel Vaynroykh, the poet and essayist Dovid Volpe, and the artist H. Laban.39 Of the more than fifty members of the full organization, twenty-one were classified as writers of literary prose or poetry. By the time the Shriftn survey was written, this literary sub-section of the Writers’ Group had managed to organize a popular series of literary evenings and writers’ gatherings. They had received some funds from the CC and from America and had been given a Yiddish typewriter, and they were particularly thankful

39Their contributions to Writings are S. D. Bunin (1948), A nayer tog. H. Vaynroykh (1948), M’sort [sic]

keyn Odes. D. Volpe (1948), Bagegenish mitn goyel in a daytshish shtetl & Berkhtesgaden 1947. H. Laban (1948), Kop-shtudye.

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for Klausner’s efforts resulting in their receipt of the money required to publish Shriftn. They also still eagerly awaited promised shipments of books from individuals and groups in America with which to establish their own small library. These DP writers recognized the value of what they had accomplished, of the established fact that despite their many hardships they had organized a creative collective and that this assemblage was working hard in its attempts to renew Jewish literary culture. Yet they were not content with what they had already achieved. They continued to worry about the technical difficulties caused by the lack of a proper site for their activities, and they hoped for the financial and material resources to accomplish yet more with the cultural community whom they had assembled. Such constant striving for improvement remains a motif within the descriptions of the other two sub-sections of the Writers’ Group. At the time the survey was written the journalists’ sub-section, with twenty-five members, had already established a press commission and had held the first Conference of Editors of the Press of the sheyres hapleyte, which took place on 9 February, 1947. The journalists had set for themselves three ambitious tasks: the ‘improvement of technical services,’ the raising of ‘the moral and literary level of the Yiddish printed word,’ and the education of a new generation of well-trained journalists. They had established ties with their Jewish colleagues in other countries, notably by meeting with a delegation of Israeli journalists and by joining the World Union of Yiddish Journalists. This last organization promised to send them the books they required in the course of the work as journalists, which would enable them to raise the standard of their writing. This is in keeping with the journalists’ general eagerness to improve the quality of their output and the usefulness of their organization. Other evidence of this includes the convening of two further editors’ conferences and their support for the typographical conversion of many Yiddish publications of the sheyres hapleyte from their initial Latin p. 17

alphabet to the proper Yiddish alphabet. The artistic sub-section also fits into the same pattern of dedication and renewal. Although this part of the Writers’ Group had only ten members, they worked hard and produced works said to be of ‘a high artistic level’ as was ‘confirmed by the jury’ at an exhibition of DP art in which they had taken part.40 This is certainly not a portrait of a community without an immediate cultural future, in situ or elsewhere. The overall impression, as described here by its own members, is that the creative forces unleashed by the Writers’ Group up to that point represented only a beginning. In their own eyes they were capable, given the most modest of resources, of cultural revitalization involving both themselves and their communities. As has already been shown, they believed themselves to be needed to contribute to a culture which they knew had to be both preserved and renewed for future generations. The strongest evidence of this faith in the future of their culture lies in the one other activity which all three sub-sections separately endorsed: training the next generation of cultural workers. The formalizing of such education was crucial, as most forms of cultural transmission between the generations had been nearly completely destroyed. Many of the surviving young people had gone five years or more without proper education. Almost none had had any opportunity to develop their potential talents. Schools which taught academic subjects had since been established in the DP camps, and so that portion of their education was now in hand, but these schools could not be expected to cater for the needs of artistically gifted pupils, and a large proportion of the creative teachers to whom they might now have looked for inspiration and guidance were dead. Education was thus urgently needed in the attempt to replace in Jewish life the ‘Jewish writers, artists and the whole Jewish creative intelligentsia,

40(1948), Khronik. pp. 163, 164.

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upon whom the enemy first stretched out his murderous hand.’41 The surviving cultural activists had to be organized and energetic enough to stand in for their murdered colleagues in the training of the next generation, who themselves would have to be creative and prolific to compensate in some small way for the many who would now never contribute to art and culture. Members of all three segments of the Writers’ Group were therefore involved in artistic education. The literary sub-section held, as part of its regular activities, ‘twice-weekly consultations for Yiddish literature. Many young people who write prose and poetry bring along their literary works and receive instruction and advice.’ Similarly, the visual artists held twiceweekly ‘consultations for young painters’ and the journalistic sub-section was planning ‘to accredit youthful journalistic efforts, and to found a seminar for beginner journalists.’42 This emphasis on education also continues through the descriptions of other organizations discussed in the Shriftn survey. One of these, the Actors’ Union, established by and for Jewish professional actors, had announced that in the next year it would be holding examinations for young actors in order to draw new talent into the theatre. The Jewish theatre had been an important part of pre-war cultural life, and these actors were determined that creative work in this area be continued. To that end they also made contact with actors’ unions in America and England, accredited professional actors, and, in conjunction with a theatrical sub-committee of the CC, re-organized a Yiddish theatre in the American Zone. The pedagogical goals of yet another organization, the Directorate for Culture and Education, were more substantial than those discussed above, although its general cultural claims may seem less obvious at first. Established in February 1947 as a result of an understanding between the Jewish Agency,

41(1948), Yizker. p. iii. 42(1948), Khronik. pp. 162, 164.

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the JDC and the CC,43 it was founded to co-ordinate efforts in education, which is here specifically called ‘one of the most important domains’ of DP life.44 The eighty-three schools which the Directorate was running at the time of the survey contained 10603 pupils in 417 classes and taught them both secular and Jewish, including religious, subjects. A conference dealing with pedagogical issues took place under its auspices in March 1947. Even such basic educational matters were seen by the DPs as part of cultural revitalization, as can most plainly be seen by the inclusion of the term ‘Culture’ in the name of this school-centred organization and even by the inclusion of such an organization in this survey of ‘Cultural Life.’ This is again understandable in light of the desperate educational conditions of many of the DP youth, who required a basic linguistic, historical and traditional grounding before being able to progress artistically, or even to connect at all with the renewed culture of Jewish Europe.45 In the heartland of their suffering and loss, despite creative and technical difficulties, the surviving writers, artists, actors, and educators were trying valiantly to replenish the ranks of creative Jewish spirits. Only in this way could they fulfill their mission, which was both to ensure that the culture of European Jewry would be able to continue beyond any single publication, group, or generation and to raise the spiritual level of the DP community through creativity within that culture. That these goals were shared by the editors of Shriftn, themselves part of the cultural collective, is implicit in the discussion of these organizations’ work in the journal as well as being explicit in its introductory sections. The editorial text in the journal Shriftn, its contents, and the cultural groups it describes all speak to the same issues. They all insist on the possibility and the necessity of the renewal of creativity 43These organizations and their often hostile interrelations are discussed in Chapter 1. This unusual

level of cooperation between them may be taken as an indication of the importance of this issue within the DP and aid communities. 44(1948), Khronik. p. 166. 45The fourth organization discussed in the survey, the Central Historical Commission (CHC) of the CC, has been dealt with at length in Chapter 5.

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in order to establish a cultural base for the sheyres hapleyte which acknowledged the European past while preparing for the Jewish future. Hibel, Friedman, Klausner and their colleagues wanted to raise the Jewish spirit. Like the young man in Feldafing, they were trying to reform the survivors from a collection of victimized individuals, into a new version of the vital, creative people they had once been.

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Section Three: Annotated Bibliography of the DP Literary Journals

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Explanatory Notes The first part of the annotated bibliography of the DP literary journals presents the materials for each journal chronologically. Within the sub-part for each journal, an entry for each article is arranged under a heading for each issue. Entries are structured in this way: Transliterated Title of Item / Translated Title of Item Contributor of Item Page Numbers of Item Genre of Item Notes (Theme of Item) The second part is arranged by contributor and combines entries from all three journals. It presents brief biographical descriptions of those contributors who are known for their literary or political achievements. Its entries are structured in this way: Contributor Journal and Issue: Page Number of Item Genre of Item (Theme of Item) Biographical Information if Available In the third part of the annotated bibliography, the material is divided into ten sets of genres which are presented in alphabetical order. These are further sub-divided by thematic issues within these genres. The definitions and combinations of the genres and of the themes within them are discussed separately for each genre. The entries for the articles are structured like those in part one.

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In Gang / In Progress Rome, Italy, March 1947 - February 1949 8 issues in 3 volumes (issues numbered 1 - 15) Volume 1, Issue 1, March 1947, 32 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / Monthly Journal of Literature and Art Editors: Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi & Berl Kahn Fun der redaktsye / From the Editorial Board Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi & Berl Kahn 1-2 Essay Manifesto about the necessity of culture (DP Culture) Di oysgevortslte… / The Uprooted… Leo Garfunkl 3-7 Book Review Review of Zorach Warhaftig (1946) Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaces Persons After Liberation, including a summary of the book’s conclusions (DPs) Dos Italyenishe yidntum (nekhtn un haynt) / Italian Jewry (Yesterday and Today) Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 7-10 History A history of Italian Jews from classical times to the present. (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Mir veln zikh nit lozn shekhtn mer… / We Will Not Allow Ourselves to be Slaughtered Anymore… Moyshe Kaganovitsh 10-15 Essay A chapter of a forthcoming book, Jewish Participation in the Soviet PartisanMovement (Zionism and Israel) Far zeks khadoshim… / For Six Months… Moyshe Yungman 16 Poem From the cycle In the Shadow of the Concentration Camp (Holocaust) Torf-mentshn / Turf-People Moyshe Yungman 16 Poem p. 1

(Holocaust) Di mame / Mother Moyshe Yungman 17 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Di letste tfile / The Last Prayer Menakhem Riger 18 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Tsu nit gelitene / To Those Who Did Not Suffer Menakhem Riger 19 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Af morgn / The Day After Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 20-23 Play Excerpt Two fragments of the work which was awarded the 1946 First Prize for Drama in a contest organized by the Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Rome. (Holocaust) Tsu mayn hintl in geto / To my Puppy in the Ghetto Khayim Nayerman 23 Poem (Holocaust) Literarisher konkurs in Italye / Literary Contest in Italy A. Zaks 24-27 Essay (DP Culture) Vegn di premirte historishe bashraybungen / About the Award-Winning Historical Descriptions Berl Kahn 27-29 Speech (DP Culture) Literarishe khronik: I. P. Lakhover / Literary Chronicle: I. P. Lakhover 29-30 Death Notice

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Literarishe khronik: Peysakh Ginzburg / Literary Chronicle: Pesakh Ginzburg 30 Death Notice Literarishe khronik: bikher vegn khurbn-Eyrope / Literary Chronicle: Books about the Destruction of Europe 31 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Literarishe khronik: Naye yidishe un hebreyishe bikher / Literary Chronicle: New Yiddish and Hebrew Books 31-32 Recent Bibliography (General) Volume 1, Issue 2-3, April - May 1947, 48 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / Monthly Journal of Literature and Art Editors: Bernard Vind, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi, A. Zaks & Dr. Leon Bernshteyn Geto un goles / Ghetto and Exile Leo Garfunkl 1-9 History (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Baal-Shem vizye / Baal-Shem Vision Menakhem Riger 10 Poem (Holocaust) May… / May… Menakhem Riger 11 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Veynt di tsayt nokh dir / The Time Cries for You… Menakhem Riger 11 Poem For Sholem Aleichem’s yortsayt (Post-Holocaust) Dos naye bukh fun Sh. Apter / The New Book by Sh. Apter Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 12-18 Book Review Review of Sh. Apter (1946) In Roymisher geto / In the Roman Ghetto p. 3

(Holocaust) Lider un poemes: nokh dir… (mayn tatn z’l) / Songs and Poems: After You… (My Late Father) Moyshe Yungman 19 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider un poemes: tsum shvaygndikn zelner / Songs and Poems: To the Silent Soldier Moyshe Yungman 19 Poem (Holocaust) Lider un poemes: dertseylt di levone / Songs and Poems: The Moon Recounts… Moyshe Yungman 20 Poem (Holocaust) Lider un poemes: der shtumer fidler / Songs and Poems: The Mute Fiddler Moyshe Yungman 21 Poem (Holocaust) Bagegnishn mit yidishe shrayber in Amerike / Meetings with Yiddish Writers in America Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 22-28 Essay (Jewish Culture) Lider: farloyrn iz gegangen… / Poems: Lost Went… Mordkhe Lifshits 29 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: Tsu der zun / Poems: To the Sun Mordkhe Lifshits 29 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: beyze vintn blozn… / Poems: Evil Winds Blow… Mordkhe Lifshits 30 Poem (Post-Holocaust) p. 4

Lider: Shtiler harts mayn… / Poems: Be Silent, My Heart… Mordkhe Lifshits 30 Poem (Holocaust) Yidish un di yidishe prese / Yiddish and the Yiddish Press Berl Kahn 31-35 Essay (Jewish Culture) Di goles-prototipn ba Sholem Aleykhem / Diaspora-Prototypes in Sholem Aleichem A. De Liu 35-40 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Der Mames Kleyd / Mother’s Dress Dovid Kupferberg 40-42 Story Fragment from the book Lublin (Holocaust) Faryosemte heym / Orphaned Home K. L. Tenenboym 43 Poem (Holocaust) Khronik: di mitglider-farzamlung fun farband fun yidishe literatn, zhurnalistn un kinstler in Italye / Chronicle: The General Meeting of the Union of Yiddish Writers, Journalists and Artists in Italy 44 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: fun umetum / Chronicle: From Everywhere 45 Current Events (General) Khronik: Perets-fayerungen / Chronicle: Peretz Celebration 46 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: derfolg fun kinstler-ansambl in Bari / Chronicle: Success of the Artists Ensemble in Bari 46 p. 5

Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: naye yidishe bikher / Chronicle: New Yiddish Books 46-47 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) 48 Khronik: naye hebreyishe bikher / Chronicle: New Hebrew Books Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Volume 1, Issue 4-5, June - July 1947, 64 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / Monthly Journal of Literature and Art Editors: Bernard Vind, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi, A. Zaks & Dr. Leon Bernshteyn Dos shtetl un undzer khurbn literatur / The Shtetl and Our Holocaust Literature Bernard Vind 1-5 Essay (Holocaust Literature) Teater ba der sheyres hapleyte / Theatre Among the Surviving Remnant Yonas Turkov 6-11 Essay (DP Culture) Lider: nakht / Poems: Night Sore Rituv 11 Poem (General) Lider: friling / Poems: Spring Sore Rituv 11 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lid un poeme: Roym un Yerushalayim (poeme) / Song and Poem: Rome and Jerusalem (Long Poem) Moyshe Yungman 12-14 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Gezegenung / Parting Moyshe Yungman p. 6

15 Poem (Holocaust) Metalener goyrl (skitse) / Metal Fate (Sketch) Zanvl Diamant 16-20 Story (Post-Holocaust) Elegye… / Elegy… Mordkhe Lifshits 20 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Avraham Sutskever mentsh un dikhter / Avraham Sutskever Man and Poet Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 21-30 Essay (Holocaust Literature) A nayer dertseyler / A New Storyteller Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 31-34 Book Review Review of Zanvl Diamant (1947) Untern haknkrayts / Under the Swastika (Holocaust) Lider: der letster krekhts / Poems: The Last Groan Menakhem Riger 34-35 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: tsu Got / Poems: To God Menakhem Riger 35 Poem (General) Af morgn… / The Day After… Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 36-38 Play Excerpt Another fragment of Leon Bernshteyn’s award-winning play (Holocaust) Biblishe motivn in der kunst fun Roym / Biblical Motifs in the Art of Rome Sh. Segal 39-47 Essay p. 7

Illustrated with three Michelangelos (‘The Creation of Adam’ and ‘The Fall and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden,’ both from the Sistine Chapel, and the ‘Moses’ from San Pietro in Vincoli) (General Culture) Zibn Shtern… / Seven Stars… Bernard Vind 47 Poem (General) Afn rand fun a matseyve / On the Rim of a Tombstone Zanvl Diamant 48-52 Book Review Review of Yizker bukh: gevidmet di 14 umgekumene Parizer yidishe shrayber / Memorial Book: In Memory of the 14 Murdered Parisian Yiddish Writers (Holocaust) Prese un teater in erets-Yisroel / Press and Theatre in the Land of Israel D. Segulim 52-55 Essay (Zionism and Israel) Yidn in der partizaner-prese / Jews in the Partisan-Press Dr. Z. Levinbuk 55-59 History (Holocaust) Aphorizmen / Aphorisms 59 Folklore (DP) Geshtaltn un tipn, vos darfn nit fargesn vern: Aharon Frank / Figures and Types that Must Not be Forgotten: Aharon Frank A. Yud 60-63 Biography From a series of descriptions of and short monographs about Yiddish writers, intellectuals, teachers and artists murdered by the Nazis. (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Khronik: derfolg fun Y. Turkov un D. Blumenfeld in Roym un umgegnt / Chronicle: Success of Y. Turkov and D. Blumenfeld in Rome and Vicinity 63 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: fortrogs-turne fun B. Vind in di lagern fun tsofn / Chronicle: Tour by B. Vind in the Camps in the North p. 8

64 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: Leyb Reznik in Roym / Chronicle: Leyb Reznik in Rome 64 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: naye yidishe bikher / Chronicle: New Yiddish Books 64 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Volume 1, Issue 6-7, August - September 1947, 64 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / Monthly Journal of Literature and Art Editors: Bernard Vind, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi, A. Zaks & Dr. Leon Bernshteyn Di araber un undzer ufboy verk / The Arabs and our Construction Work Michal Asaf 1-4 Essay (Zionism and Israel) Tsvishn lebn un toyt / Between Life and Death Sh. Niger 5-8 Book Review Review of Leon Bernshteyn’s Af morgn / The Day After (Holocaust) Di bagegenish / The Encounter Menakhem Riger 9-11 Poem Fragment of ‘Shloymke the Soldier’ (Holocaust) Mir un zey / We and They Yanos Turkov 12-16 Memoir (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Religye nekhtn un haynt / Religion Yesterday and Tomorrow Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 17-26 Essay (General Culture) Ikh benk… / I Long… p. 9

Sore Rituv 27 Poem (Zionism and Israel) Elnt un farvorlozt / Lonely and Abandoned Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 28-30 Essay (DP Culture) Lider: der yom-tov fun vayn / Poems: The Holiday of Wine Mordkhe Lifshits 31-32 Poem (General) Lider: vos is dos lebn / Poems: What is Life? Mordkhe Lifshits 33 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: nit gloyb / Poems: Do Not Believe! Mordkhe Lifshits 34 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: di shlakht / Poems: The Battle Mordkhe Lifshits 35-36 Poem (General) Moyshe Khayim Lutsato un zayn tkufe / Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and his Age Bernard Vind 37-42 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) Di krizis fun yidish un zayne sibes / The Crisis of Yiddish and its Reasons Shmuel Segal 43-48 Essay (Jewish Culture) Geshtaltn un tipn, vos darfn nit fargesn vern: Betsalel Mazovietski / Figures and Types that Must Not be Forgotten: Betsalel Mazovietski Dr. H. Direktorovitsh 49-50 Biography p. 10

From a series of descriptions of and short monographs about Yiddish writers, intellectuals, teachers and artists murdered by the Nazis. (Holocaust) Kritik un bibliografye: Kestlers erets-Yisroel bukh / Criticism and Bibliography: Koestler’s Israel Book Arye Imber 51-54 Book Review Review of Arthur Koestler’s Thieves in the Night (Zionism and Israel) Kritik un bibliografye: a rayfer onheyb / Criticism and Bibliography: A Mature Beginning D. Segulim 54-56 Book Review Review of a book of poems, Dovid From’s Efsher / Maybe (Holocaust) Kritik un bibliografye: der yovl fun Hadoar / Criticism and Bibliography: The Jubilee of Hadoar A. De Liu 56-57 Book Review Review of a jubilee book for the American Hebrew newspaper Hadoar (Jewish Culture) Der numer 8-9-10 fun In Gang dershaynt in november in a fargresert format fun 100 zaytn / Issue 8-9-10 of In Progress Appears in November in an Enlarged Format of 100 Pages 57 Advertisement Khronik / Chronicle 58-59 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: ongekumen in redaktsye / Chronicle: Received by the Editors 59 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Khronik: fun umetum / Chronicle: From Everywhere 60-61 Current Events (Jewish Culture) Khronik: naye yidishe bikher / Chronicle: New Yiddish Books 62-63 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) p. 11

Khronik: naye hebreyishe bikher / Chronicle: New Hebrew Books 64 Recent Bibliography (General) Volume 1, Issue 8-9-10, November - December 1947, 100 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / Monthly Journal of Literature and Art Editors: Bernard Vind, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi, A. Zaks & Dr. Leon Bernshteyn Mandat un trayhandshaft / Mandate and Trusteeship Leo Garfunkl 1-10 Essay A chapter of a longer work about the United Nations and its charter (Zionism and Israel) Arum di ideen fun undzer virklekhkayt / Around the Ideas of our Reality Mordkhe Shtrigler 11-15 Essay (DP Culture) Lider: in maline / Poems: In the Hide-Out Mordkhe Lifshits 16 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: a gast / Poems: A Guest Mordkhe Lifshits 16 Poem (General) Lider: der diamant / Poems: The Diamond Mordkhe Lifshits 17 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: harbst / Poems: Autumn Mordkhe Lifshits 18 Poem (General) Ershter yidisher [sic] kultur-konferents in Italye / First Yiddish Cultural Conference in Italy 18 Advertisement p. 12

Nekome / Vengeance Zanvl Diamant 19-27 Story (Post-Holocaust) Sonya Rekhtik (poeme) / Sonya Rekhtik (Long Poem) Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 28-35 Poem Dedicated to Sh. Niger (Holocaust) Dovid Frishman: tsum 25-yerikn yortsayt / Dovid Frishman: to his 25th yortsayt Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 36-40 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) Der shotn, dos likhtl un der vint… (a moshl) / The Shade, the Small Light and the Wind… (A Parable) Bernard Vind 40-41 Poem Dedicated to the memory of Eliezer Shteynbarg (General) Geshtaltn un shtremungen in der moderner Italyenisher literatur / Images and Trends in Modern Italian Literature Bernard Vind 42-50 Essay (General Culture) Lider: der zukher / Poems: The Searcher Eugenio Montale, translated by Bernard Vind 51 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: Eyrope / Poems: Europe Mario Luzi, translated by Bernard Vind 52 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: monotonye / Poems: Monotony Giuseppe Ungaretti, translated by Bernard Vind 53 p. 13

Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: in eynzamkayt / Poems: In Loneliness Umberto Saba, translated by Bernard Vind 53 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Der yidisher vidershtand in undzer literatur / The Jewish Resistance in our Literature Moyshe Kaganovitsh 54-65 Essay (Holocaust Literature) Lider: mayn tatns ash / Poems: My Father’s Ashes Menakhem Riger 66-67 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: harbst / Poems: Autumn Menakhem Riger 67 Poem (General) A vort tsu undzer pleytim-inteligents / A Word to our Refugee-Intelligentsia Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 68-77 Essay (DP Culture) Yidisher kultur-kongres un yidishe kultur / Jewish Cultural Congress and Jewish Culture D. L. Mekler 78-80 Essay The author, who was at the time the editor of the New York Morgn-Zhurnal, wrote this article while visiting Rome. Its opinions are not necessarily those of the editors. (Jewish Culture) Dos yidishe shul-vezn in Tsentral-Amerike / The Jewish School System in Central-America Ida Cohen (Fabritski) 81-84 Essay (Jewish Culture) p. 14

Der ‘kinder-fraynt’ / The ‘Children’s Friend’ A. De Liu 85-87 Memoir (Holocaust) Tipn un geshtaltn, vos darfn nit fargesn vern: Yehoshue Grinberg / Types and Figures, That Must Not be Forgotten: Yehoshue Grinberg A. Yud 87-88 Biography From a series of descriptions of and short monographs about Yiddish writers, intellectuals, teachers and artists murdered by the Nazis. (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Dr. Yerushalmis Kitsur fun yidisher geshikhte / Dr. Yerushalmi’s Summary of Jewish History Ruven Levitan 89-90 Book Review Review of Eliezer Yerushalmi (1947) Summary of Jewish History (Jewish Culture) Nekrologn: Z. Y. Anokhy / Obituary Notices: Z. Y. Anokhy 90 Death Notice Nekrologn: Dr. Iser Ginzburg / Obituary Notices: Dr. Iser Ginzburg 90 Death Notice Efsher vet geshen a nes?… (problemen fun geto-lebn) / Maybe a Miracle Will Happen?… (Problems of Ghetto Life) Dr. M. Dvorzhetski 91-93 Memoir (Holocaust) Fun yidishn kultur-lebn in Italye / From Jewish Cultural Life in Italy 93-94 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle 94-97 Current Events (Jewish and General Culture) Ongekumen in redaktsye / Received by the Editors 97 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) p. 15

Pages 98-99 are missing in every copy located Nay dershinen / Newly Published 100 Advertisement For Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi’s A kitzer fun yidisher geshikhte / A Summary of Jewish History and the YIVO Takones fun yidishn oysleyg / Rules of Yiddish Spelling Volume 2, Issue 11-12, May - June 1948, 96 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems Editors: Dr. Leon Bernshteyn, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi & Berl Kahn Tsum politishn un yuridishn status fun di yidishe pleytim in Italye / To the Political and Legal Status of the Jewish Refugees in Italy Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 1-13 Essay (DPs) Far der kultur-konferents / For the Cultural Conference Berl Kahn 14-22 Essay A summary of different creative fields (DP Culture) Arum dem kultur-congres / Around the Cultural Congress Mayer Braun 23-26 Essay Author is the Program Secretary of the World Jewish Cultural Congress (Jewish Culture) Goles un Erets-Yisroel / Diaspora and the Land of Israel Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 26-32 Essay (Jewish Culture) Lider: fun ‘Yerushalayimer motivn’ / Poems: From ‘Jerusalem Motifs’ Moyshe Yungman 33-34 Poem (Zionism and Israel) Lider: mekhile / Poems: Forgiveness Menakhem Riger 35 Poem (Post-Holocaust) p. 16

Lider: revrend Skot (fun a poeme) / Poems: Reverend Scott (From a Long Poem) Dovid From 36-38 Poem (General) Lider: kum arop tsum breg fun yam / Poems: Come Down to the Coast of the Sea Mordkhe Lifshits 39 Poem (General) Lider: Ikh bin greyt / Poems: I am Ready Mordkhe Lifshits 39 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: un itst iz nakht / Poems: And Now is Night Mordkhe Lifshits 39 Poem (General) Fis / Feet Zanvl Diamant 40-48 Story A chapter of the novel Former Times (Pre-Holocaust) Yidn in di partizaner-kamfn / Jews in the Partisan Battles Moyshe Kaganovitsh 49-58 History A section of the chapter Yidn on geyle lates / Jews without Yellow Stars from Moyshe Kaganovitsh’s forthcoming Der yidisher onteyl in der partizanerbavegung fun sovet-Rusland / Jewish Participation in the Partisan Movement in Soviet Russia (Holocaust) Khayim Mordkhe Kamtsn / Khayim Mordkhe Kamtsn Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 59-62 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) Mendele un di hayntike teg / Mendele and the Present Day L. Losh 62-67 p. 17

Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Prese un kultur ba der sheyres hapleyte in Italye / Press and Culture among the Surviving Remnant in Italy Y. Nosberg 67-77 Essay Includes a collage of mastheads from different periodicals (DP Culture) Ikh bin an eydes / I am a Witness Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 77-80 Book Review Review of Dr. Mark Dvorzshetski’s Yerushalayim in kamf un umkum / Jerusalem in Struggle and Death (Holocaust) In geyeg nokh umshterblekhkayt / In Pursuit of Immortality Zanvl Diamant 81-86 Book Review Review of Daniel Tsharni (1947) Afn shvel fun yener velt / On the Threshold of the Other World (General) Yidn in Erets-Yisroel - a bukh tsu der tsayt / Jews in the Land of Israel - A Book at the Proper Time Moyshe Kaganovitsh 87-88 Book Review Review of Avraham Revutski’s Yidn in Erets-Yisroel / Jews in the Land of Israel (Zionism and Israel) Bam ash / At the Ash Yakov Kapilevitsh 88-90 Book Review Review of the collection Khurbn un oyfshtand fun di yidn in Varshe - eydes-bleter un haskores / Destruction and Revolt of the Jews in Warsaw - Witnessings and Memorials, edited by M. Nayshtat (Holocaust) A naye antologye fun der khsidisher literatur / A New Anthology of Hassidic Literature Sh. Ernst 91-92 Book Review Review of Yitskhok Verfel’s Seyfer hakhsides / Book of Hassidism (Jewish Culture) Literarishe khronik / Literary Chronicle p. 18

93-95 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Bamerkungen fun redaktsye / Remarks from the Editors 95 Editorial Notice About translation and orthography Der yidisher onteyl in der partizaner-bavegung fun Sovet-Rusland / Jewish Participation in the Partisan Movement in Soviet Russia 96 Advertisement Volume 2, Issue 13-14, July - August 1948, 64 pages Subtitle khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems Editors: Dr. Leon Bernshteyn, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi & Berl Kahn Nokh undzer kultur-konferents / After our Cultural Conference Berl Kahn 1-12 Current Events (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy 13 Essay Introductory notes to the section on the Cultural Conference (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: der seyder-hayom / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Agenda 14-15 Minutes/Agenda (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: derefn rede / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Opening Speech 15-16 Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: mindlekhe un shriftlekhe bagrisungen / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Oral and Written Greetings 16-19 Minutes/Agenda (DP and Jewish Culture) p. 19

Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: vos darfn zayn di problemen fun altveltlekhn yidishn kultur-kongres? / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: What should be the problems of the World Jewish Cultural Congress? Dr. Leon Bernshteyn 19-24 Speech (Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: undzer kultur-tetikayt / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Our Cultural Activity Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 24-29 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: tetikayt fun di yidishe pleytim-kinstlers in Italye / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Activites of the Jewish Refugee Artists in Italy Sh. Epshteyn 29-31 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: kultur-tetikayt fun merkaz ‘hekhaluts’ / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Cultural Activites of the Centre ‘The Pioneer’ L. Losh 31-36 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh"Kh / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Work and Attainment of the Historical Commission of the Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers Moyshe Kaganovitsh 36-38 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Yivo-arbet in Italye barikht / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: YIVO Work in Italy - an Account D. Kupferberg 38-39 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: vikukhim / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Debates 39-40 p. 20

Minutes/Agenda (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: di drite zitsung / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Third Meeting 40-43 Minutes/Agenda (DP and Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: di ferte zitsung / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Fourth Meeting 43-47 Minutes/Agenda (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: hakhlotes / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Decisions 47-51 Minutes/Agenda (DP and Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Bialik - der vizyoner fun der itstike epokhe / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Bialik - the Visionary of the Current Era L. Losh 51-55 Speech (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Perets Hirshbeyn / Peretz Hirshbein 56 Death Notice Dershinen a vikhtik yidish partizaner-bukh in Roym / Appearance of an Important Yiddish Partisan Book in Rome 56-57 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik fun literatn-farband / Chronicle of the Writers’ Union 57-59 Current Events (DP Culture) Delegatn fun Italye tsum yidishn alveltlekhn kultur-kongres / Delegates from Italy to the Jewish World Cultural Congress 59 Current Events (Jewish Culture) Ongekumen in redaktsye / Received by the Editors 60 Recent Bibliography p. 21

(Holocaust and General) Prezidium fun der yidisher kultur-konferents in Roym beys der fayerlekher derefenung / Presidium of the Jewish Cultural Conference in Rome during the Solemn Opening 61 Photograph (DP Culture) Delegatn un gest af der fayerlekher derefenung fun der kultur-konferents / Delegates and Guests at the Solemn Opening of the Cultural Conference 61 Photograph (DP Culture) Der kyosk fun ‘hekhaluts’ afn oysshtel fun der konferents / The Kiosk of ‘The Pioneer’ in the Display at the Conference 62 Photograph (DP Culture) Der kyosk fun ‘ort’ afn oyshtel fun der kultur-konferents / The Kiosk of ‘ORT’ in the Display at the Cultural Conference 63 Photograph (DP Culture) Der kyosk fun PKh”Kh un historisher komisye afn oysshtel fun der konf. / The Kiosk of the Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers and the Historical Commission in the Display at the Conference 64 Photograph (DP Culture) Der oysshtel fun kinstler Kh. Kholef af der kultur-konferents / The Display of the artist Kh. Kholef at the Cultural Conference 64 Photograph (DP Culture) Volume 3, Issue 15, February 1949, 60 pages Subtitle: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems Editors: Dr. Leon Bernshteyn, Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi & Berl Kahn 15 numern In Gang (tsum yidish-literarishn pleytim-shafn in Italye) / 15 Issue Numbers of In Progress (To the Yiddish Literary Refugee Creations in Italy) Berl Kahn 1-16 Essay (DP Culture) p. 22

Mir hobn zikh gezen un nit geredt / We Saw Each Other and Did Not Speak Mordkhe Lifshits 16 Poem (General) 12 talmidim fun der hebreyisher gimnazye a. n. fun Kh. N. Bialik in Roym (an algemeyne kharakteristik) / 12 Students at the Hebrew High School in the Name of Kh. N. Bialik in Rome (A General Characterization) L. Losh 17-26 Essay (DP Culture) R’ Zalmen shoykhet (dertseylung) / R. Zalmen the Shokhet (Story) Moyshe Dluzhnovski 26-30 Story (Pre-Holocaust) In the Warsaw Ghetto Avraham Zak 31 Poem (Holocaust) Vegn di vidershtands-bavegung ba yidn beys der natsi-hershaft (gedanken vegn M. Kaganovitshes bukh - Der onteyl fun yidn in der partizanerbavegung in di gebitn fun ratnfarband) / About the Resistance Movement among Jews during the Nazi Rule (Thoughts about M. Kaganovitsh’s Book - The Participation of Jews in the Partisan Movement in the Domains of the Soviet Union) Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi 32-37 Book Review Review of M. Kaganovitsh’s Der onteyl fun yidn in der partizaner-bavegung in di gebitn fun ratnfarband / The Participation of Jews in the Partisan Movement in the Domains of the Soviet Union (Holocaust) Geveyn fun yosem / Cry of an Orphan Menakhem Riger 38 Poem (Post-Holocaust) A lid fun libe / A Song of Love Menakhem Riger 38-39 Poem (General) p. 23

Baginen / Dawn Menakhem Riger 39 Poem (General) Der yid in der velt-milkhome (bamerkungen tsum tsentn band shriftn Milkhome fun F. Bimko) / The Jew in the World War (Remarks on F. Bimko’s Tenth Volume of Writings, War) Sh.Tenenboym 40-46 Book Review (Pre-Holocaust) Shtremungen in der moderner hebreyisher literatur / Trends in Modern Hebrew Literature Sh. Ernst 47-49 Essay (Jewish Culture) Siyem fun yid. literatn-farband in Italye / Conclusion of the Yiddish Writers’ Union in Italy Dovid Kupferberg 49-52 Essay (DP Culture) Konkurs fun der Kasner-premye 1949 / Contest for the Kasner Prize 1949 52 Editorial Notice Farvaltung un red. kolegye fun dem literatn-zhurnalistn-un kinstler-farband in Italye (Oybn, fun rekhts: B. Cohen, Dr. L. Bernshteyn, un Dr. A. Yerushalmi. Inmitn, fun rekhts - Y. Nasberg, D. Kupferberg and B. Kaganovitsh. Untn - Sh. Epshteyn un Y. Orbakh.) / Management and Editorial Colleagues of the Writers’ Journalists’ and Artists’ Union in Italy (Top, from right: B. Cohen, Dr. L. Bernshteyn, and Dr. A. Yerushalmi. Middle, from right - Y. Nasberg, D. Kupferberg and B. Kaganovitsh. Bottom - Sh. Epshteyn and Y. Orbakh.) 53 Photograph (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle 54-56 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Received by the Editors 57 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) p. 24

Pages 58-59 are missing in every copy located 60 Editorial Notice About a bon voyage party for members of the Writers’ Union

p. 25

Fun letstn khurbn / From the Last Extermination Munich, Germany, August 1946 - December 1948 10 issues in 1 volume (issues numbered 1 - 10) Volume 1, Issue 1, August 1946, 36 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Periodical for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Undzer pruv / Our Task Yisroel Kaplan 1 Essay Introductory Editorial (DP Culture) Bagrisungs-vort / Greeting Dr. Philip Friedman 1 Letter (DP Culture) Tsu vos historishe komisyes / Why Historical Commissions? Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 2 Essay Introductory Editorial (DP Culture) Shoyn nokh der bafrayung / After the Liberation Chaplain Abraham J. Klausner 3 Essay Introductory Essay (DPs) Gever in Riger geto / Weapons in the Riga Ghetto Yisroel Kaplan 4-6 History Continues in issue two (Holocaust) Der Byalistoker koydesh Yakov melamed z’l / Yakov the Teacher, Martyr of Byalistok Rabbi Aviezer Burshtin 7 Testimony Di Khelmner tragedye / The Chelmno Tragedy Yakov Valdman p. 1

8-12 Testimony Der ershter [sic] kontsert in Vilner geto / The First Concert in the Vilna Ghetto Yisroel Segal 12-13 Testimony 13 Advertisement Request for testimonies and the names of Nazis Radom / Radom Yeshayohu Eyger, Yekhiel Fridman, Shmuel-Dovid Figer 14-21 Testimony Includes a map 21 Advertisement Request for photos and documents Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem / Folklore: Folklore during the Nazi Period Yisroel Kaplan 22-24 Folklore With introduction by Kaplan, continues in issue two (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: ‘Shpere’ / From Our Song Collection: ‘Shpere’ Hershele Yoakhimovitsh 25 Poem Given in by his father, Avraham Yoakhimovitsh. (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: undzer lebn / From Our Song Collection: Our Life Avraham Tsipkin 26 Poem (Written during Holocaust) 26 Advertisement Request to record songs Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Maystas / From Our Song Collection: Maystas Avraham Tsipkin 26 Poem Written for the female unit which worked in the Maystas meat factory p. 2

(Written during Holocaust) Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 27-29 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: der barimter yidisher moler Mauritsi Trembatsh / From Our Picture Collection: The Famous Jewish Painter Mauritsi Trembatsh 30 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a gezegnungs-kush durkh di drotn / From Our Picture Collection: A Parting Kiss Through the Wires 31 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kovne / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno 31 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: shtiker yeriyes tsunoyfgenumene in farnikhtungs-lager Maydanek-Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Pieces of Parchment Found in the Death Camp of Maidanek-Lublin 32 Photograph (Holocaust) 32 Editorial Notice Thanks for a Collection of Photographs Received. 32 Advertisement Request for songs and folklore Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 33 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Barikhtn tetikayt: vos hobn mir biz itst geton? / Activity Report: What Have We Done Until Now? Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 34-35 Current Events (DP Culture) p. 3

Khronik / Chronicle 36 Current Events (DP Culture) Volume 1, Issue 2, September 1946, 104 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Periodical for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Fun redaktsye / From the Editors Inside Front Cover Editorial Notice Names of songs received and the announcement of the change in the journal’s format but not in its contents Gever in Riger geto / Weapons in the Riga Ghetto Yisroel Kaplan 1-13 History Continued from issue one (Holocaust) Lebn un umkum fun di yidn in Dubne / Life and Death of the Jews in Dubno Moyshe Vaysberg 14-27 Testimony Includes a map Veynendike kvorim (a dokument fun a shtetl) / Crying Graves (A Document of a Shtetl) Avraham Vaysbrod 28-34 Testimony Arbets-lager Myelets / Labour Camp Myelets Yoysef Kos 35-46 Testimony With the help of Tsvi Kos 46 Advertisement Request for songs and folklore Natsish ernvort (fun Pshemishler geto) / Nazi Word of Honour (From the Pshemishl Ghetto) Dr. Mordkhe Shatner 47-50 Testimony p. 4

50 Advertisement Request to record songs In Tshenstokhover geto (bletlekh) / In the Czestochowa Ghetto (Pages) Zev Volf Gliksman 51-55 Testimony 55 Advertisement Request for photos and documents Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem / Folklore: Folklore during the Nazi Period Yisroel Kaplan 56-73 Folklore Continued from issue one (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: lomir shvaygn / From Our Song Collection: Let us be Silent Unknown 74-75 Poem This song was received in several variants and this is the most widespread version (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: geto-dires / From Our Song Collection: Ghetto Apartments Moly Kagan 76-77 Poem This song was received in several variants and this is the most widespread version (Written during Holocaust) Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive Yisroel Kaplan 78-83 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations and explanations. Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive Yisroel Kaplan 83-84 Nazi Documents Explanations for the documents in issue one. Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto fun Kovne-Slobodke / From Our Picture Collection: Ghetto of Kovno-Slobodka 85 p. 5

Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a meydele ganvet zikh fun Varshever geto / From Our Picture Collection: A Girl Escapes from the Warsaw Ghetto 86 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Farvorlozte kinder in Varshever geto / From Our Picture Collection: Abandoned Children in the Warsaw Ghetto 87 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a gantse familye basheftikt bam tsyen dos fesl ‘gold’ in Lodzher geto / From Our Picture Collection: A Whole Family Deals with Pulling the Keg of ‘Gold’ in the Lodz Ghetto 88 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a grupe kinder ba an oyszidlung fun Lodzher geto / From Our Picture Collection: A Group of Children at a Deportation in the Lodz Ghetto 89 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fragment fun an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in a shtetl lebn Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Fragment of a Deportation in a Town Near Lublin 90 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fragment fun an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in a shtetl lebn Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Fragment of a Deportation in a Town Near Lublin 91 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fragment fun an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in a shtetl lebn Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Fragment of a Deportation in a Town Near Lublin 92 Photograph (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant p. 6

93-96 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 97-100 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle 100-103 Current Events (DP Culture) 104 Editorial Notice Errors in this issue that for technical reasons could not be corrected within the articles themselves Volume 1, Issue 3, October/November 1946, 101 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Lakhve: araynfir-vort tsu di tsvey vayterdike gvies-eydes / Lakhve: Introductory Note to the Two Following Testimonies Yisroel Kaplan 1-3 History (Holocaust) Lakhve: I / Lakhve: I Aron Shvorin 3-7 Testimony Lakhve: II / Lakhve: II Khayim Shklyar and Avraham Faynberg 8-11 Testimony Yidish-Poylishe zelner in gefangenshaft (zikhroynes) / Jewish-Polish Soldiers in Imprisonment (Memoirs) Mendl Lifshits 11-22 Testimony Continued in issue 4 22 Advertisement Request for copies of DP publications p. 7

A kapitl Shedlets / A Chapter on Siedlce Getsl Vaysberg 23-27 Testimony Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in Oygust 1942 / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation in August 1942 Frits Heft 28 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in Oygust 1942 / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation in August 1942 Frits Heft 29 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in Oygust 1942 / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation in August 1942 Frits Heft 30 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: a yidishe froy dershosn beys der ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ / Siedlce, Poland: A Jewish Woman Shot During the Deportation Frits Heft 31 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ di yidn marshirn tsu der ban / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation, the Jews are Marching to the Train Frits Heft 32 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Tsu di bilder fun Shedlets / To the Pictures from Siedlce Frits Heft 33 History (Holocaust) p. 8

Di letste 45 kinderlekh in Kelts / The Last 45 Children in Kielce Sore Kerbel 34-37 Testimony Kelts, Poyln: nokh der bafrayung, afn keyver fun di kinder / Kielce, Poland: After the Liberation, at the Grave of the Children Sore Kerbel 37 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Di ‘yidishe bande’ / The ‘Jewish Band’ Yitskhok Fayershteyn 38-40 Testimony 40 Advertisement Request for songs with music Produktivizatsye-problem in Varshever geto / The Productivization Problem in the Warsaw Ghetto Yeshayohu Bluman 41-43 History (Holocaust) In Treblinke / In Treblinka Simkhe Binem Leski 44-48 Testimony Lutsk / Lutsk Meyer Roytman 48-50 Testimony Di shkhite bam breg yam / The Slaughter at the Seaside Miryam Tsvayg 51-54 Testimony Mitn transport fun lager Balkenhaym / With the Transport from the Balkenhaym Camp Mauritsi Kraut 54-56 Testimony Brezne / Brezne Malke Byelinski 57-58 Testimony p. 9

58 Advertisement Request for payment In Budapesht / In Budapest Elimelekh Vider 59-60 Testimony In di Polesyer velder / In the Polesian Woods Shmuel Pravde 61-64 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Arye Milkh 65-67 Child's Testimony Child born 25 June 1932, only corrected for basic grammar 67 Advertisement Request to record songs Folklor: vertlekh fun Lodzher geto / Folklore: Proverbs in the Lodz Ghetto Y. Rozenboym and Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 68-71 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: viglid / From Our Song Collection: Lullaby Unknown 72 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Lodzher geto / From Our Song Collection: Lodz Ghetto Yoynoson Karp 73-75 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 76-81 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations and explanations 81 Advertisement Request for children’s testimonies p. 10

Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Viner yidishe inteligents farshpart hinter di grates / From Our Picture Collection: Viennese Jewish Intellectuals Locked Up Behind Bars 82 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Gogolin, Shlezye, Poylishe yidn in arbets-lager / From Our Picture Collection: Gogolin, Silesia, Polish Jews in a Labour Camp 83 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Daytshe yidn ba der tsvangs-arbet in Minkhener yidn-lager in forshtot Milkhertshofn / From Our Picture Collection: German Jews at the Forced Labour in the Munich Jewish Camp in the Suburb of Milkhertshofn 84 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: mizrekh-Ukrayne, tsunoyfgekhapte yidishe mener in di ershte teg fun der natsi-okupatsye / From Our Picture Collection: Eastern Ukraine, Jewish Men Rounded Up in the Early Days of the Nazi Occupation 85 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: mizrekh-Ukrayne, tsunoyfgekhapte yidishe mener in di ershte teg fun der natsi-okupatsye / From Our Picture Collection: Eastern Ukraine, Jewish Men Rounded Up in the Early Days of the Nazi Occupation 86 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: mizrekh-Ukrayne, tsunoyfgekhapte yidishe mener in di ershte teg fun der natsi-okupatsye / From Our Picture Collection: Eastern Ukraine, Jewish Men Rounded Up in the Early Days of the Nazi Occupation 87 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Tomashov-Maz., Poyln, m’shert op froyen di hor / From Our Picture Collection: Tomaszow-Mazowiecki, Poland, Cutting the Hair off Women’s Heads 88 Photograph (Holocaust) p. 11

Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 89-92 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Tsu mitarbet mit yedies vegn di lagern / Towards Cooperation with Information about the Camps 93-94 Editorial Notice List of all camps known to the CHC and a request for information about any others Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 95-97 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 98-100 Current Events (DP Culture) M. Weinreich, Y. Shatski, L. Lehrer, Y. Opatoshu, H. Leivick, Y. Leshtshinski, A. Menem 101 Letter Congratulations on FLK’s excellent first issue (DP Culture) Volume 1, Issue 4, March 1947, 112 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Fun redaktsye / From the Editors Inside Front Cover Editorial Notice About the acquisition of printing equipment and the contents of the forthcoming issue Der umkum fun di yidn in mizrekh-Galitsye / The Death of the Jews in Eastern Galicia Dr. Philip Friedman 1-13 History Based on a lecture given in Munich (Holocaust) p. 12

Tarnopol (Galitsye): yidishe arbeter basheftikt afn besoylem in yor 1943 / Tarnopol (Galicia): Jewish Workers Employed in the Cemetery in 1943 3 Photograph (Holocaust) Lemberg, di ershte teg fun Daytsher okupatsye: yidn vern in di gasn bafaln fun ukrayner / Lemberg, The First Days of the German Occupation: Jews being Attacked in the Streets by Ukrainians 4 Photograph (Holocaust) Galitsye: Ukraynishe politsistn tsvingen yidn tsu tsershtern matseyves afn yidishn besoylem in a shtetl lebn Lemberg / Galicia: Ukrainian Policemen Force Jews to Destroy Tombstones in the Jewish Cemetery in a Town Near Lemberg 7 Photograph (Holocaust) Lemberg, di ershte teg fun Daytsher okupatsye: yidn vern in di gasn bafaln fun ukrayner / Lemberg, The First Days of the German Occupation: Jews being Attacked in the Streets by Ukrainians 8 Photograph (Holocaust) Galitsye: yidn ba gasn-arbet / Galicia: Jews Cleaning the Streets 11 Photograph (Holocaust) Yidish-Poylishe zelner in gefangenshaft (zikhroynes) / Jewish-Polish Soldiers in Imprisonment (Memoirs) Mendl Lifshits 14-30 Testimony Continued from issue 3 Tshernovits / Tshernovits Dr. Yakov Ungar 30-41 Testimony 41 Advertisement Request for songs with music In Vaysrusishe velder: arum Volozhin / In White Russian Forests: Around Volozhin Moyshe Mayerzon p. 13

42-54 Testimony Includes a map In Vaysrusishe velder: in Braslaver gegnt / In White Russian Forests: In the Braslav Region Moyshe Treyster 55-66 Testimony Braslav, Vilner gegnt: keyver fun kdoyshim, dermordete in der tsayt 3-9 yuni 1942 / Braslav, Vilna District: Grave of Jews Murdered on 3-9 June 1942 60 Photograph (Holocaust) In Vaysrusishe velder: ba Radun / In White Russian Forest: Near Radun Leyb Levin 66-74 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Daniel Burshtin 75-83 Child's Testimony Child born 28 October 1931, only corrected for basic grammar 83 Advertisement Request for DP publications Fun undzer lider-zamlung: viglid / From Our Song Collection: Lullaby Unknown 84 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Buna / From Our Song Collection: Buna Goldman 85-89 Poem Buna was the name of a work-unit at Auschwitz (Written during Holocaust) Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 90-94 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations and explanations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, khsidisher yid getsvungen azoy tsu pozirn far a foto-aparat / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, Chassidic Jew as he was Forced to Pose for the Camera p. 14

95 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Varshe, yidishe arbeter unter Daytsher, Poylisher un yidisher shmire / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw, Jewish Workers Under German, Polish and Jewish Guard 96 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Varshe, oyfgedekte yidn in a bunker af Tshernyakov vern gefirt tsum shisn 1943 / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw, Jews Discovered in a Bunker on Tshernyakov are Taken Away to be Shot 1943 97 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lodzher geto, m’zukht esnvarg in mistkastn af Dvorska 6 / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz Ghetto, Looking for Food in Garbage Containers on Dvorska 6 98 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Vilne, hebreyisher geto khor / From Our Picture Collection: Vilna, Hebrew Ghetto Choir 99 Photograph (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 100-102 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 103-107 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 108-112 Current Events (DP Culture) Inside Back Cover Editorial Notice p. 15

Request for definite information about the fate of three Yiddish writers from Lithuania Volume 1, Issue 5, May 1947, 106 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: araynfir / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: Introduction Yisroel Kaplan 3-6 History (Holocaust) Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: marsh fun di Kaufering-lagern / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: March from the Kaufering Camps Yisroel Kaplan 7-28 History Includes a map (Holocaust) Di dray masn-kvorim ba Shvabhoyzen / The Three Mass Graves Near Shvabhoyzen 24 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: fun Shvabhoyzen keyn Dakhau/ The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: From Shvabhoyzen to Dachau Dr. L. Goldshteyn 29-33 Testimony 33 Advertisement Request for DP publications Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Mildorf / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Mildorf Rabbi Elkhanan Person 34-36 Testimony Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Hesental / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Hesental Dr. Mordkhe Glatshteyn 36-38 p. 16

Testimony 38 Advertisement Request for songs with music Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: fun Gerlits keyn Tirol / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: From Gerlits to the Tyrol Yakov Rozenboym 39-45 Testimony Includes a map Fragment fun katset Gerlits / Fragment of Concentration Camp Gerlits 39 Photograph (Holocaust) Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Vistegyersdorf / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Vistegyersdorf A. Tenenboym 45-53 Testimony Includes a map Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Bukhenvald / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Buchenwald Yisroel Segal 54-70 Testimony Includes a map Fragment fun katset Bukhenvald / Fragment of Concentration Camp Buchenwald 55 Photograph (Holocaust) Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: natsishe ‘bafrayung’ / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: Nazi ‘Liberation’ Dr. Arminyo Vaksberger 71-74 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ (Kovner geto - Oyshvits - marsh keyn Tirol) / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ (Kovno Ghetto Auschwitz - March to the Tyrol) Yakov Levin 75-81 Child's Testimony p. 17

Child born 19 February 1932, only corrected for basic grammar Fun undzer lider-zamlung: mame, gib a brokhe!… / From Our Song Collection: Mother, Give a Blessing!… Unknown 82-84 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: oy kartofl!… / From Our Song Collection: Oh Potato!… Hersh Albus 84-86 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 87-89 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations and explanations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Zaltsburg, a grupe katsetler beys der bafrayung / From Our Picture Collection: Salzburg, a Group of Concentration Camp Prisoners at Liberation 90 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fun katset Bergn-Belzn / From Our Picture Collection: From Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen 91 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: katset Bergn-Belzn / From Our Picture Collection: Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen 92 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fun katset Bergn-Belzn, di krematorye / From Our Picture Collection: From Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen, The Crematorium 93 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: aroysgetribine Oyshvitser yidn bam onkumen keyn Bendin (Poyln), april 1940 / From Our Picture Collection: Deported Auschwitz Jews Arriving in Bendin (Poland), April 1940 94 Photograph (Holocaust) p. 18

Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Khmyelnik, ba Kelts (Poyln), yidn arbetn bam ufroymen di khurves fun beys-hamedresh / From Our Picture Collection: Khmyelnik, Near Kielce (Poland), Jews Work Cleaning Up the Ruins of the Prayerhouse 95 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Ungarn, 1940, yidn fun tsvangs arbets-dinst in lager Sentender / From Our Picture Collection: Hungary, 1940, Jews at Forced Labour in Camp Sentender 96 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lodzer froyen in der Oygsburger tekstil-fabrik fun Khristyan Dyering / From Our Picture Collection: Women from Lodz in the Augsburg Textile Factory of Christian Diering 97 Photograph (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 98-100 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Ver veyst? / Who Knows? 101 Editorial Notice Request for information as to whether there were Jewish prisoners in certain camps Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 102-104 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 105-106 Current Events (DP Culture) Inside Back Cover Editorial Notice Request for definite information about the fate of an orphanage in Galicia

p. 19

Volume 1, Issue 6, August 1947, 98 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Treblinke / Treblinka Henyek Shperling 3-17 Testimony Includes a map Lagern in mizrekh-Galitsye / Camps in Eastern Galicia Sh. Vyelitshker 17-31 History Includes maps within the text and attached to the inside back cover (Holocaust) Sobibor / Sobibor Yekhezkel Menkhe 31-36 Testimony Includes a map Durkh geto un katsetn (Nyementshin - Oshmene - Zhezhmer - Kovne Ponevezh - mizrekh-Praysn) / Through Ghettos and Concentration Camps (Nyementshin - Oshmene - Zhezhmer - Kovno - Ponevezh Eastern Prussia) Lo Rodashevki 37-43 Testimony 43 Advertisement Request for testimonies Di din toyre / The Judgment Sh. Glube 44-47 Testimony 47 Advertisement Request for testimonies Ba Koseve in Polesye / Near Koseve in Polesye Dovid Leybovitsh 48-52 Testimony In lager Kodlotshove (arum Baranovitsh) / In Camp Kodlotshove (Around Baranovitsh) p. 20

Yudl Samsanovitsh 53-57 Testimony 57 Advertisement Request for DP publications Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Roza Pintshevski 58-61 Child's Testimony Child born 10 December 1932, only corrected for basic grammar 61 Advertisement Request for DP publications Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem / Folklore: Folklore during the Nazi Period Yisroel Kaplan 62-72 Folklore With introduction by Kaplan (Written during Holocaust) Folklor: geto-vertlekh un anecdotn / Folklore: Ghetto Proverbs and Anecdotes Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 71-76 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Zamoshtsher kazernirte / From Our Song Collection: Zamoshtsh Prisoners Unknown 77-78 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: di bone / From Our Song Collection: The Ration Card Unknown 78-80 Poem (Written during Holocaust) 80 Editorial Notice Variations to the lullaby printed in issue 4 Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive p. 21

81-84 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Ukrayne, a yid af der tlie / From Our Picture Collection: A Jew on the Gallows 85 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: der Pshevorsker rov (Poyln) vert getsvungen durkh s’s-layt tsu shern di berd un peyes fun yidn far zeyer ekzekutsye / From Our Picture Collection: The Rabbi of Pshevorsk (Poland) forced by SS men to cut the beards and sideburns of Jews before their execution 86 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: di shtotishe melits paynikt di yidn beys der arbet / From Our Picture Collection: The City Militia Torture the Jews During Their Work 87 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Varshe, der besalmen beys an ‘oyszidlungsaktsye’ / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw, the Cemetary During a Deportation 88 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Galitsye, nokh an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’/ From Our Picture Collection: Galicia, After a Deportation 89 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, nokh an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’/ From Our Picture Collection: Poland, After a Deportation 90 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: opgeshnitene kep af statues (fun a katset in Daytshland) / From Our Picture Collection: Severed Human Heads on Stone Statues 91 Photograph (Holocaust)

p. 22

Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 92-93 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 94-96 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle 97-98 Current Events (DP Culture) Bakumen in arkhiv fun ts.h.k. / Received by the Archive of the CHC 98 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Volume 1, Issue 7, May 1948, 117 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Tsum khurbn Lite (araynfir-vort) / The Destruction of Lithuanian Jewry (Introduction) 3-5 Yisroel Kaplan History (Holocaust) Khurbn Kovne / The Destruction of Kovno Dr. Shmuel Grinhoyz 6-29 History Continued in issue 8 (Holocaust) Kovne, altshtot / Kovno, Old City 7 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Kovno, der ‘griner brik’ ba Shants, tseshtert in di ershte teg fun DaytshSovetishn krig / Kovno, the ‘Green Bridge’ near Shants, Destroyed in the First Days of the German-Soviet War 12 Photograph p. 23

(Pre-Holocaust) Bletlekh fun Kovner eltestnrat (biz nokh der groyser aktsye) / Pages from the Kovno Council of Elders (Until After the Big Action) Yakov Goldberg 30-57 History (Holocaust) Kovner rothoyz, ershter zitsort fun yidishn komitet, onheyb yuli 1941 / Kovno Council Builiding, First Meeting Place of the Jewish Committee in the Beginning of July 1941 37 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Kovne, shtab fun s’s-politsey-firer / Kovno, Headquarters of the SS Chief 50 Photograph (Holocaust) Der zibeter fort (ershter oysrot plats fun Kovner yidn) / The Seventh Fort (First Extermination Place of Kovno Jews) Yitskhok Nementshik 58-70 History (Holocaust) Kovne, yezuyitn-gimnazye (rekhts), zamlpunkt fun di arestirte yidn in di ershte milkhome-teg / Kovno, Jesuit Gymasium (Right), Assembly Point for the Arrested Jews in the First Days of the War 59 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Byalistok: di letste oyfshtendlers in Byalistoker geto / Byalistok: The Last Rebels in the Byalistok Ghetto Rabbi Aviezer Burshtin 71-74 History (Holocaust) Byalistok: der letster veg fun 1200 Byalistoker kinder / The Final Journey of 1200 Byalistok Children H. Shprung-Levkovits 74-79 History (Holocaust) Iberlebungen als aryerin fun yidishn gloybn / Experiences as an Aryan Woman of the Jewish Faith Anna Holtsman 80-87 p. 24

Testimony Includes copies of documents Drama / Drama Khayim Pardo 88-90 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Yoysef Shuster 91-94 Child's Testimony Child born 19 February 1936, only corrected for basic grammar Fun undzer lider-zamlung: yidishe brigades / From Our Song Collection: Jewish Brigades Avraham Akselrod 95-96 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: bam geto toyerl / From Our Song Collection: At the Ghetto Gate Avraham Akselrod 96-97 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Shantser lager / From Our Song Collection: Shantser Camp Avraham Hayman 97-99 Poem (Written during Holocaust) 99 Advertisement Request for DP publications Fun undzer lider-zamlung: di alte yidene klapt in tir / From Our Song Collection: The Old Jewess Knocks on the Door Unknown 100 Poem (Written during Holocaust) 100 Advertisement Request for Testimonies Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 101-102 p. 25

Nazi Documents Two maps and explanations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lite, onheyb milkhome 1941, arestirte yidn / From Our Picture Collection: Lithuania, Beginning of the War 1941, Arrested Jews 103 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kovne, naynter fort, vu es zaynen umgebrakht gevorn tsendliker toyznter yidn / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno, Ninth Fort, Where Tens of Thousands of Jews were Killed 104 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kovne, zibeter fort, onheyb yuli 1941, tsunoyfgekhapte yidn tsum dershosn / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno, Seventh Fort, Captured Jews to be Shot 105 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a vinkl ba di drotn fun Kovner geto, Paneryu gas / From Our Picture Collection: A Corner near the Fence of the Kovno Ghetto, Paneryu Street 106 Photograph (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 107-109 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 110-112 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle 113-115 Current Events (DP Culture) Bakumen in arkhiv fun ts.h.k. / Received by the Archive of the CHC 115-117 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) p. 26

Volume 1, Issue 8, June 1948, 118 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Di aerodrom arbet in Kovner geto / Airport Work in the Kovno Ghetto Yisroel Kaplan 3-26 History (Holocaust) Kovne, yidn vern gefirt tsu der arbet durkh Putvinskyo gas, foroys a Litvisher partizan / Kovno, Jews Sent to Work Through Putvinskyo Street, Led by a Lithuanian Partisan 8 Photograph (Holocaust) Afn Kovner aerodrom / At Kovno Airport 18 Photograph (Holocaust) Afn Kovner aerodrom / At Kovno Airport 19 Photograph (Holocaust) Khurbn Kovne / The Destruction of Kovno Dr. Shmuel Grinhoyz 27-38 History Continued from issue 7 (Holocaust) 38 Advertisement Request to record songs Froyen in arbets-aynzats in Kovner geto / Women in Forced Labour in the Kovno Ghetto Refuel Levin 39-49 History (Holocaust) Di groyse varshtatn in Kovner geto / The Big Workshops in the Kovno Ghetto Moyshe Segalson 50-57 History p. 27

(Holocaust) 57 Advertisement Request for DP publications Di arbeters in di groise geto-varshtatn / The Workers in the Big Ghetto Workshops Dr. Elihu Altman 58-61 History (Holocaust) 61 Advertisement Request for DP publications Di remont-varshtatn in Kovner geto / The Repair Workshops in the Kovno Ghetto Engineer Fayvl Goldshmidt 62-64 History (Holocaust) 64 Advertisement Request for testimonies Poritsk / Poritsk Sonye Rubenshteyn 65-74 Testimony 74 Advertisement Request for photos and documents Volozhin / Volozhin Yoysef Shvartsberg 75-79 Testimony Zikhroynes fun Stanislaver geto / Memories of the Stanislave Ghetto Lyusya Gerber 80-84 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Fanye Olitski 85-89 Child's Testimony Child born 1 February 1932, only corrected for basic grammar p. 28

89 Advertisement Request for testimonies Fun undzer lider-zamlung: nit ayer mazl / From Our Song Collection: Hard Luck Shoel Shenker & Nosn Markovski 90-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: der aerodromshtshik / From Our Song Collection: The Airport Worker Moly Kagan 92-94 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: der komitetshik / From Our Song Collection: The Committee Member Nosn Markovski 94-96 Poem (Written during Holocaust) 96 Advertisement Request for songs and folklore Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 97-100 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kutne, Poyln, tseshterte shul durkh natsis / From Our Picture Collection: Kutno, Poland, Synagogue Destroyed by the Nazis 101 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Kovne, yidn kern zikh fun der arbet tsurik in geto / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno Ghetto, Jews Returning from Work to the Ghetto 102 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, a yid vert getsvungen oystsuraysn di hor fun Kriselitser rov / From Our Picture Collection: A Jew is Forced to Pull Out the Hair of the Kriselitser Rabbi 103 p. 29

Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Olkush, Poyln, bizn farbaygeyn der kontrol muzn di yidn lign oysgetsoygn af der erd / From Our Picture Collection: Olkush, Poland, Until Undergoing the Examination the Jews Must Lie Prostrate on the Ground 104 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a s’s-komande fort keyn Poyln durkhfirn yidnaktsyes / From Our Picture Collection: An SS Crew Travels to Poland to Execute Actions on Jews 105 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Olkush, Poyln, oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Olkush, Poland, Deportation 106 Photograph (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 107-109 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Historisher fregeboygn / Historical Questionnaire 110-115 Editorial Notice An example of a completed CHC questionnaire Druk-oysgabes bakumen in arkhiv / Printed Items Received by the Archive 116-118 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Volume 1, Issue 9, September 1948, 113 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Kovner shul un lerershaft in umkum / Kovno Schools and Teachers in the Destruction Yisroel Kaplan 3-22 History Includes map of Kovno Ghetto attached to the inside back cover p. 30

(Holocaust) Geto Kovne, kinder geyen in shul / Kovno Ghetto, Children Going to School 9 Photograph (Holocaust) Di fakhshul in Kovner geto / The Vocational School in the Kovno Ghetto Engineer Yakov Oleyksi 23-36 History (Holocaust) Dos religyeze lebn in Kovner geto: a / Religious Life in the Kovno Ghetto: Part One Rabbi Elkhonon Person 36-46 History (Holocaust) Dos religyeze lebn in Kovner geto: b / Religious Life in the Kovno Ghetto: Part Two Rivke Gutman 46-51 History (Holocaust) 51 Advertisement Request for DP publications Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra Y. Gurevitsh 52-58 History (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra 54 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra 55 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra 56 Photograph (Holocaust) 58 p. 31

Advertisement Request for testimonies Der ufshtand in Tutshiner geto / The Revolt in the Tutshin Ghetto Mendl Man 59-66 History (Holocaust) 66 Advertisement Request for testimonies Likvidatsye fun lager Kloga / Liquidation of Camp Kloga Dr. L. Buzhanski 67-70 History (Holocaust) Lager Kloga, Estland, dermordete heftlingen oysgeleygt tsvishn holts tsum farbrenen / Camp Kloga, Estonia, Murdered Prisoners Laid Between Logs to be Burnt 69 Photograph (Holocaust) Myadel un umgegnt / Myadel and Surroundings Henya Menkis 71-77 Testimony 77 Advertisement Request for photos and documents Maykholim in lodzer geto / Food in the Lodz Ghetto Sh. Glube 78-81 History (Holocaust) Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Ela Grilikhes 82-83 Child's Testimony Child born 8 July 1933, only corrected for basic grammar Fun undzer lider-zamlung: brigades / From Our Song Collection: Brigades Rokhl Slkye 84-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust) p. 32

Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 93-95 Nazi Documents Document with explanation Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Bergn-Belzn, in a katset-barak ba der bafrayung / From Our Picture Collection: Bergen-Belsen, in a Concentration Camp Barrack at Liberation 96 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Oldenburg, Daytshland, yidishe mener vern arestirt in november 1938 / From Our Picture Collection: Oldenburg, Germany, Jewish Men Under Arrest in November 1938 97 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Bendin, Poyln, fragment fun geto / From Our Picture Collection: Bendin, Poland, Fragment of the Ghetto 98 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lodz, der geto-eltester Rumkovski halt a rede af a geto-miting 15. 6. 1940 / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz, Ghetto Elder Rumkowski Speaks at a Ghetto Meeting, 15 June 1940 99 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, 1943, yidishe partizaner untern onfir fun Yekhyel Grinshpan in di Partsever velder (Lubliner kant) / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, 1943, Jewish Partisans Led by Yekhyel Grinshpan in the Partsev Forests (Lublin Region) 100 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Daytshn hengen partizaner / From Our Picture Collection: German Hang Partisans 101 Photograph (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 102-104 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) p. 33

Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 105-106 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle 107-109 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Bakumen in redatsye / Received by the Editors 110-111 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Oysbeserungen un bamerkungen / Improvements and Remarks 112-113 Editorial Notice Factual notes and typographical corrections to previous issues Volume 1, Issue 10, December 1948, 186 pages Subtitle: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim / Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime Editors: Yisroel Kaplan & Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym Inside Front Cover Editorial Notice This is the last issue of FLK, and all archival and editorial materials of FLK and the CHC are, in keeping with the decision of the third sheyres hapleyte congress, being sent to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem Kamfs-bavegung in Kovner geto (fun a partizans zikhroynes) / Underground Fighting in the Kovno Ghetto (From a Partisan’s Memoirs) Rakhi Ben-Eliezer 3-15 Testimony Kovner yidishe politsistn bam geto-toyer / Kovno Jewish Policemen at the Ghetto Gate 9 Photograph (Holocaust) Lite: a grupe yidishe partizaner fun dem otryad ‘Kortshagin’ / Lithuania: A Group of Jewish Partisans from the ‘Kortshagin’ Unit 13 Photograph (Holocaust) p. 34

Lite: a yidisher partizan (Berman) fun dem otryad ‘Kortshagin’ / Lithuania: A Jewish Partisan (Berman) from the ‘Kortshagin’ Unit 14 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun geto in pushtshe / From the Ghetto to the Wilderness Motl Brik 16-18 Testimony Kovner geto-shpitol / The Kovno Ghetto Hospital Dr. Moyshe Berman 19-37 History (Holocaust) Kovne: Dr. Khonon Elkes un Dr. Moyshe Berman geyen af a konsultatsye / Kovno: Dr. Khonen Elkes and Dr. Moyshe Berman go to a Consultation 22 Photograph (Holocaust) Meditsinishe unterzukhungen bam arbets-amt fun Kovner geto / Medical Examinations at the Labour Organization of the Kovno Ghetto Dr. Yakov Nokhimovski 28-37 History Translated from German (Holocaust) Di festung fun toyt (in nayntn fort fun Kovne) / The Fortress of Death (In the Ninth Fort of Kovno) Mikhal Gelbtrunk 38-41 Testimony Geheyme post in Kovner geto / Secret Post in the Kovno Ghetto Efrayim Zilberman 42-47 Testimony Kaydan / Kaydan Dovid Volpe 48-56 History (Holocaust) Lite: a Kaydaner mishpokhe fun 4 doyres, vos iz umgekumen in der aktsye fun 28stn Oygust 1941 / Lithuania: A Kaydan Family of 4 Generations, Who Died in the Action of 28 August 1941 55 Photograph p. 35

(Pre-Holocaust) Lite: yidisher masn-keyver ba Kaydan / Lithuania: Jewish Mass Grave Near Kaydan 55 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Vidukle / Vidukle Hirsh Hirshovitsh-Levitan 56-64 Testimony Yaneve / Yaneve A. Zilberman 64-69 Testimony Lite: Yaneve in di ershte teg fun der milkhome, ende yuni 1941 / Lithuania: Yaneve in the First Days of War, End of June 1941 69 Photograph (Holocaust) Vidershtands-bavegung in Oyshvits-Birkenau / The Resistance Movement in Auschwitz-Birkenau Yeshayohu Eyger 70-75 History Taken from his book Umkum / Destruction (in manuscript) (Holocaust) Toyt fun der ‘loyferke’ / Death of the ‘Messenger’ Tseshe Shiling 76-79 Testimony Mit 2 kleyne kinder durkh Oyshvits / With Two Small Children Through Auschwitz Ester Vays 79-95 Testimony Di familye Vays, vos hobn ale durkhgemakht Oyshvitz / The Vays Family, All of Whom Survived Auschwitz 94 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Mirele Hershkovitsh, tsu 4 yor durkhgemakht Oyshvitz / Mirele Hershkovitsh, At Age 4 Survived Auschwitz 94 Photograph p. 36

(Post-Holocaust) 95 Advertisement Request for songs Libave / Libave Moyshe Edelshteyn 96-104 Testimony Includes a map Shidlovtse / Shidlovtse Dr. Avraham Finkler 105-107 Testimony Myelnitse / Myelnitse Yerakhmyel Tsvik 108-112 Testimony In an Ungarishn arbets-batalyon / In a Hungarian Labour Battalion Moyshe Dov Taub 113-118 Testimony Lezshaysk / Lezshaysk Y. Kanner 118-122 Testimony 122 Advertisement Request to record songs Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ (Podheytse) / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ (Podheytse) Genia Shurts 123-130 Child's Testimony Child born 1932, only corrected for basic grammar 130 Advertisement Request for Folklore Folklor: geto- un katset-vertlekh / Folklore: Ghetto and Concentration Camp Proverbs 131-136 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) p. 37

136 Advertisement Request for DP publications Fun undzer lider-zamlung: di groyse aktsye / From Our Song Collection: The Big Action Sime Yashunski 137-140 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Litvishe partizaner/ From Our Song Collection: Lithuanian Partisans Unknown 140-141 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: mir zaynen yidn ba dem drot / From Our Song Collection: We are Jews at the Wire Unknown 141-142 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun dokumentn-arkhiv / From the Document Archive 143-146 Nazi Documents Two documents with translations Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Varshe, a yidish kind geshvoln fun hunger / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw Ghetto, A Jewish Child Swollen by Hunger 147 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Lodz, personal fun der gikher-hilf in geto / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz Ghetto, Personnel of the First Aid Unit 148 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Lodz, yidn vartn tsum optransport beys an oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz Ghetto, Jews Wait for a Transport During a Deportation 149 Photograph (Holocaust)

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Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, Olkush (Keltser kant) oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, Olkush (Kelts District) Deportation 150 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, Olkush (Keltser kant) oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, Olkush (Kelts District) Deportation 151 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, nokh an oyszidlung/ From Our Picture Collection: Poland, After a Deportation 152 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection 153 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection 154 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection 155 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection 156 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung/ From Our Picture Collection 157 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) p. 39

Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection 158 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant 159-161 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym 162-170 Current Events (DP Culture) Di letste publikatsyes fun der ts.h.k. / The Last Publications of the CHC Yisroel Kaplan 171 Book Review Review of Avraham Vaysbrod’s Es shtarbt a shtetl / A Town is Dying (Holocaust) Di letste publikatsyes fun der ts.h.k. / The Last Publications of the CHC M. Weinreich 172 Book Review Review of Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym’s Podlyashe in umkum / Podlyashe in the Destruction (Holocaust) Khronik / Chronicle 173-175 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Druk-oysgabes bakumen in arkhiv / Printed Items Received by the Archive 176-177 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Oysbeserungen un bamerkungen / Improvements and Remarks 178 Editorial Notice Factual notes to previous issues Inhalt fun di dershinene numern Fun letstn khurbn / Contents of the Published Issues of From the Last Extermination 179-186 p. 40

Table of Contents Inside Back Cover Editorial Notice Matters relating to the CHC archive and to FLK should be addressed to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

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Shriftn / Writings Kassel, Germany, January 1948 1 issue in 1 volume Volume 1, Issue 1, January 1948, 168 pages Full Title: Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn / Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions Editors: Ben-Tsion Hibel & Dr. Philip Friedman Forword Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner i-ii Essay In English (DP Culture) Yizker / In Memorium iii Editorial Notice [Editors’ Note] Ben-Tsion Hibel & Dr. Philip Friedman iv Essay (DP Culture) Inhalt / Table of Contents v Table of Contents Kinstlerishe reproduktsyes / Artistic Reproductions vi Table of Contents Table of Contents vii Table of Contents In English Tsvey lider / Two Poems Yitskhok Perlov 5-6 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Peyzazh / Landscape E. Bzhezhinska 7 Drawing/Painting Bam toyer fun gan-eydn (prolog fun a drame) / At the Gate of Paradise (Prologue to a Drama) p. 1

Shloyme Berlinski 9-13 Play Excerpt (General) S’faln shtern / Stars are Falling Meyer Halpern 14 Poem (General) Fun vanen vint hostu dayn fli genumen / From Where, Wind, Did You Take Your Flight (Song) Meyer Halpern 14&17 Poem (General) A shtetl / A Village H. Levenshtadt 15 Drawing/Painting A nayer onheyb / A New Beginning Binyomin Elis 18-24 Story (Post-Holocaust) Vinter / Winter Mates Olitski 25-26 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Peyzazh / Landscape H. Levenshtadt 27 Drawing/Painting Di shlikhes fun der yidisher literatur / The Mission of Jewish Literature Ben-Tsion Hibel 29-36 Essay (Holocaust Literature) Bagegenish mitn goyel in a daytshish shtetl / Meeting with the Saviour in a German Village Dovid Volpe 37-40 Poem (Post-Holocaust) p. 2

Berkhtesgaden 1947 / Berkhtesgaden 1947 Dovid Volpe 40-42 Poem (Post-Holocaust) A mekubl / A Kabbalist H. Laban 43 Drawing/Painting Heyflekh shpliters / Piles of Remnants Yisroel Kaplan 45-61 Memoir (DPs) A nayer tog (fragment) / A New Day (Fragment) Sh. D. Bunin 62-66&69 Story Translated from Hebrew (Post-Holocaust) Gerangl / Struggle A. Fridman 67 Sculpture/Carving Shtillebn / Still Life H. Levenshtadt 67 Drawing/Painting Turkestan / Turkestan Shloyme Varzager 70-73 Poem Fragment of the poem ‘From Home’ (Holocaust) Reydn tsu mir teg… / Days Speak to Me… Shloyme Varzager 74 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Di forshung fun undzer khurbn (a kapitl fun a greserer arbet) / The Study of Our Extermination (A Chapter of a Larger Work) Dr. Philip Friedman 75-86 Essay (Holocaust Literature) p. 3

Di agole in a geto hoyf in Lodzh / The Hearse in a Ghetto Yard in Lodz H. Shilis 87 Drawing/Painting Kh’vell zikh vider ufheybn / I Will Rise Again Leyb Vaserman 89-91 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Der hunt - mayn fraynt / The Dog - My Friend Malke Kelerikh 92-94 Story (Holocaust) Tseykhenung / Drawing H. Shilis 95 Drawing/Painting Kop-studye / Head-Study H. Laban 95 Sculpture/Carving A kind in lager / A Child in the Camp M. D. Elihav 97 Poem (Holocaust) Lager shtimung / Camp Mood M. D. Elihav 98 Poem (Holocaust) A tog aza (dertseylung) / Such a Day (Story) Melekh Tshemni 99-106&109 Story (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Kvartal ‘Marishin’ in geto Lodzh / The ‘Marishin’ Quarter of the Lodz Ghetto H. Shilis 107 Drawing/Painting Federn in kirkh (Lodzher geto) / Feathers in the Church (Lodz Ghetto) A. Yoakhimovitsh p. 4

110-113 Poem (Holocaust) Der sheferisher element in der shoyshpil-kunst / The Creative Factor in Theatre Art Efrayim Shrayer 114-116&119 Essay Taken from Tsu di problemen fun kinstlerishn shafungsprotses / To the Problems of the Artistic Creative Process (General Culture) Holtsshnitn / Woodcarvings A. Fridman 117 Sculpture/Carving Der bobes gevelb (fun mayne kinder-yorn) / Grandmother’s Shop (From my Childhood) M. A. Kokhav 120-128 Memoir (Pre-Holocaust) Tragizm un komizm in der literatur (shtrikhn vegn kunst) / Tragedy and Comedy in Literature (Notes on Art) Yitskhok Morgnshtern 129-132 Essay (Jewish and General Culture) Shtillebn / Still Life E. Bzhezhinska 133 Drawing/Painting M'sort [sic] keyn Odes / We Leave for Odessa Hershel Vaynroykh 135-141 Story A chapter of the novel Durkh zibn fayern / Through Seven Fires (Pre-Holocaust) Y. L. Perets / Y. L. Peretz Yitskhok Goldkorn 142-144&147 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Der alter fidler / The Old Fiddler H. Laban 145 p. 5

Drawing/Painting Di kdushe fun dray / The Sacred Three K. Shabtay 148-158 Story (Holocaust) Goyrl (sonet) / Fate (Sonnet) Ruven Matis 159 Poem (Post-Holocaust) A tfile / A Prayer Yitskhok Morgnshtern 160 Poem (General) Khronik / Cultural Life of the Sheyres Hapleyte (Survey) [lit. Chronicle] 161-168 Current Events (DP Culture) Fun redaktsye / From the Editors 168 Editorial Notice About articles that arrived too late to be included in this issue

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Annotated List of Contributors Avraham Akselrod FLK 7: 95-96 Poem (Written during Holocaust) FLK 7: 96-97 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Akselrod’s date of birth is unknown. He wrote poems, mostly parodies, while living in the Warsaw and Kovno ghettos. He was killed in the Kovno ghetto1 in 1944.2 Hersh Albus FLK 5: 84-86 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Albus was born in Lodz in 1925, where he worked from a young age. He went into the Lodz ghetto in March 1940 and there started to write poems on ghetto themes which were sung as folk-songs. He was killed at Auschwitz3 in 1944.4 Dr. Elihu Altman FLK 8: 58-61 History (Holocaust) Michal Asaf In Gang 6-7: 1-4 Essay (Zionism and Israel) Rakhi Ben-Eliezer FLK 10: 3-15 Testimony Shloyme Berlinski Shriftn 1: 9-13 Play Excerpt (General) Berlinski was born in Kelts, Poland on 15 January 1900. Apprenticed to a hat maker after finishing school, he lived in Lodz and Warsaw. He contributed to many newspapers and literary journals in both cities and published three novels before the war. Berlinski escaped to the Soviet Union in 1941, where he published another novel. He arrived in the DP camps in Germany in 1946 and left for Israel in 1948. Berlinski continued to write and publish novels and stories in Germany and in Israel. His work was highly praised by critics including Shloyme Bikl and Meylekh Ravitsh. Berlinski died in Tel Aviv on 14 August 1959.5 Dr. Moyshe Berman FLK 10: 19-37 History (Holocaust) 1S. Niger, Y. Shatski and M. Shtarkman (1956), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 1. pp. 158-

159. 2B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 37. 3S. Niger, Y. Shatski and M. Shtarkman (1956), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 1. p. 86. 4B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 24. 5ibid., pp. 107-108.

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Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 1: 20-23 Play Excerpt (Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 22-28 Essay (Jewish Culture) In Gang 4-5: 21-30 Essay (Holocaust Literature) In Gang 4-5: 36-38 Play Excerpt (Holocaust) In Gang 6-7: 17-26 Essay (General Culture) In Gang 8-9-10: 28-35 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 68-77 Essay (DP Culture) In Gang 11-12: 1-13 Essay (DPs) In Gang 11-12: 77-80 Book Review (Holocaust) In Gang 13-14: 19-24 Speech (Jewish Culture) Bernshteyn was born in Lithuania on 27 December 1914 and received a doctorate from Vilna University in Mathematics and Philosophy. He survived the Vilna ghetto and fought with the partisans. After the war he went to Rome, where he ran the Jewish Refugee Organisation in Italy, and then to Israel in 1949. He was involved with periodicals both in Italy and in Israel, and also published the long poem Sonya Rekhtik / Sonya Rekhtik (In Gang 8-9-10: 28-35) in the New York journal Tsukunft (Future). Bernshteyn became a professor of mathematics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the University of Chicago, and he wrote articles in this field as well. He died in Tel Aviv in March 1983.6 Yeshayohu Bluman FLK 3: 41-43 History (Holocaust) Mayer Braun In Gang 11-12: 23-26 Essay (Jewish Culture) Braun was born in Byalistok on 7 January 1889 and moved to America in 1902. He wrote for many publications and was active in Social Zionist politics both in Israel under the British mandate and in America.7 At the time this article was written he was the Program Secretary of the World Jewish Cultural Congress. He died in New York on 2 November 1965. Motl Brik FLK 10: 16-18 Testimony

6ibid., pp. 110-111. 7S. Niger, Y. Shatski and M. Shtarkman (1956), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 1. p. 433.

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Sh. D. Bunin Shriftn 1: 62-66&69 Story (Post-Holocaust) Rabbi Aviezer Burshtin FLK 1: 7 Testimony FLK 7: 71-74 History (Holocaust) Burshtin was born in Poland on 7 February 1918. He had a traditional education and was ordained as a rabbi. He survived the Vilna, Grodno, and Byalistok ghettos and several camps. In Germany after the war he wrote for a number of DP publications. Burshtin went to Israel in 1949 and in 1956 became director of a Yeshiva there. He has since published historical and Hassidic stories in Yiddish journals around the world and many books of stories in Hebrew and Yiddish. Daniel Burshtin FLK 4: 75-83 Child's Testimony Dr. L. Buzhanski FLK 9: 67-70 History (Holocaust) Malke Byelinski FLK 3: 57-58 Testimony E. Bzhezhinska Shriftn 1: 7 Drawing/Painting Shriftn 1: 133 Drawing/Painting Ida Cohen (Fabritski) In Gang 8-9-10: 81-84 Essay (Jewish Culture) A. De Liu In Gang 2-3: 35-40 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) In Gang 6-7: 56-57 Book Review (Jewish Culture) In Gang 8-9-10: 85-87 Memoir (Holocaust) Zanvl Diamant In Gang 4-5: 16-20 Story (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 48-52 Book Review (Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 19-27 p. 3

Story (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 11-12: 40-48 Story (Pre-Holocaust) In Gang 11-12: 81-86 Book Review (General) Diamant was born in Poland on 14 April 1904. He started writing at a young age, and although he was forced by economic circumstances to leave school and work as a tailor he continued his literary education on his own. He became involved in socialist groups and adult education. In 1928 he moved to Paris, where he worked in a factory and studied French language and literature. He was active in Paris Yiddish cultural life. Beginning in 1933 Diamant published stories, novels, sketches and articles in France, Poland, and the Americas. In 1939 he enlisted in the French army, then was drafted into the Polish army in France in 1940. He was taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans, escaped, and lived in Paris and then in Southern France, where he was active in a group of refugee writers. Diamant arrived in Switzerland in late 1943, and while in a military prison there he worked for Jewish refugee relief and organized adult education. Released in 1944, he moved to Geneva and published in several journals in Switzerland. After the war he wrote stories, poems and essays for publications through Europe and the Americas. He emigrated to America in 1948, where he worked on the Algemeyner yidisher entsiklopedye / General Jewish Encyclopedia and the Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur / Biographical Dictionary of Modern Yiddish Literature as well as publishing novels and works of non-fiction and translating from Hebrew, French, German and English into Yiddish.8 Diamant died in New York on 26 June 1963. Dr. H. Direktorovitsh In Gang 6-7: 49-50 Biography (Holocaust) Moyshe Dluzhnovski In Gang 15: 26-30 Story (Pre-Holocaust) Dluzhnovski was born in Poland on 22 February 1906, trained in textiles and worked in factories in Tomashov and Lodz. He published his first story in 1925. He emigrated to Paris in 1930 and was in business there until 1939. He left Europe through Spain in Portugal and arrived in North Africa, living in Morocco until 1941, and then in America. Dluzhnovki has published stories, novels, reportage, essays, travelogues, and plays worldwide. He also published articles in the American English press.9 He died in New York on 30 July 1977.10 Dr. M. Dvorzhetski In Gang 8-9-10: 91-93 Memoir (Holocaust) Dvorzhetski (first name: Mark) was born in Vilna on 3 May 1908 He studied medicine there and in Nancy and received his medical degree from 8(1958), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 2. pp. 485-488. 9ibid., pp. 526-528. 10B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 199.

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the Sorbonne. In 1939 he became a member of the Vilna City Council. Captured by the Germans as a Polish army doctor, he escaped and returned to Vilna, where he was active in the ghetto’s cultural life and in its underground organisation. In 1943 he was deported to Eastern camps and then to camps in Germany. He went to Paris after the war and then, in 1949, to Israel. Dvorzhetski studied the psychology of the survivors and was also involved in other aspects of Holocaust research. He published articles in Paris, New York and Tel Aviv. He also wrote many historical books, some of which were also translated into French, Spanish and Hebrew. Dvorzhetski died in Tel Aviv on 15 March 1975.11 Moyshe Edelshteyn FLK 10: 96-104 Testimony M. D. Elihav Shriftn 1: 97 Poem (Holocaust) Shriftn 1: 98 Poem (Holocaust) Binyomin Elis Shriftn 1: 18-24 Story (Post-Holocaust) Elis was born in Poland in 1907 and lived in Lodz, Warsaw andVilna. He spent the Second World War in Siberia and then several years in DP camps in Germany before emigrating to America. He published two books in Warsaw before the war, one in Minsk in 1941 and one in Stuttgart in 1948 as well as three in New York before his death there on 17 December 1984.12 Sh. Epshteyn In Gang 13-14: 29-31 Speech (DP Culture) Sh. Ernst In Gang 11-12: 91-92 Book Review (Jewish Culture) In Gang 15: 47-49 Essay (Jewish Culture) Yeshayohu Eyger FLK 10: 70-75 History (Holocaust) (With Yekhiel Fridman and Shmuel-Dovid Figer) FLK 1: 14-21 Testimony Yitskhok Fayershteyn FLK 3: 38-40 11ibid., pp. 191-193. 12ibid., pp. 415-416.

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Testimony Avraham Faynberg (With Khayim Shklyar) FLK 3: 8-11 Testimony Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 1: 2 Essay (DP Culture) FLK 1: 34-35 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 2: 97-100 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 3: 95-97 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 3: 98-100 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 4: 103-107 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 4: 108-112 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 5: 102-104 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 5: 105-106 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 6: 71-76 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) FLK 6: 94-96 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 7: 110-112 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 9: 105-106 Current Events (DP Culture) FLK 10: 162-170 Current Events (DP Culture) (With Y. Rozenboym) FLK 3: 68-71 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Feygenboym is discussed in Chapter 5. Dr. Avraham Finkler FLK 10: 105-107 Testimony A. Fridman Shriftn 1: 67 Sculpture/Carving Shriftn 1: 117 Sculpture/Carving Dr. Philip Friedman FLK 1: 1 Letter (DP Culture) p. 6

FLK 4: 1-13 History (Holocaust) Shriftn 1: 75-86 Essay (Holocaust Literature) (With Ben-Tsion Hibel) Shriftn 1: iv Essay (DP Culture) Friedman is discussed in Chapter 6. Dovid From In Gang 11-12: 36-38 Poem (General) From was born on 14 October 190313 in Lithuania. He spent World War One in Samara, where he began to write Russian poetry, and graduated from a Soviet vocational school in 1921. He returned to Lithuania, where he began to publish in Yiddish, and joined the agronomy faculty of University of Tulz in 1926. In 1927 he left for Johannesburg, South Africa, where he continued to write poetry.14 Leo Garfunkl In Gang 1: 3-7 Book Review (DPs) In Gang 2-3: 1-9 History (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 1-10 Essay (Zionism and Israel) Mikhal Gelbtrunk FLK 10: 38-41 Testimony Lyusya Gerber FLK 8: 80-84 Testimony Dr. Mordkhe Glatshteyn FLK 5: 36-38 Testimony Zev Volf Gliksman FLK 2: 51-55 Testimony Gliksman was born in Poland on 26 July 1905. He survived the Tshenstakhov ghetto and Auschwitz. He emigrated to America in 1947 and settled in Philadelphia, where he taught at a Jewish School. Beginning in 1948 he contributed historical and literary articles to Yiddish journals in Paris and New York. In 1957 he received his doctorate in history at Dropsy College. Gliksman has also published English books about Jews in Poland and the Holocaust.15 13ibid., p. 450. 14E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher

literatur: Vol. 7. p. 439. 15B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 162.

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Sh. Glube FLK 6: 44-47 Testimony Sh. Glube FLK 9: 78-81 History (Holocaust) Yakov Goldberg FLK 7: 30-57 History (Holocaust) Yitskhok Goldkorn Shriftn 1: 142-144&147 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Goldkorn was born in Poland on 1 October 1911. In 1930 he went to Lodz and became an electrician, and he also began to publish poems and literary criticism. After the Second World War he was Secretary of the Jewish Writers’ Union in Munich and published in many DP camp journals. He also published a book of literary criticism and one of poetry while in Munich. He left for Canada in 1951, where he continued to write and to publish.16 Goldman FLK 4: 85-89 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Engineer Fayvl Goldshmidt FLK 8: 62-64 History (Holocaust) Dr. L. Goldshteyn FLK 5: 29-33 Testimony Goldshteyn (first name: Lazar) was born in Lithuania on 13 May 1901 and received his medical degree from the University of Leipzig in 1927. From 1930 to 1940 he practiced medicine in Kovno, after which he survived the Slobodke ghetto and Dachau. He published in Vilna and then in the DP press in Germany. In 1949 he emigrated to America and settled in New York. Goldshteyn, who Anglicized his name to Golden, later published a book about his experiences during the Holocaust.17 Ela Grilikhes FLK 9: 82-83 Child's Testimony Dr. Shmuel Grinhoyz FLK 7: 6-29 History (Holocaust) FLK 8: 27-38 16(1958), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 2. pp. 89-90. 17B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 141.

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History (Holocaust) This is probably Dr. Samuel Gringauz, described by Leo Schwarz as ‘a former judge in Memel who had arrived in the Landsberg camp by way of Kovno ghetto and Dachau […]. An energetic man in his middle thirties, he was well remembered for his leadership of discussion groups during the dark years in the Kovno ghetto. As chairman of the Culture and Education department, he subsequently submitted a number of proposals, among them a plan for an Historical Institute, with the specific aim of collecting and preserving documentary material relating to the experiences of the past six years’18(this plan was set aside until it was revived by Kaplan and Feygenboym). Gringauz served several terms as chairman of the Landsberg Jewish Committee, was President of the Council of Liberated Jews in Germany, and wrote for the Landsberger lager tsaytung19 and many other publications. It is thus highly likely that this energetic politician and writer would have contributed these articles to FLK, particularly as these articles are directly related to his own Holocaust experience. Y. Gurevitsh FLK 9: 52-58 History (Holocaust) Rivke Gutman FLK 9: 46-51 History (Holocaust) Meyer Halpern Shriftn 1: 14 Poem (General) Shriftn 1: 14&17 Poem (General) Halpern was born in Lodz, Poland in 1905 and lived there until World War Two, when he left for the Soviet Union. He wrote poems for collections and journals in Lodz and Warsaw and published a book of poetry in Warsaw in 1937. He returned to Poland after the war and then lived in Germany, where he also published a book of poems, until leaving for Israel in 1949.20 Halpern later also printed poems in journals in New York and Tel Aviv and published another book in Israel. He died in Tel Aviv on 31 August 1980.21 Avraham Hayman FLK 7: 97-99 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Frits Heft FLK 3: 33 History (Holocaust) Ben-Tsion Hibel 18L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. pp. 28-29. 19Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. pp. 24-30. 20E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. p.

29. 21B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 208.

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Shriftn 1: 29-36 Essay (Holocaust Literature) (With Dr. Philip Friedman) Shriftn 1: iv Essay (DP Culture) Hibel is discussed in Chapter 6. Hirsh Hirshovitsh-Levitan FLK 10: 56-64 Testimony Anna Holtsman FLK 7: 80-87 Testimony Arye Imber In Gang 6-7: 51-54 Book Review (Zionism and Israel) Moly Kagan FLK 2: 76-77 Poem (Written during Holocaust) FLK 8: 92-94 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Kagan wrote in the Kovno ghetto. She was killed in one of the sub-camps of Stutthof.22 Moyshe Kaganovitsh In Gang 1: 10-15 Essay (Zionism and Israel) In Gang 8-9-10: 54-65 Essay (Holocaust Literature) In Gang 11-12: 49-58 History (Holocaust) In Gang 11-12: 87-88 Book Review (Zionism and Israel) In Gang 13-14: 36-38 Speech (DP Culture) Kaganovitsh was born in Lithuania on 5 December 1909 and published his first articles in Vilna in 1928. In 1929 he went to Lemberg and wrote for the newspaper there. In 1943 he escaped from the Ivye ghetto and became a partisan. Between 1945 and 1949 he was in Rome, where he edited and wrote for various DP publications and published a book23 (reviewed in In Gang 15: 32-37). Kaganovitsh also ran the Historical Division of the Partisan Organization in Italy.24 In 1949 he emigrated to Israel, where he continued to write about the partisans.25 Berl Kahn 22(1948), Oysbeserungen un bamerkungen. p. 113. 23B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 8. p. 26. 24Z. Shaykovski (1947), Yidn in Eyrope forshn zeyer umkum, 1939-1946. p. 102. 25B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 8. p. 26.

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In Gang 1: 27-29 Speech (DP Culture) In Gang 2-3: 31-35 Essay (Jewish Culture) In Gang 11-12: 14-22 Essay (DP Culture) In Gang 13-14: 1-12 Current Events (DP Culture) In Gang 15: 1-16 Essay (DP Culture) (With Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi) In Gang 1: 1-2 Essay (DP Culture) Kahn is discussed in Chapter 4. Y. Kanner FLK 10: 118-122 Testimony Yakov Kapilevitsh In Gang 11-12: 88-90 Book Review (Holocaust) Yisroel Kaplan FLK 1: 1 Essay (DP Culture) FLK 1: 4-6 History (Holocaust) FLK 1: 22-24 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) FLK 2: 1-13 History (Holocaust) FLK 2: 56-73 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) FLK 2: 78-83 Nazi Documents FLK 2: 83-84 Nazi Documents FLK 3: 1-3 History (Holocaust) FLK 5: 3-6 History (Holocaust) FLK 5: 7-28 History (Holocaust) FLK 6: 62-72 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Shriftn 1: 45-61 Memoir (DPs) FLK 7: 3-5 History (Holocaust) FLK 8: 3-26 History (Holocaust) FLK 9: 3-22 p. 11

History (Holocaust) FLK 10: 171 Book Review (Holocaust) Kaplan is discussed in Chapter 5. Yoynoson Karp FLK 3: 73-75 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Malke Kelerikh Shriftn 1: 92-94 Story (Holocaust) Kelerikh was born in Ukraine on 6 May 1897. She published several stories in periodicals before the war. After the war she was in Germany, where she published a book of short stories in 1948.26 Sore Kerbel FLK 3: 34-37 Testimony Chaplain Abraham J. Klausner FLK 1: 3 Essay (DPs) Shriftn 1: i-ii Essay (DP Culture) Klausner is discussed in Chapter 6. M. A. Kokhav Shriftn 1: 120-128 Memoir (Pre-Holocaust) Kokhav (first name: Mordkhe-Arye; original last name: Shtern) was born in Poland on 15 February 1908. After some time spent wandering around Polish villages, he opened a shop in Warsaw. He published his first story in Lublin in 1934. Kokhav was in the Soviet Union during the Second World War and in a DP camp in Germany from 1946 to 1948. While in Germany he wrote for several DP journals and anthologies as well as for publications in New York and Paris. Kokhav moved to Israel in 1949.27 Yoysef Kos FLK 2: 35-46 Testimony Mauritsi Kraut FLK 3: 54-56 Testimony Dovid Kupferberg In Gang 2-3: 40-42 Story (Holocaust) In Gang 13-14: 38-39 26ibid., p. 228. 27E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. p.

341.

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Speech (DP Culture) In Gang 15: 49-52 Essay (DP Culture) H. Laban Shriftn 1: 43 Drawing/Painting Shriftn 1: 95 Sculpture/Carving Shriftn 1: 145 Drawing/Painting L. Losh In Gang 11-12: 62-67 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) In Gang 13-14: 31-36 Speech (DP Culture) In Gang 13-14: 51-55 Speech (Pre-Holocaust Culture) In Gang 15: 17-26 Essay (DP Culture) Simkhe Binem Leski FLK 3: 44-48 Testimony H. Levenshtadt Shriftn 1: 15 Drawing/Painting Shriftn 1: 27 Drawing/Painting Shriftn 1: 67 Drawing/Painting Leyb Levin FLK 4: 66-74 Testimony Refuel Levin FLK 8: 39-49 History (Holocaust) Yakov Levin FLK 5: 75-81 Child's Testimony Dr. Z. Levinbuk In Gang 4-5: 55-59 History (Holocaust) Ruven Levitan In Gang 8-9-10: 89-90 p. 13

Book Review (Jewish Culture) Dovid Leybovitsh FLK 6: 48-52 Testimony Mendl Lifshits FLK 3: 11-22 Testimony FLK 4: 14-30 Testimony Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 2-3: 29 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 29 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 30 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 30 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 20 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 6-7: 31-32 Poem (General) In Gang 6-7: 33 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 6-7: 34 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 6-7: 35-36 Poem (General) In Gang 8-9-10: 16 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 16 Poem (General) In Gang 8-9-10: 17 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 18 Poem (General) In Gang 11-12: 39 Poem (General) In Gang 11-12: 39 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 11-12: 39 Poem (General) In Gang 15: 16 Poem (General) Lifshits was born in Lithuania in 1922. After finishing school he was employed on a farm in 1939. After the outbreak of the war he was in a labour camp, from which he escaped in October 1941. He was then active in the partisan movement until he joined the Soviet army in 1944. After the was Lifshits returned to Poland and then in 1946 went to Italy, where he worked in a children’s home. He published his first poetry in In Gang. He p. 14

has since published poetry in many journals in Israel, Paris, and New York. In 1948 Lifshits left for Israel, where he taught new arrivals and, from 1951 to 1953, served in the Israeli army. He then taught in a children’s home and lived in Tel Aviv.28 From 1956 until his death there on 15 August 1969 he taught in Holon.29 Mario Luzi, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 52 Poem (General) Luzi was a well-known contemporary Italian poet. Mendl Man FLK 9: 59-66 History (Holocaust) Man was born in Poland on 9 December 1916. He showed artistic talent and attended the local art school. He began to write and publish in 1938. At the start of the war he was in Warsaw, and he fled from there to the Soviet Union where he joined the army. He marched to Berlin with the Red Army and then left for Lodz, where he worked for the Jewish Committee and published a book of ballads which was the first Yiddish book printed in post-Holocaust Poland. After the big pogrom of 1946 Man made his way to Regensburg, Germany, where he began a weekly newspaper and published another book. In 1948 he left for Israel, where he wrote novels and worked for Di goldene keyt / The Golden Chain. His many published works, both within periodicals and in book form, have won several prizes and have been translated into many languages. Man moved to Paris in 196130 and lived there until his death on 1 September 1975.31 Nosn Markovski FLK 8: 94-96 Poem (Written during Holocaust) (With Shoel Shenker) FLK 8: 90-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Ruven Matis Shriftn 1: 159 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Matis was born in Lithuania on 27 April 1890, and he worked as a teacher and then as a school principal in Shavel. He began to publish in 1930. Matis wrote poems and articles for adults and children which appeared in Kovno and in New York. During the Holocaust he was in the Shavel ghetto, in Shtuthof and Dachau. He settled in Munich in 1945, worked for a newspaper and wrote poems, sotries and articles for journals in Munich, Paris and New York. In 1948 Matis moved to Capetown, South Africa, where he taught Hebrew language and literature. He also worked for

28E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1963), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 5. p.

220. 29B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 340. 30E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1963), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 5. pp. 431-433. 31B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 363.

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Johannesburg-based Yiddish and Hebrew journals. Matis died in Capetown on 15 February 1958.32 Moyshe Mayerzon FLK 4: 42-54 Testimony D. L. Mekler In Gang 8-9-10: 78-80 Essay (Jewish Culture) Mekler (first name: Dovid-Leyb) was born in Lithuania on 15 June 1891 and in 1907 he emigrated to America, where he trained as an engineer. He was working as a journalist in Boston by 1912 and soon relocated to New York, where in 1918 he joined the Morgn-Zhurnal / Morning Journal. At the time of his article for In Gang Mekler was Editor of the Morgn-Zhurnal, and he had also continued to write articles for that publication. Mekler also published several books of non-fiction and of Hassidic stories, including one of the latter in English.33 He died in New York on 26 April 1976.34 Yekhezkel Menkhe FLK 6: 31-36 Testimony Henya Menkis FLK 9: 71-77 Testimony Arye Milkh FLK 3: 65-67 Child's Testimony Eugenio Montale, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 51 Poem (General) Montale was a well-known contemporary Italian poet. Yitskhok Morgnshtern Shriftn 1: 129-132 Essay (Jewish and General Culture) Shriftn 1: 160 Poem (General) Khayim Nayerman In Gang 1: 23 Poem (Holocaust) Yitskhok Nementshik FLK 7: 58-70 32E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1963), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 5. pp.

407-408. 33E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1965), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 6. p. 81-82. 34B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 383.

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History (Holocaust) Sh. Niger In Gang 6-7: 5-8 Book Review (Holocaust) Niger (first name: Shmuel; original last name: Tsharni) was born in Byelorussia on 15 June 1883 and emigrated to America in 1920. An eminent and widely-published Yiddish literary critic, he lived in New York and died there on 24 December 1955.35 Dr. Yakov Nokhimovski FLK 10: 28-37 History (Holocaust) Y. Nosberg In Gang 11-12: 67-77 Essay (DP Culture) Engineer Yakov Oleyksi FLK 9: 23-36 History (Holocaust) Oleyski was born in Lithuania on 1 December 1900. After completing his agronomic studies in Germany he taught Jewish subjects and was active in Jewish cultural life in Lithuania. In 1927 he became the Director of the Kovno branch of the ORT36 (from the Russian Obsbchestvo Rasprostraneniya Truda sredi Yevreyev, an organization devoted to Jewish vocational and agricultural training37). He wrote literary essays and journalistic articles for Kovno and ORT publications. During the Nazi occupation Oleyski founded a vocational school in the Kovno Ghetto. He was in Dachau, then escaped from a transport. After the Liberation, Oleyski became the Director of the ORT in the American Zone of Germany, the Director of the Productivity branch of the Central Committee in Munich, and a founder of and writer for the Landsberger lager-tsaytung (Landsberg Camp Newspaper). He organized the cultural organization in the Landsberg DP camp, co-edited his Productivity branch’s Landvirtshaftlecher vegvayzer (Agricultural Instructor), and wrote an articles for other publications. After his immigration to Israel in 1949, Oleyski became the Director of the Israeli ORT.38 He died in Tel Aviv on 14 March 1981.39 Fanye Olitski FLK 8: 85-89 Child's Testimony Mates Olitski Shriftn 1: 25-26 35E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1965), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 6. pp.

190-210. 36S. Niger, Y. Shatski and M. Shtarkman (1956), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 1. p.102. 37V. S. Halperin (1972), ORT. p.1481. 38S. Niger, Y. Shatski and M. Shtarkman (1956), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 1. p.102. 39B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 27.

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Poem (Post-Holocaust) Olitski was born in Ukraine on 10 November 1915. He published his first poems in Warsaw in 1935. He lived in the Soviet Union during the Second World War and then spent several years in the DP camps in Germany. There he published a book of poetry as well as articles and poems in several DP journals. He moved to New York in 1949 where he worked as a teacher and school principal. He continued to write and was widely published in New York and in Israel.40 Khayim Pardo FLK 7: 88-90 Testimony Yitskhok Perlov Shriftn 1: 5-6 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Perlov was born in Poland on 1 February 1911. Between the World Wars he lived in Warsaw, where he published a lot of poetry and edited several journals. From 1940 to 1946 he lived in the Soviet Union. He then went to Lodz and subsequently to the DP camps in Germany, where he continued to write and to publish. He was on the illegal immigration ship Exodus which was sent back to Germany by the British. He legally emigrated to Israel in 1949 and lived there until 1961, when he left for New York. He was published in periodicals in Europe, Israel, and the Americas and his many books were translated into several languages.41 Perlov died in New York on 16 November 1980.42 Rabbi Elkhonon Person FLK 5: 34-36 Testimony FLK 9: 36-46 History (Holocaust) Roza Pintshevski FLK 6: 58-61 Child's Testimony Shmuel Pravde FLK 3: 61-64 Testimony Menakhem Riger In Gang 1: 18 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 1: 19 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 10 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 11 40ibid., pp. 28-30. 41E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher

literatur: Vol. 7. pp. 185-186. 42B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 433.

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Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 11 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 34-35 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 35 Poem (General) In Gang 6-7: 9-11 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 66-67 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 67 Poem (General) In Gang 11-12: 35 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 15: 38 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 15: 38-39 Poem (General) In Gang 15: 39 Poem (General) Riger was born in Litvia on 18 September 1914. After the Second World War he was in Italy, where he published in several DP journals. He left for Israel in 1948 and settled in Ramallah.43 Sore Rituv In Gang 4-5: 11 Poem (General) In Gang 4-5: 11 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 6-7: 27 Poem (Zionism and Israel) Lo Rodashevki FLK 6: 37-43 Testimony Meyer Roytman FLK 3: 48-50 Testimony Yakov Rozenboym FLK 5: 39-45 Testimony (With Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym) FLK 3: 68-71 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Sonye Rubenshteyn FLK 8: 65-74 Testimony 43B. Kahn, E. Knox and E. Shulman (1981), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 8. p. 444.

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Umberto Saba, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 53 Poem (General) Saba was a well-known contemporary Italian poet. Yudl Samsanovitsh FLK 6: 53-57 Testimony Sh. Segal In Gang 4-5: 39-47 Essay (General Culture) In Gang 6-7: 43-48 Essay (Jewish Culture) Yisroel Segal FLK 1: 12-13 Testimony FLK 5: 54-70 Testimony D. Segulim In Gang 4-5: 52-55 Essay (Zionism and Israel) In Gang 6-7: 54-56 Book Review (Holocaust) Moyshe Segalson FLK 8: 50-57 History (Holocaust) K. Shabtay Shriftn 1: 148-158 Story (Holocaust) Dr. Mordkhe Shatner FLK 2: 47-50 Testimony Shoel Shenker (With Nosn Markovski) FLK 8: 90-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust) H. Shilis Shriftn 1: 87 Drawing/Painting Shriftn 1: 95 Drawing/Painting Shriftn 1: 107 Drawing/Painting Khayim Shklyar (With Avraham Faynberg) p. 20

FLK 3: 8-11 Testimony Tseshe Shiling FLK 10: 76-79 Testimony Henyek Shperling FLK 6: 3-17 Testimony H. Shprung-Levkovits FLK 7: 74-79 History (Holocaust) Efrayim Shrayer Shriftn 1: 114-116&119 Essay (General Culture) Shrayer was born in Poland on 8 July 1911. Best known for his theatrical criticism, he lived in Warsaw from 1930 until the Second World War. There he began to publish his work. During the war he escaped to the Soviet Union. He then spent several years in the DP camps in Germany, where he once again published his writings and began to work as an editor. Shrayer left for Israel in 1950 and settled in Tel Aviv. He has since written many books of essays and his work has also been published in periodicals in New York, Paris and Israel.44 Mordkhe Shtrigler In Gang 8-9-10: 11-15 Essay (DP Culture) Shtrigler was born in Poland on 18 September 1921 and began to write at a young age. He survived the Warsaw ghetto and several camps, where he continued to write (although these writings were lost), then lived in Paris from 1945 to 1952 and in New York from 1953. Shtrigler has published poems, stories, and essays on Jewish, Holocaust and Zionist themes in many Yidish and Hebrew periodicals and edited journals and newspapers in Paris and New York, most notably the New York newspaper Forverts / The Jewish Daily Forward, He has also published many books, several of which describe his Holocaust experiences.45 Genia Shurts FLK 10: 123-130 Child's Testimony Yoysef Shuster FLK 7: 91-94 Child's Testimony Yoysef Shvartsberg FLK 8: 75-79 44ibid., pp. 801-802. 45ibid., pp. 654-656.

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Testimony Aron Shvorin FLK 3: 3-7 Testimony Rokhl Slkye FLK 9: 84-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Moyshe Dov Taub FLK 10: 113-118 Testimony A. Tenenboym FLK 5: 45-53 Testimony K. L. Tenenboym In Gang 2-3: 43 Poem (Holocaust) Sh.Tenenboym In Gang 15: 40-46 Book Review (Pre-Holocaust) Moyshe Treyster FLK 4: 55-66 Testimony Melekh Tshemni Shriftn 1: 99-106&109 Story (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Tshemni (original last name: Tshemnov) was born in Warsaw on 10 May 1910. In the 1930s he wrote stories and articles for several Warsaw periodicals and published a book of stories. He was in Byalistok from 1940 to 1941 and in Uzbekistan for the rest of the war. He returned to Poland in 1946 and immediately left for Munich, where he lived until 1951. He served as Secretary of the Union of DP Writers and worked on many DP publications as well as writing for two New York newspapers and publishing two books. In 1952 he went to Buenos Aires and then, in 1957, to Rio de Janeiro, all the while continuing to write books and articles and to edit newspapers. In 1958 he left for Israel where he settled in Ramat-Gan, founded a literary and political journal46 and continued to write books.47 Avraham Tsipkin FLK 1: 26 Poem (Written during Holocaust) FLK 1: 26 Poem (Written during Holocaust) 46E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. pp.

151-152. 47B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 289.

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Tsipkin’s date of birth is unknown. He was in the Kovno ghetto, where he was in a labour brigade and wrote poems about ghetto themes. He was killed in the 1940s.48 Miryam Tsvayg FLK 3: 51-54 Testimony Yerakhmyel Tsvik FLK 10: 108-112 Testimony Yonas Turkov In Gang 4-5: 6-11 Essay (DP Culture) In Gang 6-7: 12-16 Memoir (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Turkov was born in Warsaw on 15 February 1898. He trained as an actor and in 1917 joined Esther Kaminska’s troupe for a tour of Russia and Ukraine. He acted inVilna, Kharkov, and, from 1923, at the Warsaw Yiddish Art Theatre. In 1926 he became director of the Cracow State Yiddish Theatre. Turkov also acted in several movies and directed one. Throughout the 1930s he was involved in acting in and directing theatrical productions and teaching drama. He also, beginning in 1924, wrote articles, essays, and travelogues, notably about Yiddish theatre, which were published in Warsaw, Vilna and Lodz, as well as a book about drama. Between 1939 and 1943 he was in the Warsaw ghetto and was a member of the underground organization. From 1944 to 1945 Turkov lived in Poland and, among other cultural activities, served as chairman of the renewed Polish Yiddish Writers’ and Actors’ Union. In 1945 he left Poland and acted in Yiddish theatre in DP camps in Germany, Austria and Italy, as well as in France, Belgium and Hungary. In 1947 he went to America and acted there and in Canada. From 1954 to 1957 acted in Yiddish theatre in South America, Israel, Europe and South Africa. He then worked for the Theatre Documentation Centre at YIVO in New York. Since the war, Turkov has also continued to write and to publish highly-regarded books and articles in periodicals in Europe, the Americas, South Africa, and Israel.49 In 1966 he emigrated to Israel.50 Dr. Yakov Ungar FLK 4: 30-41 Testimony Giuseppe Ungaretti, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 53 Poem (General) Ungaretti was a well-known contemporary Italian poet.

48E. Auerbach, Y. Birnboim, E. Shulman and M. Shtarkman (1968), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher

literatur: Vol. 7. pp. 598-599. 49E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. pp. 58-60. 50B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. pp. 280-281.

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Dr. Arminyo Vaksberger FLK 5: 71-74 Testimony Yakov Valdman FLK 1: 8-12 Testimony Shloyme Varzager Shriftn 1: 70-73 Poem (Holocaust) Shriftn 1: 74 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Varzager was born in Chelm on 10 May 1917. He published his first poem in Warsaw in 1933. During the Second World War he was in the Soviet Union, then in 1946 he returned to Poland. Later he went to Germany, where he published a book of poetry. Since the war he has also published poems in periodicals in Poland, Germany, Austria, Paris, South America, Israel and New York.51 He emigrated to Israel in 1949, where he has published many novels, stories, and poems as well as a collection of essays.52 Leyb Vaserman Shriftn 1: 89-91 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Vaserman was born in Ukraine on 27 August 1915. After the Second World War he was in Germany until he emigrated to America in 1949 and settled in New York. He first published in Shriftn, then in other DP publications and in New York periodicals. His writing was much praised by Shmuel Niger. He published a book of poems in Munich in 194953 and another in New York in 1966.54 Hershel Vaynroykh Shriftn 1: 135-141 Story (Pre-Holocaust) Vaynroykh (original last name: Vinokur) was born on 7 January 190355 in Ukraine. He served in the Red Army during 1920 and 1921, then worked in a factory from 1922 to 1926. He began to write in Russian but was influenced by the Yiddish section of the Communist party to switch to Yiddish. His first published story appeared in Moscow in 1926, and he wrote for several Russian periodicals. He also continued to study and graduated from the literary faculty of the Odessa Pedagogical Institute in 1932. From that year until 1938 he lived in Birobidzhan and worked as an assistant editor. From 1940 to 1941 he was an editor in Byalistok. Between 1932 and 1941 he also published novels and collections of short-stories. Imprisoned in the Minsk ghetto in 1941, Vaynroykh organized a group of 51E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. p.

306. 52B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 233. 53E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. p. 295. 54B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 231. 55ibid., p. 240

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partisans and escaped to join the Red Army once again. He was promoted, wounded, and earned a military distinction. In 1946 he joined the AntiFascist Committee in Moscow but then left for Rumania. In 1947 he was in the DP camps in Germany, where he became the first President of the DPs’ Yiddish Writers’ and Journalists’ Union and published stories and a book. He left for Israel and then, in July 1948, arrived in America. Vaynroykh published stories New York and Israel and novels in New York56 and Buenos Aires. He died in New York on 21 May 1983.57 Ester Vays FLK 10: 79-95 Testimony Getsl Vaysberg FLK 3: 23-27 Testimony Moyshe Vaysberg FLK 2: 14-27 Testimony Avraham Vaysbrod FLK 2: 28-34 Testimony Vaysbrod was born on 21 November 190758 in Galicia. In 1941 he was in the Lemberg ghetto and was then sent to the Yanov ghetto before being transported to several camps. Between his liberation in 1945 and1946 he lived in Lodz, then he left for Munich. His book Es shtarbt a shtetl / A Town is Dying, with an introduction by Yisroel Kaplan, was the first book published by the Munich CHC and was excerpted in Fun letstn khurbn (2: 28-34)and in several other journals in Israel and elsewhere in Yiddish and Hebrew. In 1948 Vaysbrod went to America59 and he died in Lakewood, New Jersey on 1 September 1980.60 Elimelekh Vider FLK 3: 59-60 Testimony Bernard Vind In Gang 4-5: 1-5 Essay (Holocaust Literature) In Gang 4-5: 47 Poem (General) In Gang 6-7: 37-42 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 40-41 56E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. pp.

371-372. 57B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 240. 58ibid., p. 243. 59E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. p. 406. 60B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 243.

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Poem (General) In Gang 8-9-10: 42-50 Essay (General Culture) Dovid Volpe Shriftn 1: 37-40 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Shriftn 1: 40-42 Poem (Post-Holocaust) FLK 10: 48-56 History (Holocaust) Volpe (full first name: Dovid-Elimelekh) was born in Lithuania on 7 September 1908. He emigrated to Israel in 1930 but returned to Lithuania in 1937, He survived the Slobodke ghetto and Dachau. From 1945 he was in Munich among the DPs and in 1951 he emigrated to South Africa, where he is involved in Yiddish culture. While in Germany he wrote poems, stories, and literary criticism for many DP publications. From 1955 to 1970 Volpe edited the magazine Dorem-Afrike / South Africa and published many works there. He has also written for periodicals in Israel and South Africa, in Hebrew as well as in Yiddish, and published books of poetry and criticism.61 Sh. Vyelitshker FLK 6: 17-31 History (Holocaust) M. Weinreich FLK 10: 172 Book Review (Holocaust) Weinreich (first name: Max) was born in Kurland on 22 April 1894. He emigrated to America in 1940. One of this century’s pre-eminent Yiddish scholars, he lived in New York62 and died there on 29 January 1969.63 Sime Yashunski FLK 10: 137-140 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Yashunski was born in Lithuania on 6 February 1925.64 She worked as a seamstress. In 1941 she was sent to the Kovno ghetto where she wrote poems, some of which were then sung by others in ghettos and camps. She escaped from a transport to Estonia and joined the partisans. It was believed for many years that the Nazis caught and killed her, and a collection of twenty of her poems were printed, supposedly posthumously, in 1961.65 Some of her poems also appeared in other collections. In fact, Yashunski lived in Kovno from 1944 to 1970 and in 1972 she emigrated to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv.66 61ibid., pp. 228-229. 62E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. pp.

378-383. 63B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 240. 64ibid., p. 298. 65E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. p. 231. 66B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 298.

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Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 1: 7-10 History (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 12-18 Book Review (Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 31-34 Book Review (Holocaust) In Gang 6-7: 28-30 Essay (DP Culture) In Gang 8-9-10: 36-40 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) In Gang 11-12: 26-32 Essay (Jewish Culture) In Gang 11-12: 59-62 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) In Gang 13-14: 15-16 Speech (DP Culture) In Gang 13-14: 24-29 Speech (DP Culture) In Gang 15: 32-37 Book Review (Holocaust) (With Berl Kahn) In Gang 1: 1-2 Essay (DP Culture) Yerushalmi is discussed in Chapter 4. A. Yoakhimovitsh Shriftn 1: 110-113 Poem (Holocaust) Yoakhimovitsh (first name: Avraham) was born in Poland on 20 June 1908. Until the Second World War he owned a factory in Lodz, wrote poetry and was culturally active. Beginning in 1927 he published in periodicals in Lodz, Cracow, Warsaw and elsewhere and he also published a book of poems in Lodz in 1938. He was in the Lodz ghetto from 1940 to 1944 and there he was part of a writers’ circle. Some of his poems were sung in the ghettos and camps. He was deported to Auschwitz and then to other camps. After his liberation in 1945 he lived in Germany, where he published in many DP publications. Yoakhimovitsh moved to New York in 1949 and continued to publish in periodicals there and in Israel.67 He died in New York on 7 April 1982.68 Hershele Yoakhimovitsh FLK 1: 25 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Yoakhimovitsh, son of Avraham (above), was born in Lodz in 1928. He entered the Lodz ghetto in 1940 and wrote ghetto poems which were

67E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. p.

176. 68B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 292.

p. 27

recited at literary evenings there. Yoakhimovitsh was later deported to Auschwitz, where he was killed in August 1944.69 A. Yud In Gang 4-5: 60-63 Biography (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) In Gang 8-9-10: 87-88 Biography (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) This may be a pseudonym. Moyshe Yungman In Gang 1: 16 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 1: 16 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 1: 17 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 19 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 19 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 20 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 2-3: 21 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 12-14 Poem (Post-Holocaust) In Gang 4-5: 15 Poem (Holocaust) In Gang 11-12: 33-34 Poem (Zionism and Israel) Yungman was born in Galicia in 1922. He spent the Second World War in the Soviet Union, returned to Poland in 1945 and then illegally left for Italy. There he was active in the Zionist movement until his departure for Israel in 1947. He first published his poetry in In Gang, and then wrote for many other DP publications. He also published a book in Rome which contains poems and a play which was performed in Italian DP camps. In Israel Yungman was also culturally active and was the director of and a teacher at a school for refugee children. His poems appeared in periodicals in New York, Israel, Paris, Buenos Aires and elsewhere. He also published a book of poetry in Paris in 1954. This early writing was praised by Melech Ravitch.70 He published six further volumes of poetry, translated several other poets into Yiddish and Hebrew, and won several important literary prizes. Yungman died in Israel on 31 December 1983.71 A. Zaks In Gang 1: 24-27 Essay (DP Culture) 69E. Auerbach, I. Badlash and M. Shtarkman (1961), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 4. pp.

176-177. 70ibid., pp. 264-265. 71B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. pp. 300-301.

p. 28

Avraham Zak In Gang 15: 31 Poem (Holocaust) Zak was born in Russian Poland on 15 December 1891 and first published in 1908. He went to Warsaw in 1909 and worked as a writer and an editor. Zak was drafted into the Red Army in 1913, was wounded in 1914 and was released from service. He then continued to write and publish, and in 1919 he returned to Warsaw, where he was a member of the Yiddish Writer’s Union and the Yiddish Section of the Polish Journalists’ Syndicate. He was an editor of or contributor to many Polish periodicals between the World Wars. Zak had translated several books into Yiddish from Polish, German and Russian and had published more than ten books of his own work before he fled Warsaw in December 1939 for Russian-occupied Poland. He was soon arrested as a refugee, imprisoned for a year, sent to the North and then release in 1941 as a Polish citizen. He lived in the Soviet Asian republics and did manual labour until the end of the war. He returned to Poland in 1946 with the repatriation of Polish refugees, settled in Lodz, and served as Secretary to the Polish Yiddish Literary Union and the Yiddish PEN Club. He also wrote and edited once again for Yiddish periodicals in Poland and published another book there. In 1948 he left for Paris, where he continued both his literary organizational work and his writing. In 1952 Zak moved to Buenos Aires and there he was involved in the Writers’ Union and the World Jewish Cultural Congress. His work appeared in publications in New York, Buenos Aires, and Israel and he continued to work as an editor. He published more poetry collections and novels in Buenos Aires, many of which won prizes. Some of his work has been translated into German, Hebrew, Russian and Polish.72 Zak died in Buenos Aires on 22 May 1980.73 Efrayim Zilberman FLK 10: 42-47 Testimony FLK 10: 64-69 Testimony

72E. Auerbach, M. Shtarkman and I. Badlash (1960), Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur: Vol. 3. pp.

557-560. 73B. Kahn (1986), Leksikon fun yidish shraybers. p. 257.

p. 29

Advertisements The majority of advertisements are from FLK, and these are analysed in Chapter 5. The other advertisements, from In Gang, are for books, a cultural conference, and the expansion of journal itself, and so clearly relate to DP cultural life. ___________________________ FLK 1:13 Advertisement Request for testimonies and the names of Nazis

Describe and send in to us your experiences from the Nazi era. Write clearly, submit as many as possible facts, dates and names of people, who in that time took part in public life. Submit the names of our murderers. When describing small communities, trouble yourself to designate near which large city and how far from it the community can be found. When submitting names of murderers describe in detail their deeds; submit if you know where they come from, their prior employment, their military or party rank, their current addresses. Names of cities and people write down also with Latin letters. Our Address: (In German)

FLK 1: 21 Advertisement Request for photos and documents

Do you have a picture or a document from the bygone tragic days, do not keep it completely for yourself. Deliver it to the Historical Commission. After being copied it is to you with thanks immediately returned. Our Address: (In German)

FLK 1: 26 Advertisement Request to record songs

Can you sing a song from the ghetto, camp, partisans etc. Come to the Historical Commission where the song is immediately immortalized on a gramaphone record. Our Address: (In German)

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FLK 1: 32 Advertisement Request for songs and folklore

Take down the songs, which were sung in the Nazi era in the ghettos camps with the partisans etc. Take down the jokes, sayings, legends, anecdotes, predictions, which circulated in that time. When possible submit also the name of the author, place and date of creation. Send all this in to the Historical Commission, who preserves it and publishes it in print. Our Address: (In German)

FLK 2: 46 Advertisement Request for songs and folklore

Take down the songs, which were sung in the Nazi era in the ghettos camps with the partisans etc. Take down the jokes, sayings, legends, anecdotes, predictions, which circulated in that time. When possible submit also the name of the author, place and date of creation. Send all this in to the Historical Commission, who preserves it and publishes it in print. Our Address: (In German)

FLK 2: 50 Advertisement Request to record songs

Can you sing a song from the ghetto, camp, partisans etc. Come to the Historical Commission where the song is immediately immortalized on a gramaphone record. Our Address: (In German)

FLK 2: 55 Advertisement Request for photos and documents

Do you have a picture or a document from the bygone tragic days, do not keep it completely for yourself. Deliver it to the Historical Commission. After being copied it is to you with thanks immediately returned. Our Address: (In German)

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FLK 3: 22 All editorial boards, committees, organizations Advertisement Request for copies of DP and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC 5 copies publications of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. Our Address: (In English) FLK 3: 40 Advertisement Request for songs with music

In the CHC is being prepared for publication ghetto and camp songs with [musical] notes. It is the duty of every surviving Jew to immortalize the songs, which were sung in his ghetto or camp. Put yourself in contact with us! Our Address: (In English)

FLK 3: 58 Advertisement Request for payment

To Our Subscribers! We ask you to immediately send in the sum for number 3 From the Last Extermination, and also the debt for the earlier issues. With this you will enable the further appearance of out only historical journal. Administration

FLK 3: 67 Advertisement Request to record songs

Sing Out and Immortalize Your Ghetto! Come to the CHC and submit onto gramaphone records the ghetto and camp song, which you know. 7 minutes it lasts. Around the world these records will be demonstrated. The YIVO exhibition in New York waits for them. More than anything it is deserved by the honour and memory of your ghetto! Come, don’t wait to be begged! Our Address: (In English)

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FLK 3: 81 Advertisement Request for children’s testimonies

To the School-Teachers and Principals of the Pioneer Kibbutzim! From many schools and kibbutzim we have already recieved sent in the written works of the students about their experiences during the war according to our instructions. Many compositions are exemplarily written and will be published in the publications of the CHC. The remaining teachers and principals are urgently requested to hurry in assigning their students the written work and immediately sending them in to the indicated address. Central Historical Commission Munich.

FLK 4: 41 Advertisement Request for songs with music

In the CHC is being prepared for publication ghetto and camp songs with [musical] notes. It is the duty of every surviving Jew to immortalize the songs, which were sung in his ghetto or camp. Put yourself in contact with us! Our Address: (In English)

FLK 4: 83 Advertisement Request for DP publications

All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. Our Address: (In English)

FLK 5: 33 Advertisement Request for DP publications

All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. Our Address: (In English)

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FLK 5: 38 Advertisement Request for songs with music

In the CHC is being prepared for publication ghetto and camp songs with [musical] notes. It is the duty of every surviving Jew to immortalize the songs, which were sung in his ghetto or camp. Put yourself in contact with us! Our Address: (In English)

FLK 6: 43 Advertisement Request for testimonies

FLK 6: 47 Advertisement Request for testimonies

Have you already fulfilled your duty towards your closest martyrs to immortalize their suffering in a testimony? Submit to the Historical Commission your experiences of the Nazi era! The Honour and memory of your destroyed community deserves and demands from you, the surviving remnant, to erect for it a memorial at least with some lines of chronicle! Don’t wait to be begged and come in to the Historical Commission and there fill out the questionnaire!

FLK 6: 57 Advertisement Request for DP publications

FLK 6: 61 Advertisement Request for DP publications

All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC or to the local commissions 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. All committees and organizations are requested to send in their old wall-newspapers to the historical commissions.

Der numer 8-9-10 fun In Gang dershaynt in november in a fargresert format fun 100 zaytn / Issue 8-9-10 of In Progress Appears in November in an Enlarged Format of 100 Pages In Gang 6-7: 57 Advertisement Ershter yidisher [sic] kultur-konferents in Italye / First Yiddish Cultural Conference in Italy In Gang 8-9-10: 18 Advertisement Nay dershinen / Newly Published In Gang 8-9-10: 100 Advertisement p. 5

For Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi’s A kitzer fun yidisher geshikhte / A Summary of Jewish History and the YIVO Takones fun yidishn oysleyg / Rules of Yiddish Spelling FLK 7: 99 Advertisement Request for DP publications

FLK 7: 100 Advertisement Request for Testimonies

All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC or to the local commissions 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. Have you fulfilled your duty towards your closest martyrs to immortalize their suffering in a testimony? Submit to the Historical Commission your experiences of the Nazi era!

Der yidisher onteyl in der partizaner-bavegung fun Sovet-Rusland / Jewish Participation in the Partisan Movement in Soviet Russia In Gang 11-12: 96 Advertisement FLK 8: 38 Advertisement Request to record songs FLK 8: 57 Advertisement Request for DP publications

FLK 8: 61 Advertisement Request for DP publications FLK 8: 64 Advertisement Request for testimonies

FLK 8: 74 Advertisement Request for photos and documents

Can you sing a song from the ghetto, camp, partisans etc. Come to the Central Historical Commission where the song is immediately immortalized on a gramaphone record. All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC or to the local commissions 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. All committees and organizations are requested to send in their old wall-newspapers to the historical commissions. Have you fulfilled your duty towards your closest martyrs to immortalize their suffering and heroism in a testimony? Submit to the Historical Commission your experiences of the Nazi era! Do you have a picture or a document from the bygone tragic days, do not keep it completely for yourself. Deliver it to the Historical Commission. After being copied it is to you with thanks immediately returned.

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FLK 8: 89 Advertisement Request for testimonies

The Honour and memory of your destroyed community deserves and demands from you, the surviving remnant, to erect for it a memorial at least with some lines of chronicle! Don’t wait to be begged and come in to the Historical Commission and there fill out the historical questionnaire!

FLK 8: 96 Advertisement Request for songs and folklore

Take down the songs, which were sung in the Nazi era in the ghettos camps with the partisans etc. Take down the jokes, sayings, legends, anecdotes, predictions, which circulated in that time. Send all this in to the Historical Commission.

FLK 9: 51 Advertisement Request for DP publications

FLK 9: 58 Advertisement Request for testimonies FLK 9: 66 Advertisement Request for testimonies

FLK 9: 77 Advertisement Request for photos and documents FLK 10: 95 Advertisement Request for songs FLK 10: 122 Advertisement Request to record songs

All editorial boards, committees, organizations and institutions of the Surviving Remnant are again reminded to send in to the CHC 5 copies of their printed publications, such as newspapers, journals, bulletins, posters, flyers etc. The Honour and memory of your destroyed community deserves and demands from you, the surviving remnant, to erect for it a memorial at least with some lines of chronicle! Have you fulfilled your duty towards your closest martyrs to immortalize their suffering and heroism in a testimony? Submit to the Historical Commission your experiences of the Nazi era! Do you have a picture or a document from the bygone tragic days, do not keep it completely for yourself. Deliver it to the Historical Commission. After being copied it is to you with thanks immediately returned. Take down the songs, which were sung in the Nazi era in the ghettos camps with the partisans etc. Can you sing a song from the ghetto, camp, partisans etc. Come to the Central Historical Commission where the song is immediately immortalized on a gramaphone record. p. 7

FLK 10: 130 Advertisement Request for Folklore FLK 10: 136 Advertisement Request for DP publications

Take down the jokes, sayings, legends, anecdotes, predictions, which circulated in that time. All committees and organizations are requested to send in their old wall-newspapers to the historical commissions.

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Bibliographies and Book Reviews The materials within this genre include both lists of books received or noted by the editorial boards of FLK and In Gang and in depth reviews of specific works. While most of the books reviewed are about the Holocaust, the bibliographies are much more wide-ranging. Some, especially those in FLK, are concerned only with DP publications or publications about the Holocaust, but others, particularly in In Gang, show an interest in publications on many other topics which were appearing in the rest of the Jewish world. Hebrew and Yiddish works listed in the more general bibliographies range from the Yiddish poetry of the American Menke Katz to the latest scientific writings by Albert Einstein. There is also evidence of a keen interest in Israel and Zionism. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: DP Culture – of writings about the lives of the DPs, useful for characterization of the existence of a cultural life among the sheyres hapleyte DPs – of writings about the political circumstances of the DPs Holocaust – of writings about the Holocaust Holocaust and General – combined category Pre-Holocaust – of writings about Europe before the Holocaust Jewish Culture – of writings about general Jewish culture Zionism and Israel – of writings about the importance of Zionism and about life in Israel General – of writings on general themes which happen to be written in or translated into Yiddish or Hebrew The combined category Holocaust and General is necessary because many bibliographies are not limited to works on a single theme. ___________________________ Bakumen in arkhiv fun ts.h.k. / Received by the Archive of the CHC FLK 6: 98 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Bakumen in arkhiv fun ts.h.k. / Received by the Archive of the CHC FLK 7: 115-117 Recent Bibliography p. 1

(DP Culture) Druk-oysgabes bakumen in arkhiv / Printed Items Received by the Archive FLK 8: 116-118 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Bakumen in redatsye / Received by the Editors FLK 9: 110-111 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) Druk-oysgabes bakumen in arkhiv / Printed Items Received by the Archive FLK 10: 176-177 Recent Bibliography (DP Culture) ___________________________ Di oysgevortslte… / The Uprooted… Leo Garfunkl In Gang 1: 3-7 Book Review Review of Zorach Warhaftig (1946) Uprooted: Jewish Refugees and Displaces Persons After Liberation, including a summary of the book’s conclusions (DPs) ___________________________ Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 1: 33 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 2: 93-96 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 3: 89-92 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Literarishe khronik: bikher vegn khurbn-Eyrope / Literary Chronicle: Books about the Destruction of Europe In Gang 1: 31 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) p. 2

Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 4: 100-102 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Dos naye bukh fun Sh. Apter / The New Book by Sh. Apter Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 2-3: 12-18 Book Review Review of Sh. Apter (1946) In Roymisher geto / In the Roman Ghetto (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 5: 98-100 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) A nayer dertseyler / A New Storyteller Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 4-5: 31-34 Book Review Review of Zanvl Diamant (1947) Untern haknkrayts / Under the Swastika (Holocaust) Afn rand fun a matseyve / On the Rim of a Tombstone Zanvl Diamant 48-52 Book Review Review of Yizker bukh: gevidmet di 14 umgekumene Parizer yidishe shrayber / Memorial Book: In Memory of the 14 Murdered Parisian Yiddish Writers (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 6: 92-93 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Tsvishn lebn un toyt / Between Life and Death Sh. Niger In Gang 6-7: 5-8 Book Review Review of Leon Bernshteyn’s Af morgn / The Day After (Holocaust) Kritik un bibliografye: a rayfer onheyb / Criticism and Bibliography: A Mature Beginning p. 3

D. Segulim In Gang 6-7: 54-56 Book Review Review of a book of poems, Dovid From’s Efsher / Maybe (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 7: 107-109 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Ikh bin an eydes / I am a Witness Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 11-12: 77-80 Book Review Review of Dr. Mark Dvorzshetski’s Yerushalayim in kamf un umkum / Jerusalem in Struggle and Death (Holocaust) Bam ash / At the Ash Yakov Kapilevitsh 88-90 Book Review Review of the collection Khurbn un oyfshtand fun di yidn in Varshe - eydes-bleter un haskores / Destruction and Revolt of the Jews in Warsaw - Witnessings and Memorials, edited by M. Nayshtat (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 8: 107-109 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 9: 102-104 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Artiklen-reshime fun yidishn lebn in natsi-tsayt in prese fun sheyres hapleyte / List of Articles about Jewish Life during the Nazi Regime in the Press of the Surviving Remnant FLK 10: 159-161 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust) Di letste publikatsyes fun der ts.h.k. / The Last Publications of the CHC Yisroel Kaplan p. 4

FLK 10: 171 Book Review Review of Avraham Vaysbrod’s Es shtarbt a shtetl / A Town is Dying (Holocaust) Di letste publikatsyes fun der ts.h.k. / The Last Publications of the CHC M. Weinreich FLK 10: 172 Book Review Review of Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym’s Podlyashe in umkum / Podlyashe in the Destruction (Holocaust) Vegn di vidershtands-bavegung ba yidn beys der natsi-hershaft (gedanken vegn M. Kaganovitshes bukh - Der onteyl fun yidn in der partizanerbavegung in di gebitn fun ratnfarband) / About the Resistance Movement among Jews during the Nazi Rule (Thoughts about M. Kaganovitsh’s Book - The Participation of Jews in the Partisan Movement in the Domains of the Soviet Union) Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 15: 32-37 Book Review Review of M. Kaganovitsh’s Der onteyl fun yidn in der partizaner-bavegung in di gebitn fun ratnfarband / The Participation of Jews in the Partisan Movement in the Domains of the Soviet Union (Holocaust) ___________________________ Khronik: naye yidishe bikher / Chronicle: New Yiddish Books In Gang 2-3: 46-47 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) In Gang 2-3: 48 Khronik: naye hebreyishe bikher / Chronicle: New Hebrew Books Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Khronik: naye yidishe bikher / Chronicle: New Yiddish Books In Gang 4-5: 64 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Khronik: ongekumen in redaktsye / Chronicle: Received by the Editors In Gang 6-7: 59 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Khronik: naye yidishe bikher / Chronicle: New Yiddish Books In Gang 6-7: 62-63 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) p. 5

Ongekumen in redaktsye / Received by the Editors In Gang 8-9-10: 97 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Ongekumen in redaktsye / Received by the Editors In Gang 13-14: 60 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) Received by the Editors In Gang 15: 57 Recent Bibliography (Holocaust and General) ___________________________ Der yid in der velt-milkhome (bamerkungen tsum tsentn band shriftn Milkhome fun F. Bimko) / The Jew in the World War (Remarks on the Tenth Volume of Writings War by F. Bimko) Sh.Tenenboym In Gang 15: 40-46 Book Review (Pre-Holocaust) ___________________________ Kritik un bibliografye: der yovl fun Hadoar / Criticism and Bibliography: The Jubilee of Hadoar A. De Liu In Gang 6-7: 56-57 Book Review Review of a jubilee book for the American Hebrew newspaper Hadoar (Jewish Culture) Dr. Yerushalmis Kitsur fun yidisher geshikhte / Dr. Yerushalmi’s Summary of Jewish History Ruven Levitan In Gang 8-9-10: 89-90 Book Review Review of Eliezer Yerushalmi (1947) Summary of Jewish History (Jewish Culture) A naye antologye fun der khsidisher literatur / A New Anthology of Hassidic Literature Sh. Ernst 91-92 Book Review Review of Yitskhok Verfel’s Seyfer hakhsides / Book of Hassidism (Jewish Culture) ___________________________ Kritik un bibliografye: Kestlers erets-Yisroel bukh / Criticism and Bibliography: Koestler’s Israel Book Arye Imber p. 6

In Gang 6-7: 51-54 Book Review Review of Arthur Koestler’s Thieves in the Night (Zionism and Israel) Yidn in Erets-Yisroel - a bukh tsu der tsayt / Jews in the Land of Israel - A Book at the Proper Time Moyshe Kaganovitsh In Gang 11-12: 87-88 Book Review Review of Avraham Revutski’s Yidn in Erets-Yisroel / Jews in the Land of Israel (Zionism and Israel) ___________________________ Literarishe khronik: Naye yidishe un hebreyishe bikher / Literary Chronicle: New Yiddish and Hebrew Books In Gang 1: 31-32 Recent Bibliography (General) Khronik: naye hebreyishe bikher / Chronicle: New Hebrew Books In Gang 6-7: 64 Recent Bibliography (General) In geyeg nokh umshterblekhkayt / In Pursuit of Immortality Zanvl Diamant In Gang 11-12: 81-86 Book Review Review of Daniel Tsharni (1947) Afn shvel fun yener velt / On the Threshold of the Other World (General)

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Current Events, Minutes and Agendas This genre includes the chronicles and organisational activity reports published by all three journals, as well as the reports on activities represented by minutes and agendas from the Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy. Most of these are specific to the DPs and their cultural existence, but there is also evidence of an interest in political and cultural events in both the greater Jewish community and the rest of the world. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: DP Culture – reports of events in the cultural life of the sheyres hapleyte DP and Jewish Culture – combined category Jewish Culture – reports of events in the general Jewish world Jewish and General Culture – combined category General – reports of events outside the Jewish community The combined categories DP and Jewish Culture and Jewish and General Culture are necessary because many chronicles are not limited to reports from a single area. ___________________________ Barikhtn tetikayt: vos hobn mir biz itst geton? / Activity Report: What Have We Done Until Now? Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 1: 34-35 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle FLK 1: 36 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 2: 97-100 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle FLK 2: 100-103 Current Events (DP Culture) p. 1

Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 3: 95-97 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 3: 98-100 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 4: 103-107 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 4: 108-112 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: di mitglider-farzamlung fun farband fun yidishe literatn, zhurnalistn un kinstler in Italye / Chronicle: The General Meeting of the Union of Yiddish Writers, Journalists and Artists in Italy In Gang 2-3: 44 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: Perets-fayerungen / Chronicle: Peretz Celebration In Gang 2-3: 46 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: derfolg fun kinstler-ansambl in Bari / Chronicle: Success of the Artists Ensemble in Bari In Gang 2-3: 46 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 5: 102-104 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 5: 105-106 Current Events p. 2

(DP Culture) Khronik: derfolg fun Y. Turkov un D. Blumenfeld in Roym un umgegnt / Chronicle: Success of Y. Turkov and D. Blumenfeld in Rome and Vicinity In Gang 4-5: 63 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: fortrogs-turne fun B. Vind in di lagern fun tsofn / Chronicle: Tour by B. Vind in the Camps in the North In Gang 4-5: 64 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik: Leyb Reznik in Roym / Chronicle: Leyb Reznik in Rome In Gang 4-5: 64 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 6: 94-96 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle FLK 6: 97-98 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle In Gang 6-7: 58-59 Current Events (DP Culture) Fun yidishn kultur-lebn in Italye / From Jewish Cultural Life in Italy In Gang 8-9-10: 93-94 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Cultural Life of the Sheyres Hapleyte (Survey) [lit. Chronicle] Shriftn 1: 161-168 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 7: 110-112 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik / Chronicle FLK 7: 113-115 p. 3

Current Events (DP Culture) Nokh undzer kultur-konferents / After our Cultural Conference Berl Kahn In Gang 13-14: 1-12 Current Events (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: der seyder-hayom / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Agenda In Gang 13-14: 14-15 Minutes/Agenda (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: vikukhim / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Debates In Gang 13-14: 39-40 Minutes/Agenda (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: di ferte zitsung / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Fourth Meeting In Gang 13-14: 43-47 Minutes/Agenda (DP Culture) Dershinen a vikhtik yidish partizaner-bukh in Roym / Appearance of an Important Yiddish Partisan Book in Rome In Gang 13-14: 56-57 Current Events (DP Culture) Khronik fun literatn-farband / Chronicle of the Writers’ Union In Gang 13-14: 57-59 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 9: 105-106 Current Events (DP Culture) Barikhtn tetikayt / Activity Report Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 10: 162-170 Current Events (DP Culture) ___________________________ Literarishe khronik / Literary Chronicle In Gang 11-12: 93-95 p. 4

Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: mindlekhe un shriftlekhe bagrisungen / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Oral and Written Greetings In Gang 13-14: 16-19 Minutes/Agenda (DP and Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: di drite zitsung / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Third Meeting In Gang 13-14: 40-43 Minutes/Agenda (DP and Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: hakhlotes / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Decisions In Gang 13-14: 47-51 Minutes/Agenda (DP and Jewish Culture) Khronik / Chronicle FLK 9: 107-109 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Khronik / Chronicle FLK 10: 173-175 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) Khronik / Chronicle In Gang 15: 54-56 Current Events (DP and Jewish Culture) ___________________________ Khronik: fun umetum / Chronicle: From Everywhere In Gang 6-7: 60-61 Current Events (Jewish Culture) Delegatn fun Italye tsum yidishn alveltlekhn kultur-kongres / Delegates from Italy to the Jewish World Cultural Congress In Gang 13-14: 59 Current Events (Jewish Culture) ___________________________ Khronik / Chronicle In Gang 8-9-10: 94-97 Current Events p. 5

(Jewish and General Culture) ___________________________ Khronik: fun umetum / Chronicle: From Everywhere In Gang 2-3: 45 Current Events (General)

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Editorial Notices These are brief notes from the editors placed in the journals for the benefit of their readers. They include corrections, thanks, and information about the journals. ___________________________ FLK 1: 32 Editorial Notice Thanks for a Collection of Photographs Received. Fun redaktsye / From the Editors FLK 2: Inside Front Cover Editorial Notice Names of songs received and the announcement of the change in the journal’s format but not in its contents FLK 2: 104 Editorial Notice Errors in this issue that for technical reasons could not be corrected within the articles themselves Tsu mitarbet mit yedies vegn di lagern / Towards Cooperation with Information about the Camps FLK 3: 93-94 Editorial Notice List of all camps known to the CHC and a request for information about any others Fun redaktsye / From the Editors FLK 4: Inside Front Cover Editorial Notice About the acquisition of printing equipment and the contents of the forthcoming issue FLK 4: Inside Back Cover Editorial Notice Request for definite information about the fate of three Yiddish writers from Lithuania Ver veyst? / Who Knows? FLK 5: 101 Editorial Notice Request for information as to whether there were Jewish prisoners in certain camps FLK 5: Inside Back Cover Editorial Notice Request for definite information about the fate of an orphanage in Galicia FLK 6: 80 Editorial Notice p. 1

Variations to the lullaby printed in issue 4 Yizker / In Memorium Shriftn 1: iii Editorial Notice Fun redaktsye / From the Editors Shriftn 1: 168 Editorial Notice About articles that arrived too late to be included in this issue Bamerkungen fun redaktsye / Remarks from the Editors In Gang 11-12: 95 Editorial Notice About translation and orthography Historisher fregeboygn / Historical Questionnaire FLK 8: 110-115 Editorial Notice An example of a completed CHC questionnaire Oysbeserungen un bamerkungen / Improvements and Remarks FLK 9: 112-113 Editorial Notice Factual notes and typographical corrections to previous issues FLK 10: Inside Front Cover Editorial Notice This is the last issue of FLK, and all archival and editorial materials of FLK and the CHC are, in keeping with the decision of the third sheyres hapleyte congress, being sent to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem Oysbeserungen un bamerkungen / Improvements and Remarks FLK 10: 178 Editorial Notice Factual notes to previous issues FLK 10: Inside Back Cover Editorial Notice Matters relating to the CHC archive and to FLK should be addressed to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem Konkurs fun der Kasner-premye 1949 / Contest for the Kasner Prize 1949 In Gang 15: 52 Editorial Notice In Gang 15: 60 Editorial Notice About a bon voyage party for members of the Writers’ Union

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Essays, Letters and Speeches The materials within this genre include essays, letters and speeches printed in the three journals. The majority of the speeches are from the Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy. They span a wide range of topics and clearly show the DPs interest in, and self-awareness of, their unique cultural position. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: DP Culture – about various aspects of the cultural life of the DPs, useful for characterization of the existence of a cultural life among the sheyres hapleyte DPs – about the political circumstances of the DPs Pre-Holocaust Culture – about Europe before the Holocaust Jewish Culture – about general Jewish culture Jewish and General Culture – combined category General Culture – about themes which are not specifically related to Jewish culture Holocaust Literature – about writings which are about the Holocaust Zionism and Israel – about the importance of Zionism and about life in Israel The combined category Jewish and General Culture is necessary because certain cultural issues can be explored from both specifically Jewish and more general viewpoints. ___________________________ Undzer pruv / Our Task Yisroel Kaplan FLK 1: 1 Essay Introductory Editorial (DP Culture) Bagrisungs-vort / Greeting Dr. Philip Friedman FLK 1: 1 Letter (DP Culture) Tsu vos historishe komisyes / Why Historical Commissions? Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 1: 2 Essay p. 1

Introductory Editorial (DP Culture) M. Weinreich, Y. Shatski, L. Lehrer, Y. Opatoshu, H. Leivick, Y. Leshtshinski, A. Menem FLK 3: 101 Letter Congratulations on FLK’s excellent first issue (DP Culture) Fun der redaktsye / From the Editorial Board Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi & Berl Kahn In Gang 1: 1-2 Essay Manifesto about the necessity of culture (DP Culture) Literarisher konkurs in Italye / Literary Contest in Italy A. Zaks In Gang 1: 24-27 Essay (DP Culture) Vegn di premirte historishe bashraybungen / About the Award-Winning Historical Descriptions Berl Kahn In Gang 1: 27-29 Speech (DP Culture) Teater ba der sheyres hapleyte / Theatre Among the Surviving Remnant Yonas Turkov In Gang 4-5: 6-11 Essay (DP Culture) Elnt un farvorlozt / Lonely and Abandoned Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 6-7: 28-30 Essay (DP Culture) Arum di ideen fun undzer virklekhkayt / Around the Ideas of our Reality Mordkhe Shtrigler In Gang 8-9-10: 11-15 Essay (DP Culture) A vort tsu undzer pleytim-inteligents / A Word to our Refugee-Intelligentsia Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 8-9-10: 68-77 Essay (DP Culture) p. 2

Forword Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner Shriftn 1: i-ii Essay In English (DP Culture) [Editors’ Note] Ben-Tsion Hibel & Dr. Philip Friedman Shriftn 1: iv Essay (DP Culture) Far der kultur-konferents / For the Cultural Conference Berl Kahn In Gang 11-12: 14-22 Essay A summary of different creative fields (DP Culture) Prese un kultur ba der sheyres hapleyte in Italye / Press and Culture among the Surviving Remnant in Italy Y. Nosberg In Gang 11-12: 67-77 Essay Includes a collage of mastheads from different periodicals (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy In Gang 13-14: 13 Essay Introductory notes to the section on the Cultural Conference (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: derefn rede / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Opening Speech In Gang 13-14: 15-16 Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: undzer kultur-tetikayt / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Our Cultural Activity Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 13-14: 24-29 Speech (DP Culture)

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Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: tetikayt fun di yidishe pleytim-kinstlers in Italye / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Activites of the Jewish Refugee Artists in Italy Sh. Epshteyn In Gang 13-14: 29-31 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: kultur-tetikayt fun merkaz ‘hekhaluts’ / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Cultural Activites of the Centre ‘The Pioneer’ L. Losh In Gang 13-14: 31-36 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh"Kh / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Work and Attainment of the Historical Commission of the Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers Moyshe Kaganovitsh In Gang 13-14: 36-38 Speech (DP Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Yivo-arbet in Italye barikht / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: YIVO Work in Italy - an Account D. Kupferberg In Gang 13-14: 38-39 Speech (DP Culture) 15 numern In Gang (tsum yidish-literarishn pleytim-shafn in Italye) / 15 Issue Numbers of In Progress (To the Yiddish Literary Refugee Creations in Italy) Berl Kahn In Gang 15: 1-16 Essay (DP Culture) 12 talmidim fun der hebreyisher gimnazye a. n. fun Kh. N. Bialik in Roym (an algemeyne kharakteristik) / 12 Students at the Hebrew High School in the Name of Kh. N. Bialik in Rome (A General Characterization) L. Losh In Gang 15: 17-26 Essay (DP Culture) Siyem fun yid. literatn-farband in Italye / Conclusion of the Yiddish Writers’ Union in Italy Dovid Kupferberg In Gang 15: 49-52 p. 4

Essay (DP Culture) ___________________________ Shoyn nokh der bafrayung / After the Liberation Chaplain Abraham J. Klausner FLK 1: 3 Essay Introductory Essay (DPs) Tsum politishn un yuridishn status fun di yidishe pleytim in Italye / To the Political and Legal Status of the Jewish Refugees in Italy Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 11-12: 1-13 Essay (DPs) ___________________________ Di goles-prototipn ba Sholem Aleykhem / Diaspora-Prototypes in Sholem Aleichem A. De Liu In Gang 2-3: 35-40 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Y. L. Perets / Y. L. Peretz Yitskhok Goldkorn Shriftn 1: 142-144&147 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Mendele un di hayntike teg / Mendele and the Present Day L. Losh In Gang 11-12: 62-67 Essay (Pre-Holocaust Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Bialik - der vizyoner fun der itstike epokhe / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Bialik - the Visionary of the Current Era L. Losh In Gang 13-14: 51-55 Speech (Pre-Holocaust Culture) ___________________________ Bagegnishn mit yidishe shrayber in Amerike / Meetings with Yiddish Writers in America Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 2-3: 22-28 Essay (Jewish Culture) p. 5

Yidish un di yidishe prese / Yiddish and the Yiddish Press Berl Kahn In Gang 2-3: 31-35 Essay (Jewish Culture) Di krizis fun yidish un zayne sibes / The Crisis of Yiddish and its Reasons Shmuel Segal In Gang 6-7: 43-48 Essay (Jewish Culture) Yidisher kultur-kongres un yidishe kultur / Jewish Cultural Congress and Jewish Culture D. L. Mekler In Gang 8-9-10: 78-80 Essay The author, who was at the time the editor of the New York Morgn-Zhurnal, wrote this article while visiting Rome. Its opinions are not necessarily those of the editors. (Jewish Culture) Dos yidishe shul-vezn in Tsentral-Amerike / The Jewish School System in Central-America Ida Cohen (Fabritski) In Gang 8-9-10: 81-84 Essay (Jewish Culture) Arum dem kultur-congres / Around the Cultural Congress Mayer Braun In Gang 11-12: 23-26 Essay Author is the Program Secretary of the World Jewish Cultural Congress (Jewish Culture) Goles un Erets-Yisroel / Diaspora and the Land of Israel Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 11-12: 26-32 Essay (Jewish Culture) Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: vos darfn zayn di problemen fun altveltlekhn yidishn kultur-kongres? / The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: What should be the problems of the World Jewish Cultural Congress? Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 13-14: 19-24 Speech (Jewish Culture)

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Shtremungen in der moderner hebreyisher literatur / Trends in Modern Hebrew Literature Sh. Ernst In Gang 15: 47-49 Essay (Jewish Culture) ___________________________ Tragizm un komizm in der literatur (shtrikhn vegn kunst) / Tragedy and Comedy in Literature (Notes on Art) Yitskhok Morgnshtern Shriftn 1: 129-132 Essay (Jewish and General Culture) ___________________________ Biblishe motivn in der kunst fun Roym / Biblical Motifs in the Art of Rome Sh. Segal In Gang 4-5: 39-47 Essay Illustrated with three Michelangelos (‘The Creation of Adam’ and ‘The Fall and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden,’ both from the Sistine Chapel, and the ‘Moses’ from San Pietro in Vincoli) (General Culture) Religye nekhtn un haynt / Religion Yesterday and Tomorrow Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 6-7: 17-26 Essay (General Culture) Geshtaltn un shtremungen in der moderner Italyenisher literatur / Images and Trends in Modern Italian Literature Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 42-50 Essay (General Culture) Der sheferisher element in der shoyshpil-kunst / The Creative Factor in Theatre Art Efrayim Shrayer Shriftn 1: 114-116&119 Essay Taken from Tsu di problemen fun kinstlerishn shafungsprotses / To the Problems of the Artistic Creative Process (General Culture) ___________________________ Dos shtetl un undzer khurbn literatur / The Shtetl and Our Holocaust Literature Bernard Vind In Gang 4-5: 1-5 Essay p. 7

(Holocaust Literature) Avraham Sutskever mentsh un dikhter / Avraham Sutskever Man and Poet Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 4-5: 21-30 Essay (Holocaust Literature) Der yidisher vidershtand in undzer literatur / The Jewish Resistance in our Literature Moyshe Kaganovitsh In Gang 8-9-10: 54-65 Essay (Holocaust Literature) Di shlikhes fun der yidisher literatur / The Mission of Jewish Literature Ben-Tsion Hibel Shriftn 1: 29-36 Essay (Holocaust Literature) Di forshung fun undzer khurbn (a kapitl fun a greserer arbet) / The Study of Our Extermination (A Chapter of a Larger Work) Dr. Philip Friedman Shriftn 1: 75-86 Essay (Holocaust Literature) ___________________________ Mir veln zikh nit lozn shekhtn mer… / We Will Not Allow Ourselves to be Slaughtered Anymore… Moyshe Kaganovitsh In Gang 1: 10-15 Essay A chapter of a forthcoming book, Jewish Participation in the Soviet PartisanMovement (Zionism and Israel) Prese un teater in erets-Yisroel / Press and Theatre in the Land of Israel D. Segulim In Gang 4-5: 52-55 Essay (Zionism and Israel) Di araber un undzer ufboy verk / The Arabs and our Construction Work Michal Asaf In Gang 6-7: 1-4 Essay (Zionism and Israel) Mandat un trayhandshaft / Mandate and Trusteeship Leo Garfunkl In Gang 8-9-10: 1-10 p. 8

Essay A chapter of a longer work about the United Nations and its charter (Zionism and Israel)

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Folklore The concept of folklore and its importance is discussed in Chapter 5. All but one of these articles are from FLK. The exception is a short collection of postwar aphorisms from In Gang. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: Written during Holocaust – a record of folklore created during the Nazi era DP - folklore created by the DPs ___________________________ Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem / Folklore: Folklore during the Nazi Period Yisroel Kaplan FLK 1: 22-24 Folklore With introduction by Kaplan, continues in issue two (Written during Holocaust) Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem / Folklore: Folklore during the Nazi Period Yisroel Kaplan FLK 2: 56-73 Folklore Continued from issue one (Written during Holocaust) Folklor: vertlekh fun Lodzher geto / Folklore: Proverbs in the Lodz Ghetto Y. Rozenboym and Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 3: 68-71 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem / Folklore: Folklore during the Nazi Period Yisroel Kaplan FLK 6: 62-72 Folklore With introduction by Kaplan (Written during Holocaust) Folklor: geto-vertlekh un anecdotn / Folklore: Ghetto Proverbs and Anecdotes Moyshe-Yoysef Feygenboym FLK 6: 71-76 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) Folklor: geto- un katset-vertlekh / Folklore: Ghetto and Concentration Camp Proverbs p. 1

FLK 10: 131-136 Folklore (Written during Holocaust) ___________________________ Aphorizmen / Aphorisms In Gang 4-5: 59 Folklore (DP)

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Histories, Biographies, Testimonies and Memoirs The materials within this genre include histories, biographies, testimonies, and memoirs. Histories and biographies are differentiated from essays because they specifically look to the past and because they are descriptive rather than argumentative in tone. While these historical works are the product of research and reflection, testimonies, in contrast, are more immediate, simply recording the experiences of an individual in a particular circumstance. Memoirs occupy an intermediary position, rooted in an individual’s experiences but artistically arranged. While In Gang and Shriftn between them restrict themselves to biographies, memoirs, and a handful of histories, FLK specializes in histories and testimonies. Interestingly, while there are many testimonies in all ten issues of FLK, the ratio of histories to testimonies increases in later issues. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: DPs – about DP life Holocaust – about the Nazi era Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust – combined category Pre-Holocaust – about Europe before the Holocaust Testimonies are not assigned themes as they are defined to be eye-witness reports about the Holocaust. The combined category Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust is necessary because some articles combine historical writing about the Holocaust with detailed information about what came before. ___________________________ Heyflekh shpliters / Piles of Remnants Yisroel Kaplan Shriftn 1: 45-61 Memoir (DPs) ___________________________ Gever in Riger geto / Weapons in the Riga Ghetto Yisroel Kaplan FLK 1: 4-6 History p. 1

Continues in issue two (Holocaust) Der Byalistoker koydesh Yakov melamed z’l / Yakov the Teacher, Martyr of Byalistok Rabbi Aviezer Burshtin FLK 1: 7 Testimony Di Khelmner tragedye / The Chelmno Tragedy Yakov Valdman FLK 1: 8-12 Testimony Der ershter [sic] kontsert in Vilner geto / The First Concert in the Vilna Ghetto Yisroel Segal FLK 1: 12-13 Testimony Radom / Radom Yeshayohu Eyger, Yekhiel Fridman, Shmuel-Dovid Figer FLK 1: 14-21 Testimony Includes a map Gever in Riger geto / Weapons in the Riga Ghetto Yisroel Kaplan FLK 2: 1-13 History Continued from issue one (Holocaust) Lebn un umkum fun di yidn in Dubne / Life and Death of the Jews in Dubno Moyshe Vaysberg FLK 2: 14-27 Testimony Includes a map Veynendike kvorim (a dokument fun a shtetl) / Crying Graves (A Document of a Shtetl) Avraham Vaysbrod FLK 2: 28-34 Testimony Arbets-lager Myelets / Labour Camp Myelets Yoysef Kos FLK 2: 35-46 Testimony With the help of Tsvi Kos Natsish ernvort (fun Pshemishler geto) / Nazi Word of Honour (From the Pshemishl Ghetto) p. 2

Dr. Mordkhe Shatner FLK 2: 47-50 Testimony In Tshenstokhover geto (bletlekh) / In the Czestochowa Ghetto (Pages) Zev Volf Gliksman FLK 2: 51-55 Testimony Lakhve: araynfir-vort tsu di tsvey vayterdike gvies-eydes / Lakhve: Introductory Note to the Two Following Testimonies Yisroel Kaplan FLK 3: 1-3 History (Holocaust) Lakhve: I / Lakhve: I Aron Shvorin FLK 3: 3-7 Testimony Lakhve: II / Lakhve: II Khayim Shklyar and Avraham Faynberg FLK 3: 8-11 Testimony Yidish-Poylishe zelner in gefangenshaft (zikhroynes) / Jewish-Polish Soldiers in Imprisonment (Memoirs) Mendl Lifshits FLK 3: 11-22 Testimony Continued in issue 4 A kapitl Shedlets / A Chapter on Siedlce Getsl Vaysberg FLK 3: 23-27 Testimony Tsu di bilder fun Shedlets / To the Pictures from Siedlce Frits Heft FLK 3: 33 History (Holocaust) Di letste 45 kinderlekh in Kelts / The Last 45 Children in Kielce Sore Kerbel FLK 3: 34-37 Testimony Di ‘yidishe bande’ / The ‘Jewish Band’ Yitskhok Fayershteyn FLK 3: 38-40 Testimony p. 3

Produktivizatsye-problem in Varshever geto / The Productivization Problem in the Warsaw Ghetto Yeshayohu Bluman FLK 3: 41-43 History (Holocaust) In Treblinke / In Treblinka Simkhe Binem Leski FLK 3: 44-48 Testimony Lutsk / Lutsk Meyer Roytman FLK 3: 48-50 Testimony Di shkhite bam breg yam / The Slaughter at the Seaside Miryam Tsvayg FLK 3: 51-54 Testimony Mitn transport fun lager Balkenhaym / With the Transport from the Balkenhaym Camp Mauritsi Kraut FLK 3: 54-56 Testimony Brezne / Brezne Malke Byelinski FLK 3: 57-58 Testimony In Budapesht / In Budapest Elimelekh Vider FLK 3: 59-60 Testimony In di Polesyer velder / In the Polesian Woods Shmuel Pravde FLK 3: 61-64 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Arye Milkh FLK 3: 65-67 Child's Testimony Child born 25 June 1932, only corrected for basic grammar Der umkum fun di yidn in mizrekh-Galitsye / The Death of the Jews in Eastern Galicia p. 4

Dr. Philip Friedman FLK 4: 1-13 History Based on a lecture given in Munich (Holocaust) Yidish-Poylishe zelner in gefangenshaft (zikhroynes) / Jewish-Polish Soldiers in Imprisonment (Memoirs) Mendl Lifshits FLK 4: 14-30 Testimony Continued from issue 3 Tshernovits / Tshernovits Dr. Yakov Ungar FLK 4: 30-41 Testimony In Vaysrusishe velder: arum Volozhin / In White Russian Forests: Around Volozhin Moyshe Mayerzon FLK 4: 42-54 Testimony Includes a map In Vaysrusishe velder: in Braslaver gegnt / In White Russian Forests: In the Braslav Region Moyshe Treyster FLK 4: 55-66 Testimony In Vaysrusishe velder: ba Radun / In White Russian Forest: Near Radun Leyb Levin FLK 4: 66-74 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Daniel Burshtin FLK 4: 75-83 Child's Testimony Child born 28 October 1931, only corrected for basic grammar Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: araynfir / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: Introduction Yisroel Kaplan FLK 5: 3-6 History (Holocaust) Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: marsh fun di Kaufering-lagern / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: March from the Kaufering Camps p. 5

Yisroel Kaplan FLK 5: 7-28 History Includes a map (Holocaust) Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: fun Shvabhoyzen keyn Dakhau/ The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: From Shvabhoyzen to Dachau Dr. L. Goldshteyn FLK 5: 29-33 Testimony Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Mildorf / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Mildorf Rabbi Elkhanan Person FLK 5: 34-36 Testimony Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Hesental / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Hesental Dr. Mordkhe Glatshteyn FLK 5: 36-38 Testimony Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: fun Gerlits keyn Tirol / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: From Gerlits to the Tyrol Yakov Rozenboym FLK 5: 39-45 Testimony Includes a map Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Vistegyersdorf / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Vistegyersdorf A. Tenenboym FLK 5: 45-53 Testimony Includes a map Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: mitn marsh fun Bukhenvald / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: With the March from Buchenwald Yisroel Segal FLK 5: 54-70 Testimony Includes a map Der katsetler-marsh keyn Tirol: natsishe ‘bafrayung’ / The Concentration Camp Prisoners’ March to the Tyrol: Nazi ‘Liberation’ Dr. Arminyo Vaksberger FLK 5: 71-74 p. 6

Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ (Kovner geto - Oyshvits - marsh keyn Tirol) / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ (Kovno Ghetto Auschwitz - March to the Tyrol) Yakov Levin FLK 5: 75-81 Child's Testimony Child born 19 February 1932, only corrected for basic grammar Yidn in der partizaner-prese / Jews in the Partisan-Press Dr. Z. Levinbuk In Gang 4-5: 55-59 History (Holocaust) Treblinke / Treblinka Henyek Shperling FLK 6: 3-17 Testimony Includes a map Lagern in mizrekh-Galitsye / Camps in Eastern Galicia Sh. Vyelitshker FLK 6: 17-31 History Includes maps within the text and attached to the inside back cover (Holocaust) Sobibor / Sobibor Yekhezkel Menkhe FLK 6: 31-36 Testimony Includes a map Durkh geto un katsetn (Nyementshin - Oshmene - Zhezhmer - Kovne Ponevezh - mizrekh-Praysn) / Through Ghettos and Concentration Camps (Nyementshin - Oshmene - Zhezhmer - Kovno - Ponevezh Eastern Prussia) Lo Rodashevki FLK 6: 37-43 Testimony Di din toyre / The Judgment Sh. Glube FLK 6: 44-47 Testimony Ba Koseve in Polesye / Near Koseve in Polesye Dovid Leybovitsh FLK 6: 48-52 Testimony p. 7

In lager Kodlotshove (arum Baranovitsh) / In Camp Kodlotshove (Around Baranovitsh) Yudl Samsanovitsh FLK 6: 53-57 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Roza Pintshevski FLK 6: 58-61 Child's Testimony Child born 10 December 1932, only corrected for basic grammar Geshtaltn un tipn, vos darfn nit fargesn vern: Betsalel Mazovietski / Figures and Types that Must Not be Forgotten: Betsalel Mazovietski Dr. H. Direktorovitsh In Gang 6-7: 49-50 Biography From a series of descriptions of and short monographs about Yiddish writers, intellectuals, teachers and artists murdered by the Nazis. (Holocaust) Der ‘kinder-fraynt’ / The ‘Children’s Friend’ A. De Liu In Gang 8-9-10: 85-87 Memoir (Holocaust) Efsher vet geshen a nes?… (problemen fun geto-lebn) / Maybe a Miracle Will Happen?… (Problems of Ghetto Life) Dr. M. Dvorzhetski In Gang 8-9-10: 91-93 Memoir (Holocaust) Tsum khurbn Lite (araynfir-vort) / The Destruction of Lithuanian Jewry (Introduction) FLK 7: 3-5 Yisroel Kaplan History (Holocaust) Khurbn Kovne / The Destruction of Kovno Dr. Shmuel Grinhoyz FLK 7: 6-29 History Continued in issue 8 (Holocaust) Bletlekh fun Kovner eltestnrat (biz nokh der groyser aktsye) / Pages from the Kovno Council of Elders (Until After the Big Action) Yakov Goldberg p. 8

FLK 7: 30-57 History (Holocaust) Der zibeter fort (ershter oysrot plats fun Kovner yidn) / The Seventh Fort (First Extermination Place of Kovno Jews) Yitskhok Nementshik FLK 7: 58-70 History (Holocaust) Byalistok: di letste oyfshtendlers in Byalistoker geto / Byalistok: The Last Rebels in the Byalistok Ghetto Rabbi Aviezer Burshtin FLK 7: 71-74 History (Holocaust) Byalistok: der letster veg fun 1200 Byalistoker kinder / The Final Journey of 1200 Byalistok Children H. Shprung-Levkovits FLK 7: 74-79 History (Holocaust) Iberlebungen als aryerin fun yidishn gloybn / Experiences as an Aryan Woman of the Jewish Faith Anna Holtsman FLK 7: 80-87 Testimony Includes copies of documents Drama / Drama Khayim Pardo FLK 7: 88-90 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Yoysef Shuster FLK 7: 91-94 Child's Testimony Child born 19 February 1936, only corrected for basic grammar Yidn in di partizaner-kamfn / Jews in the Partisan Battles Moyshe Kaganovitsh In Gang 11-12: 49-58 History A section of the chapter Yidn on geyle lates / Jews without Yellow Stars from Moyshe Kaganovitsh’s forthcoming Der yidisher onteyl in der partizanerbavegung fun sovet-Rusland / Jewish Participation in the Partisan Movement in Soviet Russia (Holocaust) p. 9

Di aerodrom arbet in Kovner geto / Airport Work in the Kovno Ghetto Yisroel Kaplan FLK 8: 3-26 History (Holocaust) Khurbn Kovne / The Destruction of Kovno Dr. Shmuel Grinhoyz FLK 8: 27-38 History Continued from issue 7 (Holocaust) Froyen in arbets-aynzats in Kovner geto / Women in Forced Labour in the Kovno Ghetto Refuel Levin FLK 8: 39-49 History (Holocaust) Di groyse varshtatn in Kovner geto / The Big Workshops in the Kovno Ghetto Moyshe Segalson FLK 8: 50-57 History (Holocaust) Di arbeters in di groise geto-varshtatn / The Workers in the Big Ghetto Workshops Dr. Elihu Altman FLK 8: 58-61 History (Holocaust) Di remont-varshtatn in Kovner geto / The Repair Workshops in the Kovno Ghetto Engineer Fayvl Goldshmidt FLK 8: 62-64 History (Holocaust) Poritsk / Poritsk Sonye Rubenshteyn FLK 8: 65-74 Testimony Volozhin / Volozhin Yoysef Shvartsberg FLK 8: 75-79 Testimony Zikhroynes fun Stanislaver geto / Memories of the Stanislave Ghetto p. 10

Lyusya Gerber FLK 8: 80-84 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Fanye Olitski FLK 8: 85-89 Child's Testimony Child born 1 February 1932, only corrected for basic grammar Kovner shul un lerershaft in umkum / Kovno Schools and Teachers in the Destruction Yisroel Kaplan FLK 9: 3-22 History Includes map of Kovno Ghetto attached to the inside back cover (Holocaust) Di fakhshul in Kovner geto / The Vocational School in the Kovno Ghetto Engineer Yakov Oleyksi FLK 9: 23-36 History (Holocaust) Dos religyeze lebn in Kovner geto: a / Religious Life in the Kovno Ghetto: Part One Rabbi Elkhonon Person FLK 9: 36-46 History (Holocaust) Dos religyeze lebn in Kovner geto: b / Religious Life in the Kovno Ghetto: Part Two Rivke Gutman FLK 9: 46-51 History (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra Y. Gurevitsh FLK 9: 52-58 History (Holocaust) Der ufshtand in Tutshiner geto / The Revolt in the Tutshin Ghetto Mendl Man FLK 9: 59-66 History (Holocaust) Likvidatsye fun lager Kloga / Liquidation of Camp Kloga Dr. L. Buzhanski p. 11

FLK 9: 67-70 History (Holocaust) Myadel un umgegnt / Myadel and Surroundings Henya Menkis FLK 9: 71-77 Testimony Maykholim in lodzer geto / Food in the Lodz Ghetto Sh. Glube FLK 9: 78-81 History (Holocaust) Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ Ela Grilikhes FLK 9: 82-83 Child's Testimony Child born 8 July 1933, only corrected for basic grammar Kamfs-bavegung in Kovner geto (fun a partizans zikhroynes) / Underground Fighting in the Kovno Ghetto (From a Partisan’s Memoirs) Rakhi Ben-Eliezer FLK 10: 3-15 Testimony Fun geto in pushtshe / From the Ghetto to the Wilderness Motl Brik FLK 10: 16-18 Testimony Kovner geto-shpitol / The Kovno Ghetto Hospital Dr. Moyshe Berman FLK 10: 19-37 History (Holocaust) Meditsinishe unterzukhungen bam arbets-amt fun Kovner geto / Medical Examinations at the Labour Organization of the Kovno Ghetto Dr. Yakov Nokhimovski FLK 10: 28-37 History Translated from German (Holocaust) Di festung fun toyt (in nayntn fort fun Kovne) / The Fortress of Death (In the Ninth Fort of Kovno) Mikhal Gelbtrunk FLK 10: 38-41 Testimony p. 12

Geheyme post in Kovner geto / Secret Post in the Kovno Ghetto Efrayim Zilberman FLK 10: 42-47 Testimony Kaydan / Kaydan Dovid Volpe FLK 10: 48-56 History (Holocaust) Vidukle / Vidukle Hirsh Hirshovitsh-Levitan FLK 10: 56-64 Testimony Yaneve / Yaneve A. Zilberman FLK 10: 64-69 Testimony Vidershtands-bavegung in Oyshvits-Birkenau / The Resistance Movement in Auschwitz-Birkenau Yeshayohu Eyger FLK 10: 70-75 History Taken from his book Umkum / Destruction (in manuscript) (Holocaust) Toyt fun der ‘loyferke’ / Death of the ‘Messenger’ Tseshe Shiling FLK 10: 76-79 Testimony Mit 2 kleyne kinder durkh Oyshvits / With Two Small Children Through Auschwitz Ester Vays FLK 10: 79-95 Testimony Libave / Libave Moyshe Edelshteyn FLK 10: 96-104 Testimony Includes a map Shidlovtse / Shidlovtse Dr. Avraham Finkler FLK 10: 105-107 Testimony Myelnitse / Myelnitse p. 13

Yerakhmyel Tsvik FLK 10: 108-112 Testimony In an Ungarishn arbets-batalyon / In a Hungarian Labour Battalion Moyshe Dov Taub FLK 10: 113-118 Testimony Lezshaysk / Lezshaysk Y. Kanner FLK 10: 118-122 Testimony Fun der serye kinder-arbetn: ‘mayne iberlebungen beys der milkhome’ (Podheytse) / From the Series of Children’s Works: ‘My Experiences During the War’ (Podheytse) Genia Shurts FLK 10: 123-130 Child's Testimony Child born 1932, only corrected for basic grammar ___________________________ Dos Italyenishe yidntum (nekhtn un haynt) / Italian Jewry (Yesterday and Today) Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 1: 7-10 History A history of Italian Jews from classical times to the present. (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Geto un goles / Ghetto and Exile Leo Garfunkl In Gang 2-3: 1-9 History (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Geshtaltn un tipn, vos darfn nit fargesn vern: Aharon Frank / Figures and Types that Must Not be Forgotten: Aharon Frank A. Yud In Gang 4-5: 60-63 Biography From a series of descriptions of and short monographs about Yiddish writers, intellectuals, teachers and artists murdered by the Nazis. (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) Mir un zey / We and They Yanos Turkov In Gang 6-7: 12-16 Memoir (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust)

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Tipn un geshtaltn, vos darfn nit fargesn vern: Yehoshue Grinberg / Types and Figures, That Must Not be Forgotten: Yehoshue Grinberg A. Yud In Gang 8-9-10: 87-88 Biography From a series of descriptions of and short monographs about Yiddish writers, intellectuals, teachers and artists murdered by the Nazis. (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) ___________________________ Moyshe Khayim Lutsato un zayn tkufe / Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and his Age Bernard Vind In Gang 6-7: 37-42 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) Dovid Frishman: tsum 25-yerikn yortsayt / Dovid Frishman: to his 25th yortsayt Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 8-9-10: 36-40 Biography (Pre-Holocaust) Der bobes gevelb (fun mayne kinder-yorn) / Grandmother’s Shop (From my Childhood) M. A. Kokhav Shriftn 1: 120-128 Memoir (Pre-Holocaust) Khayim Mordkhe Kamtsn / Khayim Mordkhe Kamtsn Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi In Gang 11-12: 59-62 Biography (Pre-Holocaust)

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Photographs Most of these photographs wree taken during the Holocaust. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: DP Culture – of events in the cultural life of the sheyres hapleyte Holocaust – of the Nazi era Pre-Holocaust – of Europe before the Holocaust Post-Holocaust – of Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust ___________________________ Prezidium fun der yidisher kultur-konferents in Roym beys der fayerlekher derefenung / Presidium of the Jewish Cultural Conference in Rome during the Solemn Opening In Gang 13-14: 61 Photograph (DP Culture) Delegatn un gest af der fayerlekher derefenung fun der kultur-konferents / Delegates and Guests at the Solemn Opening of the Cultural Conference In Gang 13-14: 61 Photograph (DP Culture) Der kyosk fun ‘hekhaluts’ afn oysshtel fun der konferents / The Kiosk of ‘The Pioneer’ in the Display at the Conference In Gang 13-14: 62 Photograph (DP Culture) Der kyosk fun ‘ort’ afn oyshtel fun der kultur-konferents / The Kiosk of ‘ORT’ in the Display at the Cultural Conference In Gang 13-14: 63 Photograph (DP Culture) Der kyosk fun PKh”Kh un historisher komisye afn oysshtel fun der konf. / The Kiosk of the Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers and the Historical Commission in the Display at the Conference In Gang 13-14: 64 Photograph (DP Culture) Der oysshtel fun kinstler Kh. Kholef af der kultur-konferents / The Display of the artist Kh. Kholef at the Cultural Conference In Gang 13-14: 64 Photograph (DP Culture)

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Farvaltung un red. kolegye fun dem literatn-zhurnalistn-un kinstler-farband in Italye (Oybn, fun rekhts: B. Cohen, Dr. L. Bernshteyn, un Dr. A. Yerushalmi. Inmitn, fun rekhts - Y. Nasberg, D. Kupferberg and B. Kaganovitsh. Untn - Sh. Epshteyn un Y. Orbakh.) / Management and Editorial Colleagues of the Writers’ Journalists’ and Artists’ Union in Italy (Top, from right: B. Cohen, Dr. L. Bernshteyn, and Dr. A. Yerushalmi. Middle, from right - Y. Nasberg, D. Kupferberg and B. Kaganovitsh. Bottom - Sh. Epshteyn and Y. Orbakh.) In Gang 15: 53 Photograph (DP Culture) ___________________________ Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: der barimter yidisher moler Mauritsi Trembatsh / From Our Picture Collection: The Famous Jewish Painter Mauritsi Trembatsh FLK 1: 30 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a gezegnungs-kush durkh di drotn / From Our Picture Collection: A Parting Kiss Through the Wires FLK 1: 31 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kovne / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno FLK 1: 31 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: shtiker yeriyes tsunoyfgenumene in farnikhtungs-lager Maydanek-Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Pieces of Parchment Found in the Death Camp of Maidanek-Lublin FLK 1: 32 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto fun Kovne-Slobodke / From Our Picture Collection: Ghetto of Kovno-Slobodka FLK 2: 85 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a meydele ganvet zikh fun Varshever geto / From Our Picture Collection: A Girl Escapes from the Warsaw Ghetto FLK 2: 86 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Farvorlozte kinder in Varshever geto / From Our Picture Collection: Abandoned Children in the Warsaw Ghetto FLK 2: 87 p. 2

Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a gantse familye basheftikt bam tsyen dos fesl ‘gold’ in Lodzher geto / From Our Picture Collection: A Whole Family Deals with Pulling the Keg of ‘Gold’ in the Lodz Ghetto FLK 2: 88 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a grupe kinder ba an oyszidlung fun Lodzher geto / From Our Picture Collection: A Group of Children at a Deportation in the Lodz Ghetto FLK 2: 89 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fragment fun an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in a shtetl lebn Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Fragment of a Deportation in a Town Near Lublin FLK 2: 90 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fragment fun an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in a shtetl lebn Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Fragment of a Deportation in a Town Near Lublin FLK 2: 91 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fragment fun an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in a shtetl lebn Lublin / From Our Picture Collection: Fragment of a Deportation in a Town Near Lublin FLK 2: 92 Photograph (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in Oygust 1942 / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation in August 1942 Frits Heft FLK 3: 28 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in Oygust 1942 / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation in August 1942 Frits Heft FLK 3: 29 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) p. 3

Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ in Oygust 1942 / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation in August 1942 Frits Heft FLK 3: 30 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: a yidishe froy dershosn beys der ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ / Siedlce, Poland: A Jewish Woman Shot During the Deportation Frits Heft FLK 3: 31 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Shedlets, Poyln: di ershte ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’ di yidn marshirn tsu der ban / Siedlce, Poland: The First Deportation, the Jews are Marching to the Train Frits Heft FLK 3: 32 Photograph Photographer was a German on an Inspection Tour (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Viner yidishe inteligents farshpart hinter di grates / From Our Picture Collection: Viennese Jewish Intellectuals Locked Up Behind Bars FLK 3: 82 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Gogolin, Shlezye, Poylishe yidn in arbets-lager / From Our Picture Collection: Gogolin, Silesia, Polish Jews in a Labour Camp FLK 3: 83 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Daytshe yidn ba der tsvangs-arbet in Minkhener yidn-lager in forshtot Milkhertshofn / From Our Picture Collection: German Jews at the Forced Labour in the Munich Jewish Camp in the Suburb of Milkhertshofn FLK 3: 84 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: mizrekh-Ukrayne, tsunoyfgekhapte yidishe mener in di ershte teg fun der natsi-okupatsye / From Our Picture Collection: Eastern Ukraine, Jewish Men Rounded Up in the Early Days of the Nazi Occupation FLK 3: 85 p. 4

Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: mizrekh-Ukrayne, tsunoyfgekhapte yidishe mener in di ershte teg fun der natsi-okupatsye / From Our Picture Collection: Eastern Ukraine, Jewish Men Rounded Up in the Early Days of the Nazi Occupation FLK 3: 86 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: mizrekh-Ukrayne, tsunoyfgekhapte yidishe mener in di ershte teg fun der natsi-okupatsye / From Our Picture Collection: Eastern Ukraine, Jewish Men Rounded Up in the Early Days of the Nazi Occupation FLK 3: 87 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Tomashov-Maz., Poyln, m’shert op froyen di hor / From Our Picture Collection: Tomaszow-Mazowiecki, Poland, Cutting the Hair off Women’s Heads FLK 3: 88 Photograph (Holocaust) Tarnopol (Galitsye): yidishe arbeter basheftikt afn besoylem in yor 1943 / Tarnopol (Galicia): Jewish Workers Employed in the Cemetery in 1943 FLK 4: 3 Photograph (Holocaust) Lemberg, di ershte teg fun Daytsher okupatsye: yidn vern in di gasn bafaln fun ukrayner / Lemberg, The First Days of the German Occupation: Jews being Attacked in the Streets by Ukrainians FLK 4: 4 Photograph (Holocaust) Galitsye: Ukraynishe politsistn tsvingen yidn tsu tsershtern matseyves afn yidishn besoylem in a shtetl lebn Lemberg / Galicia: Ukrainian Policemen Force Jews to Destroy Tombstones in the Jewish Cemetery in a Town Near Lemberg FLK 4: 7 Photograph (Holocaust) Lemberg, di ershte teg fun Daytsher okupatsye: yidn vern in di gasn bafaln fun ukrayner / Lemberg, The First Days of the German Occupation: Jews being Attacked in the Streets by Ukrainians FLK 4: 8 Photograph (Holocaust) p. 5

Galitsye: yidn ba gasn-arbet / Galicia: Jews Cleaning the Streets FLK 4: 11 Photograph (Holocaust) Braslav, Vilner gegnt: keyver fun kdoyshim, dermordete in der tsayt 3-9 yuni 1942 / Braslav, Vilna District: Grave of Jews Murdered on 3-9 June 1942 FLK 4: 60 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, khsidisher yid getsvungen azoy tsu pozirn far a foto-aparat / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, Chassidic Jew as he was Forced to Pose for the Camera FLK 4: 95 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Varshe, yidishe arbeter unter Daytsher, Poylisher un yidisher shmire / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw, Jewish Workers Under German, Polish and Jewish Guard FLK 4: 96 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Varshe, oyfgedekte yidn in a bunker af Tshernyakov vern gefirt tsum shisn 1943 / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw, Jews Discovered in a Bunker on Tshernyakov are Taken Away to be Shot 1943 FLK 4: 97 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lodzher geto, m’zukht esnvarg in mistkastn af Dvorska 6 / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz Ghetto, Looking for Food in Garbage Containers on Dvorska 6 FLK 4: 98 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Vilne, hebreyisher geto khor / From Our Picture Collection: Vilna, Hebrew Ghetto Choir FLK 4: 99 Photograph (Holocaust) Fragment fun katset Gerlits / Fragment of Concentration Camp Gerlits FLK 5: 39 Photograph (Holocaust)

p. 6

Fragment fun katset Bukhenvald / Fragment of Concentration Camp Buchenwald FLK 5: 55 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Zaltsburg, a grupe katsetler beys der bafrayung / From Our Picture Collection: Salzburg, a Group of Concentration Camp Prisoners at Liberation FLK 5: 90 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fun katset Bergn-Belzn / From Our Picture Collection: From Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen FLK 5: 91 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: katset Bergn-Belzn / From Our Picture Collection: Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen FLK 5: 92 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: fun katset Bergn-Belzn, di krematorye / From Our Picture Collection: From Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen, The Crematorium FLK 5: 93 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: aroysgetribine Oyshvitser yidn bam onkumen keyn Bendin (Poyln), april 1940 / From Our Picture Collection: Deported Auschwitz Jews Arriving in Bendin (Poland), April 1940 FLK 5: 94 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Khmyelnik, ba Kelts (Poyln), yidn arbetn bam ufroymen di khurves fun beys-hamedresh / From Our Picture Collection: Khmyelnik, Near Kielce (Poland), Jews Work Cleaning Up the Ruins of the Prayerhouse FLK 5: 95 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Ungarn, 1940, yidn fun tsvangs arbets-dinst in lager Sentender / From Our Picture Collection: Hungary, 1940, Jews at Forced Labour in Camp Sentender FLK 5: 96 Photograph (Holocaust) p. 7

Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lodzer froyen in der Oygsburger tekstil-fabrik fun Khristyan Dyering / From Our Picture Collection: Women from Lodz in the Augsburg Textile Factory of Christian Diering FLK 5: 97 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Ukrayne, a yid af der tlie / From Our Picture Collection: A Jew on the Gallows FLK 6: 85 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: der Pshevorsker rov (Poyln) vert getsvungen durkh s’s-layt tsu shern di berd un peyes fun yidn far zeyer ekzekutsye / From Our Picture Collection: The Rabbi of Pshevorsk (Poland) forced by SS men to cut the beards and sideburns of Jews before their execution FLK 6: 86 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: di shtotishe melits paynikt di yidn beys der arbet / From Our Picture Collection: The City Militia Torture the Jews During Their Work FLK 6: 87 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Varshe, der besalmen beys an ‘oyszidlungsaktsye’ / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw, the Cemetary During a Deportation FLK 6: 88 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Galitsye, nokh an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’/ From Our Picture Collection: Galicia, After a Deportation FLK 6: 89 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, nokh an ‘oyszidlungs-aktsye’/ From Our Picture Collection: Poland, After a Deportation FLK 6: 90 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: opgeshnitene kep af statues (fun a katset in Daytshland) / From Our Picture Collection: Severed Human Heads on Stone Statues FLK 6: 91 p. 8

Photograph (Holocaust) Kovne, shtab fun s’s-politsey-firer / Kovno, Headquarters of the SS Chief FLK 7: 50 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lite, onheyb milkhome 1941, arestirte yidn / From Our Picture Collection: Lithuania, Beginning of the War 1941, Arrested Jews FLK 7: 103 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kovne, naynter fort, vu es zaynen umgebrakht gevorn tsendliker toyznter yidn / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno, Ninth Fort, Where Tens of Thousands of Jews were Killed FLK 7: 104 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kovne, zibeter fort, onheyb yuli 1941, tsunoyfgekhapte yidn tsum dershosn / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno, Seventh Fort, Captured Jews to be Shot FLK 7: 105 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a vinkl ba di drotn fun Kovner geto, Paneryu gas / From Our Picture Collection: A Corner near the Fence of the Kovno Ghetto, Paneryu Street FLK 7: 106 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovne, yidn vern gefirt tsu der arbet durkh Putvinskyo gas, foroys a Litvisher partizan / Kovno, Jews Sent to Work Through Putvinskyo Street, Led by a Lithuanian Partisan FLK 8: 8 Photograph (Holocaust) Afn Kovner aerodrom / At Kovno Airport FLK 8: 18 Photograph (Holocaust) Afn Kovner aerodrom / At Kovno Airport FLK 8: 19 Photograph (Holocaust) p. 9

Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Kutne, Poyln, tseshterte shul durkh natsis / From Our Picture Collection: Kutno, Poland, Synagogue Destroyed by the Nazis FLK 8: 101 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Kovne, yidn kern zikh fun der arbet tsurik in geto / From Our Picture Collection: Kovno Ghetto, Jews Returning from Work to the Ghetto FLK 8: 102 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, a yid vert getsvungen oystsuraysn di hor fun Kriselitser rov / From Our Picture Collection: A Jew is Forced to Pull Out the Hair of the Kriselitser Rabbi FLK 8: 103 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Olkush, Poyln, bizn farbaygeyn der kontrol muzn di yidn lign oysgetsoygn af der erd / From Our Picture Collection: Olkush, Poland, Until Undergoing the Examination the Jews Must Lie Prostrate on the Ground FLK 8: 104 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: a s’s-komande fort keyn Poyln durkhfirn yidnaktsyes / From Our Picture Collection: An SS Crew Travels to Poland to Execute Actions on Jews FLK 8: 105 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Olkush, Poyln, oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Olkush, Poland, Deportation FLK 8: 106 Photograph (Holocaust) Geto Kovne, kinder geyen in shul / Kovno Ghetto, Children Going to School FLK 9: 9 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra FLK 9: 54 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra p. 10

FLK 9: 55 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovner geto-orkester / The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra FLK 9: 56 Photograph (Holocaust) Lager Kloga, Estland, dermordete heftlingen oysgeleygt tsvishn holts tsum farbrenen / Camp Kloga, Estonia, Murdered Prisoners Laid Between Logs to be Burnt FLK 9: 69 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Bergn-Belzn, in a katset-barak ba der bafrayung / From Our Picture Collection: Bergen-Belsen, in a Concentration Camp Barrack at Liberation FLK 9: 96 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Oldenburg, Daytshland, yidishe mener vern arestirt in november 1938 / From Our Picture Collection: Oldenburg, Germany, Jewish Men Under Arrest in November 1938 FLK 9: 97 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Bendin, Poyln, fragment fun geto / From Our Picture Collection: Bendin, Poland, Fragment of the Ghetto FLK 9: 98 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Lodz, der geto-eltester Rumkovski halt a rede af a geto-miting 15. 6. 1940 / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz, Ghetto Elder Rumkowski Speaks at a Ghetto Meeting, 15 June 1940 FLK 9: 99 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, 1943, yidishe partizaner untern onfir fun Yekhyel Grinshpan in di Partsever velder (Lubliner kant) / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, 1943, Jewish Partisans Led by Yekhyel Grinshpan in the Partsev Forests (Lublin Region) FLK 9: 100 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Daytshn hengen partizaner / From Our Picture Collection: German Hang Partisans p. 11

FLK 9: 101 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovner yidishe politsistn bam geto-toyer / Kovno Jewish Policemen at the Ghetto Gate FLK 10: 9 Photograph (Holocaust) Lite: a grupe yidishe partizaner fun dem otryad ‘Kortshagin’ / Lithuania: A Group of Jewish Partisans from the ‘Kortshagin’ Unit FLK 10: 13 Photograph (Holocaust) Lite: a yidisher partizan (Berman) fun dem otryad ‘Kortshagin’ / Lithuania: A Jewish Partisan (Berman) from the ‘Kortshagin’ Unit FLK 10: 14 Photograph (Holocaust) Kovne: Dr. Khonon Elkes un Dr. Moyshe Berman geyen af a konsultatsye / Kovno: Dr. Khonen Elkes and Dr. Moyshe Berman go to a Consultation FLK 10: 22 Photograph (Holocaust) Lite: Yaneve in di ershte teg fun der milkhome, ende yuni 1941 / Lithuania: Yaneve in the First Days of War, End of June 1941 FLK 10: 69 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Varshe, a yidish kind geshvoln fun hunger / From Our Picture Collection: Warsaw Ghetto, A Jewish Child Swollen by Hunger FLK 10: 147 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Lodz, personal fun der gikher-hilf in geto / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz Ghetto, Personnel of the First Aid Unit FLK 10: 148 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: geto Lodz, yidn vartn tsum optransport beys an oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Lodz Ghetto, Jews Wait for a Transport During a Deportation FLK 10: 149 Photograph p. 12

(Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, Olkush (Keltser kant) oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, Olkush (Kelts District) Deportation FLK 10: 150 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, Olkush (Keltser kant) oyszidlung / From Our Picture Collection: Poland, Olkush (Kelts District) Deportation FLK 10: 151 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung: Poyln, nokh an oyszidlung/ From Our Picture Collection: Poland, After a Deportation FLK 10: 152 Photograph (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection FLK 10: 153 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection FLK 10: 154 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection FLK 10: 155 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection FLK 10: 156 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung/ From Our Picture Collection FLK 10: 157 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews p. 13

(Holocaust) Fun undzer bilder-zamlung / From Our Picture Collection FLK 10: 158 Photograph One of a series of six related photographs found in a German house which show Lithuanian soldiers executing Jews (Holocaust) ___________________________ Kovne, altshtot / Kovno, Old City FLK 7: 7 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Kovno, der ‘griner brik’ ba Shants, tseshtert in di ershte teg fun DaytshSovetishn krig / Kovno, the ‘Green Bridge’ near Shants, Destroyed in the First Days of the German-Soviet War FLK 7: 12 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Kovner rothoyz, ershter zitsort fun yidishn komitet, onheyb yuli 1941 / Kovno Council Builiding, First Meeting Place of the Jewish Committee in the Beginning of July 1941 FLK 7: 37 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Kovne, yezuyitn-gimnazye (rekhts), zamlpunkt fun di arestirte yidn in di ershte milkhome-teg / Kovno, Jesuit Gymasium (Right), Assembly Point for the Arrested Jews in the First Days of the War FLK 7: 59 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) Lite: a Kaydaner mishpokhe fun 4 doyres, vos iz umgekumen in der aktsye fun 28stn Oygust 1941 / Lithuania: A Kaydan Family of 4 Generations, Who Died in the Action of 28 August 1941 FLK 10: 55 Photograph (Pre-Holocaust) ___________________________ Kelts, Poyln: nokh der bafrayung, afn keyver fun di kinder / Kielce, Poland: After the Liberation, at the Grave of the Children Sore Kerbel FLK 3: 37 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Di dray masn-kvorim ba Shvabhoyzen / The Three Mass Graves Near Shvabhoyzen p. 14

FLK 5: 24 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Lite: yidisher masn-keyver ba Kaydan / Lithuania: Jewish Mass Grave Near Kaydan FLK 10: 55 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Di familye Vays, vos hobn ale durkhgemakht Oyshvitz / The Vays Family, All of Whom Survived Auschwitz FLK 10: 94 Photograph (Post-Holocaust) Mirele Hershkovitsh, tsu 4 yor durkhgemakht Oyshvitz / Mirele Hershkovitsh, At Age 4 Survived Auschwitz FLK 10: 94 Photograph (Post-Holocaust)

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Poems, Stories and Play Excerpts The materials within this genre are poems, stories, and printed excerpts from plays. Those in FLK are the products of the Nazi era, while those in In Gang and Shriftn were written after the Holocaust. While these works are predominantly about or in response to the Holocaust, there is an increase, in poetry in particular, of more general writings in later issues of In Gang. Themes used to sub-divide this genre are: Written during Holocaust – a record of works created during the Nazi era Holocaust – about the Nazi era Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust – combined category Pre-Holocaust – about Europe before the Holocaust Post-Holocaust – about the aftermath of the Holocaust Zionism and Israel – about Zionism and about life in Israel General – about themes which are not specifically related to the Holocaust The combined category Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust is necessary because of stories about both the Holocaust and what came before. ___________________________ Fun undzer lider-zamlung: ‘Shpere’ / From Our Song Collection: ‘Shpere’ Hershele Yoakhimovitsh FLK 1: 25 Poem Given in by his father, Avraham Yoakhimovitsh. (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: undzer lebn / From Our Song Collection: Our Life Avraham Tsipkin FLK 1: 26 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Maystas / From Our Song Collection: Maystas Avraham Tsipkin FLK 1: 26 Poem Written for the female unit which worked in the Maystas meat factory (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: lomir shvaygn / From Our Song Collection: Let us be Silent p. 1

Unknown FLK 2: 74-75 Poem This song was received in several variants and this is the most widespread version (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: geto-dires / From Our Song Collection: Ghetto Apartments Moly Kagan FLK 2: 76-77 Poem This song was received in several variants and this is the most widespread version (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: viglid / From Our Song Collection: Lullaby Unknown FLK 3: 72 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Lodzher geto / From Our Song Collection: Lodz Ghetto Yoynoson Karp FLK 3: 73-75 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: viglid / From Our Song Collection: Lullaby Unknown FLK 4: 84 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Buna / From Our Song Collection: Buna Goldman FLK 4: 85-89 Poem Buna was the name of a work-unit at Auschwitz (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: mame, gib a brokhe!… / From Our Song Collection: Mother, Give a Blessing!… Unknown FLK 5: 82-84 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: oy kartofl!… / From Our Song Collection: Oh Potato!… Hersh Albus FLK 5: 84-86 p. 2

Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Zamoshtsher kazernirte / From Our Song Collection: Zamoshtsh Prisoners Unknown FLK 6: 77-78 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: di bone / From Our Song Collection: The Ration Card Unknown FLK 6: 78-80 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: yidishe brigades / From Our Song Collection: Jewish Brigades Avraham Akselrod FLK 7: 95-96 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: bam geto toyerl / From Our Song Collection: At the Ghetto Gate Avraham Akselrod FLK 7: 96-97 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Shantser lager / From Our Song Collection: Shantser Camp Avraham Hayman FLK 7: 97-99 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: di alte yidene klapt in tir / From Our Song Collection: The Old Jewess Knocks on the Door Unknown FLK 7: 100 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: nit ayer mazl / From Our Song Collection: Hard Luck Shoel Shenker & Nosn Markovski FLK 8: 90-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust)

p. 3

Fun undzer lider-zamlung: der aerodromshtshik / From Our Song Collection: The Airport Worker Moly Kagan FLK 8: 92-94 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: der komitetshik / From Our Song Collection: The Committee Member Nosn Markovski FLK 8: 94-96 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: brigades / From Our Song Collection: Brigades Rokhl Slkye FLK 9: 84-92 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: di groyse aktsye / From Our Song Collection: The Big Action Sime Yashunski FLK 10: 137-140 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: Litvishe partizaner/ From Our Song Collection: Lithuanian Partisans Unknown FLK 10: 140-141 Poem (Written during Holocaust) Fun undzer lider-zamlung: mir zaynen yidn ba dem drot / From Our Song Collection: We are Jews at the Wire Unknown FLK 10: 141-142 Poem (Written during Holocaust) ___________________________ Far zeks khadoshim… / For Six Months… Moyshe Yungman In Gang 1: 16 Poem From the cycle In the Shadow of the Concentration Camp (Holocaust) Torf-mentshn / Turf-People Moyshe Yungman In Gang 1: 16 Poem p. 4

(Holocaust) Af morgn / The Day After Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 1: 20-23 Play Excerpt Two fragments of the work which was awarded the 1946 First Prize for Drama in a contest organized by the Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Rome. (Holocaust) Tsu mayn hintl in geto / To my Puppy in the Ghetto Khayim Nayerman In Gang 1: 23 Poem (Holocaust) Baal-Shem vizye / Baal-Shem Vision Menakhem Riger In Gang 2-3: 10 Poem (Holocaust) Lider un poemes: tsum shvaygndikn zelner / Songs and Poems: To the Silent Soldier Moyshe Yungman In Gang 2-3: 19 Poem (Holocaust) Lider un poemes: dertseylt di levone / Songs and Poems: The Moon Recounts… Moyshe Yungman In Gang 2-3: 20 Poem (Holocaust) Lider un poemes: der shtumer fidler / Songs and Poems: The Mute Fiddler Moyshe Yungman In Gang 2-3: 21 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: Tsu der zun / Poems: To the Sun Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 2-3: 29 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: Shtiler harts mayn… / Poems: Be Silent, My Heart… Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 2-3: 30 Poem p. 5

(Holocaust) Der Mames Kleyd / Mother’s Dress Dovid Kupferberg In Gang 2-3: 40-42 Story Fragment from the book Lublin (Holocaust) Faryosemte heym / Orphaned Home K. L. Tenenboym In Gang 2-3: 43 Poem (Holocaust) Gezegenung / Parting Moyshe Yungman In Gang 4-5: 15 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: der letster krekhts / Poems: The Last Groan Menakhem Riger In Gang 4-5: 34-35 Poem (Holocaust) Af morgn… / The Day After… Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 4-5: 36-38 Play Excerpt Another fragment of Leon Bernshteyn’s award-winning play (Holocaust) Di bagegenish / The Encounter Menakhem Riger In Gang 6-7: 9-11 Poem Fragment of ‘Shloymke the Soldier’ (Holocaust) Lider: nit gloyb / Poems: Do Not Believe! Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 6-7: 34 Poem (Holocaust) Lider: in maline / Poems: In the Hide-Out Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 8-9-10: 16 Poem (Holocaust) p. 6

Lider: der diamant / Poems: The Diamond Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 8-9-10: 17 Poem (Holocaust) Sonya Rekhtik (poeme) / Sonya Rekhtik (Long Poem) Dr. Leon Bernshteyn In Gang 8-9-10: 28-35 Poem Dedicated to Sh. Niger (Holocaust) Lider: mayn tatns ash / Poems: My Father’s Ashes Menakhem Riger In Gang 8-9-10: 66-67 Poem (Holocaust) Turkestan / Turkestan Shloyme Varzager Shriftn 1: 70-73 Poem Fragment of the poem ‘From Home’ (Holocaust) Der hunt - mayn fraynt / The Dog - My Friend Malke Kelerikh Shriftn 1: 92-94 Story (Holocaust) A kind in lager / A Child in the Camp M. D. Elihav Shriftn 1: 97 Poem (Holocaust) Lager shtimung / Camp Mood M. D. Elihav Shriftn 1: 98 Poem (Holocaust) Federn in kirkh (Lodzher geto) / Feathers in the Church (Lodz Ghetto) A. Yoakhimovitsh Shriftn 1: 110-113 Poem (Holocaust) Di kdushe fun dray / The Sacred Three K. Shabtay Shriftn 1: 148-158 p. 7

Story (Holocaust) In the Warsaw Ghetto Avraham Zak In Gang 15: 31 Poem (Holocaust) ___________________________ A tog aza (dertseylung) / Such a Day (Story) Melekh Tshemni Shriftn 1: 99-106&109 Story (Pre-Holocaust and Holocaust) ___________________________ M'sort [sic] keyn Odes / We Leave for Odessa Hershel Vaynroykh Shriftn 1: 135-141 Story A chapter of the novel Durkh zibn fayern / Through Seven Fires (Pre-Holocaust) Fis / Feet Zanvl Diamant In Gang 11-12: 40-48 Story A chapter of the novel Former Times (Pre-Holocaust) R’ Zalmen shoykhet (dertseylung) / R. Zalmen the Shokhet (Story) Moyshe Dluzhnovski In Gang 15: 26-30 Story (Pre-Holocaust) ___________________________ Di mame / Mother Moyshe Yungman In Gang 1: 17 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Di letste tfile / The Last Prayer Menakhem Riger In Gang 1: 18 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Tsu nit gelitene / To Those Who Did Not Suffer Menakhem Riger In Gang 1: 19 p. 8

Poem (Post-Holocaust) May… / May… Menakhem Riger In Gang 2-3: 11 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Veynt di tsayt nokh dir / The Time Cries for You… Menakhem Riger In Gang 2-3: 11 Poem For Sholem Aleichem’s yortsayt (Post-Holocaust) Lider un poemes: nokh dir… (mayn tatn z’l) / Songs and Poems: After You… (My Late Father) Moyshe Yungman In Gang 2-3: 19 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: farloyrn iz gegangen… / Poems: Lost Went… Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 2-3: 29 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: beyze vintn blozn… / Poems: Evil Winds Blow… Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 2-3: 30 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: friling / Poems: Spring Sore Rituv In Gang 4-5: 11 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lid un poeme: Roym un Yerushalayim (poeme) / Song and Poem: Rome and Jerusalem (Long Poem) Moyshe Yungman In Gang 4-5: 12-14 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Metalener goyrl (skitse) / Metal Fate (Sketch) Zanvl Diamant In Gang 4-5: 16-20 Story (Post-Holocaust) p. 9

Elegye… / Elegy… Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 4-5: 20 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: vos is dos lebn / Poems: What is Life? Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 6-7: 33 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Nekome / Vengeance Zanvl Diamant In Gang 8-9-10: 19-27 Story (Post-Holocaust) Tsvey lider / Two Poems Yitskhok Perlov Shriftn 1: 5-6 Poem (Post-Holocaust) A nayer onheyb / A New Beginning Binyomin Elis Shriftn 1: 18-24 Story (Post-Holocaust) Vinter / Winter Mates Olitski Shriftn 1: 25-26 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Bagegenish mitn goyel in a daytshish shtetl / Meeting with the Saviour in a German Village Dovid Volpe Shriftn 1: 37-40 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Berkhtesgaden 1947 / Berkhtesgaden 1947 Dovid Volpe Shriftn 1: 40-42 Poem (Post-Holocaust) A nayer tog (fragment) / A New Day (Fragment) Sh. D. Bunin Shriftn 1: 62-66&69 p. 10

Story Translated from Hebrew (Post-Holocaust) Reydn tsu mir teg… / Days Speak to Me… Shloyme Varzager Shriftn 1: 74 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Kh’vell zikh vider ufheybn / I Will Rise Again Leyb Vaserman Shriftn 1: 89-91 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Goyrl (sonet) / Fate (Sonnet) Ruven Matis Shriftn 1: 159 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: mekhile / Poems: Forgiveness Menakhem Riger In Gang 11-12: 35 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Lider: Ikh bin greyt / Poems: I am Ready Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 11-12: 39 Poem (Post-Holocaust) Geveyn fun yosem / Cry of an Orphan Menakhem Riger In Gang 15: 38 Poem (Post-Holocaust) ___________________________ Ikh benk… / I Long… Sore Rituv In Gang 6-7: 27 Poem (Zionism and Israel) Lider: fun ‘Yerushalayimer motivn’ / Poems: From ‘Jerusalem Motifs’ Moyshe Yungman In Gang 11-12: 33-34 Poem (Zionism and Israel) ___________________________ p. 11

Lider: nakht / Poems: Night Sore Rituv In Gang 4-5: 11 Poem (General) Lider: tsu Got / Poems: To God Menakhem Riger In Gang 4-5: 35 Poem (General) Zibn Shtern… / Seven Stars… Bernard Vind In Gang 4-5: 47 Poem (General) Lider: der yom-tov fun vayn / Poems: The Holiday of Wine Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 6-7: 31-32 Poem (General) Lider: di shlakht / Poems: The Battle Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 6-7: 35-36 Poem (General) Lider: a gast / Poems: A Guest Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 8-9-10: 16 Poem (General) Lider: harbst / Poems: Autumn Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 8-9-10: 18 Poem (General) Der shotn, dos likhtl un der vint… (a moshl) / The Shade, the Small Light and the Wind… (A Parable) Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 40-41 Poem Dedicated to the memory of Eliezer Shteynbarg (General) Lider: der zukher / Poems: The Searcher Eugenio Montale, translated by Bernard Vind p. 12

In Gang 8-9-10: 51 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: Eyrope / Poems: Europe Mario Luzi, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 52 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: monotonye / Poems: Monotony Giuseppe Ungaretti, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 53 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: in eynzamkayt / Poems: In Loneliness Umberto Saba, translated by Bernard Vind In Gang 8-9-10: 53 Poem From a new Italian Anthology (General) Lider: harbst / Poems: Autumn Menakhem Riger In Gang 8-9-10: 67 Poem (General) Bam toyer fun gan-eydn (prolog fun a drame) / At the Gate of Paradise (Prologue to a Drama) Shloyme Berlinski Shriftn 1: 9-13 Play Excerpt (General) S’faln shtern / Stars are Falling Meyer Halpern Shriftn 1: 14 Poem (General) Fun vanen vint hostu dayn fli genumen / From Where, Wind, Did You Take Your Flight (Song) Meyer Halpern Shriftn 1: 14&17 Poem (General) A tfile / A Prayer p. 13

Yitskhok Morgnshtern Shriftn 1: 160 Poem (General) Lider: revrend Skot (fun a poeme) / Poems: Reverend Scott (From a Long Poem) Dovid From In Gang 11-12: 36-38 Poem (General) Lider: kum arop tsum breg fun yam / Poems: Come Down to the Coast of the Sea Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 11-12: 39 Poem (General) Lider: un itst iz nakht / Poems: And Now is Night Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 11-12: 39 Poem (General) Mir hobn zikh gezen un nit geredt / We Saw Each Other and Did Not Speak Mordkhe Lifshits In Gang 15: 16 Poem (General) A lid fun libe / A Song of Love Menakhem Riger In Gang 15: 38-39 Poem (General) Baginen / Dawn Menakhem Riger In Gang 15: 39 Poem (General)

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Visual Arts These works include reproductions of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and carvings. Peyzazh / Landscape E. Bzhezhinska Shriftn 1: 7 Drawing/Painting A shtetl / A Village H. Levenshtadt Shriftn 1: 15 Drawing/Painting Peyzazh / Landscape H. Levenshtadt Shriftn 1: 27 Drawing/Painting A mekubl / A Kabbalist H. Laban Shriftn 1: 43 Drawing/Painting Shtillebn / Still Life H. Levenshtadt Shriftn 1: 67 Drawing/Painting Di agole in a geto hoyf in Lodzh / The Hearse in a Ghetto Yard in Lodz H. Shilis Shriftn 1: 87 Drawing/Painting Tseykhenung / Drawing H. Shilis Shriftn 1: 95 Drawing/Painting Kvartal ‘Marishin’ in geto Lodzh / The ‘Marishin’ Quarter of the Lodz Ghetto H. Shilis Shriftn 1: 107 Drawing/Painting Shtillebn / Still Life E. Bzhezhinska Shriftn 1: 133 Drawing/Painting Der alter fidler / The Old Fiddler H. Laban p. 1

Shriftn 1: 145 Drawing/Painting Gerangl / Struggle A. Fridman Shriftn 1: 67 Sculpture/Carving Kop-studye / Head-Study H. Laban Shriftn 1: 95 Sculpture/Carving Holtsshnitn / Woodcarvings A. Fridman Shriftn 1: 117 Sculpture/Carving

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Section Four: Conclusion

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Chapter 7 Conclusion and Sources for Future Research The most important fact about DP literature is that it exists. Despite all the theory and rhetoric to the contrary, it is undeniable that there emerged from the Holocaust a community of Jews committed to reclaiming aspects of their pre-war culture. The survivors wanted to construct a literary monument to the destruction and its victims through both static creative representation and dynamic cultural rebuilding. These goals are evident in the texts discussed in this thesis, the literary journals published by the sheyres hapleyte between 1946 and 1949. Clearly, much of the theoretical discussion of the possibility of literature after Auschwitz is challenged by the existence of this body of writing created so soon after the destruction. The Holocaust informed every moment of the DPs lives. Living under military rule in the lands of their former enemies, on soil they knew to be stained with Jewish blood, waiting desperately for the chance to find a permanent home of their own, the survivors could not ignore the intellectual problems created by their encounter with the Shoah. They wrote, not thoughtlessly or callously, but out of a genuine need to reconnect their present with the remnants of their past and with the possibilities of their creative future. Their greatest frustration may have been their reception, not within the DP community but throughout the wider Jewish world. After the initial outpouring of horrified sympathy following the liberation of the concentration camps, the DPs rapidly became an embarrassment to the rest of world Jewry. They embodied marginality and lack of status to Jews intent on creating a comfortable place for themselves in American society and symbolized the weakness of the diaspora to the Jews of the Yishuv. At a time when the Holocaust was a taboo subject throughout the Jewish world, their literary and artistic efforts were largely ignored. Decades later, when the p. 1

Shoah became an acceptable topic for study, the DPs had for the most part been forgotten. The few writers who mentioned their work dismissed it out of hand. In aesthetic terms, a critical reassessment of the worth of sheyres hapleyte literature is long overdue. It is certain, however, that their texts are useful not only for historical research into the Holocaust and its aftermath but, also importantly in this context, for their illumination of a number of critical issues within the field of Holocaust literature. The editors of the DP journals went beyond endorsing the possibility of post-Holocaust literature to claim that, for them as living remnants of prewar European Jewish culture, literature was particularly necessary after Auschwitz. This is implied in the great lengths to which they went in order to write and to publish and explicitly stated in many of the articles in their journals. The need for literature is informed by the twin imperatives of documentation and cultural continuation. Although the contents of In Gang and Shriftn were new creations and those of FLK were often the products of the previous era, both of these aims are reflected in all three journals, whose individual approaches have been outlined in earlier chapters. The themes of documentation and memorialization are particularly explicit in In Gang and FLK. The widely held belief that it was the duty of each survivor to remember and to record the names of dead individuals and destroyed communities was quite clearly expressed in these journals. This was, at the most literal level, a question not of art but of statistics and the historical record. Yet the mere listing of names and numbers, while important in itself, could not have created an appropriate memorial to the destroyed culture. It was necessary also to record what had come before and the manner in which it was destroyed. The survivors had previously lived within an environment which was soon to become ‘the realm of myth,’1 the world of Eastern European Jewry. To them it was not a nostalgically imagined 1D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. p.

224.

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dreamlike existence in shtetlekh and market towns, peopled by saintly watercarriers and clever book-sellers, but rather the prosaic reality of their youth. Even if they viewed their pre-war past through the lens of their more recent suffering, the survivors would be able to describe and analyse the culture of their destroyed home. They were similarly well-suited for the study of works created during the Holocaust, the collection and publication of which would have been the best way to create an understanding not only of the actions of the Nazis but of the responses of their victims. This attempt at reconnection with the past is itself an example of the desired continuity of Jewish cultural norms. The editors of the journals analysed in this thesis, particularly of Shriftn and In Gang, explicitly insisted upon the need for a cultural revival among the sheyres hapleyte. In literature and, to a lesser extent, the visual arts, they themselves provided the resources for and the first examples of such a revival. Yet it is the yearning to reconnect with their past, to use it as the basis for exploring their present reactions to the destruction, that is in fact the most normative aspect of their behaviour. Their continuation of the tradition of literary responses to catastrophe adds a second level to the cultural re-awakening they advocated and were working so hard to achieve. As the Holocaust was not seen to be outside the general framework of Jewish history, it could be confronted with the same transtemporal, archetypal tools with which, as Roskies points out, Jews had analysed and tried to come to terms with previous destructions. Almost forty years earlier, Hibel and Friedman expressed much the same view in their editors’ note to Shriftn, in which they asserted that their establishment of a literary journal in post-war Germany was a normative reaction compelled by Jewish tradition. This reasoning is not present in In Gang, but it is consistent with its editors’ emphasis on literary renewal and their obvious sense of rootedness in the pre-war cultural tradition.

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Kaplan’s interest in such cultural continuity was considerable (See Chapter 5), and although in FLK he focused primarily on texts created during the Holocaust, his sense of rootedness in the Jewish pre-war past is implicit in his assumption of the importance of history and its relevance for the future of the DPs and the Jewish people. The title of his journal also implies that the Holocaust is only the most recent of the many disasters that have befallen the Jews. The ambiguous but literal translation on the cover of the journal, which, borrowing from Nazi nomenclature, names the Holocaust the ‘Last Extermination,’ could in fact be taken to mean either the most recent or the final destruction, the latter of which would support the idea of Holocaust as apocalypse. However, Leo Schwarz and Lucy Dawidowicz, who through their work with the JDC in Germany knew both Kaplan and Feygenboym and were well acquainted with FLK, translate its title as ‘Of the Latest Catastrophe’ and ‘Out of Our Most Recent Catastrophe’ respectively.2 Such translations show the Holocaust to have been perceived as solidly within the chain of Jewish history. This should not in any way be taken as downplaying the unprecedented enormity of the destruction. Rather, it is a sign that the Shoah was an event, however terrible, which could and should be confronted using the normal and normative Jewish response of literature. This is the challenge which was taken up, as all three of these journals show, by the DPs themselves. A further point of agreement among all three journals is the importance of Zionism. Since, as discussed in Chapter 1, the majority of DPs in Germany, Austria, and especially in Italy were Zionists, the pro-Israel orientation of their publications is not surprising. Zionism was justified culturally as well as ideologically and practically; it was seen as a way of creating a permanent haven in which the tree of Jewish culture could take root. Many editors of and contributors to the journals, including 2L. W. Schwarz (1953), The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. p. 137 and L. S. Dawidowicz

(1991), From That Place and Time. p. 304.

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Feygenboym, Kaplan, and Yerushalmi, left for Israel as soon as it was possible for them to do so, as did the majority of their readers. The temporary nature of the DPs stay in post-war Central Europe is reflected in the abrupt end of many of their cultural enterprises. For example, both In Gang and FLK explain in their final issues that they will be terminating production in preparation for leaving Europe, a situation reflected in the conclusory nature of issue fifteen of In Gang and the greatly expanded content of issue ten of FLK. Even in their departure the DPs emphasized the necessity of continuity and the importance of the study of the past, particularly the Holocaust and its aftermath, for the Jewish future. Kaplan was particularly careful about this point, making clear that all of the material gathered through and for FLK would be going to the then newly-established Yad Vashem institution in Jerusalem for safe-keeping and accessibility. Yet it may be that this aspect of the DP era, its being a time of constant flux, of sudden departures and reorganizations, where concrete groups and boundaries are difficult to establish, contributes to the neglect of the sheyres hapleyte. It is ironic that, despite the attention to the needs of future researchers on the part of Kaplan and his colleagues, there has been very little scholarly interest in the DPs from either a literary or a historical point of view. This attitude is beginning to change, and reactions to the study of the era are increasingly positive.3 The field is, however, still in urgent need of serious scholarship, much of which involves an increasingly rare working knowledge of Yiddish. Many questions remain, the most frequent of which being the actual aesthetic or literary value of DP texts themselves. The valuation of these works is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, a few preliminary remarks are in order. 3An example of recent interest in the sheyres hapleyte is The Tenth International Historical Conference:

The Jewish People at the End of World War II, held at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on 10-12 October 1995. Although the majority of papers were primarily concerned with Israel, America, and the Soviet Union, there were also several on the DPs.

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It could be suggested that those figures from among the sheyres hapleyte who were of a sufficient literary standard would have gone on to succeed in other places after leaving the DP camps. There are some known writers who did so, including the poet and essayist Dovid Volpe in South Africa, the journalist and essayist Levi Shalit in Israel, the essayist David Rosenthal in America, the poets Shloyme Berlinski and Moyshe Yungman, and others including Kahn, Kaplan, Friedman and Yerushalmi. Even if these writers who later found success were shown to be the only true literary producers of the sheyres hapleyte, further study of the era would still be justified. It would be affirmed as important for the understanding of Jewish literary history, as the time when writers who had survived ghettos and concentration camps found or refound their voices and began building or rebuilding their creative lives. Modern literary research, however, has indicated in many genres and languages that there are writers who had not been known to us due not to lack of talent or inspiration but because of difficult circumstances, marginality, and critical neglect. This situation, shown most conclusively in the case of women’s literature, applies in many ways to the DPs. There may yet be authors whose work while in the DP camps goes unrecognized. Were they unable to continue writing outside the supportive atmosphere of the DP camps due to post-Holocaust ill-health or poverty or psychological torment? Could there have been talented writers who gave up in despair when they realized that the world, including the Jewish world, did not want to hear the story they most needed to tell? There is therefore a desperate need for a critical evaluation of the poems, stories, essays and other works presented in these literary journals and in other forums, as well as of books and individual literary collections printed in the DP camps. Future researchers in this field will find the journals presented in this thesis to be a good introduction to the collective literary and cultural life of the sheyres hapleyte. They were selected as representative of DP p. 6

cultural production from a larger set of literary journals that are also worthy of consideration and study. These include M. Gelbart’s Khoydesh-bleter far literatur un kritik (Monthly Journal of Literature and Criticism), which consists of one thirty-two-page issue published in Munich in August 1947, and Joseph Gar’s Hemshekh: Shriftn far literatur, kunst, kritik un kultur-gezelshaftlekhe frages (Continuation: Writings For Literature, Art, Criticism and Cultural-Societal Questions), which comprises two issues totalling 136 pages published in Munich in April 1948 and January 1949. There are very few full sets of these available, but all five of these journals are accessible at the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. All but Shriftn are also available on microfilm, as catalogued by Zachary Baker and Nina Warnke of YIVO for University Publications of America,4 and a full set of these microfilms are now available, among other places, in the Taylorian Library, Oxford. Basic information about these journals, as well as many other periodical publications of the period in several languages, can be found in Tsemah Tsamriyon’s wide-ranging but cursory monograph Ha-Itoniyut shel Sheerit Hapleita be-Germania ke-Bitui le-Ba'ayoteha (The Press of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Germany as an Expression of their Problems). Baker and Warnke’s catalogue also contains, besides the five literary journals detailed above, approximately 150 other DP periodicals in Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, German, Hungarian, Italian and English. Eliezer Rabinowitz’s recent brief articles about Jewish journalism in the German DP camps are, sadly, simplistic and awkward.5 Bibliographic sources from the period include the literary journals themselves, which often contained details of new sheyres hapleyte publications. Other contemporary sources include Z. Shaykovski’s 1946 bibliography of DP periodicals in Germany, Austria, Italy and Sweden6 and

4Z. M. Baker and N. Warnke (1990), A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Jewish Displaced Persons

Periodicals from the Collections of the YIVO Institute. 5E. Rabinowitz (1991), A List of Journals Published by the Survivors in Germany. E. Rabinowitz (1991), Jewish Journalism in the Refugee Camps in Germany. 6Z. Shaykovski (1946), Di yidishe prese in Daytshland, Estraykh, Italye un Shvedn.

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Feldshuh Ben-Tsion’s more wide-ranging 1948 bibliography of sheyres hapleyte publications.7 A useful overview of the situation in Germany, the largest of the DP centers, is Philip Friedman’s short series of articles which appeared in the Yiddish magazine Tsukunft in early 1949 under the title Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland (The Printed Yiddish Word among the Survivors in Germany).8 Another helpful contemporary work is Leivick’s DP travelogue, Mit der sheyres hapleyte. Of particular importance are also the first chapter of Bernard Wasserstein’s Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945,9 a good historical description and analysis of the geopolitics of the era and of the outward appearances of DP life, and Ze’ev Mankowitz’s thesis on survivors in the American Zone of Germany in 1945 and 1946 (in Hebrew with a comprehensive English abstract),10 a closer look at the ideologies of the DPs themselves and an analysis of their spiritual and cultural existence. Unless otherwise noted in Chapter Two, theoretical literary texts rarely make use of the DPs except as providers of basic historical testimony. Even Roskies, who comes closest to the issues to which the sheyres hapleyte were committed and who has published an anthology of Jewish literary responses to catastrophe, does not use DP materials either in his theoretical writings11 or in his monumental The Literature of Destruction.12 Such writings would have strengthened his argument about the continuation of normative Jewish cultural responses in the wake of the Holocaust. Setting aside the possibility of the deliberate ignoring of helpful material, is it possible that he, like many others, is not aware of their existence or of their content? Unfortunately, most of the texts mentioned in the bibliographies discussed here have not yet been the subject of academic study and 7F. Ben-Tsion (1948), Sh”h-bibliografye: V 1945 - II 1948. 8P. Friedman (1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: I. P. Friedman

(1949), Dos gedrukte yidishe vort ba der sheyres hapleyte in daytshland: II. P. Friedman (1949), A briv in redaktsye. 9B. Wasserstein (1996), Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945. pp. 1-35. 10Z. Mankowitz (1987), English Abstract. 11D. G. Roskies (1984), Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. 12D. G. Roskies (1988), The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe.

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evaluation and are therefore not widely known. The preliminary research represented by the bibliographies themselves has not been followed up. There is a need for aesthetic evaluation, for the writing of cultural and literary history, for further study of the ideas and ideals of the survivors. The DPs themselves felt that they were part of an important historical moment. They wanted their texts to serve as monuments to the victims of the Holocaust, and they also believed that their literary output would be a valuable testament to the strength of the creative spirit and to their commitment to cultural renewal. Their work has so far been largely, and undeservedly, ignored. It is the present author’s fervent hope that this thesis will be a first step in the process of recognizing and evaluating the historical and literary importance of the cultural creations of the sheyres hapleyte.

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Bibliography Primary Sources DP Journals Studied Hibel, B.-T. and P. Friedman, (January 1948). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (Writings for Literature, Art and Societal Questions). Kassel, Germany, Writers’ Group of sheyres hapleyte. Kaplan, Y., (August 1946 - December 1948). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (From the Last Extermination: Journal for the History of the Jewish People During the Nazi Regime). Munich, Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone. Yerushalmi, E., B. Kahn, et al., (March 1947 - February 1949). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst / khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. (In Progress: Monthly Journal of Literature and Art / Monthly Journal of Literature, Culture and Societal Problems). Rome, Union of Jewish Writers, Journalists and Artists in Italy. Other Survivor Publications Fridman, Y., (May/June 1946 - June/August 1948). Yidish: khoydesh-bleter far literatur kunst un yidish-visnshaft. (Yiddish: Monthly Journal of Literature Art and Yiddish Scholarship). Paris/Brussels, Arbeter Haym. Gar, J., D. B. Groybard, D. Volpe, P. Friedman and E. Shrayer (April 1948 January 1949). Hemshekh: shriftn far literatur, kunst, kritik un kulturgezelshaftlekhe frages. (Continuation: Writings For Literature, Art, Criticism and Cultural-Societal Questions). Munich, Germany, The Board for Education and Culture and the Writer’s Union of the Sheyres Hapleyte. Gelbart, M., (August 1947). Khoydesh-bleter far literatur un kritik. (Monthly Journal of Literature and Criticism). Munich, Freedom Press of the Social-Zionist Poalei-Zion. Kaplan, Y. (1947). In der tog-teglekher historisher arbet: fortrog gehaltn afn tsuzamenfor fun di historishe komisyes, Minkhen, dem 12tn May 1947. Munich, Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone.

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Kaplan, Y. (1949). Dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. Munich, Central Historical Commission. Articles from DP Journals Studied (1946). Anons. ((Advertisement)). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 13. (1946). Khronik. (Chronicle). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 36. (1947). Anons. ((Advertisement)). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (6): 61. (1948). Anons. ((Advertisement)). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (8): 89. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 13. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: der seyderhayom. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: The Agenda). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 14-15. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: hakhlotes. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Decisions). In Gang: khoydeshzhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 47-51. (1948). Historisher fregeboygn. (Historical Questionnaire). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (8): 110-115. (1948). Khronik. (Chronicle). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (7): 113-115. (1948). Khronik. (Cultural Life of the Sheyres Hapleyte (Survey)). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 161-168. (1948). Kinstlerishe reproduktsyes. (Artistic Reproductions). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): vi.

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(1948). Oysbeserungen un bamerkungen. (Corrections and Remarks). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (9): 112-113. (1948). Yizker. (In Memorium). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): iii. Asaf, M. (1947). Di araber un undzer ufboy-verk. (The Arabs and our Construction Work). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(6-7): 14. Berlinski, S. (1948). Bam toyer fun gan-eydn (prolog fun a drame). (At the Gate of Paradise, Prologue to a Drama). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 9-13. Bernshteyn, L. (1947). Avraham Sutskever mentsh un dikhter. (Avraham Sutskever Man and Poet). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(45): 21-30. Bunin, S. D. (1948). A nayer tog. (The New Day). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 62-66, 69. De Liu, A. (1947). Di goles-prototipn ba Sholem Aleykhem. (DiasporaPrototypes in Sholem Aleichem). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(2-3): 35-40. Epshteyn, S. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: tetikayt fun di yidishe pleytim-kinstlers in Italye. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Activities of the Jewish Refugee Artists in Italy). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(1314): 29-31. Ernst, S. (1948). Shtremungen in der moderner hebreyisher literatur. (Trends in Modern Hebrew Literature). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 3(15): 47-49. Eyger, Y., Y. Fridman, et al. (1946). Radom. (Radom). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 14-21. Feygenboym, M.-Y. (1946). Khronik. (Chronicle). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (2): 100-103. p. 3

Feygenboym, M.-Y. (1946). Tsu vos historishe komisyes? (Why do we need Historical Commissions?). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 2. Feygenboym, M.-Y. (1948). Barikhtn tetikayt. (Activity Report). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (10): 162-170. Friedman, P. (1946). Bagrisungs-vort. (Greeting). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 1. Friedman, P. (1948). Di forshung fun undzer khurbn. (The Study of our Extermination). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 75-86. Gurevitsh, Y. (1948). Kovner geto-orkester. (The Kovno Ghetto Orchestra). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (9): 52-58. Hibel, B.-T. (1948). Di shlikhes fun der yidisher literatur. (The Mission of Jewish Literature). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 29-36. Hibel, B.-T. and P. Friedman (1948). (editor’s note). . Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): ii. Hibel, B.-T. and P. Friedman (1948). (fun der redaktsye). ((editor’s note)). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): iv. Kaganovitsh, M. (1947). Der yidisher vidershtand in undzer literatur. (The Jewish Resistance in our Literature). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(8-9-10): 54-65. Kaganovitsh, M. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: arbet un dergreykhung fun der historisher-komisye ba PKh”Kh. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Work and Attainment of the Historical Commission of the Organization of Partisans, Soldiers and Pioneers). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 36-38. Kahn, B. (1948). Nokh undzer kultur-konferents. (After Our Cultural Conference). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 1-12.

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Kahn, B. (1949). 15 numern In Gang. (15 Numbers of “In Progress”). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 3(15): 1-16. Kaplan, Y. (1946). Folklor: dos folks-moyl in natsi-klem. (Folklore: Jewish Folk-Expressions under the Nazi Yoke). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 22-24. Kaplan, Y. (1946). Undzer pruv. (Our Task). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 1. Kaplan, Y. (1948). Heyflekh shpliters. (Piles of Remnants). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 45-61. Klausner, A. J. (1948). Forword. . Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): i-ii. Kupferberg, D. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Yivo-arbet in Italye — barikht. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: YIVO Work in Italy — an Account). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 38-39. Laban, H. (1948). Kop-shtudye. Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. Losh, L. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: Bialik — der vizyoner fun der itstiker epokhe. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Bialik — the Visionary of the Current Era). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 5155. Oleyski, Y. (1948). Di fakhshul in Kovner geto. (The Vocational Schools in the Kovno Ghetto). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (9): 23-36. Segal, S. (1947). Biblishe motivn in der kunst fun Roym. (Biblical Motifs in the Art of Rome). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(4-5): 39-47. Segal, Y. (1946). Der ershter kontsert in Vilner geto. (The First Concert in the Vilna Ghetto). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (1): 12-13.

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Segulim, D. (1947). Prese un teater in erets-Yisroel. (Press and Theatre in the Land of Israel). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(4-5): 52-55. Vaynroykh, H. (1948). M’sort [sic] keyn Odes. (We Leave for Odessa). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 135-141. Vind, B. (1947). Dos shtetl un undzer khurbn-literatur. (The Shtetl and Our Holocaust Literature). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(4-5): 1-5. Vind, B. (1947). Geshtaltn un shtremungen in der moderner italyenisher literatur. (Images and Trends in Modern Italian Literature). In Gang: khoydeshzhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(8-9-10): 42-50. Volpe, D. (1948). Bagegenish mitn goyel in a daytshish shtetl & Berkhtesgaden 1947. (Meeting With the Redeemer In a German Village & Berchtesgaden). Shriftn far literatur, kunst un gezelshaftlekhe fragn. (1): 37-42. Weinreich, M. and Y. Shatski (1946). (Briv). ((Letter)). Fun letstn khurbn: tsaytshrift far geshikhte fun yidishn lebn beysn natsi-rezhim. (3): 101. Yerushalmi, E. (1947). Elnt un farvorlozt. (Lonely and Abandoned). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(6-7): 28-30. Yerushalmi, E. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: derefn-rede. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Opening Speech). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 15-16. Yerushalmi, E. (1948). Di 1-te yidishe algemeyne kultur-konferents in Italye: undzer kultur-tetikayt. (The 1st Jewish General Cultural Conference in Italy: Our Cultural Activity). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(13-14): 24-29. Yerushalmi, E. (1948). Goles un erets-Yisroel. (Diaspora and the Land of Israel). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur, kultur un gezelshaftlekhe problemen. 2(11-12): 26-32. Yerushalmi, E. and B. Kahn (1947). Fun der redaktsye. (From the Editorial Board). In Gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst. 1(1): 1-2. Articles from Other Survivor Publications p. 6

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