ELYE (ELIYAHU) GUTKOVSKI

ELYE (ELIYAHU) GUTKOVSKI (1900-April 1943)

            He was born in Kalvarye (Kalvarija), Lithuania.  His father, R. Yankev Gutkovski, lived for many years in Palestine and was an orator and author of religious works in Hebrew.  As a youth, Elye moved to Lodz and graduated there from the Polish-Hebrew Humanities High School, and he completed his studies in engineering at the Warsaw Polytechnicum.  For his dissertation, he translated into Polish the “Eight Chapters” (Shmone perakim) on ethics of Maimonides.  He then worked as a teacher of mathematics and history at the Jewish high school in Lodz.  He was an active leader among the Labor Zionist youth.  From September 1939, he was in Warsaw and later in the Warsaw Ghetto.  There he was a co-founder and secretary of “Oyneg-Shabes” (Enjoying the Sabbath [Jewish historical preservation project]); a close associate of Emanuel Ringelblum in the Central Jewish Archive; an active leader of the right Labor Zionists and the organization Dror (Freedom); and a teacher of history in the illegal Hebrew Dror high school.

            He began publishing articles on general and Jewish community issues in Yugnt-fon (Youth banner), later contributing to Arbeter-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper) and Dos vort (The word) in Warsaw, to Lodzher arbeter (Lodz worker), and others.  In the Warsaw Ghetto, he began a series of research projects of significant value.  A portion of them were unearthed in Ringelblum’s archive, among them the work “Di shvartse berze, der valute-handl in varshever geto, 1939-1941” (The black stock exchange, foreign currency dealings in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1939-1941) in which he succeeded in penetrating the deepest reasons for foreign currency trading in the Warsaw Ghetto.  He also described this way of life at that point in time, as well as the language and practices of the currency traders.  He compiled a fascinating table of currency fluctuations in Warsaw during the war years.  He also wrote about the price-balancing in the Warsaw Ghetto and about the life of school-age youth in Warsaw during the war; he was probably also the author of a plan for a work of research, “2 yor in geto” (Two years in the ghetto), and for a questionnaire for Jewish writers and community leaders about their lives in the ghetto; and he was as well the editor of the illegal Prese-byuletin (Press bulletin) of “Oyneg-Shabes,” which appeared periodically until the ghetto uprising.  Gutkovski wrote and illegally published his work, Payn un gvure in der yidisher geshikhte (Anguish and heroism in Jewish history) (Warsaw, 1941), 120 pp.  The book was read and commented upon by the illegal assembly of Zionist and pioneer youth in the ghetto, and this group also derived courage to rise up against the Germans.  His pseudonyms included: Y. A. Ben-Yankev, Guter, and S-ki.  He was killed during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in April 1943.  His manuscript of a translation of Karl Marx’s Kapital was lost.

Postwar retrieval of Oyneg-Shabes materials  Milk cans, etc. into which documents were

                  placed

Sources: Y. Turkov, Azoy iz es geven (That’s how it was) (Buenos Aires, 1948), p. 248; A. Ayzenberg, in Bleter fun geshikhte (Warsaw) 1-2 (1948), pp. 56, 66-67, 99; M. Nayshtat, Khurbn un oyfshtand fun di yidn in varshe (Destruction and uprising of the Jews in Warsaw) (Tel Aviv, 1948), pp. 394-95; V. H. Ivan, Bleter fun geshikhte 4 (1951), p. 88; E. Ringelblum, Notitsn fun varshover geto (Notices from the Warsaw Ghetto) (Warsaw, 1952), pp. 336, 343; Sefer milkhemet hagetaot (The fighting ghettos) (Tel Aviv, 1954), p. 715; Kh. L. Fuks, “Dos yidishe literarishe lodzh” (Jewish literary Lodz), Fun noentn over 3 (New York, 1957); Yoysef Kermish, in Goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 27 (1957).

Khayim Leyb Fuks