SHIMEN ORENSHTEYN

SHIMEN ORENSHTEYN (December 21, 1910-August 27, 1983)

            He was born in the village of Bedevle (Bedeval), Carpatho-Rus’.  His Hebraized name was Aviali.  In 1920 his family moved to Grosswardein, Hungary.  He studied in a secular school, later in a yeshiva.  He then departed for Leipzig where he completed his baccalaureate in R. Karlibach’s school.  Disappointed by Communism, in 1930 he became active in Hashomer hatsair (Young guard) and Heḥaluts (Pioneer).  In 1935 he made aliya to Israel.  From 1947 he was in Czechoslovakia as a researcher for Israeli industry.  In connection with the well-known Slansky trial, he was arrested and in 1953 sentenced to life in prison, but in 1956 he was freed.  He described his experiences in Prague in thirty installments in Forverts (Forward) in 1960.  His autobiography Meoravot (Involvement) (Jerusalem, 1978), 358 pp., appeared in an enlarged version in Yiddish under the title Gerangl (Struggle) (Tel Aviv: Peretz Publ., 1980), 480 pp.  He also wrote two subsequent books about the Slansky trial in Hebrew: Alila beprag (Libel in Prague); and Lefi pekuda mimoskva (Following orders from Moscow) (Tel Aviv, 1969), 271 pp.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Y. Sharet, in Maariv (Tel Aviv) (April 5, 1968); R. Bund, in Davar (Tel Aviv) (June 16, 1978); Y. Kahan, in Yidishe nayes (Melbourne) (July 24, 1981).

Reuven Goldberg