LEYZER HEYMEN

LEYZER HEYMEN (1908-July 1944)

            He was born in Kovarsk (Kavarskas), near Vilkomir (Ukmergė), Lithuania.  In 1915, during the expulsion of Jews during WWI, he moved with his parents to Minsk.  They returned after the war to Vilkomir.  They settled in 1920 in Kovno, and there he studied in yeshiva, later in a Hebrew high school and later still law in Kovno University.  He began writing in his high school years, debuting in print with a story in Di idishe shtime (The Jewish voice) in Kovno (1926).  From that point he placed stories, articles, and literary works in the Kovno Yiddish newspapers: Di idishe shtime, Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper), and Tsientisher gedank (Zionist idea), as well as in practically every one-off literary publication in Lithuania, such as: Mir aleyn (We alone) (1928), Shlyakhn (Rough roads) (1932), Bleter (Leaves) (1938), Ringen (Links) (1940), and Shtraln (Beams) (1941).  He also published Hebrew-language stories in Ketavim (Writings) in Tel Aviv.  During the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, during the years of WWII, he was a regular contributor to Emes (Truth) in Kovno-Vilna, and he published in it, aside from his own original pieces, translations from Lithuanian and Russian.  In 1941 he won first prize in the literary competition of this newspaper for a novella which depicted the life of a poor landless peasant family which through Soviet land reform for the first time received their own bit of land.  Among his books: Avrom mapu, historishe dertseylung (Abraham Mapu, historical recounting) (Kovno, 1937), 36 pp.; Shriftn (Writings) (Tel Aviv: Igud yotse lite, 1972), 192 pp.  Heymen’s distinctive writing style expressed itself in its acute artistic realism in depictions of healthy village Jews.  His stories—“Di letste yidn” (The last Jews), “Erev khoge” (Eve of a holiday), and “Kavarsker bern-trayber” (Kavarsk livestock driver)—paint a bit of a peculiar Jewish life in Lithuania.

            During the Nazi occupation he was confined to the Kovno ghetto and worked at the aerodrome as an unskilled laborer.  In June 1944 when the Germans carried out their round-ups, he hid with his wife Tsipore and other Jews in a bunker, to which the Nazis set fire and he was burnt to death alive.

Sources: Y. Mark, in Zamlbukh lekoved dem tsveyhundert un fuftsikstn yoyvl fun der yidisher prese, 1686-1936 (Anthology in honor of the 250^th jubilee of the Yiddish press, 1686-1936), ed. Dr. Y. Shatski (New York, 1937); Y. Bashevis, in Tsukunft (New York) (July 1940); D. Tsharni (Charney), in Tsukunft (January 1943); N. Y. Gotlib, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (December 17, 1945); Gotlib, in Afrikaner idishe tsaytung (Johannesburg) (October 26, 1956); G. Grinblat, in Tav shin he (Tel Aviv) (1945), p. 559; M. Yelen, in Folks-shtime (Lodz) 46 (1947); Dr. Sh. Grinhoyz, in Lite (New York) 1 (1951), p. 1753; Y. Kaplan, in Der veg (Mexico City) (February 8, 1958)

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 218.]