ELYE VATENBERG

ELYE VATENBERG (1887-August 12, 1952)

            A writer on current events and a translator, he was born in the city of Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivs'k, Stanislavov), eastern Galicia (Ukraine), into a poor family. His father emigrated to the United States three times, and the third time he worked under harsh conditions in a tailoring factory. Elye graduated from a state high school, and at age thirteen went to work as a private tutor and early on joined the socialist movement. He later studied at the Universities of Lemberg (Lvov) and Vienna, where he received his doctoral degree in economics and law, and until WWI he was a lawyer in Stanislav and was a community leader among the Labor Zionists. When the Russians seized his city in 1914, he escaped to Vienna where he lived until 1920. In late 1920 he moved to the United States. Initially active in Labor Zionism, he switched to the left Labor Zionists in New York. And, in late 1921 he moved over to the Communists. In 1924 he was one of the organizers and secretary-general of IKOR (Yidishe kolonizatsye organizatsye in rusland [Jewish colonization organization in Russia]), and worked in an active capacity in various other Jewish Communist institutions in New York. On three occasions in the second half of the 1920s and the early 1930s, he visited the Soviet Union (1926, 1929, and 1931), and in 1933 he finally settled in Moscow, where he worked as a teacher and later as inspecting editor of the state publishing house for foreign literatures. He began publishing articles in the organ of the Labor Zionists in Austria, Der yudisher arbayter (The Jewish worker) (Cracow-Lemberg), later contributing to the left Labor Zionist press in America and Poland: Arbeter tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper) in Warsaw, Proletarisher gedank (Proletarian idea) in New York.  After his move to the Communist camp, he was a regular contributor to: Frayhayt (Freedom), Morgn-frayhayt (Morning freedom), Hamer (Hammer), and Frayhayts almanakh (Freedom almanac) (1926). Over the course of many years, he published articles related to current events in the American press, in Emes (Truth) in Moscow, in Der shtern (The star) in Kiev, and in other publications. He was also a translator from German, English, and other languages. He translated into Yiddish (together with Khayim Kantorovitsh) the first volume of Karl Kautsky’s Geshikhte fun sotsyalistishn gedank (History of socialist thought [original: Geschichte des Sozialismus]) (New York: Kultur, 1921), 280 pp. He was arrested at the time of show trials (1937), and until the founding of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1941, nothing was heard of him. He then published articles in the newspaper Eynikeyt (Unity). In issue #12 (September 25, 1942), for example, the second page opened with his article “Yidn shtarbn langzam” (Jews are slowly dying). The title was taken from Hitler’s statement during his “Inspection Tour” of the occupied regions of Poland. In the issue of Eynikeyt for December 21, 1944, one finds his article “Ver vet mishpetn di hitlerishe milkhome-farbrekher” (Who will judge Hitler’s war crimes). He was seen again in 1948 when he gave public radio speeches to the Jewish masses, but in 1948 with the destruction of Jewish culture in Russia, he disappeared without a trace. He and his wife Tsharne were among the thirteen members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee who were shot on August 12, 1952.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1928); A. Glants, in Tog (New York) (March 3, 1933); Eynikeyt (Moscow) (June 17, 1942); P. Novik, Eyrope tsvishn milkhome un sholem (Europe between war and peace) (New York, 1948), p. 351; information from his brother Yehude in New York.

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 128.]