RIVKE VOYSKOVSKI (SHINDER, SCHINDER-VISKOVSKA)

RIVKE VOYSKOVSKI (SHINDER, SCHINDER-VISKOVSKA) (b. ca. 1900)

            She was born in Lodz, Poland.  She joined the Communist movement in her youth.  She was a cofounder of the Ayznshlos (Eisenschloss) Library and of the drama school attached to Hazemir (The nightingale).  During WWII she was in Bialystok, took part in the uprising against the Germans, and in January 1943 became the leader of the anti-fascist organization in Bialystok; later, she led the partisans’ camp “Foroys” (Onward) in the forests, fell into the hands of the Gestapo, and was tortured, but succeeded in escaping and rejoining the partisans’ fight in the woods.  In August 1943 she was wounded by German gunfire, but remained alive.  After the war she was a member of the central committee of Jews in Poland.  Before WWII she published articles on labor issues in illegal Yiddish periodicals of Lodz, Lublin, and Vilna, as well as in the Polish press.  She later described life in the Bialystok ghetto and the partisans’ struggles in the forests for Lodz’s Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) and Dos naye lebn (The new life), among others.

Sources: Szymon Datner, Walka i zagłada białostockiego ghetto (The struggle and destruction of the Bialystok ghetto) (Lodz, 1946), p. 9; A. Shaykevitsh, in Byalistoker shtime (New York) (September-October 1947); B. Mark, Der oyfshtand in byalistoker geto (The uprising in the Bialystok ghetto) (Warsaw, 1950), p. 16; P. Friedman, Byalistoker shtime (September-October 1951).

Yankev Kohen