YOYSEF VAYNBERG (JOSEPH WEINBERG)

YOYSEF VAYNBERG (JOSEPH WEINBERG) (b. SEPTEMBER 5, 1908)

            He was born in Strzyżów, Galicia, into a devout, well-to-do family.  He graduated from high school and went on to study philosophy at Lemberg University.  He was confined in the Lemberg ghetto and in the Janowska death camp during WWII.  He escaped from the latter in 1942 and lived in the woods.  He was caught in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz and other German camps.  In 1945 he returned to Poland and was active in the Zionist movement in Lower Silesia.  From 1947 he was living in Paris.  He was a member of the central committee of the World Organization of General Zionists.  He was cofounder of the “Free Association of Former Deportees.”  In 1942 he began writing about his experiences in the camps, published in Tsienistishe shtime (Zionist voice) in Paris.  His books include: Der tsienizm af naye vegn (Zionism along new roads) (Paris, 1949), 32 pp.; Tsvishn got un fenrir (Between God and Fenrir) (Paris, 1954), 285 pp.; A trer un a tfile (A tear and prayer) (Paris, 1980), 164 pp. (Hebrew translation, 1981; Spanish, 1982; French, 1984); Dos tvue-kind, roman (The grain child, a novel) (Tel Aviv, 1982), 360 pp. (Hebrew translation as Yaldat hakama, roman, 1984).

Sources: Tsukunft (New York) (New York, 1955); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955), p. 803.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 237.]