SHMUEL ZAROMB

SHMUEL ZAROMB (1896-1942)

            This was the adopted name of Moyshe-Tsvi Fayntsayg, who was born in Brok, near Ostrów-Mazowiecka (Ostrov-Mazovyetsk), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary schools and in the yeshiva in Ostrów until age eighteen.  He later moved to Lomzhe, where he worked as a private Hebrew and Yiddish teacher.  He was in Warsaw, 1924-1939, and there he was an active leader among Labor Zionist youth, traveling across the Polish provinces with speeches on the land of Israel and Yiddish literature.  At the beginning of WWII, he escaped from Warsaw to Soviet Bialystok, but there he was persecuted because of his Zionist convictions and had to move on further.  He then made his way to Nyesvizh (Niasviž), Byelorussia, and he was there until the end of 1941 when the Nazis imprisoned him in a concentration camp.  He was killed in the autumn of 1942.  He debuted in print with poems in Varshever almanakh (Warsaw almanac) in 1923.  He went on to publish poetry, novellas, essays, and articles in: Varshever shriftn (Warsaw writings) in 1926, Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in 1928, Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) over the years 1926-1939, Haynt (Today), Dos vort (The word), Arbeter-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper), Foroys (Onward), Dos naye vort (The new word), and Vokhnshrift (Weekly writing)—all in Warsaw; Nayer folksblat (New people’s newspaper) in Lodz; and elsewhere.  From the German he translated Georg Fink’s novel, Du host farblondzhet? (Are you lost? [original: Hast du dich verlaufen?], published in the daily newspaper, Dos vort, in Warsaw (1935).  He edited: Ershter shnit (First cut) (Warsaw, 1930-1931), 32 pp. each; Konturn (Outlines) (Warsaw, 1934), 32 pp.; Shriftn (Writings), a monthly journal for literature and art (Warsaw, 1936-1938); and together with M. B. Shteyn, the Friday literary supplement to Dos vort, Dos naye vort (Warsaw, 1935-1939).  He also published under the pseudonyms: Sh. Z. and Sh. Zar, among others.  His wife and son were living in the state of Israel.  Zaromb’s poetry was mystical and tragic; erotic motifs dominated in them.

Sources: Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings), an anthology (Lodz, 1946), p. 3; A. Rives (Naymovits), in Nay-velt (Tel Aviv) 146 (1952); Rives, in the remembrance volume Lomzhe (New York, 1957), pp. 100-1; B. Heler, Dos lid iz geblibn (This poem remained) (Warsaw, 1951), pp. 94-96; B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 217; Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), p. 264; Y. Gar, in Fun noentn over 3 (1957), p. 300; M. Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958), pp. 179-81.

Khayim Leyb Fuks