AVROM YOAKHIMOVITSH

AVROM YOAKHIMOVITSH (JOACHIMOWICZ) (June 20, 1908-April 7, 1982)

            He was born in Lodz, Poland.  Until WWII, he was the owner of a manufacturing factory in Lodz.  At the same time he wrote poetry and was active in Jewish cultural work.  From March 1940, until August 1944, he was in the Lodz ghetto and took part in the writers’ circle there which gathered around the poetess Miriam Ulinover.  He was later deported to Auschwitz; he spent time in other death camps as well.  In May 1945, he was liberated by the American army, lived for a time Landsberg and Regensburg, and from late 1949 he was in New York.  He published his first poems in the collection Afn shteynernem bruk (On the cobblestone pavement) (Lodz, 1927), and from that point forward he wrote poems for: Os (Letter) in Lodz-Warsaw (1937-1939); Lodzher folksblat (Lodz people’s newspaper), Dos lebn (The life), and Kvaln (Springs) in Lodz; Naye folks-tsaytung (New people’s newspaper) in Warsaw; Di vokh (The week) in Cracow; and Tsvit (Blossom) in Berestechko; among others.  After the war, he published poetry in: Landsberger lager-tsaytung (Landsberg camp newspaper) (1945—Yiddish in Romanized script); Bafrayung (Liberation), Der morgn (The morning), Moment (Moment), Idishe bilder (Jewish images), Emek (Valley), and Tsoytn (Tufts of hair), among others in Germany; Tsukunft (Future), Unzer tsayt (Our time), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Tog (Day), Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), Vayter (Further), and Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine), among others in New York.  In book form: Shtot in roykh (City in smoke), poetry (Lodz, 1938), 46 pp.; and Yidish-ringen (Yiddish links) (New York, 1979), 32 pp.  His poems, with music by Dovid Beyglman, which were sung under the Nazi authorities, may be found in Sh. Katsherginski’s collection, Lider fun getos un lagern (Songs from ghettos and camps) (New York, 1948).  He died in New York.

Sources: Meylekh Ravitsh, in Inzl (Lodz) (March 1938); Sh. Katsherginski, Lider fun getos un lagern (Songs from ghettos and camps) (New York, 1948), pp. 66-67, 86; B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 161; Y. Hesheles, in Vayter (New York) (December 1952); Y. Gar, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), pp. 156-74, 264, 266; A. V. Yasni, Di geshikhte fun yidn in lodzh (The history of Jews in Lodz) (Tel Aviv, 1960), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 292.]