HERSHELE YOAKHIMOVITSH (JOACHIMOWICZ)

HERSHELE YOAKHIMOVITSH (JOACHIMOWICZ) (1928-August 1944)

            He was the son of Avrom Yaokhimovitsh (Joachimowicz), born in Lodz, Poland.  He was a pupil in the Medem School.  From 1940 he was confined in the Lodz ghetto, from which he was later deported to Auschwitz and there murdered.  His first poem “Shney” (Snow) appeared in the student publication of the Medem School (Lodz, 1937).  He went on to compose ghetto poems—“Shpere” (Bars), “Vos kh’ze durkhn fentster” (What I see out of the window), and others—which were read aloud in the evening in the Lodz ghetto.  A number of his poems were included in the publication Min hametsar karati (Out of distress I called out [to the Lord]), in Yiddish and Hebrew (Jerusalem, 1956).

Source: M. Prager, preface to Min hametsar karati (Out of distress I called out [to the Lord]) (Jerusalem, 1956).

Khayim Leyb Fuks