MORTKHE YEVZEROV

MORTKHE YEVZEROV (July 18, 1883-August 1941)

            He was born in Nyezhin (Nizhyn), Chernigov region, Ukraine.  He studied in a Russian high school, from which he was expelled because of his revolutionary activities.  In 1900 he moved to Vilna and became active in the Bund.  He spent time in prison.  He then lived illegally, known by the party name “Volodya.”  He worked, 1906-1907, in the administration of the Bundist daily newspaper Der veker (The alarm) and Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) in Vilna.  From 1907 until WWI, he lived in Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked for the foreign committee of the Bund, later returning to Russia where he was active in relief work on behalf of Jewish war refugees.  In 1919 he settled in Vilna.  He was active on behalf of Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”), the Central Education Committee, and other organizations.  Over the years 1927-1940, he was an employee and for a time director of the Jewish cooperative people’s bank in Vilna.  He was known as the “bibliograph of the Bund.”  Nearly 10,000 bibliographic entries on the Bundist press, which he assembled over his entire life, lie buried somewhere in Vilna, after the Germans entered the city in 1941.  Of his bibliographic writings, he published: “Di yidishe arbeter-bavegung in datn, 1876-1922” (The Jewish labor movement by dates, 1876-1922) and “Di prese fun bund, 1896-1922” (The Bund’s press, 1876-1922), in 25 yor—zamlbukh (Anthology at 25) (Warsaw, 1922); and “Tsu der  biblyografye fun ‘bund’” (On the bibliography of the Bund), in Arbeter luekh (Workers’ calendar) (Warsaw, 1923).  He was killed by the Nazis at Ponar, near Vilna.  A son of his, a doctor, was living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Sources: Pinkes fun yekopo (Records of Yekopo [Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”]) (Vilna, 1931), p. 760; Unzer tsayt (New York) (January-February 1947); M. Bernshteyn, in Doyres bundistn (Generations of Bundists), vol. 2 (New York, 1956), pp. 129-31.

Khayim Leyb Fuks