KHAYE-HINDE LEVI-LISNER

KHAYE-HINDE LEVI-LISNER (January 14, 1912-August 29, 1968)

            She was born in Białaczów, Poland.  She attended public school, and later (1935) she graduated from Sarah Schenirer’s religious women’s teachers’ seminary in Cracow; she worked as an educator in children’s institutions in Lodz, Warsaw (orphans’ home of Dr. Janusz Korczak), Bialystok, and Cracow.  During WWII she was confined in the Lodz ghetto, part of Miriam Ulinover’s writers’ circle.  At the time of the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto, she was deported to Auschwitz, but she survived and in 1945 returned to Lodz.  For a time she worked at a religious children’s institution, and she later lived in a refugee camp in Austria.  She became very ill and until 1949 was in a sanatorium in Italy.  From 1949 she was living in Israel.  She debuted in print with religious children’s poetry in Beys yankev zhurnal (Beys Yankev journal) in Lodz (1925), and later she published poems and stories in: Kinder-gortn (Kindergarten) and Beys yankev zhurnal in Lodz (1926-1939); Unzer hofenung (Our hope) in Warsaw (1926-1934); Nayer folksblat (New people’s newspaper) and Folkskultur (People’s culture) in Lodz; Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Bialystok; Grininke boymelekh (Little green trees) in Vilna; and Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Kinder-fraynt (Children’s friend), Naye folkstsaytung (New people’s newspaper), Kleyne folkstsaytung (Little people’s newspaper), Dos vort (The word), and Der moment (The moment)—in Warsaw; among others.  In the state of Israel, she contributed work to: Letste nayes (Latest news), Lebns-fragn (Life issues), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Hatsofe (The spectator), and Omer (Speech), among other serials.  Her poems were also translated into Hebrew.  In book form: Shutfim, dertseylungen (Partners, stories), stories of the lives of homeless children (Warsaw, 1936), 71 pp.; In fayer un roykh (In fire and smoke) (Tel Aviv, 1966), 180 pp.  In the years of the Lodz ghetto and in the camps, she composed a great number of poems and stories on motifs of destruction, as well as a monograph entitled “Yidishe kinder in lodzher geto” (Jewish children in the Lodz ghetto), for which she received in 1956 a prize from the World Jewish Culture Congress in New York.  In Israel, she moved gradually to Hebrew.  She published poetry in Hebrew newspapers and authored such books as: Shalom, shalom, leolam, esrim sipurim (Peace, peace, to the world, twenty stories) (Tel Aviv, 1958), 78 pp.; and Bemeḥitsato shel yanush korchak, rishumim (Close to Janusz Korczak, impressions) (Tel Aviv, 1965).  She died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), p. 421; Y. R. Brinman, in Oyfgang (Sighet-Marmației) 35-36 (1936); Y. Shtern, in Haynt (Warsaw) 75 (1936); M. Taykhman, in Dos naye vort (Warsaw) (June 22, 1936); Y. M. Petshenik, in Di post (Cracow) (August 8, 1936); V. Karmyol, in Kultur un dertsiung (New York) (January 1948); A. Ayzenbukh, in Yidishe shriftn (Lodz, 1948); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 161; Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), p. 242.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 343-44.]