Monday 12 June 2017

YISROEL LEVENTAL

YISROEL LEVENTAL (1918-September 1944)
            His correct name was Yisroel Levintin.  He was born in Lodz, Poland, the son of a tailor.  He attended religious primary school and Polish public school, and he later studied music and the cantorial arts.  Until WWII he was a commercial agent, while at the same time writing popular couplets and songs for entertainment, for which he wrote the music himself.  In the Lodz ghetto he wrote poetry, some of which were found after the war in the archives of the ghetto.  The anthology Dos lid fun geto (The song of the ghetto) (Warsaw, 1962) contains Levental’s poems “Fun oshvyentshim” (From Auschwitz) and also “Feld-fleysh” (Horse meat) and “Dos troyerike geto” (The sad ghetto), which are presented as works by unknown authors, but judging from their language and style they are identical with others of his works.  He was murdered in Auschwitz.

Sources: Dos lid fun geto (The song of the ghetto) (Warsaw, 1962); information from Yirakhmiel Briks and Y. Lederman in New York.
Khayim Leyb Fuks


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