SIMKHE-YANKEV SIMKHOVITSH (SYMCHOWICZ, SAM
SIMCHOVITCH) (January 21, 1921-July 12, 2017)
He
was born in Sobin (Sobienie Jeziory),
near Otwock, Poland, to a father who was a bootmaker and later a beer tavern-keeper. In his early youth he moved with his parents
to Otwock, close to Warsaw. He studied
in religious primary school and in a public elementary school. After finishing school, he went to work as a
bootmaker, was active in circles of laboring youth in Otwock, and organized and
ran a local Bundist youth group “Tsukunft” (Future) and SKIF (Sotsyalistishe
kinder farband, or Socialist children’s union) organization until the
outbreak of WWII in 1939. Under the
influence of a religion teacher in his Polish school, who, despite being forbidden
from using Yiddish, read before the pupils selections from Yiddish literature,
Simkhovitsh began to write in Yiddish.
He composed poetry, stories, and a long autobiography which he sent into
a competition of young biographers at YIVO in Vilna in 1939. With the outbreak of war that year, he fled
on foot from Otwock to Lutsk, Volhynia, and he remained there until the arrival
of the Red Army. In January 1942 he made
his way to Spassk, Ryazan district, Russia, and he worked there as a stitcher
and shoemaker in a leather factory, while in the evenings he attended a Russian
middle school. That year he left Spassk,
entered the pedagogical institute in Ryazan, and then later moved on to
Alma-Ata and Tashkent. In 1943 he settled
down in the village of Oktyabrsk, Kirgizia, where he worked and married. In 1946 he returned with his wife and
daughter to Poland. He settled in Wrocław, Lower Silesia, where he was active in the local cultural
and art association, while studying at Wrocław University. In 1948 he immigrated to Paris and in 1949
came to Montreal, Canada, where he worked for two years in a leather shop and
pursued his studies in the Jewish teachers’ seminary from which he graduated in
1954. He went on to work in the Jewish
Public Library in Montreal and as a teacher in the Perets schools. His writing activities began with a poem
entitled “Ikh gleyb” (I believe) in Dos
naye lebn (The new life) in Lodz (no. 34, 1946). He later wrote poetry, articles, and stories
for: Dos naye lebn and Yugnt-veker (Youth alarm) in Lodz; Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) in
Warsaw; Unzer shtime (Our voice) in
Paris; Foroys (Onward) in Mexico
City; Loshn un lebn (Language and
life) in London; Der shpigl (The
mirror) in Buenos Aires; Keneder odler
(Canadian eagle) in Montreal; Fraye
arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), Nyu
yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper), Afn shvel (At the threshold), Unzer
tsayt (Our time), Vayter
(Further), and Kinder-zhrnal
(Children’s magazine) in New York; Kalifornyer
lebn (California life) in Los Angeles; and Letste nayes (Latest news) in Tel Aviv. In book form, he published: Azoy iz a yugnt fargangen (So a youngster
dies), poetry (Montreal: Committee of writers, 1950), 79 pp.; In sho fun tfile (In the hour of prayer)
(Montreal, 1958), 76 pp.; and many others.[1] In 1955 he moved to Ottawa, Canada, where he
worked as a teacher in the local Talmud-Torah.
He died in Toronto.
Sources:
Y. Horn, Unzer dor (Our generation)
(Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 156-57; A. Cohen (L. Bayon), in Foroys (Mexico City) (July 1, 1950); Shmuel Leshtshinski, in Fraye arbeter-shtime (New York) (August
4, 1950); A. Lev, in Unzer shtime
(Paris) (July 29, 1950; July 30, 1950); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (?, 1950); A.
Leyeles, in Tog (New York) (?, 1950);
Yankev Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer
(New York) (June 16, 1951); M. N. In
shpigl fun undzer khurbn-literatur (Melbourne) (June 19, 1951); Morris
Kront, in Keneder odler (May 5,
1958); M. M. Shapir, in Di tsukunft
(New York) (December 1958); Y. Varshavski, in Forverts (New York) (June 15, 1958); Der Lebediker, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (May 25,
1958); Y. Bronshteyn, in Keneder odler
(September 8, 1958); Bronshteyn, In eynem
un bazunder (Together and special) (Tel Aviv, 1960), pp. 76-82; Y. Okrutni,
in Idishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires)
(June 6, 1958); Y. Rabinovitsh, in Keneder
odler (November 6, 1959).
Yankev Kahan
[1] Translator’s note.
Simkhovitsh lived more than half a century after this entry was first
published and died at the age of ninety-six.
He published an additional dozen or more books of poetry. (JAF)
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