AVROM SKURNIK

AVROM SKURNIK (b. March 10, 1913)

            He was born in Lodz, Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school and later in a public school.  From 1928 he was active in political life, initially in the Communist youth movement, later in the Labor Zionist-Hitaḥdut (Unity) party.  He was imprisoned in Polish jails for a long period of time.  From 1937 he was in Paris, serving as secretary of the Parisian organization of the Labor Zionists.  During WWII he volunteered to serve in the French army, was wounded in fighting against the Germans, and fell into German captivity.  After the war he was a cofounder and central committee member of the Jewish combatants’ association and a member of the executive of the Jewish writers and journalists’ association in France and a regular contributor to Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris, in which he published literary essays, political articles, and reportage pieces.  He placed work in: both the first and second issues of the Almanakh (Almanac) of the Jewish writers’ association in Paris, Unzer kiem (Our existence), and Der triko-fabrikant (The tights factory) in Paris; Di naye tsayt (The new times) in Buenos Aires; Ilustrirte vokh (Illustrated week) in Tel Aviv; and Di yidishe post (The Jewish mail) in Melbourne; among others.  He was the author of a pamphlet concerning Khrushchev’s flattery of Stalin (Paris, 1962), 16 pp.  He also published under such pen names as: A. Uri and Alef Samekh.  He was last living in Paris.

Khayim Leyb Fuks