BERL POMERANTS

BERL POMERANTS (1902-summer 1943)

            He was born in the village of Adryzhyn, near Pinsk, Poland [now, Belarus].  From 1919 until WWII, he lived in Lodz and Warsaw, where he worked as a Hebrew teacher.  When the Germans occupied Warsaw, he left for Bialystok, and in 1941 moved on to Pinsk.  From there he returned to Warsaw.  He was confined in the Warsaw Ghetto where he was the director of a Hebrew school and of the cultural organization Tekuma (Resistance).  He composed poems in Yiddish and in Hebrew.  He contributed work to: Hatekufa (The epoch) and Baderekh (The pathway) in Warsaw; and Teḥumim (Boundaries) in Lodz; among other serials.  In Yiddish he published poetry and translations of modern Russian poets in publications of the Lodz poetry group and in: Nayer folksblat (New people’s newspaper) in Lodz; Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; and Byalistoker shtern (Bialystok star); among others.  He translated from Yiddish to Hebrew H. Leivick’s “Di balade fun denver sanatorium” (The ballad of the Denver Sanatorium) and poems of the Lodz poetry group.  In book form: Besefatayim el hasela, shirim (Lips on the coin, poems) (Warsaw: Reshit, 1935), 80 pp.; Ḥalon bayaar (Window in the forest), poetry (Cracow: Miflat, 1939), 156 pp.  There is no clear information available about his death.

Sources: G. Preyl, in Hadoar (New York) (May 24, 1940); Mortkhe Yofe, in Dos vort (Munich) (April 2, 1948); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 217; Ksovim fun khayim krul (Writings of Khayim Krul) (New York, 1954); Avraham Shaanan, Milon hasifrut haḥadasha haivrit vehakelalit (Dictionary of modern Hebrew and general literature) (Tel Aviv, 1959), p. 592; Udim (Firebrands) (Jerusalem, 1960), p. 111; Y. Likhtnboym, Shiratenu, antologya, mibiyalik ad yamenu (Our poetry, anthology, from Bialik to our times) (Tel Aviv, 1962), pp. 317-18.

Khayim Leyb Fuks