ELKHONEN TSAYTLIN (ZEITLIN) (March 15, 1902-December 15,
1941)
He was
born in Rohatshev (Rahachow), Byelorussia, the son of Hillel Tsaytlin and the
brother of Arn Tsaytlin. He studied
Jewish subject matter with itinerant schoolteachers and with his father. He began studying secular subjects in Warsaw
initially in a Russian high school. He
graduated, though, in 1920 from a Polish Jewish high school. In 1921 he and his older brother Arn Tsaytlin
experienced a not completely legal trip to the land of Israel and stayed there
for almost a year in the colony of Zikhron-Yaakov, and he served as secretary
in the local school there. After
returning to Warsaw, he enrolled in the medical faculty but did not complete
his studies. He became an active leader
in the Jewish Folks-partey (People’s party).
He founded the popular youth organization “Perets” and was its chairman,
as well as chairman of the popular academic youth association, for a time
secretary general of its central council, and founder of the national-socialist
section of the Folks-partey. After a
short time, he left the Folks-partey and joined no other party, but
ideologically he was very close to circles which were leading the fight to
rebuild the land of Israel. Over the
course of those years, Tsaytlin was very active in the Jewish community. He worked with the Ukrainian committee,
served as secretary general of Warsaw’s TOZ (Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia [Society
for the protection of health]), and shortly before WWII secretary of the Warsaw
writers’ and journalists’ association.
He began his journalistic work for a variety of daily newspapers. He regularly published in: Dos folk (The people), Grafman’s Di idishe tribune (The Jewish tribune), Ilustrirte vokh (Illustrated week), Yud (Jew), and Hator (The turtle-dove) in Jerusalem, as well as in the provincial
press. He assisted in the editing of Vanderer (Wanderer). Together with his brother Arn, he published Dos grine blat (The green sheet)—only one
issue appeared—and a daily entitled Varshever
tsaytung (Warsaw newspaper) which appeared over the course of three
months. He also contributed work to: Der blits (The flash), Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves),
and Varshever shriftn (Warsaw
writings), among others. For a time, he
served as editor of the Warsaw chronicle in Moment
(Moment). In 1926 he and a group of
journalists founded the daily Varshever ekspres
(Warsaw express), later known as Unzer
ekspres (Our express), of which he was one of the principal editors,
journalists, theater critics, and the like until the outbreak of WWII. At the start of the war, he fled to
Lemberg. He later returned to Warsaw,
where he worked in Jewish social self-help and assisted a great deal in
organizing the cultural work in the ghetto.
He began ill in the summer of 1941 with a severe typhus, and this
aggravated his diabetes. In early December
he died of his illness and was accorded the honor of being buried in Israel.[1] Aside from his journalistic writings,
Tsaytlin wrote poetry and memoirs about his father’s literary home. The first volume of this memoir before
WWII. The second volume he completed in
manuscript, but it was lost during the war.
His books include: Dos
tsienistishe erets-yisroel in likht fun perzenlekhe beobakhtungen (The
Zionist land of Israel in light of personal observations) (Warsaw: Kultur-fond,
1922), 32 pp.; A bikhele lider (A
little volume of poetry) (Warsaw, 1931); In
a literarisher shtub, bilder, bagegenishn, epizodn (In a literary home,
images, meetings, episodes), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1937), 192 pp. (a second volume
with accompany notes from Shmuel Niger and M. Turkov and an afterword by Arn
Tsaytlin) (Buenos Aires, 1946), 226 pp.; Bukh
un bine, notitsn un refleksn iber literatur un teater (Book and stage, notes
and reflections on literature and theater), a collection of essays on Yiddish
writers and stage artists (Warsaw, 1939), 214 pp.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Elye (Elias) Shulman, in Oyfkum (New York) (March-April 1938); Y. Vulf, Kritishe memuarn (Critical memoirs) (Cracow, 1939); Dr. A. Mukdoni,
in Vilner tog (Vilna) (January 6,
1939); Sh. Rozhanski,
Dos yidishe gedrukte vort in argentine (The published Yiddish word in
Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941); D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), in Tsukunft (New York) (January 1943); N.
Mayzil, in Yidishe kultur (New York)
(October 1944); M. Mozes, in Der
poylisher yid (Warsaw) (1944); F. Bizberg, in Shpigl (Buenos Aires) (November 1946); Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 1
(Montreal, 1945); Ravitsh, in Keneder
odler (Montreal) (March 31, 1947); Ravitsh, Dos amolike yidishe varshe, biz der shvel fun dritn khurbn, 1414-1939
(The Warsaw that was, until the threshold of the Holocaust, 1414-1939) (Montreal,
1966); E. Almi, in Der veg (Mexico
City) (January 14, 1947); Y. Freylekh, in Undzer
veg (New York) (July 1948); G. Aronson, in Tsukunft (January 1951); Arn Tsaytlin, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (July 1954).
Yekhiel Hirshhoyt
[1] Translator’s note.
The text here places these events in 1942, but online sources give his
illness and death in 1941. Given what
was happening in the Warsaw Ghetto in late 1942, it seems highly unlikely that
an individual corpse would be accorded the honor of transport and burial in
Israel, but this detail remains unclear. (JAF)
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