RIVKE KVYATKOVSKI-PINKHESIK (RIVKA KWIATKOWSKI-PINCHASIK)

RIVKE KVYATKOVSKI-PINKHESIK (RIVKA KWIATKOWSKI-PINCHASIK) (b. November 11, 1920)

            The author of stories and poetry, she was born in Lodz.  She grew up in a Hassidic family and received a traditional education, but later graduated from middle school.  She was active in the youth organization Gordonia.  She survived the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and other concentration camps.  She was brought with frostbitten hands to a hospital in Moscow where she spent almost a year.  In 1946 he returned to Lodz and in 1949 set off for Israel.  She published stories and poetry in: Dos naye lebn (The new life), Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings), and Bafrayung (Liberation) in Lodz; Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) in Warsaw; Tog (Day) and Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture) in New York; and Nayvelt (New world), Problemen (Problems), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Letste nayes (Latest news), Bay zikh (On one’s own), and Ḥefa (Haifa), among others.  Her work also appeared in: Moyshe Prager, Min hametsar karati (From the depths I read) (Jerusalem, 1956); Almanakh fun di yidishe shrayber in yisroel (Almanac of Yiddish writers in Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1962); Mordekhai Ḥalamish, Mikan umikarov, antologya shel sipure yidish beerets yisrael (From near and from far away, anthology of stories in Yiddish in Israel) (Merḥavya, 1966); and Yankev Glatshteyn’s English-language Anthology of Holocaust Literature (Philadelphia, 1969).  In 1964 she received the Bimko Prize from the World Jewish Culture Congress and in 1974 the Pinski Prize from the Haifa city council.  He writings include: Fun lager in lager (From camp to camp) (Buenos Aires: Polish Jewry, 1950), 290 pp., in Hebrew translation by K. Shabbetai as Nashim meaḥore hagader (Women behind the fence) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961), 226 pp.; Hent (Hands) (Haifa, 1956), 90 pp.; In zikhere hent (In faithful hands) (Haifa, 1965), 206 pp., in Hebrew translation as Beyadayim neemanot; Toyznt mol farvos? Togbukh fun a yingl in lodzher geto (1000 times why? Diary of a boy in the Lodz ghetto) (Tel Aviv, 1971), 163 pp., published in 1970 in Letste nayes under the title Ven mayn velt iz untergegangen (When my world became extinct), translated into simple Hebrew by Yonah Shachar-Levy as Elef paam lama? (Jerusalem, 1982), 119 pp., and in a full translation as Ḥaimke (Little Chaim); Tsvishn karmel un yam (Between Carmel and the sea), poetry (Haifa, 1975), 397 pp., in Hebrew translation by Yosef Aḥai as Ben karmel veyam (Haifa, 1976), 297 pp.; Di letste—di ershte vern (The last become the first), poetry (Haifa, 1980), 134 pp., in Hebrew translation by Yaakov Orland as Aḥaronim shehayu…rishonim lehyot (The last who were…the first to be) (Tel Aviv: Eked, 1984), 163 pp.  “The writer who describes the Nazi era,” wrote M. Kroshnits, “can easily…be seduced into the labyrinth of reproof, curse, and warning….  Rivke Kvyatkovski, however, remained true to her task to recount and describe.  She has not been captivated by a feeling that muffles the senses…and distracts attention from what is essential.”

Sources: Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958); Rokhl Oyerbakh, in Davar (Tel Aviv) (November 7, 1952); M. Kroshnits, in Ḥefa (Haifa), vol. 1 (Haifa, 1963), pp. 39-47; Sh. D. Zinger, in Undzer veg (New York) 12 (1964); Khayim Leyb Fuks, Lodzh shel mayle, dos yidishe gaystiḳe un derhoybene lodzh, 100 yor yidishe un oykh hebreishe literatur un kultur in lodzh un in di arumiḳe shtet un shtetlekh (Lodz on high, the Jewish spiritual and elevated Lodz, 100 years of Yiddish and also Hebrew literature and culture in Lodz and in the surrounding cities and towns) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1972), see index; Rivke Kope, in Unzer vort (Paris) (April 9, 1977).

Ruvn Goldberg

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 480.]