KHAYIM RAPOPORT

KHAYIM RAPOPORT (b. September 15, 1915)

            He was born in Warsaw to a poor family, raised in Vilna, and later returned to Warsaw.  He went to work in a factory at age thirteen.  During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), he fought with the International Brigade.  He was a soldier in the Polish and Soviet armies in WWII.  In 1946 he came to Germany as a refugee, and in 1953 he emigrated to Brazil.  He debuted in print in 1934 with a story in Warsaw’s Der fraynd (The friend), the literary supplement to Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper).  He also composed poetry and stories for Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) and Literarishe tribune (Literary tribune), as well as for the Jewish refugee press in Germany, Der nayer moment (The new moment) in São Paolo, Ilustrirte literarishe bleter (Illustrated literary leaves) in Buenos Aires, and for such annual collections as Der poylisher yid (The Polish Jew) in Rio de Janeiro and Unzer shtime (Our voice) in São Paolo.  His work also appeared in Shmuel Rozhanski’s Brazilyanish (Brazilian) (Buenos Aires, 1973).  In book form: In di labirintn fun goyrl, dertseylungen (In the labyrinths of destiny, stories) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1983), 271 pp.  His stories describe the Jewish role in the battle against the Nazis and life in the Polish shtetl.

Meyer Kutshinski

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 502-3.]