YANKEV SHUDRIKH (November 20, 1906-June 1943)
He was a
poet, born in Uhniv (Hivniv), Galicia. He
was a furrier by trade. He settled in
Lemberg. He was a cofounder in 1932 of
AYAP—“Algemeyne yidishe arbeter-partey” (General Jewish labor party), which
took Communist positions. He was
arrested several times for Communist activities. With the start of WWII, he found himself
confined in the Lemberg ghetto. He
organized a resistance group there and linked up with the partisans. He died in the fighting while fleeing with a
group of Jews from the Lemberg ghetto to join the partisans—in another version,
due to a provocation caused by a car driver, he was taken to the Gestapo and
shot there. Yet another story was told
by his Ukrainian friend, Yaroslav Galan (Halan, 1902-1949): “One morning, Shudrikh
happened to meet face-to-face with a group of Gestapo men who were actually
looking for him. He greeted them with a
volley of shots from his pistol.
Shudrikh died with glory.”
He began
writing poetry in his youth, mostly on themes of struggle. In June 1932 he took part in a conference of
representatives from Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish intellectuals in the fields
of literature, science, music, and art, dedicated to the proposition to convene
an international anti-militaristic congress.
He wrote for the semi-legal AYAP organ, Der veg (The way), and for Tsu
shtern (To the star), and he took a leading place in his hometown’s “Jewish
people’s reading room named for Y. L. Perets.”
He also contributed to: Literarishe
bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw, Unzer
zibn teg (Our seven days) (Warsaw, 1936), Tsushteyer (Contribution) in Lemberg, Sovetishe literatur (Soviet literature) in Kiev, and other leftist
journals. He composed lyrical-social
poetry. Some of his poems were sung at
demonstrations. His work appeared as
well in: Lebn un kamf (Life and struggle) (Minsk,
1936); Yitskhok Paner and Leyzer Frenkel, Naye yidishe dikhtung (Modern Yiddish poetry) (Iași: Jewish
cultural circle in Romania, 1947); Binem Heler, Dos lid iz geblibn, lider fun yidishe dikhter in poyln, umgekumene beys
der hitlerisher okupatsye, antologye (The poem remains, poems by Jewish
poets in Poland, murdered during the Hitler occupation, anthology) (Warsaw,
1951); Hubert Witt, Der
Fiedler vom Getto: Jiddische Dichtung aus Polen (The fiddler of the ghetto,
Yiddish poetry from Poland) (Leipzig, 1966); Witt, Meine jüdischen Augen jiddische Dichtung aus Polen (My Jewish
eyes, Yiddish poetry from Poland) (Leipzig, 1969). In book form: Di erd rirt, lider (The earth moves, poetry) (Warsaw: Literarishe
bleter, 1937), 62 pp., later edition (Buenos Aires, 1953), 87 pp.; Oyfshtayg (Ascent), poetry (Kiev-Lvov:
State Publ., 1941), 96 pp.
Sources: Nokhum Bomze, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (April 1946); B. Mark, Umgekumene
shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and
camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 206; Entsiklopediya
shel galiyut (Encyclopedia of the Diaspora), vol. 7 (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv,
1956), p. 764; Y. Shulmayster, in Sovetish
heymland (Moscow) 7 (1977); Sh. Shtern, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (August 21, 1977); Forverts (New York) (January 21, 1979); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New
York).
Ruvn Goldberg
[Additional
information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon
fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish
writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York:
Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 378.]
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