YITSKHOK SHVARTSBART (ISAAC, IGNACY SCHWARZBART)

YITSKHOK SHVARTSBART (ISAAC, IGNACY SCHWARZBART) (November 13, 1898-1961)

            He was born in Khzhanov (Chrzanow), Galicia.  He graduated from the law faculty of Cracow University and received his doctoral degree there.  He served as an officer in the Austrian army.  He was a city councilor on the Cracow city council.  In 1938 he was a deputy in the Polish Sejm.  He was among the Zionist leaders in Poland and an initiator of the “World Union of General Zionism.”  At the start of WWII, he fled from Poland and became a member of the Polish government-in-exile in London.  From 1946 he was living in the United States and was among the leadership of the World Jewish Congress.  He wrote journalistic articles in Polish, German, and Yiddish, and mainly on Zionist and Polish Jewish topics.  He was a frequent contributor to Moment (Moment) in Warsaw.  In book form: Tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes, zikhroynes vegn dem yidishn lebn in krako in der tkufe 1919-1935 (Between the two world wars, memoirs of Jewish life in Cracow in the period 1919-1935) (Buenos Aires: Central Association of Polish Jews in Argentina, 1958), 385 pp.  Pamphlets: Gedenken un boyen, iberblik un analiz fun di gedenk-fayerungen fun tsvelfṭn yorṭog funem varshavver geṭo oyfshtand (Remembrances and rebuilding, survey and analysis of the memorial celebrations for the twelfth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising) (New York: Jewish World Congress, 1955), 17 pp.; A vorenung! (A warning!) (New York, 1957), 9 pp.; Torn mir derlozn, az undzere anna franks un undzere mortkhe anileviṭshes zoln fargesn vern? Iberblik un analiz fun di haskores fun fuftsentn yortog funem varshaṿer geṭo oyfshtand (Should we allow our Anna Franks and our Mordechai Anielewiczes to be forgotten? Survey and analysis of the memorials for the fifteenth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising) (New York: World Jewish Congress, 1959), 29 pp.  He died in New York.

Sources: Y. Tenenboym, in Tsukunft (New York) (February 1959); Shmuel Izban, in Der amerikaner (New York) (February 6, 1959); Shmuel-Leyb Shnayderman, in Der veg (June 10, 1961).

Berl Cohen