YANKL SHPAN

YANKL SHPAN (1910-1943)

            He was an author of stories, born with the surname Shifman in Warsaw.  In 1924 he moved with his parents to the land of Israel.  He returned to Poland in 1931 and then in 1936 settled in Paris.  He was active in leftwing Jewish circles.  He published stories in Lodz’s Literarishe tribune (Literary tribune), Parizer zhurnal (Parisian journal), and Naye prese (New press).  With A. Shurek, he brought out the periodical Der oyfkum (The rise) in Lodz.  His work also appeared in the collection Lebn un kamf (Life and struggle) (Minsk, 1936).  In book form: Af shvern grunt, palestiner roman (On difficult soil, a novel of Palestine) (Paris: A. B. Tserato, 1939), 256 pp.  He was deported on November 13, 1943 to Auschwitz where he died.

Sources: Yizker-bukh tsum ondenk fun 14 umgekumene parizer yidishe shrayber (Remembrance volume to the memory of fourteen murdered Parisian Yiddish writers) (Paris: Oyfsnay, 1946), p. 225; 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), pp. 31, 34.

Berl Cohen