YANKEV OBAZHANEK (OBERZANEK)

YANKEV OBAZHANEK (OBERZANEK) (1891-1943)

     Born in Lodz, studied in religious school, early on became a craftsman; worked until WWI in a textile factory.  In 1918 he began publishing poems in the humor section of Lodzher tageblat (Lodz daily), later becoming an internal contributor.  He also published monologues, tableaux on Lodz themes and written for variety shows: Azazel, Ararat, and Yidishe bande.  After Lodzher tageblat ceased publication, he (1931) became a principal contributor to Nayes folksblat (New people’s news) where he worked until WWII.  Works published in book form: Nadir un veyn nisht (Take this and don’t cry), humorous pieces (Lodz, 1938).  On the twentieth anniversary, January 25, 1938, there was a special issue of Nayer folksblat published with articles about him by Y. Uger, Moyshe Broderzon, Yoysef Okrutni, and Yisroel Rozenberg.  On the first of September 1939, he was arrested together with Y. Uger and other Yiddish writers from Lodz by the Gestapo and thrown into the Radogoszcz concentration camp behind the city of Lodz.  In early 1940 he escaped and made his way to Warsaw, and in early 1943 he died in the Warsaw ghetto.

Sources: Y. Okrutni, Literarisher bleter (Literary leaves) (February 1938); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 54.