AHRN (ARTSY) BREZINSKI

AHRN (ARTSY) BREZINSKI (d. July 12, 1941)

            He was born in Batki Wielkie, Bialystok region, into a family of timber merchants.  He studied in religious elementary school and yeshiva.  At age ten, he was already renowned in the area as a prodigy and as proficient in Hebrew, Yiddish, and world literature.  In 1914 he first published a story in Byalistoker tageblat (Bialystok daily newspaper), edited by A. Sh. Hershberg.  After WWI, he became a contributor to Byalistoker lebn (Bialystok life), edited by Peysekh Kaplan.  In 1929 he wrote for Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Bialystok.  From 1931 he was on the editorial collective of Undzer lebn (Our life) in Bialystok.  In 1933 he was editor of Gut-morgn (Good morning) in Bialystok.  He published stories in: Tog (Day) in New York; Di post (The mail) in London; and Velt-shpil (World play) in Warsaw.  In the 1930s he was awarded a prize for his story “Iser der bukhhalter” (Iser the bookkeeper) in a short story competition in the Forverts (Forward) in New York.  In 1934 he traveled to Palestine and published a travelogue in Byalistoker lebn.  Among his books: Undzer khoreve heym: dertseylungen, bilder, reportazhn (Our ruined home: stories, images, reportage) (Bialystok, 1936), 109 pp.  In 1940, under Soviet dominion, he wrote for Byalistoker shtern (Bialystok star) and was a proofreader for a Byelorussian railway workers’ newspaper.  On June 19, 1941, he was arrested by the Soviet authorities and thrown in a Bialystok jail.  On Saturday, July 12, 1941 he and fifty other Bialystok Jews were shot by the Germans.

Sources: M. Grosman, Heymishe geshaltn (Images of home) (Tel Aviv, 1953); R. Rayzner, Der umkum fun byalistoker yidntum, 1939-1945 (The destruction of Judaism in Bialystok, 1939-1945) (Melbourne, 1948); Byalistoker leksikon (Bialystok handbook) (Bialystok, 1935); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954); Mark, Der oyfshtand in byalistoker geto (The uprising in the Bialystok ghetto) (Warsaw, 1950); Rokhl, in Arbeter-vort (Paris) (March 5, 1948); Ab. Kahan, in Forverts (New York) (May 13, 1931); A. Volf Yasni, in Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings), vol. 3 (Lodz, 1946).