AYZIK GOLDBURT

AYZIK GOLDBURT (1893-August 1943)

            This was the adopted name of Dr. Ayzik Goldberg, born in Vilna.  His father Khayim was a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment and man of worldly education.  Ayzik studied in religious primary school, later in a Vilna high school, and with home tutors he studied Hebrew, Jewish history, and other Jewish subject matter.  He graduated high school in 1912, and went on to study medicine—initially in Geneva, Switzerland, before graduating from Dorpat (Tartu) University in 1916.  During WWI, he was mobilized as a doctor for the Tsarist army.  In 1918 he returned to his ravaged home in Vilna.  In 1919-1920 he served as secretary of OZE (Obschestvo zdravookhraneniia evreev—Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population), and from 1923 he was chairman of the council on medical insurance, elected by the Bund.  He was a school doctor and teacher of natural science and biology in a Jewish high school.  He gave lectures on social hygiene to the Vilna Jewish people’s university.  He was a co-founder and vice-chair of the Vilna Esperanto Society “Universo” (Universe).  He wrote articles for: Naye shul (New school), Shul un heym (School and home), Folksgezunt (Popular health), and for Vilna newspapers.  In 1928 his popular pamphlet, Hygyene fun druker (Health of a printer), was published by the Vilna professional association of printing workers, and Di internatsyonale hilfs-shprakh (The international auxiliary language) (Vilna), 24 pp., was published in 1931 by the Vilna Esperanto Society.  He also published writings on medical topics in Polish and German works.  He was active during WWII as a doctor in the Vilna ghetto.  He subsequently escaped from Vilna, was in Bialystok, and was deported from there by the Germans to his death in Treblinka.

Sources: E. Y. Goldshmidt, in Vilne, a zamlbukh gevidmet der shtot vilne (Vilna, an anthology dedicated to the city of Vilna), ed. Y. Yeshurin (New York, 1936), pp. 433-45; Goldshmidt, in Vilner tog (January 8, 1932); Sh. Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947), p. 260; Dr. M. Dvorzhetski, (Mark Dvorzetsky), Yerusholayim delite in kamf un umkum (The Jerusalem of Lithuania in struggle and death) (Paris, 1948).

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