AVROM GOLDMAN

AVROM GOLDMAN (1896-1952)

            He was born in Khelm (Chełm), Poland, into a merchant household.  He studied in religious primary school, later in a Russian state high school, and with private tutors.  With the outbreak of WWI, he settled in Pskov, where he was active in the cultural domain.  He also assisted in reorganizing the Pskov Jewish community onto democratic foundations.  He studied medicine in St. Petersburg University.  In 1917, at the time of the February Revolution, he was living in St. Petersburg, and he took an active part in community life.  In 1918 he settled in the Vilna region and began to work actively for secular Jewish schools and culture.  In 1919 with a commission from Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”), he founded a Jewish school in Podbrodz (Pabrade) and was (with Sh. Bastomski and M. Sher) an initiator of a Jewish secular school system.  He was elected in 1921 to the executive of the central “Jewish School Organization for the Vilna Region,” and he thus settled in Vilna and administered Jewish school work.  At the same time, he continued his medical education at Vilna University.  Until WWII, he practiced medicine as a doctor in Vilna.  He was the representative of the head doctor in the hospital “Mishmeret ḥolim” (Guardian of the sick), and he lectured at the sister school run by the Vilna “Toz” (Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia—Society for the protection of health).  During the German occupation, Dr. Goldman manifested an enormous responsibility for his position in the Jewish ghetto hospital, where with utter devotion he helped the Jewish sick.  During the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, he was deported to German camps, and there survived the war.  Until 1949 he lived in Germany, later in New York.  He published articles on community Jewish school issues and on medicine and popular hygiene in: Pinkes far der geshikhte fun vilne in di yorn fun milḥome un okupatsye (Records of the history from Vilna in the years of war and occupation) (Vilna, 1922); Vilner tog (Vilna day), and Folks gezunt (Popular health) in Vilna (1923-1940).  In book form: Algemeyne patologye (General pathology) (Vilna, 1934), 120 pp.  He died in New York.

Sources: Pinkes yekopo (Records of Yekopo) (Vilna, 1930); Sefer hashana lebibliografiya yehudit bepolaniya (Annual Jewish bibliography in Poland) (Warsaw, 1934); Yerusholayim delite in kamf un umkum (The Jerusalem of Lithuania in struggle and death) (Paris, 1948).