YOSL GERSHBERG

YOSL GERSHBERG (1915-1942)

            He was born in Lodz, Poland, into a well-to-do merchant household.  His father Leyb was an active Zionist leader.  He received a Jewish education.  In 1938 he graduated from Dr. Broydes’s Polish Hebrew high school in Lodz.  He later worked in his father’s business.  He began writing stories and satires in Hebrew.  He later switched to Yiddish.  He was member of the youngest Lodz writers group.  His first story “Flamen” (Flames) was published in Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) in Warsaw on May 28, 1937.  He also contributed from time to time to Nayes folksblat (New people’s newspaper) in Lodz (1938-1939), Kleyne folkstsaytung (Little people’s newspaper) in Warsaw, and Grine bleter (Green leaves) in Lodz (1939), among others.  When the Germans seized Lodz, he departed for Bialystok; he later returned to Poland and was living in the Warsaw Ghetto.  He died of hunger in the summer of 1942.

Sources: Oral information from his nephew A. Gershberg in Tel Aviv; Kh. L. Fuks, in Fun noentn over 3 (New York, 1957).