HESHL DANTSIGER (DANZIGER)

HESHL DANTSIGER (DANZIGER) (1911-1943)

            He was born in Sosnovits (Sosnowiec), Poland, into a Hassidic family which was followers of the Aleksander rebbe.  He studied in religious primary school, synagogue study hall, and secular subject matter with private tutors.  He later became an employee in a commercial firm.  He began publishing poetry in the anthology Yung zaglembye (Young Zagłębie) 1-4 (1936) in Sosnovits, a journal he co-edited with Tevye Boym and Leyzer Shikman.  He participated in a poetry contest run by the journal In zikh (Introspective) in New York (1937), and therein published his poem “Gedank” (Thought).  He also contributed to Os (Letter) (Lodz-Warsaw, 1938-1939), Nayes folksblat (New people’s newspaper) in Lodz, Zaglembyer tsaytung (Zagłębie newspaper) in Bendin (Będzin), and Shlezish-zaglembyer tsaytung (Silesian-Zagłębie newspaper) in Katowice, among others.  During the Nazi occupation he was in the Sosnovits ghetto, where despite suffering and hunger he wrote a great deal, especially satires and rhymes.  In the summer of 1943, he was deported to Auschwitz, and there he was murdered by the Nazis.

Source: Yankev Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (January 31, 1947).