MIKHL (MIGUEL) GRINES

MIKHL (MIGUEL) GRINES (March 27, 1902-July 10, 1980)

            He was born in Ostre (Ostróg), Volhynia, and was living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  After WWII and the Jewish Holocaust of 1939-1945, he gathered together a great deal of material concerning his destroyed hometown, a city with a major Jewish population, which Nosn Note Hanover marked in his Yeven metsula (Abyss of despair) as: “Destroyed Ostre where the great court of the land of Volhynia and Ukraine once stood,” and published all this in a volume entitled Ven dos lebn hot geblit (When life flourished) (Buenos Aires, 1954), 471 pp.  In his preface, Mortkhe Bernshteyn (Matvey) wrote that he was taken aback by the large quantity of amassed materials, by the manner in which the separate chapters and documents were organized, and he could scarcely believe all of this came together without academic arrangement.  Dr. Y. Shatski, although refuting certain dates and indicating a number of historical lacunae, was nonetheless convinced that this volume deserved mention as a beginning and a proper approach to the issue of memorial books.  He moved to Argentina in 1923.  He died in Buenos Aires.

Sources: M. Bernshteyn, “A virdiker denkmal” (A worthy monument), preface to Ven dos lebn hot geblit; Y. Botoshanski, “Dos gedrukte yidishe vort in argentine in yor tshi”d” (The published word in Argentina in the year, 1953-1954), in Yorbukh tsht”v (1954-1955 annual) (Buenos Aires); Dr. Y. Shatski, “Yizker bikher” (Memorial books), Yivo-bleter (New York) 39 (1955); D. Naymark, in Forverts (New York) (August 4, 1957).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 180.]