SHMUEL HALBERSHTAT

SHMUEL HALBERSHTAT (1893-1944)

            He was born in Warsaw, Poland, into a rabbinical family.  He studied in religious primary school and yeshiva, later secular subjects as well.  During WWI he became an active leader in the youth Bund “Tsukunft” (Future) in Poland.  He subsequently worked as a representative of the Bund in the Jewish trade union movement in Radom, and from there in 1919 he moved to Vilna where he studied at the university.  From 1933 until WWII, he worked as a reporter for Vilner tog (Vilna day) under the pseudonym “A” and was the Vilna correspondent for Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper) in Warsaw.  During the Nazi occupation he was in the Vilna ghetto, suffering from want and hunger.  His wife (a relative of Y. L. Peretz) worked in the ghetto infirmary.  When the ghetto was liquidated, both were deported to the Klooga Concentration Camp in Estonia and there killed.

Sources: Y. Sh. Herts, Geshikhte fun a yugnt (Story of a youngster) (New York, 1946), p. 241; Sh. Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947), p. 188; Dr. M. Dvorzhetski (Mark Dvorzetsky), Yerusholayim delite in kamf un umkum (The Jerusalem of Lithuania in struggle and death) (Paris, 1948), p. 256; L. Ran, 25 yor yung vilne (Twenty-five years of young Vilna) (New York, 1955).