OYZER
VARSHAVSKI (April 15, 1898-October 10, 1944)
He was born in Sochaczew, Warsaw
district, Poland, into a well-off family.
His father was a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment who had lived for
a time in London. Oyzer received a
traditional Jewish education, for a short time worked as a Hebrew teacher, and
thereafter mastered the art of photography.
He began writing during WWI. In
1920 I. M. Vaysenberg (Weissenberg) published his work
Shmuglers, a novel in three parts about Jewish life in Poland under
German occupation (illustrated with drawings by Y. Zaydenbeytel) (Warsaw, part
1, 94 pp.; part 2, 94 pp.; part 3, 120 pp.).
The book made a huge impression among Yiddish readers in Poland, Russia,
and various other countries. In a short
period of time, it appeared in several editions (Warsaw: Kultur-life, 1922;
Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1930; Vilna: Kletskin, 1930), in Hebrew translation by Y. H.
Yeivin, as
Mavriḥim, roman
(Smugglers, a novel) (Tel Aviv, 1930), 231 pp., and in a Russian translation by
Yankev Slonim,
Spekulianty (Moscow,
1927), 294.
“He gives us the smugglers so crude and
brutal, and perhaps cruder and more brutal than they were in life…,” wrote
Shmuel Niger. “His depiction of them is
fresh and moist, like a section of a field about to be ploughed…. The crude life is painted crudely—this is
The Smugglers—a sprout of a not yet
mature but fresh and full artistic kernel.”
It was also reprinted much later: (Buenos Aires: Lifshits fund, 1969),
315 pp.
After the great success of his book,
Varshavski remained in Warsaw. He wrote
more, and people expected more work from him.
He took part in activities of writers’ associations. He published correspondence pieces in Di tsayt (The times) in London, and from
time to time places stories in New York’s Tsukunft
(Future); “In di berg” (In the mountains), Khalyastre
(Gang) 1 (1922), pp. 36-39 (Warsaw); “Vayberish” (Womanly), Dos naye lebn (The new life) (1922) (New
York); “Der mundir” (The uniform), Khalyastre
2 (1924), pp. 25-66 (Paris). He
published fragments of a new book, “Shnit-tsayt” (Harvest time), in: Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in
Warsaw, Di royte velt (The red world)
in Kharkov, Albatros (Albatross,
edited by Uri-Tsvi Grinberg) in Warsaw, Milgroym
(Pomegranate) in Berlin-London, and elsewhere.
Due to some sort of confusion with his documents, in 1923 he left
Poland, spent some time in Berlin and London, and in 1924 settled in
Paris. In 1926 he edited a one-off
publication in Paris, entitled Literarishe
revi (Literary review) in which he published his story, “In keler bay
berele bas” (In the cellar with Berele Bas), and from there he also published
his writings in various magazines, among them in the revived Yidishe velt (Jewish world) in Warsaw.
In 1926 Varshavski’s novel Shnit-tsayt (381 pp.) was published by
the Vilna publishing house of Kletskin.
This novel did not realize the hopes that the Yiddish literary critics
had placed on him. It was received coldly
by both critics and readers. He was
discouraged and could write very little thereafter. At least he was able to derive satisfaction
from artists’ circles in Montparnasse and took up painting and writing essays
on art and artists. In this genre he
published: Pinkhes kremer (Pinkhes
Kremer), in the series “Monographs on Jewish Artists” (Paris: Triangl, 1928),
16 pp. in album format; and Avrom
manyevitsh un zayne molerishe verk biz haynt (Avrom Manyevitsh and his work
in painting until today), with a foreword by A. Lunatsharski (New York, 1930),
64 pp. In the 1930s, when publication
began in Paris on the “General Encyclopedia” supported by the Dubnov Fund,
Varshavski performed technical editorial work on it, but he kept himself
entirely aloof from the life of a Yiddish writer. He associated all the more with artists and
those working in the plastic arts in Montparnasse. He was often in the company of Perets Markish
and Ilya Ehrenburg when they spent time in Paris. Foreign guests from the family of Jewish writers
regretted his literary decline and sought an explanation for it. “It seems to me,” wrote Y. Botoshanski, “that
no writer among us has so fallen—so to speak—to the spiritual nadir as has
Oyzer Varshavski…. He glimpsed the
abyss, and he gave no accounting of it that under the water in the well is more
soil, that from the other side of the abyss are more people with new endeavors,
with new complications. Varshavski has
not gone further.”
With the outbreak of WWII,
Varshavski was faced with a spiritual crisis.
Filled with his artistic sensibility that gruesome events were
impending, particularly for Jews, he feverishly prepared for the great theme:
Jews during WWII. He regularly jotted
down, registered, recorded everything that he saw and what was looming about
him. In May 1941 when the Germans were
approaching Paris, he was able to reach Marseilles, and there sought out a
possibility of emigrating anywhere to a country west of the ocean, and then as
he lost all hope for this plan, he departed for the small village of Gard in
Vaucluse department. He was there with
his wife as well as many other Jews at the time, as “involuntary residents”
under police supervision. For a period
of time in 1942 he was in Nice. In the
summer of 1943 when the Germans took all of France, he was able to save himself
and make his way to Saint Gervais in Savoie which was then under Italian
occupation. Thereafter as the Italians
concluded a separate armistice and the Nice Jewish community assembled the Jews
from the southern zone, so that—according to an agreement with the Italian
authorities—they could evacuate to Italy, Varshavski, although the plan did not
come to fruition, left with the receding Italian army. In September 1943 he reached Rome, and over
the course of several months he lived tormented under extremely severe
circumstances, in hiding, for a lengthy period of time in prison in Rome, and
in 1944 he was deported from there to Auschwitz. According to testimony of a survivor in the
Oswego refugee camp (in the United States), Aba Furmanski, Varshavski was
seized by the Gestapo on May 17, 1944.
The last information that we have of him dates to October 1944. In the Paris remembrance volume and in the
local Jewish press, several fragments from his work were published which
indicate that in these most fateful of moments for him, he was still
writing. He died there at Auschwitz.
Varshavski Varshavski
(left), with Perets Markish to his left and H. Leivick facing him; man on right
unidentified
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1 (with
a bibliography); H. Leivick, in Tsayt
(New York) (May 8, 1921); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(New York) (May 1921), pp. 315-20; Niger, in Tsukunft (1924), pp. 325-29; Niger, Shuesn vegn bikher (Chats about books) (New York, 1922), pp.
309-15; N. Mayzil, Noente un vayte
(Near and far), vol. 2 (Vilna, 1926), pp. 204-13; Mayzil, Geven amol a leybn (As life once was) (Buenos Aires, 1951), pp.
76-78, 107, 336; Y. Y. Trunk, Idealizm un
naturalizm in der yidisher literatur
(Warsaw, 1927), pp. 137-57; Trunk, Di yidishe proze in poyln in der
tekufe tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes (Yiddish prose in Poland in the era
between the two world wars) (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 32-49; Trunk, in Poyln (New York) 7 (1953), pp. 78-81;
Trunk, in Unzer tsayt (New York)
(July, August, September 1958); Y. Y. Zinger, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (February 4, 1927); P. Markish, in Shtern (Minsk) (March 1928), pp. 23-28; Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo
(Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1928); Avrom Reyzen, in Tsukunft (March 1930); Y. Botoshanski, Portretn
fun yidishe shrayber (Portraits of Yiddish writers) (Warsaw, 1933);
Botoshanski, in Di naye tsayt (Buenos
Aires) 92 (1950); B. Vinogura, in Literarishe
bleter (December 11, 1936); Report of the first World Jewish Culture
Congress (Paris, 1937); Z. Shaykovski, Yidn
in frankraykh (Jews in France) (New York: YIVO, 1942); D. Tsharni (Daniel
Charney), in Tsukunft (January 1943);
M. Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My
lexicon), vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945); “Tsum ondenk fun oyzer varshavski” (To the
memory of Oyzer Varshavski), Naye prese
(Paris) (March 22, 1946); A. Tsaytlin and Y. Y. Trunk, eds., Antologye fun der yidisher proze in poyln
(Anthology of Yiddish prose in Poland) (New York, 1946); Kh. Aronson and Y.
Vagman, Yizker-bukh tsum ondenk fun 14
umgekumene parizer yidishe shrayber (Remembrance volume to the memory of
fourteen murdered Parisian Yiddish writers) (Paris, 1946); B. Y. Rozen, in Tsukunft (February 1947); Z. Diamant, Loshn un lebn (London) (June 1947);
Diamant, in In gang (Rome) 4-5
(June-July 1947); Diamant, in In dinst
fun folk, almanakh fun yidishn folks-ordn (In the service of the people,
almanac of the Jewish People’s Order) (New York, 1947), p. 436; Diamant, in Yivo-bleter (New York) 37 (1953), pp.
334-37; Diamant, in Fun noentn over
(New York) 4 (1958); M. Litvin, in Naye
prese (March 13, 1948), including a list of Varshavski’s literary heritage;
Kh. Lits, Hasefer haivri (The Hebrew
book) (New York, 1948/1949); L. Kenig, in Di
goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 14 (1952); B. Kutsher, Geven
amol varshe (As Warsaw once was) (Paris, 1955); A. Bekerman, Bleter far geshikhte (Warsaw) 8.1-2
(January-June 1955), p. 63; Y. Rodak, Kunst
un kinstler (Art and artists) (New York, 1955), p. 180; Y. Papyernikov, Heymishe un noente (Familiar and close)
(Tel Aviv, 1958), pp. 230-77; Z. Diamant, in Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science (New York) 8 (1953).
Zaynvl Diamant
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 234.]
