GRISHA (GERSHON) YASHUNSKI

GRISHA (GERSHON) YASHUNSKI (b. October 25, 1910)

            The son of Yoysef Yashunski, he was born in Vilna.  He received a secular Jewish upbringing.  He graduated from the Jewish senior high school and later the law faculty of Warsaw University.  Until WWII he was a practicing attorney in Warsaw, at the same time active in the Bund, the student association “Ringen” (Links), and other groups.  When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, he departed for Vilna where he was coopted unto the Judenrat (Jewish Council) in 1941, had a major influence in Jewish ghetto life, and cooperated with the secret work of the Jewish resistance organization.  At the time of the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, he was hidden by a Christian on the premises of the city archives.  In the summer of 1944 he moved to Lublin, later becoming a member of the central committee of Jews in liberated Poland and a member of its delegation to the London conference of the World Jewish Congress (August 1945).  He was also a member of the central committee of the revived Bund in Poland and of the Bundist delegation to New York in 1946.  In 1949 he visited New York for a second time—this time as a correspondent for a Warsaw Polish newspaper.  He began writing with music reviews in the Warsaw Bundist Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper).  After the war he contributed to: Prese-byuletin (Press bulletin) in Lublin (1944-1945); Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Lodz (1945-1948); Naye folkstsaytung (New people’s newspaper) in Warsaw (1946-1948)—all three of which he also coedited.  He translated from Russian and German into Yiddish: Bertold Paul Wiesner, Faryungerung (Rejuvenation [original: Das Problem der Verjüngung]) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1929), 111 pp.; G. G. Stecher, Kumendike doyres, araynfir in oygenik (Coming generations, introduction to hygiene) (Warsaw, 1929), 106 pp.; Anton V. Nemilov, Byologishe tragedye fun der froy (Biological tragedy of women) (Warsaw, 1929), 190 pp.; Stefan von Fodor, Edison, der lebnsveg fun a derfinder ([Thomas Alva] Edison, the life path of an inventor) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1930), 120 pp.; Henry Ford, Mayn lebn un oyftu (My life and work) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1931), 98 pp.—all edited by his father for the series “Kultur un visnshaft” (Culture and science).  He himself wrote and published Mit vos lebt di tekhnik? (How does technology live?) (Warsaw, 1930), 100 pp.  He was last living in Warsaw.  He was a regular contributor to the Polish daily Życie Warszawy (Life of Warsaw).

Sources: Dr. Dvorzhetski (Mark Dvorzetsky), Yerusholaim delite in kamf un umkum (The Jerusalem of Lithuania in struggle and death) (Paris, 1948), see index; Yonas Turkov, In kamf farn lebn (In a struggle for life) (Buenos Aires, 1949), p. 397; Turkov, Nokh der bafrayung, zikhroynes (After liberation, memoirs) (Buenos Aires, 1959), pp. 98, 118, 203; P. Shvarts, in Fun noentn over (New York) 2 (1956), p. 426.

Khayim Leyb Fuks