MOTL MINKOV

MOTL MINKOV (1910-1940s)

            He was born in Vilna into a poor home.  In 1923 he graduated from an eight-tier boys’ Jewish school run by “Mefitse haskole” (Society for the promotion of enlightenment [among the Jews of Russia]).  After studying for four years at the Jewish teachers’ seminary, he had to interrupt his studies and do his military service.  Together with his school friends Sh. Beylis, Sh. Kahan, B. Mikhtam, and D. Gurland, among others, who later belonged to the literary-artistic group “Yung vilne” (Young Vilna), Minkov co-edited the school journal Undzer bletl (Our little newspaper) (1922-1923) and the collection Klangen (Sounds) (1924).  Minkov also took up literary-artistic photomontage.  His photomontage works—of Sholem-Aleykhem, Y. L. Perets, Mendele in Kabtsansk, Avrom Reyzen, Dr. Tsemekh Shabad, the colony run by TOZ (Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia [Society for the protection of health]), the Mefitse haskole School, D. Gurland, and others—were displayed in YIVO (Vilna) and published in the Vilna and Warsaw press: Khaver (Comrade) (1934, 1937); Yoyvl-heft fun der yinglshul mefitse haskole (Jubilee volume from the Mefitse haskole boys’ school) (1931); 5 yor tsabak (Five years of the Central Educational Committee) (1925); and Sport tsaytung (Sports newspaper).  He also published articles in: Shul-pinkes, finf yor arbet, 1919-1925 (School records, five years of work, 1919-1924) (Vilna, 1924); and Yoyvl-heft fun der yinglshul mefitse haskole (Vilna, 1931), among other publications in Vilna.  He would also appear at various Jewish associations with impressions of Vilna Jewish personalities.  In 1938 he departed for Canada, but he seems to have returned only to have disappeared in the Holocaust in Vilna.

Sources: Sh. Bastomski, Yoyvl-heft fun der yinglshul mefitse haskole (Jubilee volume from the Mefitse haskole boys’ school) (Vilna, 1935); Leyzer Ran, 25 yor yung vilne (Twenty-five years of Young Vilna) (New York, 1955).

Leyzen Ran