MOYSHE MILER

MOYSHE MILER (1908-autumn 1941)

            He was born in a village near Radzymin, Poland.  He moved to Warsaw in his youth.  He studied in religious elementary school, yeshiva, and later a Polish public school.  At age fifteen he became a hairdresser.  He was active in the leftwing political and trade union movement in Warsaw.  He debuted in print with a story entitled “An eyshes-ish” (A married woman) in Y. M. Vaysenberg’s Inzer hofening (Our hope) 10 (Warsaw, 1926), and from that point he contributed stories and articles as well to: Literarishe tribune (Literary tribune), Zibn teg (Seven days), Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Foroys (Onward), Vokhnshrift far literatur (Weekly writing for literature), Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper), Der fraynd (The friend), Unzer ekspres (Our express), and Zalbe akht (Eight of them)—in Warsaw.  In the weekly newspaper Di post (The mail) in Cracow (1938), he published an essay concerning Vaysenberg and his links to young talents.  In book form: Dorf, dertseylungen (Village, stories), concerning poor farmers’ lives in Poland (Warsaw, 1934), 92 pp.  When the Germans were approaching Warsaw in September 1939, he fled to Soviet-occupied Bialystok, worked in a hairdresser’s establishment, and published reportage pieces in Byalistoker shtern (Bialystok star) (1939-1940); and Oktyabr (October) and Shtern (Star) in Minsk; among other serials.  He lived in Novogrudok and Slonim, and later worked as a Byelorussian teacher in a village school.  After the German invasion of Russia (June 1941), he fled from the village and lived for a time in the woods, until the Germans seized and murdered him.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (September 16, 1938); Yidishe shriftn, anthology (Lodz, 1946).

Khayim Leyb Fuks