VOLF-HIRSH SAGALOVITSH (SEGALOVITSH)

VOLF-HIRSH SAGALOVITSH (SEGALOVITSH) (1890-1937)

            The brother of Zusman Sagalovitsh, he was born in Bialystok, Russian Poland.  As a youth he moved to Lodz, where he received his education and later became a teacher.  During WWI he was active in the Bund.  He was a cofounder of the “school and popular education association” which in 1916 moved to set up a Jewish school in Lodz, and he was a teacher in the Bund schools—the subsequent Medem Schools.  In 1921 he left for Soviet Russia and until 1930 was involved in Yiddish school curriculum in Minsk.  He later lived for a time in Birobidzhan, where he was active with Gezerd (All-Union Association for the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR) and other institutions involving Yiddish schools, culture, and the press.  He began writing in Lebens-fragen (Life issues) in Warsaw and in Lodzher veker (Lodz alarm), and later in Soviet Russia he contributed to: Af di vegn tsu der nayer shul (On the road to the new school) in Moscow; Oktyabr (October) in Minsk; and Birobidzhaner shtern (Birobidzhan star); among others.  He was the author of: Matematik, ershter teyl, arbetbikhl farn III shulyor (Mathematics, part 1, workbook for the third school year) (Minsk, 1926), 185 pp.; together with the Lodz Jewish teacher Yoysef Ravin, Heft far matematishe arbetn (Copybook for mathematical work), part 1 (Minsk: State Publ., 1928, 1931), 45 pp., part 2 (Minsk: State Publ., 1929, 1930), 52 pp., part 3 (Minsk: State Publ., 1929, 1930); Matematik, tsveyter teyl (Mathematics, part 2) (Minsk: State Publ., 1928), 238 pp., with Yoysef Ravin; Matematik, driter teyl, arbet-bikhl farn 5tn shulyor (Mathematics, part 3, workbook for the fifth school year) (Minsk: State Publ., 1929, 1932), 143 pp.; Matematik, ferter teyl (Mathematics, part 4) (Minsk: State Publ., 1930), 52 pp.; Arbet-bukh af matematik, farn IV lernyor (Workbook in mathematics, for the fourth school year) (Minsk, 1932), 87 pp.; with A. Shkrabe, Arbet-bukh af matematik farn 7 shul-yor (Workbook in mathematics, for the seventh school year) (Minsk: State Publ., 1932), 144 pp.  In 1935 he was charged with Trotskyism and Jewish nationalism, and he deported to various prison camps and shot.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; P. Shvarts, in Foroys (Mexico City) (March 1958); Y. Sh. Herts, Di geshikhjte fun bund in lodzh (The history of the Bund in Lodz) (New York, 1958), see index; information from Manye Raynharts in Toronto, Canada.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 409.]