AVROM SOYFER (ALEX SOYFER)

AVROM SOYFER (ALEX SOYFER) (b. May 5, 1922)

            He was born in Krinki (Krynki), Grodno region, Russian Poland, into a laboring family.  He graduated from a secular Jewish “Tsisho” (Jewish School Organization) school.  Until WWI he was active in the Bund’s children’s organization SKIF (Sotsyalistishe kinder farband, or Socialist children’s union).  He was drafted in 1941 into the Red Army, but after the German invasion of Russia, he was captured.  He was in a series of Nazi death camps through May 1945 in Poland and Germany, and he later lived for a while in Poland, Germany, and France.  From 1947 he was living in Uruguay.  He was the author of the memoir Krinki in khurbn, memuarn (Krinki in ruins, memoirs) (Montevideo, 1948), 269 pp., with maps and prefaces by the author and fellow Krinki natives in Uruguay who published this book.  He was last living in Montevideo, active in Bundist and general Jewish cultural work in Uruguay.

Sources: Y. Vaynshenker, Boyers un mitboyers fun yidishn yishev in urugvay (Founders and builders of the Jewish community in Uruguay) (Montevideo, 1957), p. 166; Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure (Bibliography of Yiddish books concerning the Holocaust and heroism) (New York, 1962), p. 75; information from his brother Osher Soyfer in Paris.

Khayim Leyb Fuks