KHAYE (CHAYA) ELBOYM-DOREMBUS (ELBAUM)

KHAYE (CHAYA) ELBOYM-DOREMBUS (ELBAUM) (May 23, 1910-February 7, 1997)

            She was born in Stotsk (Stoczek), Warsaw district, Poland.  She studied in the Stoczek public school and the Łuków high school, and she attended pedagogical courses in Warsaw.  She began writing at age thirteen and debuted in print with a story entitled “A rayse-bildl” (A trip impression) in A. M. Vaysenberg’s (Weissenberg’s) Inzer hofening (Our hope).  She also published in the Polish newspaper Gazeta łukówska (Łuków gazette) and in Warsaw’s Głos prawdy (Voice of truth).  She was confined in the Warsaw Ghetto, where she worked in a factory making military overcoats.  From August 1942 until January 1945, she and her husband lived among the Poles with Polish papers.  She later described her experiences and all manner of dangers during those tragic years in a book, Af der arisher zayt (On the Aryan side).  She lived in Germany (1945-1946), and from 1947 she was in the land of Israel.  She contributed stories and reportage pieces to: Inzer hofening in Warsaw; Davar (Word), Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Letste nayes (Latest news), Heymish (Familiar), and Nowiny (News)—in Tel Aviv; Dorem afrike (South Africa) in Johannesburg; and Tog-morgn-zhurnal (Day-morning journal) in New York.  She also placed work in Almanakh fun yidishe shrayber in yisroel (Almanac of Yiddish writers in Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1962).  In book form: Af der arisher zayt (Tel Aviv: Letste nayes, 1957), 372 pp., with a foreword by M. Tsanin, published earlier in installments in Letste nayes—winner of the Diamondstein Prize in 1958.

            “This work simply astonished the thousands of readers,” wrote Meylekh Ravitsh, “—and a great many reader-writers—with the simplicity and artistic crystallization of the descriptions.  The language is also rich, expressed literarily, full of Polish idioms.  The book is a document and at the same time literature, with enduring value.”  She also published under the pen name Alina.  She spent her last years in Boston.

  

Sources: M. Tsanin, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (November 15, 1957); Moshe Ḥalamish, in Al hamishmar (Tel Aviv) (January 17, 1958); Ḥalamish, in Yisroel-shtime (Tel Aviv) (February 20, 1958); Y. Zinger, in Literarishe heftn (Los Angeles) (January-June 1958); Avrom Shulman, in Unzer shtime (Paris) (February 8, 1958); M. B. Shteyn, in Yisroel: tog eyn tog oys (Tel Aviv) (February 15, 1958); D. Naymark, in Forverts (New York) (February 16, 1958); Y. Paner, in Omer (Tel Aviv) (February 21, 1958); L. Domankevitsh, in Unzer vort (Paris) (March 8, 1958); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 23, 1958); D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), in Der tog (New York) (March 28, 1958); Y. Granatshteyn, in Hatsofe (Tel Aviv) (March 28, 1958); Kh. Slutska-Kestin, in Fray yisroel (Tel Aviv) (July 3, 1958); Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Di tsukunft (New York) (September 1958); M. Valdman, in Arbeter-vort (Paris) (October 10, 1958); V. Morib, Unzer eynikeyt (Paris) (August-September 1958); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958), p. 481; M. Shchavinski, in Yidishe tsaytung (Tel Aviv) (January 16, 1959); A. Lis, Heym un doyer, vegn shrayber un verk (Home and duration, on writers and work) (Tel Aviv: Y. L. Perets Library, 1960), pp. 253-55; Y. Gar and F. Fridman, Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure (Bibliography of Yiddish books concerning the Holocaust and heroism) (New York, 1962), see index.

Benyomen Elis