NOSN EK (NATHAN ECK)

NOSN EK (NATHAN ECK) (March 19, 1889-February 22, 1982)

            He was born in Yanov (Janów), near Lemberg, at the time in Austrian Galicia.  Until age thirteen he studied with a Talmud tutor, thereafter at home and later still in a Polish state high school in Lemberg.  Over the years 1915-1918, he served in the Austrian army.  In 1922 he graduated from the University of Vienna with a doctoral degree in law.  In 1929 he graduated from Warsaw University.  His writing activities commenced with an article in Lemberg’s Togblat (Daily newspaper) in 1912.  He was editor (1920-1921) of the daily newspaper Viner morgnpost (Vienna morning mail).  He also edited several issues of Undzer ruf (Our call), a monthly newspaper of Vienna’s Hitaḥdut (Union).  He was the editor and a contributor (1923-1925) to Folk un land (People and land), which initially appeared in Lemberg and later in Lodz and Warsaw.  He placed work in Lodzher togblat (Lodz daily newspaper) for which he wrote editorials and feature pieces, and for the Polish Jewish newspaper Wiadomości Codzienne (Daily news).  He edited and contributed to three volumes of the Hebrew-language annual Teḥumim (Spheres) (1937-1939).  During WWII he was confined in the Warsaw Ghetto, and he took part in cultural activities and economic relief work for the ghetto population.  In 1945 he visited the United States for a short time.  He lived in Paris (1946-1947), served as a member of the editorial board of the Parisian weekly newspaper Unzer vort (Our word), and he wrote at this time an introduction and notes to the first publication of Yitskhok Katsenelson’s Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk (The poem of the murdered Jewish people) (Paris, 1945), 80 pp.  From 1948 he was a resident of the state of Israel.  He published articles in: Tog (Day), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Tsukunft (Future), Hadoar (The mail), and Jewish Social Studies—in New York; and Davar (Word), Haarets (The land), Di goldene keyt (The golden chain) of which he was the first secretary to the editorial board, Dos vort (The word), and Niv hakevutsa (Words of the collective)—in Tel Aviv.  His depictions of the era of the third destruction (Holocaust) received considerable attention in the Jewish world.  He published several volumes in Hebrew, a book of essays on the Holocaust, and two volumes of translation from English.  Among them: Shoat haam hayehudi beeropa (Destruction of the Jewish people in Europe) (Jerusalem: Yad vashem, 1975), 451 pp.  From 1954 he was a contributor and editor of writings in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English for Yediot yad vashem (News from Yad Vashem), Yad vashem (Yad Vashem) with A. L. Kubovi, and Kovets meḥkarim (Collection of studies).  Among his pen names: Nosn Ekrun, Nosn Klita, and Nosn Ben Meir.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Yanos Turkov, Azoy iz es geven (That’s how it was) (Buenos Aires, 1948), pp. 66, 205, 230; Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Dun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957); Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958), p. 481; B. Ts., in Haarets (Tel Aviv) (June 3, 1960); D. Ron, Hapoel hatsair (The young worker) (Tel Aviv: 1960); M. Vaykhert, Yidishe aleynhilf, 1939-1945 (Jewish self-help, 1939-1945) (Tel Aviv, 1962), p. 329.

Benyomen Elis

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 419.]