SHIYE
(JOSHUA) PERLE (1888-early November 1943)
He was born in Radom, Poland, into a
family of a village hay merchant. Until
age twelve, he studied in religious elementary school and later graduated from
a four-level Polish high school. He was
employed in a manufacturing company, later coming to work with a
locksmith. In 1905 because of a romantic
story, he departed for Warsaw and became an employee in a bank and a
bookkeeper. He remained in Warsaw until
WWII. His literary activities began
under the influence of Noyekh Prylucki.
Until 1907 he composed poetry in Russian—among other items, an elegy to
the death of Dr. Herzl—and translated from Russian and Polish into Yiddish, and
thereafter he switched entirely into Yiddish.
He debuted in print with a story “Shabes” (Sabbath) in the anthology Der nayer gayst (The new spirit) in
Warsaw (1908). He wrote stories,
sketches, novels, literary essays and criticism, articles, and polemical works
for virtually all of the literary periodicals and publications in Poland. Among other venues, he contributed work to: Yugnt-velt (Youth world), Blumen (Flowers), Unzer lebn (Our life), Ringen
(Links), Literarishe bleter (Literary
leaves), Varshever shriftn (Warsaw
writings), Varshever almanakh (Warsaw
almanac), Foroys (Onward), the
anthology Naye himlen (New heavens), Dos vort (The word), Kunst un lebn (Art and life), Vokhnshrift far literatur (Weekly
writing for literature), and Yugnt-veker
(Youth alarm) in Warsaw. For many years
he placed work in Moment (Moment), in
which, among other items, he published anonymously, under three asterisks,
newspaper novels serially. From 1937,
when he joined the Bund, he became a regular contributor to Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) in
Warsaw, in which, aside from novellas and novels, he published articles and
polemics (under the pen names: Y. Per and Yot-pe). In the first period of his writing, he
belonged to the Asch-Weissenberg school in Yiddish literature, with an
inclination toward sentimental romanticism, and in more recent years he has
been stressed as the creator of an innovative style of storytelling. He artistically gave expression to the Jewish
man and especially the Jewish woman, beyond their Jewish relationships and
their living conditions. In the shadow
plays of love and sentiment, he emphasized the erotic element, both among the
well-to-do bourgeoisie as well as in common proletarian environs. He was also the first to give expression in
Yiddish prose to the character types from big cities and especially the figures
of office workers and clerks. From the
immense number of Perle’s works which were not produced as books, we should
note: “Hintergasn” (Back streets), the third part of his autobiographical
epic—with Yidn fun a gants yor (Everyday
Jews) and Di gildene pave (The golden
peacock)—published in Folkstsaytung in
Warsaw (1937-1938); Naye mentshn, roman
(New people, a novel), published in the press and reworked into a three-act
play entitled Mentshn (People) which
was staged by Ida Kaminski in the Nowości Theatre in Warsaw (1936).
In book form: Mirl (Mirl), a novel
of a Jewish salon girl in Poland (Warsaw, 1921), 136 pp., second edition
(1926), translated into Hebrew by M. Mindelman under the title Bat ḥava (Daughter of Eve) (Warsaw:
Tsentral); Unter der zun (Under the
sun), a novella from the big city (Warsaw, 1920), 208 pp.; In der land fun der vaysl (In the country of the Vistula [River]),
poetry in prose from Polish Jewish life (Warsaw, 1921), 112 pp.; Zind (Sin), a novella (Warsaw, 1923),
201 pp.; Nayn a zeyger inderfri, noveln (Nine o’clock in the morning, novellas) (Vilna, 1930), 285
pp.—the longest story therein, “An orntlekhe froy” (An honest woman), for which
he received a prize from Tog in New
York in 1927, was reprinted in installment in Folksshtime (People’s voice) in Warsaw (1960)—Yidn fun a gants yor, an epic of Jewish life in Poland (Warsaw,
1935), 460 pp., second edition (1937), which was awarded a prize from the Bund
and from the Yiddish Pen Club in Poland (a new edition of the book appeared
with a preface by Leo Finkelshteyn in Buenos Aires in 1951); Di gildene pave, a novel in two parts
(Warsaw, 1937-1939), 510 pp. From Polish
he translated: Janusz Korczak’s Moyshelekh, yoselekh, yisroeliklekh (Moyshes, Yosls, and Yisroels
[original: Mośki, Joski i Srule] (Warsaw, 1922), 197 pp., new
edition (Buenos Aires, 1950); Wacław Sieroszewski’s
play Man un vayb (Man and wife)
(Warsaw, 1922); and from German, Oleg Svendsen’s Barnholmer legendes (Legends from Barnholm) (Warsaw, 1923). In September 1939, as the Nazis were
approaching Warsaw, he fled to Soviet-occupied Lemberg, and until 1941 he
chaired the writers’ association there.
He made his way to Kiev and published portions of his work “Shosey” (Highway)
about Jewish refugee life. When the
Germans subsequently seized Lemberg, he returned illegally to Warsaw, and until
1942 he worked in a shop in the ghetto and was active writing. Later, with the Kirschenbaum exchange group,
he was placed in a special camp within Bergen-Belsen, where he ran a literary
conversation group, striving to raise their fallen courage. On October 21, 1943 he was dispatched to
Birkenau, next to Auschwitz, and several days later murdered.
Portions
of his writings in the Warsaw Ghetto, the novel Undzer orem broyt (Our poor bread), the chronicle of the destruction
of Warsaw, and a feature piece about shop life were discovered in the unearthed
materials from the Ringelblum archive.
The latter two were published in Bleter
fun geshikhte (Pages from history) in Warsaw 3 (1951) and in the collection
Tsvishn lebn un toyt (Between life
and death) (Warsaw, 1955).
As
Shloyme Bikl wrote, “Perle does not veil his people. Perle’s manner of storytelling is rather an
overt naturalistic, a naked one. Perle’s
naturalism is modest. Modest not by
virtue of his intentions, but by virtue of his objectlessness. The spiritual and physical baring of the
characters in Perle’s Yidn fun gants a
yor acts like the pious nakedness of Adam, like children on a warm summer’s
day. This nakedness not only does not
hinder but it wins one’s heart with its lyricism and its charm…. However, one thing that Perle’s language
possesses is its genuine extraordinariness.
It is abundantly playful and full of authentic dialogue. Such dialogue…is truly a great artistic
achievement.”
“One
of the Yiddish writers,” noted Y. Y. Trunk, “who began to arouse interest in
the Jewish person outside of his relationships and living conditions was Joshua
Perle…. Perle novellas were the shadow
plays of love and sentiment in circles of middle-class Jewish youth in Poland…. Even in the plays of love and eros, Perle
remains in the domain of popular Jewish sentimentality…. Perle’s greatest success is his book Yidn fun a gants yor…. It is the epic of the shtetl, the epic of a
disappearing generation that remained entirely in the darkness of the past, the
ranks of the last Mohicans remaining in the mild, fair illumination of the
present.”
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2, with
a bibliography; Y. Y. Zinger, in Literarishe
bleter (Warsaw) (February 4, 1927); Perets Markish, in Shtern (Minsk) (1927); M. Natish, in Literarishe bleter (June 8, 1930); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Vokhnshrift far literatur (Warsaw)
(January 7, 1932); Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon
(My lexicon), vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945), pp. 168-70; Rokhl Oyerbakh, in Literarishe bleter 6 (December 13,
1935); Oyerbakh, in Eynikeyt (New
York) (June 1946); Oyerbakh, in Kidesh
hashem (Sanctification of the name) (New York, 1946), p. 109; A. L. Tats,
in Zibn teg (Vilna) (January 10,
1936); Y. Bashevis, in Literarishe bleter
(May 29, 1936); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(New York) (July 1936); Leo Finkelshteyn, in Zamlbikher (New York) 7 (1948), pp. 370-81; Finkelshteyn, Loshn yidish un yidisher kiem (The Yiddish language and Jewish survival) (Mexico City,
1954), pp. 277-90; E. Almi, in Poylisher
yid, yearbook (1944); Almi, in Fraye
arbeter-shtime (New York) (December 19, 1952; October 15, 1960); Yonas
Turkov, Azoy iz
es geven (That’s how it was) (Buenos
Aires, 1948), see index; Ester Boyman, in Dos
naye lebn (Warsaw) (February 16, 1948); Y. Y. Trunk, ed., Di
yidishe proze in poyln tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes (Yiddish prose in Poland
between the two world wars) (New York, 1949), pp. 77-86; Shloyme Bikl, in Tsukunft (February 1952); B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un
lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), pp.
58-63, 109, 139ff; Sh. Slutski, Avrom reyzen-biblyografye (Avrom
Reyzen’s bibliography) (New York, 1956), no. 4846; B. Shefner, Novolipye
7, zikhroynes un eseyen (Nowolipie 7, memoirs and essays) (Buenos Aires,
1955), p. 77; Y. Sh. Herts, Doyres
bundistn (Generations of Bundists), vol. 2 (New York, 1956), pp. 256-57; P.
Shvarts, in Fun noentn over (New
York) 2 (1956), p. 428; Yankev Pat, in Tsukunft
(July-August 1957); Dr. E. Ringelblum, in Folksshtime
(Warsaw) (April 10, 1959); Avrom Zak, In onheyb fun a friling, kapitlekh
zikhroynes (At the start of spring, chapters of memoirs) (Buenos Aires:
Farband fun poylishe yidn, 1962), see index; Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure (Bibliography
of Yiddish books concerning the Holocaust and heroism) (New York, 1962), see
index.
Khayim Leyb Fuks
