GOLDE PATS

GOLDE PATS (ca. 1888-winter 1941)

            She was born in the region of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and grew up in Vilna.  She graduated from the history department of St. Petersburg University.  For a time she worked at the Jewish high school in Warsaw.  Over the years 1915-1918, she was in Russia, later in Vilna.  She spent 1921-1929 in Berlin, where she received her doctoral degree in history and philology and went on to work as a teacher of history at the Vilna senior high school and director of an orphanage.  She was secretary of the “society for abandoned and retarded children” in Vilna.  She published articles on problems in children’s education (including mentally handicapped children), general pedagogical issues, on history as a subject in school, and other topics in: Vilner tog (Vilna day), Di naye shul (The new school), Shul-fragn (Schools issues), and Shul fraynd (School friend) in Vilna; Bikher-velt (Book world) and Shul vezn (School system), among others, in Warsaw.  In her time in Berlin, she wrote a children’s play and several children’s stories—see Sh. Safirkrits, in Lerer yizker-bukh (Remembrance volume for teachers) (New York, 1954), p. 311.  From her writings, the following appeared in book form: Ilyas un odisya, oysderveylte ilustrirte dertseylungen far kinder (Iliad and Odyssey, selected illustrated stories for children) (Berlin 1924), 127 pp., with a number of subsequent editions, the last one (Warsaw, 1937), 79 pp.; Grikhishe mitn (Greek myths), for middle school (Warsaw, 1938), 48 pp.; Roymishe legendes (Roman legends) (Warsaw, 1939), 48 pp.; Leyenbukh far geshikhte fun mitlalter, heft 1, untergang fun der mayrev-roymisher imperye (Textbook for the history of the Middle Ages, vol. 1: decline of the Western Roman empire) (Vilna: Tsisho, 1940), 53 pp.  Announcements appeared in the Vilna newspapers of subsequent volumes: (2) “Di barbarishe melukhes un di katoylishe melukhe” (The barbarian kingdoms and the Catholic state); (3) “Der feodalizm” (Feudalism); (4) “Di antviklung fun shtet un fun shtotishn lebn in mitlalter” (The development of cities and of urban life in the Middle Ages); and (5) “Der teokratisher ideal fun mitlalter” (The theocratic ideal of the Middle Ages).  Because Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets, these volumes never appeared.  From the summer of 1940 until June 1941, she worked as a teacher in the Vilna senior high school, before being confined for a short time in the ghetto, and during the first Aktion of the yellow work certificates, she was taken out to Ponar and murdered.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol.2; Foroys (Warsaw) (March 17, 1937); Shmerke Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947); Lerer yizker-bukh (Remembrance volume for teachers) (New York, 1954), pp. 310-11.

Khayim Leyb Fuks