SHLOYME-BER FAYNKIND

SHLOYME-BER FAYNKIND (May 26, 1891-early July 1942)

            The son of Moyshe Faynkind and younger brother of Nosn Faynkind, he was born in Petrikov (Pietrykaŭ), Lodz district, Poland.  He studied in a “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school) and in a Russian-Polish high school.  Over the years 1909-1914, he lived in Lodz.  He contributed to Lodzer tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper).  During WWI he was a reporter for: Varshever tageblat (Warsaw daily newspaper) and Dos yudishe vort (The Jewish word) in Warsaw; and Der yud (The Jew); among others.  Through the years 1924-1939, he placed work with: Naye folkstsaytung (New people’s newspaper), the Polish Jewish Nasz Przegląd (Our overview), and the morning newspaper in Warsaw, Piąta rano (5 a.m.) (1937-1939).  For a time he served as a correspondent for: Tog (Day) in New York; Di tsayt (The times) in London; Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) in Buenos Aires; and Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal.  During the Nazi occupation during the years of WWII, until early 1942, he was confined in the Warsaw Ghetto, later for a short time in the Aryan section of the city.  The Gestapo seized him and sent him to the Skarżysko Concentration Camp; there he died.  A portion of his reportage pieces and images, written in the Warsaw Ghetto—discovered in the buried Ringelblum archive—were published in the collection Tsvishn lebn un toyt (Between life and death) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1955).

Sources: M. Mozes, in Der poylisher yid (The Polish Jew), anthology (1944); Yidish shriftn (Lodz, 1946); Z. Segalovitsh, Tlomatske 13, fun farbrente nekhtn (13 Tłomackie St., of zealous nights) (Buenos Aires: Central Association of Polish Jews in Argentina, 1946), pp. 27-28; P. Shvarts, in Fun noentn over (New York) 2 (1956), p. 428; Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), see index; Dr. M. Vaykhert, Yidishe aleynhilf (Jewish self-help) (Tel Aviv, 1962), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks