YOSL TSUKER (IOSL CUKIER)

YOSL TSUKER (IOSL CUKIER) (September 20, 1912-1942)

            He was born in Radzin (Radzyń), Poland, to poor parents.  At age four, he lost his mother.  He went to live in Warsaw with several brothers when he was ten years old.  At age fourteen (1926), he joined a brother living in Paris.  He studied French there in evening school, and during the daytime he attended a trade school.  He began writing for Naye prese (New press) in Paris and became a regular contributor to it.  He also placed work in Byalistoker lebn (Bialystok life) (1938).  His first collection of stories drawn from Jewish life in Paris appeared in 1939: A fremd lebn (An alien life), published with the assistance of the Yiddish PEN Club and with a preface by Noah Pryłucki (143 pp.).  He was in Paris during the Nazi occupation.  He was arrested on January 8, 1942, was interned in several concentration camps before arriving at Drancy, and from there, as it was reported by others, he had no desire to escape but to share the fate of all Jews.  It appears that he was deported from Drancy to Auschwitz, and there he was killed.  His surviving manuscripts, entitled Shriftn (Writings), were published by Perets Publishers in Tel Aviv in 1963 (303 pp.).  This volume, produced by the Yiddish writers’ association in France, includes twenty-two stories and nine poems, with a preface by Noah Pryłucki (reprinted by Tsuker’s first book), an introduction by Binem Heler, and the author’s photograph.

            “Devoted to the then-current path and style of cursing and blessing Jewish life following a specific trend,” wrote Y. Yanasovitsh, “Yosl Tsuker applied his entire as yet undeployed literary capacities to reveal for us locales and figures fitting his societal connection to them.  And, he demonstrates the shape of these environs and people with fine artistic features.  Realistic, even in spots naturalistic, he used in his illustrations the technique of sketching flecks which often create in his image exaggerated proportions….  It is, though, no secret that the hand that strays in choosing colors and is frequently deluded by tendentious voices was talented and had every possibility of freeing himself from the political and social temptations which lie in wait in every era for artists who never sufficiently understand their own capacity.”

Sources: Parizer shriftn (Paris) 1 (1935); Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (January 19, 1936); Undzer lebn (Bialystok) (August 1, 1938); D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), in Tsukunft (New York) (January 1943); 12 yor naye prese (Twelve years of Naye prese) (Paris) (January 1946); Moyshe Dluzhnovski, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (April 1946); T. Spero, ed., Yizker-bukh tsum ondenk fun 14 umgekumene parizer yidishe shrayber (Remembrance volume to the memory of fourteen murdered Parisian Yiddish writers) (Paris, 1946); Shmuel Niger, Kidesh hashem (Sanctification of the name) (New York, 1947), pp. 462-68; B. Mark, in Yidishe shriftn (Warsaw) (October 1954); Undzer shtime, jubilee edition (Paris) (November 1955); Yidishe kultur (November 1963), p. 62; Folksshtime (Warsaw) (November 23, 1963); M. Shenderay, in Di yidishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (January 19, 1964); Y. Yanasovitsh, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (January 25, 1964.

Yankev Kahan