NAFTOLE-HERTS KON (1910-June 13, 1971)
He was a
poet, born in Storozhinets (Storozhynets), Bukovina. Early on he joined the revolutionary movement
and was targeted by organs of the state.
For his Communist activities, he fled to Poland, where he was arrested in
1929 and in 1932 was exchanged for a Polish political prisoner in the Soviet
Union, but in 1937 he was arrested in the USSR, the land which he considered
his homeland, and exiled to a camp.
After being freed in 1941, he returned to Moscow and continued his
literary work, publishing and preparing an anthology for the press. He was arrested yet again in 1948 and
sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor in the Gulag. He was rehabilitated in 1956 and in 1959 came
to Poland, and once again was thrown in jail for several years by the socialist
government. In 1965 he came to Israel, a
sick man exhausted by all foregoing persecution, and there he died in
Jerusalem. In 1929 he debuted in print
in Literarishe bleter (Literary
leaves) in Warsaw. He went on to write additionally
for: Folks-shtime (Voice of the
people) and Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish
writings) in Warsaw; Almanakh, fun yidishe
sovetishe shrayber tsum alfarbandishn shrayber-tsuzamenfor (Almanac, from Soviet Jewish writers to the
all-Soviet conference of writers) (Kharkov, 1934); Eynikeyt (Unity) in Moscow; and elsewhere. His writings include: Trot nokh trot (Steo after steo), poems (Warsaw, 1932), 62 pp.,
confiscated and in 1935 published in a larger edition (Minsk: Byelorussian
State Publ.), 122 pp.; Farshribn in
zikorn (Recorded in memory), poetry (Tel Aviv: Aliya, 1966), 380 pp.
Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications
in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index; Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 1
(Montreal, 1945); Y. Grudberg, in Folksblat
(People’s newspaper) (Tel Aviv) (May 11, 1961); Shloyme Bikl, Shrayber fun may dor (Writers of my
generation), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv, 1970), pp. 91-92; Lili Berger, In gang fun tsayt (In step with the
times) (Paris, 1976), pp. 187-91.
Ruvn Goldberg
[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in
ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet
Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish
Culture, Inc., 2011), pp. 317-18.]
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