LEO KATS (KATZ)

LEO KATS (KATZ) January 22, 1892-August 11, 1954)

            He was a writer and journalist, born in Seret, Bukovina.  He was an active Communist leader from 1918.  He received his doctoral degree from the University of Vienna.  He contributed to Morgn frayhayt (Morning freedom) in New York.  Over the years 1934-1938, he served as editor-in-chief of the Parisian Naye prese (New press).  From 1940 until 1949, he lived in Mexico, where he edited the Communist weekly Frayvelt (Free world).  For many years he collected material for a history of Jews in the Middle Ages, but he never saw this through to publication.  He wrote novels in German, some of them with a Jewish theme.  He translated into Yiddish: Y. S., Nekome, roman (Revenge, a novel [original: Totenjaeger]) (New York, 1946), 356 pp.; and the children’s novel Tamar (Tamar) by Dvoyre Tarant in 1953 in Morgn frayhayt.  He died in Vienna.

Sources: Folks-shtime (Warsaw) (August 19, 1954); M. Kats, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (August 28, 1954); B. Mark, in Yidishe shriftn (Warsaw) (October 1954); Y. Vinyetski, in Der veg (Mexico City) (February 22, 1958).

Dr. Noyekh Gris