SHMUEL AYZNVARG

 SHMUEL AYZNVARG (1920-1943)

            He was a poet, born in Berdichev, Ukraine, into a family of craftsmen. In 1937 he graduated from a Jewish middle school, and that same year entered Moscow Pedagogical Institute. He placed his poetry in a number of Yiddish publications. After graduating from the Institute, he was drafted into the military. He served on a submarine, and in 1943 died in the North Sea.

            His work includes: “Osher shvartsman” (Osher Shvartsman), in the anthology, Osher shvartsman (Moscow: Emes, 1940); and “Aza min goyrl iz mayn lebnstroym” (Such a fate is my life’s dream), thirty poems in the collection, Di lire, lider-krants (The lyre, garland of poetry) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1985).

Source: 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), p. 17.