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the Yiddish-reading world, which
called forth hundreds of press
comments. It was entitled “Fare
well, World” and began: “Good
night, big, stinking world.” In dis
gust over the fiendish anti-Semi
tism then already raging in Ger
many, it called for a return, in
spirit at least, to the ghetto, to the
"kerosene lamps” end “trailing
gabardines.” It war. a mood for
which neither Glatstein nor any
other self-respecting Jew in those
days could be blamed, though it
was a mood which wouldn’t, which
couldn’t, endure, particularly after
the Christian world tried to atone
in part for the horrors that had
been perpetrated upon European
Jewry by helping to set up an in
dependent Jewisn country after
nearly 1,900 years of exile, perse
cution and massacre. Instead of an
isolated ghetto, the new State 01
Israel had become a member of
the family of nations.
When the war was over, H. Lei-
vick (pseudonym of Leivick Hal-
per), the dean and the most hon
ored of living Yiddish poets (a few
years ago he received an honorary
degree from the Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Relig
ion) visited the former death
camps. The result of this visit was
the moving poetic volume. "In
Treblinka Bin Ich Nit Given” (I
wasn’t inTreblinka) and the sym
bolic plays, “Wedding in F'ern-
wald” and “Maharam of Rothen-
berg.” Leivick, ever since lie had
made his impact upon the Yiddish-
reading world (unfortunately very
little of this, or Glatstein’s, works
or the works of some of the other
noted Yiddish writers to be men
tioned later has been translated
into English), had had for his main
theme suffering, which he invests
with holiness. A mystic imbued
with messianic ideas, Leivick could
see the universal, besides the strict
ly Jewish, significance of the Nazi
holocaust.
In recent years one Yiddish
writer who experienced the hor
rors of the Ausschv.itz death camp
has become universally known. He
is the erstwhile anonymous “Katz-
etnik No. 135633” (since he ap
peared at the Eichmann trial,
where he fainted in the midst of
his testimony, his real name. Yehiel
Dinur, has become known ) His
“House of Dolls,” the story of
Jewish girls whom the Nazi forced
to become prostitutes for the Ger
man army , has been translated
into about two dozen languages. A
film based on the book is now
being made in Italy and in London
a stage version is being prepared.
Dinur has written ether books on
his experiences besides “House of
Dolls.” By the ashes of the dead
who perished in Auschwitz he has
vowed to devote the rest of his
life to telling their story. Whether
pure literature or not, his raw,
naked, factual horror tales can
hardly be ignored by anyone seek
ing the portrait of the murderous
first half of this Twentieth Cen
tury.
Other distinguish.“d living Yid
dish writers who have neither
themselves experienced the death
camps nor written about the Third
Destruction have been affected by
the mass slaughter to the extent
that they have been engaging more
heavily in memoris'ic writing than
they would have engaged had the
catastrophe not occured. Isaac
Bashevis-Singer, known to readers
of English after three of hfs fic
tional volumes were translated into
the vernacular, is one of them. In
the columns of the "Jewish For
ward,” of whose staff he is a mem
ber, Bashevis-Singer has for years
been describing the lormer life of
the Jews of Warsaw and of other
Polish cities and towns. Instead of
going back several centuries, as did
in “Satan in Goray,” Bashevis-
Singer has of late been concen
trating his efforts upon writing the
epitaph of the immediate past of
the Jews in Poland, an immediate
past he knew so well. His purely
literary efforts, his psychological
delvings into the nature of holi
ness and wickedness, have thus—
temporarily at least—been thrust
into the background. For the call
of the recent past, which cries for
its epitaph, is insistent.
A second writer now engaged in
memorializing another former
great center of Jewish life, learn
ing and culture—Vilna—is Chaim
Grade (pronounced Grah-deh-two
syllables), poet and prose writer,
who lately was the lecipient of an
honorary"'degree from the Jewish
Theological Seminar> of America.
Grade achieved distinction as* a
poet before he turned to prose. He
was the most prominent member
of the “Young Vilna” writers’
group, a group that emerged al
most on the eve of World War II.
His verse had include.', both lyrics
and long narratives, the latter often
interspersed with reflective pas
sages. He was particularly gifted
at evoking the inner SDiritual
struggles of the European Jewish
generation that lived through the
recent decades. Since coming to
New York in 1948 he has been
writing memoirs in fictional forms.
A volume of this sort, 'Mein
Marne’s Shabbosim” (My Mother’s
Sabbaths), received wide acclaim.
Today Grade is seri ilizing in the
“Day-Jewish Journal.” the other
New York Yiddish Daily beside the
"Forward," his fictional memoirs of
the Jewish refugees who returned,
as did he himself ;or a while, to
his native Vilna after the war.
Not all of the living Yiddish
writers have been affected by the
Great Destruction to the extent
that their writings have been heav
ily weighted with either poetic
lamentation or prose memoirs,
whether in fictional or dire"t form,
though they have not remained
entirely untouched. There is. for
instance, the poet Itzik Manger .
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