Objects

That image of a young man with short, curly hair, huge eyes and strongly accented chin is a portrait of David Bergelson (1884–1952), a Yiddish writer. It was probably a sketch for the repoussaged copper portrait of Bergelson (1925), currently in the collection of the Jewish Historical Institute (no. inv. ŻIH A-355).

Bergelson was Ukrainian; he had been staying in Berlin since 1920, but in 1932 he returned eastwards to Moscow. In 1949, together with other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR he was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities and, in 1952, sentenced. Together with Bergelson other notable writers and poets of the Jewish language were executed: Peretz Markish, Leib Kvitko, David Hofstein, Itzik Feffer.

Among the most renowned works of Bergelson are Arum Vokzal [Around the Railroad Depot], 1909, Nokh Alemen [When All Is Said and Done], 1913, and Baym Dnieper [At the Dnieper], 1932. In 1959, the collection of his short stories Dwie bestie i inne opowiadania [Two Beasts and Other Stories], translated by Stanisław Wygodzki, was published in Polish.

Renata Piątkowska