David Berezovski (; 1896–1943) was a journalist, writer, translator and newspaper editor active in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

and

Grodno Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...

in the 1920s and 1930s. He is best known for being editor of the Grodno newspaper , later known as and then as , from 1924 to 1939. He was killed in

The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

in 1943, possibly at the

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Mas ...

Biography

Berezovski was born in 1896 in Meletch,

Vilna Governorate The Vilna Governorate was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire. In 1897, the governorate covered an area of and had a population of 1,591,207 inhabitants. The governorate was defined by the Minsk Governo ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(now

Merkinė Merkinė (also known by #Etymology, several other names) is a small town in Alytus County, which is located at the confluence of the Neman and Merkys rivers. The town belongs to the Varėna District Municipality and is located about 26 kilometers ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

). His father Nakhman was a lumber merchant who gave him a basic Jewish education; his mother was named Rivke. He then studied at a Gymnasium in Vilnius, and he also started but never completed university studies in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, and at the University of Vilna. Grodner Moment cover 18 August 1933

He seems to have got his start in journalism writing for student newspapers, and then contributing to newspapers in Vilnius during the period of German occupation following the end of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. He was soon regularly contributing

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of , the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle ...

s, articles, and humorous sketches to the Yiddish language press there, especially to the . He would sometimes write these pieces pseudonymously under names such as or . In the early 1920s he also translated a handful of

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

's books into Yiddish and published them in Vilnius, including '' My Childhood'' in 1920 and ''

Mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

'' in 1922. And he was involved in education and in the publishing of children's educational materials; he himself also translated some popular scientific and historical works from Russian into Yiddish. In 1924 he became editor of the newly founded Yiddish-language Grodno newspaper (, also known in later years as and then as ). He used the paper as a platform to criticize the government and examine the life of local Jews in more detail. The inner pages of the newspaper seem to have consisted of news from Warsaw newspapers. In the late 1920s he also ran for municipal office but does not seem to have been elected. Berezovski was also a supporter of the

Yiddish theatre Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satire, satiric or nostalgic revues; melodr ...

. In the 1930s he regularly collaborated with comedian Yitzhak Azarkh to bring Yiddish theatre troupes to Grodno. He also regularly wrote reviews of the Yiddish theatre. His newspaper was closed during the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

in 1939, on the same day that the Red Army entered Grodno. After that he was reduced to working for the Belarusian paper , transcribing radio broadcasts of news stories. But even that job disappeared after he was denounced in an open letter as the former editor of a "fascist" newspaper. Grodno was invaded by German forces in June 1941 and its Jewish residents were forced into the

Grodno Ghetto The Grodno Ghetto (, , ) was a Nazi ghetto established in November 1941 by Nazi Germany in the German-occupied Poland city of Grodno for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Jews in Western Belarus. The ghetto, run by the SS, consi ...

by November. He then worked in an infirmary with his daughter Basya. The two of them, along with David's wife Kunie, were deported to the

in 1943 where they are all thought to have been killed, although David's exact place of death is not well documented.

Selected works

* (translation of a

Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko Vasily Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (, born 23 December (4 January), 1845, Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia), Russian Empire – died 18 September 1936, Prague, Czechoslovakia) was a Russian writer, essayist, journalist, memoirist, and the brother ...

book, 1921) * (1921) * (1921) * (1922) * (a translation of

's Mother, 1922) *

References

External links

Grodner Moment
issues (newspaper edited by Berezovski) in the

National Library of Israel The National Library of Israel (NLI; ; ), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; ), is the library dedicated to collecting the cultural treasures of Israel and of Judaism, Jewish Cultural heritage, heritage. The library holds more ...

collection
Books by Dowid Berezowski
an
newspapers he edited
in

Polona Polona is a Polish digital library, which provides digitized books, magazines, graphics, maps, music, fliers and manuscripts from collections of the National Library of Poland and co-operating institutions. It began its operation in 2006. Colle ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berezovski, David 1896 births 1943 deaths 20th-century Polish journalists Jewish Polish writers Yiddish theatre Polish people who died in Treblinka extermination camp Yiddish-language journalists Polish translators People from Vilna Governorate Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust 20th-century Polish male writers