Rajzel Zychlinsky: Biographical Notes
(1) Rajzel Zychlinsky's curriculum vitae as were
sent to Dr. Karina Kranhold at the very beginning of Kranhold's work on Rajzel
Zychlinsky poetry in 1991.
"Born in Gombin, (Gabin) Poland, daughter of Mordechai and Debora Appel; sister Chana,
brothers Jankew, David. My brother Abram lives in Paris. Attended a Polish
public school from 1916-1923. Because there was no high school in the small
town of Gombin, I and another student had a private teacher from 1924 to
1927after finishing public school. My father was a leather worker. He went
three times to the United States. His family stayed in Poland. He died in
Chicago in 1928.
Literary debut in the Folkszeitung in 1927 or 1928, a daily Jewish newspaper in
Warsaw. Melech Rawitsch had there one column each week, under the name
"letters to one and to all". Yiddish beginners sent there their poems
- and Rawitsch answered - to continue to wriite or to "break all the pens
in the house". I also sent a few poems and his answer in that paper was
encouraging.
He was not the editor. I don't know the name of the editor. I directed an
orphanage one year, from 1934-1935. I didn't have a special education for the
job, but the president of the orphanage in Wloclawek read some of my poems in
some magazines - and offered a job.
My first book of poems "Lieder" was published by the P.E.N. in Warsaw
(The Yiddish Pen Club) in 1936. Introduction by Itzik Manger. I was not a
teacher in Warsaw, I worked as a clerk in a bank, until the outbreak of the war
in 1939.
About six weeks after the German's army's invasion of the city, I was asked by
S. Lastik, if I want to leave Warsaw with him, and two other people in a taxi.
The taxi would take us to the river Bug, which has been at this time the border
between Poland and Russia. The prize for a place in the taxi was 400 Polish
zloties, which was like today 400 dollars. I agreed to it, and was left almost
with nothing.
The next day we left Warsaw and the taxi brought us to the river. A man with a
boat took us across the river, to the other side - and there were Russian
soldiers. That was not far from Bialystok. And so I escaped from the gas
chambers.
I lived in Kazan - my son, Marek Kanter was born there, on February 15, 1943.
He is teaching mathematics, including one year in the University of Tel-Aviv.
My husband, Isaac Kanter, was a doctor, a psychiatrist, and worked in Russia in
a hospital. He died this year, 1990, in Brooklyn.
After I graduated from high school in New York, I studied English literature
and biology at City College. My name as a student was Rajzel Kanter. In the New
School for Social Research, I studied literature and philosophy."
(2)
Dr. Karina Kranhold who made her doctorate thesis on Rajzel Zychlinsky
poetry adds:
"Rajzel
Zychlinsky returned to Poland in 1946. Her mother and three of her siblings,
Dovid, Jankew and Chana have been killed in Chelmno and Treblinka together with
their husband and wives and all their children. She, her husband, and her son
Marek left Lodz for Paris in 1948. In 1951 the family came to New York. Rajzel
Zychlinsky lived for 17 years in Manhattan, then moved to Brooklyn and from
then on she moved several times, restless. She lived with one of her sisters in
Florida, a while with her son in Canada and in Berkeley. After the big
earthquake in 1989 she came back from the West Coast to the East and lived in
Brooklyn until November 1997. Then she moved again to California where her son
Marek lives".
(3)
Marek Kanter about his mother's life, in a message to Gombin Email Exchange
Forum 30/4/98:
"I am writing on behalf of my mother Rajzel Zychlinsky, who was
born in Gombin in 1910 and is presently living in Berkeley, California at a
residential care facility not far from my house.
Her memory of her youth in Gombin is still good and she remembers her friends
from that period. If any are still alive please write to me at 1216 Monterey
Ave., Berkeley California, 94707 and I will deliver the letters to her. For
your information, she survived the war by moving to Russia with her husband Dr.
Isaac Kanter.
As some of you may know she is a well known poet in the Yiddish language and
has published many books in Yiddish over the years. The celebrated poet Itzik
Manger used to think very highly
of her work and she received the Itzik Manger prize in Israel in 1975.
|
A new book of poems translated from Yiddish - "God Hid His Face"
has recently been published. It consists of English translations of her
Yiddish poems which appeared in previous books and in Yiddish newspapers such
as the "Forward". |
|
Back to Rajzel Zychlinsky Web Site
Last Updated
December 2nd, 2003