The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language (A Companion to MENDELE) ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.004 [Sequential No. 143] 31 March 2004 1) About this issue of TMR (Joseph Sherman) a. Yisker-bikher b. Checklist of Soviet Authors c. Khulyot 8 2) The Translation of Holocaust Memorial Books into English (Jacob Solomon Berger) 3) Eliezer Podriatchik's Checklist of Soviet Writers (Avraham A. Greenbaum and Leonard Prager) 1)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: 31 March 2004 From: Joseph ShermanSubject: About this issue of TMR a. Yisker-bikher This issue of TMR focuses on the ongoing need to continue the work of documenting our losses from the destruction wrought by Hitler and Stalin. (a) In making an appeal for the organized and systematic translation of Holocaust memorial books, Jacob S. Berger points out the extent of the rich mine of historical and sociological ore that lies buried in these yisker-bikher, and makes a strong, cogent case for the need to put the translation of these invaluable source materials on a professional basis. Without denigrating the valuable work in this regard undertaken by such voluntary organizations as JewishGen, Dr Berger makes it clear that the efforts of amateurs, however well-meaning, are often handicapped by less than perfect command of Yiddish, which leads to inaccuracy and sometimes distortion in the translation of these materials. The plan he outlines is an ideal which seems at present to be far from realization -- the costs involved are enormous, and it is not clear where the central organizing authority for such a project is to be found, still less the funding for it. Many projects of great importance have seemed impossible at first, yet they have in time become realities. All that may well be needed is to plant the seeds of a big idea, and wait for it to grow. Dr Berger has unquestionably planted these seeds with conviction and persuasiveness. (b}. Checklist of Soviet Authors The difficult, painstaking work of recovering from obllivion the names of those Soviet Yiddish writers obliterated by Stalin continues. Much bio-bibliographic work remains to be done; many of these authors need to be rediscovered and reevaluated in the light of our fuller knowledge of the conditions under which they labored. With the erratic but nevertheless steady opening of the KGB archives, the valuable work thus far done will in time surely become easier. c. Khulyot 8 Volume 8 of _Khulyot_ (Chulyot)/ Ringen has appeared and is available from the Department of Hebrew Literature, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. The price 50 shekels in Israel; 15 dollars from abroad (postage included). Abstracts of the contents of volumes 1-8 may be found on The World of Yiddish website: http:/yiddish.haifa.ac.il. In the near future a significant portion of all the volumes will be accessible via this site as full-text items. 2)----------------------------------- Date: 31 March 2004 From: Jacob Solomon Berger Subject: The Translation of Holocaust Memorial Books into English The Translation of Holocaust Memorial Books into English by Jacob Solomon Berger (1) --- Background In the aftermath of the devastation of the Eastern European Jewish community during the Second World War, survivors and those who left the old country in prior years saw a need to document memories of their origins in order to leave a permanent testament to communities that had been eradicated. In the ensuing quarter century, nearly 1300 books were written and published; that came to be known as Yizkor Books [Yiddish: yisker-bikher], or Holocaust Memorial Books. Most of these books relate the history of the destroyed Jewish community, often reaching back to the early medieval history of the town. They tell stories about prominent and ordinary people, anecdotes about daily life and relationships, discuss political and economic matters, and describe the diverse ways in which Judaism was lived and practiced as a way of life. Most books also contain eye-witness accounts of the devastation wrought by the Nazis during their occupation, and the implementation of their Final Solution. There will usually also be a necrology, which lists the people murdered during the Holocaust, to the best of the memory of those participating in the preparation of the book. The accounting of the Yad Vashem archive shows the following breakdown of the languages in which these books were prepared.(2) -- Language Distribution of Yizkor Books Among primarily monolingual works we find 432 Yiddish, 229 Hebrew, 376 German, 49 English and an additional 187 in Hungarian, French, Polish & Russian. Works containing some Hebrew number 350, some German number 6, some English 148. The total number of Yizkor books translated is 1,273. Yiddish 432 432 Hebrew 229 350 579 German 376 6 382 English 49 148 197 Other 187 (3) 187 ------------------------------------------------------------ Total 1,273 A few contain small English summaries, and occasionally a Table of Contents that has been translated into English. Many of the books in German were not written by Jews, but by the local people in the 1980s and onward to memorialize the Jews who used to live among them. --- The Issue At Hand While the Hebrew texts remain accessible to Israelis in general, and others trained in Hebrew, linguistic facility with Yiddish is rapidly fading. Despite well-meaning efforts, by a variety of institutions, the prognosis for revitalizing Yiddish as a living language remains very bleak. The excision of the Eastern European Jewish community has cauterized the taproot, from which the vitality of Yiddish, as a living language, would have drawn its sustenance. The one third Yiddish portion of this archive, represented by the collection of Holocaust Memorial Books, becomes increasingly inaccessible, as the current generation begins to pass from the scene. At best, we can expect this portion of the archive to remain accessible to a diminished cadre of scholar/specialists, who will make knowledge of Yiddish part of their life's work. The vast majority of the Jewish population, including Israelis, will become orphaned from their own history, cut off from the rich tapestry of folklore, which will lie entombed behind a linguistic communications barrier. Such an outcome would seriously impoverish the historical record for future generations of Jewish progeny, and other interested parties, who will come to seek some meaningful connection to this dimension of the past. --- What Has Been Done This issue has not gone unnoticed. The advent of word-processing software and the Internet, has put tools into the hands of motivated people, that begin to make possible a systematic attempt to translate this archive into English. The principal vehicle, by which this type of work has been carried out to date, is through the online community called `JewishGen' (see the website, www.jewishgen.org). JewishGen provides a framework through which translation projects can be managed, and eventually published online. The U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, has a single person, dedicated to translating only the Table of Contents of such books, as her time permits. There are serious limitations to these ongoing efforts: The JewishGen initiative is a framework only. It expects that interested parties will provide their own funding and translation resources, but will assist them in finding help, and in negotiating the process that eventually gets the work product published online. To date, between 300-400 of these books have been `touched.' However, with rare exceptions, few of these constitute a `complete' end-to-end translation. In most cases there are only partial translations of those sections of the book that interested the prime mover. Often this is restricted to the necrology lists, while the narrative text is untouched. This effort comes from the `bottom up,' driven by random people, who have developed an interest - usually in a single book - to understand the history of their immediate ancestors. Consequently, coverage of the geography, of what was the Pale of Settlement, which has been captured in the Yiddish portion of the archive, is uneven. The translation of the Table of Contents is helpful, but falls far short of satisfying the underlying need for real understanding of the history embodied in these books. --- What Needs to Be Done A managed effort is required to bring this entire archive across the language barrier from Yiddish into English. The choice of English is not parochial: the English language, for better or for worse, is emerging as the global lingua franca. For the foreseeable future, any literate citizen of the world, who chooses to participate in the global economy, will need to acquire a command of English. Consequently, it is the logical target language for such an effort. Such a managed effort comes only with a `tops-down' approach by a focused organization, that has been properly funded with financial resources, enabling it to acquire the necessary skills to get this type of a task done. This is not a small undertaking. If we assume that it takes 0.4 - 0.75 man-years (4) to translate a book (most are quite substantive in length), we are talking about 135 - 300 man-years of raw translation effort. The core work does not stop with raw translation. Careful editing and integration of the raw product is needed to assure correctness, consistency, and placing the material in context. These three objectives imply the following: Correctness -- To ensure that original text has not been misread, and therefore improperly translated or transcribed. An interesting example is the newly deployed Ellis Island Data Base, where simple transcription of handwritten ships' manifests (in English) is shot through with rather obvious mistakes, due largely to a lack of familiarity of names and places to the transcribers. Consistency -- A plague, associated with the translation from one alphabet to another, is the lack of consistency in rendering the orthography of names and places consistently. A meaningful set of standards needs to be adopted for the sake of consistency (rather than correctness). Context -- It will be important to footnote this text in an informative way, so that the lay reader, unfamiliar with either, language, culture, or the history of the times, can be given an appreciation for some of the subtleties of the text. This component of editorial work will add approximately 25% to the raw translation labor, bringing the effort to 170 - 375 man-years. An administrative infrastructure will be require to manage what will doubtless be a highly distributed network of contributors. This will add approximately another 10% to the base for translation and editing, bringing the effort to a level of 190 - 400 man-years. The skills involved are not cheap. It is not unreasonable to expect that an average man-year in this mix will run as high as $50,000. The cost of this undertaking therefore would be $9.5 million - $20.0 million. This implies a unit cost of the final product to be between $22,000 - $47,000 per book for the Yiddish portion of the archive. --- Why It Should Be Done The substantial commitment of money and time suggested above demands justification. It is as much an obligation to Jewish posterity as it is to the memory of a Jewish past that was so cruelly eradicated for no reason. In this sense, it parallels the sentiments of the Shoah Foundation, set up by Steven Spielberg, whose mission is focused on the taping of the recollections of living Holocaust survivors, and the integration of such materials into Jewish educational processes. By doing so, it strengthens the capacity of all civilization to never forget the unfortunate human capacity to descend into an abyss of barbarism. Endnotes 1. Dr. Jacob Solomon Berger is fluent in Yiddish, Hebrew and English and has translated a number of Holocaust Memorial Books. He recognizes that no single individual can address the entire Yiddish portion of the archive of Holocaust Memorial Books. His address is: Dr. Jacob Solomon Berger / 12 Janice Court / Mahwah, NJ 07430-1515 / USA. Tel: (201)-529-3391 / Fax: (201)-529-4381 / E-Mail: jsberger@sigmaxi.org 2. These statistics were supplied during May 2003 through the kindness of Dr. Robert Rozett of Yad Vashem. These numbers should be viewed as indicative rather than precise. There is ambiguity regarding which books should be included in this category, and an indication of the use of multiple languages is not a measure of the actual volume of writing. 3. Hungarian, French, Polish & Russian. 4. The elapsed time might be as much as 1.5 - 2 years. 3)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 March 2004 From: Avraham A. Greenbaum and Leonard Prager Subject: Eliezer Podriatchik's Checklist of Soviet Writers Eliezer Podriatchik's Checklist of Soviet Writers by Avraham A. Greenbaum and Leonard Prager Eliezer Podriatchik [Yiddish: Leyzer Podriyatshik] (1914-2000) compiled a "Lexicon of Afflictions" which flashes to our minds the reach and scope of oppression -- from within and without -- of Jewish literary creativity in both Hebrew and Yiddish in the former Soviet Union. The cataclysmic August 12, 1952 was simply a culmination point in this soul-numbing history. Someone like Podriatchik with firsthand knowledge of Soviet Yiddish culture over a period of decades could compile a list of this kind, one with numerous names not represented in any of the standard Yiddish biographical handbooks. Yet even Podriatchik could not supply accurate dates for the many writers who disappeared in Stalin's prison camps long before the final Soviet push against Yiddish that began in 1948 with the "accident" that killed the great Mikhoels. One would have liked Podriatshik's list to serve as an authoritative biographical handbook. However, there are many discrepancies between Podriatshik's birth and death dates and those given in Berl Kagan's _Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers_ (New York 1986) and the earlier _Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur_ , 8 vols. (New York 1956-1981). Thus the particulars that Podriatshik assigns to Yankev Kantor [Jacob Cantor] appear to belong to another person than those attributed in careful detail to a Yankev Kantor by A.A. Greenbaum in the _Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur_ (vol. 8, cols. 72-73). We were led to check through all the names in Podriatshik's list and in several instances indicate figures whose birth and/or death dates differ from those given in NL or Kagan. The list presented here makes no claim to being definitive; we invite additions and corrections. We must add a note about Podriatchik himself, a sad man drawn to sombre themes. The opening sentence in his _In heykhl fun vort_ (Tel Aviv: Y.L. Perets, 1991, p. 9) reads: "Mayn tate hot keyn mol nisht gelakht." ("My father never laughed.") Podriatchik found intellectual and spiritual sustenance in literature. On his tombstone are engraved the words from Dovid Hofshteyn's "Friling": "O, shprakh, mayn kinigraykh, / O, shprakh, mayn layb, mayn lebn!" ('Oh, language, my kingdom, / Oh, language, my body, my life!'). ------------------------------------------------------------ Eliezer Podriatchik, _Hatsatsa mizavit yeshara_ ('Glancing from a Right Angle'). Tel-Aviv: "Yisroel-Bukh," 1991. Ne'lamim veNe'elamim ['Hidden and Silenced'] tsiyunim bibliografiim ['bibliographic notes'], pp. 151-177. Podriatshik writes: "_Ne'lamim veNe'elamim_ -- as this title indicates -- is a special kind of lexicon. It includes Jewish writers who perished in the Soviet Union, who were incarcerated there at some time, or whose fate is not known." (p. 151) This "Leksikon yisurim" as its compiler calls it ['Lexicon of Afflictions'] is divided into two parts, Hebrew writers and Yiddish writers. Names are given in the Hebrew order. HEBREW WRITERS [Some of the Hebrew writers also wrote Yiddish -- AAG & LP] -Avronin (Ben-Or); -Alin, Avraham; -Alsarif, Y.; -Anos, G.; -Borovitsh, Yitskhak [author of Yiddish technical handbooks in his field: _Koyft a gutn ferd_ (Kharkov, 1928) and _Viazoy oyskhoven a gut gezunt yungfi_ (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932)]; -Borokhin, Yaakov; -Bakhut , A. [pseud.] [see Gen 35:8]; -Grinberg, Yisrael; -Habone (Trebukov), Shimon; -Vays, Shlomo; -Zborovski, Yosef; -Khyog, Moshe [pseud., based on character in Scandinavian literature, real name M.Z. Plotkin]; -Kohen, Yitskhak [briefly managed Jewish State Theatre at Simfropol]; -Lotesh, Shmuel; -Lenski, Khayim; -Mardkhiuf, Y. [pseud.]; -Novak, Mili (Shmuel); -Pir, Adani (Peysekh Reyski); -Fradkin, Ben-Tsion; -Frid, Gershon; -Preygerzon, Tsvi; -Friman, Avraham; -Tsfasman, Yosef-Leyb; -Ravrebe, Yekhiel; -Rudin, Elisha [initially a Yiddish writer, the "last Mohican" -- term used by A.A.G. in article in _Jewish Social Studies_ July 1968] of Hebrew creativity in the USSR, author of the elegiac poem "LaBen" ('To My Son') composed in memory of his son, a soldier in the Red Army killed fighting the Nazis]; -Roznshteyn, Khayim-David; -Shvarts, Nakhum. YIDDISH WRITERS Some of the Yiddish writers also wrote Hebrew, e.g. Shmuel Halkin, Dovid Hofshteyn, Der Nister, Moyshe Kulbak. We give the names of those executed on August 12, 1952 in capital letters.-AAG & LP --Abtshuk, Avrom (1887-arrested 1936,d. in camp)[d. date should be 1939] --Avrohom, Leyb (1896-arrested 1948, d. in camp) --Aguleski, Menakhem (1891-1932) --Agurski, Shmuel (1884-1947) --Averbukh, Volf ( ? - 1936) --Osherovitsh, Elye (1879-3) --Altshuler, Yehoyshue (? - 193 ) --Aleksandrov, Hilel (1890-1972) --Ester [M. Frumkin] (1880-1936) --Akselrod, Zelik (1904-1941) --Erik, Maks (1898-?1936) --Bilov, Shloyme (1888-?1948) --Beregovski, Moyshe (1892-1961) --BERGELSON, DOVID (1884-1952) --Bronshteyn, Yashe (1897-?1938) --Bril, Hershl (1902-?1937) --Gutyanski, Binyomin (1906-?1948) --Gildin, Khayem (1885-1944) --Gilishanski, Hersh (1881-?194?) --Grubyan, Motl (1909-1972) --Grinberg, Zerekh (1887-?1948) --Dobrushin, Yekheskl (1883-?1948) --Dunyets, Khaskl (18??-?1935) --Diamant, Maks (?-?194?) --Dimentshteyn, Shimen (1888-?1937) --Damesk, Avrom-Ayzik (1893-?1936) --Huberman, Ayzik (1907-1966) --Holdes, Oyzer (1900-1966) --HOFSHTEYN, DOVID (1889-1952) --Halkin, Shmuel (1897-1960) --Vaynhoyz, Note (1912-1944) --Vaynshteyn, Yisroel [Idl Melamed] (1891-194?) --Vladnitski, Avrom (1899-1959) --Vendrof, Zalmen (1876-1971) --ZUSKIN, BINYOMIN (1899-1952) --Zhits, G. (?-?1948) --Kharik, Izi (1898-193?) --Khashin, Aleksander [Tsvi Avurbukh] (1886-?1939) --Tayf, Moyshe (1904-1966) --Yavits, Khayem (1906-?1937) --Yu, Mikhoel [Meyer Yofe] (?-1960) --Yudlson, Arn (1907-?) --Yankelevitsh, Yankev (1904-?1938) --Koyen, Naftoli-Herts (1910-1971) --Katvan, Benedikt [active Hebraist] --Katvan, Markus (?-?) --Leyb, Ziskind (1896-193?) --Levin, Nokhem (1904-?) [K: (1908-1952) --Loytsker, Khayem (1898-1970) --Levyoson, Mikhl (1882-1938) --Liberberg, Yoysef (1899-1937) --Litvakov, Moyshe (1875-?193?) --MARKISH, PERETS (1895-1952) --Mokhshovits, Herts (1892-1958) --Mizhritski, Moyshe (1892-1951) --Mikhoels, Shloyme (1890-1948) --Merez hin, Avrom (1880-193?) --Nusinov, Yitskhok (?-1950) --Nister [Der Nister, Pini Kahanovitsh] (1884-1950) --Sudarski, I. (?-?1948) --Stelmakh, Ana (1900-1950) --Strongin, Leyb (?-1967) --Strelits, Osker (1892-?1937) --Slutski, Dov-Ber (1887-1951) --Spivak, Elye (18 90-?1948) --Furmanovits, Yoysef [Galekh] (?-?193?) --Pintshevski, Moyshe (1894-1955) --Platner, Ayzik (1895-1961) --Feldman, Dovid (?-?193?) --FEFER, ITSIK (1900-1952) --Fridland, Tsvi (1897-193?) --Prizman, Yekhiel (1909-?) --Persov, Shmuel (1890-1952) --Tsinberg, Yisroel (1873-1939) --Tsalman, Tsvi (1913-?) --Tshemeriski, Aleksander (1880-?193?) --Tshernikhov, Yoysef [Donieli] (1882-1941) --Kahan, Avrom (1901-1965) --Kahan, Elye (?-?194?) --KVITKO, LEYB (1890-1952) --Kulbak, Moyshe (1896-193?) --Kushnirov, Arn (1890-1949) --Kiper, Motl (1896-193?) --Kirzhnits, Avrom (1888-193?) --Kirzhner, Gershn (1905-194?) --Klitnik, Shmuel (1904-1940) --Kamenshteyn, Moyshe (?-?) --Kantor, Yankev (1866-1964: "arrested in the 1930s and died in the camp") [NL: (1886-1964) [AAG: never arrested] --Rafes, Moyshe (1885-193?) [NL:1883-1937[ --Rivkin, Herts (1908-1951) --Reyzn, Zalmen (1887-1940) --Rafalski, Moyshe-Arn (1889-193?) --Shternberg, Yankev (1890-1973). ------------------------------------------------------------- End of The Mendele Review Vol. 08.004 Editor, Leonard Prager Associate Editor, Joseph Sherman Subscribers to Mendele (see below) automatically receive The Mendele Review. Send "to subscribe" or change-of-status messages to: listproc@lists.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele mail postpone b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail ack c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele ****Getting back issues**** _The Mendele Review_ archives can be reached at: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele/tmrarc.htm ____________________________________________________