Itzhak Katzenelson | |
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| Born | (1886-07-01)1 July 1886 |
| Died | 1 May 1944(1944-05-01) (aged 57) |
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Itzhak Katzenelson (Yiddish:(יצחק קאַצ(ע)נעלסאָן(זון; alsotranscribed asIcchak-Lejb Kacenelson,Jizchak Katzenelson;Yitzhok Katznelson) (1 July 1886 – 1 May 1944) was aPolish Jewish teacher, poet and dramatist. He was born in 1886 inKarelichy nearMinsk, and was murdered on 1 May 1944 inAuschwitz.[1]
Soon after his birth Katzenelson's family moved toŁódź,Poland, where he grew up. He worked as a teacher, founding a school, and as a dramatist in both Yiddish and Hebrew, starting a theatre group which toured Poland andLithuania. Following theInvasion of Poland byNazi Germany in 1939, he and his family fled toWarsaw, where they were trapped in theWarsaw Ghetto. There he ran an underground school for Jewish children. His wife and two of his sons were deported to theTreblinka extermination camp and murdered there.
Katzenelson participated in theWarsaw Ghetto Uprising, starting on 19 April 1943. To save his life, friends supplied him and his surviving son with forgedHonduran passports. They managed to leave the ghetto but later ended up in Germans hands as part of theHotel Polski affair. He was deported to a detention camp inVittel,France, where the Nazis held American and British citizens and nationals of other Allied and neutral countries, for possible later prisoner exchange.
In Vittel, Katzenelson wrote "Song of the Murdered Jewish People" (Yiddish:דאָס ליד פון אױסגעהרגעטן יידישן פאָלק). He put the manuscript in bottles and buried them under a tree, where it was recovered after the war. A copy was sewn into a suitcase handle and later taken toIsrael.
In late April 1944, Itzhak Katzenelson and his son Zvi were sent on a transport to theAuschwitz concentration camp, where they were murdered on 1 May 1944.
TheGhetto Fighters' HouseHolocaust andJewish Resistance Heritage Museum inIsrael, is named in his memory. "The Song of the Murdered Jewish People" has been translated into numerous languages and published as an individual volume.
