1. David Bergelson was a Yiddish language writer born in the Russian Empire.
12 Facts About David Bergelson
1. 2.
David Bergelson lived for a time in Berlin, Germany, before moving to the Soviet Union following the Nazi rise to power in Germany.
3.
David Bergelson was a victim of the post-war antisemitic "rootless cosmopolitan" campaign and one of those executed on the Night of the Murdered Poets.
4.
David Bergelson grew up in a wealthy, religious, and Yiddish-speaking family.
5.
David Bergelson's father was a grain and timber merchant who spoke no Russian, maintaining his business entirely within the Jewish community.
6.
David Bergelson's mother came from a richer cultural background of writing and books.
7.
The extent of this tutoring was insufficient to allow David Bergelson to enter a higher educational institution in later life.
8.
David Bergelson first became known as a writer in the wake of the failed Russian Revolution of 1905.
9.
David Bergelson began writing for the Communist Yiddish press in both New York and Moscow, and moved to the Soviet Union in 1933, around the time the Nazis came to power in Germany.
10.
David Bergelson was positively impressed with the Jewish Autonomous Republic of Birobidzhan, and participated in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II, co-editing the literary section of the Committee's journal, Eynikayt.
11.
David Bergelson's only child, Lev David Bergelson, was an eminent Soviet biochemist who served as a Soviet Army captain during World War II.
12.
Lev David Bergelson emigrated to Israel in 1991 with his wife Naomi, where both he and his wife died in 2014.