Sutzkever: Essential Prose

About Avrom Sutzkever

Avrom Sutzkever (19132010) spent his childhood in Siberia and emerged as a writer in the burgeoning literary circles of Jewish Vilna. In the Vilna Ghetto he wrote poetry as a means of survival. As a member of what became known as the Paper Brigade he helped to save Jewish cultural treasures from Nazi destruction. After the war he became an influential advocate and activist for Yiddish culture as well as a symbol of resistance through acts such as his testimony at the Nuremberg trials. He founded the Yiddish literary journal Di goldene keyt (The Golden Chain) and in 1985 received the Israel Prize for Yiddish literature.