The Holocaust World of Yechiel Fajner (Biography‪)‬

The near destruction of European Jewry by Nazism is still at the forefront of scholarly pursuit and has produced a remarkably diverse canon. (1) Yet, despite the critical spotlight cast about the Holocaust and its subsequent artistic representation, the powerful literary forays of Yechiel Fajner (Denur), who spent two years in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, and who is arguably one of the Holocaust's most significant chroniclers have been noticeably overlooked. Indeed, Omer Bartov has expressed dismay at the almost universal sidelining by critics of Denur's corpus and the author's relative obscurity outside Israel. (2) Leona Toker concurs with Bartov's assessment, noting that although Denur's books have been part of the curricula of the Israeli education system, and have been translated into many languages, "... academic criticism has not done well by him." (3) Yechiel Denur was born Yechiel Fajner in Sosnovich, Poland on 16 May, 1909. For a while, his date of birth was erroneously given as 1917. His parents were Hassidic Jews, and he was one of three children. He studied at the renowned Talmudic Yeshiva in Lublin and later enrolled at Warsaw University. A gifted violin player, he began penning music and poetry in Yiddish at an early age, becoming well known within the Jewish community. His first collection of poems Tsveiuntsvantsig: Lider was published in Warsaw in 1931. It is noteworthy that after WWI, he burned copies of this book that he found in the Library of Congress in Washington and in his local library in Jerusalem. He claimed that this book "belonged to a world that no longer existed." (4) He was captured by the Gestapo in 1943 and transferred to Auschwitz, where he spent the next two years until rescued by Soviet troops in February 1945 from a death march. His sister was earlier raped and murdered by the Nazis, along with his entire family and wife. He wandered throughout Europe following his liberation. Fortunately, he was hospitalised in a British army camp in Terra-Viso, Italy, by members of the Jewish Brigade, fighting alongside the allies. Once recovered, and after completing his first novel over a two and a half week period, he clandestinely entered Palestine. In 1947, he married Nina Asherman, who became his trusted translator. They had two children, Daniella, who he named after his twin sister, and Lior. He died of cancer in 2001, aged 92. He kept writing until his last days. According to his son, Denur asked that his death not be announced to the public. He left a list of people who were to be told. (5)