Semiatitski, Khaim: 1908-1943

Born in 1908 near Bialystock to a rabbinical family, Semiatitski began writing poetry while a yeshiva student. He was ordained as a rabbi but worked as a Hebrew teacher. He was widely published in Yiddish newspapers, journals and two books Oisgeshtrekte Hent, (“Outstretched Hands”), Warsaw 1935 and Tropns Toi, (“Drops of Dew”), Warsaw, 1938. In 1939 he won the Y. L. Peretz prize from the Yiddish Pen Club in Poland. When the Nazis occupied Warsaw, he returned to Bialystock under Russian occupation. He did not join the writer’s club and refused to write in Soviet sponsored press. In 1941 he went to Vilna and worked in the underground. He was killed in Ponar in September, 1943.