The Open Grave

Yoysef Smolazh

1937

Crowds of people had been gathering since dawn at the morgue next to the city hospital. Drowsy, shivering, in damp gray clothes, they warmed themselves by huddling in one another’s breath. Their faces were remote and gloomy, their lips pressed together in harsh sorrow, their eyes blinked naively and awkwardly. A damp autumn fog shrouded these…

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Creator Bio

Yoysef Smolazh

1906–1942

The Yiddish poet and prose writer Yoysef Smolazh was born to a poor family in Chmielnik, Poland, and received a traditional heder education and worked as a destitute tailor. Smolazh’s literary talent was discovered by prominent Yiddish author I. M. Veisenberg, who secured Smolazh’s reputation as a skilled poet and writer. Smolazh’s poetry and stories were published in dozens of periodicals and journals in Poland and Latin America. After the publication of his first book, Heym un fremd (Home and Abroad), in 1937, he moved to Warsaw. He was murdered in Treblinka.

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