Smugglers

Ojzer Warszawski

1920

Chapter I

Pantel the wagon driver stretches out under the covers and sits up, yawning. The house is dark but a faint light is just beginning to penetrate through the peepholes in the shutter.

“It’s early,” he stammers, rubbing his eyes and looking around the cold, dark room. When he sees the icicles hanging outside the window a feeling of gloom…

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Creator Bio

Ojzer Warszawski

1898–1944

Ojzer (Oyzer; Oser Warshawsky) Warszawski was born in Sochaczew, Poland. He received a traditional Jewish education and settled in Warsaw in 1912. His first novel, Shmuglars (Smugglers, 1920), set during the German occupation of World War I, was an exemplar of Yiddish naturalism, and was published in multiple editions. Briefly aligned with the Di Khalyastre (The Gang) group of Yiddish modernists, Warszawski moved to Paris in 1924, where he joined the Montparnasse artistic community, and published avant-garde periodicals. In addition to his painting and literature, Warszawski published art and literary criticism. After the German occupation of Paris, he fled to different parts of France and was eventually evacuated to Rome, where he was captured and sent to Auschwitz.

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