Mann, Mendel
MANN, MENDEL
MANN, MENDEL (Mendl Man ; 1916–1975), Yiddish novelist and painter. Mann was born in Płonsk, Poland. When his art education in Warsaw was interrupted by the Nazi invasion, he fled eastwards and enlisted in the Red Army, in which he witnessed the siege of Moscow and the occupation of Berlin. After the war he settled in Łodz and published a volume of verse, Di Shtilkayt Mont ("Silence Calls," 1945). Following the Kielce pogrom, he moved to Regensburg in 1946, where he edited a Yiddish dp newspaper. He immigrated to Israel in 1948, where he published Oyfgevakhte Erd ("Awakened Earth," 1953), a collection of stories reflecting the lives of Jewish refugees living in a former Palestinian village. From 1949 he was a co-editor of Di Goldene Keyt. The novel, In a Farvorloztn Dorf ("In an Abandoned Village," 1954), is based on the life of Zionist emigrants to Palestine from Jewish villages in the vicinity of Płonsk. His most outstanding work is a trilogy of novels reflecting his wartime experiences. The constituent volumes are Bay di Toyern fun Moskve (1956; At the Gates of Moscow, 1963), Bay der Vaysl ("At the Vistula," 1958), and Dos Faln fun Berlin ("The Fall of Berlin," 1960). The action deals with fighting on the Eastern Front seen through the eyes of Jews serving in the Red Army (whose contribution is minimized to indulge Stalin's prejudice), the reactions of the Russian and Ukrainian population as the Nazis approach Moscow, the instinctive patriotism of ordinary Soviet soldiers and their aspirations for greater freedom after the war. The Nazi leaders are portrayed as histrionic charlatans. Further important prose works are Nakht iber Glushino ("Night over Glushino," 1957), Di Gas fun Bliendike Mandlen ("The Street of Almond Blossoms," 1958), a collection of stories set in Palestine, Al Naharoys Poyln ("By the Rivers of Poland," 1962), and a further volume of stories, Der Shvartser Demb ("The Black Oak," 1969). In 1961 Mann moved to Paris and became the editor of Undzer Vort. He built up a significant art collection and became a friend of Marc Chagall. In 1963 he edited the Yiddish section of Sefer Plonsk ve-ha-Sevivah, the Płonsk memorial volume. There were exhibitions of his paintings in the 1930s in Warsaw and in 1967 in Paris. His works have been extensively translated into French and German.
bibliography:
lnyl, 5 (1963), 431–14; J. Glatstein, Mit Mayne Fartog Bikher (1963), 427–32; S. Bikl, Shrayber fun Mayn Dor, 2 (1965), 408–19. add. bibliography: C.A. Madison, Yiddish Literature: Its Scope and Major Writers (1968), 516–17; G. Sapozhnikov, Der Goyrl fun Yidn Tsvishn di Umes-Hooylem: An Analitisher Araynblik in der "Milkhome-Trilogye" fun Mendl Man (1976).
[Josef Schawinski /
Hugh Denman (2nd ed.)]