Neugroeschel, Mendel
NEUGROESCHEL, MENDEL
NEUGROESCHEL, MENDEL (1903–1965), Yiddish poet, essayist, and editor. Born in Nowy Sacz, Galicia, Neugroeschel practiced law in Vienna until the Anschluss. He was sent to the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps but was released in March 1939 and immigrated to Brazil. Two years later he settled in New York. In his Vienna period he was influenced by Rainer Maria Rilke and *Mani Leib, as is evident from his first three lyric collections: In Shvartsn Malkhes ("In the Dark Realm," 1924), Getseltn ("Tents," 1930), and Kaylikhdige Teg ("Circular Days," 1935). In 1936 he published Kleyne Antologye fun der Yidisher Lirik in Galitsye 1897–1935 ("A Brief Anthology of Yiddish Poetry in Galicia"). In New York he felt himself a stranger and wrote sad, nostalgic lyrics about the Jewish world of his youth. His prose study, "Di Moderne Yidishe Literatur in Galitsie" ("Modern Yiddish Literature in Galicia," in: Fun Noentn Over, 1 (1955), 267–398), affords rich insight into the Galician neo-romantic group which was influential between 1904 and 1918.
bibliography:
lnyl, 6 (1965), 212f.; Rejzen, Leksikon, 2 (1927), 552; J. Leftwich, The Golden Peacock (1961).
[Melech Ravitch]