Platner family

Ayzik Platner (1895 Sokolov Podlyask – 1961 Palanga) was a Yiddish poet and writer. He was father was a tailor. Platner received a traditional Jewish education and studied in yeshivot. During WWI he was a Poalei-Zion activist and wrote his first published article in 1919 in Warsaw’s “Literarishe bleter” (Literary leaves). In 1920 he settled in Kovno (Kaunas) and moved to the United States in 1921. Platner worked in sweatshops in New York, and studied in the teachers’ seminary of the Workmen’s Circle. He also worked as a teacher and was a member of the pro-Communist and pro-Soviet Proletarian Writers' Association “Union Square” (later “Proletpen.”) In 1932 he traveled to the Soviet Union, and decided to stay in Minsk. He worked for the editorial board of the Minsk daily newspaper “Oktyabr” and the “Der shtern”. He also published his articles in other Soviet journals and in the American Communist press. In 1937, during the Great Terror, Ayzik Platner was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union. In 1941, following the beginning of the “Great Patriotic War”, he was evacuated to Saransk (Mordovia). In 1944 he returned to Minsk. In 1949 Ayzik Platner was arrested during the campaign aimed at liquidation of the Jewish culture and sent to the Gulag. In 1956 he was freed, and returned to Minsk where continued writing. The private collection of the Platner family contains Ayzik Platner's correspondence, articles and reviews, poetry and prose, his daughter's book of memories and family photographs -- Read more