Avraham Sutzkever, Israel’s foremost Yiddish poet, was honored here at a dinner given by the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Associations for his outstanding contributions to the literature of the Holocaust on the occasion of the publication by the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Press of his new book of poetry, “Poems of the Sea of Death.” Honoring the poet, a hero of the Jewish underground during World War II, were Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Mannes Sperber, French novelist and essayist, the 1967 laureate of the Federation’s “Remembrance Award”; Jacob Glatstein, leading American Yiddish poet; and Josef Rosensaft of New York, president of the Bergen-Belsen Federation, who presided.
Ambassador Tekoah said the lesson of the Holocaust “is a cruel one. The only protection is one’s strength and capacity to defend oneself.” Asserting that as Israel is threatened with annihilation-by Its Arab neighbors, he said, “the only thing that stands between Israel and a repetition of the tragedy of the Holocaust is only Israel’s own strength and determination.”
Mr. Rosensaft, in paying the tribute to Mr. Sutzkever of a Holocaust survivor, also announced the publication of the “Book of Valor” by the Bergen-Belsen World Federation in cooperation with Israel Defense Army and the Israel Press Association. This new book pays tribute to Israel’s heroes of the Six-Day War.
In accepting the acclaim of his fellows, Mr. Sutzkever, who is editor of the Goldene Keit (Golden Chain),” leading Yiddish literary Journal published in Israel, pledged himself to continue writing for the glorification and memory of European Jewry’s martyred dead.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
