Former Merchant Suicide when He Fails to Locate His Brother in America

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Failure to locate his brother, said to be a well to do merchant in the United States and who might have brought him aid in his plight, drove Simcha Sdankow, once a wealthy merchant, to commit suicide on the street here. He was sixty-eight years old.

Sdankow’s act of despair was the climax of a deeply stirring tragedy in the throes of which are many Russian Jewish families as a result of the upheaval in Russia.

Sdankow, who before the war was a rich lumber merchant, having wide commercial relations in western Europe, lost all of his property by a confiscation decree of the Bolshevik authorities. His only daughter was shot on the charge that she was a friend of an officer in the Czarist army. Sdankow’s wife died of heart failure on receipt of the news of her daughter’s death.

Reduced to extreme poverty, Sdankow made his way to Poland, where he had to resort to begging, continuing to live in the hope that from Poland he might succeed in learning the whereabouts of his brother, said to be a well to do merchant in the United States.

When all efforts failed and when his many letters brought no reply, the merchant-beggar ended his life last night on a side street in Poland’s capital.