Born in 1902
in the village of Vampyezshov (Wampierzów),
Torner region, Western Galicia. Later his
parents moved to Lodz. He learned in a cheder
from his father, a poor melamed, then
secular studies by himself. In 1909 he traveled
by wagon, and broke a hand and a foot, but due
to the need at home, he had to go to work; at
first as a furrier/hatter, then as a pliush
weaver, a tailor, later a private teacher, a
theatre prompter for an vaudeville troupe in
Baluty, and an office employee. During the First
World War, he was sent away by the Germans to do
pliers(?) work to Lita (Lithuania) and "ober
ost". He returned to Poland and became a
co-founder of the socialist youth organization "Tsukunft"
and toured with speeches/presentations across
Poland. In 1921 he went over to the Left.
1932-35 -- underwent
various illnesses and lay in the hospital in
Warsaw. From 1935 he lived in Antwerp, Belgium,
where he had a haberdashery and paper shop, at
the same time active in the local Yiddish
cultural life, co-founder of the presidium
membership of "Ikuf" (1937) and his Belgian
secretary (?).
In the beginning, he
wrote in 1916 as a reporter in Lazar Kahan's "Lodzer
folkslbat," then published songs and poems,
stories, novels, reportages and literary
critiques in various periodical editions and
issued eleven books, including the
dramatic satire "Der kenig" (Warsaw, 1932, 32
pp.), and the dramatic reportage "Baruch Shulman"
(Warsaw, 1934, 48 pp.), which was staged at the
end of 1936 in Paris under the direction of
Jacob Mandelblit and later in Argentina.
In 1957 his wife
issued in Paris her book of collected songs.
When the Germans
took Belgium, Z. became active in the
underground movement against the Nazis.
In June 1942 he was
taken away to Northern France for work, and then was
deported to Auschwitz. As it was told an
ed-raih, that together with him there were
taken away, He even appeared to save himself
by jumping off the train and then hiding for two
years among Belgians, but already at the
transport he was going to oysgeboygn with
oysgerundiktn rukn as a passport from the
beaten (?), which the Germans had given him.
Accordingly as his
widow, Bina Zilberstein, was moved by a newly
saved Jew from the Auschwitz camp, and Z. in
November 1942 was murdered in Auschwitz in the
following way: together with a group of Belgian
Jews, he was led to the gas chambers. In a
certain moment, among the victims oysgebokhn a
bunt, and he had, the first, caught a stone and
threw him to one of the slain(?). An S. S.
person had thereof shot him on the spot.