Biber, Jacob 1915- (Ya'akov Biber)

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BIBER, Jacob 1915- (Ya'akov Biber)

PERSONAL: Born March 15, 1915, in Matzeev (now Lukov), Ukraine; came to the United States, 1947; son of Elkone Dov Konebear "Berka" (a cattle dealer, grocer, and farmer) and Chasia (Gortenstein) Biber; married Eva Cherniak, March 7, 1939; children: Shalom Shakhne (deceased), Chaim Shalom Dov, BenZion, Joseph. Education: Attended Jewish religious schools in Matzeev, Ukraine. Religion: Conservative Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, poetry, amateur theater.

ADDRESSES: Home—700 South West 128th Ave., Pembroke Pines, FL 33027-1781.

CAREER: Worked on his parents' farm until age 17; grocer from 1932-39; principal and organizer of school in Displaced Persons' (DP) Camp, Föhrenwald, Germany, then head of Teachers' Organization for Bavaria, Germany, DP District, 1946-47. Dairy and poultry farmer in, South Windham, CT, 1948-50; dairy farmer, c. 1950-55; owner of egg production farm and egg distribution service in, Preston, CT, c. 1955-73.

MEMBER: Survivors Club (Pembroke Pines, FL; vice president, 1988-99).

AWARDS, HONORS: Honored by Jewish National Front, 1969; Certificate of Appreciation, New England Crop and Livestock Association, 1974; Certificate of Appreciation, Preston (CT) Historical Society, 1985; honored by the Broward School System for teaching students about the Holocaust, c. 1990s and by a synagogue in Century Village, FL, for his teaching of the Hebrew language; Lion of Israel Award, State of Israel Bonds, 1996; recognized by Holocaust Museum as among outstanding writers in America on the Holocaust.

WRITINGS:

Survivors: A Personal Story of the Holocaust, Star Publishers (New London, CT), 1982, revised edition, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1989.

Risen from the Ashes: A Story of the Jewish DisplacedPersons in the Aftermath of World War II (sequel to Survivors), introduction by Elie Wiesel, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1990.

(As Ya'akov Biber) Bey der Shkieh Fun Lebn: Lider un Poemes Fun a Geratevetn Yid (title means "At the Twilight of Life: Songs and Poems from a Jewish Survivor"), J. Biber (Pembroke Pines, FL), 1992.

Violence and Devotion: A Novel of the Holocaust, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1996.

(Editor) A Triumph of the Spirit: Ten Stories ofHolocaust Survivors, Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1994, expanded edition published as A Triumph of the Spirit: Thirteen Stories of Holocaust Survivors, 1998.

(As Ya'akov Biber) Derner un Blumen (title means "Poems and Flowers"), edited by Alex Silver, J. Biber (Pembroke Pines, FL), 1998.

Work anthologized in 1945: The Year of Liberation: The Guide to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.

SIDELIGHTS: Jacob Biber is a Holocaust survivor who later moved to the United States, where he wrote and edited several books that strive to preserve Jewish history and the Yiddish language. Biber grow up in the small town of Matzeev, about three hundred miles east of Warsaw, Poland. One-third of the town's 7,500 residents were Jewish, and it was in this community that Biber was educated and married his childhood sweetheart, the granddaughter of the local rabbi. Matzeev was caught up in the many European wars of the first half of the twentieth century, including World War I and the Russian civil war. Biber and his family were nearly killed in April of 1920, during the latter war, when retreating Bolshevik forces set fire to a storage warehouse in the Bibers' neighborhood.

In Survivors: A Personal Story of the Holocaust Biber recounts his experiences in World War II. When Nazi Germany invaded the area of Matzeev in the summer of 1941, over three hundred Jewish men and boys, including Biber's brother Ben-Zion, were massacred by the Gestapo, the German secret police. Biber and his wife, Eva, hid in the woods to avoid subsequent shootings by the Germans, but their hiding place was betrayed. As he and Eva ran for their lives, their infant son, Shalom, was shot out of Jacob's arms, and they were forced to abandon his body beneath a bush. Devastated, Jacob and Eva planned to turn themselves in to the Gestapo but were convinced by a friend to reconsider.

Risen from the Ashes: A Story of the Jewish Displaced Persons in the Aftermath of World War II, the sequel to Survivors, recounts the Bibers' life in a displaced persons' camp in Germany following the war. Like many of their fellow Jews, they wished to settle in the soon-to-be-realized state of Israel, but the British still controlled the region, and they refused to let the stateless survivors into Palestine. So, for a two-year period, the Bibers lived in Camp Föhrenwald, established and operated by the U.S. during its postwar occupation of Germany. Eventually, their determination to find a new home led them to the United States, where they purchased a farm in Preston, Connecticut.

Biber's anthology of survivors' accounts, A Triumph of the Spirit: Ten Stories of Holocaust Survivors, was undertaken after his retirement to Pembroke Pines, Florida. There he and Eva encountered other survivors of the Holocaust and exchanged stories. Biber quickly saw that these people too had a need to share their experiences and to bear witness to future generations. As he explained in his introduction to the book: "It is only through such contemporary reports that the world can be made aware of the acts of insanity a 'civilized and cultured' nation is capable of committing. Their testimonies also bear witness to the great moral and spiritual strength the Jews maintained, even while being subjected to the most horrible conditions, beatings, gruesome brutality, and starvation. They did not waver."

In recent years Biber has begun writing stories and poems in Yiddish, the language of his youth. He also continues to lecture to school audiences and citizen groups on the reality of the Holocaust.