Reuven Fahn

Reuven Fahn ( 18781939 or 1944) was a Polish Jewish writer who was active in the decades before the Holocaust.

Early life

Reuven Fahn was born on 21 February 1878 in the village of Starunia in southeastern Austrian Galicia. Fahn could read and write in Hebrew, German, Yiddish, Polish, and Ukrainian by the age of 15. In 1897, at age 19, Fahn married Rachel Keren and moved to his wife's hometown, the Polish city of Halicz. In Halicz, Fahn was influenced by the Karaite Jewish community and their unique culture, which Fahn often wrote about in his literary works.

Mid-life and later life
After Russia conquered eastern Galicia at the start of World War I in 1914, Fahn and many other Galician Jews fled to Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary. Fahn enjoyed the libraries in Vienna and worked as a librarian during his time there. He was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army on 1 December 1914. His military service ended on 2 November 1918, with Austria-Hungary's existence ending soon afterwards. Due to his house and property in Halicz being destroyed due to World War I, Fahn moved to Stanisławów (present-day Ivano-Frankivsk). Afterwards, Fahn continued his work, but as a Polish citizen.

During a 1924 trip to Mandatory Palestine, Fahn created a Galician Zionist colony there. Fahn himself thought about moving to Palestine the next year, but decided not to since he feared that Palestine would soon have an economic crisis. The decision by Fahn and many other Galician Zionists to stay in Poland ended up being deadly for them due to the Holocaust destroying most of Poland's Jewish population by 1945. In 1930, Fahn maintained a correspondence with Hayim Nahman Bialik.

Personal life
Fahn and his first wife had two daughters. His wife died when he was 25 years old. Fahn's eldest daughter Hana was later murdered in the Holocaust while her two daughters survived. In 1905, Fahn remarried to a woman from the city of Bolechow, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Yafa, Fahn's daughter from his second marriage, died at age nine while Fahn and his family were living in Vienna. Yosef, the sickly son from Fahn's second marriage, eventually had a son of his own but he and his entire family were murdered during the Holocaust.

Fahn's exact year and date of death are not known; 1939, 1940, and 1944 were all proposed for this. One report states that he was arrested and killed by the Soviets for Zionist activities a short time before World War II began. Another, possibly more reliable report states that he was murdered by the Nazis and their local Ukrainian allies in Stanisławów at the age of 66 in 1944.

Selected bibliography
 (self-pub.)
 (self-pub.)

References

Other websites
 Govrin, Nurit. The Reuven Fahn Collection, Tel Aviv University, 2014

Category:1878 births
Category:Year of death missing
Category:Polish writers