Vidutshinski, Yitskhok
April 7, 1921-
He was born in Kharkov, Ukraine. His father was a pharmacist and after the revolution became a worker in a Kharkov locomotive factory. In 1922 his family moved to the town of Ingalina, Vilna district. There he graduated (in 1933) from the sixth class in public school, moving on to study at the Vilna Jewish senior high school, where he began to write poetry and short stories.
In 1937 he joined the writers’ circle of Yung-Vilne (Young Vilna) and, using the pen name “Yitskhok Demb,” contributed to the anthology Yung Vilne (Young Vilna) (Vilna, 1939).
When the Red Army entered Poland, Vidutshinski moved to Sventsyan (Svencionys). From there in 1941 he was evacuated to Uzbekistan. He was mobilized in 1942 into the Red Army and was wounded in fighting with the Nazis.
Thereafter he was in Poland, where he once again took up literary activities.
Source: L. Ran, in 25 Yor Yung Vilne (Twenty-Five Years of Young Vilna), anthology (New York, 1954).