DANIEL and ÉMILE VIDANS (WIDAN)

DANIEL and ÉMILE VIDANS (WIDAN) (b. 1907 and 1910, respectively)[1]

            They were born in Khveydan (Kvėdarna), Lithuania, the one and only case in modern Yiddish literature in which two brothers wrote their books together.  Their father was a rabbi.  At the time of their expulsion from Lithuania in 1915, they wandered with their parents to Russia.  In 1922 they returned to Lithuania.  Daniel studied in the art schools of Kovno and Paris.  He was a painter and sculptor.  Émile graduated from the law faculty at the University of Paris.  They survived the Nazi occupation of Paris in hiding.  They lived for several years in New York and spent 1956-1963 in Montreal.  Their books: Groyzame yorn (Savage years) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1933), 256 pp.; A shtot in der lite, roman (A city in Lithuania, a novel) (New York, 1950), 221 pp.; Yerusholaim, historisher roman (Jerusalem, a historical novel) (New York, 1953), 242 pp.  Shimen Dubnov wrote that “Groyzame yorn was an unforgettable work, full of images that engrave themselves into one’s memory.”

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 236.

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[1] According to Kh. L. Fuks, Hundert yor yidishe un hebreishe literatur in kanade (A century of Yiddish and Hebrew literature in Canada) (Montreal, 1980), p. 104, Daniel’s family name (and perforce Émile) was Khveydanas.  We assume that the name derives from tiny town in Lithuania from which the Vidans brothers came.