“My Autobiography written specifically for the YIVO Contest in Vilna”

Cover page of an autobiography submitted in 1932 to an autobiography contest organized by YIVO. Jewish youth from all over Poland were encouraged to send their life stories to the institute. Prizes were awarded for the best ones. The drawing of a yeshiva student laden with books, a walking stick, and a lantern is captioned in Hebrew, “The wanderer on the road of life,” a reference to an influential autobiographical novel by Hebrew author Peretz Smolenskin published in the 1860s and 1870s.

Digitization of this artifact has been made possible by the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project.