Background
Żychlińsky was born in Gombin (Gąbin) Poland, daughter of Mordechai and Debora Appel.
Żychlińsky was born in Gombin (Gąbin) Poland, daughter of Mordechai and Debora Appel.
She completed grade school in Gombin, but, as the small town had no high school, she continued her education through private tutors.
She is especially noted for her poem God Hid His Face. Her first success in publishing her poetry was in the Folkszeitung, a Jewish newspaper in Warsaw, in 1927 or 1928. Her first book of poems, Lider, was published in 1936 by the Yiddish Pen Club with an introduction by noted poet and playwright Itzik Manger.
During the months preceding the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Żychlińsky was successful in getting her second book, Der regn zingt, published in Warsaw.
During this period she maintained herself by working various jobs, including working at an orphanage and as a clerk. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Żychlińsky and friends hired a cab and, for an extraordinary payment of 400 złoty, had the driver drive her to the Bug River, where she had a boat take her across the river into the zone of Soviet-occupied Poland, near Białystok.
Żychlińsky returned to Poland and France after the war. There she found work, and, at the same time, attended City College of New New York
Subsequently, she and her family have resided in various parts of the United States, including Florida and California, as well as spending some time in Canada.
Her poem God Hid His Face is one of her most famous and powerful about the holocaust. In the poem she writes of a mood darkening bit by bit with no hope of rescue. Many of Żychlińsky’s poems have been published in anthologies, including Aaron Kramer"s A Century of Yiddish Poetry.
Her poetry has been translated into English by various poets, including Barnett Zumoff, Aaron Kramer, Marek Kanter, Hannah Kahn, and others