{{Short description|American librarian (1909-2000)}} {{Infobox person |image=File:Dina Abramowicz.png |alt=headshot of an older white woman in short hair tilting her head and looking directly into the camera |caption=Dina Abramowicz |birth_place=Vilnius, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire |birth_date={{Birth year|1909}} |death_date=April 3 {{Death year and age|2000|1909}} }} '''Dina Abramowicz''' ({{langx|yi|דינה אַבראַמאָװיטש}}; 1909{{snd}}April 3, 2000<ref name="nytobit" />) was a librarian at YIVO and a Yiddish language expert.

== Early life and education == Abramowicz was born in Vilnius, then under Russian rule.<ref name=nytobit>{{Cite news|author-link=Joseph Berger (author)|last=Berger|first=Joseph|date=April 9, 2000|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/09/nyregion/dina-abramowicz-90-librarian-and-yiddish-expert-dies.html |title=Dina Abramowicz, 90, Librarian and Yiddish Expert, Dies|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-04-19}}</ref> Her parents were teachers. Though her first language was Russian, when the Germans occupied Vilnius during World War I, they allowed Jews to establish their own schools. Abramowicz's parents sent her to a Yiddish-language elementary and high schools. During her university years she studied Polish literature. In 1936, Abramowicz graduated from Stefan Batory University with a degree in humanities.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/12/dina-abramowicz.html|title=Yiddish Leksikon: DINA ABRAMOWICZ|last=Fogel|first=Joshua|date=December 4, 2015|website=Yiddish Leksikon|access-date=2018-06-24}}</ref>

==Career== Her first job was at a children's library in Vilnius, the Kinderbibliotek.<ref name=nytobit/> Soon after its founding she joined YIVO.

During World War II, Vilnius's Jews were put in ghettos. A librarian, Herman Kruk, organized a library and asked Abramowicz to staff it. "How can we think of a library under these conditions, and who will come to read books there?" she remembered asking a fellow librarian. "Since there was nothing one could do about this absurd situation, what was the use of talking and wondering?" was the response. During its initial year, the ghetto library lent 100,000 books, mostly of escapist fiction to relieve the suffering of the ghetto residents.<ref name=nytobit/>

The Vilnius ghetto was liquidated in 1943. Abramowicz's mother was sent to Treblinka, where she was murdered. Abramowicz was to be sent to a labor camp, but when the train car door opened on the Vilnius platform, she walked out unnoticed and made her escape, eventually working in a camp devoted to processing winter coats for the German army. She escaped into the woods and joined Jewish resistance fighters as a nurse's helper.<ref name=nytobit/>

After the war she made her way to New York City, where she reunited with her father, who had relocated there prior to the war. There she encountered Max Weinreich, one of YIVO's founders, and together they worked to reconstitute YIVO. In 1947, Abramowicz was appointed assistant librarian at YIVO.<ref name="Baker">Baker, Zachary (February 27, 2009). "[http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/abramowicz-dina Dina Abramowicz]." Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2018-06-24.</ref> In 1953, Abramowicz received her master's degree in Science from the School of Library Science at Columbia University.<ref name=":0" /> She became the head librarian at YIVO in 1962, a position she held until 1987 when she was appointed research librarian, a position she held until her death.<ref name="Baker"/>

People recalled Abramowicz as having a phenomenal memory and as being a knowledgeable source for information on the Yiddish culture of Eastern Europe.<ref name=nytobit/>

==Legacy== After her death, YIVO established the [https://www.petersons.com/scholarship/Dina-Abramowicz-Emerging-Scholar-Fellowship-111_153681.aspx Dina Abramowicz Emerging Scholar Fellowship] for postdoctoral research in Eastern European Jewish Studies.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.petersons.com/scholarship/Dina-Abramowicz-Emerging-Scholar-Fellowship-111_153681.aspx|title=Dina Abramowicz Emerging Scholar Fellowship|date=2018|website=Peterson's|access-date=2018-06-24}}</ref>

== Awards ==

* Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky Prize, 1987, Yiddisher Kultur Farband.<ref name="Baker"/> * Dr. Berl Frimer Prize for Cultural Achievement, 1992, Congress for Jewish Culture.<ref name="Baker"/> * Leonard Wertheimer Multicultural Public Library Service Award, 1994, Public Library Association of the American Library Association.<ref name="Baker"/>

== Publications ==

=== Bibliographies ===

*Yiddish literature in English translation; books published 1945–1967. New York: Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, 1967. *Yiddish literature in English translation : list of books in print. New York : Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, 1976. {{ISBN|0914512366}} *"Die Bibliothek im Wilnaer Ghetto, 1941–1943" in: Bücher und Bibliotheken in Ghettos und Lagern (1933–1945). Kleine historische Reihe der Zeitschrift Laurentius, Band 3. Hannover: Laurentius, 1991.

=== Book chapters ===

* "The library in the Vilna ghetto" in: ''The Holocaust and the book: destruction and preservation'', edited by Jonathan Rose. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. {{ISBN|9781558496439}}

=== Conference proceedings ===

* Guardians of a tragic heritage: reminiscences and observations of an eyewitness. New York: National Foundation for Jewish Culture/Council of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies, 1999.

=== Encyclopedia entries ===

* "Di Geto-Biblyotek in Vilne" [The ghetto library of Vilna]. In ''Lite (Lithuania).'' Vol. 1, edited by Mendel Sudarsky, Uriah Katzenelenbogen, and J. Kissin (1951), cols. 1671–1678.

=== Journal articles ===

*"Ethnic Survival in the New World: Yiddish Juvenilia." ''Wilson Library Bulletin'' 50, no. 2 (1975): 138–145. *"The World of My Parents: Reminiscences." ''YIVO Annual'' 23 (1996): 105–157. *"The YIVO Library." ''Jewish Book Annual'' 24 (1967–1968): 87–102. *"Yom Kippur, 1941–1945: Memories of the Vilna Ghetto." ''Jewish Frontier'' 14, no. 1 (1947): 18–22.

== References == {{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abramowicz, Dina}} Category:1909 births Category:2000 deaths Category:People from Vilnius Category:People from Vilensky Uyezd Category:Lithuanian Jews Category:Soviet Jews Category:Vilnius University alumni Category:Vilna Ghetto inmates Category:Jewish resistance members during the Holocaust Category:Soviet female resistance members Category:Soviet partisans Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Category:Jewish American historians Category:Jewish American women writers Category:People from New York City Category:YIVO people Category:20th-century American historians Category:20th-century American librarians Category:20th-century American women librarians Category:20th-century American women writers Category:American librarianship and human rights Category:American women historians Category:Columbia University School of Library Service alumni