Emanuel Litvinoff

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Emanuel Litvinoff (5 May 1915 – 24 September 2011) was a British Jewish writer and human rights activist. He wrote novels, poetry, plays, and an autobiography, and he campaigned for Soviet Jewry.

Early life
Litvinoff was born in the East End of London to Russian Jewish parents who had fled Odessa. His father fought for the czar and never returned. He was the second of nine children, with a brother who became a historian and a half-brother. He left school at 14, did various factory jobs, and was briefly homeless during the Depression. He spent time in Soho and Fitzrovia, where he began writing.

World War II
Although he started as a conscientious objector, Litvinoff volunteered for military service in 1940 and joined the Pioneer Corps in 1942. He served in Northern Ireland, West Africa, and the Middle East, rising to major by age 27. He became known as a war poet, with poems published in Poems from the Forces (1941) and other works. His first collection, The Untried Soldier (1942), followed by Conscripts: A Symphonic Declaration (1941) and A Crown for Cain (1948). He wrote the poem "Struma" about the Struma disaster, a tragedy that affected him deeply and influenced his view of identity and belonging.

Postwar writing
After the war, Litvinoff briefly ghostwrote for Louis Golding before writing his own novels. His work often explored Jewish identity in Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Israel. Notable books include The Lost Europeans (1960), about postwar Berlin; The Man Next Door (1968), which looks at suburban anti-Semitism; Journey Through a Small Planet (1972), a memoir-like account of his East End childhood and youth; and the Faces of Terror trilogy—A Death Out of Season (1973), Blood on the Snow (1975), and The Face of Terror (1978)—about revolution, exile, and disillusion. Falls the Shadow (1983) critiques how Israel has used Holocaust memory.

Other work and activism
In the 1960s and 1970s, Litvinoff wrote many television plays, including for Armchair Theatre, and tackled themes like interracial marriage in The World in a Room. He became a leading figure in the worldwide campaign to free Soviet Jewry, sparked by a 1950s visit to Russia with his first wife, Cherry Marshall. He edited the newsletter Jews in Eastern Europe and urged famous intellectuals to speak out, helping to raise awareness and support for Jewish refugees. Meir Rosenne, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, called him one of the greatest unsung heroes for his work helping Soviet Jews.

Personal life and death
Litvinoff married Cherry Marshall in 1942; they had three children and later divorced in 1970. He had one child with his second wife, Mary McClory. He died in Bloomsbury, London, aged 96.