Julius Balbin (1917–2006)

The late Julius Balbin survived the German-imposed ghetto at Krakow and four concentration camps. He learned Esperanto at the age of fourteen. He has taught at American colleges and universities since 1959. From 1974 to 1978, Balbin served as president of the New York Esperanto Society, and in 1985 as vice-president of the American Society of Geolinguistics. His book of poetry, Strangled Cries (1981), was the first bilingual Esperanto-English book of poetry, and it received wide acclaim.