Mendel Balberyszski (October 5, 1894 in Vilnius – November 19, 1966 in Melbourne) was a Lithuanian Jew, Polish politician and survivor of the Holocaust in Lithuania.
It is the account of life and organization in the Small Ghetto from its day of formation until its liquidation, it is also the only complete historical record of the fate of the Jewish population of Vilna from the day of the arrival of the Germans, through the two Ghettos, the concentration camps in Estonia until the liberation of the surviving 84 Jews by the Soviet Army.
In these capacities he was a fervent advocate of the right of the Jewish community to cultural autonomy.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, he escaped from German-occupied Poland to return to his native Vilnius.
The Balberyszski Jewish Bookstore[6] which he acquired and expanded in the early 1950s became the focal point for the Yiddish speaking intellectuals and a communal landmark.