Kantstr. 68

Kantstrasse runs straight through the district of Charlottenburg in the western part of Berlin. It was on this street that the Schwellen publishing house, founded in 1920, had its main offices. Schwellen was one of the most respected Yiddish book publishers in Berlin at the time.

The publisher’s name came from the title of a collection of Yiddish poems that appeared in 1919: Schweln, by Peretz Markisch.

Leib Kvitko (1890–1952), who lived in Berlin and Hamburg between 1922 and 1925, was one of the most important Russian-Yiddish authors of the twentieth century. He was known for his poems and children's books and published many with Schwellen. In 1925 Kvitko returned to the Soviet Union, where he later fell victim to the Stalinist purges.

Foyglen (Birds) is the title of a Yiddish children’s book by Leib Kvitko. It was illustrated by Issachar Ber Ryback and published by Schwellen in 1923.

For his book designs, Ryback drew inspiration from Russian folk art and traditional Jewish motifs. While still in the Ukraine, he made drawings of Jewish gravestones and synagogues and sketched life in the country’s small Jewish communities. These sketches later found their way into his book illustrations.

One of Ryback’s illustration also adorns the cover of the Yiddish children's book In wald (In the Forest) by Leib Kvitko. Schwellen published the work in 1922.

The caption reads: "Suddenly he hears a snorting beneath him / and something grabs him firmly / lifting him high in the air: / It’s as if he’s sitting on a mountain! Oh, the elephant, the dear one / with the trunk, is the hero. / He takes Itzi on his back / and carries him, not walking too fast.”