Edward Issakovich Gerstenfeld was a Polish chess master. Born into a Jewish family in Lviv, Galicia, he came 3rd, behind Henryk Friedman and Izaak Schächter, in the Lviv City championships in 1933. He came 3rd at Lviv 1933, 7th in the Lviv City-ch, and came first in the Lviv City-ch in 1935. In the period between 1935 and 1939, he lived in Łódź. In 1935, Gerstenfeld shared 4th with Jakub Kolski, behind Izaak Appel and Achilles Frydman, in Łódź. He tied for 2nd-5th with A. Frydman, Schächter and Abram Szpiro in Łódź, and took 15th in Warsaw. In 1936, he played a match against Szpiro in Łódź, shared 2nd with Schächter, behind Szpiro, at Częstochowa, and tied for 2nd with Appel, behind A. Frydman, in Łódź. In 1936/37, he shared 1st with Paulin Frydman and Appel in Łódź. In 1937, he took 5th in the Łódź City-ch, and tied for 9-10th in Jurata. In 1938, he took 6th in Łódź. In summer 1939, before World War II broke out, he returned to Lviv. According to the secret agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, Lviv was captured by the Soviets, and then incorporated to the Ukrainian SSR in Autumn 1939. In March 1940, he took 4th in Lviv. In 1940, he tied for 16-17th in Kiev. In August 1940, he won in Lviv, followed by Appel, Friedman and Schächter. In 1940, he shared 1st with Mark Stolberg in Kiev. In September–October 1940, Gerstenfeld took 17th in Moscow. The event was won by Andor Lilienthal and Igor Bondarevsky. In January/February 1941, he won ahead of Appel, Friedman, Emanuel Rubinstein and Schächter, in the Lviv City championships. In June 1941, he was at 3rd place in Rostov-on-Don, when Operation Barbarossa, the German attack on the Soviet Union, interrupted the event. The exact cause of his death remained unclear. According to one source, he became a victim of Nazi atrocities in Autumn 1942, but to others, he was shot by Nazis during the mass killing of Jewish people in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in December 1943. Rostov-on-Don was liberated by the Soviet Army on 14 February 1943.
