Eli Shechtman papers

Eli Shechtman (1908-1996), a Yiddish writer, born in Vaskovichi, Ukraine. Eli Shechtman began writing in Yiddish at the age of 12, before entering a yeshiva in Zhitomir in 1921. His first publication of two poems appeared in 1928 in the Kharkov literary monthly "Di royte velt." Shechtman studied at the literary department of the Yiddish Teachers Institute in Odessa from 1929 to 1933. He spent the following three years in Kharkov, later moving to Kiev. Shechtman published his first story in 1927, and his first novel, Oyfn sheydṿeg, in 1930. In 1932 he published Faraḳerṭe mezshes, and Polesier ṿelder in 1940. He was accepted to the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934. After serving as a Red Army officer from 1942 to 1947, Shechtman returned to Kiev. His literary activities were interrupted in 1948 when Soviet authorities began liquidating all the remaining Yiddish institutions and arrested many Yiddish literati. Shechtman, too, was imprisoned, but Stalin’s death in March 1953 saved his life. The epic novel EREV, the first Soviet Yiddish novel written and published after Stalin’s death, became the central work of his literary career. A number of critics praised it as one of the best, or even the best, achievement of post-Holocaust Yiddish prose. The first four parts of the novel EREV were serialized in the Moscow journal “Sovetish heymland” and the two first parts of the novel were published in book form in 1965 by the Moscow publishing house Sovetskii Pisatel’. Its English translation, by Joseph Singer, appeared in New York in 1967. In 1972, Shechtman immigrated to Israel, and in 1973 he received an award from the Israeli government for his accomplishments as a Yiddish writer. Beṭerem (EREV – 1-4 Books) were translated to Hebrew by Tsevi Arad in 1975. In Israel, Eli Shechtman wrote the fifth, sixth and seventh books of the novel EREV, the full edition of which - all seven books - was published in 1983 in Yiddish and was translated to Russian by Alma Shin in 2005. Shechtman’s autobiographical novel Ringen oyf der Neshome (Rings in the Soul) showed many dark sides of Soviet Jewish life and was published in 1981; Hebrew translation (Y. Gur-Arie) of two first parts of the novel was published in 1992. Complete translation to Russian of this novel (all four parts) was made by Alma Shin (Kol’za na dushe) in 2001 and (Vspachat’ Bezdnu) in 2012. Baym shkie-aker (Last Sunset; 1994), Shechtman’s last novel, portrays the tragic story of a Ukrainian Jewish family destined to experience the atrocities of Stalinism and the Holocaust. This novel was translated to Russian (Posledniĭ zakat) by Alma Shin in 2008 and to French (La charrue de feu) by Rachel Ertel in 2015. In December 1996, the anniversary of writer’s death, the collection of his short stories Tristia was published in Yiddish. Some of the stories were translated to Russian by Alma Shin in 2000. Suggesting readings: Itshe Goldberg, “Eli Shekhtman, 1908–1996,” Yidishe kultur 52.5 (1990): 38–44, 52.6 (1990): 19–25. [Source: The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe]

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Berny Larisa

The Eli Shechtman collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Berny Larisa, in 2016.