Born in 1910. Early on he worked in the Ukrainian
theatre, then became an actor in Kiev's Jewish State
Theatre for Young People.
Yona Radinow writes:
"As one writes, there was a
human being always flashed with a smile of wisdom and
humor. He served in the Soviet army and fell in
captivity to the Nazis.
According to a communication
from Kiev, Yiddish writer Ch. Maziansky, I looked up the
journal "Novi mir," Volume 1 of the year 1963, where the
Jewish war prisoners Leonid Volinsky, the only one who
remained alive from the large group of Soviet war
prisoners, recalls in his story, "Durkh der nakht
(Through the Night)": A large group of Soviet war
prisoners were brought to a Ukrainian Derfl Kovali,
which is thirty-five kilometers northeast of the village
of Piroti[n], Poltava region. Here they were stopped by
a field, and a young German with a feminine smile gave a
command: 'Jews, commissar and communists, get out
beforehand! From the ranks there soldiers began to come
out and put themselves in a row...
The time was running long
and people [HOBN ZIKH GETSOYGN UN GETSOYN]... There
arrived four-hundred Soviet combatants... Leonid
Volinsky heard behind him a voice of a soldier Aptekorov
with whom he was in one department, "Don't go." When no
more of the soldiers came out, the young German cried
out: "Help pick out Jews, commissars and communists.
Whoever chooses, take their clothes, possessions." To
Leonid Volinsky, one who was approached, asked: "And
you, what?" Soon he was dressed naked, removed his
watch, and occupied a place among the four-hundred of
the death-sentenced Soviet Jews, commissars and
communists. He wrote that he thought of nothing but
this, that his own will not know where his tomb is...
The Nazi took ten men to one
side. These ten dug a pit, and the next ten were FARSHIT
LEBEDIK, and also the four hundred men perished. Leonid
Volinsky was the only one of the group who miraculously
survived.
He further writes that all
died in silence... None of the Jews gave in to the Nazi
hangmen. Of the four-hundred men he knew, only one. This
was the artist of Yiddish theatre in Kiev -- Izzy
Zaluzniak, a human being with a non-explicit humor. A
highly talented actor. As all the others, he met his
death in silence, and thereby gave up his grey,
KUCHERAVE head..."
Sh.E. from Yona Radinow. |