Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Shlomo Shlakman
 

Shlomo Shlakman was born in Lublin, Poland. His father was a tailor.

According to Zalmen Kalishnikov, he also seems to have worked as a tailor.

From the beginning, the youth was strongly committed to the theatre sense of Sholem Aleichem’s “Sick Proposals”. For the second World War, he married a “bit part” actress, Rivka Pogoda (born around Vilna). During the war he acted in the Baveglekhn Yiddish traveling theatre and continued with the family in Slonim.  By a miracle he was saved during the liquidation of Slonim Jewry and came to the Bialystok Ghetto, where he worked as a Kalishnikov actor.  He was [seen lead back in Slonim in automobiles in actors Maximov Fokl (maximum focus?)], Yehiel Eizenberg et al., which we did later with other Jews excluded and left arranged[?] by Griber.

Shlakman was(?) a disappearing player from the Bialystok Ghetto. His sister, who had worked outside the ghetto, has passed Kalishnivakn as a train worker, put on train worker’s clothing, has asked you to give a lot of him. From then on, K. lost contact with him. Shlakman’s woman is caught by the Germans and shot. We say that he worked on the “fresh side” (outside?) as a train worker.

M. Nodelman wrote that Shlakman previously performed with the Traveling Yiddish Theatre in Western Belarus in Grodno, performing in Slonim, and soon in the first days of the German-Soviet war, he fell(?) into the hands of the Nazis.

The historian B. Mark wrote:

“In the ‘Reddening Expedition’ which was organized on the ‘fresh side’ to run from the ghetto through the sewers, hits on the shtav(rebellion?) of the Jewish resistance organization led by Commandant Mordechai Anelevitz, which Shlomed Shlakman participated in, a Yiddish actor from (came to Warsaw, a known face in?) Bialystok. Shlakman appears as Stefan Kalushka, nicknamed ‘Kalish’ (one of the train workers). The ‘Reddening Expedition’ later became Mila 18. The bunker was already named. She made however out of the channels (tunnels?) a second group of resistance, which was stressed (symbolized?) by the 34 [bavopnte] ghetto fighters.”

Sheftell Zak additionally observed:

“The competing actor, Shlomo Shlakman, whom I know well, is not a Bialystoker as B. Mark reports or, only a Lubliner (or from a shtetl near Lublin). Not every case is a Bialystoker”.

Shlakman did not perish the ghetto.
 

M. E. from Zalmen Kalushnikov, S. E. from Sheftel Zak.

  • B. Mark – “Revolution in the Warsaw Ghetto”, Warsaw, 1963.

  • M. Nudelman – “Yiddishe Sriftan”.

 


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 5, page 4404.
 

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