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Born in 190.... His father, who lived to over one
hundred years of age and was a blacksmith and a sexton.
Also his mother had lodged older types.
Shabtai Bliakher writes about
him:
"Already in the year
1919-1921 the strong boy Kuznetsov, twenty-year-old at
the time, traveled around with the itinerant troupe
across the small Lithuanian towns, wandering together
with Avraham Strietman, [Itzhak] Nozyk, [Zishe] Katz.
Often hungry, he once sold his jacket to pay for the
hotel. And although most of the time he did not go to
the theatre [perhaps because he had no great ability to
play], he joined the theatre, with a small amount of
pay, held for over ten years. He wandered around from
one corner of Poland to the second, with an act and by
feet, but he held a theatre, had love for the theatre,
the environment, Bohemians. ...He didn't act, he used to
be a business leader for a troupe. If not a business
leader, a prompter, assistant stage director, but
everything at the theatre. Sometimes when things were
getting quite tight, he would, for a short time, start
trading or working in wood (he was married in a wood
brakarei), but after a short time he would return
back to the theatre. He had a lot of love for everyone
in the theatre, with everyone he was 'pon-brati,' from
the smallest stage work to the greatest star. And he
used to take a shot of liquor, whether for his troubles,
or for joy, he used to at first open his mouth, and then
he used to spare no one, not even himself. 'Leyb
Kuznetsov had the last word -- it was his beloved look.
The last word, however it was the first, middle and
last."
About his last period and
tragic end, Sh. Bliacher writes:
When the theatre in Vilna became corrupted, Kuznetsov
transferred from the stage, where he was active as an
actor. As a leader of the tailor's workshop at the
theatre. And here he suddenly found himself. At the
theater as well as an appropriate job, which ensured a
livelihood for his wife and child. It burned the work
behind him. The wardrobe master of the theatre turned
into a large, confectionary camp: costumes, boots,
shoes, women's clothes, hats. Everything was there. And
Liova Kuznetsov used to open the toilets of the
cupboards, look at the clothes, and his big eyes used to
blend in. 'All ours, no need to worry, a wealth!", and
the garments looked as if they were alive. ...One time,
at night, walking slightly tipsy into the theatre, he
locked himself in the walls of the theatre. When people
were made aware of it, that he would still throw in the
gate, he answered quite seriously: "Everything I can,
it's ours!" He continued that now he will always be
easy, and good, and he will live longer than his
fathers."
When the Germans took Vilna,
he was one of the first to be taken. His beloved
stage was dragged out of the theatre, and therefore made
him responsible. In those days the judgment was brief.
Many Jews had already taken their final steps in prison,
Another one came, and another 'farzindiker.' In a few
months time, when an entire series of Vilna streets were
emptied, instead in the ghetto, included in prison was
the wife of Kuznetsov. The artist Tsile Stroshun, with
her seven-year-old boy Barke, As she entered prison
alone, she left the basement to look for her husband.
And she cried for a while: "Liove, where are you, Liove?"
He could not hear... They had taken him away.
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