SHAPSE BLYAKHER

SHAPSE BLYAKHER (January 16, 1904-September 19, 1944)

            He was an actor born in Vilna.  He studied in religious primary school, Hebrew high school, and the Vilna Jewish Technicum, and in 1923 he graduated from the Vilna Drama School.  He acted in Yiddish theater in Vilna and in the provinces.  He was deported from the Vilna ghetto to the Estonian concentration camp at Klooga and there he was killed.  His ghetto drawings were published under the title Eyn un tsvantsik un eyner, 22 ophandlungen vegn di umgebrakhte yidishe artistn in ershtn yor fun der natsi-hershaft in vilne, 1941-1942 (Twenty-one and one: 22 discourses on the murdered artists in the first year of the Nazi regime in Vilna, 1941-1942) (New York: Vilner farlag, 1962), 112 pp.

Source: Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 90.