LEYE VALT

LEYE VALT (b. 1920)

            She was born in Vilna.  Her father, Khayim Valt, was a well-known leader in the trade union of commercial employees and in the trade union movement generally in Vilna.  He belonged to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and for his revolutionary activities he was exiled to Siberian in Tsarist Russia.  Leye was a student in the introductory course at YIVO in 1940, and she wrote a series of works which are now housed in the YIVO archives, such as: “Der gang fun shraybn briv bay r. zelig letitshever” (The way to write letters according to R. Zelig Letitshever); “R. zaynvl vyerkhyevker un kolner rav” (R. Zaynvl Vyerkhyevker and the Kolner Rebbe)—this work offers a key to Yoysef Perl’s Megale temirin (Revealer of secrets); “Shtrikhn fun perls satire” (Features of Perl’s satire); “Tsaytvort in etingers ‘di asife’ un ‘vitele’” (Verbs in Ettinger’s The Meeting and Vitele); “Minim daytshmerizmen bay dikn” (Kinds of Germanisms in Dik).  She was murdered by the Nazis during WWII.

            Her older sister, REYZL VALT (b. 1914 in Vilna), graduated from a Jewish high school and studied at Vilna University.  She was a research student, 1937-1938, at YIVO in Vilna.  Among her writings: “Dos yidish-veltlekhe shul-vezn in vilne biz der grindung fun tsentraln bildungs-komitet” (The secular Jewish school curricula in Vilna prior to the founding of the central educational committee), a portion of which—entitled “Der kamf in der mefitse haskole 1915-1917” (The struggle at the [Society for the] Promotion of Enlightenment [among the Jews], 1915-1917)—was published in Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) in Vilna (1937), pp. 420-33.  She, too, was murdered by the Germans during WWII.

Sources: L. Ran, 25 yor yung vilne (Twenty-five years of Young Vilna) (New York, 1955); information from Dr. Max Weinreich.

Khayim Leyb Fuks