SHMUEL LEVANDE

SHMUEL LEVANDE (March 1874-1941)

            He was born in the greater Vileyka region, Vilna district.  He studied medicine at Kiev University.  He took part, as a military doctor, in the Russo-Japanese War and was held in captivity.  In 1905 he returned to Russia, practiced medicine in Odessa and Kiev, before leaving for Germany; in 1907 he settled in Vilna, where for many years he was a doctor at the Sawicz Hospital and at [Jewish hospital] “Mishmeret ḥolim” (Guardian of the sick).  He co-organized the Vilna community school, “Mesiaḥ ilmim” (Enabling the mute to speak), for deaf mutes.  In 1915 he was a doctor in the Antokol (Antakalnis) military hospital, and in 1918 in a military hospital of the Red Cross in Moscow.  Together with the Drs. Kovarski and Solonovitsh, he founded the society “Kinder-farzorgung” (Children’s welfare).  Together with Dr. Globus, he assisted in the development of the sports club Maccabi and accomplished a great deal on behalf of physical education of Jewish youth in the 1920s.  On the eve of WWI, he was writing for a Russian medical journal.  Later, he published medical articles in Folks-gezunt (People’s health), in which he also published a work entitled “Vegn shpakh-felern” (On language blunders).  He was murdered by the Nazis at Ponar, near Vilna.

Sources: E. Y. Goldshmidt, in Zambukh vilne (Vilna anthology) (New York) (April 1935), pp. 404-6; Sh. Katsherginski, in Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947), p. 262.

Benyomen Elis