SHIMEN (SIMKHE) LELTSHUK

SHIMEN (SIMKHE) LELTSHUK (1918-1941)

            He was a poet, born in the town of Kalinkovitsh (Kalinkavichy), Polesia, Byelorussia. He graduated from a Jewish state school and later from the literature department of the Byelorussian State University in Minsk. He was living in Minsk until 1940, where he was a laborer. He was a member of the literary youth group linked to the Minsk newspaper Der yunger arbeter (The young laborer). He debuted in print with nature poetry in Shtern (Star) in Minsk (1938). He later contributed work both to this journal and to Oktyabr (October) in Minsk, as well as the collective publication of young poets (including: Khayim Gurevitsh, Itshe Borukhovitsh, and Pinye Plotkin), Lider-zamlung (Poetry collection) (Minsk: Council of People’s Commissars, USSR, 1940), in which he placed a cycle of eight poems. Later that same year, he was mobilized into the Red Army and fought at the front against the Germans. He died at the front in WWII.

Sources: Der shtern (Minsk) (February 1938); A. Pomerants, Inzhinyern fun neshomes (Engineers of souls) (New York, 1944), p. 56; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 350; Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 219.]