MOTL
SAKTSIER (SAKTZIER) (January 11, 1907-1987)
He was born in Leove (Leova),
southern Bessarabia. He descended from
generations of tailors, but his father, Mortkhe Saktsier, who was a Jewish
community leader and vice-mayor of the town, sent him to religious elementary
school, a state public school, and a public high school as well. In the mid-1920s he came to Bucharest, and in
1928 he studied in the Vienna pedagogical seminary; a year later he was living
in Paris where he worked in a factory, before returning to Romania in
1931. Until 1940 he lived in
Bucharest. In late 1936 he departed for
the Soviet Union, where he studied and worked in construction on the Moscow
subway system. At the time of 1936-1937
show trials, he was arrested and exiled to the gulag. Freed in 1940, he returned to Bessarabia and
took part in the creation of the Yiddish state theater in Belz, for which he
served as literary director. In 1941
when the forces of Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, he was evacuated with the
theater to Uzbekistan. He was mobilized
into the Red Army and assigned to a construction battalion for one year. He later lived in Alma-Ata and Samarkand,
where he was active as a writer. In 1947
he returned to Bessarabia and until he was arrested again, he lived in Kishinev
and later Czernowitz, where he was involved in Jewish cultural work and the
Yiddish theater. In 1948 he was
convicted of “Jewish nationalism” and sentenced in 1949 to deportation to
Siberian labor camps for ten years. In
1955 (after Stalin’s death), he returned from exile rehabilitated, lived
briefly in Moscow, and then settled in Kishinev, where he returned to literary
and theatrical work. In 1972 he made
aliya to Israel. His literary activities
began with poems in the journal Yidish
(Yiddish) in Bucharest (1928) and other Yiddish periodicals in Romania. He was a member of the young Yiddish poets
group, which gathered about the journal Shoybn
(Glass panes) in Czernowitz (1935-1936), edited by A. Shteynbarg, in which he
published poetry and elegies. He later
contributed poems, notes, and stories to: Di
vokh (The week) and Inzl (Island)
in Bucharest; Tshernovitser bleter
(Czernowitz pages) and Oyfgang
(Arise), among others, in Romania; Literarishe
bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; and in Yiddish publications out of
Soviet Russia. In 1939, in the anthology
Byalistoker lebn (Bialystok life), he
published the poem “Bay velkhe taykhn” (By which rivers), and in the journal Sovetish (Soviet) and the almanac Heymland (Homeland) in Moscow, and in Ikuf-bleter (Pages from IKUF [Jewish
Cultural Association]) in Bucharest; among others. From 1953 he was writing for: Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) and Folksshtime (Voice of the people) in
Warsaw; Yidish kultur (Jewish
culture), Zamlungen (Collections),
and Morgn-frayhayt (Morning freedom)
in New York; and Fray yisroel (Free
Israel) in Tel Aviv; among others. He
became a regular contributor to Sovetish
heymland (Soviet homeland) in Moscow.
In Israel, he placed work in: Di
goldene keyt (The golden chain), Bay zikh
(On one’s own), Yisroel-shtime (Voice
of Israel), Folksblat (People’s
newspaper), Letste nayes (Latest
news), and Yidish-velt (Yiddish
world). He devoted many years to writing
plays, including: “Di sonim af tsu lehakhes” (Enemies out of spite) (1945); “Lakhn
iz gezunt” (Laughter is healthy) (1947); and others. His musical comedies: In a guter sho (At a good time) (1959), a comedy in two acts, which
was staged in Yiddish theaters in Romania by the troupe of Sidi Tal; Abi men zet zikh (As long as it can be
seen) (1963); and Gliklekhe bagegenishn
(Happy encounters). He also composed
poetry, one-act plays, sketches, and folk images, where were produced by Yiddish
stage ensembles in the Soviet Union. In
book form: Derfar, lid un elegye
(Therefore, a poem and elegy) (Bucharest, 1936), 96 pp.; Mit farbotenem blayer (With a forbidden pencil), a poetry
collection (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1977), 200 pp.; Der shayter baym veg (The bonfire by the road) (Tel Aviv: Nay lebn,
1978), 230 pp.; Toybn af antene
(Pigeons on the antenna) (Tel Aviv: Leivick farlag, 1982), 224 pp. His novel Yidishe
shnayders (Jewish tailors), about his grandfathers in his hometown of
Leova, was lost in the years of his banishment.
“His volume of poetry Derfar,”
wrote Y. Kara, “bore Leivick’s stamp of ethical-social struggles.” “Characteristic of him and his work,” noted
Y. Yanasovitsh, “is the fact that not only the individual experience of the
poet takes place in his poems, but also the experiences of his generation. He is consequently, in a major sense, the
spokesman of his generation.”
Sources:
B. Shnobl, in Oyfgang (Sighet-Marmației) (May-June 1934); Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (October 16, 1936); Y. Yakir, in Literarishe bleter (January 22, 1937);
B. Alkvit, Inzikh (New York) 32
(1937); N. Kh., in Eynikeyt (Moscow)
(December 2, 1943); Heymland (Moscow)
7 (1948); Y. Yanasovitsh, in Di naye
tsayt (Buenos Aires) (January 28, 1954); Dr. Shloyme Bikl, in Naye literarishe bleter (Buenos Aires)
(March-April 1954); Bikl, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal
(New York) (June 14, 1958; July 6, 1958; October 12, 1958); Bikl, in Rumenye (Romania) (Buenos Aires, 1961),
pp. 286-90; N. Mayzil, Dos yidishe shafn un der yidisher shrayber
in sovetnfarband (Jewish creation and the Jewish writer in the Soviet
Union) (New York, 1959), pp. 63, 132; Y. Kara, in Ikuf-almanakh IKUF almanac) (New York, 1961), p. 166; Yankev
Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer (New
York) (September 29, 1961); Sholem Shtern, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (December 1961); Y. Lyubomirski, in Yidishe kultur (March-April 1962).
Khayim Leyb Fuks
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), cols. 397-98; 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), pp. 259-60.]
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