Abraham Sutzkever

Abraham Sutzkever (July 15, 1913 - ) is a Yiddish poet and Second World War partisan.

(Alternate English spellings: Avrom Sutzkever, Avrohom Sutzkever, [ [http://www.yiddishstore.com/poetofavsut.html] Web page titled "The Poetry of Avrom Sutzkever, the Vilno Poet" at "The Jewish Store" Web site, accessed March 4, 2007] , Avrom Sutskever [used by Encyclopaedia Britannica] )

Sutzkever was born in Smorgon, Poland [http://www.cjh.org/education/essays.php?action=show&id=15] (now Smarhon, Belarus). During the First World War his family fled to seek refuge in Siberia, then in 1922 migrated to Vilna (at that time, Wilno, Poland. He studied in cheder and attended gymnasium (academic high school), and in 1930 joined the "Bee" Yiddish scouting movement.

Sutzkever was among the Modernist writers and artists in the "Young Vilna" group in the early 1930s. He published his first poem in 1934 in a literary journal.

Under the Nazi occupation beginning in June 1941, Sutzkever survived the first period of violent persecutions of Jews, between June 25 and July 20 1941, by the Lithuanian militia, hidden in the chimney of its own house. Ho wrote then a poem about these days titled "The Pest". Manuscript of this poem survived until 1990, hidden in the house.

Later as all Jews, Sutzkever was interned in the Vilna Ghetto. On September 12, 1943, along with his wife, he escaped to the forests, and together with fellow Yiddish poet Shmerke Kaczerginsky, fought against the Nazis as a partisan. During the Nazi era, Sutzkever wrote over 80 poems, whose manuscripts he managed to save for postwar publication.

After the war he lived in Moscow, then Łódź, and emigrated to Israel. He now resides in Tel Aviv.

Works in English translation

*"Burnt Pearls : Ghetto Poems of Abraham Sutzkever", translated from the Yiddish by Seymour Mayne; introduction by Ruth R. Wisse. Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1981. ISBN 0-88962-142-X

*"The Fiddle Rose: Poems, 1970-1972, Abraham Sutzkever"; selected and translated by Ruth Whitman; drawings by Marc Chagall; introduction by Ruth R. Wisse. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8143-2001-5
*"A. Sutzkever: Selected Poetry and Prose", translated from the Yiddish by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav; with an introduction by Benjamin Harshav. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. ISBN 0-520-06539-5

*"Laughter Beneath the Forest : Poems from Old and Recent Manuscripts by Abraham Sutzkever"; translated from the Yiddish by Barnett Zumoff; with an introductory essay by Emanuel S. Goldsmith. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0-88125-555-6

Recordings

* Karsten Troyke, "Leg den Kopf auf meine Knie", lyrics by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, Itzik Manger and Abraham Sutzkever, music by Karsten Troyke

Compositions

* [http://www.artsongs.com Lori Laitman] ," [http://www.chambersociety.org/jan.html The Seed of Dream] ", based on poems by Abraham Sutzkever as translated by C.K. Wlliams and Leonard Wolf. Commissioned by [http://www.musicofremembrance.org The Music of Remembrance] organization in Seattle. First Performed in May 2005 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle by baritone Erich Parce, pianist Mina Miller, and cellist Amos Yang. Recent performance on January 28, 2008 by the [http://www.chambersociety.org Chamber Music Society of Southwest Florida] by [http://www.janellemccoy.com Mezzo-soprano Janelle McCoy] , [http://www.adamsatinsky.com/index.php cellist Adam Satinsky] , pianist Bella Gutshtein of the Russian Music Salon.

References

*Dawidowicz, Lucy S. "From that Place and Time: A Memoir 1938 - 1947". New York: Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-02674-4
*Szeintuch, Yehiel, Abraham Sutzkever, in "Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust" vol. 4, pp. 1435-1436

Links

*Abraham Sutzkever in the [http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/iiddica/Khronologye/y_20yh/Sutskever/sut_intr.html Bibliotheca Iiddica]