Zelig Kalmanovitch

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Zelig Hirsch Kalmanovitch (born 1885 in Goldingen , Russian Empire ; died 1943 in Vaivara concentration camp , Estonia ) was a Latvian, Jewish philologist and translator.

Life

Zelig Kalmanovitch was a son of Feibush and Ester Kalmanovitch. He studied Jewish studies and philology in Berlin (1902–1905) and Königsberg (1909–1910) and received his doctorate in linguistics in St. Petersburg in 1919 . From 1905 he worked as a translator and worked for Boris Kletskin's publishing house in Vilnius and St. Petersburg. In 1918 he belonged to the Yiddish culture league founded in Kiev . He married Rebecca (Rivka) Luria (1898–1943), they had a son. They fled communist Russia and stayed in Latvia, Lithuania and for a time in Berlin.

In 1929 he moved to Vilna , Poland , where he became co-director of the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institute (YIVO) with Max Weinreich and published the institute's magazine Yivo bleter . At the second YIVO World Conference in 1935, Weinreich and Kalmanovitch defended their purely scientific orientation of the institute and were criticized for their ignorance of the political anti-Semitism rampant in Europe.

Vilnius was incorporated into the state of Lithuania through the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939 , which in turn became part of the Soviet Union in 1940. In 1941 Vilna was conquered by the Germans. While Weinreich fled to the United States, Kalmanovitch persevered and was imprisoned in the Vilna ghetto in 1941 . Together with the librarian Herman Kruk , he was forced by the Germans to sort Jewish tomes on their scientific value, then the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce to Germany spent were. Kalmanovitch wrote a diary in the Hebrew language in the Vilna ghetto that was discovered by Abraham Sutzkever .

When the Vilna Ghetto was dissolved in 1943, he was deported to the Vaivara concentration camp , where he died of the prison conditions. Rivka Kalmanovitch was murdered in Ponary in 1943 . Her son, the Yiddish philologist Shalom Lurie (1920–2011), emigrated to Palestine in 1938 as a teenager .

Fonts (selection)

  • The last days of Jerusalem: from Book 6 of Josephus Flavius' "Jewish War" . Berlin: Klal-Verlag, 1922
diary
  • Yoman be-Getto Vilna u-Ketavim me-ha-Izavon she-Nimze'u ba-Harisot (Diary from the Vilna Ghetto). Tel Aviv, 1977
Translations into Yiddish
  • Simon Dubnow . Algemeyne Idishe geshikhte: fun di eltste tsaytn biz the nayer tsayt . Translation of World History of the Jewish People from Russian. Vilnius: Historisher farlag, 1920.
  • Jaroslav Hašek . The good soldier Shveyk in the velt-milkhome . Translation of The Brave Soldat Schwejk from German. Riga: Bikher far alemen, 1921
  • Yo. Wagner: Maasijot because of celebration and light . Translation. Berlin: Klal-Verlag, 1922
  • Yo. Wagner: Maasijot because of earth . Translation. Berlin: Klal-Verlag, 1922
  • Otto Hauser : primitive man and wilder. A parallel between the prehistoric time and the present . Translation. Berlin: Klal-Verlag, 1923
  • Robert Wipper : Textbook of ancient history / R. Wipper. Translation based on the 10th Russian edition . Berlin: Wostok, 1924
  • Max Brod . Di froy fun undzer beynkshaft: roman . Riga: Bikher far alemen, 1928. (Translation of The Woman One Longs for from German)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lucy S. Dawidowicz: From That Place And Time. A Memoir, 1938-1947 . New York: WW Norton, 1989
  2. ^ A b Samuel D. Kassow : YIVO. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 6: Ta-Z. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-476-02506-7 , pp. 479-485, here 481 and 483
  3. ↑ Shalom Lurie , at BNF
personal data
SURNAME Kalmanovitch, Zelig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kalmanovich, Zelig Hirsch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian Jewish philologist and translator
DATE OF BIRTH 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Kuldīga
DATE OF DEATH 1943
Place of death Vaivara concentration camp