CHILDREN’S POET: LEIB KVITKO (OCTOBER 15, 1890 TO AUGUST 12, 1952)

            On this date, August 12, 1952, 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union. This case is also known as The Night of The Murdered Poets.

            We, the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, will remember them and encourage people not to forget events like that in history, as we must learn from them. We will post information about one of the victims, Leib Kvitko from Wikipedia. Let us not forget his time on earth as a Children’s writer.

Leib Kvitko

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/1427/owen-hatherley-revolution-to-repression-yiddish-literature]

A little boy and his kitten are best friends and play together day and night. But instead of catching mice at home, the kitten plays and dances with them. When the boy's mother finds this out, she throws the kitten out of the house. The kitten returns when the boy's mother is away. The little boy rejoices, and his mother only smiles when she comes back and sees them together again.

To read the entire book, click here.

Leib Kvitko (Russian: Лейб Квитко, Yiddish: לייב קוויטקאָ‎) (October 15, 1890 – August 12, 1952) was a prominent Yiddish poet, an author of well-known children's poems and a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC). He was one of the editors of Eynikayt (the JAC's newspaper) and of the Heymland, a literary magazine. He was executed in Moscow on August 12, 1952 together with twelve other members of the JAC, a massacre known as the Night of the Murdered Poets. Kvitko was rehabilitated in 1955.

He was born in a Ukrainian shtetl, attended traditional Jewish religious school for boys (Cheder) and was orphaned early. He moved to Kiev in 1917 and soon became one of the leading Yiddish poets of the "Kiev group". He lived in Germany between 1921 and 1925 joining there the Communist Party of Germany and publishing critically acclaimed poetry. He returned to the USSR in 1925 and moved to Moscow in 1936, joining the CPSU in 1939. By that time he was primarily writing verses for children and his style fully corresponded to the canons of Socialist Realism.

Children's book by Kvitko

In vald L Kvitko tseykhenungen Y Ribak, children's book cover

A little boy, Itsi, dreamt that he went to the forest, where he met many different animals: a fox, a tiger, a lion, a wolf, a bear, a monkey etc.

To read the entire book, clickhere.

A little boy and his kitten are best friends and play together day and night. But instead of catching mice at home, the kitten plays and dances with them. When the boy's mother finds this out, she throws the kitten out of the house. The kitten returns when the boy's mother is away. The little boy rejoices, and his mother only smiles when she comes back and sees them together again.

To read the entire book, click here.