Shabtai-Shabti (Shepsel) Bleicher was born in 1906 in Vilna, to Hirsch and Dina. He had a brother, Menachem, and a sister, Leah. He attended Heder (Hebrew school) and proceeded to study at the "Torat Emet" educational institution and the "Tiferet Bachurim" Yeshivah, headed by Rabbi Sraulov. He was already showing interest in the theater at the young age of ten. He would frequent the area of the theater, climb the fence and sneak inside. On one occasion, he was caught by the staff, but succeeded in persuading them to bring him to the guest actor – Sokolov, who took a liking to the lad. Bleicher became his right-hand man, and would do odd jobs backstage in exchange for free entrance to the theater.
In 1917, Bleicher started attending the Hebrew Gymnasium in Vilna, where he was active in the drama program and played the main roles in the performances. In 1919, he joined a group of youngsters from Vilna who spent the summer on the outskirts of Warsaw. Inspired by the Yiddish songs, activities and plays, Bleicher decided to remain in Warsaw, and studied at the local Jewish school. In 1920, he returned to Vilna and commenced his studies at the Jewish Technikum.
In 1921, a theater studio opened in Vilna, and Bleicher was one of its first students. He put his studies at the Technikum on hold and devoted himself to working at the theater as a writer, translator, actor and director. He completed his studies in 1923 and was accepted as an actor and prompter at the Jewish "Palace Theater" in Vilna, where the top Yiddish actors were performing. In 1926, he was accepted to the "New Jewish Theater" in Riga, where he performed a number of roles and also directed for several years. When he returned to Vilna, he performed in local dramatic institutions and various towns.
The Soviets occupied Vilna in 1940, and a State Jewish Theater was established, in which Bleicher was an active partner. In June 1941, the Germans occupied Vilna, and set up a ghetto there in September. Bleicher was one of the initiators of the theater in the ghetto, which quickly became a significant morale booster for the Jews. In 1942 alone, the theater put on 120 plays, to packed audiences. Seven performances of the "Revue" and four theater shows brought in an audience of some 38,000 people. Bleicher was also active in the union of writers, artists and actors in the ghetto. In this capacity, he wrote 21 biographies of theater professionals who were murdered during the first year of the German occupation. He dedicated this work to his mother Dina, "who died before her time in the ghetto".
In the introduction, he wrote:
Vilna, 22 June 1942
A year has already gone by since the German-Soviet war broke out. Who would have believed then that we would find ourselves crammed within four small streets, surrounded by fences and gates… When I recall those who worked with us in the Jewish State Theater in 1940-1941, twenty are missing… We, who saw how our sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers and children – innocent Jews – were led like sheep to the slaughter, have lost all awe and fear. We have one weapon – faith. We live with faith, and now we will also survive to see the end of this nightmare… With blood and tears, we remember those who were torn from us in front of our very eyes. Perhaps? Who knows? Perhaps we will meet one of them again some time… Today we write these lines while trapped and incarcerated, but with hope in our hearts.
S. Bleicher, "Twenty-One and One More", 1962, pp. 17-20
In September 1943, the Vilna ghetto was liquidated, and its inhabitants were deported to camps in Estonia and Latvia. Bleicher was sent together with many of Vilna's Jews to the Klooga camp in Estonia. The prisoners at the camp were given a day off one Sunday every four weeks. In the evening, they used to gather together and sing the songs they had sung in the ghetto theater, and folk songs. When word of the liberation of Vilna on 13 July 1944 reached Klooga, Bleicher organized a clandestine ball in the camp.
In September 1944, the Klooga camp was liquidated and its inmates murdered, including Bleicher. His wife Genia was murdered at a different camp in Estonia, and his brother Menachem and his wife Raya, who had been living in hiding outside the ghetto were also murdered. Their daughter survived. His sister Leah also survived and immigrated to Israel.
The biographies Bleicher had written were found lying strewn in the street in September 1943 by Boleslaw Boratynski, who passed them onto the Etingen family hiding in his home. The title page was not among them.
In 1962, Bleicher's writings were published in New York in the original Yiddish. The book's editors added one more biography to the twenty-one biographies Bleicher had penned – that of Bleicher himself. They called the work Twenty-One and One More.
The 20 theater professionals murdered at Ponary:
- Lew Szryftzecer
- Frania Winter
- Moriss Liampa
- Yosef Chasz
- Eidina Chasz
- Kadish Chasz
- Frida Vitalin
- Nikolai-Solomon Eliashev
- Musia Smarganski
- Moshe Zelwer
- Nadia Radin (dancer)
- Shimon Zablocki
- Michael Katz
- Mina Siegelboim
- Abraham Stower
- Ben-Zion Abelsen
- Israel Zubek
- Sara Zubek
- Lew Koznicow
- Tzilia Straschun
In addition, Simche-Sasza Lipowski died of typhus in the ghetto, and Shepsel (Shabtai) Bleicher was murdered in Klooga.
