The Kantsedikas Family Letters collection is composed of 665 letters dated 1942-1945, as well as photographs and documents, and reflects the Kantsedikas family history from the early 20th to early 21st century. All letters are accompanied by full transcripts and translations.

The collection's letters were exchanged between Solomon (Sergey) Kantsedikas (Cohen-Tsedek) and his wife, Elisheva (Sheva; née Feigenberg), between January 1942 and August 1945. Several letters in the collection were hand-delivered with the help of acquaintances and thus bypassed strict Soviet wartime censorship. Two letters are written in the Yiddish language, and the rest are predominantly in Russian with intermittent Yiddish words and phrases. 

The Kantsedikas family letter archive, donated to the Blavatnik Archive in 2016 by the professor and art historian Alexander Kantsedikas, Solomon and Elisheva’s son, reflects the living conditions during World War II, both in the active military service and on the home front, and the war’s impact on a young and passionate Soviet Jewish couple.

"I will still wait for you, wait until the end of war, believing that you'll come back and we will live a good life together." —Elisheva, March 8, 1943 (MISC095.129)

“I can endure anything, but I cannot be without you. Without you there is no life.” —Solomon, May 7, 1945 (MISC095.312)

“I feel the sincere truth, the wholesomeness of Soviet life. For no other youth in the world can look to the future with as much confidence as ours.” —Sheva, May 22, 1944 (MISC095.565)

“I recently visited one little town. The residents describe horrific atrocities of the German scum. There used to be many Jews living there, and the Germans shot them all, and buried some of them alive. The earth was moving in that spot afterward.” —Solomon, March 30, 1944 (MISC095.263)

There are a number of poignant themes running through this correspondence, from ardent romantic longing to the patriotic commitment to the war and the firsthand experience of combat:

Biographies

Solomon (Sergey) Kantsedikas (Cohen-Tsedek) was born in 1919. He attended the Schwabe Hebrew Gymnasium in Kaunas and became a member of the Communist Union of Lithuania, an underground youth organization. Following the establishment of Soviet rule in 1940, Solomon served as the secretary of the Vilna City Komsomol Committee (1940-1941). During the war, he served in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division between 1942 and 1945. In 1943 he was seriously wounded; after nine months of hospitalization, he returned to the front. Solomon remained in the military after the war, retiring in 1970 with the rank of colonel. In 1990 he emigrated to Israel. In 2001 Solomon Kantsedikas passed away.

Elisheva Freigenberg-Kantsedikas (Cohen-Tsedek) was born in 1922. She graduated from the Jewish Real Gymnasium in Vilnius. When Soviet rule was established in Lithuania in 1940, Elisheva actively participated in organizing the Komsomol in Vilnius. After the start of the war, she was evacuated to Kuibyshev (Samara), worked in a school as a counselor, and pursued her education in a teacher’s college. After Vilnius was liberated in 1944, she returned to the city and began working for a newspaper. In 1958 Elisheva became a member of the Union of Soviet Journalists. In 1990 she emigrated to Israel. In 2012 Elisheva Kantsedikas passed away.