CAMERA OBSCURA

DOWN BY THE SEA

KIBBUTZ HACHSHARA

• Overview

• The Balks

• Kibbutz Hachshara

• Berlin

• Technical Information

Translating as 'kibbutz preparation', the term kibbutz hachshara can be used to describe a number of different Zionist organisations that were operating before the Second World War whose common goal was the training of young Jewish men and women in a variety of trades and skills in readiness for new lives in what was still known at the time as Mandatory Palestine. During the interwar period, Klaipėda and the surrounding region became an important centre for the kibbutz hachshara movement in Lithuania, not least in the field of agriculture. When they weren't out in the countryside, students would often spend time in Klaipėda itself, where a visit to Leon Balk's photography studio to commemorate and/or celebrate special moments was more or less obligatory. Today scattered in private homes and museum collections all over the world, these extraordinary documents are currently in the slow process of being identified with the help of the personal photographs Lina Balk and her children took with them to England when they escaped Lithuania in April 1939. Look closely at Photograph 3, Photograph 4 and Photograph 5 below (↓) and note that the three (painted) columns on the left are the same as the ones in the photograph of Judith and David Balk at the top of the page (↑).

Special thanks to Michael Leiserowitz at Jews in East Prussia for the Hebrew translations.