Ihar Krebs

Bella Rosenfeld Chagall’s memoirs consist of two parts, Brenendike likht (Burning Lights, 1945) and Di ershte bagegnish (The First Encounter, 1947); both parts were only published after her death. They show life in Jewish Viciebsk at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, and tell of Bella’s childhood and her first meeting with Marc Chagall. The memoirs are an important testimony of the rich Jewish culture in Viciebsk, a city with an old artistic history. They were written in Yiddish and have never before been translated into Belarusian.