Shmuel Shilo

In 1983 he founded the Negev Theatre and served as its creative director for fifteen years.

 

Shmuel Shilo was born in Łuck, eastern Poland (now Lutsk, Ukraine). Following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland and the creation of the Łuck Ghetto by the German occupation authorities in December 1941, Shmuel (Shmulik, age twelve) was interned in the ghetto along with his family and 20,000 other Polish Jews. He survived the ghetto liquidation action of August 19, 1942 in a cellar with his mother and siblings, and the subsequent deportation to Górka Połonka killing fields, but all alone on September 12, to join the slave workers in a Nazi labor camp set up at the Jewish school building. He escaped once more, during a prisoner revolt by hiding under a work bench, and survived the war in the forests amongst partisans. After reuniting with his sister rescued by the Poles, in 1946 the two made their way to Palestine. He was a member of Palmach and was a founding member of Kibbutz Tze'elim.

Shilo studied acting and performed regularly in several theatres. In 1983 he founded the Negev Theatre and served as its art director until 1997. He also acted in several films and television series, best known for his role on the Israeli production of Sesame Street, Rechov Sumsum. He died of cancer at the age of 82.