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Lives in the Yiddish Theatre

SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE YIDDISH THEATRE
AS DESCRIBED IN ZALMEN ZYLBERCWEIG'S "LEXICON OF THE YIDDISH THEATRE"

1931-1969



 

Chaim Polanski

 

P. was born on 20 July 1892 in Uman, Kiev Gubernia, Ukraine. Due to a "right of habitat" the family was sent away, and they settled in Lodz, Poland, where his father became a worker in a beer brewery.

He completed three classes in a private school and learned Yiddish privately, later becoming an employee in a manufacturing business.

In 1915, after he became known to actor Sh. Hershkovits, he became associated with his troupe, debuting in Lublin, and afterwards he toured with the troupe across Poland.

In 1918 he was entered into Lodz's Skala Theatre (directed by Julius Adler and Herman Serotsky), and later toured for three years with Leonid Sokolov across Kovno, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the "Yiddish Dramatic Theatre". In 1922 he returned to Lodz and due to family matters, spent four years not participating in the theatre. Since 1926 he again returned to the theatre, most of the time in Lodz and partly went on many tours across the province.

P. had dramatized Emil Zola's novel "Nantes," also known as "Der gekoyfter man," that was staged in Lodz's "Grand Theatre" (under the direction of Adler-Serotsky-Zandberg-Waxman). He translated several one-acters from the Polish.

During the outbreak of the Second World War he saved his wife, the actress Regina Rozentsvayg, in the area of Soviet Occupation. and together with his wife acted in the "Baveglekhn Yiddish State Theatre", which had its base in Slonim.

After that, as the Germans took Slonim and relocated the Jews into the local ghetto, both were, as Zalmen Kaleshnikov says, they also were taken in (to the ghetto) with khlumrshtn hiruts, that one was sent away to work in the occupied Russian field, however the Germans led them to their death.
 

M. E. from Zalmen Kaleshnikov.

  • "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre," New York, 1959, Vol. III, pp. 1634-35.


 

 

 




 

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