NORBERT HOROVITS

NORBERT HOROVITS (September 23, 1909-November 24, 1983)

            He was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina.  He was a student at local Yiddish theater schools.  After WWI he lived in Poland, acting on the Yiddish stage.  He later moved to Munich, Germany, where he was a cofounder of the local theater ensemble “Miks” (Minkhener yidisher kunst-teater [Munich Yiddish art theater]).  He was the organizer of the first Yiddish radio programs in Munich.  From 1949 he was living in the United States.  A member of the Yiddish actors’ union, he also sang on Yiddish radio broadcasts for WEVD in New York.  In 1952 he published stories in Forverts (Forward) in New York, later also an autobiography and travel narrative.  He contributed to the anthology Fun noentn over (From the recent past) (New York) 1 (1955), pp. 113-82: a monograph entitled “Yidish teater fun der sheyres-hapleyte” (Yiddish theater of the Holocaust survivors).  In the 1950s he published in Forverts a series of articles entitled “Ikh kum fun yener velt” (I come from that world)—about his experiences in Soviet labor camps.  He was living in New York until his death there.

Sources: Dr. N. Sverdlin, in Tog-morgn zhurnal (New York) (August 4, 1955); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955); Who’s Who in the East (1957).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 215.]