DOVID LEDERMAN

DOVID LEDERMAN (b. 1892)

            He was born in Apt (Opatów), Kielce district, Poland.  In his youth he moved with his parents to Lodz.  He attended religious elementary school and a public school.  He later was a well-known Yiddish actor.  He was a cofounder of the Yiddish theaters: “Tsentral” (Central), “Vikt,” and “Yidishe bande” (Jewish gang).  He participated in the films Tkies-kaf (The handshake) and Poylishe velder (Polish woods).  With the outbreak of WWII, he lived for a time in occupied Warsaw, before leaving for Bialystok, and from there the Soviet authorities deported him to an NKVD (secret police) camp.  He returned to Poland after the war, and soon made his way to a displaced persons’ camp in Germany and then on to Argentina.  He acted in Yiddish theaters in Argentina.  He wrote for Teater-tsaytung (Theater newspaper) in Warsaw (1928-1929).  He also published articles and memoirs about Yiddish theater for Ilustrirte literarishe bleter (Illustrated literary leaves) in Buenos Aires.  In book form he published: Fun yener zayt forhang (From the other side of the curtain) (Buenos Aires, 1960), 385 pp., in which he described the life of the Jewish refugees in the years 1939-1945.

Sources: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934), with a bibliography; foreword to Fun yener zayt forhang (From the other side of the curtain) (Buenos Aires, 1960); Y. Horn, in Idishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (September 27, 1960); Y. Pat, in Tsukunft (New York) (November 1960); N. Tsuker, in Der shpigl (Buenos Aires) (December 1960); Dr. M. Vaykhert, Varshe 1918-1939 (Warsaw, 1918-1939) (Tel Aviv, 1961), see index; Z. Turkov, Di ibergerisene tekufe, fragmentn fun mayn lebn (The interrupted era, fragments from my life) (Buenos Aires: Central Publisher of Polish Jews in Argentina, 1961), see index; M. Bazovik, in Ilustrirte literarishe bleter (Buenos Aires) (August 1962).

Khayim Leyb Fuks