IDA KAMINSKI (KAMIŃSKA)

IDA KAMINSKI (KAMIŃSKA) (September 5, 1899-May 21, 1980)

            The daughter of Avrom-Yitskhok and Ester-Rokhl (Esther-Rachel) Kaminski, she was born in Odessa.  She was raised and educated in Warsaw.  She played in and directed theater ensembles: Warsaw Yiddish Art Theater (VIKT), Yiddish State Theater in Lemberg (1939-1941), and Yiddish State Theater in Lodz and Wrocław (1946), and from 1955 in Warsaw.  She toured through an enormous portion of the Jewish communities of the world and during WWII through various cities of the Soviet Union.  After 1967 she was active with the theater in Israel and the United States.  From time to time she published memoirs of her mother in: Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) in Lodz, Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture), Morgn frayhayt (Morning freedom), Tog-morgn-zhurnal (Day-morning journal), Yidishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), and the anthology Tsuzamen (Together) in Tel Aviv.  She authored two plays: A mol iz geven a meylekh (There was once a king)—a portion of the first act appeared in Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw (1929), pp. 114-16; and Farshit di bunkers (Bury the bunkers) (1964).  She dramatized or translated dozens of works, such as: Eliza Orzeszkowa’s Meyer ezofovitsh (Meir Ezofowicz), Dostoevsky’s Brider karamazov (The Brothers Karamazov [original: Brat'ya Karamazovy]), Vinichenko’s Dos gezets (The law), Bertolt Brecht’s play Muter kurazh (Mother Courage [original: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and her children)]) and Shrek un elnt fun dritn raykh (Fear and misery of the Third Reich [original: Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches]), Aleksander Fredro’s Pan yovyalski (Mr. Jovial [original: Pan Jowialski]) with L. Olitski (Warsaw, 1953), Sholem Ash’s Onkl mozes (Uncle Moses), and Y. Perle’s Naye mentshn (New people), among others.  She died in New York.

   

                                    In a 1919 film                    In The Shop on Main Street (1967)

Sources: D. Sfard, Shtudyes un skitsn (Studies and sketches) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1955), pp. 180-85; Y. Turkov-Grudberg, Varshe, dos vigele fun yidishn teater (Warsaw, the cradle of Yiddish theater) (Warsaw, 1956), pp. 46-69; Mikhl Vaykhert, Zikhroynes (Memoirs) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1961), see index; Ida Kaminska, 50 yor kinstlerishe tetikeyt (Fifty years of artistic activity) (Warsaw, 1968); Perlmuter archive, YIVO (New York); Ida Kaminska, My Life, My Theater, trans. Kurt Leviant (New York, 1973).

Ruvn Goldberg