Featured Artifact: Zygmunt Turkow (1896-1970)

by VIOLET LUTZ

The Yiddish actor and director Zygmunt Turkow was born and raised in Warsaw, where he got his start on the stage and went on to co-found—in partnership with his wife at the time, actress Ida Kaminska—the influential dramatic troupe “Varshever Yidisher Kunst-Theater” (Warsaw Yiddish Art Theater; circa 1924-1928).

This scrapbook spans Turkow’s earliest experiences in theater. The first clipping, dated 1913, from the daily Yiddish newspaper Der Moment, tells of a Hanukkah program presented by students at Krinski’s commercial high school, which the 17-year-old Turkow was then attending. Describing the students’ Hebrew-language production of Longfellow’s poetic drama “Judas Maccabaeus,” the writer relates that Turkow “masterfully performed the difficult role of the traitor Jason.” Also reflected in the volume are Turkow’s participation in Nahum Zemach’s amateur Hebrew-language troupe “Habimah” during its sojourn in Warsaw; his graduation from a private Polish drama school; and performances by the “Artistishe Vinkele” (Artistic Corner), an amateur Yiddish theater group he helped to organize. After acting for a time on the Polish stage, in 1917 Turkow joined the Yiddish troupe led by Abraham Isaac Kaminski and his wife, the renowned actress Esther Rachel Kaminska. On later pages of the scrapbook are reviews of productions in the early 1920s co-starring Turkow and Ida Kaminska, the Kaminskis’ daughter, whom he had married in 1918.

This scrapbook is in YIVO’s Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Collection, RG 8, which is currently being processed and digitized as a part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project.

Violet Lutz is a Project Archivist for the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections.