Michał Weichert

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Michał Weichert

Michał Weichert (also Michael, Michal ; born May 5, 1890 in Staremiasto, Podhajce district , Austria-Hungary ; died March 11, 1967 in Tel Aviv ) was a Polish theater producer in the Yiddish language and head of the Jewish self-help organization in Poland under German occupation administration .

Life

Michał Weichert grew up in Stanislau and studied law, literature and art history in Lemberg , Berlin and Vienna , where he received his doctorate in law in 1916. In Berlin he sat in on Max Reinhardt's theater and went to Warsaw in 1918 . There he began to work in Yiddish theater groups, including the Vilnius troupe of Ida Kamińska , and gave private acting lessons. Among his productions were the dramatizations of Shalom Asch's Kidush ha-Shem (1928) and Shaylok (1929); Aaron Zeitlin's contemporary drama Yidn-shtot (1929) and Moshe Lifshits ' comedy A mayse with Hershele Ostropolyer (1930). He worked temporarily with the composer Henech Kon . Weichert participated in the founding and publication of partly short-lived literary and theater literary magazines. A collection of his theater reviews first appeared in book form in 1922. Weichert was elected to the management of the Yiddish Actors 'Association from 1925 to 1927 and was temporarily vice-president of the Jewish Writers' Association in Poland.

Between 1932 and 1939 he organized the Yiddish “Young Theater” (“Yung-theater”) in Warsaw with his own drama students. Since Weichert's theater was active on the left political side, it had to move to Vilna in 1937 under political pressure from the Polish government . The theater experimented with new forms of theater such as incorporating the auditorium into the stage and involving the audience in the action.

During the German occupation of Poland , the umbrella organization "Jewish Social Self-Help" (JSS; Yidishe Sotsyale Aleynhilf ) was founded by the Jewish welfare organizations , of which Weichert became chairman. The organization was ordered by the Department of Population and Welfare of the German Administration of the General Government and had to take its seat in Cracow in 1940 , whereupon Weichert moved there with his family and from March 1941 lived in the Cracow ghetto ordered by the Germans . The JSS received part of the donations raised in neutral foreign countries and by the Red Cross for the Polish population and, until the USA entered the war, also received help from the Joint Distribution Committee . The JSS distributed these funds to the regional branches of the organization and supported them with the local administration through the German district leaders . After the closure of the JSS, ordered by the Germans, Weichert was initially obliged to do forced labor before the German occupation administration allowed him to set up and manage a new organization called the “Jewish Support Center” (JUS). When the Krakow ghetto was completely cleared in March 1943 and the remaining inhabitants were deported to the neighboring Plaszow concentration camp or to the extermination camps, Weichert kept the office and apartment outside the concentration camp. From July 1944, until the liberation of Krakow, he lived in hiding with his family; the German administrative officer Lothar Weirauch , he later claimed, had helped him.

After the end of the war, Weichert was arrested by the Polish authorities and charged with collaboration , but acquitted on January 7, 1946. By contrast, a court of honor at the Central Committee of Polish Jews found him guilty of collaborating on December 29, 1949. He was therefore not accepted into any of the lawyers 'and writers' associations in Poland. The work of the JSS and the JUS, like the work of the Jewish councils, is controversial, and its impact has still not been explored historically.

In 1958, Weichert emigrated to Israel , where he published an autobiographical work and a book about Jewish self-help. The fourth volume of his memoirs appeared posthumously in 1970.

Fonts (selection)

  • Abraham Goldfaden : Ṭrupe Ṭanentsap: a goldfaden-shpil in a Galitsish shṭeṭl . Tel-Aviv: ha-Menorah, 1966 (Yiddish)
  • Yidishe aleynhilf nayntsn-nayn un draysik - nayntsn-finf un firtsik . Tel Aviv: Menorah, 1962 (he)
  • Theater un drame . Warsaw: Farlag "Yidish", 1922 (Yiddish)
  • Zikhroynes . Tel-Aviv: Farlag Menorah 1960–70 (Yiddish)

literature

Further literature

  • David Engel: Who Is a Collaborator ?: The Trials of Michał Weichert. In: The Jews in Poland , Volume 2, Ed. Sławomir Kapralski, pp. 339–370 Krakau 1999
  • Zalmen Zylbercweig: Vaykhert, Mikhal, Dr. In: Leksikon fun yidishn teater , Volume 1, Sp. 676-678, New York, 1931

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrea Löw, Markus Roth: Jews in Krakow under German occupation 1939–1945 . 2011, p. 93
  2. ↑ Michal Weichert at YIVO
  3. ↑ Frieder Arne Kärsten: Melekh Ravitsh and the forgotten Yiddish poet Moshe Lifshits , Jiddistik Mitteilungen - Yiddistik in German-speaking countries 01/2011. On Moshe Lifshits see also Hersch Ostropoler
  4. ^ Bogdan Musiał: German civil administration and persecution of Jews in the General Government. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2000, p. 162
  5. ^ Andrea Löw, Markus Roth: Jews in Krakow under German occupation 1939–1945 . 2011, p. 92
  6. ^ Andrea Löw, Markus Roth: Jews in Krakow under German occupation 1939–1945 . 2011, p. 94
  7. ↑ Angelina Awtuszewska-Ettrich: Plaszow - Stammlager , 2008, p. 269f, p. 280
  8. ↑ Barbara Schieb, Martina Voigt (ed.): Frederick Weinstein. Notes from the hiding place: Experiences of a Polish Jew 1939–1946 . From the polish. trans. by Jolanta Woźniak-Kreutzer. Lukas-Verl., Berlin 2006, p. 451.
  9. ↑ Barbara Schieb, Martina Voigt (ed.): Frederick Weinstein . Notes from the hiding place: Experiences of a Polish Jew 1939–1946 . From the polish. trans. by Jolanta Woźniak-Kreutzer. Lukas-Verl., Berlin 2006, p. 454.
  10. ↑ Bogdan Musiał evaluated the reports of Weoft: Bogdan Musiał: German civil administration and the persecution of Jews in the Generalgouvernement. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2000, passim
personal data
SURNAME Weichert, Michał
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish lawyer and theater maker
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Stare Miasło, Podhajce County , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 1967
Place of death Tel Aviv