Joseph S. Kutrzeba
This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2016) |
Joseph S. Kutrzeba | |
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Born | Arie Fajwiszys October 11, 1927 Yale Drama School |
Occupation(s) | theater producer and director |
Spouse(s) | Valerie M. Hageman (1955–1959); Michaela Lacher (from 1979) |
Children | Karen Janina |
Parents |
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Joseph S. Kutrzeba (born Arie Fajwiszys October 11, 1927 – January 24, 2013) was a Polish-American theater producer and director.
Family background: Israel Fajwiszys and Kutrzeba's early life
Kutrzeba was born on October 11, 1927, in Łódź, Poland. He was the son of Israel Fajwiszys, a composer, and Malka (Hakman) Fajwiszys, both of whom perished in the Holocaust, along with their daughter, Kutrzeba's sister. Israel Fajwiszys was born in 1887 in Yampil,[1] Ukraine. Having graduated from a music conservatoire, he led the choirs of the progressive synagogues in Brody and Tarnów. After studying in Vienna, he was also the leader of the Kraków Tempel Synagogue choir. He came to Łódź from Lviv in 1922 and he became a teacher in both girls' and boys' schools of the Jewish Secondary Schools Society. He was the co-organiser of a singing society "Szir". After the outbreak of World War II he moved to Warsaw, where he volunteered to help an underground military organisation. In the ghetto, with Kutrzeba, he organised a children's choir. Kutzreba's father Israel wrote the music to the poem M'khol Masada by Yitskhok Lamden. In 1937 Israel's girls' chorus won first prize in an all-Poland choral competition. Later in the Warsaw Ghetto, he would lead the children's choir in performances of the song recounting the Jewish resistance and sacrifice under Roman rule.[2]
During the ghetto uprising he was caught and transported together with his daughter to the extermination camp in Poniatowa in the Lublin area, where he was murdered.[3]
War and post-war life in Europe
Kutrzeba was a member of a teenage resistance group in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He escaped and met a priest, Reverend Stanisław Falkowski, who gave him the patriotic Polish name of Joseph Kutrzeba. He found him work as a cowherd with neighboring farmers and helped him get Catholic ID papers. In 1977 Falkowski was honored by Yad Vashem, the international Holocaust heroism remembrance authority. The story of Kutrzeba and Falkowski's fifty year friendship was told in the documentary "Messengers of Hope: The Hidden Children of the Holocaust", produced by Jeff Kamen, Jonathan L. Kessler and Joseph Kutrzeba.
Kutrzeba wrote in his memoir in May 1994: "During the first days of September 1942, at the age of 14, I jumped out of a moving train destined for
He attended L.M. University in Munich, Germany (B.A. equivalent) and at age 19 was the winner of the top literary prize for a World War II short story sponsored by the Polish Combatant Association in London.
Emigration to the USA and later life
Kutrzeba came to the United States in 1950 and served with the U.S. Army in the
He was the founder and producer of
He was nominated for a
Kutrzeba was married twice, the first time to Valerie M. Hageman, from September 1955 to 1959, with one child, Karen Janina. He was married again on January 14, 1979, to Michaela Lacher.
He recorded his oral history on May 18, 1995, for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum[7]
Kutrzeba died on January 24, 2013, in New York, at the age of 85.
References
- ^ Yampil is a common place name in Ukraine. It is unclear which one was Israel's birthplace, and records may no longer exist.
- ISBN 9780815607083. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ "Izrael Fajwiszys - People, lists of names, genealogy - Jewish community before 1989 - Łódź - Virtual Shtetl". Sztetl.org.pl. Archived from the original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". Scribd.com. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 3, 1974
- ^ "The Contract by Joseph S. Kutrzeba". YouTube. 2009-01-20. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ "Oral history interview with Joseph Kutrzeba - Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". Collections.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
External links
- [1][dead link]
- Eva Fogelman (1995). Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 9780385420280.
- "Righteous Among the Nations Honored by Yad Vashem by 1 January 2016" (PDF). Yadvashem.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- [2] [dead link]