Star of Poland’s Jewish theatre dies

photo - PAP/Tomasz Gzell (archive)

Minister of Culture Malgorzata Omilanowska has said that Szurmiej’s death is a great loss for Polish culture, stressing that the presence of Jewish culture in Poland was his primary concern throughout his life.

Fellow actor Henryk Rajfer said that Szurmiej was the last of the great actors who could act in Yiddish.

Szymon Szurmiej was proud of the fact that Warsaw was one of the two cities in the world, the other being New York, to have a theatre giving regular performances – in Yiddish - of the classics of Jewish literature, such as Shloyme Ansky, Isaac Peretz and Sholem Aleichem.

Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, has told the Polish Press Agency that Szurmiej was proud to be a Jew.

“He never forgot about his roots and at a very difficult time he spared no effort to fight for the cause of Jewish culture,” he said.

Szymon Szurmiej was born in Volhynia as a son of Polish father and Jewish mother. As a young man, he spent several years (1941-46) in a Soviet labour camp in the region of Kolyma, in the Far East of Russia, and in Kazakhstan.

He began his career as an actor and theatre director in Wroclaw, south-western Poland, in the early 1950s and also appeared in many films by Polish and foreign directors. He is survived by his wife, Golda Tencer, four children and two grandchildren, all of whom are actors.

Szymon Szurmiej held many high Polish and foreign state distinctions, including the Grand Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order and the German Grand Cross of the Order of Merit and was a member of the World Jewish Congress and an honorary citizen of Warsaw. (mk/pg)