ERC > LEXICON OF THE YIDDISH THEATRE  >  VOLUME 5  >  LEAH KRAUSE-MILLER


Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre
BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE WHO WERE ONCE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE;
aS FEATURED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S  "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"


VOLUME 5: THE KDOYSHIM (MARTYRS) EDITION, 1967, Mexico City

 

Leah Krause-Miller
(Loyfland)


 

Leah was born in 1880 in Hrubieszów, Poland. Her parents drew income from a sprays shop. The actor Shlomo Kroyz (Solomon Krause), who later married her, recalls that he had become acquainted with her at a time in Lublin, and that he had been in love with her. She had been taken into the chorus, as she displayed certain abilities. He began to give her roles to act in, her second name Miller coming from a person from her first marriage, to a private person named Miller. According to our notes, she began to act in 1899.

K. earned a tremendous popularity with the former Yiddish theatre audience in Eastern Europe. Most of the time she played in "shund" repertoire.

Zina Rapel recalls in her memoirs that, together with her husband Krause, K. happened to act with Avraham Fiszon in a troupe, and from there they went over to the troupe of Kompaneyets. She remarked about her as a person: "To me she was as faithful as a sister." Then K. acted in her husband's own troupe, which traipsed across the Lodz province and returned to rejoin Kompaneyets, and at the end again entered into the "Elizeum Theatre" (directors Epelberg-Rapel); after it was given by Krause, she maintained his name on the stage.

Grisha Rothstein stresses that she had great success in the role of "Khinke" as a partner to her father Shaye Rothstein ("Pinke") in the famous "Khinke-Pinke" period.

 Noakh Prilutski says in his reviews about her during the Warsaw guest-appearance of Morris Moskowitz in "God, Man and Devil": "She acted gevisnhaftik and with feeling... Mrs. Krause. ... and about Thomashefsky's production there of Kobrin's "Der blinder gan eden," Prilutski tells us more about K.'s acting: "Mrs. Krause-Miller is really good as the maid Serke. Erterveyz perhaps a little emphasized, she generally performed, in a natural way, with much humor, temperament and achievement, by the small, koym-koym indicated in the actual piece, virtually, one can say, a completely other role."

In 1924 K. participated in a member's troupe which played in Grodno and in Kremenetz.

On her membership card from the Yiddish Artists Union, there is a remark "not dependent on her actor's profession," from which it is seen that she had no longer love for her theatre acting.

According to Grisha Rothstein, she married with a very intelligent man and with him finally during the twentieth year went away went away to Argentina, where she bought a farm, which they had worked by themselves, but an invasion of locusts wrecked havoc on their farm. They lost their entire farm and had to return to Poland. She didn't act anymore, but from time to time she used to come out to the Yiddish Artists' Union.

According to a document in  "Lukhmi hgitus," she (and also her husband) were killed in the Warsaw Ghetto [editor's note: Shlomo (Solomon) Krause was not killed in the ghetto, but he immigrated to the U.S. and acted for a number of years in the Yiddish theatre, including with Maurice Schwartz and his Yiddish Art Theatre.]


M. E. from Solomon Krause and Grisha Rothstein.

  • Noakh Prilutski -- "Yidish teater," Bialystok, 1921, pp. 32, 43.

  • Nechemias Zucker -- "Fir doyres idish teater," Buenos Aires, 1944, First Part, pp. 175, 181-82; Second Part, pp. 244, 282.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 5, page 4098.
 

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