Leah Krause-Miller
(Loyfland)
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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.
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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.
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Noakh
Prilutski -- "Yidish teater," Bialystok,
1921, pp. 32, 43.
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Nechemias
Zucker -- "Fir doyres idish teater," Buenos
Aires, 1944, First Part, pp. 175, 181-82;
Second Part, pp. 244, 282.
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