She was born in 189.. in Warsaw, Poland. Her father was a supervisor of a brewery. He learned in a middle school. In 1909 she became a chorister in the Muranow Yiddish Theatre in Warsaw with Kompaneyets. In 1912 she debuted in Lodz in a small role in the "Grand Theatre" with Aaron Lebedeff in Beimvol's operetta, "Zeyfnblaz." She married the prompter Moshe Zandberg and made her home in Warsaw, where in 1916 she went over to the "Central Theatre" to responsible roles, played in the European operettas in Warsaw, and also in the province.

Jonas Turkow wrote about her:

"...She began as a chorister in Warsaw's 'Central' Theatre in the glory period of the Yiddish operetta ...Tseshiya Zandberg was a beautiful girl, had a beautiful voice, and also knew how to dance. Then they began to give her small roles, and from there she indeed became an actress. She was a good colleague and was loved by all who came in touch with her.

Tseshiya Zandberg had two beautiful, saved daughters: the oldest, Ruta Zandberg, had completed the Warsaw Conservatory and was a good pianist. In addition, she was a well-intentioned and hearty, subtler man. She was loved by all who knew her. What did she know? Mostly she played in the orchestra of the Yiddish theatre in Warsaw. She married the young actor David Birnbaum. Her second daughter of the Zandbergs manifested a great ability for dance, and she is indeed, after completing the dance school of Tatiana Wisotska in Warsaw, became a soloist

in the Polish theatres, and then -- in the large Warsaw locales. She married the well-known Krakow violinist Sperber, and went away with him, together to Persia (Iran). ...Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, she came to Warsaw on a visit to her parents. She was captured in Warsaw during the war. She was not able to go back and return to her husband in Tehran."

And about Z.'s tragic end and her family, Jonas Turkow writes in his book, "Extinguished Stars":

"During the war Z. was in the house in which she lived, on Svienoyerska 18. ...An incendiary bomb and destruction destroyed the apartment of the Zandbergs. They all found themselves in a cellar and thus avoided death. In the ghetto they went very badly. Tseshiya Zandberg was ill. ..The only earner was Ruta Zandberg, who accompanied on the piano the actors in various events and -- also played in a theatre. Tseshiya Zandberg was inflamed with typhus, which reigned in the ghetto, and she died. During the first 'Oyszidlungs' action Moshe Zandberg and David Birnbaum were taken away to Treblinka. The second daughter of the Zandbergs -- Sperber -- once disappeared, people did not know what happened.

Ruta Zandberg remained alone and got out of all the actions.

Turkow further recalls that shortly before the uprising, going to the home of the Jewish underground movement on Leszno 54, a shooting broke out and he ran into a tower on Leszno 72. Here the theatre director Ryba indicated on a chopped passage in the gate that led directly into a suburban apartment at Nowolipe 67. This was just the apartment of his, Turkows, murdered sisters, and there was Ruta Zandberg, who told him that it became her entire family, and though she had a good, Aryan appearance: blonde, a haughty nose with big blue eyes, she still did not receive any answer from her colleagues on the Aryan side about a possibility there to survive. In the morning Turkow petitioned Melekh Feinkind from the underground movement, that he should send over Ruta Zandberg to the partisans in the forest. He agreed and it was done, that she was supposed to be sent over from the ghetto on 19 April 1943, into the forest with the nearest group of five, but on the same day the uprising broke out in the Warsaw Ghetto, and every trace of her was gone from there.
 

M.E.

• Jonas Turkow -- "Extinguished Stars," Buenos Aires, 1953, Vol. 2, pp. 52-62.