Kacyzne Alter SHolem

 (31.05.1885, Vilnius - 07.07.1941,Tarnopol) - playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, translator, self-taught. A professional photographer. He made his debut in Russian, he began to create in Yiddish inspired by I.L. Peretz. From 1910 he lived in Warsaw, where he had a portrait studio, he belonged to the circle of writers gathered around Peretz, later he was associated with Sz. An-ski. He collaborated with „Literarisze Bleter", „Bicher-wełt", „Ringen", editor of the magazine „Majn redendiker film" (1937-1939). As a photographer he documented Jewish life in Poland (in 1921 commissioned by HIAS, then as a correspondent for "Jewish Daily Forward"), Palestine, North Africa. He published i.a. Der gajst der Melech. Dramatisze poeme (1919), Dukus. Drame (1926), Churwes Tragedie (1926), Baladn un groteskn (1936). He reconstructed the playTog un nacht Sz. An-ski. He was also involved in film-making (including the screenplay forDybuk by An-ski). In September 1939 he escaped to Lviv, where he worked in the theater. After the German invasion, he found refuge in Tarnopol. He was killed during the pogrom, his wife died in the death camp in Bełżec, his daughter survived on the "Aryan side". His photographs, sent to the US, survived the war; they were published by YIVO (A. Kacyzne, Pojln. Jewish Life in the Old Country, ed. M. Webb. New York, 1999).

Eugenia Prokop-Janiec

Re: Tomaszewski J., Żbikowski A., Żydzi w Polsce. Dzieje i kultura. Leksykon, Warsaw 2001.