ERC > LEXICON OF THE YIDDISH THEATRE  >  VOLUME 5  >  GAVA VAI


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

 

 

Gava Vai
(Grunya Vaynstok)
 

Born circa 1905 in Brisk, Polish Lithuania, where she continuously lived with her family. She debuted in a local amateur group under the direction of Misha Sarver, then was a professional actress in the troupe of Julius Adler. According to Jonas Turkow, she was touring for a long time with him and his troupe across the province. According to Itzhak Perlov, she had finished her stage career in 1938-39, when she toured with Lola Folman's troupe and acted in his play "Goldene zangen."

Itzhak Perlov characterizes her as such:

"A good and very useful actress with a tremendous love for the theatre. She has acted in mother roles, character roles, lover and comical [roles], but factually she was a dramatic actress. She hadn't sung or danced".

According to Zalmen Koleshinkov, she was very lovely and a very good friend, a sympathetic person, a great Bohemian when the Soviet government had created the "Bavelekhe Jewish Theatre for the Western Field", and she had acted there and was captured by the Germans in Slonim, where the theatre had a base. About her destruction, here are two versions: "One is that she was killed by the Nazis in Slonim. A second is that she had from there was shown to have fled from her family in Brisk, and there was killed.

Itzhak Perlov observed that it isn't determined where and when she was killed, but it is known that the Brisk Jewish population did not leave the city, but was shot in Brisk itself, onto very large piles, and there buried into a mass grave.


Sh. E. from  Zalmen Koleshnikov.

M. E. from Itzhaik Perlov, Jonas Turkow, Meir Melman and Sheftel Zak.
 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 5, page 4229.
 

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