-- The Jews there are very warm people;
they pay homage to a guest, and they make him feel good --
Satz tells.
But, when he speaks with enthusiasm
about the Jews in Antwerp, Satz speaks without enthusiasm
about the Jews in Kovno.
-- In Kovno -- he said -- I played for
eight weeks and played every day. But the Jews did not want
to pay the price for tickets. The prices were the usual, but
they explained that they will wait until the prices will be
cheaper, and do you think they did not win? The prices
really had to be made cheaper ...
"Well, who did that?" -- Later many
Jews said triumphantly -- "That one waits, one expects!"
-- In Kovno -- Satz continued to tell
-- there are many intelligentsia who refrain from speaking
Yiddish. They cannot speak Lithuanian fluently. They speak
Russian between each other, and they feel good about it. It
is "intelligent" ...
-- And this is not fine for them --
Satz tells -- Yiddish is a beautiful language ... I also
speak Yiddish, and I was not sent from America for that, and
let me tell you another secret: For us in New York there are
more Litvaks than in all of Lita (Lithuania), and they are
dear people. They never expect tickets to be cheaper. They
come to the theatre and pay the prices. They are the right
Litvaks ...
From Kovno Satz traveled to Warsaw.
-- In Warsaw -- he said -- Yiddish
theatres can be found, but only two of them are successful.
The other two also are successful, but with many
guest-actors, who come there to play, who have driven away
the theatre visitor with their cheap plays. When the
audience gets better plays, they come. But once they are
tricked, they stay away from the theatre.
Playing in Warsaw, Satz was in the
largest theatre, and according to him he assures that all of
the productions were strongly attended. There he appeared in
the operettas, "His Wife's Lover" and Kalmanowitz's "Life
Marches On." In Warsaw he played for nine weeks. There are
mostly "tear-jerkers" and "revues," that said: "A bit of
every type of play ... The intellectuals come to the serious
plays, and when they feel good about a play, they are not
ashamed to applaud.
And here in Warsaw there are plenty of
the intelligentsia who can even fill a large theatre, if a
good play is put on, and also if they will play well.
For the Jews in Lodz, Satz is
enthusiastic. They are the best theatre visitors, he said.
The Lodz Jews are not ashamed of Yiddish, and they are not
ashamed of one another. In the theatre the rich and the poor
come, the intelligentsia and the common people, and they go
to the theatre in the middle of the week, just as on
Saturday evening.
And if he would not have had to come in
time to New York to make rehearsals in the Second Avenue
Theatre, where he will play this coming season, he would
still be able to play there to full houses, though for three
months' time, Satz said.
In Berlin he spent four days. He tells
that they went to see the Hakenkreuz. It is not the former
Berlin. The guests had lost their former rights. There is no
life. They saw no Jews in the streets, and on the train it
was very sad, and in restaurants, in which one finds at the
stations, very few people sit, and they are like dumb. They
speak no words out loud, but it feels that when one looks at
them, that through their silence, they are suppressing the
tragedy that plays out in their hearts.
-- I also want you to know many more
accounts about my trip in the various countries, -- Satz
ended the conversation with the "Forward" writer -- but I
choose to write several articles in the "Forward" about
this. Therefore I will not tell all about that which I now
see and hear from that side of the ocean.
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