.1 t. • t t: ti. • Salka Viertel's Salon, Her Theatrical Career Told in Autobiography 'Kindness of Strangers A distinkuished actress turned Aiding refugees, supporting the author draws considerable interest Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, she with her autobiography. was mistakenly referred to as a Salka Viertel aspired to the stage Communist and when she applied and the encouragement of Max for a passport to Europe after the Reinhardt gave her the coveted war her background was ques- start on the stage in Germany. tioned and she incorporates in her She came to the United States,' autobiography a letter from R. B. gained fame in Hollywood and her Shipley of the State Department association with some of the very questioning her associations. She great personalities in the world was cleared but in the interim she elevated her to a high position had undergone interrogations. A sad experience during the pre- among the interesting theatrical war years is recorded. On a stop- personalities of her time. "The Kindness of Strangers—A over in Paris, she writes: "On the Champs Elysees huge Theatrical Life — Vienna, Berlin, Hollywood," published by Holt. posters advertised Emil Jannings Rinehart and Winston, tells the re- in an anti-British film. He was now markable story of this Jewess who a Staatsrat and most honored ar- was thoroughly assimilated yet tist of the Third Reich. At a din- ner party my neighbor exclaimed: had deep Jewish interests. Ske3yas born into an observant 'I don't see any reason why one Jena& family and her mother should not work in Germany. The keptfal the rules. She never for- Jewish question concerns only the got - be/ origin and during the Jews.' I got up and left. Four Nast ;era was among the out- years later, after the war broke spokes fighters against, Hitler- out and the issue had become not ism. But it was natural Ito her, merely a Jewish one, my hosts as a semi-assimilated Jewess, to changed their attitude. During the state, "AU children in the West- occupation they went into exile." Other incidents are recorded re- ern world, even Jewish or half- Jewish, want a Christmas tree." lating to the Nazi terror and Salka But at her mother's funeral she Viertel's expressions against the recited the Kaddish repeating it Hitler regime. as it was being pronounced by a Hollywood rabbi. She befriended the great in Eu- rope and in America and she tells about- her friendship with the Al- I bert Einstein. She states of one the occasion , with them that "It was the most effortless and gayest eve- I This Week's Radio and ning I have ever spent in the pres- Television Programs ence of a great man. We laughed * ETERNAL LIGHT a lot as anecdote followed ance- dote . .." Time: 10:30 p.m. Sunday Station: WWJ She met Dorothy Thompson and Feature: "Not Quite Alone," a Sinclair Lewis before they were drama in the "Righteous Acts" to marry. Upton Sinclair was among her series, relates the story of a hand- close friends and they had met on ful of Polish Christians who enter- ed the Warsaw ghetto to fight with numerous occasions. There is an interesting historic the Jews in the uprising of April fol- note when she relates the 1943. Written by Harold Flender. • • • lowing about her early associa- tions, before coming to thel LUBAVTTCH JEWISH HOUR United States: Time: 8 a.m. Sunday "The circle of our friends be-! Station: WKNR came larger as impatient youth Feature: Rabbi Yitzhak M. Ka- began to invade Berlin. Thomas gan will speak on "The Fifth Son Main's children Klaus and Erika, —Who Is He?" A youth forum on Pamela - Wedekind, Mops Stern.: Passover along with Hasidic songs helm and Anna Mahler, Gustav also will be presented. Mahler's daughter, briefly mar- • ried to the composer Ernst Kre- HEAR OUR VOICE nek, emerged from their nur- Time: 11:30 p.m. Sunday series to join us at our table in Station: WCAR the Romaninisches cafe, bring- Feature: "Zimriya of Cantors ing freshness of outlook and a and Choirs"—a potpourri of offer- reckless disrespect for the status ing from the area's cantors and quo. Some of them soon disap- choral ensembles. peared from our lives. Among those who remained were Fran- cesco and Eleanora von Men- Share-in-America Drive delssohn, the children of Gull- to Push Savings Bonds letta and Robert von Mendels- A large-scale effort to enroll 85,- sohn, of the renowned banking house. One hundred and fifty 000 new savings bonds and Free- years of intermarriage with Ital- dom Shares buyers via the pay- ian and Basque women had con- roll savings plan in Wayne, Oak- tributed beauty, talent and ec- land and Macomb counties began centricity to the ancient Jewish Tuesday with the kick-off of the blood of the 18th Century philoso- Metropolitan Detroit Share-in- pher Moses Mendelssohn. From America Campaign. Nearly all major employers in their father and Italian mother, Francesco and Eleanora inherit- the tricounty area have scheduled ed their musicality and obsession personal canvasses of their em- with the theater. As Duse was ployes during the April-May cam- her ;godmother, it was obvious paign period. Employes of scores that -Eleanora was destined to be of smaller firms also will be given an actress. Robert von Mendels- an opportunity to sign up for E sohn had died, their mother lived Bond/Freedom Shares purchases in Florence, and brother and sis- or to increase their regular sav- ter had at their disposal the ings if already enrolled in- the large Gruenewald villa with its payroll savings plan. Chairman of the three-county extensive library and famous drive is Edwin 0. George, pres- collection of paintings." ident of the Detroit Edison Co. Salka Viertel had close associa- tions with Serge Eisentein and with He has termed the campaign an the American movie producers. opportunity for sound personal Her many friends included S. N. investment, a service to the na- Behrman, Irving Thalberg, Greta tion in a time of great stress, and a test of community spirit. Garbo, Rilke Schoenberg and Treasury officials view the cur- many others and her "salon" was a gathering place for the great in rent campaign as one of - the most important since World War II. Hollywood. She came to Hollywood in 1929 Justice and truth are of too fine i her writer-director husband with Berthold Viertel and he served a quality to be measured by our clumsy human instruments—Pas- direct- as a writer for MGM and cal. ed numerous films. '.'1-1.:2-11 1"41. She tells among other things and people about her friendship with Samuel Hoffenstein and writes: "Often I wondered how this Hasidic soul landed in Holly- wood, but he made a lot of money. Hoffenstein's two vol- umes of verse, one called 'In Praise of Practically Nothing,' had had great success and be- came very popular. Today, I am afraid, not many people remem- ber them. Expressing himself in exquisite English, slightly tinged with an Irish brogue, he would surprise one by bursting into a Yiddish song or Kol Nidre and other Hebrew prayers. When in- toxicated, he would improvise for hours in verse which, unfor- tunately, he forgot next day." We have, therefore, in Salka Viertel's "The Kindness of Strang- ers"—a volume that shows how so many befriended her in several countries — an interesting autobi- ography that draws upon many experiences and serves as a par- tial history of many aspects in the theater and among the great around the theater. Ida Kaminska Recovering From Illness in Montreal MONTREAL (JTA) — Mrs. Ida Kaminska, the Yiddish actress, was in "satisfactory condition" with a "possible cardiac com- plaint" in Jewish General Hospital here. She was taken to the hospi- tal upon a complaint of severe headaches for three days, her hus- band, actor Marian Melman, told the JTA. Mrs. Kaminska has been ap- pearing here in the Places des Arts in the Yiddish classic "Mirele Efros." With her are her husband and daughter, Ruth Kaminska, also former members of the Jewish State Theater of Warsaw. Mont- real was their first stop on a tour with "Mirele Efros." Perform- ances were canceled because of her illness. 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