Once There Was Warsaw: A Memoir

As a young man in interwar Warsaw, newspaperman Ber Kutscher threw himself into the city’s vibrant Jewish arts and culture scene from the headquarters of the Association of Jewish Writers and Journalists at Tlomkatse 13. In Once There Was Warsaw, Kutsher’s achingly human depictions of writers, cabbies, artists, neighbors, and more are translated from the Yiddish into English for the first time, painting a tangible portrait of a moment in Polish history too quickly buried by the horrors of World War II.

Kutsher viewed his memoir, originally published in 1955 after witnessing the devastation of his home and relocating to France, as something of a holy mission, an opportunity to present the lives of the people who brought Warsaw to life while still making room to mourn the past. Written with humor, heart, and a deeply felt grief, Once There Was Warsaw is a complex and layered portrayal of a city and its people and the pain in remembering just how much was lost in its absence.

Ber Kutsher (1893-1978) was a writer and newspaperman. He came of age in Warsaw between the world wars, and his writing explores the lives of the Yiddish-speaking community in Poland during that time. He published his memoir, Geven amol varshe, in Paris in 1955.

Gerald Marcus has been a student and avid reader of Yiddish for more than twenty-five years and grew up surrounded by Yiddish-speaking relatives and friends. He is the translator of Reuben Iceland’s memoir, From Our Springtime, and Joseph Rolnik’s With Rake in Hand.