A Letter from the Łódź Ghetto: The Family of Yiddish Actor Szymon Dzigan

While indexing applications for work sent to Chaim Rumkowski

by residents of the Łódź Ghetto (Litzmannstadt Ghetto), I came across a document that

immediately caught my attention — a letter written by Ruta Dzigan Trajster.

Letter from Ruta Dzigan Trajster requesting employment in the Łódź Ghetto. (State Archives in Lodz).

It begins with these words:

“Referring to my brother Szymon Dzigan, an artist of the Jewish stage, I have the honor to

respectfully ask that you kindly use your influence to grant me, or possibly my husband, any kind of employment, as I find myself in a very critical financial situation, partly caused by an illness that ended with the death of our three-year-old little boy, as well as my mother.”

This short letter reveals a deeply personal tragedy hidden within the administrative correspondence sent by residents of the ghetto to its authorities.

The surname Dzigan immediately brings to mind the well-known Jewish stage actor Szymon

Death record of Mirla Dzigan preserved in the State Archives in Łódź.

Dzigan.

Szymon Dzigan (1905–1980) was one of the most famous comedians of Yiddish theatre. Together with Israel Shumacher he formed the legendary comic duo Dzigan and Shumacher, whose satirical performances became extremely popular in Poland during the interwar period. During the Second World War Dzigan found himself outside Nazi-occupied Poland and survived the Holocaust. After the war he briefly returned to Łódź. Evidence of his presence can also be found in archival records: a registration card preserved in the files of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (CKŻP) lists his address in Łódź as the Savoy

Hotel.

Read more about Szymon Dzigan:

👉 https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/1292

Ruta Dzigan Trajster. Photograph from an identity card application preserved in the State Archives in Łódź.

From Ruta’s letter we learn that in the ghetto she lost both her small son and her mother. Archival documents confirm this tragic story. In the State Archives in Łódź there is a death record of her mother Mirla Dzigan, which notes that she left behind a widowed husband. Burial cards have also survived for both Mirla and Ruta’s son, Chaim Trajster.

The letter also mentions the family’s address, which allows us to trace their movements within the ghetto.

But what do we know about their lives before the war?

Earlier records reveal the Dzigan family: Moszek Dzigan and Mirla (née Wald) together with

their children, including Szymon and Ruta. The family lived at 7 Dzielna Street in Łódź. The father of the future

actor, Moszek Dzigan, was born in 1869 in Ciosny 

and worked as a trader.

Wolf Trajster. Photograph from an identity card application preserved in the State Archives in Łódź.

We can also locate the family of Ruta’s husband, the Trajsters, who lived at 24 Nowomiejska Street in Łódź.

Ruta Dzigan and Wolf Trajster married in Łódź in 1938.

Applications for identity cards submitted by the couple have also survived. Thanks to these

documents the names suddenly gain faces: Wolf was a tailor, and Ruta worked as a seamstress. Before the war they lived at 7 Narutowicza Street.

A single letter written in desperation to the authorities of the ghetto reveals a fragment of a family story that might otherwise remain hidden in archival files.

Documents like this remind us that behind every name in the archives there is a human life.