The Unknown Story of Judyta Berg, a Jewish Dancer from Łódź

While working with postwar records of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland, I came

across a registration card belonging to Judyta Berg — a Jewish dancer associated with

Łódź, known from her appearance in The Dybbuk (1937).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVThFw1xx1o

The Dybbuk (1937), one of the most iconic works of Yiddish cinema, inspired by S. Ansky’s play and rooted in Jewish folklore and mysticism.

The card contains only a few basic details. She was born in 1912 to Abram Berg and Irena (Rena) Gips and she was a professional dancer. After the war, she appears as the wife of Fajwe Goldblat, later known as Feliks Fibich, leaving Poland via France for Israel

At this point, there is nothing unusual. A name, a date, a profession.

But sometimes a single record leads elsewhere. In this case, it leads to the press.

In August 1936, the Łódź newspaper Głos Poranny reported what it described as a “love

Registration card of Judyta Berg from the Central Committee of Jews in Poland, confirming her identity, family background, and profession as a dancer.

tragedy in Kraszew” — a case in which, as the headline stated, “a painter shot a female student and then, with a shot to the mouth and temple, took his own life.” The article situates the event near Wiśniowa Góra and identifies the victim as “a 20-year-old student, the daughter of a well-known Łódź family — Mania Fiszmanówna (Żeromskiego 29).” The

man involved is named as “the 29-year-old painter Pinkus Zelman.”

It is also in this report that Judyta Berg appears again — not as a performer, but as part of Zelman’s past. The newspaper notes that “Zelman was the husband of the well-known dancer Judyta Berg,” and adds that “differences arose between the spouses, as a result of which the marriage separated. A divorce was to follow.”

The article then reconstructs how Zelman met Mania several years earlier in a boarding house in Śródborów, where she had returned from abroad — “from Milan, where she studied radiotechnology.” What began as a close acquaintance — “a very close friendship developed between the student and the painter” — gradually shifted. Zelman proposed to her, but “Fiszmanówna rejected him,” especially after learning that he was married and had, as the article suggests, a troubled past.

Newspaper article from Głos Poranny (19 August 1936) describing the “love tragedy in Kraszew” involving Pinkus Zelman and Mania Fiszman from Łódź.

From that moment, the tone of the report changes. As Mania tried to distance herself, Zelman became increasingly persistent — he “began to harass her more and more, often waiting in front of the house where she lived.” In an attempt to end the situation, “Fiszmanówna leaves Łódź and goes to her parents in Kraszew,” but Zelman followed her there.

The final sequence is described in a continuous narrative. He first tried to arrange a meeting, sending a note “asking for a short meeting.” Although she initially refused, she eventually agreed to speak with him. During that encounter, she made her position clear — that continuing contact would only prolong the situation. When she refused again, the encounter escalated. As the article reports, “the young painter, in a sudden impulse, took out a revolver and fired at the student — four shots at very close range.” Three of the bullets struck her, and “the unfortunate student collapsed onto the grass, bleeding heavily… she died shortly after.” Immediately afterward, “Zelman shot himself twice — in the mouth and in the temple.”

Burial card of Marjem (Mania) Fiszman from State Archives in Lodz

This is where the newspapers end.

But they leave something behind: a name, an address, and a set of details that can be verified.

In the State Archives in Łódź, a burial card records. For the first time, the person described

in the newspapers becomes identifiable. The record provides the name of her father: Chaim Gedalie Fiszman.

From this point, the research returns fully to archival sources.

Chaim Gedalie Fiszman appears in the records of the Łódź Ghetto. He died in 1943, with the cause of death recorded as liver cancer. His address is listed first as Żeromskiego 29, later Podrzeczna 14. His burial card identifies him as the son of Lejzor, and other documents

Residence card of Marjem Fiszman at the age of 6 from State Archives in Lodz.

provide the name of his wife, Rachiel.

Residence cards allow the reconstruction of the family at an earlier moment. They show the family together, before the events described in the press, before the war. Earlier records place them at Gdańska 61, while by 1936 the address appears as Żeromskiego 29.

The documents also indicate that the family came from the territories of Belarus and settled in Łódź.

And this is where the archival trail becomes clear — and, at the same time, where it stops.

The newspapers leave unanswered questions. They differ in their accounts of what happened to Zelman’s body — whether it was transported to Warsaw or to Łódź. His burial

List of residents of the Łódź Ghetto showing Chaim Gedalie Fiszman and Rachiel Fiszman, parents of Marjem (Mania) Fiszman, with their address in the ghetto. (State Archives in Łódź)

place remains unknown. The children mentioned in connection with his marriage to Judyta Berg do not appear in the records used here.

What remains is a set of fragments. A postwar registration card. A newspaper report. A burial record. Ghetto documentation. Residence cards.

Each of them incomplete.

But read together, they allow us to connect a dancer from Łódź, a violent event reported in 1936, and a family living at Żeromskiego 29.

This is how genealogical research often works — not as a single, continuous story, but as a sequence of traces, moving between archives and press, between names and addresses, until separate fragments begin to align.