Dr. Kurt Singer, former president of the Jewish Kultur Bund, the single Jewish cultural organization permitted to function in Germany till the outbreak of the war, died in England today. He was 59 years old.
Dr. Singer was also the president of the Association of the Jewish Kultur Bunds in the Reich which as late as 1938 had branches in about a hundred cities in Germany and counted more than 70,000 members. This association provided work for 1,700 Jewish artists who had been ousted from their jobs in the German theatres under the anti-Jewish laws. It maintained in Berlin its own “ghetto theatre” and conducted “ghetto concerts” until the outbreak of war in various parts of Germany where Jews were concentrated.
Dr. Singer was born in Berent, West Prussia. He studied medicine and music. He practiced medicine till 1927 when he was engaged by the Berlin municipality to take an active part in the arrangements for the celebration of Beethoven’s centenary. Three years later he was appointed general manager of the Berlin State Opera. He was dismissed from this position, as a Jew, immediately after the Nazis came to power in 1933.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
