Re: Pjotr Leschenko

[Robert A. Rothstein <rar...>]

Lloica Czackis wrote:

> Does anyone know if the Polish composer of tangos, foxtrots & romances
> Pjotr Leschenko was Jewish?
>

        Petr Konstantinovich Leshchenko was born in 1898 in the village
of Isaevo, in the Odessa Guberniya.  His mother was an impoverished and
illiterate Russian peasant woman; his father is unknown.  As a boy he
sang in the local church choir.
        In 1942 he opened a cabaret-restaurant in Odessa, which was then
occupied by Romanian forces.  In 1943 he returned to Bucharest, where he
had earlier lived and performed.  In 1951 he was arrested by the
Romanian authorities, and he died in a prison camp in 1954.

        Bob Rothstein