HEMAR (Hescheles), MARIAN

HEMAR (Hescheles), MARIAN (1901–1972), Polish author, satirist, and writer for the stage and screen. Born in Lemberg, Hemar began his career around 1920 as a poet and writer of revues. He wrote material for several Warsaw theaters and cabarets, among them the Quid Pro Quo, where he worked in collaboration with julian tuwim . Together with such outstanding poets as Tuwim, antoni slonimski , Jan Lechón, and Konstanty Galczyński, Hemar – who wrote under several other pseudonyms – produced many famous political   skits and trenchant satires. He also wrote two comedies and a number of screenplays. In 1939 Hemar left Poland and settled in London where, during World War II, he worked for the BBC's European Service and the Polish exile press and ran a Polish cabaret, the Bialy Orzel (White Eagle). In 1967, like many other uncommitted Jews, he felt the impact of the six-day war and publicly affirmed his Jewishness and support for Israel and wrote the poem "Sciana płaczu" ("The Wailing Wall"). Hemar's verse collections include Dwie ziemie świete (Two Holy Lands, 1942), Lata londyńskie (The London Years, 1946), Pisanki (Ornamented (Easter) Eggs, 1946), and Satyry patetyczne (Pathetic Satires, 1947). Other works are Adolf Wielki (1943; Adolf the Great, 1943); a satirical diary, Marchewka (The Carrot, 1943); and a translation of Shakespeare's sonnets, Sonety Szekspira (1968). (Stanislaw Wygodzki)