Film and televisionאריה להולה

Leopold Lahola

Leopold Lahola was a Slovak-born film director, screenwriter and writer who worked in Israeli cinema and theater from 1949 to 1956.

1918 to 1968The feature film A Stone on Every MileThe film Tent CityEarly Israeli cinemaThe Hebrew poetry anthology Hamsin

Born: 30 January 1918, Prešov
Died: 12 January 1968, Bratislava
Occupation: film director, screenwriter, writer, journalist

Leopold Lahola was born in 1918 in Prešov

He was born Leopold Friedman in 1918 to a Jewish family of 6 children in eastern Slovakia. His father Yehuda was a cantor and ritual slaughterer who left the family when the boy was 6.

From 1928 he attended a gymnasium in Bratislava and joined Hashomer Hatzair. From 1937 to 1940 he studied Slovak linguistics and philosophy at Comenius University. In 1940 he translated and published an anthology of modern Hebrew poetry called Hamsin.

The pro-Nazi regime held him in the Nováky labor camp, from which his mother and brother were sent to Auschwitz. He escaped and joined the Slovak partisans. After the war he edited communist papers, wrote plays and began directing films.

He moved to Israel in early 1949 and founded a regional theater for the Beit She'an Valley kibbutzim. In 1951 he joined the Kolon film cooperative and led the production of a film for the third Independence Day. He directed short films, the film Tent City and his first feature, A Stone on Every Mile.