Acclaimed klezmer pianist, composer and actor Leopold Kleinman-Kozłowski has died in Krakow at the age of 100.

Famed for his role as a music consultant in award winning movie Schindler’s List, in which he played a cameo role, he was born in Przemyślany, now in the Ukraine.

His grandfather Pejsach and father Tzvi Herman, played in klezmer bands.

During World War II, Kleinman-Kozlowski lived in a ghetto then labour camp in Kurowice.

Fighting for a partisan then Polish Army, after the war he settled in Krakow, studying at the State Higher School of Music.

Music director of the Army Song Festival in Kołobrzeg, Kleinman-Kozlowski left the army due anti-Semitism, and went on to work as music director at a Jewish Theatre in Warsaw.

Active on stage throughout his life, he performed at Klezmer Hois in Krakow and the Jewish Culture Festival in Chmielnik.

An honorary citizen of Krakow, this music legend received many awards in his lifetime including the Medal for Merit to Culture “Gloria Artis”

By David Saffer