In brief
Herbert Kretzmer (5 October 1925 – 14 October 2020) was a South African-born British lyricist, journalist, and critic, renowned for his English-language adaptation of the lyrics to the musical Les Misérables, which became one of the longest-running and most successful stage productions in history.
Born in Kroonstad, South Africa, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents William and Tilly Kretzmer, who operated a furniture store, Kretzmer was one of four sons and began his career in journalism by writing commentary for a weekly cinema newsreel. He relocated to London in 1954, where he contributed to newspapers such as the Daily Sketch and Sunday Dispatch before joining the Daily Express in 1962 as a feature writer and theatre critic, a role he held until 1978; he later served as television critic for the Daily Mail from 1979 to 1987, earning two national press awards for his work.
Herbert Kretzmer was born on October 5, 1925, in Kroonstad, a small town in South Africa's Orange Free State, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents William and Tilly Kretzmer, who had fled pogroms in Eastern Europe.
As one of four sons in a modest household, Kretzmer grew up in a close-knit family where Yiddish was commonly spoken alongside English, reflecting their Eastern European roots and contributing to his early linguistic versatility. The family's grocery shop in Kroonstad eventually prospered into a furniture and carpet business, providing stability amid the challenges faced by Jewish immigrants in rural South Africa. This Jewish cultural heritage, emphasizing oral traditions and communal storytelling, played a key role in nurturing his creative inclinations from a young age.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Kretzmer's upbringing occurred in a socio-political landscape of intensifying racial segregation in South Africa, with early policies under the National Party foreshadowing full apartheid in 1948. The Jewish community in Kroonstad, like others in small towns, consisted largely of Lithuanian immigrants who navigated anti-Semitic undercurrents while benefiting from white classification, though many faced economic hardships and cultural isolation. This context of resilience within the immigrant Jewish enclave helped shape Kretzmer's perspective on identity and expression.
