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In the Neustadt

Leadership of the Woodcutters Union in Zamość in the year 1927 Right to left, standing: Yossel Greenbaum (‘Brumistch’), Hirach Zissmilkh, David Biederman Sitting are: Yossel Szyfer (Secretary), Volvish Kornmass (Chairman) and Elyeh Schatzkammer (Treasurer)

Leadership of the Zamość Woodcutters Union in the Years 1930-1931

This condition did not last long. After the intervention of Dr. Yitzhak Szyfer, who was the deputy of the Zamość district in the Sejm, first the Peretz Library was opened, after that also the parties and the other institutions. The trade unions, however, could not be opened so quickly. From one side the chicanery and subterfuge of the police continued, and from the other side it was difficult to find an appropriate location for the unions.

Employers took advantage of this situation, who found an opportune time to cut wages, and in general to settle accounts with the ‘strikers.’ This forced a large part of the workers, and the activists of the trade unions, before everything else, to become self-employed. Part of them went away to unfamiliar destinations, in the larger cities, and others entirely out of the country.

Specifically, almost all of the trades were left without any older workers, and there were only young workers employed by those hiring labor. The conditions of those young people became unbearable, and grew worse from day to day. There was a threat of losing all the gains, that were previously fought for and achieved through strikes that had lasted for many months.

The thought of re-opening the unions occurred to a part of the young people. A number of difficulties came to the fore. First, permission was required in order to have a general assembly. So a number of us young people: the writer of these lines, together with the young people of that time, Mekhl Hackman, Itzik Oytzer, Israel Cooper, David Biederman, Nehemiah Kalechstein, Fyvel Drong (‘Koyletch’), decided seeing that our woodcutters union was not officially closed down, that we should request a permit to have a trade gathering.

But the trouble was that the only ones who could sign such a request were grownups of age, and we were 16-17 years old young people at the time. The second difficulty was with a location – in the request for the permit, it was necessary to provide an address, where it was intended for the meeting to take place, and in general, the address of where the union was located. Seeing as all of us (apart from Itzik Oytzer) were from the Neustadt, we decided we will arrange to establish the woodcutters union in the Neustadt.

After many difficulties, we obtained a location for the meeting, from the parents of Israel Cooper, the son of Naphtali Yayechnik. Having the location, we went to the last secretary of the woodcutters union, to Leibl Cooperman, who at that time was already self-employed in partnership with his brother-in-law, Leibl Kleiner, to have him sign the request for a permit that would go to the labor inspector, in order that we be able to carry out the meeting. Leibl laughed at us, ‘ragamuffins,’ who would not be able to run the union, and he didn't even want to turn over the stamp to us, and the ‘Legalization’ (the official document) of the woodcutters' union.

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Having no choice, we, a group of young people, went off personally to the Labor Inspector, and obtained a permit from him to carry on the general meeting, not even informing the police.. Not a single older woodcutter came to the meeting; only the young people took part in it, and the elected leadership indeed consisted of exclusively young people: Chairman Itzik Oytzer, Secretary Wolf Kornmass.

First now, the absence of a location for the union was felt, from where it would be possible to direct our activities. First, no one had the desire to rent out their house to a union of ‘strikers.’ And on top of that, from the Neustadt as well.

We, the carpenters, however, learned that Yaakov-Moshe Weinmakher had begun to renovate an old inn, which he had received as an inheritance, changing it over into residences, and he had remained stuck in the middle because he lacked money to finish the work, so we decided to take advantage of the situation. We came to him with the proposition, that we will assist him to complete the entire house, carrying out all the needed carpentry work, and because of this, we should then have the right to make use of the house for a period of two years.

Well, we concluded a deal with him: we will complete the carpentry, and the house is ours for two years, and he and his family had the right to come there to sleep. We will be the balebatim of the house for the two years, and we have the right to take in other unions. Also, we have the right to carry out all manner of events in the house, such as concerts, speeches, for which we will separately have to pay a specific sum of money for clean up.

This news spread rather quickly over all of Zamość. Immediately on that same night, we already had a delegation from the tailors, saying that they wanted to sublet from us; later, a delegation from the baker's union also came to us, which at that time had conflicts with the bakery owners, and carried out their activities (just like the other unions) out in the street. The leather workers came also, and the commercial employees, and rented space from us for their union secretariats.

This enabled us to quickly succeed in the collection of the funds that we, the carpenters had announced, would be needed for the house. In a matter of numbered days, we had already purchased all of the needed wood stock to finish the residence.

But, here a new problem reared its head – most of our members, apart form the fact that they were young folk, and not qualified workers, all were employed in the furniture end of the business, and had never even seen how one does ‘white work’ (doors, windows, flooring), and the only one who had even a shred of a notion, and not too much of one at that, was the writer of these lines. However, we decided to do what was possible, and not rely on any ‘help.’

In connection with this, it is necessary to take note of the fact that during the entire time, not one of the prior leadership took the trouble to even come in and take a look how the new wood workers union was coming along, for whose creation they had expended so much energy and indeed paid for with their blood, during fights with strike-breakers. There was one, single exception – he helped us with advice, and even lent us tools (because the ‘white work’ required tools that were different from those used in furniture making). This was Abish Schildergemein, who last lived in Buenos Aires, and passed away here.

It is necessary to note, that all the carpenters from the Neustadt voluntarily left their places of work, and came to help us. Even my personal friend, Mekhl Hackman, who had a nature in every situation to be the leader, and the dominant one, carried out my ‘orders’ at this work exactly as if he was never Mekhl Hackman… together with all the rest of the guys, he carried boards, handling them from before dawn, until quite late at night.

We did everything, in order to have the location ready by the winter. It was actually done by the time of the Holidays, and we had a festive housewarming to which a large number of people came, which could not fit into the local, and stood around in the street.

Thanks to the existence of the wood workers union, all the remaining trades began to organize themselves, and rather quickly, the unions of the tailors, bakers , leather workers and commercial employees, to their place in our location,

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along with all the youth sections. This had the effect of causing the one older carpenter to join our union, from the prior leadership, Leibl Nudel, which had worked in the other one. Incidentally, he was the only mature member of our Neustadt wood workers union.

Our existence and activity compelled the prior leadership to turn over the ‘Legalization,’ from the central Krakow office and also its seal.

The two year that the union (more correctly the unions) was located in the Neustadt, were the most fruitful for the young people, which, up to that point, had no place to belong to. Every Friday night was utilized for events (meetings, literary discussions, evenings of singing, or speeches). It turned out that the young people wanted to absorb as much as possible, in order to catch up with what had previously been missed.

In the course of these two years, the members of the youth-sections (the active part of the unions) educated themselves, and later, when the unions united in the council of the professional class-unions, they were already the doers of the movement, together with the elected older activists, which had remained working in the other one. The number of the latter was very small.

In general, the situation was such at that time, that the element of the ‘balebatim,’ did not want to have any sort of relationship with the union people, which for the most part came from the working classes. The situation was a bit different with the carpenters. Because of an array of special reasons, the children of families with means also took up this trade, coming from wealthy homes. They began to learn carpentry, not out of need, not to earn a living. Their attraction to this particular trade was because of the ‘Aliyah’ to the Land – The Land of Israel. Here, indeed, they didn't want to, didn't need to work, but for the Land of Israel, it was necessary to have a trade, and construction trades there were among the best. But these individuals did not want to have any dealings with the ‘schlepper’ element from the ‘leftist’ wood workers union; as it was called, ‘not having any interest for the work of ‘diaspora.’’ If, for whatever reason, one of them didn't move away to the Land of Israel, and remained to work locally, that individual did not join the union.

Now first, with our appearance in the Neustadt, the situation changed a little. Our salary actions; the struggle for better working conditions, and also our cultural activities, brought along an effect that a part of the [sic: unaffiliated] carpenters joined our union. This led to the fact that the wood workers union was the only one in our area which had an opposition from the ‘right…’

An idealistic struggle arose in other unions for hegemony. Discussions took place everywhere, but among the proletarian parties, so to speak – between the Bund and communists. In the wood workers union (or as it was called in Zamość , the wood trade), there was also the issue of the various Zionist groupings, which were united among themselves, and amounted to a rather large percentage in the union. True, they could not create a single majority of their own, because they didn't have the people, who would be popular with the membership, and have the capacity to direct the union, but they always had representatives in the leadership, who were tolerated.

For the sake of the truth, it is necessary to set down firmly, that among them were very talented people, who often respected our accomplishments and level of activity in the union, despite the fact that they did not agree ideologically, and contested us over a large number of questions. It is worth recollecting my personal friend from my youth, David Biederman (David Israel-Meir's) in connection with an unfortunate incident that took place during his ‘training’ for aliyah. Both of our fathers were Gerrer Hasidim from the Neustadt. He served form many terms with us in the leadership of the wood workers union. His party point of view prevailed all year. That same Biederman, was not only once the ‘fire extinguisher,’ when a heated discussion ran out of control in pointed directions.

It is also appropriate to remark that in the course of the entire time that the unions found themselves in the Neustadt, which reeked of the underworld and violent people, there was not even one instance of a fight breaking out during a discussion, and discussions took place quite often – this was during the time of the Third ‘Aliyah.’

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This is the way it continued until the year 1926, until our agreement with Yaakov-Moshe Weinmakher came to an end (incidentally, this is the very same Moshe-Yaakov Weinmakher which is also portrayed by M. Shtrigler about the clandestine minyan, that was organized at his house, and which Sholom Tzibeleh^[1] uncovered).

We had to vacate the residence and seek a new address for our unions. At that time, the unions were well organized. Not only the wood workers, but also the tailors' union (needle trades), which was the largest in the city, and encompassed all sections of the trade. The other unions also stood on a good foundation. We took the decision that were going ‘back into the city.’ (that is the way we expressed ourselves in the Neustadt).

Leadership of the Wood Workers Union in Zamość, photographed on May 15, 1934

This ‘Management Committee,’ begins its practical work when the general wood workers strike breaks out, in a short while later, the strike of the needle trades. In both cases there was a need for material help and the ‘Management-Commission’ implemented this support initiative. It is necessary to affirm that the population of Zamość gave of itself generously, both in monetary terms, as well as produce, for the workers' kitchen, which had been set up during the strike of the needle workers.

These two great strikes were carried out with a model of order. Up to that point, every strike was accompanied with manifestations of strike-breakers, and beatings. These general and unified strikes elicited respect also from that part of the Zamość working classes who up to that time did not wish to have anything to do with such issues. The most significant response came from the commercial employees, who began to organize themselves. It went so far as to the point that there was not a single worker that remained outside of a union.

The ‘Management Committee’ which encompassed all of the unions together, had an additional objective, and had to provide a legitimate framework, so that activists from one branch will be able to take part in actions and the work of a second, as for example, a tailor taking part with the carpenters, a leather worker with the bakers, and so forth. This was necessary, because in a given trade, there might have been a lack of activists and it was necessary to rely on support from the other trades. It was decided to create a ‘council,’ from the professional unions then already in existence. The first council consisted of the following comrades: David Fiedler, Israel Zitzer, Itcheh Schiff, Yaakov-Meir Topf, Yaakov Koyl, Chaim Ber, Itcheh Morder, Yaakov Mittelpunkt, Abish Spodek, Aharon Miller, Yossel Greenbaum, Shlomo Arkaveh, Itzik Oytzer.

The first work of the ‘Council’ was to help organize those trades that did not have their own resources and also no experience in the unionization area. In the first place, was the element of the house servants. His union attempted to get organized over a long period of time, but to came together weakly. The ‘Council’ allocated a group of its comrades, who were supposed to help along the already existing leadership of the house servants. The number of members that had been attracted was negligible, in comparison with the number of households in Zamość . The comrades allocated

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to this task were: David Levensohn, Meir Zitzer, Wolf Kornmass, and Yossel Greenbaum (with the nickname of ‘Burmistzh’^[2]), Israel Garfinkel.

In general, this was a very difficult and complicated situation. Most of the house servants were a rather separate element, almost all of them came from the surrounding small towns. A large number of them served at the home of their relatives, who used them in an inhuman way, not giving them so much as a free minute for themselves. There was another shortcoming. It was very difficult to take a girl out for a conversation. We already had organized about twenty girls who were house servants, but we could not send them to speak with the unorganized ones, because those suspected that they were coming to take away their jobs…. the mistresses of the house also adopted the tactic of maligning us, and interfering with our ability to speak with the girls, saying that we were going to take them, God knows where, and they had complaints against us, that it was not seemly for ‘communists’ to take these poor servant girls out on unsupervised outings.

The organization of this element was without a doubt more difficult than with all the other trades. It would happen here, that if a servant girl finally agreed to belong to the union, and when the mistress of the house would receive the first demand of the union (recognizing the union and giving the servant girl a day of rest) the mistress gave the servant girl a real scolding and immediately fired her. No strike here, as was the case in other trades could help here. If such a girl was let go, it meant that not only was it necessary to provide food and drink for her, but also lodging for the nights. And who would take on a servant girl that was let go by a balabusta?….

One must, therefore, hold in awe the commitment and the literally stubborn persistence pf the active members of the house servants union, which consisted of the following active house servants: Henneh Gross (today in France), Leah Keitel, Chaya Blei, and others – all from the outside, not natives of Zamość; Miriam Rosenplatz; later, Shayndel Kleiner, Sarah Mehl, Esther Hochman joined from the red factions with a little political allegiance.

After barely a year, it fell to us to be able to organize almost all of the house servants, who later took part in all of the activities of community life – whether political or economic.

The same was true of the comb makers, which up to that time had never been organized. Since they did not have the appropriate professional union, they were appended as a section of the wood workers union.

Together with the broadening of the general professional movement, the ‘council’ also becomes strengthened in its activities, and becomes quite popular on the Jewish street.

A group of activists from the Jewish trade union movement in Zamość in the years 1926-1927 From right to left, first row, standing: Zelig Karp, Yekhiel Laffer, Lutek…., Elyeh Schatzkammer (‘Kopf’). Yossel Kiniger, Yankeleh Koyl Second row, sitting: David Levinsohn, Binyomi'tcheh Greenbaum, Lejzor Gandz, Abish Spodek, Yossel Greenbaum (‘Burmistzh’), Abraham….

In that time, the library carried on quite a lively set of activities. For each period, the council of the professional unions (the commission, which was dedicated to the library) brought in the well-known personalities of the time to give speeches to us. I remember that at that time, at an invitation from the Library, there came to Zamość: J. Opotashu, Ch. Leivik, B. Eisserovich, Peretz Markish, Melekh Ravitch (who still had his beard), the swarthy one, Z. Segalovish,

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Duber Malkin, and others. The commission set up for the Library consisted of: Itcheh Schiff (son of the shokhet), Yerakhmiel'keh Gartenkraut, Aharon Miller, Yaakov-Meir Topf. The librarian was Abish Spodek.

On a certain day, the police called the management of the library and ordered it to shut the library down, and during a specified period of time (I think it was a month), a liquidation meeting was to be called, at which only members of age could attend (no young people), under the oversight of a police functionary, and a liquidation commission was to be elected. After several days, the library ceased to exist.

Months later, at the intervention of an array of distinguished city balebatim, headed by the brother of I. L. Peretz – Jonah-Shia Peretz – took the library under their protection, with the intent of attracting whoever, according to their view, are capable of directing the library, at their responsibility.

Seeing that they, themselves, didn't want to, or were unable to, manage the library, they turned it over to the Bund organization, with Yerakhmiel Brandwein at its head. An array of activists also stood up to become part of the leadership from the ranks of the library-management from the prior years.

The library was no longer opened under its previous name, I. L. Peretz Library, that the police had shut down, but under the name of ‘Tz. Sh. O.’ (The Central Yiddish School Organization). The supporters of the trade unions, the entire populace that was sympathetic to the left-wing, did not subscribe to the library as a protest against the name change.

For the sake of the truth, let us recollect, that under the new cadence and new direction, the library carried on a lively activity, making use of the wide locations (checkout room and reading room). Speeches took place, bench-evenings. The auditorium was that of the school. Also, the ‘red bloc’ would often participate in the bench-evenings. Having this bloc in the library necessitated demonstrating to their adherents that on mitigates against one's own points of view. Later on, the unions created their own library, which we will tell about, later on.

It is necessary to append to the great popularity of the ‘council’ with the trade unions, the fact that we were fortunate in the year 1926, to achieve an understanding with the Polish Socialist Party, ‘P. P. S.’ to carry out a unified May Day demonstration, and after long undertakings, we carried such a demonstration out. The celebration was so imposing, that it was not possible to stop recollecting the events of that first of May for a very long time.

In fact, this was the largest First of May celebration that Zamość ever had. Already, quite early in the morning, masses of people began to stream towards the ‘Browar,’ to the headquarters of the P. P. S. , where the demonstration was supposed to begin. It was a beautiful day, and the crowd arrived earlier that the appointed hour; also we, the leaders, could not contain ourselves, and we came early….no one was mission from the organization of our unions.

The train of marching Zamość workers was very large in this instance, it elicited a recognition of the solidarity of the marching Jewish and Polish workers. The train had already reached the Lublin Gate and in the ‘Browar’ there continued to arrive more and more rows of demonstrators.

When we reached the ‘little orchards,’ in front of the Rathaus, the traditional May Meeting took place, at which time, a variety of speakers appeared. After the speeches, the action was brought to a close. The representative of our trade unions proposed that we should extend the march route from here to the location of the unions. Hen the train moved, a large part of the general populace came along and escorted us. In this way, we marched with our union banner to the local, where the train of demonstrators dispersed.

The success of the cooperative May demonstration and the success on the unionization front, especially the organization of the house servants, and the complete organization of the commercial employees, an element that came from the petit

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bourgeoisie circles, which lacked a professional union, especially when it was designated as sympathetic to ‘communists,’ raised the authority of our ‘council’ even further in the general street. This brought to the situation where the thought arose that we should put up our own ticket in the forthcoming municipal elections. Our ticket did indeed experience success, and we seated four councilmen: David Fiedler, Itcheh Maurer, Israel Zitzer, Shlomo Rothman. In general, the city council had a socialist majority. Our councilmen made a considerable effort to see that our Jewish union movement should obtain visibility, so to speak, on the official street. Among the other achievements, it is necessary to recall the following: we worked in order to achieve the result that if a worker was compelled, because of unemployment, to travel elsewhere to seek work, he received a note from the Magistrate, and he received a train ticket with a discount of fifty percent. Also, each such individual could get a free ticket to the municipal bath.

When the Magistrate decided to parcel out the land area beside the apartments near the new electrical station (so-called ‘Moshe Bader's Orchard’), thanks to the intervention of our councilmen, a rather substantial parcel was allocated for our trade unions, indeed, not far from our local. A building commission was immediately designated, of the following members: Elyeh Richtman, Wolf Kornmass, Yossel Greenbaum, and Moshe-Yiddl Bronfenbrenner, Tchipeh Freilach (Treasurer).

We immediately began to plan building our own home for the trade unions. Our first approach to the comrades who were landsleit in America, former activists of the trade union movement: Itcheh-Leib Herring, Mikhl Cooperman, and Shia Binn. The reply was positive. We received the first sum of 200 dollars. This gave us energy and we immediately stepped up to the practical work. We also carried out a fund-raising campaign in Zamość proper, and we bought the first of the materials required for the building.

The Carpentry Business of Leibusz Pflug (‘Kapusz’) in Altstadt, in the year 1927[3] First on the left, the boss, second, Wolf Kornmass. Most of them took part in putting up the boundary fence around the parcel.

At 4 AM on Saturday, before dawn, the son of the owner of the house, where we had the local of our trade unions, Ephraim Cooper (Ephraim Shimmeleh Sakser's) came riding on his horse-drawn wagon to us, into the yard, so quietly, that we ourselves were suspicious that none of our neighbors were awakened.

As soon as he peaceably passed into our yard, which was closed, and from the outside one could not see what transpired within, we, a group of ten fellows, who still did not comprehend what was going to happen here, began to quickly, and without noise, loading the [finished] wood work into the wagon. When everything already was ready, it became apparent that it was too great a load for the horse….and that the small horse would barely be able to get the load outside, much less over the Neustadt, so we felt literally lost….We will surely get beatings, but who knows how this was going to end. We had to take care, because we lived on the famous Hrubieszow Gasse, and we needed to ride past the Rabbi's house….

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But we couldn't think for very long; it was almost half past six, and the community can begin to rise, and then all is lost. We risked it.

As soon as we rode out from our yard onto the brick-paved road, the little Neustadt began to arouse itself from its torpor on that Sabbath morning. The clatter was louder because of the [horse's] gallop, with which we drove the horse in the direction of the Lemberg Road.

Over the entire way, windows were opened, and sleepy Jewish men and Jewish women peered curiously at this unusual scene, where a loaded horse-drawn wagon is being accompanied by a group of guys and at the head is Hirsch Vojtchek's ‘Anek’ (Grandson)… a part came out in their underwear, but the raised incline held us back a little.

In the course of a half hour, we barely made it to the ‘parcel’ with the sweat-soaked horse, where more than 150 young people, and older comrades, were already waiting for us, who were already digging the footings for the fenceposts, under the direction of the Polish joiner Miczuk, who had been hired [for this purpose], who later in the year 1929 was revealed as a provocateur.

During the course of the later early morning hours, before the city woke up, practically the entire membership of the trade unions worked in order to set up the boundary fence around their ‘parcel.’

This event spread like lightning in all three sectors of Zamość. There began a running of the mothers (the fathers didn't come, either because they did not want to see the disgrace, or they were not permitted to come in order to avoid fisticuffs). Mothers begged their children, trying to convince them not to violate the Sabbath. It also happened, that a heated father would come running, who thought that he could forcible extract his son or daughter from the work. However, coming to the place, and seeing the camp of young people, he would cool off and go home…

What took place afterwards in the houses cannot be written about. We took the position that we had, at that time, pulled off a great victory, and at 3 in the afternoon, the completion of the fence was marked in a festive manner. Two prizes were given to the two most diligent workers. One of the prize-winners was Leibusz Gershtengroipen, and I no longer remember the name of the second.

After a summer of success in the professional and general community areas, in the fall of 1929 we began an initiative again to develop our old dream to open a library at the trade unions [local]. The culture commission developed an understanding with our councilmen in the city council, that they will intervene in the question of a subsidy for the cultural activity of the unions. We received a one-time subsidy, truthfully, not very substantial, a sum total of 50 zlotys, but this gave us official legitimacy to carry on with the cultural initiative.

A library commission was designated of the comrades: Abish Spode, Zilog Kara, Aecial Greenbaum (Burmistzh). As the first basis for the new library, the youth library, that had lain for two years with the writer of these lines in the attic, was transferred over. A book acquisition initiative was proclaimed. In a short time, our library was enriched with several hundred Yiddish books, and also a certain number of Polish books. As the number of readers was larger and kept growing continuously, we decided that for the approaching winter to carry out an undertaking for the creation of a fund to buy books, and using the first subsidy from the city council we put ourselves in contact with all the Jewish publishers. We paid a little in ready cash, and also issued notes. We received books from all over.

Again, thanks to our councilmen, we obtained the possibility to obtain the sitting hall of the municipal building under rental (‘Die Resuren’) at discount prices. We made use of this privilege, and indeed, implemented a whole array of literary evenings, parties, which had great success and made substantial amounts of money for the book fund.

In time, our library became very popular, a portion of the refined, so called balebatisheh children used to drop into the library. The crowded hall became even more crowded. But, paying no attention to the limited number of conveniences, it was always full of young people, even on the hottest days. For a person, who came in there for the first time, into the

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local, a peculiar montage unfolded before him: – servant girls and students hand in hand in the process of looking for something to read, asking about a book that had recently appeared.

The culture commission used its legal powers liberally, from having been officially listed in the list of institutions , and from enjoying the subsidies of the city council, and indeed with a wide reach, carried out debates, bench-evenings, and other literary undertakings.

I request the permission to add a specific detail, which will round out the extent and the relationships regarding our activity in that time.

The owner of the residence, where we had rented the space for the local for the unions, Shimon Cooper, (Shimmeleh Sakser), was a hard-working, laboring Jew, had a horse and wagon, was ‘vozhe-voido.’^[4] On Friday evenings, after a week of hard labor, after the bath, and the regal Friday evening meal, he couldn't wait for us to finish our business (since as a rule, our activities usually took place on Friday evenings). He would battle with sleep for a long time, and in the end, he would harumph, and begin to disrobe, and get into bed. There was no separate bedroom in the house.

It was not rare that in the middle of a heated discussion, in the course of defending a specific question, one would hear Shimmeleh's sonorous snoring, in the highest notes. Not once, would he sometimes think, in his sleep, that one of us was smoking, and he would jump up with a shout, that he is getting himself dressed, and is driving us out – he does not want any ‘Khaleh-shabesnikehs’ (Sabbath Violators). Bad enough he had a crowd of girls and young boys in his house… not finishing his lesson in morals, sleep would overtake him again, and we again heard Shimmeleh's snoring and the discussions resumed again….

Facsimile of a membership pamphlet from the Needle Trades Workers in Zamość. This membership pamphlet is from Yitzhak-Meir Herring, signed by the Chairman Shia Binn and the Secretary, Lieber Morgenstern.

Very quickly, we carry through our first large concert morning in the ‘Oazow’ Theater, where a number of our comrades appeared with declamations.

The question of forming a dram circle becomes ripe. At the closest sitting of the council, such a resolution is indeed taken up. It is proposed that a dramatic collective be put together. The following individuals are designated by the ‘council:’ Meir Zitzer, Mendel Mangel, Breineh Gildiener, Khaskel Szlak, Tchippeh Freilach, Gittel Kiniger, Aecial Kiniger, Yiddl Finkelstein, Lanya Gliklakh, Wolf Kornmass. These individuals receive full authority to deal with the director. Jewish Zamość did not have a large number of people who wanted to involve themselves with theater. The one person, who had any skill as a director, was Bencheh Zeidner, but he was the director of the ‘Y.Sh.O.’ (Zamość branch of the central Yiddish School Organization), and we did not even consider approaching him, that he should become the director. After long negotiations, we engaged Mr. Akiva Eierweiss.

He trained us to do ‘Miriam’ by Peretz Hirshbein in our repertoire, which was performed in the ‘Oazow’ Theater. Despite the fact that we were all beginners and almost all of the ‘actors’ were appearing on the stage for the first time, the performance came off with great success. This gives us energy to try further challenges.

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From that time on, there was not a single dance, or celebration evening that was not interwoven with a variety of appearances by our drama circle (mini-scenes, songs, declamations). This would draw a large part of the young intelligentsia, that would come on its own to ask for invitations to the evenings – without an invitation, generally, no one was allowed to be admitted.

These fortuitous initiatives made the unions popular, and this led to the fact that even though we were under a leftist influence, the director of the dramatic circle of Y. Sh. O. which belonged to the Bund, agreed to tie up with us, and take over the direction of the drama circle of the trade unions.

Let us here recognize, that under the direction of Bencheh Zeidner, we first got the right sort of instruction. We occupied ourselves with carrying out Mendele's ‘Der Priziv;’ Peretz Hirshbein's ‘Der Intelligent;’ and other things. Bencheh Zeidner who directed, also took a role in the ensemble.

This, in general, helped draw close, and warm up a little the cold relationships that then held sway between the trade unions and the Bund and vice versa. This proceeded so far, that when the drama circle of the Y.Sh.O. put on Ch. Goldfadn's ‘Gevalt, Ven Shtarbt Er’ – there was a need for a larger collective [performing ensemble], we were invited to take part, and we eagerly accepted the invitation. I, personally, felt proud with the fact that their drama circle invited us, ‘the youngsters’ and permit us to take part. Not one person from Zamość, who saw us that night in the salon, asked the question, – ‘What's going on here?’ – Are we going to have a blow up? – This makes no sense!….But the wonder became even greater, when they saw us as participants in the presentation….

Our Zamość circle became intensely popular and we were approached from the surrounding towns to come and give performances. Regrettably, we could not accept these invitations, because each of the ‘actors’ apart from his involvement, was a member of the leadership of this or that trade union, and this did not permit them to leave our posts. Only on one occasion were we at a performance outside of Zamość, in the town of Krasnobrod, a sanatorium, where we put on Peretz Hirshbein's ‘Der Intelligent.’

Members of the first ‘Youth Council’ From right to left standing: Shia'leh Krampf, Mottel'eh Goldhaar; Sitting: Mendel Finkman, Feivel Schatz, Mottel'eh Gerzon

The ‘Youth Council’ had its two representatives, who attended the meetings of the older ‘council,’ Also one representatives of the ‘council’ attended meetings of the ‘Youth Council.’ The ‘Youth Council’ broadens its area of activity. Apart from the parallel professional activity between the youth that aims to take care of their interests, the ‘Youth Council’ is tasked to become the technical implementer of all the necessary technical work of the ‘council.’ It is necessary to recall one such piece of work that had a special character.

In the year 1927, the Polish police initiated a large follow-up campaign against the worker organizations, trade unions, and especially those that it suspected of having left-leaning sympathies (and what worker organization was not suspected by the Polish police of having heavy involvement in communist activity?).The little towns around Zamość had to put up with troubles that consisted of continuous raids from the police on their locals. The police made use of an underhanded vanguard. Its emissaries (provocateurs, or they themselves) would throw illegal communist literature in the legal union locals, and then would come to ‘find’ these illegal leaflets that they themselves had thrown under, and

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this would be their ‘evidence’ and the motive for locking down the organizations, arresting the activists, and to break the movement.

We in Zamość also prepared ourselves for the possibility of such provocations. We therefore decided, that we would not leave the local of the union unattended even for a minute – for the entire 24 hours of any full day, someone had to always be present at the local, in order to deny the possibility that uninvited guests would not toss in an ‘unclean’ package… this work was turned over to the ‘Youth Council.’ A strict regimen was instituted, without conflict, a group of young people was found, and a group of the older members, who guarded the local from any sort of ‘surprises.’ The ‘council’ of the unions was already concerned about the Police employee (pzhodvonik) Schelling, who understood Yiddish, and had oversight over the unions, that he should know that in Zamość the local was under guard, and that it would not be so easy to carry out their provocative tricks there so easily.

The young people also acquired prestige in professional activities. During a variety of professional actions, strikes, negotiations about salary matters, and other questions, the representative of the youth sections was already present.

In that time, the years 1927-1928, a more liberal relationship was instituted in inter-party relations, and the ‘heated’ discussions ceased, that previously would end up in fights. True, there were no lack of epithets, such as ‘reactionaries,’ ‘social-fascists,’ ‘yellow socialism,’ and other such elegant expressions. But no organized assaults took place, such as disrupting someone else's meeting or undertaking. I remember one. Single incident from that time, it was one of a kind, and therefore it is worth recalling it.

At one of our meetings, an opponent, Hirsch Elbaum, a son of Yossel'eh Tomaszow, received a slap from a young ‘patriot’ (I think it was Yoshkeh Zitzer, a brother of Meir Zitzer). This elicited a great scandal and painful consequences. This incident was talked about for a long time. The perpetrator was given disciplinary punishment (in reality, we were found guilty …) But it didn't come to an earnest incident.

In that time, I was invited to a literary review of the book, ‘Uriel Acosta.’ We did not believe that an activists from a trade union would be admitted to a Zionist organization, to an open undertaking, something that had, until that moment never happened. As I was at that time the secretary of the ‘Council’ of the trade unions, I decided to ask a few of the members of the presidium about this, and only first after getting their agreement, did I accept the invitation. When the chairman of the review, Yudeleh Wagner, needed to pick his two deputies (lavnikehs), I was selected together with a young girl member, whose name I no longer remember.

In that same period, the incident also took place that I have previously recalled, when the Bundist drama circle approached me, so that we should take part in the performance of ‘Gevalt, Ven Shtarbt Er,’ which that circle had put on.

It was in this way that our Zamość trade union movement carried out its finest period of blossoming, until the Pilsudski ‘sanatzia’ began to carry out its ‘new’ changes in Poland, which did not miss having an impact on our Zamość labor movement.

It was no longer possible to carry out general gatherings so easily, because… because the ceilings began to ‘break open,’…. the walls began to ‘shake,’ … the people who assembled were threatened with mortal danger… the elected city councils, where there were opponents of the regime, were dispersed and appointees of the commissars of the regime carried on as they saw fit. Investigations of the unions, parties and organizations became a frequent occurrence. Even though arrests were still as yet infrequent, the movement was broken; this gave rise to the fact that a part of the activists began to withdraw from active participation.

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The Arrest of Ephraim Cooperstein

The popular Neustadt ladies tailoring business of Pesheh-Reizl Rosenberg From right to left, standing: Basheh Berman, Masheh'leh Mehl, Rachel Hoffenwasser, Bina Rosenberg Sitting: Malka Katz and the business owner, Pesheh-Reizl

They were tortured for several days in the military barracks. Ephraim did not hold out, and he revealed the names of the local trade union movement leaders to the police, who were at the same time members of the local communist organization. We learned of this simultaneously, and immediately as Ephraim was released by the military police, a specific group of comrades was waiting for him, which had the objective of investigating whether it was true whether he had told about what and whom.

It is worth telling how we came to find out about this. The bride of one of our leadership members by the library of the trade unions, Abish Spode, had a soda water concession with snacks not far form the barracks, indeed, near the prison. Among the patrons there were all manner of agents and secret police, among them also the secretary. On that morning, the secretary came to the concession to ‘have a drink.’ Being in his cups, he relates the following: –You have a little Jew under arrest there, and he is a vzukh (a hero), he was hit so often with the ‘whip,’ and didn't sing (that is told anything). By contrast, there is a big Jew, who after two blows immediately started to sing…

And it was in this manner that through the police themselves, we immediately go the information as to who can be found on the list, and who was ‘sung about,’

After Ephraim and Ber'tcheh were set free, we knew everything exactly. Ephraim confirmed who exactly was on the list that he had written out. These individuals then had the opportunity to travel away to other cities, and who could, out of the country. We also have the opportunity to send the informer to Warsaw, where he is presented to a court of comrades and he is sent away to the Soviet Union, where, I think, he received a sentence of 4 years.

It is the needle trades that suffers the most from this incident. A new leadership is immediately elected, consisting of the following comrades: Shia'keh Platz, Reuven Immerkopf, Aharon Abersfeld (today in Buenos Aires), Zisha Hackman (died in Siberia in the Soviet Union), Yaakov-Meir Forim, Mendel Finkman (today in Buenos Aires) and others, whose names I no longer remember. A little at a time, it becomes possible for us to normalize the work in the trade unions. But we never achieved the same level as the prior years of blossoming.

Footnotes:

1. The Yiddish word for an onion, indicating some linkage to habit, appearance or trade. Return
2. From the Russian, for a ‘bailiff’ or a ‘steward of an estate.’ Return
3. Shown as 1727, but obviously a typographical error. Return
4. Someone who comes and goes. Return

A Hanukkah evening in the Zamość hand workers union in the year 1937. In the middle of the group is Ben-Zion Lubliner, then the President of the community.

– Children, go tell from house to house, that on this night, the Petlura troops are preparing to carry out a pogrom against the Neustadt.

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We cancelled the return performance, and divided ourselves up into small groups, and indeed went off from one synagogue to the next, from house to house, and in the span of a half hour, the Neustadt was seething like a pot from this news.

Everybody looked for a means to mitigate the danger, preparing a place where to hide, and a part of the Jews took to an old Jewish method – ‘to buy off’ the decree… money was put together and a delegation went with it to the commandant of the military garrison.

The commandant indeed took the money, but he could not stop the pogrom, or didn't want to. At night, the Petlura troops, following the direction of the local Poles, fell upon the Neustadt, and began their plundering. The Poles, indeed, were accomplices to robbing the Jews.

When I reached home from the city, it was still tranquil. But immediately, shouts of danger were heard from a variety of directions. And among the shouts, I hear the scream of my friend, Frimcheh Lusthaus:

– Jews, help!

After this, the wail of small children in that house.

To her good fortune, at this heated moment, a Polish priest arrived – Dzubya, who literally saved them.

Further shouts were heard from across the beer brewery of Saneh Garfinkel. The pogromchiks killed the employee Cohn there.

The shouts became more frequent and stronger, they came from a variety of directions. On the Hrubieszow Gasse, near the synagogue, the wife of a butcher and her daughter were severely wounded. The gold teeth were torn out of her mouth. Many had their fingers cut off on which they wore golden rings.

We sat silently in our house, with us also was our neighbor's daughter, Rukhama Baylah Draykopf. Precisely at this highly tense moment, she was seized with a cough. Under no circumstances could she suppress it. The fear was vert great with us. My father was in the middle of reciting Tehillim. We heard a knocking on the shutters. This was our neighbor, a Bondar, a Pole, a Jew-hater, a known drunk. We had no choice, and we opened the door to him.

He had knocked because he had heard Rukhama's cough. He was awestruck to see that we were all in the house, not in a hideout. Well, he demanded that the 4 young girls that were in the house should go with him, and he would hide us…

We did not go with him in a light frame of mind. There was no purpose in refusing his help, despite the fact that we could not know what he would do with us. However, it was necessary to go with him, keeping quiet and following him, in order not to attract the cognizance of the Petlura pogromchiks.

We took leave of our parents, and went off with him. He took us into his smithy, where it was very stuffy, hot. Rukhama began to cough again. The smith became very upset. With her cough, she will attract the bandits to come here….

So he took us out through a secret door, led us into the garden, and there was a hidden cellar there. He led us into this cellar.

I found myself in a frighteningly difficult situation – Rukhama coughing, and responsibility for the girls who were with us, the fate of my parents – all this oppressed and tortured [me].

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What happened afterwards, I do not know… on the following morning, I awoke into the house of Bondar. Next to me was a doctor.

The doctor told me about the efforts made by the Christian Bondar, who had exerted himself to return me to consciousness.

I turned gray that night.

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