Henryk Ehrlich yi, הענריק ערליך), sometimes spelled ''Henryk Erlich''; 1882 – 15 May 1942) was an activist of the

General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland The General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland ( yi, אַלגעמײַנער ײדישער אַרבעטער בּונד אין פוילן, translit=Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter-bund in Poyln, pl, Ogólno-Żydowski Związek Robotniczy "Bund" w Polsce) was ...

, a

Petrograd Soviet The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (russian: Петроградский совет рабочих и солдатских депутатов, ''Petrogradskiy soviet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov'') was a city council of P ...

member, and a member of the executive committee of the

Second International The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second Internatio ...

Social-democratic politics

Ehrlich became an activist in the

social-democratic Social democracy is a Political philosophy, political, Social philosophy, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocati ...

movement in 1904. During the

1917 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

he was a member of the

executive committee, and a member of Soviet's delegation to England, France and Italy.

Interwar Polish and Jewish communal politics

In 1921 Ehrlich was named a co-editor of the Warsaw

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

daily '' Folkstsaytung''. In 1924 he was elected to the

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

kehilla council as one of 5

Bundists Bundism was a secular Jewish socialist movement whose organizational manifestation was the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia ( yi, אַלגעמײַנער ײדישער אַרבעטער בּונד אין ליטע פויל ...

out of 50 members. He was then candidate for the chairmanship of the council, as unique countercandidate to the Agudist Eliahu Kirshbraun, who was elected as well as Jacob Trokenheim, another Agudist, as vice-president. The Bund did not take part to the 1931 kehillot elections, but won 15 seats out of 50 at the 1936 elections. After the elections, Ehrlich created an incident by accusing

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

leaders Grünbaum and

Ze'ev Jabotinsky Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leade ...

for recent antisemitic agitation in Poland by their campaign urging Jewish emigration from Poland. This time again Ehrlich was candidate to the presidency, he got 16 votes, the Zionist candidate Yitshak Schipper 10, and the Agudist Jacob Trokenheim won by a plurality of 19 votes.

World War II

After the

outbreak of World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Ehrlich made his way to the part of Poland that had come under Soviet control. He was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

in Brest on 4 October 1939. On 2 August 1940, in

Saratov Saratov (, ; rus, Сара́тов, a=Ru-Saratov.ogg, p=sɐˈratəf) is the largest city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River upstream (north) of Volgograd. Saratov had a population of 901, ...

, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to ten years in the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...

. After the June 1941

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

, he was released in 1942 as part of the Sikorski–Mayski Agreement of 30 July 1941 between the

Polish Government in Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. He was asked to join the newly formed

Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, ''Yevreysky antifashistsky komitet'' yi, יידישער אנטי פאשיסטישער קאמיטעט, ''Yidisher anti fashistisher komitet''., abbreviated as JAC, ''YeAK'', was an organization that was created i ...

, headed by

Solomon Mikhoels Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels ( yi, שלמה מיכאעלס lso spelled שלוימע מיכאעלס during the Soviet era russian: Cоломон (Шлойме) Михоэлс, – 13 January 1948) was a Latvian born Soviet Jewish actor and the art ...

Imprisonment and death

Grob symboliczny Wiktora Altera i Henryka Ehrlicha-Symbolic grave of Wiktor Alter and Henryk Ehrlich

At about the same time Ehrlich was supposed to join Gen. Sikorski (the Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile) in traveling to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

where he was supposed to join the Polish government. However, on 4 December 1941, Ehrlich, together with

Victor Alter Victor Alter (also Wiktor Alter; 7 February 1890 – 17 February 1943) was a Polish Jewish socialist activist and Bund publicist, and a member of the executive committee of the Second International. Life Alter studied in Belgium, at the Un ...

were once again arrested by the

in Kuybyshev. At the time of their arrest they both resided in the Polish embassy and no reason was given for their arrest. According to various sources at the time, they were charged with spying for “enemies of the Soviet Union”. The arrest of Ehrlich and Alter took place immediately after the Soviet government issued a declaration to the Polish government in exile on 1 December 1941, that Polish citizens of Belarusian or Jewish ethnicity would be treated as Soviet citizens and forbidden to enter the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stre ...

(Anders Army) which was being formed at the time. The Soviet imprisonment of two prominent socialist activists and leaders of the Second International caused a wave of protests among socialist circles in the West.

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

made direct appeals to Stalin for their release. However, Soviet authorities remained quiet throughout 1942, and only after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad announced that Ehrlich and Alter had been executed on Stalin's orders. According to some sources Ehrlich, unlike Alter, was never executed, because he managed to commit suicide by hanging himself from the bars of his prison window. Other sources state that together with Alter, he was shot in December 1942. As late as February 1943, letters from "Henryk Wiktor" (first names of Ehrlich and Alter) were being circulated in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

Rehabilitation

On 8 February 1991, Victor Ehrlich, Henryk Ehrlich's son, was informed that according to a decree passed under

Russian president The president of the Russian Federation ( rus, Президент Российской Федерации, Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the head of state of the Russian Federation. The president leads the executive branch of the federal ...

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...

, Victor Alter, together with Ehrlich had been "rehabilitated" and the repressions against them had been declared unlawful.Lucan Way (1 March 1993
"Exhuming the Buried Past; in the K.G.B. Files"
''The Nation'', Vol. 256. While the exact place where he was buried is unknown, a

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

was erected at the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa street in Warsaw on 17 April 1988. The inscription reads "Leaders of the Bund, Henryk Ehrlich, b. 1882, and Wiktor Alter, b. 1890. Executed in the Soviet Union". The establishment of the monument (as well as the publication of the full story of Alter and Ehrlich) was opposed by Poland's post-war

communist government A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...

and was only made possible because of the efforts of

Marek Edelman Marek Edelman ( yi, מאַרעק עדעלמאַן, born either 1919 in Homel or 1922 in Warsaw – October 2, 2009 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish political and social activist and cardiologist. Edelman was the last surviving leader of the ...

(last surviving participant of the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany' ...

and a Bundist) and members of the Polish Solidarity Union. The commemoration ceremony was attended by over three thousand people.

Family

His father-in-law was historian

Simon Dubnow Simon Dubnow (alternatively spelled Dubnov, rus, Семён Ма́ркович Ду́бнов, Semyon Markovich Dubnov, sʲɪˈmʲɵn ˈmarkəvʲɪtɕ ˈdubnəf; yi, שמעון דובנאָװ, ''Shimen Dubnov''; 10 September 1860 – 8 Dece ...

Notes and references

External links

Albert Glotzer, "Murder as a Political Weapon"
''The New International'', Vol. IX No. 3, March 1943, pp. 69–70.
Majer Bogdanski, "Purged from history"
''Jewish Socialist'', No. 24, October–December 1991. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ehrlich, Henryk 1882 births 1942 deaths Politicians from Lublin People from Lublin Governorate 19th-century Polish Jews Bundists Mensheviks 20th-century Polish journalists Polish people who died in Soviet detention Polish people who died in prison custody Jewish anti-fascists Polish anti-fascists Members of the Executive of the Labour and Socialist International Jews executed by the Soviet Union Polish people executed by the Soviet Union Polish people detained by the NKVD Foreign Gulag detainees 20th-century Polish politicians