The Communist attacks on the Bund and the wild strikes they were constantly calling against the will of the workers went on for a long time. Eventually this began to provoke a strong antipathy from the workers belonging to their unions. They became fed up with these strikes that made no sense, having not the slightest chance of success—strikes called for the sole purpose of breaking the Socialist unions and of sending glowing reports to Moscow. In those unions in which the Communists had no influence, their destructive work was resisted with every ounce of strength, but in those that were in their hands, it was they themselves that wrecked their own unions with their ill-considered strikes.
A great victim of these ill-advised Communist tactics was the Bakers Union, which, as a result, lost all control over the baker’s labor market. The whole system of an organized distribution of fayranter (see chapter 23), for example, fell apart. Every worker did as he pleased. The bakeries were full of unorganized workers. Of course, there had always been bakeries over which their union had had absolutely no control. But now it had gotten much worse. The wages of the bakery workers fell sharply.
At this time, around the fall of 1931, a group of independent (nonparty-affiliated) bakery workers came to the Warsaw Central Council of the Jewish trade union asking them to take over the union and reorganize it. In other words, they requested the Bund take over the union again and put it back on its feet. It must be admitted that this suggestion did not, as it were, drop from the sky. The whole time the union found itself under Communist control, the Bundist group among them was in very active opposition. The Bundists did not leave the union, remaining loyal members and carrying out all the decisions of the union, but at the same time conducting a decisive struggle against Communist domination. At all the meetings they spoke out, unhesitatingly pointing out the ruinous effect of the erroneous dealings and decisions of the Communist leadership. The chairman of the Bundist group, Melech Tsiglman—along with Yankl Frimerman and other activist Bundists, along with Melech Teyvel’s (Melech Friedman) an independent, nonparty member, now in America—never tired in their criticism of the harmful direction of the union. But it took quite a number of years before a large number of the bakery workers convinced themselves of how right the Bundists had been. They then came to the Bundist group suggesting they all go together to the Bund Central Committee and request to be taken back. (When the Communists captured the Bakers Union, under Communist Party pressure, the union had withdrawn from the Warsaw Central Council of Jewish Trade Unions.)
In the end, a meeting of the bakery workers was called, and a new Bakers Union was formed with its temporary headquarters at Leszno 19 (in the offices of the Leather Workers Union), later settling into the offices of the Retail Clerks Union on Mylna 71 (the Retail Clerks Union had in the meantime moved to larger quarters at Zamenhof 5). Salek (Zalmen) Lichtenstein—who had come to Warsaw in 1925 from Wloclawek, where he had been an active Tsukunftist—was recruited to act as Secretary of the newly formed Bakers Union. In Warsaw he had thrown himself into trade union work and shown himself to be a capable and energetic trade union organizer. He had become Secretary of the Executive Board of the Printers Union, and after that, Secretary of the Leather Workers Union. Now he was being given the position of Secretary of the newly formed Bakers Union. He was confronted by a difficult task and a bitter struggle with the Communists. He carried out this task well. (He is now in America and an official of the Jewish Labor Committee.)
When the new Bakers Union was formed, the Communists fell into a terrible rage. They reacted in their usual manner, with a new series of attacks on the Bund and insulting tirades. When this had little effect, they began threatening that “heads would roll.” It quickly turned out they meant this seriously.
The newly formed Bakers Union quickly reinstituted the old, normal, trade union activities. First, the union reestablished a just system of distributing the fayranter to the unemployed bakers (under the Communists this was no more than a fiction). To ensure that this was being observed, the members of the Executive Board of the newly formed union would visit the bakeries every night to make sure that the unemployed bakers that were sent to work there were in fact permitted to work. One of the most active members of the Executive Board, Avrom Neuerman—not a member of any party—on a Saturday night on the November 7, 1931, was doing the rounds of a series of bakeries for this purpose. Suddenly, as he emerged from a bakery on Miła Square, a band of Communists fell upon him, cursed and insulted him, and one Communist youngster (not a baker) smacked him hard and ran quickly off. This was clearly a warning that the Communists were preparing something more serious.
The next morning, Sunday, we were on the alert all day in the offices of the union. At nightfall word came that a gang of Communist strong-arms and street toughs were seen gathering on Miła Street near Tevye “Smoluch’s” (Tevye Leszno’s) bakery. Salek Lichtenstein and I went there, along with several others. We looked all around and saw no one. We entered the bakery and questioned the bakers. They said they had seen nothing at all suspicious. We went back to the union hall, glad to know it was a false alarm. But, in fact, it was not!
That same Sunday, after Saturday’s attack, when Neuerman had ended his work at the bakery, he didn’t head home, instead going again on his rounds to the various bakeries. It was around seven o’clock at night. When he emerged from Smocza Street onto Miła Street, he spotted a gang of Communists. He apparently understood they were probably waiting for him, so he quickly turned back to Tevye’s bakery on Miła 59. And there, close to the entryway to the courtyard in which Tevye’s bakery was located, he was struck by a hail of bullets, falling in the street in a pool of blood. Two of our comrades who happened to be near and heard the shooting, immediately ran over to the spot and, seeing Neuerman lying in a pool of blood, quickly hailed a taxi and took him to the hospital. He lost consciousness on the way there, and died as they were bringing him into the emergency room before a doctor could get to him. This innocent Communist victim was only 32 years old, leaving a widow and two small children …
The news of this terrible murder quickly spread to all the union halls. It is easy to imagine the kind of outrage this crime provoked. For a long time after this, I could not forgive myself for leaving so quickly from the spot we had been alerted to and where we had been told Communist thugs were seen gathering. We had a strong aversion to all these fights and were happy to find it was a false alarm. It did not occur to us that the Communists, having spotted us from a distance, hid themselves, lying in wait for their victim to appear.
The union, and also the party, was now confronted with a painful question. How to react to this cold-blooded murder?
After an exchange of views and discussion by Bund leaders, we came to the unanimous conclusion that this time we must reject revenge, no matter how just such an act might be, because it did not lie in the best interests of the whole movement. It was clear to us what the purpose of this coldly calculated murder was. They wanted to create a two-sided blood bath that would lead to chaos, to the demoralization and destruction of the newly formed Bakers union. Their goal was, that if the Bakers Union had left them, then it was better that there be no Bakers Union at all; let it drown in blood. Our goal, on the other hand, was a very different one. We wanted to strengthen the new Bakers Union. The Communists also wanted to frighten the workers that were leaving them, making them fear they might pay with their lives. The murder had just the opposite effect. The bakery workers left the Communist Bakers Union faster and in greater numbers than ever before, their union falling totally apart. Slowly and systematically the new union established itself firmly and brought back normal working conditions to the bakeries.
The police immediately began an investigation and sought the murderer. In the middle of December he was caught in Gdańsk (Danzig), where he ran right after the murder. He was a certain Simkhe Luksenburg (he was called “Simkhe Parkh”), a bakery worker, a “fourth hand” (see chapter 48), and a Communist. When he was brought back to Warsaw, he confessed to the investigators that he did in fact commit the murder, but that he did it on the orders of Melech Tsiglman, the chairman of the newly formed (Bundist) union, and by Fishl Kaufman, a nonparty member of the union. Despite how crazy this sounds, the police took these wild accusations seriously and arrested Comrades Tsiglman and Kaufman, charging them with organizing the murder of their own close comrade who had, together with them, organized the new union!
It took some time to demonstrate the absurdity of these wild accusations, and on December 24 Comrades Tsiglman and Kaufman were freed. The murderer Luksenburg was tried and sentenced to ten years in prison.
For a long time thereafter, the widow and orphans of Comrade Neuerman were supported by the Bakers Union.
1.This street, near modern Nowolipie Street, no longer exists.—MR