*** Welcome to piglix ***

Abraham Blum


Abraham Blum (also known as Abrasza Blum) (1905 in Wilno, Vilna Governorate – May 1943 in Warsaw) was Polish-Jewish socialist activist, one of the leaders of the Bund in the Warsaw Ghetto and a participant in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

He was a student in the reformed Cheder in Wilno, where he met his wife Luba. They had two children. Abrasza studied structural engineering at a technical school in Gent, Belgium. By 1929 they resided in Warsaw. Initially he belonged to a communist youth organization but later became active in the Jewish socialist Bund, including its youth branch, the Cukunft. Beginning in 1930 he was one of the directors of the party's paper. He organized secular Jewish schools for the Bund.

During the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939 he participated in the defense of Warsaw. Together with the leader of the Bund, Szmul Zygielbojm, and with support from Warsaw's mayor Stefan Starzyński, he helped to organize all-Jewish detachments that defended the Polish capital against the German assault. Along with other Bund activists Blum continued to edit the party's newspaper, the Folkszajtung ("the People's Gazette") ensuring that it did not cease publication during the siege. As the occupation of Warsaw commenced most of the Bund's senior leadership was forced to evacuate the city, as they may have been too well known to the Germans, and the local leadership of the party was taken over by younger members, many of them from the Cukunft. Blum, who was their leader, has been credited with ensuring the Warsaw Bob's survival during this difficult time.

After Poland's capitulation and the capture of Warsaw by German forces he was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. From the end of November 1942 he was on the Bund's Coordinating Commission of the Jewish National Council. Most likely, together with Maurycy Orzech, he was one of Bund's representatives in negotiations with the Anti-Fascist Block (an alliance between leftist-Zionist, communist and socialist Polish Jewish parties).


...
Wikipedia

...