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A split in the Labor Zionist movement occurred in the year 1920. The movement's nearly illegal situation, the persecution by those in power, and ultimately – the abandonment of Tarnow by a litany of leading members of the movement (Daniel Leibel among them), were the reasons that, in the year 1926, when the writer of this history came to Tarnow, he encountered the movement's organization entirely weakened.

The eternal flame of Po'alei Zion was maintained by a small, dedicated group headed up by these members: Pinya Glick, Nachum Einshpruch, Henoch Tisch, Yasek Perl-berger, Yochanan Vazhnitzer, Magister Dovid Eichenholz (Lenkovitsh), Heshe Glick, Shimon Schiller, M. Spodek, Leibish Lichtenger, Miriam Korn (Eichenholz) and Hendel Waldman-Gunter.

At the start of the above-referenced time period, the movement's work was carried on primarily by Tarnow youth, coordinated mostly in the meeting hall at Targowa 10, under the sign “Young Jewish Workers and Trade Employees”. “Po'alei Zion” was established in Tarnow back in 1904, by the memorable comrade Yaakov Kenner. This was the first Po'alei Zion youth organization in the world. Thanks to the guiding help of the above-mentioned comrades, our work was able to continue, led by activists who came of age in our youth movement.

The “youth” branched out and had under its influence hundreds of school boys, young workers, and trades people, not to mention that at that time in Tarnow the Jewish working class was strongly influenced by the Bundist with their anti-Zionistic position. The concept of Zionist socialism was not “well-understood” and not very

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popular. Thanks to the dedication and self-sacrifice on the part of our “youth”-organization, our educational work took root among the young people and was transformed and grew into a lively organization with many activities and wide-ranging influence.

In our region we recruited young folks from the poorest homes in Tarnow's Grabowka district, New City, Polna, and elsewhere, as well as children, who, at an incredibly young age had to help their parents earn a living. It stands to reason, that a large percentage of them never attended a synagogue or even a Talmud Torah School…Therefore our first task in our educational work was to battle against illiteracy in the literal sense of the word. This particular work was conducted with determination during long winter nights and in hot summer evenings. The instructors of the courses were the more knowledgeable members. And all of this was accomplished after a long, hard workday put in by the instructors, as well as by the students.

Teaching the youth to read and write began to set them up on the path to education, to expand their knowledge and understanding, and deepen their political consciousness. It is a given that this entire effort was based on the Borochov-Marxist educational system.

Sabbaths during the summer were used for excursions into the nearby neighborhoods. During the winter, presentations and lectures were organized on various scholarly and political topics.

The Borochov Library, led by comrades Yochanan Vazhnitzer, Hendl Waldman, Volf Kalb, Manya Bank and others, consisted of approximately 3,000 volumes. It was, after the huge library at the “Safa Berura” Society, the second largest of all the Jewish libraries in Tarnow. It served several hundred readers –primarily older and younger workers.

The Youth Drama Club, which was led by comrades Chaim-Itche Feldgreber, Beryl Leichter, Yecheziekl Leichter, Binyamin Batribenis, Bronshteyn and others, was much loved by Jewish working people in town. With its “literary sections” in our academies and special occasion celebrations as well as various evening presentations, the Drama

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Excursion of the Tarnow “youth” at the Biala in 1930

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Club was a fount of cultural enjoyment and entertainment for hundreds of townspeople and visitors.

The establishment of the children's organization called “Yungbor” (Young Borochovists) occurred and was named for Ber Borochov. This brought joy and light into the lives of younger Jewish child laborers, simultaneously producing new young leaders. These new young leaders replaced the older leaders, who gradually were trained to work with adults.

Thanks to our work with the children, we received more trust from their parents. Many of them, who were initially distant and even opposed to our ideals, became, over time, dedicated supporters of the Po'alei Zion movement.

With the assistance of party members, including some from outside groups, there were youth organized summer camps which were held in Plezno and in Ritra. Thanks to this, hundreds of young Jewish workers and children were given the opportunity to relax for several weeks in the fresh air, getting away during the summer months from their cramped, dark homes. The summer camps gave them the chance to breathe in what was geographically nearby, but for the Jewish worker, actually very distant. Such was the air from the lovely areas near the summer camps.

The Jewish worker's sports club, The Star, enrolled hundreds of members and occupied a recognized place among the sports clubs in the Tarnow area. The Star club was consumed with the mission of instilling a healthy body and strengthening young Jewish workers.

The extraordinary efforts and the diverse educational work of the youth did not take long to bear fruit. This was most evident during the celebration of our 25-year Youth Jubilee which took place in 1929-

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A group of members of the Tarnow Youth with the writer Hersh Fenster and his wife (third row from the back in the third and fourth spots)

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which was an unforgettable affair. It was very well organized, with rich cultural programs and the participation of younger and older members, Young Boristn, parents, friends and sympathizers. The event created a warm atmosphere as we were surrounded by the strongly rooted Po'alei Zion “youth” in Tarnow. As a result of this jubilee, the Tarnow organization issued a special edition of the pamphlet “Tarnow Free Youth” and distributed a thousand copies.

Two important leaders of Po'alei Zion honored us with their presence:

Comrade Yaakov Kenner, the founder of both the Central Po'alei Zion “Youth” Organization, as well as the Tarnow Youth chapter. He was the emissary for all youth chapters. Yosef Rosen represented the Po'alei Zion Central Committee. Both of them expressed their acknowledgement and appreciation of our accomplishments in Tarnow.

In the year 1930, after a 10-year hiatus, we now felt sufficiently powerful to participate in the celebrations of the holiday of the First of May which was also known as Labor Day. The celebration included a street demonstration which created issues with the Bund. The fact was that, according to the then relative power of the Jewish workers' status, the Bund controlled Tarnow's labor unions. According to them, the “sin” of our members was daring to demonstrate in public and this caused much astonishment for our “offense” of demonstrating with leftist Po'alei Zion (no other socialist-Zionist parties openly demonstrated in Tarnow on the First of May). Nonetheless, this did not keep a single one of our members from demonstrating on the day of the international workers' holiday under the flag of Po'alei Zion, displaying general and specifically Jewish slogans.

When in the year 1931 the Organization of Friends of Labor Palestine organized its Congress in Warsaw, we mobilized hundreds of supporters. We were represented by three delegates in the Congressional body.

In the final years before the war, we opened a large reading room at the location of the “Organization of Members of Labor Palestine,” which was used by hundreds of readers. Under the label of the aforementioned organization, in the final years before the Second World War, we led the entire cultural activity, after the leadership dissolved the “organization for workers' night classes.”

In the Congress of the “League for Labor Eretz Israel” which took place in

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Dr. Gershon Gershoni, member of the central committee of Po'alei Zion Leftists of Poland-in Tarnow in 1931 From right to left: Dr. Greshoni (now in Israel), Miriam Korn-Lankovitz z”l, Magister Dovid Lankovitz z”l and Drucker z”l

At the beginning of this period, our influence on the professional movement was minimal. The only trade union where we had influence at that time was the trade Union of Hand Steel which our members Vazhnitzer, Schiller, Glick, Lichtinger, Regina Leichter and others had already begun reorganizing in 1927. With the development of the younger generation of members, where a stronger proletarian element was dominant (tailors, cobblers, haberdashers), we began a struggle for our rights in the leadership of the various professional organizations, which had dominated the lives of Tarnow Jewish labor. At first, we put forth a demand to create youth-divisions in the unions, to protect the interests of the young workers and schoolboys, whose interests had frankly been ignored by all the sections which were

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led by the older workers who were interested only in improving their own circumstances.

During the Great Tailors' Strike at the beginning of 1933, which extended over three months, the campaign and growing influence of the Left Po'alei Zion became increasingly evident. Our members took an active role in the strike, were influential in the entire action, up until the victorious conclusion of securing a collective agreement.

The loyal work of our members eventually came to be noticed by the masses of several thousand Jewish needle trade workers in Tarnow. From then until the start of the Second World War, the following members were elected to leadership roles: Peschaya Veiser, Golda Friedman-Bittner, Miriam Korn-Lankovitz, Tuvye Zilberman, Wolf Schuldenfrei, Yitzchak Faber, Gusta Shpritzer, Yisroel Feller, Binyomin Herbst, Moishe Anker, Zalmen Loifer, this writer, and other members. These members were elected to serve in leadership roles of all the professional organizations in town and loyally carried out the management responsibilities placed upon them in the elections, professional commissions, and member tribunals. One of our members was also elected a delegate to the United Convention of the Central Bureau of the Bundist and Left Needle Union, which took place in Warsaw in 1934. The Central Bureau of the Professional Unions which were under the influence of the Left Po'alei Zion, only later aligned with the union.

This insertion of Po'alei Zion into the professional movements and their participation in the day-to-day struggle of the Jewish worker opened a path for the insertion of the proletarian-Zionistic ideas into the very core of the Jewish working class. During the Shekel Collection Campaign of the 21st Zionist Congress, in which our party, after a long and serious debate decided to partake once again, our members gathered a considerable number of shekels among the professional-organized workers – which previously would have been unimaginable.

There was no business-political manifestation in the international worker-life, whether in the Land of Israel or in Jewish life, which did not have an appropriate response by Po'alei Zion. With responses, posters, meetings, and demonstrations, we always called Jewish workers to political duty and struggle. Immediately after the bloody events in the Land of Israel in 1929, the anti-Zionistic organizations came to see them as the beginning of the end of the “Zionist adventure” and the Zionist

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camp had not yet shown itself to be in opposition to the united anti-Zionist front, which in turn showed solidarity with the “wronged” and “aggrieved” Arabs. It was the Left Po'alei Zion in Tarnow who were the first to call for a mass meeting with the participation of Comrade Zerubavel, where the mufti-reactionary and imperialistic underpinnings of the pogrom were revealed. At the meeting the enemies of Zion also received a defeat on the Jewish Street, which applauded this “revolutionary” auxiliary-campaign, proclaimed by Left Po'alei Zion, and was carried enthusiastically by hundreds of members and supporters. The participants agreed to contribute two days' wages, which for many of them meant simply tearing food from their mouths and from the mouths of their wives and children. In this manner they wanted to express their solidarity with the struggling Land of Israel.

Together with the revolutionary movement, we participated in the struggle for amnesty for political prisoners and participated in all public demonstrations involving this campaign.

During the protest strike against the antisemitic hooliganism, proclaimed by the national council of the Jewish professional union in protest against the incitement campaign calling for a ban on Jewish ritual slaughter, the Left Po'alei Zion members were among the strongest activists who demonstrated a unified opposition on the part of all Jewish Tarnow.

The Tarnow Po'alei Zion organization also aided the emerging sister-organizations in other towns in the Tarnow district and sent instructional strength there. The liveliest among them were the organizations in Brigel (Brzesko) in Nowy Korczyn.

Our party took an active role in all political campaigns: in local (congregations, city council, health insurance fund) as well as general – to the Polish Sejm. During the last community elections, which took place in 1938, on the basis of the reactionary election decree, our member, Magister Dovid Lankevitsh-Eichenholz was elected to the community council on the list of Po'alei Zion.

At the last city council election, in just two electoral districts, our candidates received 800 votes (Rynek) and 600 votes (Grabowka).

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For Proletarian Zionism

On the Jewish workers'-street our party and youth singularly and alone came to lead the idealistic struggle for proletarian Zionism. The other Zionistic parties, even the Zionist-socialists, grouped around the League for Labor Eretz-Yisroel, didn't dare to come with their word trying to influence the Jewish worker-masses in Tarnow. This particular mass was left for the influence of the Bund and Jewish Communists, who had in their anti-Zionistic agitation taken advantage of the inertia of the Jewish workingman. It fell to us, along with the above-mentioned labor-parties, to lead the struggle for the day-to-day interests of the Jewish worker and to call on him to partake in the general political campaigns – and at the same time to lead a bitter struggle for the ideals of Po'alei Zion, in order to receive rights of citizenship among the class-conscious Jewish working class.

With extraordinary dedication our comrades managed all the work of the movement, dedicating all of our free time to the organization. In the course of the period described here, in the party as well as in its institutions, there was not a single paid functionary. Even the comrades who were active in the professional unions did their work in the evenings, Sabbaths, and holidays, after long difficult workdays in workplaces, stores, or offices. Their compensation was in their feeling that they were conducting necessary work in the interest of the Jewish worker and folks people for a better future.

In addition to the names of the members whom I previously mentioned, the following members were also active in local, general, and youth party activities: Eichenholz Yaakov, Weiser Berish, Mendlinger Chaim Hersh, Goldwax Leon, Teitelboim Avraham, Rosenbaum, Loifer Avraham, Loifer Zalman, Schnipper Yisroel, Handelsman Rivkah, Zeller Natan, Kramer Yosef, Grolizer Leibish, Grolizer Avraham, Levnofsky Yosef, Levnofsky Feiga, Silberman Leibish, Alweiss Yacek, Mastell Ezekiel, Flink Shabtai, Flink Leibish, Arimovitsch Hersh, Shpritzer Alla, Zeiss Shloyme, Timberg Monyek, Vind Etel, the brothers Pfeffer, Lederberger Aharon, Lichtig Monyek, Kanarek Leibish, Ackerman Lola, Tuchsherer Masha, Drucker Avraham, Flink Eidel, Einhorn Henoch and Klein Zelek. They were all killed in the ghetto or in the concentration camps along with the entire vital Jewish religious and cultural community of Tarnow.

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A group of Tarnow workers from Left Po'alei Zion and Bund at the Wedding of Magister Dovid Lenkowitz and Miriam Koran z”l

A few activist members who managed to escape to the Soviet Union, with the exception of Dovid Eichenholz -Lankavitz, survived. Of those, these are in Israel: the brothers Yitzhak and Yechiel Bittner Mader (Kibbutz Givat-Chayim), Faber Yitzhak (Jaffa), Pfeffer (Haifa), Betribnis Binyomin (Hadar Yosef), Kramer Natan (Kiryat Borochov), Hendel Gunter-Waldmann (Ramat Gan), Koch Itkah (Israel), Blutman Chaika (Poland), Yisroel P. (Soviet Union), Zilberman Shabtai, Eichenholz Helle and Zees Yehoshua (Haifa), Sarah Schwartzkachl (Haifa),Eidel Schwartzkachl (France), and Gusta Schpritzer (Belgium).

When the writer of these lines returned to Tarnow in 1945, the dreadful picture of the destroyed Jewish community was fully displayed in front of his eyes. Even though the intact streets were again teeming with people, nonetheless a graveyard-like quiet pervaded the area. The decimated section of the ghetto, as if in choked lamentation, told of the exterminated Jewish life, whose last pained cry remained hanging in the air,

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echoing in our ears and hearts in each direction to which we turned our eyes.

The only member who, after experiencing the seven circles of hell in the ghetto and in the concentration camps who remained alive and who returned to the ruined city, was Shaul Schuldenfrei (now in Paris). He immediately took on the aid work for the remnant of Jews left in Tarnow and the Jews in the neighboring towns, who out of fear for their safety of their lives, concentrated themselves in the larger towns. He, along with another two other former members who had returned from the Soviet Union, brought back to life, from the ruins of Jewish Tarnow, the smoldering embers of Po'alei Zionism. Po'alei Zion activities were renewed, and kibbutz-preparatory training was restarted under the influence of Natan Buxbaum. Despite the small size of the survivor community in Tarnow, the organization managed to lead robust activities, all centered around the concept of Aliyah, which was attractive to some members to whom that option was available.

May these written lines serve as a memorial, by the few party-members who remained alive after the war, for the great mass of those who are acknowledged in this remembrance, as well as those whose names were not mentioned. Their memories accompany us always in life and in struggle.

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