Adolf Berman
| Adolf Berman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date of birth | 17 October 1906 |
| Place of birth | Warsaw, Russian Empire |
| Year of aliyah | 1950 |
| Date of death | 3 February 1978 (aged 71) |
| Place of death | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Knessets | 2 |
| Faction represented in Knesset | |
| 1951–1952 | Mapam |
| 1952–1954 | Left Faction |
| 1954–1955 | Maki |
Adolf Avraham Berman (Hebrew: אדולף אברהם ברמן, 17 October 1906 – 3 February 1978) was a Polish-Israeli activist and communist politician.
Biography
Born in Warsaw in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), Berman attended the University of Warsaw, where he earned a PhD in psychology.[1] Whilst a student he joined Poale Zion Left, and edited its two newspapers (one in Polish and one in Yiddish).
During World War II he was one of the leaders of the Jewish underground in the Warsaw Ghetto, and a member of the presidium of the Underground National Committee. He also served as general secretary of Żegota, the Polish underground Council for Jewish Aid whose aim was to rescue Jews from the Holocaust, and CENTOS, a children's aid society in the Warsaw ghetto.[2]
After the war ended, he became a representative of the communist-dominated Sejm, and in 1947 became chairman of the Central Committee of Polish Jews. Berman was forcibly removed as CKŻP chair in April 1949, because he was a Zionist.[3]
In 1950 he made aliyah to Israel, where he joined Mapam (United Workers Party). He was elected to the Second Knesset on the party's list in 1951 elections, but on 20 February 1952 left the party and formed the Left Faction together with Rostam Bastuni and Moshe Sneh.[4] On 1 November 1954 Berman joined the Communist Party of Israel (Maki), and became a member of its Central Committee.[3] He lost his Knesset seat in the 1955 elections.
In 1961, Berman testified at Adolf Eichmann's trial in Israel. Berman served as chairman of the Israel's Organization of Anti-Nazi Fighters, and a member of the presidium of the World Organization of Jewish Partisans and former Nazi Prisoners. He died in 1978 at the age of 71. His older brother, Jakub – Joseph Stalin's right hand in the People's Republic of Poland – was in charge of the notorious State Security Services, the largest secret police in Polish history until 1956.[5]
References
- ↑ Israel Gutman, Adolf Berman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust v.1, p.202
- ↑ Avraham Berman: Public Activities Knesset website
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Aleksiun, Natalia (2010), Berman, Adolf Abraham, New York: YIVO, retrieved 30 December 2010
- ↑ Mergers and Splits Among Parliamentary Groups Knesset website
- ↑ Jakub Berman’s Papers Received at the Hoover Institution Archives, Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University Library and Archives Recent Acquisitions: Stanford University Hoover Institution, August 11, 2008, retrieved 30 December 2010
External links
- Adolf Berman on the Knesset website
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