‘That Incredible History of the Polish Bund Written in a Soviet Prison’: The NKVD Files on Henryk Erlich and Wiktor Alter

This chapter explores the poignant and disturbing fate of Henryk Erlich and Wiktor Alter at the hands of the Narodni Komitet Vnutriennykh Diel (National Committee for Internal Affairs: the Soviet secret police, NKVD). Erlich had been one of the most important representatives of the General Jewish Workers Union of Poland, known as the Polish Bund. He was also a member of the Central Committee of the Bund, editor-in-chief of the Folkstsaytung, and, with Wiktor Alter, a delegate of the Bund to the Executive Committee of the Socialist International since 1930. He was arrested on October 6, 1939, and charged with anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary activities. The chapter then looks at Erlich's history of the Bund, which, because of the circumstances of its creation, is unique.