SHMUEL HURVITSH (HURWICZ)

SHMUEL HURVITSH (HURWICZ) (b. 1908)

            He was born in Grodno, Russian Poland, into a well-to-do family.  He received both a Jewish and a General education.  He graduated from high school.  From his youth he was an active leader in the fields of labor and culture, initially with the right Labor Zionists, later with the Bund.  Until WWII he lived in Grodno, where he was a member of the Bund and a city councilor.  When the Bolsheviks seized the western region of Poland, he was deported to Russian camps.  From the end of 1945 he was in Lodz.  He was a member of the central committee of Jews in Poland and secretary of the Lodz committee and the renovated Bund.  During the liquidation of the Bund in 1948, he became a contributor to Jewish Communist institutions, general-secretary of the Jewish Cultural Society in Poland, and councilor on the Lodz city council.  He began publishing in Dos vort (The word) and Frayhayt (Freedom) in Warsaw.  Later, he contributed articles to Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Lodz, as well as Nay folkstsaytung (New people’s newspaper) in 1946-1948, Folks-shtime (Voice of the people), and Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings)—all in Warsaw.  Among his books: Shrayber in kamf far sholem (Writer struggling for peace) (Warsaw, 1953), 145 pp.  He wrote under such pen names as: H. Sh. and Sh. H.