HARRY SOBOTKO

HARRY SOBOTKO (May 15, 1898-December 6, 1976)

            He was born in Lomzhe, the son of a Hebrew teacher.  He attended religious elementary school, a Talmud Torah, and the Lomzhe yeshiva—and he also studied secular subjects.  At age eighteen he joined the Bundist movement.  He was chair of the Bundist district committee and secretary of the trade union association in Lomzhe.  In 1923 he came to the United States.  He was active in the socialist movement and later in the Workmen’s Circle.  He chaired the Education Committee of Workmen’s Circle.  He edited: Der butsher arbeter (The butcher laborer) over the course of four years; the journal Lomzer momentn un zikhroynes (Moments and memoirs of Lomzhe); and the Yiddish translation of the Holocaust work, Lomzhe, ir oyfkum un untergang (Lomzhe, its rise and fall) (New York: Lomzher pinkes, 1957), 371 pp.  He also contributed to a number of socialist journals, among them: Unzer tsayt (Our time).  He was last living in New York.  He worked as a business agent for the Amalgamated, the union for male tailors.

Sources: Dr. Shloyme Bikl, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (September 1, 1957); letter to Forverts (New York) (May 7, 1958); “Erklerung fun amerikaner komitet farn lomzher pinkes” (Explanation of the American committee of the Lomzhe Records), Forverts (August 8, 1958); H. Shtiglits, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (June 5, 1958); L. Silver, in Forverts (August 8, 1958).

Yankev Kahan