anarchists

“When only twenty years old she sacrificed time and money for her ideal. At that time her sense of criticism and reality was highly developed; her heart was passioned for the masses, for the revolution. Her burning aim was to help the formation of an Anarchist movement in Poland; one that would not be locked up in groups, but powerful, popular, and able to materialize our aspirations”.

“He had been an Anarchist and an active fighter for long. His tragedy was that he had never been able to inspire the organisations with complete confidence in him. He lived a strange life.

Lev Zadov was born on April 11th 1893 in the small Jewish farming settlement of Veselaya in southern Ukraine. Around 1898-1900 his family fell on hard times and moved to Yuzovka, in the Donetsk region, where his father worked as a coachman.

Viktor Belash was born in 1893 in the village of Novospasovka (Ukrainian form is Novospasivka) in southern Ukraine. Novospasovka was also the home of other anarchists who later participated in the Makhnovist movement like Vassili Kurilenko and Vdovichenko. He received an elementary education and worked as a railway engineer. He was already an anarchist communist in 1908 at the age of fifteen.

“To have known him and done propaganda with him was an adventure in itself”. Mat Kavanagh, 1945

[i]“His courage was legendary. In the intimate circle of his friends, he was called “ the Elephant ”, because he did not fear to turn up, with a few comrades, in the most remote corners of the vicinity of Berlin to disrupt anti-semite meetings and attempt to open the eyes of the audience. This type of activity was not without risk.

Etta Federn was born in 1883 in Vienna, the youngest daughter of an assimilated Jewish family. She was the daughter of the suffragette Ernestine Federn and the doctor Salomon Federn and the sister of Paul, who became an analyst, Karl, who became a lawyer and writer, and Walter who became a journalist. She had an education on an equal footing with their brothers.

Franz Nowak was born on the 30th August 1983 in Kravarn in Upper Silesia. He worked as a bricklayer foreman in the summer on building sites throughout the area. From 1907 he was under surveillance from the political police as an anarchist. He was arrested several times, including during the Kaiser’s visits to Breslau (now Wroclaw) in 1909 and 1910.

Paul Czakon was born on 14th July 1897 in Neider-Heiduk. He worked as a miner and fitter. Czakon was chairman of the FAUD in Beuthen (now Bytom) in Upper Silesia from 1921 and in 1930 he was one of the founders of the the Schwarzen Scharen (Black Crowds) in the region. In a house search in May 1932 the police discovered the weapons and explosives cache of the group.

Wilhelm Huppertz was born in 1904 in the Ruhr. He worked as a fitter. He moved from being a Christian socialist to a position of atheism. In the mid-1920s he contacted both the FAUD and the AAUE, and worked with them.