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Jakub Herman
Lawyer and communist activist. He published
several works on Polish economic and social history. In 1926, he
submitted his doctoral thesis to the Yidisher Visnshaftlecher Institut
in Wilno.
He was active in the Union of Communist Youth in Poland, and
beginning in 1928, also in the Communist Party of Poland. During the
years 1928-1939, he worked in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. After the
September campaign in 1939, he left Warsaw. Fleeing to the east, he
found himself in territories that had been occupied by the Soviet Union
and became active in the Communist Party of Belarus. In 1941, he worked
in the Polish-language radio station, "Kosciuszko", and directed
initiative groups of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR).
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In 1944, he co-founded the Central Office
of Polish Communists in the USSR, and became Secretary of the National
Section of the Main Board of the Union of Polish Patriots. During the
years 1944-1956, he was a member of the Political Bureau of the PPR,
then of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). In the late 1940's, as a
member of the Polish communists in the Kominform, he helped prepare the
liquidation of the socialist parties, including Jewish ones. During the
years 1945-1952, he was Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. In the years 1952-1954, he was a member of the
Presidium of the Council of Ministers, and in 1949-1954, he was a member
of the Commission for Matters of Public Security within the Political
Bureau of the Central Committee of the PZPR. In 1954-1956, he was the
Deputy Prime Minister, responsible for matters of security, for example;
this meant that he was one of those responsible for the illegal
arrests, torture and judicial murders that were committed during the
Stalinist period.
In 1957, he was removed from government and the party, only to
return late in life, in the 1980's. Until 1968, he was director of the
publishing house "Ksiazka i Wiedza".
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