Communist Organizer
Joseph Epstein was born in Zamość, Congress Poland. He studied law at Warsaw University. There he became aware of the Polish Communist Party, and later he joined it.
In 1931, he was arrested by the police after speaking at a communist rally, but he was released after a few weeks. He fled to Czechoslovakia, where he sought asylum, but his plea was rejected. Epstein returned to Poland, only long enough to be deported by the authorities.
In Tours (France), where he organized immigrant laborers, Epstein met and married Paula Grynfeld, a Jewish pharmacy student from the city of Lodz in Poland. When the French police were informed by the Polish consulate about his participation in the Communist Party, Epstein was arrested and forced to leave Tours. He and his wife traveled to Bordeaux, where they continued their studies. He organized students into a collective, and he was appointed to the regional committee of the French Communist Party.
In 1933, they moved to Paris. The following year, Epstein passed his final examination, and he completed his law degree; however, he was barred from practicing law because he was not French.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Epstein (French Resistance Leader)
Famous quotes containing the word communist:
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)