With the kind permission of the Museums der Arbeit Hamburg. also: Joseph Berkowitz Kohn. Ein Leben als polnischer Freiheitskämpfer und hamburgischer Sozialdemokrat 1847-1905, hrsg.v. Gertrud Pickhahn und Ulrich Bauche, Hamburg/ München 2006.
By now I was active in the social movements again.
Upon closer inspection of
the new social laws, one soon found in the
a large field for sowing the seed
of economic education
for the working class. In
economy at the School for Workers’
Education [
I
later joined the board of the Education Association in
and I was
able to recruit good teachers of German, Calculus, Writing, Drawing,
Stenography, etc. I cannot omit the following
fact: All of a sudden, the state
of
the teachers it employed from teaching in our schools!
Reasons:
They might become tainted by socialism.
A deputation, whose spokesman I was,
petitioned
Workers’ Education were politically neutral.” “Aren’t you political?”
“Yes, personally.” “Nothing to be done then.”
The provincial towns of
for Workers’
Education, too, and several of us friends often went out to
country in order to
satisfy the desire for knowledge there and
to familiarize workers with our
idea, to captivate them. It cannot be described
how enthusiastically and
reverentially we were welcomed each time
and how devotedly they listened to our
instruction.
Since one was only allowed to discuss public matters of the Reich
during the
Reichstag election in the
“Citizens’ Association,” [
civic rights and the voting rights for city assembly elections, and
to abolish
the Thirty-Mark-Seal [
discuss all of