David Grigor’evich Polyakov was an anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist involved in assisting refugees from the USSR.
Life
In 1918 he was a member of the Smolensk Federation of Anarchists. From the beginning of 1919 he worked in various groups of the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organization of Ukraine and wrote for anarchist newspapers. In 1923, he was arrested in Moscow and sent to exile in Turkestan. He tried to return to his hometown of Smolensk, but soon escaped the country.
By 1924 he was in Poland, then emigrated to France. Working in Paris as a tailor and mechanic, joining the 'Anarchist Union' in France as well as Russian and Jewish anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist groups in Paris. A short time he was in the United General Confederation of Labour (CGTU). In April 1925 he went illegally to Berlin and took part in organizing the escape of Nestor Makhno from Moabit Prison. He helped Makhno cross the border into Belgium and took him to Paris.
In 1930 he began working for the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA) and contacted other anarchists across the world (such as A.A. Kolemasov and S.A. Ruvinsky). He fled Paris in 1940 as the Nazi German forces captured it.[1] He returned following a promise for amnesty and work, but was arrested for refusing to wear a yellow star of david to identify him as Jewish.[2] He was deported to Auschwitz, and was executed two months later by Nazis.[1]