Biography
Benjamin Lieb was a forty-six-year-old veteran organizer and father of three. Benjamin Lieb was one of five National Textile Workers' Union members charged with first-degree murder in the Paterson, New Jersey silk strike of 1931. During the 1931 silk strike in Paterson, New Jersey, five members of the National Textile Workers' Union were charged with first-degree murder after the struck mill-owner Max Urban died following a February 1931 fight outside his shop. Held without bail and facing the electric chair, they were, the ILD argued, framed to break the strike — several had provable alibis.
The Daily Worker of March25,1931 places Lieb among five Paterson textile-union defendants arraigned before Recorder HarryJoelson and held without bail after pleading not guilty following MaxUrban’s death. The report describes the defense campaign and does not establish a conviction.
The Daily Worker of May 18, 1931, page 1, reports the Paterson five’s expected Saturday bail release was revoked after a leaflet called workers to greet them at the jail. It says Judge Harlan (as printed) had previously fixed $3,500 for each of four men and $1,000 for the woman, and a renewed motion was to be argued Monday. The article prints Hart where other reports name Bart. Revoked/anticipated bail is not an actual release and does not replace later documented release dates; the Harlan/Harley judge spelling is preserved as source variance.
The March 23, 1931 Daily Worker, page 1, gives an earlier procedural stage of the Paterson silk-strike case: the five workers had been released on $1,000 bond each and were rearrested after Max Urban’s death, then held without bail for investigation. Its March 22 dispatch calls murder charges a likelihood rather than a completed indictment. It prints Albert Katzhuk for Katzenbuch. The article’s Saturday-night death chronology differs from the later defense account of midnight March 20 and a March 21 rearrest; that variance is retained without changing the existing arrest fields. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n071-NY-mar-23-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The April 8, 1931 report identifies these Paterson silk workers among five imprisoned on a murder accusation after an altercation involving a barber and union activists. The appeal for defense funds explicitly places the five in prison. No individual final judgment, exact discharge or complete duration is supplied. Daily Worker, April 8, 1931, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n085-NY-apr-08-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The May 1931 defense account on printed page 90 says Max Urban died at midnight March 20 and that the five textile defendants were rearrested at 3 a.m. the following morning, March 21, on first-degree murder charges and held without bail. It attributes the earlier confrontation to a February 18 strike dispute over a wage cut and changing two twelve-hour shifts into three eight-hour shifts. It cites a newspaper report of an autopsy finding meningitis. The defense’s account and alibis are attributed claims, not independent judicial findings. The article describes Lieb as forty-six and the father of three. Its March 21 rearrest account differs from the March 20 initial-arrest field in the existing record; that discrepancy is recorded without overriding the earlier day.
The March 26 Paterson defense appeal individually lists Helen Garshonowitz, Benjamin Lieb, Albert Katzhuk, Louis Harris and Louis Bart as the five textile-strike defendants accused in mill owner Max Urban’s death. It announces a March 27 Carpenters Hall meeting with Foster and urges support for the NTWU/ILD defense. The roster variants identify this existing Paterson case; it supplies no verdict, sentence or new physical release. The analogy to Sacco and Vanzetti is advocacy, not a prediction entered as an actual death sentence.
Page 3 prints Benjamin Lieb and Helen Gershowitz as two of five Paterson silk workers arrested more than a year earlier on accusations of murdering mill owner Max Urban. It reports an additional assault allegation concerning Urban’s nephew and alleges prosecutors hoped an assault conviction would ease conviction for murder. The ILD and NTWU announced an April 8 protest meeting. The allegations and hoped-for convictions are not completed verdicts or extra custody episodes; Gershowitz is retained as a same-cohort spelling variant of Gershonowitz.
The May 25 Paterson dispatch reports Lieb and the defendant printed Kutzcbuck as actually released yesterday, May 24, on $3,500 bail each. Harris, Bart and Gershonawitz had already received a May 23 welcome. The five still faced the murder prosecution; bail was not acquittal. Kutzcbuck is retained as a same-cohort variant of the Albert Katzenbuch/Kalzenbuch records, which are possible preexisting duplicates and are not automatically merged.
The April 24 Paterson dispatch in the April 25, 1931 Daily Worker reports that Benjamin Lieb, printed Benjamin Leib, and Helen Gershonowitz were arraigned on April 23 on an additional charge of assault with intent to kill Morris Urban, the mill owner’s nephew. They were already held in the Max Urban murder prosecution. The announced April 27 trial was still prospective; the arraignment was not a new arrest or conviction.
Al Goldberg’s accompanying account says police kept the five textile-union defendants in station cells for four days and nights after their rearrest, questioning them, and reports that Judge Joelson refused a transfer to the county jail. Those four days describe a police-station component of the continuing detention, not the complete imprisonment or a four-day sentence. The article supplies no precise station admission or transfer day. Its claims about police treatment and the prosecution are attributed to the newspaper.
