Biography
Hyman Abramowitz was an unemployed watch repairer who had contracted polio in childhood and helped organize New York City’s League for the Physically Handicapped. He was arrested during a sit-in at a Brooklyn relief office before joining the occupation of Emergency Relief Bureau headquarters from May 29 to June 6, 1935. The demonstrators demanded jobs and an end to the exclusion of disabled workers from federal work-relief programs. Abramowitz remained inside the bureau throughout the nine-day action.
