Biography
Sam Gonshak was a New York organizer with the Unemployed Councils who resisted evictions and campaigned for relief and unemployment insurance. On April 28, 1933, he led two hundred workers facing eviction to a Home Relief Bureau. Police arrested him and five others after a confrontation with relief guards. Judge Thomas Aurelio sentenced him to an indeterminate term of six months to two years on Welfare Island. He was paroled on December 22, 1933, following an International Labor Defense campaign. Gonshak later fought with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain and was wounded during the Spanish Civil War. He died on May 9, 2000.
The Daily Worker of May 13, 1933, page 3, reports that the International Labor Defense was appealing Gonshak's disorderly-conduct conviction before Judge Aurelio and sought $200 for the campaign. It urged protests to Mayor O'Brien and Governor Lehman and said the appeal would challenge the Criminal Code used to impose the sentence. This records the contemporary defense campaign, without changing his separately documented sentence or release.
The December 21, 1935 Daily Worker identifies Samuel Gonshak among six winter-clothing relief delegates beaten and arrested on December 13 at the Stone Avenue Home Relief Bureau. It describes his defense before Magistrate Charles Solomon at Gates Avenue Court and a planned adjourned hearing. This is a separate episode from his recorded 1933 relief prosecution; the future hearing does not establish continuing jail or a release day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n307-NY-dec-21-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
The June 15, 1933 Daily Worker announced an appeal hearing for June 20 at noon in the Criminal Court at Smith and Schermerhorn Streets before Justice Kernochan. The body supplies June 20 despite an apparent June 30 OCR reading in the heading. This is a prospective procedural notice, with no appeal outcome, physical release or additional imprisonment duration inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n143-NY-jun-15-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The January 6, 1934 Daily Worker announced a welcome-back reception for Sam Gonshak, former secretary of the Downtown Unemployed Council, that evening at Irving Plaza after what it called his eight months in prison. An advertisement repeats the welcome on page 8. This is rounded corroboration of his already documented 1933 imprisonment; the reception date is not his physical release date, and the existing April 28–December 22 span of 238 days is retained. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n006b-10th-anniv-eastern-edition-jan-05-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
A lecture notice in the February 3 issue describes Gonshak as just released from Welfare Island Jail. It corroborates his return to public defense work after the established December 22, 1933 parole, without fixing a new release date or another jail episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n030-feb-03-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Printed Samuel Gonshak, the Thatford Avenue Unemployed Council leader is described being dragged semi-conscious from the relief bureau after police clubbing during the December 13 delegation arrest. The proposed December 20 trial is prospective. This supplies injury and charge details in the existing December case. Daily Worker, December 17, 1935, original PDF page 4. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n303-NY-dec-17-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
Joseph Porper's page 7 retrospective describes Gonshak's relief-organizing trial before Thomas Aurelio, hard labor on Welfare Island's coal gang, and an indeterminate maximum two-year term. It quotes his defense of fighting for relief and discusses eviction organizing. The opening says he left the gang yesterday, while the existing independently documented parole is December 22; the relative narrative is not substituted as a December 29 release. The account also recalls three previous convictions without individual dates or dispositions. The docket lists additional names but does not individually establish their custodial histories; no sentence or duration is assigned to them. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n313-dec-30-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
The Summer2000 Volunteer obituary adds that Gonshak was wounded in Spain, recuperated at Benicasim, instructed recruits at Tarazona, and became transport commander and political commissar of the15th Brigade transports. It describes four years in the Army Air Corps in the Philippines and later New York VALB leadership. Its claim of a three-year Sing Sing sentence and one year served in1933 conflicts with contemporary Welfare Island reports and the established April28-December22,1933 chronology; that retrospective claim is preserved as a discrepancy and does not replace existing dates or institution. The captioned Barcelona1938 portrait already exists in this entry. Source: https://alba-valb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/vol_v22n03_summer2000.pdf#page=21
M. Kamman's July 1933 Labor Defender profile describes Gonshak as the son of a capmaker and a school boxing medalist who left high school during the Depression. It reports that he joined the Middle Bronx Unemployed Council at nineteen and later transferred to the Downtown council. Its two-year Welfare Island term is an imposed sentence; the account of earlier disorderly-conduct arrests with suspended sentences does not provide enough individual dates or dispositions to add separate custody episodes. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=17
M. Kamman describes Gonshak’s youth as a star amateur boxer and son of a capmaker, forced from high school by the Depression. His mother’s account of friend Herman’s eviction-defense arrest inspired him to join the Middle Bronx Unemployed Council at19. He later moved to the Downtown Council, was clubbed during the relief-bureau arrest, and faced Thomas A. Aurelio’s use of section4 of the state Parole Board Law. Prior suspended disorderly-conduct sentences are undated and not counted as new individually dated cases. The two-year description is a maximum term, not actual completed service. Page17. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf
The review reports the unemployed leader’s two-year disorderly-conduct sentence following a relief demonstration. Its maximum-term shorthand does not replace the existing six-month-to-two-year description or establish two actual years served.
The district report dates his relief-delegation arrest April 28, 1933, with five unnamed coarrestees, and describes Judge Aurelio imposing the two-year upper limit at Welfare Island as a repeat offender. It reports a 25,000-signature release petition. This does not replace the established six-month-to-two-year range or convert its upper limit into time served.
Daily Worker, December 30, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The August 15 New York report published in the August 16, 1933 Daily Worker says the Board changed Sam Gonshak's workhouse sentence from two years to eight months. It identifies the Home Relief Bureau demonstration at Spring and Elizabeth Streets and Judge Thomas Aurelio's use of Section 4 of the Parole Law, matching the existing 1933 relief prosecution. An ILD petition seeking a pardon was still pending. Eight months is the reported revised imposed term, not a new measure of time actually served or proof that a pardon had been granted. The report does not give the day of the Board's action. The separately documented April 28 to December 22, 1933 custody span and its 238 days remain unchanged, as does the separate 1935 case.
Page3’s December22 report says Gonshak was freed on parole Friday,December22,after approximately eight months following relief-bureau struggles for sixteen families. The reported six-month-to-two-year sentence is nominal; the rounded eight months is not converted into exact custody days.
