Zakher (Sacher) Zamuel Leizerovich (1904 – ?) – carpenter, revolutionary activist, political prisoner.
Zamuel Zakher began his working life in 1918 as an apprentice carpenter in a private workshop in Ludza. From 1925 to 1927, he served in the Latvian army. Between 1927 and 1931, he worked as a carpenter in his father’s workshop in Ludza.
Since 1924, he took an active part in the underground revolutionary movement. He was a member of the Ludza organisation of the illegal Communist Party of Latvia, distributing illegal literature, periodicals, leaflets, and proclamations. On assignment from the Ludza district organisation of the Latvian Communist Party, he conducted propaganda work among the local population, for which he was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned under the Kerensky law.
After his release, he continued his activities within the illegal Communist Party of Latvia. In 1938, he was sentenced to four years of forced labour, which he served in the Riga Central Prison, and was freed after the restoration of Soviet power in Latvia in 1940.
From 1940 to 1941, he worked in Riga as a collector for the State Bank. In 1941 he joined the Red Army, serving in the Latvian Rifle Division. He was wounded at the front and demobilised in 1942.
From 1942 to 1964, he worked as a carpenter in various organisations in Riga. From 1964 to his retirement, he was employed as a carpenter in the Administrative Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia.
Zamuel Zakher was awarded the medals “Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945” and “For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945.”
He was a personal pensioner of republican significance.5
Footnotes
Kerensky law — in Latvian and Soviet historiography, this referred to laws on political crimes dating back to the Provisional Government of Russia (1917), which were later adapted by Latvia to suppress communist agitation. ↩
Personal pensioner of republican significance — a Soviet honorary pension status granted to individuals with outstanding contributions to the state or party; it provided a higher pension and privileges at the republic (Latvian SSR) level. ↩