Joseph Kleinman was born on March 4, 1904 in Warsaw, Poland to parents Joseph and Rose Burachowitz. The family settled in the Bronx, New York where Kleinman attended primary and technical school and later worked at the New York Edison Company. He became active in the Bronx Workers Cooperative, serving as secretary of the executive committee in 1927. In September 1928, Kleinman formally joined the Communist Party, Section 2, and served as an organizer, committee member and delegate to local and regional meetings. Active in the labor movement, Kleinman was arrested several times for his participation in strikes between 1926 and 1930. Immediately before volunteering for combat in the Spanish Civil War, Kleinman was employed as a tailor at Miss Style Coat Company on West 38th Street, New York and became a member of Local 112 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). For a year and a half, Kleinman served as a delegate for the local.
On July 2, 1937, Kleinman departed America for Europe. After spending some time in Paris, he traveled to Spain, arriving at Albacete, where he joined the newly merged Lincoln-Washington Battalion ca. July 24th. In March of 1938, he suffered a wound in his right arm, which confined him for some weeks to a hospital. Upon recovery he was reassigned to a new unit stationed in Barcelona. Kleinman died in September 1938 at Sierra Caballs.
From the guide to the Joseph Kleinman Papers, 1937-1938, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
