BERENSON, LEON

BERENSON, LEON (1885–1943), Polish lawyer and diplomat. Berenson was born in Warsaw, and started his legal practice there in 1905 as defense counsel in political cases in which he showed himself a brilliant and courageous fighter for social justice. He soon became one of Poland's most famous lawyers. In 1914 he joined the Organization for the Civic Equality of Jews and Poles (later the Organization of Poles of the Jewish Faith, Wyznania mojzeszowego), which favored Jewish assimilation. He was elected to the Warsaw Municipal Council in 1916 as the representative of this party. When the Polish state was established in 1918, Berenson, as an official in the Ministry of Justice, helped to organize the Polish judiciary. In 1920 he entered the Foreign Ministry and served in Washington until 1923 and later in the U.S.S.R. Berenson resigned from the foreign service in 1930, when the National Democratic Party (N.D. = Endeks) became a powerful force in the ruling Pilsudski regime. He resumed his legal practice and was defense counsel in several political trials of historical significance. He died in the Warsaw ghetto. His writings include Z sali śmierci: Wraźenia obróncy politycznego ("From the Death Cell: Memoirs of a Defense Counsel in Political Cases," 1929).

bibliography:

Hafftka, in: I. Schiper et al. (eds.), Żydzi w Polsce odrodzonej, 2 (1933), 250; eg, 1 (1953), 249–50. add. bibliography: E. Ringelblum, Kronika getta warszaskiego, 491–92, 624–25; idem, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War (1974), 82.