Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal has asked New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to issue a posthumous pardon for Eve Adams, a Polish-Jewish immigrant convicted in New York in 1926, and urged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to formally recognize her convicted as unjust.
Adams—also known as Eva Kotchever—was born in Poland in 1891 and immigrated to New York in 1912.
She was arrested New York City in 1926 and charged with obscenity and disorderly conduct for writing and sharing her book, “Lesbian Love,” a collection of short stories, and for allegedly attempting to flirt with and seduce an undercover policewoman.
She spent more than a year in prison and was then deported to Poland in 1927. In 1943, she was arrested by the Nazis in occupied France and murdered at Auschwitz.
“Eve Adams’s conviction and deportation is among the most unjust in our city’s history,” Hoylman-Sigal said on Friday. “One hundred years after her arrest and subsequent murder by the Nazis at Auschwitz, we have the obligation and the opportunity to say plainly that she deserved better.
“I respectfully request Gov. Hochul issue a posthumous pardon, and ask the city to acknowledge Eve Adams’s 1926 conviction was unjust and rooted in discriminatory law enforcement,” he said. “This Pride Month, we should affirm New York City failed her as a pioneer of LGBTQ+ life, as an immigrant and as a Jewish woman who was ultimately deported to her death.”
