Schwartzbard trial
Encyclopedia
The Schwartzbard trial was a sensational 1927 French
murder trial that resulted in a mistrial of international proportions. At the trial Sholom Schwartzbard
was accused of murdering the Ukrainian
immigrant and head of the Ukrainian government-in-exile Symon Petlura
in Paris. While the defendant fully admitted to the crime the trial at the end turned in accusation of Petlura's responsibility for the massive 1919–1920 pogroms in Ukraine
in which Schwartzbard had lost all 15 members of his family. Instead of Schwartzbard's murder case the trial was turned into a political case against the Ukrainian government. Schwartzbard was acquitted.
- Sholom Schwartzbard
was told that he had lost 15 members of his family in pogrom
s that took place in Odessa
, Ukraine
that year. He held Symon Petlura
, who was at that time head of the Directorate of the Ukrainian National Republic, responsible for their deaths.
According to his autobiography, after hearing the news that Petlura had relocated to Paris in 1924, Schwartzbard became distraught and started plotting Petlura's assassination. A picture of Petlura with Józef Piłsudski published in the Encyclopedie Larousse, allowed Schwartzbard to recognize him.
On May 25, 1926 at 14:12 by the Gilbert bookstore he approached Petliura who was walking on the Rue Racine not far from the Saint-Michel Boulevard
of the Latin Quarter of Paris
and asked him in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petlura?" Petliura did not answer, but raised his cane. Schwartzbard pulled out a gun shooting him five times and after Petliura fell to the pavement twice more. When the police came and asked if he had done the deed, he reportedly said, "I have killed a great assassin."
It is reported that he had previously planned to assassinate Petlura at a gathering of Ukrainian emigrants marking Petlura's birthday, but the attempt was foiled by anarchist
Nestor Makhno
who was also at the function. Schwartzbard had told Makhno that he was terminally sick and was about to die, and that he would take Petlura with him.
The French Secret service had been keeping an eye out on Schwartzbard from the time he had surfaced in the French Capital and had noted his meetings with known Bolsheviks. During the trial the German special services also alleged to their French counterparts that Schwartzbard had assassinated Petlura on the orders of Galip - an emissary of the Union of Ukrainian Citizens. Galip had received orders from Christian Rakovsky
an ethnic Bulgarian, and a former revolutionary leader from Romania, and also former prime-minister of the Ukrainian SSR. The act was according to the prosecution consolidated by Mikhail Volodin who arrived in France August 8, 1925 and who had been in close contact with Schwartzbard..
The trial began on October 18, 1927. His defense was led by the well known French lawyer Henri Torres
.
The core of Schwartzbard's defense was to attempt to show that he was avenging the deaths of victims of the pogrom, whereas the prosecution (both criminal and civil) tried to show that:
Both sides had prepared many witnesses, including many prominent historians and historic figures.
After a trial lasting eight days the jury was called out and after 35 minutes acquitted Schwarztbard.
.
Torres was a renowned French left-wing jurist who had previously defended anarchists such as Buenaventura Durruti
and Ernesto Bonomini
and also represented the Soviet consulate in France.
For the prosecution there was the Public Court Commission that was preparing the claim. It was consisting of several Ukrainian statesmen such as Oleksadr Shulhin (former Minister of Foreign Affairs
), M.Shulhina, Vyacheslav Prokopovych
, М.Shumytsky, І.Tokarzhevsky, and L.Chykalenko. The Commission gathered around 70 witness reports including L.Martyniuk, Lieutenant Colonel Butakov, M.Shadrin, Colonels Dekhtiarov and Zorenko, and many others. Explanation letters were sent by Generals Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko
, Vsevolod Petrov
, A.Cherniavsky.
The French people were represented by Public prosecutor Reynaud, and in the civil suite Madame Olga Petliura (nee
Bilska) and her brother-in-law Oskar were represented by Albert Wilm and Cesare Campinchi (who was the chief prosecution lawyer). Assisting them was Czeslaw Poznansky, an attorney from Poland.
Questioned by the prosecutor, Schwartzbard started his testimony poorly. He lied and gave confusing answers to why he had been previously imprisoned in Russia (1906), Vienna (1908) and Budapest (1909). He lied about his age, place of birth and the fact that he had been charged with burglary in Austria
twice. He also lied about his service in the Red Army
stating that he fought on the side of Alexander Kerensky
rather than have led a battalion under Kotovsky.
, General Mykola Shapoval, and Oleksandr Shulhin. Over 200 documents were produced that asserted Petlura and his government attempted to stop antisemitic aggression. A 20 page testimony was read by E. Dobkovsky that Mikhail Volodin was an agent of the State Political Directorate
(GPU) with access to large sums of money and that he had approached Dobkovsky and told him that he had helped in the assassination.
pogroms where had worked as a nurse for the Danish Red Cross. She never said Petliura personally participated in the event, but named other soldiers, who said they were directed by Petliura. Torres, however, decided not to call on most of the other 80 witnesses he had prepared for Schwartzbard's defense. Instead, he took a calculated risk and delivered only a short speech.
Time reported that the outcome of the trial gripped all Europe and was regarded by the Jews as establishing proof of the horrors perpetrated against their co-religionists in Ukraine under the dictatorship of Simon Petlura; radical opinion rejoiced, but the conservatives saw justice flouted and the decorum of the French courts immeasurably impaired.
Schwartzbard was immediately accused by Ukrainian emigrants of being a Soviet
spy.
According to Ukrainian historian Michael Palij, a GPU agent named Mikhail Volodin came to Paris in August 1925 and met Schwartzbard, who began stalking Petlura.
This accusation was fueled by the fact that Schwarzbard had fought with the Bolsheviks in 1919, his brother had been expelled from France in 1920 for dissemination of Communist propaganda, and the fact that his lawyer was an active communist and represented the Soviet Consulate.
Mykola Riabchuk wrote: "In fact, the trial turned into an ostentatious demonstration of retribution against Ukraine's demonized 'nationalism and separatism'; no Lubianka could ever have come up with anything better."
After the Schwartzbard trial, Henri Torres
was recognized as one of France's leading trial lawyers and remained active in political affairs.
After his acquittal in 1928, Sholom Schwartzbard decided to immigrate to the Israel, then under British Mandate. The British authorities however, refused him a visa. In 1933, he traveled the United States where he re-enacted his role in the murder on film. In 1937, Schwartzbard traveled to South Africa
where he died in Cape Town on March 3, 1938. In 1967 his remains were disinterred and transported to Israel where he was reinterred.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
murder trial that resulted in a mistrial of international proportions. At the trial Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholem Schwarzbard was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura...
was accused of murdering the Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
immigrant and head of the Ukrainian government-in-exile Symon Petlura
Symon Petlura
Symon Vasylyovych Petliura was a publicist, writer, journalist, Ukrainian politician, statesman, and national leader who led Ukraine's struggle for independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917....
in Paris. While the defendant fully admitted to the crime the trial at the end turned in accusation of Petlura's responsibility for the massive 1919–1920 pogroms in Ukraine
Pogroms in Ukraine
It is estimated that one third of Europe's Jews lived in Ukraine, which from 1791 to 1917 partly belonged to the Pale of Settlement. The concentration of Jews in this region made them an easy target for pogroms and massive, anti-Jewish riots.-During Czarist Russia:...
in which Schwartzbard had lost all 15 members of his family. Instead of Schwartzbard's murder case the trial was turned into a political case against the Ukrainian government. Schwartzbard was acquitted.
The assassination
In 1919 whilst fighting in southern Ukraine as part of the Bolshevik Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU) led by Grigori KotovskyGrigore Kotovski
Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky was a Soviet military leader and Communist activist.Kotovsky was born in Bessarabia, the son of a mechanical engineer. His father was of Polish ethnicity and his mother was an ethnic Russian. Kotovskt attended agricultural college and worked as an estate manager....
- Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholom Schwartzbard
Sholem Schwarzbard was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura...
was told that he had lost 15 members of his family in pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s that took place in Odessa
Pogroms in Ukraine
It is estimated that one third of Europe's Jews lived in Ukraine, which from 1791 to 1917 partly belonged to the Pale of Settlement. The concentration of Jews in this region made them an easy target for pogroms and massive, anti-Jewish riots.-During Czarist Russia:...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
that year. He held Symon Petlura
Symon Petlura
Symon Vasylyovych Petliura was a publicist, writer, journalist, Ukrainian politician, statesman, and national leader who led Ukraine's struggle for independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917....
, who was at that time head of the Directorate of the Ukrainian National Republic, responsible for their deaths.
According to his autobiography, after hearing the news that Petlura had relocated to Paris in 1924, Schwartzbard became distraught and started plotting Petlura's assassination. A picture of Petlura with Józef Piłsudski published in the Encyclopedie Larousse, allowed Schwartzbard to recognize him.
On May 25, 1926 at 14:12 by the Gilbert bookstore he approached Petliura who was walking on the Rue Racine not far from the Saint-Michel Boulevard
Boulevard Saint-Michel
The Boulevard Saint-Michel is one of the two major streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris . It is a tree-lined boulevard which runs south from the pont Saint-Michel on the Seine river and the Place Saint-Michel, crosses the boulevard Saint-Germain and continues alongside the Sorbonne and the...
of the Latin Quarter of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and asked him in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petlura?" Petliura did not answer, but raised his cane. Schwartzbard pulled out a gun shooting him five times and after Petliura fell to the pavement twice more. When the police came and asked if he had done the deed, he reportedly said, "I have killed a great assassin."
It is reported that he had previously planned to assassinate Petlura at a gathering of Ukrainian emigrants marking Petlura's birthday, but the attempt was foiled by anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....
who was also at the function. Schwartzbard had told Makhno that he was terminally sick and was about to die, and that he would take Petlura with him.
The French Secret service had been keeping an eye out on Schwartzbard from the time he had surfaced in the French Capital and had noted his meetings with known Bolsheviks. During the trial the German special services also alleged to their French counterparts that Schwartzbard had assassinated Petlura on the orders of Galip - an emissary of the Union of Ukrainian Citizens. Galip had received orders from Christian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist...
an ethnic Bulgarian, and a former revolutionary leader from Romania, and also former prime-minister of the Ukrainian SSR. The act was according to the prosecution consolidated by Mikhail Volodin who arrived in France August 8, 1925 and who had been in close contact with Schwartzbard..
The trial
Schwartzbard turned himself in to a nearby gendarme and was arrested at the site of the assassination on May 25, 1926.The trial began on October 18, 1927. His defense was led by the well known French lawyer Henri Torres
Henri Torres
Henry Torrès was a flamboyant French trial lawyer and politician, and a prolific writer on political and legal matters.-Family:Henry Torrès was born in Les Andelys in 1891...
.
The core of Schwartzbard's defense was to attempt to show that he was avenging the deaths of victims of the pogrom, whereas the prosecution (both criminal and civil) tried to show that:
- (i) Petlura was not responsible for the pogroms and
- (ii) Schwartzbard was a Soviet agent.
Both sides had prepared many witnesses, including many prominent historians and historic figures.
After a trial lasting eight days the jury was called out and after 35 minutes acquitted Schwarztbard.
The lawyers
For the defense, Henri Torres, - grandson of Isaiah Levaillant, the man who founded the "League for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights" during the Dreyfus AffairDreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
.
Torres was a renowned French left-wing jurist who had previously defended anarchists such as Buenaventura Durruti
Buenaventura Durruti
José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange was a central figure of Spanish anarchism during the period leading up to and including the Spanish Civil War.-Early life:...
and Ernesto Bonomini
Ernesto Bonomini
Ernesto Bonomini was born on 18 March 1903 at Pozzolengo in Italy. From a very young age he became interested in socialist ideas and became an active antimilitarist. He trained as a tailor, in which trade he was expert....
and also represented the Soviet consulate in France.
For the prosecution there was the Public Court Commission that was preparing the claim. It was consisting of several Ukrainian statesmen such as Oleksadr Shulhin (former Minister of Foreign Affairs
General Secretariat of Ukraine
The General Secretariat of Ukraine was the main executive institution of the Ukrainian People's Republic from June 28, 1917 to January 22, 1918.It closely related to the today's Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine...
), M.Shulhina, Vyacheslav Prokopovych
Vyacheslav Prokopovych
Vyacheslav Prokopovych was a Ukrainian politician and historian.Since 1905, he was a politician of the Ukrainian Democratic-Radical Party , established in Kiev. At the end of World War I, he was a member of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists and Central Rada...
, М.Shumytsky, І.Tokarzhevsky, and L.Chykalenko. The Commission gathered around 70 witness reports including L.Martyniuk, Lieutenant Colonel Butakov, M.Shadrin, Colonels Dekhtiarov and Zorenko, and many others. Explanation letters were sent by Generals Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko
Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko
Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko , December 8, 1878 - May 29, 1952, was the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army and of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic...
, Vsevolod Petrov
Vsevolod Petrov
Vsevolod Petriv was a colonel of the Russian Empire Army ,General and Head of the Staff of the Ukrainian National Republic army, publicist, historian, pedagogue...
, A.Cherniavsky.
The French people were represented by Public prosecutor Reynaud, and in the civil suite Madame Olga Petliura (nee
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Bilska) and her brother-in-law Oskar were represented by Albert Wilm and Cesare Campinchi (who was the chief prosecution lawyer). Assisting them was Czeslaw Poznansky, an attorney from Poland.
Schwartzbard
Schwartzbard was charged with violations of Articles 295, 296, 297, 298 and 302 of the French Penal Code (all of which pertained to premeditated murder and provided for the death penalty). The defendant pled not guilty to the charges.Questioned by the prosecutor, Schwartzbard started his testimony poorly. He lied and gave confusing answers to why he had been previously imprisoned in Russia (1906), Vienna (1908) and Budapest (1909). He lied about his age, place of birth and the fact that he had been charged with burglary in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
twice. He also lied about his service in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
stating that he fought on the side of Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
rather than have led a battalion under Kotovsky.
Witness for the prosecution
Several former Ukrainian officers testified for the prosecution, including Pavlo ShandrukPavlo Shandruk
Pavlo Shandruk was a general in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic, a colonel of the Polish Army, and a prominent general of the Ukrainian National Army, a military force that fought against the Soviets under German command at the close of World War II.-Biography:Shandruk was born on...
, General Mykola Shapoval, and Oleksandr Shulhin. Over 200 documents were produced that asserted Petlura and his government attempted to stop antisemitic aggression. A 20 page testimony was read by E. Dobkovsky that Mikhail Volodin was an agent of the State Political Directorate
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
(GPU) with access to large sums of money and that he had approached Dobkovsky and told him that he had helped in the assassination.
Witnesses for the defense
A notable witness for the defense was Haia Greenberg (aged 29) who survived the ProskurivKhmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Khmelnytskyi is a city in Ukraine in the region of Podillia. It is located on the Southern Buh River and about from the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The town's original name was Płoskirów, later Proskurov, but in 1954 was renamed Khmelnytskyi. It is the center of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in western...
pogroms where had worked as a nurse for the Danish Red Cross. She never said Petliura personally participated in the event, but named other soldiers, who said they were directed by Petliura. Torres, however, decided not to call on most of the other 80 witnesses he had prepared for Schwartzbard's defense. Instead, he took a calculated risk and delivered only a short speech.
Outcome
The acquittal set Schwartzbard free but awarded damages of one franc each to Mme. Petlura, widow of the slain General, and to M. Petlura, his brother.Time reported that the outcome of the trial gripped all Europe and was regarded by the Jews as establishing proof of the horrors perpetrated against their co-religionists in Ukraine under the dictatorship of Simon Petlura; radical opinion rejoiced, but the conservatives saw justice flouted and the decorum of the French courts immeasurably impaired.
The French press
The French press published detailed accounts and comments relating to the court proceedings. Divergent assessments of the assassination committed by Schwartzbard coincided with the political sympathies and antipathies of the particular newspapers, which fell into three groups:- Those that approved of Schwartzbard, stressing the pogroms of the Jewish population, and from the very outset treating the victim of the assassination as a defendant (the most conspicuous example being the communist newspaper L'Humanité)
- Papers that restricted themselves to an exact observation of the court trial, but refused to print commentaries, or did so very cautiously (Le Temps, L'Ere Nouvelle or Le Petit ParisienLe Petit ParisienLe Petit Parisien was a prominent French newspaper during the French Third Republic. It was published between 1876 and 1944, and its circulation was over 2 million after the First World War.-Publishing:...
) - Papers that portrayed Schwartzbard's crime in an unambiguously negative light, and treated the assassin predominantly as a Bolshevik agent (centrist publications, especially the right-wing L'Intransigeant, L'Echo de Paris or L'Action Française). It must be noted that the French governing circles, headed by Quai d'Orsay, were not interested in granting the case further publicity, since it could deteriorate the already tense relations with the Soviet Union, which the latter threatened to sever.
After effects
To this day, assessments of Schwartzbard, the assassination, the trial and the exonerating verdict differ and even exclude each other. These attitudes are particularly discernible in studies by Ukrainian and Jewish historians.Schwartzbard was immediately accused by Ukrainian emigrants of being a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
spy.
According to Ukrainian historian Michael Palij, a GPU agent named Mikhail Volodin came to Paris in August 1925 and met Schwartzbard, who began stalking Petlura.
This accusation was fueled by the fact that Schwarzbard had fought with the Bolsheviks in 1919, his brother had been expelled from France in 1920 for dissemination of Communist propaganda, and the fact that his lawyer was an active communist and represented the Soviet Consulate.
Mykola Riabchuk wrote: "In fact, the trial turned into an ostentatious demonstration of retribution against Ukraine's demonized 'nationalism and separatism'; no Lubianka could ever have come up with anything better."
After the Schwartzbard trial, Henri Torres
Henri Torres
Henry Torrès was a flamboyant French trial lawyer and politician, and a prolific writer on political and legal matters.-Family:Henry Torrès was born in Les Andelys in 1891...
was recognized as one of France's leading trial lawyers and remained active in political affairs.
After his acquittal in 1928, Sholom Schwartzbard decided to immigrate to the Israel, then under British Mandate. The British authorities however, refused him a visa. In 1933, he traveled the United States where he re-enacted his role in the murder on film. In 1937, Schwartzbard traveled to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
where he died in Cape Town on March 3, 1938. In 1967 his remains were disinterred and transported to Israel where he was reinterred.
Sources
- Saul S. Friedman, Pogromchik: The Assassination of Simon Petlura. New York: Hart Pub, 1976.
- Encyclopedia of Ukraine — Paris–New York 1970, vol 6, pp. 2029–30.
- Symon Petlura. Articles, letters and documents (in Ukrainian) 2006. Vol IV, p. 704. ISBN 966-2911-00-6
- "Petliura, Symon", "Schwartzbard Trial", "Pogroms", Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3, 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).
- Dokument Sudovoyi Pomylky (Paris: Natsionalistychne Vydavnytstvo v Evropi, 1958); "L'Assassinat de l'Hetman Petlioura."
- "Un Crime Politique, M. Petlioura, ancien chef du gouvernment ukrainien, a été tuer hier au Quartier Latin."
- "L'Assassinat de l"Hetman Petlioura," Le Figaro, May 26, May 27, June 3, 1926.
- Time magazine coverage