Sholom Schwartzbard
Encyclopedia
Sholem Schwarzbard (August 18, 1886, Izmail
, Bessarabia
, now Ukraine
– March 3, 1938, Cape Town
, South Africa
) was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet
and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura. He wrote poetry
in Yiddish
under the pen name of Baal-Khaloymes (The Dreamer).
, Bessarabia, (then part of the Russian Empire
, currently in Odessa Oblast
near Romanian border) to the Jewish family of Itskhok Shvartsbard and Khaye Vaysberger. His real given name was Sholem. After the proclamation of an order by the Russian Imperial
government for all Jews to move out from the region within 50 verst of the border, his family moved to the town of Balta
which is in the southern Podolie
region where he grew up. His three older brothers died as children and his mother died whilst he was a child. In 1900, at an early age of 14 he became an apprentice to a watchmaker Israel Dik.
During his apprenticeship in 1903, he became interested in Socialism and began a moonlighting as a revolutionary agitator for a group called "Iskra" -- probably because of ties to Lenin's journal
of the same name. At the time of the first Russian Revolution in 1905 he was based in Kruti, 30 miles north of Balta where he was employed in his own words, "fixing Cossack watches". A short time after participating in Jewish self-defense while visiting his father in Balta, he was arrested and served a short stint in Proskurov and Balta prisons. He was released with the general amnesty granted as part of post-revolutionary tsarist "leniency". and fearing further arrests, Schwartzbard stole across the border into Austria-Hungary
where he lived and worked in a number of cities and towns including the capital of Vienna
and Budapest where he was converted to Anarchism—a political philosophy he would remain loyal the rest of his life and especially the teachings of Kropotkin
.
In August 1908, he claimed to have been unwittingly drawn into an anarchist "expropriation" (minor theft) in a small restaurant in Vienna. He was arrested and sentenced to time in a hard-labor prison. Fellow Austrian anarchist, Pierre Ramus, claimed years later that Schwarzbard had probably taken the rap for a comrade, noting the Schwarzbard always donated to the cause and never took from it. After serving his four-month sentence, he was released, but in Budapest
(Crown of Hungary) he was again arrested, this time for merely caring books by Stirner and Nietzsche and admitting to the police that he was an anarchist. He gave his mother's maiden name (Weissberger) to the Vienna police hoping to keep his real name out of the papers so he could still find work after release. Work did indeed become impossible for Schwarzbard to secure after the arrests and he left Austria-Hungary for Switzerland in dire financial straights.
In January 1910, at age 23, he settled in Paris
and found work with a series of different watchmakers. The day before enlisting he married his girlfriend of 3 years, Anna Render, a fellow immigrant from Odessa. On August 24, 1914 Schwartzbard and his brother enlisted in the French Foreign Legion
. As a legionnaire he entered the fray in November 1914 and participated in the first battle of Arras
in May 1915. On account of his excellent military record he was moved to the regular French 363e régiment d’infanterie in early 1915 and transferred south to the Vosges Forest. While there he was shot through the left lung, fracturing his scapula and tearing his brachial plexus. The doctors gave him little hope of surviving the wound, but he slowly improved over the next year and a half until he was in good enough shape to return to Russia. His left arm was left virtually useless, and . for his courage in the World War he was awarded the Croix de guerre
.
In August 1917 he was demobilized and in September traveled with his wife to Russia
. On the French boat "Melbourne" he was arrested for communist agitation and was handed over to Russian authorities in Arkhangelsk
. He later traveled to Petrograd where he joined and served in the politically mixed Red Guards
(1917–1920). Schwartzbard commanded a unit of 90 sabers in the brigade of Grigory Kotovsky
. Schwarzbard fought in two separate campaigns. The first from February to May, 1918 with a group thrown together from anarchist volunteers in Odessa called Otriad Rashal, after a charismatic young Bolshevik leader who had been killed in Romania a short time before. Indeed, the unit was formed to defend the Ukrainian frontier against Romanian invasion near Tiraspol
, but it was soon being chased eastward by German and Austrian troops into the Steppe until it was finally betrayed by the Bolsheviks who killed a number of Schwarzbard's sleeping comrades. Schwarzbard managed to escape and ride the rails back to Odessa, now under German occupation.
During the occupation and in the chaos that ensued after the Germans left, Schwarzbard laid low, survived a serious bout with typhus and worked securing facilities and supplies for the newly forming Soviet school system. He had himself tried to establish independent anarchist schools, but was willing to work with the Bolsheviks as they increasingly centralized the school system. . Hearing news of countless pogroms, Schwarzbard tried to volunteer as a Red Guard Soldier. After many delays, he was finally accepted into an "International Brigade" in June, 1919 and begin his second revolutionary campaign. The next two months were perhaps the worst of his life. His unit suffered defeat to the combined forces of Petlura and Denikin who were uneasy allies at the time. Schwarzbard was in Kiev when both White Armies entered, his unit having since been wiped out and disbanded. It was in this period, July–August, 1919 that Schwarzbard witnessed first hand the ruins and human devastation left by pogrom violence—images that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He again managed to ride the rails back to Odessa, where he was betrayed by a fellow anarchist to the White forces in control of the city. Before they could catch him, he found out that as a French war veteran such as himself could catch a ship back to France. In late December, 1919 he boarded the "Nicholas I" [sic] and sailed over Istanbul, Beirut and Port Said back to Marseilles. He was back in Paris by January 21, 1920.
In the turmoil that transpired in the period of the Russian Civil War
fourteen members of his family had perished in anti-semitic pogrom
s, including his most beloved uncle who was killed in Ananiev. The names of all fourteen were listed for his trial in 1926 and can be found in the YIVO Schwarzbard Archive.
During this time Sholom Schwartzbard's brother was also expelled from France in 1919 for actively distributing communist propaganda and agitation.
In 1920 disillusioned by the willingness of his comrades to prostitute themselves and the revolution for a few rubles Sholom moved back to Paris
where he opened a clock-and-watch repair shop. There he was active in the French labor movement as an anarchist, and in 1925 became a French citizen. He was acquainted with prominent anarchist activists who had emigrated from Russia and Ukraine, including such figures as Volin
, Alexander Berkman
, Emma Goldman
, as well as Nestor Makhno
and his follower Peter Arshinov
. In Paris Schwartzbard also became a member of the "Union of Ukrainian citizens". He contributed a number of articles to New York's anarchist daily "di fraye arbeter shtime" under the pseudonym "Sholem" -- his first name, but also Hebrew for "peace," a fact he was quite proud of as an avid fan of Count Lev Tolstoy.
, who was head of the Directorate
of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1919, had moved to Paris in 1924 and was the head of the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian People's Republic
. Sholom Schwartzbard, who had lost his family in the 1919 pogroms, held Symon Petlura responsible for them (see the discussion on Petlura' role in the pogroms). According to his autobiography, after hearing the news that Petlura has relocated to Paris, Schwartzbard became distraught and started plotting Petlura's assassination. A picture of Petlura with Józef Piłsudski published in the Encyclopedia Larousse allowed Schwartzbard to recognize him.
On May 25, 1926 at 14:12 by the Gilbert bookstore he approached Petlura who was walking on the Rue Racine not far from the Saint-Michel Boulevard
of the Latin District of Paris
and asked him in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petlura?" Petlura did not answer, but raised his cane. Schwartzbard pulled out a gun shooting him five times and, after Petlura 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.". Other sources state that he attempted to fire an eighth shot into Petlura, but his firearm jammed.
, a renowned French jurist who had previously defended anarchists such as Buenaventura Durruti
and Ernesto Bonomini
and who also represented the Soviet consulate in France.
The core of Schwartzbard's defense was to attempt to show that he was avenging the deaths of victims of pogroms, whereas the prosecution (both criminal and civil) tried to show that:
Both sides brought on many witnesses, including several historians. A notable witness for the defense was Haia Greenberg (aged 29), a local nurse who survived the Proskurov
pogroms and testified about the carnage. She never said that Petliura personally participated in the event, but rather some other soldiers who did said that they were directed by Petlura. Several former Ukrainian officers testified for the prosecution.
After a trial lasting eight days the jury acquitted Schwarztbard.
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. He had previously planned to assassinate Petlura at a gathering of Ukrainian émigrés marking Petlura's birthday but the attempt was foiled by anarchist Nestor Makhno
who was also at the function.
to raise money for a Yiddish language Encyclopedia
. He died in Cape Town
on March 3, 1938. 29 years later, in 1967 in accordance with his will, his remains were transported to Israel
and buried in Moshav
Avihayil
.
Several cities in Israel have streets named after him, including Jerusalem and Beersheba
.
Schwartzbard was popularly referred to as the nokem- the avenger- of Ukrainian Jewry.
Sholom Schwarzbard papers are archived at YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research in New York. They were rescued during World War II
and smuggled from France by the historian Zosa Szajkowski.
Izmail
Izmail is a historic town near the Danube river in the Odessa Oblast of south-western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Izmail Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast....
, Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, now 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...
– March 3, 1938, Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, 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...
) was a Bessarabian-born Jewish poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and anarchist, known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura. He wrote poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
in Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
under the pen name of Baal-Khaloymes (The Dreamer).
Early life
Schwarzbard was born in 1886 in IzmailIzmail
Izmail is a historic town near the Danube river in the Odessa Oblast of south-western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Izmail Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast....
, Bessarabia, (then part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, currently in Odessa Oblast
Odessa Oblast
Odesa Oblast, also written as Odessa Oblast , is the southernmost and largest oblast of south-western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Odessa.-History:...
near Romanian border) to the Jewish family of Itskhok Shvartsbard and Khaye Vaysberger. His real given name was Sholem. After the proclamation of an order by the Russian Imperial
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
government for all Jews to move out from the region within 50 verst of the border, his family moved to the town of Balta
Balta, Ukraine
Balta is a small city in the Odessa Oblast of south-western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Baltsky Raion , and located approximately 200 kilometers from the oblast capital, Odessa...
which is in the southern Podolie
Podolie
Podolie is a village and municipality in Nové Mesto nad Váhom District in the Trenčín Region of western Slovakia.-Geography:The municipality lies at an altitude of 180 metres and covers an area of 17.266km². It has a population of about 2056 people....
region where he grew up. His three older brothers died as children and his mother died whilst he was a child. In 1900, at an early age of 14 he became an apprentice to a watchmaker Israel Dik.
During his apprenticeship in 1903, he became interested in Socialism and began a moonlighting as a revolutionary agitator for a group called "Iskra" -- probably because of ties to Lenin's journal
Iskra
Iskra was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Initially, it was managed by Vladimir Lenin, moving as he moved. The first edition was published in Stuttgart on December 1, 1900. Other editions were...
of the same name. At the time of the first Russian Revolution in 1905 he was based in Kruti, 30 miles north of Balta where he was employed in his own words, "fixing Cossack watches". A short time after participating in Jewish self-defense while visiting his father in Balta, he was arrested and served a short stint in Proskurov and Balta prisons. He was released with the general amnesty granted as part of post-revolutionary tsarist "leniency". and fearing further arrests, Schwartzbard stole across the border into Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
where he lived and worked in a number of cities and towns including the capital of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Budapest where he was converted to Anarchism—a political philosophy he would remain loyal the rest of his life and especially the teachings of Kropotkin
Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin was a Russian prince and anarchist.Kropotkin may also refer to:*Pyotr Nikolayevich Kropotkin , Soviet/Russian geologist, tectonician, and geophysicist*Mount Kropotkin, a peak in Antarctica...
.
In August 1908, he claimed to have been unwittingly drawn into an anarchist "expropriation" (minor theft) in a small restaurant in Vienna. He was arrested and sentenced to time in a hard-labor prison. Fellow Austrian anarchist, Pierre Ramus, claimed years later that Schwarzbard had probably taken the rap for a comrade, noting the Schwarzbard always donated to the cause and never took from it. After serving his four-month sentence, he was released, but in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
(Crown of Hungary) he was again arrested, this time for merely caring books by Stirner and Nietzsche and admitting to the police that he was an anarchist. He gave his mother's maiden name (Weissberger) to the Vienna police hoping to keep his real name out of the papers so he could still find work after release. Work did indeed become impossible for Schwarzbard to secure after the arrests and he left Austria-Hungary for Switzerland in dire financial straights.
In January 1910, at age 23, he settled in 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 found work with a series of different watchmakers. The day before enlisting he married his girlfriend of 3 years, Anna Render, a fellow immigrant from Odessa. On August 24, 1914 Schwartzbard and his brother enlisted in the French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
. As a legionnaire he entered the fray in November 1914 and participated in the first battle of Arras
Battle of Arras
The name Battle of Arras refers to a number of battles which took place near the town of Arras in Artois, France:*Battle of Arras , a clash between the French and the Spanish...
in May 1915. On account of his excellent military record he was moved to the regular French 363e régiment d’infanterie in early 1915 and transferred south to the Vosges Forest. While there he was shot through the left lung, fracturing his scapula and tearing his brachial plexus. The doctors gave him little hope of surviving the wound, but he slowly improved over the next year and a half until he was in good enough shape to return to Russia. His left arm was left virtually useless, and . for his courage in the World War he was awarded the Croix de guerre
Croix de guerre
The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...
.
In August 1917 he was demobilized and in September traveled with his wife to Russia
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
. On the French boat "Melbourne" he was arrested for communist agitation and was handed over to Russian authorities in Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...
. He later traveled to Petrograd where he joined and served in the politically mixed Red Guards
Red Guards (Russia)
In the context of the history of Russia and Soviet Union, Red Guards were paramilitary formations consisting of workers and partially of soldiers and sailors formed in the time frame of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
(1917–1920). Schwartzbard commanded a unit of 90 sabers in the brigade of Grigory Kotovsky
Grigore 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....
. Schwarzbard fought in two separate campaigns. The first from February to May, 1918 with a group thrown together from anarchist volunteers in Odessa called Otriad Rashal, after a charismatic young Bolshevik leader who had been killed in Romania a short time before. Indeed, the unit was formed to defend the Ukrainian frontier against Romanian invasion near Tiraspol
Tiraspol
Tiraspol is the second largest city in Moldova and is the capital and administrative centre of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic . The city is located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River...
, but it was soon being chased eastward by German and Austrian troops into the Steppe until it was finally betrayed by the Bolsheviks who killed a number of Schwarzbard's sleeping comrades. Schwarzbard managed to escape and ride the rails back to Odessa, now under German occupation.
During the occupation and in the chaos that ensued after the Germans left, Schwarzbard laid low, survived a serious bout with typhus and worked securing facilities and supplies for the newly forming Soviet school system. He had himself tried to establish independent anarchist schools, but was willing to work with the Bolsheviks as they increasingly centralized the school system. . Hearing news of countless pogroms, Schwarzbard tried to volunteer as a Red Guard Soldier. After many delays, he was finally accepted into an "International Brigade" in June, 1919 and begin his second revolutionary campaign. The next two months were perhaps the worst of his life. His unit suffered defeat to the combined forces of Petlura and Denikin who were uneasy allies at the time. Schwarzbard was in Kiev when both White Armies entered, his unit having since been wiped out and disbanded. It was in this period, July–August, 1919 that Schwarzbard witnessed first hand the ruins and human devastation left by pogrom violence—images that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He again managed to ride the rails back to Odessa, where he was betrayed by a fellow anarchist to the White forces in control of the city. Before they could catch him, he found out that as a French war veteran such as himself could catch a ship back to France. In late December, 1919 he boarded the "Nicholas I" [sic] and sailed over Istanbul, Beirut and Port Said back to Marseilles. He was back in Paris by January 21, 1920.
In the turmoil that transpired in the period of the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
fourteen members of his family had perished in anti-semitic 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, including his most beloved uncle who was killed in Ananiev. The names of all fourteen were listed for his trial in 1926 and can be found in the YIVO Schwarzbard Archive.
During this time Sholom Schwartzbard's brother was also expelled from France in 1919 for actively distributing communist propaganda and agitation.
In 1920 disillusioned by the willingness of his comrades to prostitute themselves and the revolution for a few rubles Sholom moved back to 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...
where he opened a clock-and-watch repair shop. There he was active in the French labor movement as an anarchist, and in 1925 became a French citizen. He was acquainted with prominent anarchist activists who had emigrated from Russia and Ukraine, including such figures as Volin
Volin
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum , known in later life as Volin or Voline , was a leading Russian anarchist who participated in the Russian and Ukrainian Revolutions before being forced into exile by the Bolshevik Party government...
, Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, as well as 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....
and his follower Peter Arshinov
Peter Arshinov
Peter Andreyevich Arshinov, also P. Marin , was a metal worker from Ukraine who in 1904, joined the Bolshevik Party and began to edit the paper Molot . In 1906, to escape the attention of the police, he fled to Ekaterinoslav...
. In Paris Schwartzbard also became a member of the "Union of Ukrainian citizens". He contributed a number of articles to New York's anarchist daily "di fraye arbeter shtime" under the pseudonym "Sholem" -- his first name, but also Hebrew for "peace," a fact he was quite proud of as an avid fan of Count Lev Tolstoy.
The assassination of Petlura
Symon PetluraSymon 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 head of the Directorate
Directorate of Ukraine
The Directorate, or Directory was a provisional revolutionary state committee of the Ukrainian National Republic, formed in 1918 by the Ukrainian National Union in rebellion against Skoropadsky's regime....
of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1919, had moved to Paris in 1924 and was the head of the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...
. Sholom Schwartzbard, who had lost his family in the 1919 pogroms, held Symon Petlura responsible for them (see the discussion on Petlura' role in the pogroms). According to his autobiography, after hearing the news that Petlura has relocated to Paris, Schwartzbard became distraught and started plotting Petlura's assassination. A picture of Petlura with Józef Piłsudski published in the Encyclopedia Larousse allowed Schwartzbard to recognize him.
On May 25, 1926 at 14:12 by the Gilbert bookstore he approached Petlura 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 District 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?" Petlura did not answer, but raised his cane. Schwartzbard pulled out a gun shooting him five times and, after Petlura 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.". Other sources state that he attempted to fire an eighth shot into Petlura, but his firearm jammed.
The trial
Schwartzbard was arrested and was put on trial by the Public Court Committee on October 18, 1927. His defense was led by Henri TorresHenri 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...
, a renowned French 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 who also represented the Soviet consulate in France.
The core of Schwartzbard's defense was to attempt to show that he was avenging the deaths of victims of pogroms, 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 brought on many witnesses, including several historians. A notable witness for the defense was Haia Greenberg (aged 29), a local nurse who survived the Proskurov
Khmelnytskyi, 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 and testified about the carnage. She never said that Petliura personally participated in the event, but rather some other soldiers who did said that they were directed by Petlura. Several former Ukrainian officers testified for the prosecution.
After a trial lasting eight days the jury acquitted Schwarztbard.
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. He had previously planned to assassinate Petlura at a gathering of Ukrainian émigrés marking Petlura's birthday but the attempt was foiled by anarchist 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.
After the trial
After his acquittal in 1928 Sholom Schwartzbard decided to emigrate to Palestine, which was under British Mandate. However, the British authorities refused him a visa. In 1937 Schwartzbard traveled to South AfricaSouth 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...
to raise money for a Yiddish language Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
. He died in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
on March 3, 1938. 29 years later, in 1967 in accordance with his will, his remains were transported to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and buried in Moshav
Moshav
Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...
Avihayil
Avihayil
Avihayil is a moshav in central Israel. Located to the north-east of Netanya, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hefer Valley Regional Council. In 2007 it had a population of 1,200....
.
Several cities in Israel have streets named after him, including Jerusalem and Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
.
Schwartzbard was popularly referred to as the nokem- the avenger- of Ukrainian Jewry.
Writings
Schwartzbard is the author of numerous books in Yiddish published under the pseudonym Bal Khaloymes: "Troymen un virklekhkeyt" (Dreams and Reality, Paris, 1920), "In krig mit zikh aleyn" (At War with Myself, Chicago, 1933), "Inem loyf fun yorn" (Over the Year, Chicago, 1934).Sholom Schwarzbard papers are archived at YIVO
YIVO
YIVO, , established in 1925 in Wilno, Poland as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut , or Yiddish Scientific Institute, is a source for orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to the Yiddish language...
Institute for Jewish Research in New York. They were rescued during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and smuggled from France by the historian Zosa Szajkowski.
External links
- "Petlura's Assassin in Hollywood" "Ukrainian Weekly" article from October 6, 1933
- Samuel (Shalom) Schwartzbard page from the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia