Scholom Schwartzbard

Scholom Schwartzbard

Scholom Schwartzbard (born August 18, 1886 in Ismajil , Bessarabia , † March 3, 1938 in Cape Town , South Africa ) Hebrew שלום שוורצבארד, also Samuil Isaakowitsch Schwarzburd , Samuel Schwarzbard or Shulem Shmil Shvartsburd was a French poet , publicist and anarchist of Jewish descent . In 1926 he shot the Ukrainian politician Symon Petlyura in Paris . Schwartzbard wrote poems and books under the pseudonym "Bal-Chaloimas" ( The Dreamer ).

Youth and First World War

Scholom Schwartzbard's parents were Isaak Schwartzbard (Russian Исаак Шварцбард ) and Chai Weinberg (Russian Хаи Вайнберг ). After a ukase was announced by the Russian tsarist government, according to which all Jews had to leave the Pale of Settlement , his family moved to Balta , where he grew up.

In 1905 Schwarzbard illegally crossed the border to Romania , and from there traveled to Lemberg in Austria-Hungary . In 1909 he took part in an anarchist " expropriation " (armed robbery) on a bank in Vienna . He was arrested and sentenced to forced labor. After four months in prison, he fled to Budapest , where he was involved in a robbery of a restaurant. He was arrested again and expelled from Hungary .

At the age of 24, Schwartzbard moved to Paris and found work in a watch factory. However, he remained true to his anarchist views. During the First World War he served from 1914 to 1917 in the French Foreign Legion (363e regiment d 'infanterie), was wounded in the foot during the Battle of the Somme and was awarded the Croix de guerre . He was demobilized in August 1917 and returned to Russia with his wife after the February Revolution . From 1918 to 1920, during the Russian Civil War , he served in the Soviet Red Army in Ukraine in a cavalry brigade under the command of Army Commander Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky . Schwartzbard's brother was expelled from France in 1919 for communist propaganda . Fifteen family members were Schwartzbard in anti-Jewish pogroms killed during the Russian Civil War.

Scholom Schwartzbard went back to Paris in 1920 and opened a watch repair shop. There he joined an anarchist group and met prominent anarchists such as Volin , Alexander Berkman , Emma Goldman and Nestor Machno , who had emigrated to France from Russia and Ukraine.

Schwartzbard and Petljura

In 1917 he traveled to Odessa to join the Red Guard. On the trip he became familiar with the theory that Symon Petlyura was responsible for the pogroms in Ukraine. In 1926 Schwartzbard shot and killed Symon Petljura, the head of the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian People's Republic in Paris. On May 25, 1926, Petljura went window shopping on Paris' Boulevard Saint-Michel . On the corner of Rue Racine, Schwartzbard addressed him in Ukrainian: “Are you Petljura?” Petljura raised his stick, Schwartzbard drew a revolver and shot him five times. When the police came to arrest him, he allegedly calmly handed over his weapon and said, "I killed a great assassin." Schwartzbard was accused by Ukrainian emigrants of being a Soviet spy . According to the Ukrainian historian Michael Palij one came GPU - Agent named Mikhail Volodin in August to Paris in 1925 and met with Schwartzbard, whereupon he began to observe Petljura and track. Schwartzbard was arrested and tried. His trial began on October 18, 1927. Schwartzbard's defense lawyer was Henri Torrés , a famous French lawyer who also represented the Soviet consul in France as a lawyer. During the trial, Torrès was placed in the Soviet consulate. His defense was based on Schwartzbard acting in retaliation for the deaths of 15 family members, including his parents. After an eight-day trial, he was acquitted by the jury on the assumption that he had committed a “crime of passion”.

During the trial Schwartzbard was supported by the journalist Bernard Lecache , who founded an organization to support him, which eventually became the still active human rights organization LICRA .

After the procedure

Hanokem Street (Hebrew: "The Avenger's Street") in Be'er Sheva , Israel. It was named in memory of Scholom Schwartzbard.

After 1928 Schwartzbard wanted to emigrate to Palestine , but the British authorities refused to grant him a visa. He moved to the United States with his family .

1937 traveled Schwartzbard to South Africa to material for the German-language Encyclopaedia Judaica to collect. He died in Cape Town on March 3, 1938 and was buried in the Maitland cemetery with a large public participation. 29 years later, in accordance with his declared will, his remains were brought to Israel and buried in Moshav Avihayil near Netanya .

Schwartzbard is the author of various poems and texts in Yiddish which he published under the pseudonym Bal-Chaloimas ("Dreamer"), including: Troymen un Virklikhkayt (Dreams and Reality, Paris, 1920), In Krig - Mit Zikh Aleyn (At war with himself, Chicago, 1933) and his autobiography In'm Loyd Fun Yorn (Over the Years, Chicago, 1934).

literature

• David Engel : Schwarzbard Trial. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 5: Pr-Sy. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-02505-0 , pp. 395-400 (not (yet) used here).
• Saul S. Friedman : Pogromchik: The Assassination of Simon Petlura . New York: Hart Pub. Co., 1976.

Web links

Commons : Sholom Schwartzbard  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• A Simple Jew website with historical background information and pictures
• Petlura's Assassin in Hollywood from "Ukrainian Weekly" article from October 6, 1933
• Samuel Schwartzbard ( Memento June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) from the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} no author details (November 7, 1927) Petlura Trial ( memento of the original from September 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. TIME (accessed September 3, 2007)