(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)
A ritual murder outcry was started this week in the small town of Serazk, near Petrikov, following the discovery of a murdered girl of about 17. The body was found in the forest near the town by some peasants, who reported their find to the police. The girl was identified as Anna Lavek, the daughter of a peasant in a nearby village. Immediately reports began to spread that the girl had been murdered by the Jews for the purpose of pumping blood from her for ritual purposes. The girl’s father, however, denied this, showing that the girl had been murdered by a relative over a family quarrel.
During the Jewish High Holy days a ritual murder cry was started at Samocz. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah one of the Christian inhabitants of the town went in to his neighbor, the Jewish bootmaker Samuel Weller, leaving his six year old girl playing in the yard outside. When the father came out the child had disappeared. He raised the alarm and a crowd collected shouting that the Jews had carried off the child to kill her for ritual purposes. A police search was carried out in Weller’s house, and as the child was not found, Weller was arrested.
On the second day of Rosh Hashanah a Christian woman from a neighboring village came into the town and hearing that a child had disappeared, she told the peasants that the previous night a lost Christian child had wandered into her village. Inquiries were made and the police brought back the missing child. The Jewish bootmaker was thereupon released.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
