Seventeen Poles are on trial in the Grodno District Court today, charged with organizing the anti-Semitic disturbances June 9 in which, the indictment said, two Jews were killed, thirteen wounded, windows broken in 183 houses and 85 stores and material damage to the extent of 30,000 zlotys ($6,000) done.
The chief defendants are Alfons Panasiuk, 25, and Edmund Zygmanski, 23.
The first session of the trial which opened yesterday, was given over to reading of the charges and personal examinations. The defendants were frequently rebuked for acting insolently and giving evasive replies to questions of the attorneys representing the Jews.
An investigation into the riot by the Grodno police last June established that the excesses had been organized from a dance-hall after the burial of Wladislaw Kuscz, a gangster who had been slain in a brawl. The official report of the police described the excesses as “organized by underworld characters.”
The riots started on Dominanski Street, the main street of Grodno. Police arrived on the scene and quelled the disturbance after it had been in progress an hour. In the evening excesses broke out again on the outskirts of the city.
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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.
