Blood Libel Case in Czecho-slovakia Not Yet Ended: Court Finds Charges Against Jews Not Proved but R

On March 16th. the law court at Velka-Berezna, in the Province of Carpatho-Russia, stopped the proceedings against the two Jews, Liebermann and Steinberger, (as briefly reported by cable in the J.T.A. Bulletin of the 18th. inst.). Liebermann and Steinberger appeared in court, and the State Atterney explained that the charge against them, that they had inflicted minor bodily injuries on the two children Kostia and Bogdan, for alleged ritual reasons, had been withdrawn, in view of the evidence given by Dr. Toman, the expert in the case, showing that the case presented by the gendarmerie was an invention, and since in the two years during which the proceedings had been going on no evidence had been obtained to support the accusation.

The civil prosecution against the two Jews would, nevertheless, he continued, it was stated. In spite of the invitation sent to the civil prosecution to appear in court, they did not, however, come forward, and the law court, therefore, decided on the ground of Paragraph 323 of the Penal Code, to withdraw the action against Liebermann and Steinberger.

Dr. Gati and Dr. Salamon, who appeared for the accused, asked that the court should in order to clear up the matter in the eyes of public opinion, formulate a verdict acquitting the accused, and giving the grounds for their acquittal. The application was dismissed, however, and the Counsel for the defence accordingly lodged an appeal.

Despite all the appeals and all the arguments against the blood libel proceedings in velka Berezna, despite the repeated interventions made by Deputy Dr. Goldstein from the tribune of the Parliament in the interests of the Czecho-Slovakian Republic, demanding that this blood libel action should be stopped, nothing has been done in this direction, the “Selbstwehr”, the organ of the Jewish arty in Czecho-Slovakia, complains. All our appeals went unheeded, it says. The gendarmerie who drew up the protocol in which the charge was made that blood had been drawn from the children for ritual purposes have not been touched. For two years these proceedings have been dragged, and the Velka-Berezna affair has grown to be a world scandal.

We fail to understand, the paper says. why the court at Velka-Berezna, finding no ground for the allegation, should refuse to hand down a judgment acquitting the accused, instead of stopping the proceedings in such a way that the whole matter is left hanging in the air. The proceedings in connection with this blood-libel charge at Velka-Berezna are now closed, and the papers in the case are withdrawn, but the bad odour which this affair has engendered remains. The Velka-Berezna affair continues to be a very painful episode in the history of Czecho-Slovakian Justice.