The annulment of the death sentences of three pogrom leaders by the highest Ukrainian Soviet court has brought forth the demand for an explanation and retrial.
The “Stern,” Communist Yiddish daily of Charkoff, today reveals the action of the highest court, annulling the death sentences imposed by the regional court on Dergal and Tcherban, for organizing a pogrom on the Jewish colonies in the Pervomaisk and Mariupol regions. The point on which the annulment was granted, the “Stern” reports, was that the court considered them merely hooligans. The two were known to the local authorities as former members of Machno’s pogrom band and that they had terrorized the Jewish colonists in the Pervomaisk region to the point where the colonists were compelled to leave their land, Four days after the death sentence was pronounced in September, Dergal escaped from prison.
The “Stern” also demands investigation into the case of Grigori Bondar who was sentenced to death for his part in the pogrom on the Jewish population of Cherkassy under the pogrom leader Denikin. The highest court changed the sentence to five years imprisonment and later applied amnesty to him. Bondar now goes freely about the streets of Cherkassy.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
