The Supreme Court heard to-day the appeal of the four Jewish butchers of the small town of Szemle, who were sentenced some time ago on a charge of murdering Dr. Avischenis, the local veterinary surgeon, who had been found drowned in a well after leaving the slaughtering house at night after he had had a quarrel with them there.
The decision of the court is to be handed down on Monday and the whole of Lithuanian Jewry is waiting for it in a state of tense anxiety, hoping that the accused will be found innocent. Lithuanian Jewry fells strongly that the accused are innocent of the crime with which they are charged, and that they are the victims of anti-Jewish prejudice.
The four accused Jews, Fleischman, Mann, Lakunishok, and Schneider, aged respectively 73, 54, 23, and 15, were sentenced by the lower court to twelve years’ imprisonment in the case of the older men and five years of the fifteen-year old boy, in addition to which they were ordered to pay 36,000 lit (about (£750) to the widow of Avischenis, and 50,000 lit (about £1,000) to his mother.
The case against them is that they had called Avischenis to the slaughtering house to inspect three animals which they had killed. The doctor had refused to put his stamp on the animals by lamplight, and he said he would come back in the morning. The butchers angered by his refusal had killed him and thrown him into the well.
For the defence, it is pointed out that the doctor was a notorious drunkard and that the night had been very dark, so that he might easily have stumbled into the well. In addition, the defence points out, the first medical examination had established that there were no signs of a struggle or of violence and the butchers were acquitted. The relatives of Avischenis had caused the case to be reopened, however, and for months there had been a pogrom agitation in the township, so that Jews were afraid to leave their homes. Then new investigation was ordered, and the four Jews were retried and sentenced.
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.
