After two sessions, the trial of seventeen Poles charged with organizing the anti-Semitic disturbances last June 9 was adjourned today until next week in Grodno District Court.
During the trial, attorneys for the Endek Party, anti-Semitic organization, who are defending the accused, charged that the excises were provoked by a Jewish self-defence corps that had been formed.
Before adjournment, a thirteen-year-old Jewish boy described how his father, Gedaliah Becher, died of wounds received during the riot.
Another witness named Rubinczuk, director of the local Jewish Merchants Association, compared the excesses to pogroms in Russia under the Czars.
The pcincipal defendants are Alfons Panasiuk, 25, and Edmund Zygmanski, 23. The indictment charges the seventeen with organizing from a dance hall the excesses in which two Jews were killed, thirteen wounded, windows broken in 183 houses and 85 stores and $6,000 material damage done.
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.