Ruling their guilt had not been proved, the Supreme Court has set aside jail terms of five to eight years each against three Jews convicted of participating in the Przytyk riots of March 9, 1936, which resulted in the deaths of one Christian and five Jews.
The court ordered a new trial for the three in Dublin, where a Court of Appeals last November upheld their conviction by the Radom District Court.
At the same time the court confirmed the sentences, varying from six to ten months, of eight other Jews convicted. It also confirmed one-year sentences against three Poles convicted of killing a Jewish couple during the pogrom, but annulled an 18-month sentence of a fourth Pole and minor terms of three others.
The Jews who won a new trial were Sholom Lesko, 19, who is serving an eight-year sentence; Eliezer Kirshenzweig, 19, six years, and Isaak Frydman, 27, five years.
The ruling by the Supreme Court, Poland’s highest tribunal, was hailed in the Jewish press. The case had become a cause celebre in Jewish and liberal circles, largely because the principle of self-defense was at stake. The lower courts, in handing down heavy sentences against the principal Jewish defendants and letting the Poles off with either light terms or outright acquittal, had charged the Jews with “moral responsibility” for the riots. In sentencing Lesko and Kirshenzweig, the Radom District Court had said it was “their shots which incited the crowd and, therefore, they received the severest sentences.”
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