Slobodka 1929 Pogrom: Trial of Participants Opened in Kovno

The trial has been opened here to-day of 17 persons, ranging in age from 23 to 30, who are accused of having beaten Jews during the anti-Jewish excesses that took place in August 1929 in Slobodka, a suburb of Kovno, almost exclusively inhabited by Jews.

The excesses took place during the time of the dictatorship of Professor Voldemaras, and most of the participants were members of the political police, the semi-military Riflemen’s League, and the police force, who contended that they had been hunting Communists.

A large number of Jews, old men and women and children were set upon and cruelly beaten and injured.

32 Jews who were beaten are appearing as witnesses. Other witnesses are several officers of the criminal police, and a few non-Jewish inhabitants of Slobodka, who saw the Jews being beaten.

The prisoners are all people who were known to and recognised by their victims. Many others who took part in the excesses have not been recognised, and could not therefore be proceeded against.

Five well known Jewish lawyers are appearing for the Jewish victims, Professor Beliacki, one of the leading Jewish lawyers in the country; Advocate R. Rubenstein, the editor of the Kovno Jewish daily “Yiddishe Stimme”; ex-Deputy Advocate Garfunkel; Advocate Jacob Ziman, former Lithuanian State Prosecutor, and Advocate A. Makowski.

The act of indictment runs to over 30 typewritten pages and describes in detail how the hooligans without any reason and without any fault on the part of the Jews attacked and wounded 32 Jews of various ages, sex and class.

Nine officers of the political police, six members of the League of Riflemen, and two police officers, the act of indictment says, armed with rifles, revolvers, and iron cudgels attacked on the night of August 2nd., 1929 Jews who were passing through the streets of Slobodka and beat them. Several Jews were badly injured. They were hunted through the streets and beaten, and this went on until there were no longer any Jews in the streets.

The act of indictment also quotes the statements made by the prisoners. The political police officers declared under examination that they had received orders from the political police headquarters to proceed against Communists, so they had gone to Slobodka, where they had met members of the Riflemen’s League, who were beating Jews, and they had lent a hand, because they knew that Jews are Communists.

Professor Voldemaras had always claimed in public and private to be a friend of the Jews, and consequently the Jewish population was astounded that there should be anti-Jewish excesses under his regime. A short while before the excesses, Professor Voldemaras had given a dinner in honour of Mr. Nahum Sokolov, who was then in Lithuania, and he had expressed in his speech his sympathy with the Jews of Lithuania, and the Jewish aspirations. Professor Voldemaras used to attend all big Jewish gatherings and some time even spoke a few words of Hebrew at these meetings.

The J.T.A. representative in Kovno had an interview with Professor Voldemaras on the morning after the pogrom. He expressed disbelief when I told him what had happened, and said that he had heard nothing about it. In my presence he called up his Minister of the Interior, M. Musteikis, and his Vice-Minister of the Interior, M. Stedel, telling them to report to him immediately on the occurrences. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I was again received by Professor Voldemaras at his home, and he declared that both the Minister of the Interior and the Vice-Minister had told him that no reports had been received by them of any anti-Jewish excesses in Slobodka, and the whole thing was therefore incomprehensible.

I told Professor Voldemaras that I could bring him the victims, but he said that he accepted my word for it, and that it would be enough if I gave him a list of all the victims. I gave him the list a few hours later. The same day Professor Voldemaras ordered one of the investigating judges to open an enquiry into the Slobodka excesses.

I discussed the question on two further occasions with Professor Voldemaras, once when it came out that the police were terrorising the Jewish victims in an attempt to get them to withdraw their evidence. The second time Professor Voldemaras himself raised the question. It was a day after the overthrow of his dictatorship, in September 1929. I am no longer at the wheel, he said to me. Don’t be surprised if the Slobodka affair does not reach the courts, and the guilty people go unpunished.

After Professor Voldemaras had fallen from power, it was rumoured that he had known all about the excesses, and had even given his consent that they should be carried out. No evidence that this was so exists, but certainly the people who carried out the excesses were close associates of Professor Voldemaras, who must have felt that this rendered them immune.

The trial now, nearly three years after the excesses, has roused Lithuanian Jewry, which is looking forward eagerly to the condemnation of the guilty.