The Soroca Affair: Government Exonerates Frontier Guard: Official Statement Says Victims Were Commun

A cabinet meeting was held here yesterday to consider the Soroca shooting affair, and a communique has now been issued by the Minister of War, General Stefanescu, exonerating the frontier guard and declaring that the victims were Communist couriers conveying information across to Soviet territory. The investigation has revealed, the statement further says, that the wounds of all six dead were in the back and sides, showing that the soldiers did not fire while they were facing them.

The communique has been received with a great deal of scepticism in the country. People are pointing out that it flatly contradicts the report of the State Attorney in Soroca, who stated that the victims had been shot in the breast. If the victims were Soviet couriers and were carrying arms, it is further urged, where are the documents they were carrying across to Soviet territory, and where are their weapons, which the frontier guards must have found on them, if they had been there.

VICTIMS HAD WANTED TO CROSS TO SOVIET UKRAINE BECAUSE THEY WERE UNEMPLOYED AND HOPED TO FIND WORK THERE: WERE NOT COMMUNISTS AND WERE NOT INTERESTED IN POLITICS: WERE TRAPPED BY CORPORAL OF FRONTIER GUARD WHO HAD PROMISED TO GUIDE THEM ACROSS FRONTIER AND BROUGHT HIS DETACHMENT TO PLACE WHERE THEY WERE TO MEET HIM: VICTIMS WERE SHOT FROM DISTANCE OF ONLY 5 TO 15 PACES: AUTOPSY REVEALED BULLETS WERE LODGED IN BREAST: STATEMENTS WHICH CONTRADICT GOVERNMENT COMMUNIQUE

Deputy Landau, who was in Soroca immediately after the shooting outrage, and attended the autopsy, declares that it definitely showed that the victims had been shot while facing the guard, the bullets having lodged in all cases in the breast. There were more than 10 bullets in each. Fragments of grenades were also found in the bodies.

The deep conviction which I have carried away from the investigation which I conducted on the spot, Deputy Landau declares, is that there was a trap laid for these young people to kill them.

According to the statement made before he died by Samuel Tikinowsky, who lived for fourteen hours after he was shot, the six young people had wanted to cross to Soviet Ukraine because they had been unemployed for a long time and could not bear to continue to burden their families and they had hoped to obtain work across the border. They had therefore approached one of the frontier smugglers, who told them that he had arranged with a corporal of the frontier guard that he would guide them across the River Dniester for 4,000 lei. The corporal had apparently then gone to his Commander and told him what he had arranged, and when the group arrived at the spot where they were to meet him, there was a whole detachment of the frontier guard waiting for them. When the victims realised that they were trapped, they faced the guard, and the shots were fired while they were facing the guard at a distance of 5 to 15 paces.

The injuries show that hand grenades and dum-dum bullets were also used, it is stated, and that shots were fired when the victims were already lying wounded on the ground.

The investigations have shown, it is added, that none of the victims had any connections with Communism, not even one of them named Leib Rudmann, who had once been found in possession of a few Communist leaflets.

They had been unemployed for months, and had finally decided to cross the Dniester to find work there, so that they should not be a burden to their parents, who are Jewish small traders, living in abject poverty, unable to maintain them.

All the victims, including Tikinowsky, who was living with his grandmother in Soroca, were born in Soroca and were well known in the town. Saida pferdmann, a girl of 18, had only recently matriculated at the nigh school, and she had said that if she found work across the Dniester she would send some money to help her parents, who had made heavy sacrifices while she was studying. Shapse Papusch, a 22 year old printer, who had lost his employment in Bucharest several months ago, is stated to have been a very hard-working young man who took no interest in political matters. He had tried to find work in Bucharest, but had exhausted all means, and being unable to continue to live in Bucharest, he had been compelled to live with his parents in Soroca, and he could no longer stand living on them.

DEPUTY LANDAU SUBMITS DEPOSITION BY JEW LIVING NEAR SOROCA WHO SAYS HE WAS DRAGGED TO DNIESTER BY FRONTIER GUARD AND TOLD TEN JEWS WOULD HAVE TO BE SHOT TO SHOW JEWS ARE ESCAPING ACROSS TO SOVIETS

According to the “Dimineatza” here, Deputy Landau has shown its representative a number of papers which have bearing on the shooting outrage in Soroca, among them a deposition made by a Jew named Moise Rusu, belonging to Trifanesti, which is about 5 kilometres from Soroca, who states that on December 4th. 13 frontier guards came to his house, bound his hands and told him that he was under arrest. He was dragged to the River Dniester, and was beaten all along the way with their rifles. They told me, he says, that I would appear before Lieut. Canter, to whom I would have to admit that I had been caught while trying to cross the Dniester. When I came before the Lieutenant, he did not question me, but asked the soldiers why they had arrested me, and they replied that they had caught me trying to cross the Dniester. I protested, and said that it was a lie, whereupon the Lieutenant beat me with his whip. I was then thrown into prison, and Sergeant Munteanu was placed on guard over me. The Sergeant told me that he had been instructed by his captain to get ten Jews who were to be shot, and all money found on them would have to be handed over to the captain, and the State would reward them. If I did not bring him these ten Jews, the Sergeant said, the captain threatened that he would have me shot. A bullet only costs six lei, the Sergeant added. If you want to live, he added, you must bring me someone else to shoot.

The deposition concludes by stating that fourteen days after Rusu was placed before a court martial in Jassy and was acquitted, and proceedings were taken against Sergeant Munteanu.

This case shows, the “Dimineatza” comments, that other attempts were made to manufacture some such story about Jews trying to escape across the Dniester, like this which has resulted in the outrage at Soroca.