The crial of the seventeen members of the Lithuanian Political Police, the criminal police and the Riflemen’s League who were put on trial on Monday for taking part in the anti-Jewish disturbances in the Kovno suburb of Slobodka in August 1929 was concluded to-day. Five of the accused have been acquitted and of the other twelve one has been sent to prison for nine months, one for six months, six for four months and four for four months.
The accused, in giving evidence, tried to present the events as if they had been attacked by the Jews, and compelled to fight in self-defence. Their attitude in court roused comment by its arrogance among the public, particularly when they openly laughed while some of the injured Jews described how they had been beaten. The following Slobodka Jewish inhabitants, Bloch, Aronowsky, Joels, Shapiro, Matz, Reznik, Biron Shaievitz, Ziskina, Plink, Hannah Fridman and Salzburg appeared as witnesses, describing how the accused, whom they identified, had beaten them.
In the course of the evidence it came out that some of the Slobodka Jews, as soon as the attack started, had tried to telephone to Kovno that there was a pogrom in Slobodka, so that the police should send help, but the telephone authorities replied that they could not be connected. At last, late at night, a Slobodka Jew managed to get through to what he was told at the other end was the Kovno Police Commissariat, but when he explained what was happening in Slobodka, he was told that it was not the Police Commissariat, but a private house.
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.
