After three and a half months’ imprisonment the two Jews, Sper and Tune, accused of the murder of the Christian student Grotkowski, were released today without having been put on trial.
Originally, four Jews had been arrested on suspicion of being implicated in the murder. Of the other two, Keller was released in the middle of February, while Katz is still in prison. It is expected that Katz, too, will shortly be released.
It is pointed out here that no charges have even been preferred against the arrested persons, but that this complete lack of evidence did not prevent the widespread agitation against the Jews and the consequent excesses. The general comment is that the whole baselessness of the charge is now completely unmasked.
It was on the night of last November 26-27 that six Christian Polish students were involved in a drunken brawl in which one of them, Jan Grotkowski, received a wound from which he died. This incident was followed by serious anti-Jewish excesses in Lemberg as well as in other parts of Poland where the arrest of the four Jews above referred to, on the charge of complicity in the death of Grotkowski, was used by the anti-Semites as material for pogromist agitation.
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.
