The anti-Jewish excesses in Lithuania reached a culmination when, last Friday night, armed Fascists, members of the “Shooting Union,” started to inspect the passports of Jewish passersby in the Kovno suburb, Slobotka. The following tactics were applied.
After inspecting the documents, they told the Jews to run. Knowing beforehand that if they run they will be shot, the Jews did not move. The Fascists then started beating them with heavy sticks and rifle butts. Only a few steps away the policemen were watching the hooligans and when the battered Jews were finally released, the policemen gave them an additional beating. Within one and one-half hours, 65 Jews, including many prominent Slobotka Jewish citizens, among whom was the son of the local Rosh Yeshiva, were murderously beaten and tortured.
Because of the state of siege prevailing in Lithuania, which does not permit any activities in the streets after one o’clock, the seriously woundeer could not be taken to a hospital, and throughout the night cries and moans were heard from almost every Jewish house. The next morning the majority of the wounded were taken to the hospital. Others, with broken, hands, lacerated faces and bloodstained clothing arrived in Kovno seeking medical aid. When the local paper, the “Yiddishe Stimme.” desired to publish the facts, the censors deleted the entire story.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was unable to confirm the details of the event because of the censorship. These facts were learned on good authority.
Whereas until three years ago there were almost no excesses in Lithuania, it has now become a daily event. Every endeavor of the local Jewish press to give publicity to the wanton and cruel treatment of the Jews by the government officials has been suppressed by the censors. Even when actual murders are involved the censors change the item, giving it the appearance of a robbers’ attack, More often, reports of “missing” Jews reach Kovno, concerning Jewish traders and peddlers who visited the villages and whom the hooligans killed and, although the authorities know the murderers, who are usually well-known Fascists who do not even deny the murder, the authorities take no action, the most severe punishment for such murderers being the exclusion from the Fascist organization, as recently happened in the village of Givey.
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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.
