A new case of torture of Bessarabian Jews is disclosed today by the influential Roumanian daily, “Adeverul.”
The paper relates the case of four Jews of Balti, owners of a stone quarry on the banks of the river Dneister, David Messner, M. Guttman, S. S. Sonnenstein and Z. Heinz, who were arrested at the beginning of July and kept imprisoned until the end of the month on charges of having communicated with Soviet guards across the frontier, using lights as signals.
The paper says the prisoners “were cross-examined in accordance with methods unnecessary for us to describe.”
Messner and Sonnenstein were arrested on July 10th by local gendarmes acting under orders from Captain Gajda, who was also responsible for the shooting of the five Jewish youths at Soroca, according to the “Adeverul.”
On July 15th, the other two partners, Guttman and Heinz, were taken into custody on the same charges, says the paper. At the end of July, a high official of the Jassy Military court arrived and ordered the release of Heinz and Sonnenstein, while the other two were ordered transferred to Balti.
More than a week has passed since the order was given, but the whereabouts of the two Jewish merchants has not yet been discovered, says the “Adeverul.” The families of the arrested have employed every means to discover their whereabouts from civil and military authorities, but without avail.
This has aroused suspicion that the place of imprisonment is kept a secret because the Jews have been badly treated.
The disclosures by the “Adeverul” have brought an order from Minister Halippa commanding that the place of incarceration be established immediately as well as the reasons the Jews were imprisoned for such a long period without trial.
The Club of Jewish Deputies is endeavoring to investigate the case.
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.
