Sholom Schwartzbard
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Sholom Schwartzbard (1886 - 1938), known in Russia as Samuil Solomonovich Shvartsbard, was an anarchist and political assassin, who was acquitted by a French jury of the assassination of Symon Petlura.
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Early life
Schwarzbard was born in Smolensk, Russia, in a Jewish family. He grew up in the town of Balta, Ukraine. Schwartzbard had fifteen family members killed in Jewish pogroms, and he himself had survived one such attack during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Since 1905 he lived in Austria-Hungary, where he took part in the anarchist "expropriation" (armed robbery) of a bank in Vienna for which he was sentenced to a time in hard-labor prison. In 1910, at age 24, he settled in Paris and found work in a watch factory, repairing clocks and watches, while keeping his anarchist views. During WWI he served in the French Foreign Legion (1914 - 1917) and was wounded at the Front. In 1917 he returned to Russia, and served in the Soviet Red Army in Ukraine (1918 - 1920). According to some evidence, he served in the cavalry brigade under the command of Grigoriy Kotovskiy, famous Red Army commander of the Russian Civil war.
Sholom Schwartzbard's brother was expelled from France in 1919 for communist propaganda. But Sholom himself managed to move to Paris in 1920, became a citizen of France, opened a clock-and-watch repairshop, and joined an anarchist group. In Paris he got acquainted with prominent anarchists who came to France from Russia and Ukraine, including such figures as Voline, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, as well as Nestor Makhno and his follower Peter Arshinov.
The assassination
In 1917, while travelling to Odessa to join the Red Guards, Schwartzbard reportedly was told of Petlura's responsibility for pogroms in the Ukraine. This was a widely held belief among Jews at the time. However, historian Henry Abramson, in A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920, rejected the notion that Petlura was directly responsible, or that he had control over an infamous 1919 attack in Proskurov in which 1,500 Jews were killed. He did, however, note that Petlura may have been unable to put a stop to the pogroms for fear of losing the loyalty of the army.
In 1926 Schwartzbard assassinated Symon Petlura, the head of the government-in-exile of Ukrainian People's Republic in Paris. On 25 May, 1926, he approached Petlura who was window shopping along a Paris boulevard, and asked in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petlyura?" When Petlura responded in the affirmative, Schwartzbard shouted (according to his later deposition) "Defend yourself, you bandit!" Petlyura raised his cane and Schwartzbard pulled out a gun, shooting him three times, while exclaiming "This, for the pogroms; this for the massacres; this for the victims." When police rushed to him to make their arrest, he reportedly calmly handed over his weapon, saying, "You can arrest me, I've killed a murderer."
He was accused by Ukrainian emigrants of being a Soviet spy. According to Ukrainian historian Michael Palij, a GPU (Soviet secret police) agent named Mikhail Volodin came to Paris that August, they met, and Schwartzbard began stalking Petlura. This account has not been substantiated by other sources.
Schwartzbard was arrested and his trial began on October 18, 1927. His defense was led by Henri Torres, a renowned Jewish-French jurist. The core of the defence was that he was avenging the deaths of victims of the pogroms. After a trial lasting eight days, the jury acquitted him.
After the trial
After 1928 Sholom Schwartzbard moved to the United States with his family.
Schwartzbard died in Cape Town on March 3 1938. 29 years later, his remains were buried in Israel, in accordance with his will.
He is the author of the books "In krig mit zich aleyn" (At War with Myself), and "Inem loif fun yoren" (Over the Years), published in Yiddish in 1933.
References
- SHOLOM SCHWARTZBARD z"l Page with history and pictures
- PETLURA'S ASSASSIN IN HOLLYWOOD "Ukrainian Weekly" article from October 6, 1933he:שלום שוורצבארד