The Schwartzbard trial was a sensational 1927 French murder trial in which Samuel "Sholem" Schwartzbard was accused of murdering the Ukrainian immigrant and head of the Ukrainian government-in-exile Symon Petliura. The trial quickly began to revolve around Petliura's responsibility for the 1919-1920 pogroms in Ukraine, during which Schwartzbard had lost all 15 members of his family. During the trial, prosecution alleged that Schwartzbard was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

agent and assassinated Petliura on Soviet orders. This view is still widely held, especially in Ukraine, but is far from universal. Schwartzbard was acquitted of all charges.

Assassination

In 1919, fighting in southern Ukraine as part of the Bolshevik Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (RIAU), led by Grigori Kotovsky, Schwartzbard was told that he had lost 15 members of his family in

pogroms A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews i ...

that had taken place in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

, Ukraine that year. He held Symon Petliura, who was the head of the Directorate of the Ukrainian National Republic, responsible for their deaths. According to his autobiography, after hearing the news that Petliura had relocated to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1924, Schwartzbard became distraught and started plotting Petliura's assassination. A picture of Petliura with

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

was published in ''Encyclopédie Larousse'' and enabled Schwartzbard to recognize him. On 25 May 1926, at 14:12, by the Gibert bookstore, he approached Petliura, who was walking on the Rue Racine near

boulevard Saint-Michel The Boulevard Saint-Michel () is one of the two major streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris, France, the other being the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It is a tree-lined boulevard which runs south from the Pont Saint-Michel on the Seine and Place ...

in the

Latin Quarter, Paris The Latin Quarter of Paris (, ) is an urban university campus in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne. Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistros, t ...

, and asked him in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petliura?" Petliura did not answer but raised his cane. Schwartzbard pulled out a gun and shot him five times and, after Petliura fell to the pavement, shot him twice more. When the police came and asked if he had done the deed, he reportedly said, "I have killed a great assassin."''Time'' magazine
It is reportedMakhno did not allow Schwartzbard to Shoot Petliura (in Ukrainian)
/ref> that he had planned to assassinate Petliura at a gathering of Ukrainian emigrants marking Petliura's birthday, but the attempt was foiled by the

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

Nestor Makhno Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (, ; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ( , ), was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War o ...

, who was also at the function. Schwartzbard had told Makhno that he was terminally sick, was about to die and would take Petliura with him. (Schwartzbard died eleven years after the trial.) The French secret service had been monitoring Schwartzbard since his arrival in Paris, and noted his meetings with known Bolsheviks. During the trial, the German special services also alleged to their French counterparts that Schwartzbard had assassinated Petliura on the orders of an emissary of the Union of Ukrainian Citizens, an intermediary for

Christian Rakovsky Christian Georgiyevich Rakovsky ( – September 11, 1941), Bulgarian name Krastyo Georgiev Rakovski, born Krastyo Georgiev Stanchov, was a Bulgarian-born socialist Professional revolutionaries, revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet Un ...

, an ethnic Bulgarian, a Soviet ambassador to France (1925–27), a former revolutionary leader from Romania, and a former prime minister of the Ukrainian SSR. The act was according to the prosecution consolidated by Mikhail Volodin, who arrived in France on 8 August 1925 and who had been in close contact with Schwartzbard.

The trial

Schwartzbard turned himself in to a nearby gendarme and was arrested at the site of the assassination. Lawyers César Campinchi and Henri Torres led the prosecution and the defense, respectively. After only 35 minutes of deliberation, the jury acquitted Schwartzbard.

The lawyers

For the defense, Henri Torres, grandson of Isaiah Levaillant, the man who founded the "League for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights" during the Dreyfus Affair. Torres was a renowned French left-wing jurist who had previously defended anarchists such as Buenaventura Durruti and Ernesto Bonomini and also represented the Soviet consulate in France. For the prosecution there was the Public Court Commission that was preparing the claim. It was consisting of several Ukrainian statesmen such as Oleksander Shulhyn (former

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

, at that time professor at the Ukrainian Free University), M. Shulhina, Vyacheslav Prokopovych, М. Shumytsky, І. Tokarzhevsky, and L. Chykalenko. The Commission gathered around 70 witness reports including L. Martyniuk, Lieutenant Colonel Butakov, M. Shadrin, Colonels Dekhtiarov and Zorenko, and many others. Explanation letters were sent by Generals Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko, Vsevolod Petrov and A. Cherniavsky. The French people were represented by public prosecutor Reynaud. In the civil suit Madame Olga Petliura ( nee Bilska) and her brother-in-law Oskar were represented by Albert Wilm and Cesare Campinchi (who was the chief prosecution lawyer). Assisting them was Czeslaw Poznansky, an attorney from Poland.

Schwartzbard

Schwartzbard was charged with violations of Articles 295, 296, 297, 298 and 302 of the

French Penal Code The French criminal code () is the Codification (law), codification of French criminal law (). It took effect March 1, 1994 and replaced the French Penal Code of 1810, which had until then been in effect. This in turn has become known as the "old ...

(all of which pertained to premeditated murder and provided for the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

). The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges. Questioned by the prosecutor, Schwartzbard started his testimony poorly. He lied and gave confusing answers to why he had been previously imprisoned in Russia (1906), Vienna (1908) and Budapest (1909). He lied about his age, place of birth and the fact that he had been charged with burglary in Austria twice. He also lied about his service in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, stating that he fought on the side of

Alexander Kerensky Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917 ( N.S.). After th ...

rather than have led a battalion under Kotovsky.

Witnesses

A notable witness for the defense was Haia Greenberg (aged 29) who survived the Proskuriv pogroms where she had worked as a nurse for the Danish

Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...

. She never said Petliura personally participated in the event, but named other soldiers, who said they were directed by Petliura. Torres, however, decided not to call on most of the other 80 witnesses he had prepared for Schwartzbard's defense. Instead, he took a calculated risk and delivered only a short speech, invoking the French Revolution.

I demand a full acquittal for my client. I demand it in the name of the French Revolution, in the name of our nation who died in the World War; in the name of humanity and of the prestige of France, at whom the whole world is looking. The French Revolution first gave emancipation to the Jewish people. The Jews have always been grateful to France. Don't darken those feelings. Not only the fate of Schwartzbard, but the prestige of France rests with you, gentlemen of the jury."

Torres later remarked that had Schwartzbard been found guilty, France would have lost all meaning:

"If I had not been heard, France would have been no longer France and Paris would have been no longer Paris."

Outcome

The jury deliberated for only 35 minutes before acquitting Schwartzbard, whom they viewed as innocent "before God and their conscience." Following the verdict, someone in the courtroom chanted "Vive la France," and the entire courtroom started chanting. Not only was Schwartzbard acquitted, but Petliura's family was ordered to pay for the costs of the trial. The jury rewarded one franc in compensation to Petliura's widow and brother. Schwartzbard became seen by fellow Jews as a heroic avenger of the victims of the pogroms. ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' reported that the outcome of the trial gripped all Europe and was regarded by the Jews as establishing proof of the horrors perpetrated against their co-religionists in Ukraine under the dictatorship of Simon Petliura; radical opinion rejoiced, but the conservatives saw justice flouted and the decorum of the French courts immeasurably impaired.

French press

The French press published detailed accounts and comments relating to the court proceedings. Divergent assessments of the assassination committed by Schwartzbard coincided with the political sympathies and antipathies of the particular newspapers, which fell into three groups: # Those that approved of Schwartzbard stressed the pogroms of the Jewish population and, from the very outset, treated the victim of the assassination as a defendant (the most conspicuous example being the communist newspaper ''

L'Humanité (; ) is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organisation of the SFIO, ''de facto'', and thereafter of the French Communist Party (PCF), and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, would not exist." History ...

'') # Papers restricted themselves to an exact observation of the court trial but refused to print commentaries or did so very cautiously (''

Le Temps ' (, ) is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper published in Berliner format in Geneva by Le Temps SA. The paper was launched in 1998, formed out of the merger of two other newspapers, and (the former being a merger of two other papers), ...

'', ''L'Ere Nouvelle'' or ''

Le Petit Parisien ''Le Petit Parisien'' () was a prominent France, French newspaper during the Third French Republic, Third Republic. It was published between 1876 and 1944, and its circulation was over two million after the First World War. Publishing Despite its ...

'') # Papers portrayed Schwartzbard's crime in an unambiguously negative light and treated the assassin predominantly as a Bolshevik agent (also centrist publications but especially the right-wing '' L'Intransigeant'', '' L'Écho de Paris'' and '' L'Action Française''). The French governing circles, headed by Quai d'Orsay, were not interested in granting the case further publicity, which could cause the already-tense relations with the Soviet Union to deteriorate, which the latter threatened to sever.

Aftermath

According to a defected KGB operative Peter Deriabin, the assassination of Petliura was a special operation by the GPU, and Schwartzbard was an

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

agent and acted on the order from a former chairman of the Soviet Ukrainian government and then- Soviet Ambassador to France,

.UNP requests Chernomyrdin to hand over archive documents about the assassination of Petliura
, Newsru.ua, May 22, 2009"Convenient" assassination
"Tyzhden.ua", June 15, 2011

Mykola Riabchuk Mykola Riabchuk (; born September 27, 1953) is a Ukrainian public intellectual, journalist, political analyst, Literary criticism, literary critic, translator and writer. Riabchuk is known for his analytical articles and essays on Ukrainian poli ...

wrote: "In fact, the trial turned into an ostentatious demonstration of retribution against Ukraine's demonized 'nationalism and separatism'; no Lubianka could ever have come up with anything better."Petlyura
at ukemonde.com. After the Schwartzbard trial, Henri Torres was recognized as one of France's leading trial lawyers and remained active in political affairs. After his acquittal in 1928, Schwartzbard decided to immigrate to the British Mandate of Palestine. The British authorities, however, refused him a visa. In 1933, he traveled the United States where he re-enacted his role in the murder on film. In 1937, Schwartzbard traveled to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, where he died in Cape Town on 3 March 1938. In 1967, his remains were disinterred and transported to Israel, where he was reinterred.

References

Sources

* * ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' ** Vol 6, pp. 2029–30. Paris–New York 1970. ** Vol. 3, 4. "Petliura, Symon", "Schwartzbard Trial", "Pogroms". Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. * * Dokument Sudovoyi Pomylky (Paris: ''Natsionalistychne Vydavnytstvo v Evropi'', 1958); "L'Assassinat de l'Hetman Petlioura." * "L'Assassinat de l"Hetman Petlioura", ''Le Figaro'', May 26, May 27, June 3, 1926.
''Time'' magazine coverage