Mendel Beilis -- Picking up the Pieces

This is the summary of the 9^th day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 3 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 16 October, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 321 through 359 of Volume I of the transcript.

See the transcript translation for the ninth day. 

 

 

After confirmation that the pants “belonging to Andrey” were planted by the government on Yurkovsky Hill – which nobody has admitted yet – the court goes back and finishes destroying Vasily Cheberyak’s testimony.

Yesterday he claimed that Zhenya told him two rabbis were involved in grabbing Andrey.  Vasily further claimed that Zhenya said it after Vasily gave both of his depositions.  But both of Vasily’s depositions date after Zhenya’s death, and neither one says anything about rabbis.  Not only has Lyuda’s story been discredited by a couple of dozen adults, Vasily has discredited his own story.

Lyuda’s story was invented by the government in July 1912.  Vasily’s story without the rabbis may represent an earlier story the government invented in 1911 for its judicial murder of Beilis, and he may have originally been chosen to tell it as a father of a family and low-ranking government official; he worked for the postal/telegraph department. 

He also tells the story of Shneerson chasing Zhenya -- all three Cheberyaks tell this, and all three know that the key word sutulovaty refers to Shneerson.  During a past job, I learned that consistent usage of unusual words like this tends to mark information made up by a source and propagated through communication channels.  The same term comes up in testimony by Galkin who claimed to be a founder of the Black Hundreds organization “Two-Headed Eagle.”  The story about the sutolovaty Jew was invented to show that all these Jews in this area were chasing down Christian boys.  It’s not a good story, however, because it “happened” in summer, and that does not coordinate with the Passover element of the blood libel.  So it was kept in the prosecution plans, but the “rabbis” version was the one emphasized at trial.  And ripped to shreds by the defense and their unwitting allies, the ordinary employees and day laborers from the Zaitsev factory.

Today Miller, an ordinary employee of Zaitsev, proves that there was no team of Ettinger and Landau involved in Andrey’s murder.  The Ettinger who was registered at the Zaitsev factory left the country January 27, 1911.  This means not only was he not around for Andrey’s murder, he was not around when the foundation was cleared and laid for the hospice.  Vipper gets upset and drops the whole subject.

In the latter part of today’s testimony, Zamyslovsky tries to get the court to accept Golubev’s self-contradictory testimony as correct and an official report as wrong.  The judge reminds him that official records cannot be questioned without material evidence of inaccuracy, which Golubev’s testimony doesn’t represent.  But he wouldn’t have to do that if he had not made a strategic mistake on day 6 by letting Golubev babble about this.  See also day 19.

Zamyslovsky misrepresents the contents of the official report in his argument.  He testifies that there was only one fence to carry the corpse through when the site survey only three days earlier showed otherwise. 

Zamyslovsky is hand-in-glove with Golubev’s Black Hundreds organization and of one mind with them in supporting the ritual murder charge.  It’s the only charge the government really hopes to win with.  The evidence is stacking up that the charges against Beilis are false and Zamyslovsky realizes without a Jewish murderer, ritual murder has to fall to the ground.  He has staked his future career on winning this case and he is desperate.

Judge:  Fyodor Boldyrev

Prosecution:

            Criminal Prosecutor, Oscar Vipper

            Civil Prosecutor Georgy Zamyslovsky

            Private Civil Prosecutor Aleksey Shmakov

Defense:

            Oscar Gruzenberg

            Nikolay Karabchevsky

            Dmitry Grigorevich-Barsky

            Alexandr Zarudny

            Vasily Maklakov

To Day 10, "The Murder Weapons?"

		Page
Witness	Notes	Transcript	Translation	Statement
Moskalyukova	Andrey’s school seamstress Testifies that pants are forged evidence	322	729	25
Pravdivy	Andrey’s school tailor Testifies that pants are forged evidence	322	730	56
Evgeny Mishchuk	Kiev Chief of Detectives Testified only by deposition	323	733	98
Vasily Cheberyak	Returns and falsifies his own testimony	327	740	152
Father Sinkevich	Black Hundreds leader Gave Zhenya last rites	332	754	415
Galkin	Black Hundreds leader Testifies to gossip and nonsense	336	762	565
Vera Cheberyak	More lies	339	769	693
Rozmitalsky	Black Hundreds member Testifies to nonsense and gossip	342	779	894
Miller	Zaitsev employee Arranged registration and other papers for Ettinger and Landau	346	788	1031
Poznyakov	Black Hundreds member Testified to nonsense and gossip	347	792	1138
Aleksandr Dobzhansky	Brought back to respond to Poznyakov’s nonsense	349	797	1215
Pashchenko	Black Hundreds member Testifies to nonsense and gossip	351	801	1295
Golubev	Brought back to support Pashchenko on fences	351	802	1324
Fenenko	Official record of fence investigation	353	807	1410
Podenkov	Zaitsev employee? Testified about arson	357	814	1479
Samonov	Zaitsev employee Testified about Beilis having no cow in 1911	358	817	1553
Tysovetsky	Zaitsev employee Testified about fence	359	820	1648

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved