Mendel Beilis -- Vera's first testimony

This is the summary of the 8^th day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 2 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 15 October, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 272 through 320 of Volume I of the transcript.

 See the transcript translation for the eighth day. 

 

I call this Liars’ Day.  We hear from all the Cheberyaks, all of whom tell falsehoods on the stand, as well as more falsehoods from Polishchuk, who once worked for Krasovsky and later threw him under the bus over 75 kopecks so that the government could say Krasovsky had been tried for government corruption. 

Lyuda comes first of the Cheberyaks; her story was invented by the government in July 1912 and is a variant on her father’s story.  Zhenya’s three depositions from 1911 are read out; the last one denies what the first two admit, that Andrey was at his house in March, 1911.  Vera tells her 8^th or 9^th set of lies and changes her story 3 times when Vipper pushes her on why she didn’t go to the police with Zhenya’s supposed story.  Vasily tries to tell the story from his 1911 deposition, and also the story Lyuda was taught.  All of these stories have been refuted by testimony from over 80 prior witnesses. 

Lyuda testifies that Polishchuk threatened her with death if she testified against Beilis.  It was after Zhenya’s death but before Valya’s.  It’s probably the only true thing she says the whole day.

The cake is a red herring.  I discuss Zhenya’s death in my “murder mystery” The Anvil.

I included tons of notes on Polishchuk’s testimony.  I feel it is important that whoever reads this transcript knows how his testimony relates to the chronology of the case, to what other witnesses say, and even to himself because he contradicts himself.  Newspaperman Yablonsky will say on day 19 that when Vera tells the truth she lies and if she talks in her sleep, that’s probably lies too.  Meet the masculine version of that statement. Watch Gruzenberg take him apart into little tiny bits on the stand. 

One of the things that happens today is that Boldyrev seems to wake up and start coming down on hearsay and gossip.  From this point on he stops any witness who says “I heard” or “they told me” and can’t give a name for the source.   He starts with Polishchuk who conveniently blames most of his hearsay on Moishe Arendar or his wife, neither of whom is in court on this day.  Moishe wasn’t much involved in testimony and his wife not at all. 

Another thing, fairly funny when you think of it, is that after the defense rips Polishchuk to shreds, Vipper starts treating him like a hostile witness, as we would say in the U.S.  Tager’s work showed that Polishchuk was paid by Opanasenko of the Black Hundreds; he wrote Chaplinsky a letter about it in 1912.  For Polishchuk to testify, I believe, is a substitute for putting a real government spy on the stand or reading out his deposition in court – or else admitting that Vygranov never was deposed. 

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 9, "Picking up the Pieces" 
 

		Page
Witness	Notes	Transcript	Translation	Statement
Bogdanovsky	Lived on Zaitsev property Testified about fence	272	603	1
Aron Beilis	Mendel’s brother Testified about milk cow	273	605	48
Adam Polishchuk	Krasovsky’s “assistant’ Agent for Black Hundreds	277	613	146
Lyudmila Vasilevna Cheberyak	Tells government “two rabbis” story	295	659	934
Evgeny Vasilevich Cheberyak	Zhenya.  Testified by deposition.  Died August 1911 of bismuth poisoning	300	674	1312
Vera Vladimirovna Cheberyak	Liar in chief	303	680	1389
Vasily Petrovich Cheberyak	Mr. Liar in chief	318	718	1923

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved