REMEMBERING BLOODY POGROMS IN UKRAINE

This week in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, a monument to Symon Petliura was erected. Looking at a map of the country, he sits in the town's former Jewish neighborhood known as Yerusalimke.

Petliura led the interwar Ukrainian independence movement and during his reign, vicious, bloody pogroms were carried out against Jewish communities.

Sholem Shvartsbard, a Yiddish poet, watchmaker and anarchist, assassinated Petliura in 1926. Read more here about Shvartsbard's trial and acquittal in France.

Yiddishkayt - August 18  Birthday of Sholem Schwartzbard -
with Henry Torres and Sholom Schwartzbard in Paris, France. 

The Revolutionary Activist & writer, sholem schwartzbard was born on August 18, 1886 in izmail, bessarabia. He settled in Paris after witnessing the violent pogroms in Ukraine while he served in the French Foreign Legion during the Russian civil war between 1919-1920. And 25, 1926, schwartzbard shot symon petliura, the head of independent Ukraine during the Period of mass pogroms, exclaiming " this, for the pogroms! This, for the massacres! This, for the victims, was defended by noted barrister Henry Torres and was acquitted by a jury on the grounds that he was avenging pogrom victims in Ukraine and acting in the name of the conscience of the world.

The International League against racism and anti-Semitism (Licra), the international league against racism and anti-Semitism.

He died while fundraising in Cape Town, South Africa on March 3, 1938.