24 Facts About Sholem Schwarzbard

Samuel "Sholem" Schwarzbard was a Russian-French Yiddish poet.

Sholem Schwarzbard served in the French and Soviet military, was a communist and anarchist, and is known for organising Jewish community defense against pogroms in the pre-First World War era and the Russian Civil War era in Ukraine, and for the assassination of Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura in 1926.

Sholem Schwarzbard wrote poetry in Yiddish under the pen name of Baal-Khaloymes.

Sholem Schwarzbard's three older brothers died as children and his mother died whilst he was a child.

Sholem Schwarzbard was released with the general amnesty granted as part of post-revolutionary tsarist "leniency".

Sholem Schwarzbard's left arm was left virtually useless, and he was awarded the Croix de guerre for his courage in the World War.

Sholem Schwarzbard was demobilized in August 1917 and in September, traveled with his wife to the Russian Republic, established after the February Revolution.

Sholem Schwarzbard later traveled to Petrograd, where he joined and served in the politically mixed Red Guards.

Sholem Schwarzbard commanded a unit of 90 sabers in the brigade of Grigory Kotovsky.

Sholem Schwarzbard had himself tried to establish independent anarchist schools, but was willing to work with the Bolsheviks as they increasingly centralized the school system.

Sholem Schwarzbard's unit suffered defeat from the combined forces of Petliura and Denikin, who were uneasy allies at the time.

Sholem Schwarzbard was in Kyiv when both the Ukrainian and White Armies entered the city, his unit having been wiped out and disbanded.

Sholem Schwarzbard again managed to take a train back to Odesa, where he was betrayed by a fellow anarchist to the White forces in control of the city.

Sholem Schwarzbard was back in Paris by 21 January 1920.

Sholem Schwarzbard was acquainted with prominent anarchist activists who had emigrated from Russia and Ukraine, including such figures as Volin, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, as well as Nestor Makhno and his follower Peter Arshinov.

In Paris Sholem Schwarzbard became a member of the "Union of Ukrainian citizens".

Sholom Sholem Schwarzbard, who had lost his family in the 1919 pogroms, held Symon Petliura responsible for them.

In 2006, Russian intelligence specialists stated, in a series of volumes on the Soviet secret services, that Sholem Schwarzbard worked as an agent of the Joint State Political Directorate at the time of Petliura's assassination, and speculated that he may have been carrying out orders for the regime which benefitted from Petliura's death.

Sholem Schwarzbard immediately pulled out a gun and shot him five times.

Sholem Schwarzbard was arrested and was put on trial by the Public Court Committee on 18 October 1927.

Sholem Schwarzbard's defense was led by Henri Torres, a renowned French jurist who had previously defended anarchists such as Buenaventura Durruti and Ernesto Bonomini and who represented the Soviet consulate in France.

The core of Sholem Schwarzbard's defense was to attempt to show that he was avenging the deaths of victims of pogroms, whereas the prosecution tried to show that Petliura was not responsible for the pogroms and that Sholem Schwarzbard was a Soviet agent.

Sholem Schwarzbard never said that Petliura personally participated in the event, but rather some other soldiers who said that they were directed by Petliura.

Sholom Sholem Schwarzbard's papers are archived at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York.