Memoirs of an Assassin

Sholem Schwartzbard was born in Izmail, Ukraine, and grew up in Balta, where he learned to be a watchmaker. As a youth, Schwartzbard was active in the Russian radical socialist movement and in Jewish self-defense units. In 1910, he settled in Paris and fought in the French army during World War I. In 1917, he joined the Red Guard in Odessa. During the civil war of 1918–1920, pogroms were rampant. Symon Petliura, a Ukrainian nationalist and the minister of war, was perceived to be responsible for the violence. Schwartzbard returned to Paris in 1920 and wrote widely about atrocities committed against Ukrainian Jews. On May 25, 1926, he assassinated Petliura in Paris. The long and sensational murder trial that followed did much to complicate Jewish–Ukrainian relations. Elye Tsherikover and his archive of the Ukrainian pogroms of 1918–1921 played an important role in Schwartzbard’s eventual acquittal. In the last ten years of his life, Schwartzbard traveled and lectured widely. He died in Cape Town.