120 Years Since the Blood Libel in the Village of Baden
In memory of the Jews from the villages surrounding Lancut
By: Yaakov Rosenfeld
Simple and pure-hearted Jews lived for ceturies in the villages around Lancut. Hard-working and dedicated Jews who worshipped their Creator, gave charity, welcomed guests, and learned Torah as much as they could.
We will tell about one of these Jews here, a kind-hearted and upstanding Jew who, about forty years before the outbreak of the Holocaust, died in sanctification of the Name of G-d due to a blood libel.
In the village of Baden, there lived an 86-year-old Jew named Yaakov Bialobrzeger, and for his livelihood he kept a tavern, where the gentile villagers used to gather and revel.
Fights, beatings, the breaking of objects, and injuries were nothing new in the tavern. They were commonplace. It was just that the ignorant gentiles were alcoholics and would very quickly begin to vent their frustration and their dark passions on each other.
And things could have escalated into destruction and bloodshed every day, were it not for the figure of Yaakov Bialobrzeger and his firm authority. Yes. This man who was blind in one eye, old and weak, ruled his small kingdom courageously and knew how to quell any fight while it was still hostility. This is how things went for many years, and this is how, more or less, Yaakov dealt with Gregor, the hated drunken villager.
Gregor was exceptional in his hatred and ignorance. While the fumes of the alcohol were rising to his mind, he would boast and recount his heroism and exploits in the recent pogrom against the Jews.
With a feeling of superiority, he would proudly tell about the beards he had torn off the faces of Jews with his own hands, and about his part in the murder and beating of Jews. His words would infuriate the old man Yaakov to the point that the gentiles saw the two men as sworn enemies, but, as mentioned, Yaakov knew how to deal with Gregor and things never got out of hand.
On a summer day in 5665 (1905), the village of Baden, in the Lancut district, was shaken. Gregor’s body was found in a wheat field on the outskirts of the village. Witnesses were immediately found, who testified that they had seen with their own eyes an old, gray-haired Jew running from Gregor’s field toward the tavern with an axe in his hand. The witnesses, of course, also heard terrible screams from the direction of the field but did not dare to approach.
Suspicion quickly fell on Yaakov Bialobrzeger and he was arrested. Forty witnesses from the village gathered together to make one difficult and dangerous claim, the result of which was death. It seemed that all the hatred or awe of the figure of Yaakov, who ruled his kingdom with a high hand, was suddenly drained into a show of blind hatred and joy for the dead. Everyone prepared for the trial that became the talk of the day not only in the village of Baden but throughout the surrounding area.
Yaakov was brought before a jury headed by Mr. Pashkowski. The Jewish community in Lancut hired the services of an expert lawyer, and so the trial proceeded, centered on the incisive testimony that came out like a chorus from the mouths of forty residents of the village of Baden: “With our own eyes we saw an old Jew fleeing from the field. With our own ears we heard screams and cries for help.”
During the trial, Pashkowski asked Yaakov why he was blind in one eye, and the “accused,” a pure-hearted and truthful Jewish man, innocently replied: “In my youth I was strong and heroic, and I did not want to be drafted into the army, so I poured a lot of salt into one eye until I lost my sight in it.”
The court sentenced Yaakov to death, and in its reasoning added: A person who is capable of such cruelty to himself and of blinding himself is certainly capable of committing murder. The court, carried away as usual by the general atmosphere, did not take into account that 60 years had already passed since that story…
The verdict fell on the entire area like thunder on a clear day, since such a blood libel had not occurred for many years. The Jews of Lancut came to the rescue for the man sentenced to death. Not only that, but the two city dayanim (rabbinical court judges), Rabbi Chaim Reuven Wagschal and the Rabbi Baruch Passes, set out on a fundraising campaign across cities and towns in preparation for the appeal that was filed on behalf of the community by the lawyer Mr. Rosenblatt of Krakow. The lawyer’s assistant was the deputy mayor of Reisha (Rzeszów), Attorney Hochfeld.
In the month of Kislev (in the fall) the appeal was filed in the court of Reisha. Every Jew in Lancut left his business and marched on the court building. The hall itself was full of Jews, and some of the judges were also Jews. All forty witnesses came to tell their version and the atmosphere was tense.
The appeal lasted four days, and the decision was supposed to be given on a Friday evening, around the time that Shabbat was to begin.
That Shabbat night, the Jews of Lancut did not sit down for the Shabbat meal. They were impatiently awaiting the court’s decision, and then the news arrived: the court had acquitted the accused of all guilt.
Suddenly the atmosphere was electrified and a sense of a holiday spread through their hearts. Wild dances were organized in the streets, and the revelers could not rest until they gathered for a “demonstration of rage” in front of the plaintiff’s house.
It is possible that the celebrants went overboard, as the angry prosecutor quickly filed an appeal against the verdict, and within a short time Yaakov was arrested again. At the trial held in the month of Adar (winter), the attorney Rosenblatt did not appear, but was content to issue a written statement, according to which the organizers of the trial had one goal: to incite the Christian population against the Jews.
This time, the defendant was defended by Dr. Gerek from Lvov, a well-known Christian lawyer, but the result was bleak. The verdict convicted Yaakov and sentenced him to four years in prison.
Yaakov Biaobrzeger served his sentence in the Brigidki prison in Lvov, but his heart could not bear the pain. A year and a half later, he fell ill and died in prison. Before his death, he asked for a rabbi to be brought before him, and his last words were: “I am innocent. They have fabricated a false accusation against me, they wanted to kill me for doing nothing wrong.”
As an aside, this prison is notorious for the events of the “Prison Aktion” in which the Ukrainians murdered over four thousand Jews of Lvov in the Brigidki prison. The bloodthirsty Ukrainian murderers slaughtered without mercy for days and nights without anyone forcing them to do so. We must not forget the behaviour of the Ukrainians during the Holocaust, and in particular in the city of Lvov. We will write about the events of the “Prison Aktion” seperately.
This story stirred Lancut and its residents for a long time. The Jews of Lancut and the townspeople, especially the youth, had a hard time digesting the disaster. The affair was a harsh reminder for them of forgotten days of bloodshed and persecution.
Let these words be in memory of the people of the villages and towns around Lancut, innocent and honest Jews, of whom there are almost no survivors of the days of wrath, the Holocaust of European Jewry.
