Purim Sacrifice

A Boy's Body was found...

Andrei Yustschinsky

On 20 March (!) 1911 the body of a boy was found on the border of the urban area of Kiev in a clay pit. It was found in a half-sitting position, the hands were tied together upon the back with a cord. The body was dressed merely with a shirt, underpants, and a single stocking. Behind the head, in a depression in the earthen wall, which according to the record of the then Kiev attorney and high school teacher Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch was inscribed with mystical signs, were found five rolled-together school exercise books which bore the name "property of the student of the fore-class, Andrei Yustschinsky, Sophia School"; because of this, the identification was made very shortly. It turned out to be the thirteen-year-old son of the middle-class woman Alexandra Prichodko of Kiev.

The Kievskaya Mysl gave the following report at the time about the discovery of the body: "When the body of the unfortunate boy was carried out of the pit, the crowd shuddered, and sobbing could be heard. The aspect of the slain victim was terrible. His face was dark blue and covered with blood, and a several windings of a strong cord, which cut into the skin, were wrapped around the arms. There were three wounds on the head, which all came from some kind of piercing tool. The same wounds were also on the face and on both sides of the neck. When the boy's shirt was lifted up, the chest, back, and abdomen showed the same piercing wounds. There were two stab wounds in the region of the heart, three on the body and several on the sides. The entire body showed approximately twenty wounds. All of the wounds were apparently inflicted upon the naked body, since the shirt showed no tears. The exposure of these wounds excited the greatest outrage among the crowd."

The forensic medical autopsy found 47 piercing and cutting (336) wounds; the wounds on the head, left temple (1) and neck had produced the fatal exsanguination; the loss of blood had been so considerable that the body was close to being empty of blood.

The physicians rendering their expert opinions, the University professor, lecturer for forensic Medicine, Obolonski and the prosector at the same professorship, Tufanov, reached the following conclusions:
1. All of the wounds found on the body of Yustschinsky were produced while he was alive. Of these wounds, those on the head and neck were inflicted during full cardiac activity, while all other wounds were inflicted while cardiac activity was considerably reduced.
2. Likewise, the hands of the boy were bound and the mouth kept closed while he was living.
3. While these wounds were being inflicted upon him, he was in a vertical (that is, standing) position, with somewhat of an inclination toward the left.
4. A stabbing or piercing object served as the instrument which made the wounds. A portion of the wounds were executed by means of an instrument in the form of an awl or of a stiletto of flat, rectangular shape with an edge of two sides sharpened like a chisel. All other wounds could also have been produced by the same instrument. The first piercing wounds were inflicted upon the boy in the head and neck, and the final ones were inflicted in the heart. With one of the heart-stabs, the blade penetrated the body up to the grip, which left behind an impression on the skin.
5. There had to have been several persons who participated in this crime.
6. The type of the instrument and the multiplicity of the wounds suggest that one of the goals of the murderers was to cause as much agonizing pain to Yustschinsky as possible.(337)
7. There was not more than 1/3 of the entire amount of blood which remained in the body itself; the greatest portion of the blood escaped through the veins of the brain, the arteries at the left temple, and the neck veins.
8. The absence of traces of blood in the ditch where the body was discovered, its situation at the place of discovery, and other circumstances suggest that Yustschinsky was slain at another location and only afterwards dragged into the pit in a condition of rigor mortis and leaned up against its wall, and that therefore the place of discovery is not the scene of the crime. -- (We are reminded of Xanten, Skurz, Konitz, etc.)

Based upon these determinations, another expert, the psychiatrist Professor Sikorski, distinguished three peculiarities which preceded the murder: the gradual withdrawal of blood, the causing of special torments, and last of all the murder by a stab to the heart. The latter followed after the victim had served [his purpose] for the first two goals (withdrawal of blood, as an object for torturing) and when the nearness of death was recognized by the murderers. -- By the circumstance that all wounds were cold-bloodedly produced by a sure and calm hand, by a hand which was accustomed to the slaughtering of animals, Professor Sikorski saw in the technique of this murder an indication that the possibility of such an exact, emotionless and unhurried work was secured for the murderers in corresponding manner, and he came to the conclusion that the slaying of Yustschinsky represented an act which was carefully prepared and which was carried out according to plan under cautious supervision!

The murder excited the public attention of all of Russia -- all the more, when similar events were known from the past, which showed a striking conformity with the existing case.

On 13 May 1911, the Russian Duma was forced to occupy itself with an interpellation which concerned this murder of a boy and which contained the question as to whether the existence of a 'sect' which employed human blood was known to the government, and what it (338) was considering doing to suppress this 'sect.' The interpellations had enclosed a detailed autopsy report in the matter of the murder of the boy Emelyanov which occurred in 1893, from which it clearly emerged that this victim had been murdered according to every rule of ritual-slaughter. -- The reply of the Duma has not become known. At the last Russian trial concerning the attempted murder of the boy Vinzens Grudsinskoi, which had been committed on the night of 2 March (!) 1900, the Ministry of Justice had ordained that questions of ritual-murder were not to be raised! The people, in any case, were convinced that this most recent murder was also a link in the chain of crimes which were all carried out according to a definite system and for a particular purpose.
The Murderers

Immediately after announcement of the crime, the Jewish press displayed an extremely suspicious activity; the Kiev Jewish paper Kievskaya Mysl never grew tired of continually labeling for the court new, naturally non-Jewish persons as the indubitable murderers. In fact, they managed, merely on the basis of information from a press-Jew, to accuse the mother of the murdered boy of the gruesome crime and to put her under lock and key -- she was not allowed to take part even in the burial of her child! We are reminded by this of the entirely similar kind of events in Polna! -- After some time the tormented mother was again set free, since not the slightest suspicion for her guilt had resulted. Then again, suspicion was directed upon the step-father, who was supposed to have committed the murder in order to free himself from his obligation to support [the child], and then, finally, upon other relatives of the murdered boy. This all happened at the instigation of the press-Jew Borchevsky, who had a compliant instrument in the corrupted police chief Mischtschuk. As then later emerged from the speech of the prosecutor, "Mischtschuk had been ordered to believe, and he did believe; he believed that the mother (339) inflicted 47 stab wounds on her child and got rid of him in a sack(2). . . More