Beasts in Cassocks: The Crimes of the Heads of the Russian Greek Catholic Orthodox Church in America/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII.
Platon Instigates the Beiliss Blood Accusation
The murder just described was not the final chapter in Platon's "exploits." He planned another crime, and if he had been successful, he would have stigmatized the entire Jewish people. He got in touch with the notorious hangman Silberman, whose specialty it was to put to death political offenders, many of whom were entirely innocent of any wrong doing. With the help of Silberman, Platon birbed Vera Cheberiak. This Vera Cheberiak, a woman of the Kiev underworld, first killed her own children in order to avoid suspicion. A few days later the same fate befell the young boy Andrey Yushchinsky who was lured to one of the sheds of Zaitzev's brick factory and murdered. It was Vera Cheberiak who killed him. After the murder, Vera Cheberiak, together with Silberman, who was present at the murder of Yushchinsky, lay in ambush for Mendel Beiliss, foreman of the factory, who, they knew, had to pass the shed on his way to work. He passed that memorable morning as usual and came across Yushchinsky's dead body. Very much frightened, he was about to run away, but the detectives, who lay in wait for him, egged on by the accusations of Vera Cheberiak and Silberman, took him into custody. The Beiliss affair, it will be remembreed, caused a world-wide sensation. Prosecutors and defenders flocked from all ends of the world. My father, in spite of the warnings on the part of a few very important statesmen, asked Feodor Plevako, the well-known barrister, to take upon himself the defense of the innocently accused Beiliss. Plevako together with Karabchevsky and other eminent members of the Russian legal profession, undertook the case. Beiliss was acquitted, and Silberman committed suicide on the spot. Vera Cheberiak was sentenced to hard labor and on the way to Siberia also committed suicide.
It was only on the fourth day I succeeded in seeing Platon and that too, owing to the solicitation of Mr. Popov, Procurator of the Tiflis Synod office. To my request to refund my money, Platon replied: "I'll let you know in a week. I'll probably pay you in dollars, but first I must make inquiries." This was the only time I saw him in Tiflis.