In the spring of 1939, the Vinnytsia Regional Directorate of the NKVD was preparing to carry out a special operation in the regional center. The security officers had information that a Jewish underground was operating in Vinnytsia, as well as in the towns of Brailiv and Kazatin. These were former rabbis, ritual slaughterers, and synagogue wardens who, in the language of official documents, “conducted anti-Soviet activities among the population” and systematically sent abroad “slanderous information” about the political and economic situation in the USSR. In turn, money was allegedly flowing from the West to support the activities of these “Jewish clericals,” funds that “parasitic elements” were supposedly using for their “anti-Soviet” purposes.
One of these alleged “anti-Soviet agitators” was our protagonist, the warden of the Sadgora Synagogue, Shmul Liberovich Liberzon. This elderly Jew had long been on the radar of the “organs” and was characterized by the security services as a man who supposedly had no clear occupation and lived on money received monthly from America. Yet Shmul Liberzon had worked diligently all his life, raised his children, and held a respected place among the Jews of Vinnytsia.
The Shmul Liberzon who interested the NKVD was born in the village of Svitintsy in the Berdychiv district of Kyiv Province in 1865. He came from a merchant family. His father, Liber Ikhilevich Liberzon, owned distilleries and a grocery shop, and Shmul himself had been involved in leasing mills before the revolution. His brothers — Aron and Pinhas — had also been engaged in the same business.
Alongside their commercial activities, the Liberzons were known throughout Podolia as representatives of a prominent Hasidic lineage. The brother of Shmul Liberzon’s grandfather, Mordko-Aron, was a very well-known rabbi in Berdychiv. Shmul himself received a home religious education and lived an orthodox lifestyle.
Until the First Russian Revolution, Shmul lived in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, and by 1912 he was already listed among the eligible voters.
The turbulent events of the First World War and the ensuing struggle for power in Ukraine took a heavy toll on his family. First, Shmul received the tragic news that his son Motl had been killed in France. Even before the war, Motl Liberzon had gone overseas in search of a better life, was drafted into the American army, and fell heroically on the battlefield in one of the engagements with the Germans.
Another nightmare awaited the family in 1920, when a Petliura unit entered Svitintsy. Shmul Liberovich, his wife Maria Iosifovna, their daughters Ita and Polina, and their sons Mordechai and Yakov barely survived the pogrom.
With the arrival of Soviet power, the pogroms ceased, but life in Soviet Ukraine did not become any calmer. Having said goodbye to his property confiscated by the Bolsheviks, Shmul Liberovich moved with his wife to Vinnytsia in 1928. His sons Pinhas and Ikhel, deprived of voting rights, were forced to settle in Moscow. His daughter Ita also lived there. His son Mordechai, formerly a dental technician in Vinnytsia, began working as a gold expert in Torgsin, where many items without assay marks were brought, simply to feed his family.
Talk of a religious way of life among the younger generation was no longer possible. However, for the head of the family, Shmul Liberzon, the traditions and faith of his ancestors were not empty words. For this, on March 15, 1939, he — a respectable elderly man with a full beard — was arrested and placed in the Vinnytsia prison. After several weeks spent in the NKVD dungeons, the old man became a defendant in a group criminal case opened against members of the Jewish religious communities of Vinnytsia and the towns of Kazatin and Brailiv.
Alongside Liberzon, the security officers arrested the Vinnytsia ritual slaughterer Usher Lerner, Rabbi Meilekh Shapiro, Yaakov Paperny — who had declared himself a tzaddik — former rabbi and Hebrew teacher Iosif Slobodyansky, member of a well-known Hasidic lineage Iosif Ingerleib, Rabbi David Liberman of Brailiv, and melamed Abram Nulman, as well as two men from Kazatin — the melamed Abram Furer and the shochet Chaim Dubrovner.
According to the authorized representative of the Vinnytsia Directorate of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, Glushchenko, who investigated this case, Shmul Liberzon was not only one of the active participants of the “anti-Soviet group” consisting of the above-named individuals, but was also connected to the “admor” living in Moscow — Rebbe Avrum Yoshia Eshel Tversky of Makhnovka. Tversky, or the Makhnovker Rebbe, was the founder of his own Hasidic court, a branch of the well-known Hasidic Chernobyl dynasty. Fearing inevitable arrest by the “Yevsektsiya,” he fled from the Ukrainian SSR to Moscow, where he became the de facto chief rabbi of the USSR.
Shmul Liberzon became a follower of Admor Tversky in 1932. Whenever the Hasidic leader traveled from Moscow to towns and cities of Ukraine, he always stopped in Vinnytsia. During one such visit, Liberzon’s neighbor, Boris Gutman, stopped by and invited him to meet the admor. The so-called “tish,” or ceremonial gathering of the rebbe with his Hasidim, took place in the apartment of Gutman’s acquaintance, where Tversky himself and his close assistant Aron Prus — who had also come from Moscow — were staying.
This meeting made an indelible impression on Shmul Liberzon. Struck by the holiness and erudition of the Makhnovker Rebbe — who was constantly pressured by the authorities yet always able to support Jews with a kind word — Liberzon decided to become his follower. During later visits to Vinnytsia, Admor Tversky would already stay at Shmul Liberovich’s home.
Shmul Liberzon did not limit himself to hosting Tversky in Vinnytsia. According to NKVD information, Admor Tversky, who lived in the Moscow district of Cherkizovo and made slippers for sale due to his strained financial situation, could not devote much time to spiritual matters. To assist the admor, Hasidim in Vinnytsia and other places in Ukraine collected donations. It was Shmul Liberzon who was entrusted by the Hasidim with transporting the money to Tversky.
Another charge brought against Shmul Liberzon was his connection with foreign countries. The authorities accused the elderly man of corresponding with Jewish religious circles in the West, as well as of sending malicious slander about Soviet reality abroad—slander which, they claimed, he, Liberzon, allegedly received money for. According to them, by defaming the Soviet state and social order, he was being paid. “Slander,” in the NKVD’s view, consisted of Liberzon and his associates describing the dire material situation of Ukrainian Jews. In the country of the joyful proletariat, there could be no poor, hungry, or barefoot people!
Nor did it help Liberzon’s defense that his own brother, Aron Liberovich, who lived in Kazatin, had been sentenced by the Vinnytsia Regional Court in December 1935 to a year and a half in prison for the same “offenses.”
In addition to witness statements regarding money received by Liberzon and other defendants from abroad, the NKVD had intercepted letters from the postal service. In one of them, dated March 9, 1930, Rabbi Nokhem Kagan of the town of Kazatin wrote to the Warsaw Committee for Aid to the Jews of Russia about the need to provide material assistance to the poor Jews of Kazatin and to the “people of Torah” passing through the town. In this letter, Shmul Liberzon was named as the person responsible for receiving the aid.
One of the creators of this semi-underground system of material support for religious Jews was the Kyiv Hasid Moyshe Kolikov. In the early 1930s, he managed to negotiate aid for starving Jews in Russia with the London committee “Relief Federation.” Under Moyshe Kolikov’s leadership, a Kyiv branch of the committee was established to organize support for Jews in Ukraine.
In 1935, Kolikov visited Vinnytsia, and on his instructions, Usher Lerner—who would later be tried alongside Shmul Liberzon—compiled lists of rabbis, melameds, and shochets who needed assistance. The funds soon arrived, and Shmul Liberovich became one of the distributors of resources allocated to support synagogues, an underground yeshiva, and to pay rabbis and melameds. Money was sent not only by the London Relief Federation but also from Warsaw, the American HIAS, as well as the aid organizations for religious Jews “Ezras-Torah,” “Ezras-Tzadikim,” and several others.
According to witness Iyoina Bisk, among the Jews of Vinnytsia who had heard about the monetary transfers, Shmul Liberovich had a reputation as a wealthy man. Although, in reality, none of these funds were intended for Liberzon himself. Receiving money transfers via the “Torgsin” system, he purchased food and organized a full-fledged dining hall in his own home. Every day, 16 people came to eat there. Before the holiday of Pesach, Shmul Liberzon distributed money for the purchase of matzah, never refusing help to anyone.
The authorities could not stand by for long while an alternative social-welfare system was forming right under their noses. The police burst into Liberzon’s home with a search warrant and seized about 300 dollars. Receiving money transfers from abroad was still perfectly legal, but now Shmul Liberovich had to spend the funds as quickly as possible, fearing another raid for foreign currency.
Sometimes, instead of money, Liberzon received parcels from abroad. They contained ritual items that were impossible to obtain in the Soviet Union. Thus, Rabbi Iosif Shapiro, who had left for Palestine in 1934, lived in Haifa, and served in the Chief Rabbinate, sent several parcels to Liberzon in Vinnytsia containing thick-skinned citrons (“etrogim” in Hebrew) for the holiday of Sukkot. In the investigation files, these parcels from Shapiro — who headed the Aid Society for Poor Jews in the USSR — were grandly labeled as Liberzon’s “contacts” with Palestine.
The interrogations of Shmul Liberzon began on March 16, 1939, starting with questions about his occupation. According to the arrested man, he had no job in Vinnytsia, and the money he lived on with his wife came from the Red Cross. It was compensation from America for the son Shmul Liberovich had lost in the First World War. This pension supported not only him but also the family of his son Mordechai, who lived in Vinnytsia.
What interested the security officers, however, were completely different money transfers and parcels. Hearing nothing about funds from foreign “bourgeois-nationalist organizations,” Investigator Glushchenko shifted to the topic of the Makhnovker Rebbe’s visit to Vinnytsia in 1937. “Tell me, who visited Tversky when he stayed with you?” the junior lieutenant asked. Out of the 15 people who attended the gathering, Liberzon managed to “recall” only the rabbi Shapiro arrested alongside him, the self-proclaimed tzaddik Yaakov Paperny, and the elderly religious man Meir Zilberman. The investigator was not satisfied with this answer and demanded that Liberzon name the Hasidim of Tversky from Vinnytsia whom he knew. To this, the arrested man replied tersely: “I do not know.”
At the next interrogation, held on March 21, 1939, Glushchenko demanded that the Hasid confess to participating in an anti-Soviet clerical organization, but Liberzon again did not admit guilt.
A week later, on March 27, 1939, the security officer again pressed Liberzon, asking whether he acknowledged guilt under Articles 54-4, 54-10 Part 2, and 54-11 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR. “The investigation has information that you are a participant in an anti-Soviet clerical organization. Tell us when and how you were drawn into it.” And once again, the prisoner delivered a concise reply: “I am not a member of any anti-Soviet clerical organization.”
Shmul Liberovich admitted guilt only in taking part in a “gathering” at the apartment of Iyoina Froimovich Bisk, the former caretaker of the Sadgora Synagogue. In the terminology of the Soviet security services, a “gathering” referred to an illegal prayer service.
After the communists closed the Sadgora (also called Sendager) Synagogue in January 1938, the Jews of Vinnytsia were forced for about five months to meet illegally in the synagogue caretaker’s lodge, which also served as the apartment of Iyoina Bisk.
At his interrogation on April 4, 1939, Rabbi Meilakh Shapiro stated that Shmul Liberzon had been the gabbai of the Sadgora Synagogue. After the synagogue’s rabbi, Meilakh’s uncle Iosif Shapiro, left the USSR, Liberzon went to see Meilakh in Tomashpol and suggested that he serve in place of the rabbi who had departed for Palestine. According to Rabbi Meilakh Shapiro, Shmul Liberovich was part of an initiative group that opposed the closure of synagogues and repeatedly gathered Jews to decide how they should act under the Bolshevik assault on religion.
At his interrogation on May 25, 1939, witness and synagogue caretaker Iyona Bisk described the first illegal prayer gatherings (minyans) after the closure of the Sadgora Synagogue: “When the synagogue was closed, I was forbidden to let anyone in…but despite this…a group of elderly religious men burst into my apartment and from then on began to gather again.”
But praying illegally in the caretaker’s lodge was dangerous, so the congregants, led by Liberzon, began going to another synagogue in the city — the Gefter Synagogue. At first, the Jews believed they could obtain justice at the local level, but very soon realized that all decisions were made in Kyiv. They resolved to act based on Soviet legislation.
In the summer of 1938, a lawyer named Levin from the town of Voronovytsia came to Shmul Liberzon and promised to go to Kyiv and secure the reopening of the religious building. He did not work for free, asking one thousand rubles. Shmul Liberovich suggested that members of his community, Chaim-Ber Milman and Meir Garber, contribute toward the fee. Soon more people — regular attendees of the Sadgora Synagogue — joined the initiative group, and the required sum was collected. Levin received his fee, but his efforts were unsuccessful. In Kyiv, the Vinnytsia Jews were denied a review of the decision depriving the community of its building.
The authorities were aware that even after the final decision to close the Sadgora Synagogue, the “group of twenty” — including Shmul Liberzon and his fellow believers — continued to violate Soviet law. The synagogue’s communal fund, where worshippers deposited money for repairs, heating, and similar expenses, continued to operate. From these funds, material aid was provided to Rabbi Shapiro, Cantor Shneerson, and other community leaders. This continued until September 1938, that is, several more months after the synagogue’s closure.
But the battle for the closed Sadgora Synagogue was not Liberzon’s first. In 1935, Shmul Liberzon had been among the initiators of returning to the Jews of Vinnytsia the so-called Great Synagogue, or “Golt-Shile.” Investigator Glushchenko was well aware of this and, during yet another interrogation, decided to return to that story. With feigned surprise, he asked the accused: “If you had nothing to do with the ‘Golt-Shile’ synagogue, why then were you petitioning for its reopening?”
Shmul Liberzon replied that shortly before the closure of the “Golt-Shile” synagogue he had been invited to serve there as gabbai. In that role, he began restoring the building, allocating about 400 rubles from his own funds. But the Bolsheviks arrived and sealed the synagogue. Shmul Liberovich himself, along with a community representative named Groisman, went to Kyiv to submit a petition. At the Kyiv synagogue, Jewish acquaintances advised Liberzon to approach a certain lawyer who, they promised, could break through the bureaucratic wall. That “wall” was embodied by the chairman of the Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, Petrovsky, with whom the community’s legal representative made an appointment. Petrovsky was not present at his workplace, but his secretary promised that the “Golt-Shile” synagogue would be returned to the faithful.
Not letting the arrested man finish his story, the investigator cut him off mid-sentence: “Besides Kyiv, where else did you travel to petition for the synagogue?” Shmul Liberovich admitted that he had gone to Moscow as well. In Moscow, he was even received at the secretariat of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but the bureaucrats’ answer was disappointing: “The synagogue was closed correctly and will not be returned.”
Methodically steering Shmul Liberzon and his “accomplices” toward criminal charges, the Vinnytsia NKVD was determined to “sew onto them” participation in an underground organization. During the interrogation of July 14, 1939, Junior Lieutenant Glushchenko came in strong: “Tell me, why did you conceal from the investigation your membership in the organization Akhdus?” — “I am poorly educated and simply forgot, until Lerner Usher reminded me.”
During a face-to-face interrogation with Usher Lerner, Liberzon suddenly “remembered” that in 1931 or 1932, after the Saturday prayers, Rabbi Iosif Shapiro had addressed those gathered. Before a crowd of about a hundred people, Shapiro urged them to jointly seek the opening of kosher shops, the construction of the mikvahs that Vinnytsia lacked, and the freedom to study the Talmud. Fully supporting the appeal of his spiritual mentor, Liberzon supposedly joined the organization. Shmul Liberzon described his involvement in Akhdus modestly: he gave about 50 rubles and attended the Talmud school that, after Iosif Shapiro left for Palestine, was run by his nephew Meilakh and the Talmudist Meir Gerber. He also admitted that he allocated to this “Talmud school” a portion of the funds he received from abroad.
On August 9, 1939, Shmul Liberzon received the materials of his case for review. In the report written by Komolov, Deputy Special Prosecutor of the Vinnytsia Region, it was stated that Shmul Liberzon, being a Hasid of Admor Tversky, organized illegal gatherings in his home and used funds received from America to finance a Talmud school that operated illegally in Vinnytsia. It also contained his admission that since 1932 he had been a member of the anti-Soviet nationalist organization Akhdus.
Taking into account the “social danger” of the accused Shmul Liberzon and the other defendants, their case was sent for review by the Special Council under the NKVD of the USSR.
The meeting of the Special Council took place on October 17, 1939, in Moscow. For belonging to an anti-Soviet group and for agitation, Shmul Liberzon was sentenced to three years of exile in Kazakhstan. The elderly man had to leave his wife and children and depart for the outskirts of the Soviet Union. The Liberzon family home, which he and his wife had once been able to purchase with money received from the Red Cross, was seized by the Soviet authorities. Later, one of Vinnytsia’s technical colleges was housed in that building.
In 1945, after spending all the war years in exile, Shmul Liberovich returned to Vinnytsia a gravely ill man. After spending a few days with his son Mordechai, the Vinnytsia Hasid was taken to a hospital, where he soon passed away.
Only in November 1995 was Shmul Liberovich Liberzon rehabilitated on the basis of the Law of Ukraine of April 17, 1991, No. 962-XII, “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Repressions of the Communist Totalitarian Regime of 1917–1991.”
Community leaders such as Shmul Liberzon preserved, at the cost of their own freedom, the light of the Torah and the hope of a swift return to Zion for future generations. Fighting for the restoration of synagogues desecrated by the communist authorities and helping Jews survive during the years of the Holodomor, Shmul Liberzon was ground down by the gears of the Soviet Moloch, never for a moment forgetting the commandment: “You shall love the Lord your G-d…”
15.11.2022
Shmul Liberzon
1865 – 1945
