The Velizh Affair

by Eugene M. Avrutin

  pletely empty, filled only with air. Whoever punctured the boy fourteen

  times, the report concluded, did so to draw blood.8

  On May 5, Inspector Lukashevich made a thorough search of Mirka

  Aronson’s house, paying particular attention to the kitchen, tool shed,

  and stable, and was not able to uncover any evidence that linked Mirka

  or any other members of the household (her daughter Slava, son- in- law

  Shmerka Berlin, grandson Hirsh, and granddaughter- in- law Shifra)

  with the murder. He then asked to take a look at the cellar, but Berlin

  replied that the house had none. Lukashevich later learned that the

  house was equipped with two cellars— the first one located in the foyer,

  the other in the lavka (trade shop) where goods and spirits were sold.

  When asked why he had concealed the truth, Berlin replied that he did

  not see the point of showing them to the inspector: “Both cellars are

  in the most decrepit shape, and there is absolutely nothing in them.”

  Clearly, Berlin felt that he had much to lose if the authorities uncovered

  anything remotely suspicious.9

  Registered officially as a merchant of the third guild, Shmerka Berlin

  occupied a respected place in the social hierarchy of the town. Not only

  did he make quite a bit of money selling lumber and spirits and man-

  aging the only glass factory in the provincial district, but he also mar-

  ried into an affluent family that lived in the most magnificent house in

  Velizh. Mirka Aronson’s two- story brick house was located in the center

  of the town. The southern side of the house overlooked the marketplace

  and town hall, while the western side faced Il’inskaia Street— one of the

  town’s main thoroughfares, populated mostly by Jews. Considered large

  by any standard, the house had a grand total of twenty- four rooms, thir-

  teen of which were located on the first floor. A tavern and grocery store,

  at least three trading stalls, two cellars (one of which was equipped with

  a secret staircase), and several additional chambers all could be found

  on the first level. Together with his wife Slava, Shmerka occupied one of

  the more spacious chambers on the ground floor, while their daughter

  and her husband slept in a slightly smaller one. Mirka Aronson spent

  20

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  the Velizh affair

  A postcard of the marketplace. Mirka Aronson’s house is the fourth building from the right. Velizh Museum

  much of her time in an adjoining wing of the house, comprising six

  additional rooms.

  In Velizh, as in other market towns in the western borderlands, the

  boundaries between rural life and urban civilization were never rigid.

  This was also the case for the Aronson household.10 Visitors would

  walk up to a sturdy iron gate on Il’inskaia Street, where they would be

  greeted by a domestic servant and escorted inside the courtyard. Here,

  they would find goats, roosters, and other domestic animals, a modest

  garden, and encounter all the sights and smells of small- town life. The

  courtyard was separated into two distinct sections by a long wooden

  fence. Several small wooden structures lined the eastern side of the

  property, including a guesthouse reserved for visitors, tool shed, stable,

  outhouse, and a wooden hut composed of three modest rooms built

  especially for the domestic servants.

  Thanks to Miron Ryvkin’s historical- ethnographic recollections (one

  of the earliest and most penetrating accounts of the case), it is possible

  to get a glimpse of details that are strikingly absent from the official

  feDOr gOes fOr a walk

  21

  judicial records.11 On any weekday this imposing structure was the site

  of much activity and commotion. Customers from various parts of the

  town as well as the surrounding villages would come to drink beer or

  vodka at the tavern or purchase food from what was considered to be the

  town’s best- stocked grocery store. Besides alcohol, they could acquire

  buns, cottage- cheese cakes, pickled herring, fruits, coffee, tea, tobacco, matches, candles, and so much more.12 Visitors who came to town on

  business would walk up the wooden staircase to the traktir (inn), where they could get a bite to eat in the dining room and retire for the night in one of the guest rooms. From time to time the poor and needy showed

  up on the doorstep as well: Mirka Aronson, it seems, was well known

  for her exceptional generosity. Aronson’s two sons lived quite comfort-

  ably only a few doors away on Il’inskaia Street, while Shmerka Berlin’s

  brother lived right around the corner on Petersburg Street, next to

  two of Velizh’s most prominent personalities, the town councilor Evzik

  Tsetlin and his wife Khanna. On Saturdays and on holidays, the entire

  extended family— around forty people in all— would gather for a meal

  on the second level of the house.

  Without the support of their Christian neighbors, neither Shmerka

  Berlin nor Khanna Tsetlina would have been able to operate successful

  taverns. According to Ryvkin, all the respected residents of the town—

  from the wealthiest Polish landowners to the most powerful imperial

  bureaucrats— could be spotted, from time to time, at either Berlin’s or

  Tsetlina’s tavern.13 We should, however, be careful not to paint life in

  Velizh as a multicultural idyll. The day- to- day exchange of goods and

  services not only brought people together but also produced many of

  the conflicts and quarrels between town residents. This was a world that

  was consumed by petty disagreements, disputes, jealousy, and gossip.

  And as in so many other small towns and villages around the world,

  communal unity in Velizh represented an ideal far removed from what

  was taking place in everyday life.14

  If Mirka Aronson and Shmerka Berlin were regarded as upstanding

  members of the community, Anna Eremeeva and Maria Terenteeva

  were considered to be two of the town’s most marginal characters.

  Anna had lived a hand- to- mouth existence in and around Velizh for

  more than twelve months when the boy’s lifeless body was first discov-

  ered. On March 25, about a month before Fedor disappeared, Anna

  2

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  the Velizh affair

  found herself in the village of Sentiury. While out on a walk, she sud-

  denly felt weak and fell asleep on the side of the road. The townsman

  Larion Pestun noticed Anna curled up sleeping in the shrubby grass

  and decided to take her to his warm bathhouse. Fast asleep for two days

  and two nights, Anna dreamed of the archangel Mikhail, who took

  her by the arm and whispered in her ear that the Jews would murder

  a Christian soul on Easter Day. This was not the only time that Anna

  had dreamed of the archangel Mikhail: on Easter eve, he appeared to

  her one more time, revealing that Jews would seize a Christian soul

  and bring him to Mirka Aronson’s home. When Agafia Prokof’eva

  came to Sentiury to inquire about little Fedor’s whereabouts, Anna told

  her: “On the way here you walked into the very home where they’re

  keeping your son. If you have the strength to rescue the boy, then do

  so. But if you don’t m
ake it on time, then stay vigilant and watch over

  [the house].”15

  Like Anna, Maria Terenteeva had lived in Velizh for a year or two

  at the time of the investigation (it is impossible to determine for sure

  from the archival records), surviving on whatever food and money

  A postcard of Smolensk Street. The marketplace and the town council are in the background. Velizh Museum

  feDOr gOes fOr a walk

  23

  she could find. She married a man who spent most of his adult life

  serving in the army. Several residents testified that Terenteeva had

  led a “debauched” lifestyle ever since she came to town— giving birth

  to a son out of wedlock, stealing food every chance she could, and

  walking in the streets at all hours of the night screaming, “God help

  me, they’re trying to suffocate me.”16 Abram Kisin remembered first

  encountering Terenteeva during broad daylight, when he caught her

  stealing carrots and beets from his yard. Once he confronted her,

  Terenteeva “hit him so hard that he barely made it back home that

  day.” On other occasions, as well, Terenteeva would come by Kisin’s

  house in a fit of rage to steal fresh vegetables from the garden or throw

  clean linens on the ground and stomp on them with her bare feet in

  a wild rage.17

  Terenteeva testified that on Easter Day she begged for alms in

  front of a church and chatted briefly with a woman who was passing

  by. Afterward, she made her way to the outskirts of town, seeking

  charitable handouts along the way. It was already nightfall when she

  made her way to the Konevetse Creek, at which time she saw two

  small children standing on the bridge. One was a boy with white-

  blond hair, wearing a cap and dressed in a coat and boots. At that

  precise moment, Terenteeva recalled, Khanna Tsetlina walked up to

  the boy and took him away by the arm. Although Terenteeva did not

  say anything about the whereabouts of the other child, she claimed

  that Tsetlina took the boy back to her own home, where four Jewish

  women were waiting for her. Terenteeva was not certain if the women

  had come from Shmerka Berlin’s home, but she was confident that

  she would be able to identify at least two of them. She then described

  her encounters with Emel’ian Ivanov and Agafia Prokof’eva and con-

  cluded the deposition by saying that Emel’ian had refused to believe

  a word she had said.18

  Maria Terenteeva’s testimony proved absolutely devastating for the

  Jews. Over the course of several weeks, authorities questioned dozens

  of town residents, both Jews and Christians, focusing their attention on

  four primary suspects— Evzik and Khanna Tsetlin, Mirka Aronson, and

  Shmerka Berlin— and on the missing spring britzka. Emel’ian Ivanov’s

  sister- in- law, Kharitina Prokof’eva, was convinced by all the talk that

  the Jews had murdered her nephew. Another town resident, Efim’ia

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  the Velizh affair

  Fedorova, heard from one of her neighbors that the Jews took the little

  boy inside their school, where they proceeded to torture and kill him.

  Avdot’ia Maksimova, who worked as a housekeeper for Khanna Tsetlina

  (and would later play an important role in the case), testified that she

  had not seen a Christian boy at the house and had not seen Tsetlina

  walk outside that day. Eleven other witnesses— representing a broad

  cross section of the population— declared that they, too, had not seen

  Jews with the young boy and had no knowledge of who had committed

  the crime. They acknowledged, however, that the Jews must have been

  involved in the murder. The investigators then proceeded to question

  twelve more people. Two testified that Shmerka Berlin’s and Khanna

  Tsetlina’s behavior had always been excellent; eight said they did not

  suspect either Berlin or Tsetlina of doing anything malicious; but all

  twelve were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Jews had

  killed the little boy.19

  The court records demonstrate how influential tales of blood sac-

  rifice had become in the mindset of the town residents. Witness after

  witness asserted that Jews had ritually murdered the boy, even though

  no one had actually seen them do this. The only person other than

  Maria Terenteeva who claimed to have observed Khanna Tsetlina with

  a Christian boy was Daria Kasachevskaia. On Easter Day, at either

  one or two o’clock in the afternoon, Kasachevskaia went to Shmerka

  Berlin’s tavern to purchase beer. On the way, she saw Khanna Tsetlina

  with a blond- haired boy who was dressed in either a blue or green caf-

  tan. Kasachevskaia surmised that Tsetlina and the little boy were walk-

  ing to town from either the embankment or the creek, but she had no

  idea where they were going. After purchasing the beer, Kasachevskaia

  returned home immediately and did not see either Tsetlina or the boy

  again that afternoon. It seems likely that Kasachevskaia based her nar-

  rative on the many tales that were circulating around town, for when

  authorities pressed her for additional testimony she could not remember

  anything else.20

  Over the course of the investigation, tsarist officials attempted to

  obey the letter of the law by not casting blame on any suspects until

  they had interviewed all possible witnesses, exhausted all possible

  lines of inquiry, and reviewed all the forensic evidence. And as they

  feDOr gOes fOr a walk

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  questioned more and more people, and gathered more and more evi-

  dence, communal tensions began to rise. How could they not? The

  Jews, it seems, thought that it was just a matter of time before the

  most respected and wealthiest members of their community would

  be formally charged with ritual murder. On May 17, when Inspector

  Lukashevich interviewed Father Kazimir Serafinovich, who had come

  to town to visit his friend the land surveyor Kottov, more than one

  hundred Jews encircled Kottov’s house, climbed on the fence, and

  began to shout to the inspector: “You don’t have the right to treat the

  town councilor Tsetlin in this manner; he’s our leader!” This unex-

  pected turn of events put the authorities on high alert. Fearing that

  the heated emotions could easily escalate into unrestrained hostility,

  the magistrate issued an immediate injunction: none of the suspects

  or witnesses would be allowed to travel beyond the town’s boundaries

  and everyone would be kept under strict surveillance until all the sor-

  did details of the case were sorted out. The last thing the magistrate

  needed to deal with was a full- blown riot.21

  The Jews, meanwhile, vehemently denied their role in the mur-

  der. Khanna Tsetlina testified that she was at home on Easter Day.

  Furthermore, she insisted that she never brought a Christian boy

  inside the house and had no knowledge of who had committed the

  crime. Several days after giving the deposition, Tsetlina submitted a

  formal appeal to the town council proclaiming her innocence, calling

  all the accusations “unfounded.” “I never brought a Christian boy

>   home, as [Terenteeva] has claimed, or left the house because I was

  home the entire day tending to my sick son.” According to Jewish

  custom, a sick person could not be left alone, and for this reason

  several friends came by to help Tsetlina watch over her ailing son.

  Tsetlina invited the magistrate to interview Abram Kurin, Malka

  Baraduchi, and Genia Vezmenskaia, among other friends and neigh-

  bors, who would all testify on her behalf. She concluded the appeal

  by suggesting that, in all likelihood, Terenteeva had invented the

  “awful slander” to settle an old score. The beggar woman had a habit

  of walking around town asking for charity. On several occasions, after

  appearing on the doorstep, Tsetlina had “run her out of the house”

  without giving her any handouts. Each time such an incident had

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  the Velizh affair

  Khanna Tsetlina’s appeal to the Velizh town council proclaiming her innocence in Fedor’s death. A professional scribe recopied the document in January 1829, when all the files in the dossier were being prepared for review by the Senate in St. Petersburg. Natsional’nyi istoricheskii arkhiv Belarusi, f. 1297, op. 1, d. 190, ll.

  217ob– 218

  occurred, Terenteeva would tell everyone in town how unjustly she

  was treated.22

  On Easter Sunday, Tsetlina’s husband, Evzik, strolled around the

  marketplace browsing the items on display, and then went on several

  errands around town. For this reason, he could not say for certain

  if his wife went out anywhere that day, but he was convinced that a

  Christian boy had not set foot inside their house. At the age of seventy,

  Mirka Aronson tried to stay out of the day- to- day affairs of the family

  and avoided paying any attention to gossipy talk. While she had no

  idea who had killed the boy, there was no doubt in her mind that her

  son- in- law Shmerka and her grandson Hirsh were not involved in the

  murder because she knew for a fact that they stayed home the entire

  day. Showing signs of desperation, Shmerka Berlin made the outland-

  ish conjecture that someone had “run over the boy accidentally and

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  27

  then proceeded to puncture the body” to mask the death as a ritual