Поскольку буквально все пишут о выборах и фальсификациях, аз, многогрешный, тоже решил быть в тренде.
Начнем, думаю, с века минувшего. Точнее, с еще одного отрывка из мемуаров Бернарда Гольдштейна, в котором обе эти темы раскрыты в полной мере - о варшавских муниципальных выборах 1938 года.
Для незнакомых с польской историей:
Oenerowcy - члены Национально-радикального лагеря ( Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR, правой партии с довольно сильным антисемитским душком.
Национальный блок - коалиция сионистов ин ультра-ортодоксов, сформированная перед муниципальными выборами. (До этого эти партии обычно были плохопримиримыми противниками).
А теперь - собственно, мемуары:
On that Election Day, our party militia had a responsible task. Rumors were going around that the Oenerowcy were going to attack the Jews, terrorize them, and keep them from voting. The experiences of the last few years had taught us to take such rumors seriously.
In addition, the City Council had prepared various harassments. For a large part of the Jewish population of Smocza, Gęsia, Wołyńska,1 and the surrounding areas, the City Council assigned a polling place near the Jewish cemetery, almost outside the city limits. In order to vote, one had to traverse a field, and on top of that, it was in a Gentile neighborhood. It was, after all, winter, and nightfall came around four o’clock. The way to the poll was poorly illuminated and sparsely inhabited. The governmental authorities figured that the Jews would be afraid to go there to vote for that reason. In addition to that, it was in a Polish neighborhood, an abandoned one, where underworld types, taverns, and drunks were not lacking. What were we to do? We lined the way with our militiamen, and we let the Jews of that precinct know—mouth to mouth—that the path was
safe, that the Bund was guarding it, and one could pass through to vote without fear. And in fact, Jews were not frightened away, and they went, in that forlorn corner, in their masses, to vote.
In addition, our militia also had to guard our election campaigners out on the streets, because the danger they would be attacked by the Oenerowcy or plain antisemitic hooligans, and even plainclothes policemen, was great.
It also fell to the militia to guard our movement against another danger: false Bund ballots that our opponents (apparently the Jewish National bloc) had printed in order to invalidate the votes for the Bund. What happened was this: On election day, first thing in the morning, a bookbinder came running to us at the election committee headquarters and told us that at Smocza 4—he gave us the exact address—there was a warehouse full of forged Bund ballots. The falsifying of the ballots consisted in that, for the Bundist ballots of a given region, the names of candidates from another region were printed. In the bookbindery where this man worked all day, he was cutting to size the sheets of paper with the false Bund ballots printed on them. In the morning the boss told him to deliver them to a certain address. He came right from there to warn us about this. We sent two men to the bookbindery immediately to see if the information was correct, and they came back with a confirmation.
At that point a large group of militiamen and I went to the address. When we came into the apartment, the boss was already burning the forged ballots. I dressed him down for what he had done, warning him that we would report him to the courts. He defended himself, saying he didn’t know they were false ballots—he was recommended by the housing administrator of the building in which he lived to people who came to rent a place in which they could store election documents. He didn’t even look at the documents to see what they were. Secondly, he said, the two men we sent earlier promised him that if he wouldn’t let anyone remove the documents till they returned, we wouldn’t do anything to him, and, he continued, “As you see, I have kept my word.” So we let him alone. Nevertheless we sent people out to all the election offices to make sure that no false Bund ballots were being distributed.
A little later came a second alert about falsified Bund ballots. This time our campaigners caught a boy who was distributing false Bund ballots. They surrounded him and warned him that if he wanted to return home with all his bones in one piece, he should show them where he had obtained the false ballots. He defended himself, saying he didn’t know they were false ballots. Apparently he was telling the truth: he was just a poor Jewish boy who had been hired for a couple of zlotys to distribute ballots, so that’s what he did. He led our campaigners to Długa 25, to a certain Waxman, and our comrades confiscated a whole warehouse full of false ballots they found there. Then we sent out people again to make sure that no more of these false ballots were being distributed.
Did we prevent all these false ballots? We cannot know.Jews produced these false ballots, and according to all the signs, they were people from the “National Bloc” to whom it was clear, even before the elections, there was going to be a great victory for the Bund, and they wanted to ruin this outcome.
Кстати, результаты тех выборов, несомненно, порадовали бы многих потенциальных читателей этой записи. Хотя многих так же бы и огорчили:
Of 20 Jewish Councilmen that were elected in Warsaw (out of a City Council of 100), the Bund, and its allied trade unions, won 17 seats. All the other Jewish parties—various Zionist parties, Po’ale-Tsiyonistn (Labor Zionists), the Orthodox, merchants, artisans, and others, who presented two tickets or blocks—together received only three votes. The overwhelming majority of the Warsaw Jewish population voted for the Bund.
Ну а теперь, как было обещано, про век нынешний:
Мухаммед из Галилеи пойдет под суд за вброс бюллетеней в пользу партии ШАС.
Житель Тамры воспользовался своей должностью главы участковой избирательной комиссии. Как отмечается в письме, Дайб выполнял обязанности главы избирательной комиссии на участке, открытом в школе имени Ибн-Сины в Тамре, и представлял интересы партии ШАС. "После завершения голосования, но до начала подсчета бюллетеней Дайб, который сам голосовал на другом избирательном участке, в нарушение закона вбросил в урну не менее семи конвертов с вложенными в них бюллетенями.
Для тех, кто не в танке, ШАС- клерикальная партия, представляющая интересы восточных евреев.
Восток - дело тонкое, Петруха (с).