Averbuch, Olga, 1886?-1942?

AVERBUCH, OLGA (C. 1886-C. 1942) DEATH DATE
CIRCA 1942
BIRTHPLACE
KISHINEV, RUSSIA (NOW MOLDOVA)
OCCUPATION
TAILOR

Averbuch is referred to most often as Lazarus Averbuch, but he was likely known as Harry or Jeremiah.[7] He was born in 1889 in Kishinev, in the Russian Empire (the present-day capital of the Republic of Moldova). He and his older sister, Olga Averbuch, survived the Kishinev pogrom.[8] Averbuch followed his sister to Chicago, Illinois, immigrating a year after her[9] and arriving in late 1907.[10] They lived in a small apartment in the Eastern European Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's Near West Side.[5] Averbuch worked as an egg packer on South Water Street in Chicago.[7] Following Averbuch's death, Olga Averbuch was detained by the police and interrogated for 72 hours.[7] Without first knowing he was dead, Olga was confronted with Averbuch's body, damaged from gunfire and ill treatment by angry policemen.[10] In the days that followed, Olga struggled to convince the police and the public that Lazarus Averbuch was not an anarchist.[10] Authorities reportedly buried Averbuch's body in a potter's field, then, when he was to be exhumed and given a Jewish burial, his body was missing. After three days, with major support from community members, his body was recovered, but his brain had been removed (possibly in an attempt to study the brain of an anarchist). After a few more days of inquiry, his brain was recovered and Averbuch was properly buried.[10] His final resting place, under the name Jerome Auerbach, is at Ridge Lawn Cemetery on Pulaski Road in Chicago's North Park community area.[16] Olga Averbuch returned to Ukraine, in the Russian Empire. Many Jews in her region died in Nazi death camps, but Olga's name was not listed among the dead.[9] Chief among the community members who financially and otherwise supported Olga Averbuch following her brother's death was Jane Addams. Addams' Hull House assisted many Eastern European Jewish immigrants since its establishment in 1889, near Averbuch's neighborhood.[5] Addams did not believe Shippy's version of events,[4] and was moved by Olga's inability to get even a proper burial for her brother. Addams mobilized the resources of Hull House and raised at least $10,000, perhaps as much as $40,000, for Olga and for her brother's burial.[7] Addams was also instrumental starting the independent investigation into Averbuch's death.[5] She hired lawyer Harold LeClair Ickes for what would be his first case. He ordered Averbuch's body exhumed, and had an independent autopsy performed. This autopsy showed that Averbuch was fatally wounded by a shot from behind, and that he was shot at least once from above. Ickes discovered that Averbuch's brain was removed (a violation of civil and Jewish law). The evidence of this autopsy, as well as the testimony of Olga Averbuch and Lazarus Averbuch's boss at the egg packing facility were presented at the coroner's inquest on March 24, 1908. However, the jury decided the shooting was justified, and Shippy and Foley were exonerated.[7]