Another spy story widely circulated in the anti-Semitic press was that
the Jews of Shavli had been expelled from Kurland because they were
detected in the act of leading the German troops on to Shavli. This
also was printed in all the military and semi-official newspapers of
Russia and from there reprinted in the general press. The newspaper
“Dehn” pointed out the absurdity of this and similar charges:[28]
“Accepting the story as it stands, without demanding the names of the
Jews found guilty, or any other details, let us simply examine the
map. Shavli is not in Kurland at all. It is in the province of Kovno,
and is 50 versts from the nearest point in Kurland, and more than 50
versts from the nearest point inhabitated by Jews. The Germans, we
know, moved to Shavli, not through Kurland, but from the opposite
direction. =The charge, if true, would therefore mean that the Jews
of Kurland went 100 versts out of their way in an entirely strange
territory in order to commit treason by communicating with Germans.
This is obvious nonsense. Nor is it less obvious that this fiction
has been manufactured out of whole cloth.= And this is how it was
manufactured: Reports reached the newspapers that the Jews of Kurland
were being expelled. The anti-Semitic papers at once argued that if
the Jews were being expelled they must have committed some treason,
and since the line of the German advance was known to be in the
general direction of Shavli, =and since these people were too lazy to
consult the map, they promptly decided that the expulsion must have
been due to the fact that the Jews of Kurland had guided the Germans
to Shavli.”=
And so this preposterous story was started on its way.