{"id":76196,"date":"2022-03-29T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T12:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/argentinaxp.com\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=76196"},"modified":"2022-03-29T09:48:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T12:48:00","slug":"zwi-migdal","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/en\/blog\/zwi-migdal\/","title":{"rendered":"The ZWI MIGDAL, the early 1900s trafficking ring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pimps, who used to call themselves the Club of the 40s and, at the beginning of the 20th century, founded the Sociedad Israelita de Socorros Mutuos Varsovia in Avellaneda, a screen for their illegal activities, since they only granted them legal status in that city of metropolitan region of Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The ZWI MIGDAL, the early 1900s trafficking ring\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8XaOWpaeCRs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the connivance of the authorities and the Police, whom they bribed, the Polish ruffians became strong. Forced to change the name of their association due to the bad reputation it gave their country, they renamed it Zwi Migdal, which came to have more than four hundred members after the First World War. Despite the fact that the sources differ, they controlled some two thousand brothels, through which hundreds and hundreds of young people would pass, whom they recruited in villages in their country with promises of work or, acting as false boyfriends, of marriage.<br \/>Its first president, No\u00e9 Trauman, arrived in the country in 1890. He was 24 years old and although he was Polish, he had a Russian passport since the entire region was under tsarist rule. The only known photo of him was taken by the police 4 years later when they registered him as a &quot;pimp&quot;, a name given to those who facilitated the sex trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before the end of that century, Trauman already had his own brothel and knew the Buenos Aires police stations for having been arrested in several street fights. Those were times when the differences between antagonistic groups were still settled by blows. One of these rackets was recorded by the Buenos Aires press in 1897. Some 50 people, including ruffians, their wives, and the ladies of the shops, fought with fists and blows with their sticks at the corner of Corrientes and Talcahuano streets. Among those involved were Russians, Poles, Romanians and half a dozen other nationalities, but the common factor, in addition to the activity, was religion. They were all Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">La Mutual had a cemetery in the town of Avellaneda, provided certain health services, offered other benefits, and organized some social activities, as did many of the community entities established in the country. In addition, it had a large headquarters, at Avenida C\u00f3rdoba 3280, with 620 square meters covered on two floors, with heating and all the modern equipment for the time, where a temple functioned. This was mainly a front for hundreds of ruffians to assemble and set up their network of exploitation. The girls, those who had arrived deceived and those who knew what they were coming for, could not imagine what they would go through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The living conditions were deplorable. They were sex slaves. Exploited, neglected, they devoted their entire existence to sexually serving the clients that crowded the brothels.<br \/>The epicenter was in Lavalle and Jun\u00edn, in the Once neighborhood. There the locals multiplied.<br \/>In 1862, riots occurred in brothels where Bartolom\u00e9 Miter Vedia \u2013son of the nation&#039;s president- and Dominguito, Sarmiento&#039;s adoptive son, were arrested, among others.<br \/>That the history and (bad) reputation of the Zwi Migdal have survived time has not only to do with the extent of its activities. Despite being a huge and established criminal association, the Zwi Migdal was not the only or the most powerful of those dedicated to the white slave trade. The media impact of his fall, the legends that were woven over time, and the ever-present dose of anti-Semitism in society produced the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pepepe-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-76198\"\/><figcaption><br \/>The bar and restaurant La Robla operated here for many years. But prior to this, going up the stairs at passage 725, one accessed the apartment of Sim\u00f3n Brutkievich who, by the end of 1929, was the president of the Zwi Migdal society of ruffians.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The stigma permeated the popular imagination: the Polish Jews who settled in Buenos Aires since the end of the 19th century prostituted their own compatriots. The French, Italians and Spanish did the same, although anti-Semitism amplified the despicable practices of the Jewish mafia.<br \/>The subsequent silence of the group itself did not help either, as it classified its criminals as impure. In reality, the fact that they were denounced and rejected sets this community apart from the others \u2014which made up their fellow citizens\u2014, despite the fact that later that dark past became a taboo due to the fear that the shadow of criminal activities of a few undesirables was projected onto all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When they were expelled, the ruffians inaugurated a synagogue and a cemetery, since they had been forbidden to be buried in the Hebrew cemetery. Gerardo Bra argues in the book La organizaci\u00f3n negra (1982) that, although the exclusion of the impure manifested an act of honesty by the Jewish collective, it would have strengthened them, since they decided to unite and organize, a thesis refuted by other historians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Una mujer escribi\u00f3 una carta a la asociaci\u00f3n contra la trata y la explotaci\u00f3n sexual Ezrat Nashim: \u00abEstaba en una de las casas de la Migdal. Mi cuerpo ser\u00eda ofrecido al mejor postor. Toda mujer que se iniciaba en la vida era cotizada. Y yo lo fui\u00bb. Sin embargo, durante a\u00f1os las denuncias cayeron en saco roto debido a la corrupci\u00f3n policial. Los tent\u00e1culos de los polacos, una mafia surgida como sociedad de ayuda mutua para protegerse entre ellos, alcanzaban a los encargados de velar por los ciudadanos y se antojaba necesario un comisario incorruptible y un juez que sentase a los criminales en el banquillo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Solo encontraban oposici\u00f3n entre las instituciones jud\u00edas y entidades como Ezrat Nashim, si bien su labor ha sido cuestionada. D\u00e9bora Aymbinderow sostiene que ten\u00eda una \u00abactitud paternalista y moralista hacia las inmigrantes por las diferencias de clase y de pa\u00eds de origen entre ellas y los fil\u00e1ntropos\u00bb, de modo que interven\u00edan en su vida privada, incluso cuando no hab\u00eda indicios de que la mujer corr\u00eda el riesgo de ser explotada. La prevenci\u00f3n, entend\u00edan, pasaba porque se casasen con un jud\u00edo y encontrasen un \u00abtrabajo honesto\u00bb.<br \/>Por otra parte, la lucha del colectivo logr\u00f3 visibilizar el problema, aunque \u00abparad\u00f3jicamente fue utilizada para reforzar la estigmatizaci\u00f3n de los jud\u00edos\u00bb. As\u00ed, Pedro Katz, director de Di Presse, declaraba al diario Cr\u00edtica que la comunidad jud\u00eda argentina llevaba cuatro d\u00e9cadas luchando para \u00abdestruir y aniquilar a los repugnantes componentes de la sociedad tenebrosa Migdal\u00bb, a quienes calificaba como \u00abgavilla de tratantes\u00bb.<br \/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"76201\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1-1-800x483.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-76201\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"76203\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/5f632c6dde4cb.r_1600958001206.9-4-731-410.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-76203\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"76202\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/580ada387763f.r_1600958001093.0-60-800-509.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-76202\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"76199\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/images.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-76199\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-id=\"76200\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.argxp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/partida-zwi-migdal-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-76200\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">De ah\u00ed que en 1906 emprendiese una campa\u00f1a para eliminarlos, pero reconoce que solo logr\u00f3 expulsarlos. \u00abNadie los repudia tanto ni los combate m\u00e1s que la colectividad israelita\u00bb, conclu\u00eda Katz, dejando claro que todas las comunidades ten\u00edan sus redes de trata, m\u00e1s la jud\u00eda fue la \u00fanica que reneg\u00f3 de sus proxenetas.<br \/>Be that as it may, the plot of the pimps \u2014known as cafishos\u2014 would run into a woman who would stand up to them. Raquel Liberman denounced Zwi Migdal for forcing her into prostitution, which would trigger an investigation by commissioner Julio Alsogaray. We have already talked about Raquel and her story on this page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a result of their investigations, Judge Manuel Rodr\u00edguez Ocampo ordered preventive detention for 108 members for illicit association, but they would soon be released due to lack of evidence, except for three of them. Another 334 fled from Justice, for which an international arrest warrant was issued. It was of little use, although the organization would end up dissolving.<br \/>Nora Glickman, en el libro The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman (2000), relata que la redada en la sede de la mafia polaca y el cierre de decenas de prost\u00edbulos tuvo lugar en 1930 tras el golpe de Estado del teniente general Jos\u00e9 F\u00e9lix Uriburu. La operaci\u00f3n ocup\u00f3 las portadas de los peri\u00f3dicos y, como resultado de su \u00abvaliente acci\u00f3n\u00bb, publicaron listas detalladas de los nombres de los traficantes y madamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The impure cemetery in Avellaneda is a rarity rarely seen in the world and the first that the Jews had in Buenos Aires, currently administered by the Asociaci\u00f3n Comunidad Israelita Latina and sealed, in order to avoid it being looked at and classified as living proof. of human exploitation.<br \/>In 1907, under the presidency of Trauman, the Zwi Migdal bought a new fraction of land in front of the municipal cemetery of Avellaneda. This sector is the one that is still standing and has given rise to several urban legends. If these men and their wives were characterized in life by flaunting their economic power with an almost obscene display of imported jewelry, furs, and perfumes; At the time of his death, the ruffians decided to alter the ancient tradition of measure and uniformity of Jewish burials, with the placement of expensive and grandiose funerary monuments.<br \/>The surface of the place suggests that it would have housed no less than 700 graves. The original records, although incomplete, tell us about the owners of houses of prostitution, their wives and the madams of their premises; but also young children, young students and self-employed. Few are the exploited women who were buried there. Of the thousands of young people who, deceived or expelled by misery in Europe, ended up in Buenos Aires brothels, no traces remained. They disappeared forever after being trafficked, used and discarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Legends, hypotheses, ghosts, macabre memories on the one hand and romantic memories on the other are raised as in any story. Supposed conspiracy theories that do not leave aside the subjugation of the poor recently arrived women, the attempt to hide those same memories that hopefully one day can be clarified for the benefit of history and the vindication of the poor, deceived, abused immigrants. , discriminated and exploited. Honoring the memory of all women victims of sexual violence is not only a pious commitment, it is an approach that cannot be postponed today, to learn more about our history and end the trafficking networks that, to this day, continue to be managed. with the same practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Compilation of texts from: The chest of history; Nora Glickman, \u201cThe Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman (2000)\u201d; Jos\u00e9 Luis Scarsi, &quot;Tmeiim: the impure Jews&quot;; Everything is history.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":76204,"template":"","blog-categoria":[43],"class_list":["post-76196","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","blog-categoria-historia-e-historias"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>La ZWI MIGDAL, la red de trata de principios de 1900<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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