The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-09-21
Prison Doors May Soon Open for
Valeska Bartsch, Victim Of Fate
Board of Pardons Next Month
May Free Woman Who Stole
to Save Brother.

such widespread interest is being
aroused in the remarkable. case of
Va.eska Bartsch. who became a. thief
to save her brother, by friends who be-
lieved her story from the first. state
Parole Agent Straley and other
prison officials, who were later con-
WINGED that she spoke nothing but
the truth about her motive for crime,
that it grows more certain that when
Governor Fort and the lay judges of
his Board of Pardons meet in Novem-
Der the woman will go free. !
For thirteen months Valeska Bartsch
has been an inmate of the State prison
in Trenton. Those who see her daily
are convinced she would not live to
serve the full two years fer which she
was sentenced a year ago last August
If she remained q prisoner. Imprison-
ment and worrying over her brother
has brought on that same disease
which holds him in it's deadly grasp.
tuberculosis, and made her even brave
the terror of the States revenge in her
effort to save him from the peniten-
tiary. She thinks she suffers merely
from a severe cold, but the prison ply
stefan many weeks ago diagnosed her
case as tuberculosis, although he with
held the fact from her and fed her on a
significant diet.
There has been a decided tendency
of late years to secure strong dramatic
combinations through plays in which
the thief anI his motive is nightly
analyzed before an audience, and that
such offerings struck a popular choru
was evidenced by the great success
of such dramas as Leah Kleschna.'
f"Raffies." 1.-The Thief" and many others
of their morbid kind. Yet Vaaeska
Bartsch, who was arrested in Newark
after a series of astonishingly success
full operations under the tutelage Of
a female Fagin, has lived such a
drama as could no more be faithfully
depicted on the stage than could a
storm at sea be faithfully reproduced
on canvas, ever by a master.
That drama of real life was not ended
with the arrest of Mrs. Bartsch in
Newark. 1t is not yet done. 1t will be
finished only when the woman who
sacrificed all and George Bernhard,
the brother for whom she did it, now
a prisoner in the Pennsylvania State
penitentiary, are free and enter again
into the commonplace of everyday
existence.
Tie unusual and the dramatic ele-
ments which have made the case OF
Valeska Bartsch unique in the criminal
annals of the State were not all con-
tributed before she was sent to prison.
A hitherto unwritten chapter in her
story proves how strong was the appeal
which her plight made from the begin
ming and incidentally throws a side
Hight upon a phase of the character of
servants of the law perhaps not before
suspected.
The present agitation to obtain the
release of Mrs. ,Bartsch from the peni-
tentiSfy is founded on a movement
STARTED by Sergeants Tuite and Horter,
of the Newark detective. bureau, who
} arrested her. Sergeant Horter. who
could talk with Mrs. Bartsch in her
native tongue, was particularly active.
In person he went to her house after
she was sent to Trenton and packed
her household goods and put them in
storage, He has had started petitions
to the governor, he has correspondent
with prison officials, and he has sought
TO enlist the aid of those organizations
interested in prison work in this. most
RHa0arkable of prisoners.
Part of Mrs. Bartsch's story came out
at the time of her arrest. She told all
of 1t In the interview OF yesterday.
Born on a little farm near Breslau,
Valeska Bernhardt's life was as far re-
moved from any influence which might
explain a later criminal career as it is
possible to imagine. When she was %
years of age she married the clerk to
the American consulsin Breslau, Her.
ma Bartsch. That was in 1897. Mrs.
Bartsch n her husband came to
America and settled in Newark, in 1901.
Bartsch was employed on a local Ger
man paper.
A year later Bartsch died. The widow
was penniless, Iand opened a boarding
house. In%few months her youngest
~sndzfoHo57fte brother, Herman, I years
b~er2unior. came to live with her.
Herman accepted the offer of a for
mer boss who had gone to Philadel-
mia. He had lived there two years
when he was arrested. 1t is not neces-
sarv to go into the merits of his case,
although Mrs. Bartsch always warmly
defends him.
H sent word to me that he was
In trouble she said, and l e TO
him. They wanted $500 to keep him
out of jail. | gave a man 5000 to give
tne Dali. / ANEW Piisoh Houlu MIL
Herman. He was sick here" and she
pressed her hand or her sunken chest
and the tears came to her eyes. 1T
was in the family, consumption she
said. land | alone had escaped it."
She had not been told.
One day a man came to our house in
Newark and asked for my brother
she continued. II was frightened and
told him I did not know where he was
to be found. The man showed a badge
and took locks for the hands from his
pocket. Unless you give me $2i5,' he
said, your brother must go back to
prison 1 gave him $50, all | had, and
he said he would come for the rest
Simply and without signs of emotion
Mrs. Bartsch told how she had con-
fded in one Mary Snyder who worked
near her in the Edison plant in Har-
rison and spoke German; how the wom-
an promised to help her; how she Sc
cured a position as cook in a New York