In this town, also, one Gershenovitz was sentenced to penal servitude for six years =because he acted as Mayor during the German occupation,= although the inquiry held by the Russians showed that =he had been forced by the Germans to accept the office.=[20] At Jusefow the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells. Seventy-eight were killed outright, many Jewish women were violated and all the houses and shops plundered.[22] In Drsukenihi a mill owner, Chekhofski, was accused of having given a signal for the German bombardment of the town by blowing his mill whistle. When the Russians reoccupied the town he was brought to trial before the Military Tribunal and the charge was proven to be groundless.[23] These are only a few instances, taken at random, of Polish slanders. =In not a single known case were the charges justified; on the contrary, their gross absurdity was demonstrated on numerous occasions before military tribunals that could not possibly be charged with prejudice in favor of the Jewish side of the issue.= A perfect illustration of this is furnished by the story of the villages of Groitsi and Nove-Miasto, near Warsaw. The Case of Nove-Miasto The Germans, in their first advance on Warsaw, in September–October, 1914, occupied these villages for a few days. When the Russian troops recaptured the towns the Poles at once denounced the Jews as having welcomed the German troops and having aided them in every possible way—whereas the Poles, according to their own account, had accepted the German rule passively, doing only whatever they were forced to do by the military authorities. They pointed out seven persons, five Jews and two Germans, who had demonstrated such devotion to the invaders as to merit trial for treason and the death penalty. One Jew, Goldberg, it was charged, had revealed to the Germans the hiding place of ten Russian soldiers, resulting in their capture; another Jew had shown them where they might requisition horses and food, and had acted as guide.