of the Interior, Count Ignatiev, she was granted an interview (which lasted almost an hour and a half) with a journalist from the newspaper Golos who was accompanied by her defence counsel at her trial, a lawyer named Goerke. During the course of this interview, she complained about the lack of "proper medical and female attendance". Helfman gave birth in detention in October 1881. Upon the request of the Department of Police, her childbirth was assisted by a gynaecologist who was also employed by the Imperial court, something unprecedented. She had a severe maternal complication, as her perineum was torn. It was rumoured that the gynaecologist had refused the prison doctor's suggestion to sew the wound together; in any case, it never healed. She remained delirious during some of the postnatal period. By 24 November, she had developed peritonitis, which became acute on 17 January 1882. She nevertheless nursed her daughter from her birth in October until 25 January, when the baby was taken away from her, placed in an orphanage and registered as a child of unknown parents. According to the subsequent medical report, the peritonitis became general and caused fever on the same day. Six days later, Helfman died. Her child died of an unknown disease shortly thereafter. Tsarist authorities had rejected the request of Kolodkevich's parents for the legal custody of the baby. Kolodkevich died in prison in 1884. Legacy The importance of Helfman's role in the assassination was undetermined, and her Jewish origins stressed during the pogroms that followed the assassination. Another conspirator, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, was also rumoured to be Jewish, though there seems to have been no basis for this. Revolutionary Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky dedicated a chapter of his Underground Russia (1883) to Helfman, the only one dedicated to a person he had not met personally. Writes Stepnyak: Notes Citations References 1852 births 1882 deaths People from Mazyr People from Mozyrsky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Belarusian revolutionaries Jewish socialists Narodnaya Volya Narodniks