Career
After escaping arrest by the police in Warsaw, he became a fugitive before being captured and imprisoned in the city"s notorious Citadel prison. Possessing no identifying documents, he defied torture and managed to withhold his name from the authorities. Finding life in both cities too tame, he returned from London to Paris with the intention of returning to Russia.
In Paris he met a group of similarly disposed young Russian illegalists, with whom he planned to rob a Parisian bank, but the group were betrayed by one of their own and arrested.
Tokar returned to London, where he remained for nearly a year before informing his colleagues that he was unable to tolerate it any longer and would risk traveling to Russia, whatever the consequences. In January 1909 he finally returned to his native country, settling in Łódź.
There he read reports of the cruel torture of political prisoners in Vilnius and resolved to assassinate Sergei Gershelman, the military commander responsible. Tokar went to Vilnius where, on December 6, 1909, he shot at Gershelman as the latter drove his carriage through the street.
Though Gershelman was uninjured, Tokar"s shots wounded General Fenga, who had accompanied Gershelman in the carriage.
Tokar was sentenced to death for the crime on January 13, 1910. In his cell a couple of days before he was to be executed, Moishe Tokar doused himself in paraffin from his lamp and burned himself alive.