History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 2 [of 3]: From the Death of Alexander I until the Death of Alexander III (1825-1894)Dubnow, Simon
Religion
History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 2 [of 3]: From the Death of Alexander I until the Death of Alexander III (1825-1894)
Dubnow, Simon
Jews -- Poland -- History; Jews -- Russia -- History; Poland -- History; Russia -- History
What these "savage scenes" were we do not learn from the newspapers,
which were forbidden by the censor to report them, but we know them
partly from unpublished sources and partly from the later court
proceedings. Aside from the demolition of twelve hundred and fifty
houses and business places and the destruction and pillage of property
and merchandise--according to a statement of the local rabbi, "all
well-to-do Jews were turned into beggars, and more than fifteen thousand
people were sent out into the wide world "--a large number of people
were killed and maimed, and many women were violated. Forty Jews were
slain or dangerously wounded; one hundred and seventy received slight
wounds; many Jews, and particularly Jewesses, became insane from fright.
There were more than twenty cases of rape. The seventeen year old
daughter of a poor polisher, Eda Maliss by name, was attacked by a horde
of bestial lads before the eyes of her brother. When the mother of the
unfortunate girl ran into the street and called to her aid a policeman
who was standing near-by, the latter followed the woman into the house,
and then, instead of helping her, dishonored her on the spot. The
fiendish hordes invaded the home of Baruch Shlakhovski, and began their
bloody work by slaying the master of the house, whereupon his wife and
daughter fled and hid themselves in a near-by orchard. Here a Russian
neighbor lured them into his house under the pretext of defending their
honor against the rioters, but, once in his house, he disgraced the
daughter in the presence of her mother. In many cases the soldiers of
the local garrison assaulted and beat the Jews who showed themselves on
the streets while the "military operations" of the mob were going on. In
accordance with the customary pogrom ritual, the human fiends were left
undisturbed for two days, and only on the third day were troops summoned
from a near-by city to put a stop to the atrocities.
On the same day the governor of Podolia arrived to make an
investigation. It was soon learned that the local authorities, the
police commissioner, the Ispravnik, the military commander, the
burgomaster, and the president of the nobility [1] had either directly or
indirectly abetted the pogrom. Many rioters, who had been arrested by
the police, were soon released, because they threatened otherwise to
point out to the higher authorities the ringleaders from among the local
officials and the representatives of Russian society. The Jews, again,
were constantly terrorized by these scoundrels and cowed by the fear of
massacres and complete annihilation, in case they dared to expose their
hangmen before the courts.
[Footnote 1: The nobility of each government forms an organization of
its own. It is headed by a president for the entire government who has
under his jurisdiction a president for each district (or county). Such a
county president is referred to in the text.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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