The Jews in the Eastern War ZoneAmerican Jewish Committee
History
The Jews in the Eastern War Zone
American Jewish Committee
World War, 1914-1918 -- Jews
“Hereafter a Jew may live in Kaluga, but is excluded from Tashkent;
in Yekaterinodar he may not live; in Nizhni he may. It is very hard
to find any sense in such distinctions, even from the point of view
of the Black Hundreds. If you should ask Markov 2d [the leader of the
Black Hundreds.—Tr.] into what cities we ought to admit Jews—whether
into Nizhni, or into Tashkent, he would answer at first, of course,
that we ought not to admit them into either; but confronted with ‘dire
necessity’ he would hardly give preference to Tashkent, already full
of alien nationalities.
“And yet to whom, except Markov 2d and his kind, would all these
exceptions and limitations give any aid or comfort? Suppose we do
allow the Jews perfect freedom of travel within the country; suppose
we do find villages where so much as a whole Jew—and not a fractional
Jew—exists statistically per hundred of peasant population; suppose
we do find a Jewish tailor, a blacksmith or a merchant in a Russian
village—would that be such a calamity?”
=4. In practice the act is often ignored or evaded by local officials.=
The Governor of Smolensk has continued to expel Jews entering his
province, entirely regardless of the law. The government of Kiev
even refused to permit the publication of the ministerial decree
until the middle of September, some six weeks after its official
promulgation, and has consistently ignored it since. In practically
all the other governments of the Empire the administration of the act
is entirely dependent upon the whims of the local governors. Late
advices bring reports of the expulsions of Jews from the Caucasus,
Tomsk, Vladivostok, Siberia, and many other cities and provinces in
which, under the terms of the abolition decree, Jews are permitted to
reside.[9]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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