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The 

Slaughter  of  the  Jews 

In  the  Ukraine 

In  1919 


BY 

ELIAS   HEIFETZ,  J.U.D. 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  SELTZER 
1921 


Copyright,  1921, 
By  Thomas   Seltzer,   Inc. 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

The  basis  of  this  book  is  material  gathered  by  dele- 
gates of  the  All-Ukrainian  Relief  Committee  for  the 
Victims  of  Pogroms,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Red 
Cross,  of  which  committee  I  was  the  chairman. 

Our  aim  was  not  only  to  supply  money,  food  and 
clothing  to  the  victims,  render  medical  aid  to  the 
wounded  and  mutilated,  and  take  care  of  the  orphaned 
children;  it  was  also  to  investigate — to  determine  the 
true  character  of  the  events  and  ascertain  the  circum- 
stances in  which  they  occurred.  Besides  administer- 
ing relief,  our  representatives,  in  accordance  with  a 
plan  worked  out  by  the  Central  Information  Depart- 
ment of  the  committee,  made  careful  investigations, 
questioning  witnesses  of  all  descriptions,  the  sufferers 
themselves,  onlookers,  and  men  in  official  or  public 
positions.  In  large  centres  like  Kiev  and  Yekaterino- 
slav,  to  which  refugees  from  numerous  pogrom- 
stricken  localities  streamed,  special  bureaus  were  es- 
tablished for  the  purpose  of  taking  down  the  testimony 
of  the  refugees.  Sometimes,  when  the  pogrom  was 
large  and  complicated  in  its  character,  our  committee 
delegates  called  conferences  of  all  public  and  party 
organizations  of  the  place,  in  order  to  determine  the 
social  and  political  causes  of  the  pogrom  and  the  mo- 
tives animating  the  participants,  as  well  as  to  gather 
all  possible  details.  The  conferees  were  able,  through 
personal  observation  and  material  at  their  disposal,  to 
clear  up  obscurities,  throw  light  on  all  aspects  of  the 

i 


11 


PREFACE 


situation,  and  make  corrections  and  addenda  to  reports 
presented  at  the  meetings.  Examples  of  documents 
resulting  from  such  conferences  are  the  protocols  with 
their  appendices  given  in  the  Appendix  to  this  book  on 
the  pogroms  in  Uman  (pp.  316-336)  and  Dubovo  (pp. 

341-347). 
The  material  gathered  at  each  place — testimony  of 

witnesses ,  documents,  photographs — was  sent  to  the 
Central  Information  Department  in  Kiev,  where  it 
was  classified  and  sifted  by  experts.  What  seemed  of 
dubious  veracity  or  did  not  coincide  with  other  evi- 
dence was  rejected.  Nothing  but  verified  matter  was 
included  in  our  summary. 

In  some  cases  of  pogroms  on  a  large  scale  special 
investigators,  persons  with  a  thorough  legal  training, 
were  sent  to  the  scene  of  the  events,  who  supplemented 
evidence  already  to  hand  by  securing  documents  and 
examining  new  witnesses.  Material  thus  gathered  was 
embodied  in  volumes  sometimes  numbering  several  hun- 
dred pages,  to  which  the  investigator  later,  in  his  sum- 
marized report,  would  refer,  citing  the  page  and  num- 
ber of  the  volume  in  the  case,  as,  for  instance,  the 
reports  of  the  well-known  lawyer,  Mr.  A.  I.  Hiller- 
son,  on  the  pogroms  in  Ovruch  (see  Appendix,  pp. 
185  ff.)  and  in  Proskurov  (see  Appendix,  pp.  202  ff.), 
who  substantiated  his  statements  by  exact  references 
(as  on  pp.  208,  209,  210  and  elsewhere). 

Owing  to  the  various  war  fronts  in  the  Ukraine 
and  the  internal  state  of  civil  war,  we  were  prevented 
from  gathering  material  for  all  the  pogroms.  Never- 
theless, the  facts  brought  to  light  through  the  self- 
sacrificing  efforts  of  our  representatives  are  quite  suffi- 
cient for  a  thoroughly  grounded  analysis,  social  and 
political,  of  the  Jewish  tragedy  in  the  Ukraine  in 


PREFACE  iii 

1919.  And  as  our  committee  was  a  Red  Cross  organi- 
zation with  non-political  aims,  the  work  of  investiga- 
tion was  carried  on  in  an  utterly  impartial  spirit. 

Most  of  the  material  at  my  disposal  appears  in  the 
Appendix,  some  of  it  in  the  text.  The  book  repre- 
sents my  personal  conclusions  drawn  from  the  material 
and  from  my  observations  of  the  stormy  events  in  the 
Ukraine. 

It  is  more  than  a  year  now  since  the  ghastly  events 
described  in  this  book  took  place.  But  the  year  1919 
did  not  see  the  end  of  them.  The  bloody  tide  over- 
flowed the  boundaries  of  the  Ukraine,  and  horrors  were 
enacted  elsewhere  that  not  only  equalled  but  even  sur- 
passed the  Ukrainian  atrocities.  And  in  the  Ukraine 
itself  reaction  kept  up  its  gory  carnival.  The  events 
of  1920  only  corroborate  the  findings  in  the  present 
book,  namely,  that  reaction  uses  the  massacre  of  the 
Jews  as  a  method  for  political  warfare. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  express  my  gratitude  to  all 
my  fellow-workers  on  the  Relief  Committee.  My  in- 
debtedness to  them  is  twofold — for  the  moral  satis-, 
faction  of  work  done  together  in  aid  of  the  wretched 
victims  of  the  pogroms  and  for  the  stupendous,  tireless 
work  of  gathering  the  evidence  that  has  made  possible 
the  writing  of  this  summary.  I  must  make  special 
mention  of  those  who  stood  closest  to  me  in  the  work : 
Dr.  P.  I.  Rosenthal  (Anman),  Dr.  F.  E.  Lander,  Mr. 
L.  V.  Fraenkel,  Mr.  S.  Y.  Heifetz,  Dr.  L.  N.  Heller, 
Mr.  A.  I.  Hillerson,  and  Mr.  Isaac  Gutermann. 

ELIAS  HEIFETZ. 

NEW  YORK,  December  20, 1920. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES  ....  i 

II    THE  DIRECTORY 21 

III  THE  BATKO 57 

IV  THE  SOVIET  POWER 84 

V    THE  DENIKIN  REGIME 99 

VI     SELF-DEFENSE        123 

VII    POGROM  PICTURES — A  FEW  EPISODES     .     .  141 

VIII    RESULTS        175 

APPENDIX 

SUPPLEMENT  TO  CHAPTER  II 
REPORT  OF  A.  I.  HILLERSON 

I.    CITY  OF  OVRUCH 185 

II.    CITY  OF  PROSKUROV 2O2 

III.    FELSHTIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA)        .  227 
SUPPLEMENT  TO  CHAPTER  III 

I    POGROMS  OF  STRUK'S  GANGS    ....  235 

II    POGROMS    OF    GRIGORIEV'S    GANGS    AND 

OTHERS .  243 


CHAPTER  I 
SOCIAL    AND    POLITICAL    CAUSES 

THE  terrible  Jewish  massacres  in  the  Ukraine  in  the 
year  1919,  which  set  the  whole  land  aflame,  can  not  be 
compared  with  the  pogroms  in  the  eighties  and  during 
the  first  decade  of  our  century.  The  latter  form,  in 
essence  and  scope,  a  chapter  in  themselves.  The  tsar- 
ist regime  endeavored  to  divert  the  attention  of  the 
socially  and  politically  discontented  masses  in  another 
direction,  the  direction  of  least  resistance.  This  they 
did  by  inciting  the  ignorant  and  intimidated  lower 
classes  against  the  defenseless  Jews,  who,  they  alleged, 
were  responsible  for  the  misery  of  the  people.  The 
Jews  were  represented  as  the  exploiters  of  the  people, 
as  leeches,  who  sucked  the  blood  of  the  peasant  and 
robbed  him  of  the  fruits  of  his  economic  activity. 
Later,  when  the  elemental  forces  of  the  revolution 
burst  forth  and  whipped  the  waves  of  passion  into 
high  fury,  the  Jews  were  depicted  by  the  agents  of 
tsarism  before  the  lowest  classes  of  the  people  as  the 
"leaders  of  unrest  and  rebellion,  who  were  rising 
against  the  Fatherland  and  the  'Little  Father*  (the 
tsar)."  The  Jewish  pogroms  coincide  with  the  criti- 
cal moments  of  the  then  regime  and  follow  in  scope 
and  intensity  a  course  parallel  to  that  of  the  revolution. 

The  pogroms  of  the  eighties  correspond  to  the  revo- 

I 


2      SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

lutionary  movement  of  the  intelligentzia  organized 
as  "Narodniki"  ("Zemlya  i  Volya,"  "Narodnaya 
Volya").  Those  in  the  beginning  of  our  century,  to 
the  time  of  the  first  revolution  ( 1903-1905  )»  corres- 
pond to  the  great  revolutionary  strikes  in  the  south  of 
Russia.  Finally,  the  third  pogrom  wave,  which  came 
right  after  the  revolution  (end  of  1905  and  1906), 
corresponds  to  the  outbreak  of  the  first  revolution  it- 
self. The  aim  of  the  pogroms  in  the  eighties  was 
mainly  the  destruction  of  Jewish  possessions.  There 
was  robbery  and  plunder,  down  and  feathers  were 
scattered  to  the  wind,  furniture  was  broken  to  pieces, 
valuables  and  money  were  taken  away.  In  many 
cases  women  were  violated,  men  beaten,  but  "with 
moderation,"  not  to  death.  The  pogroms,  however,  in 
Kishinev  (1903),  Gomel  (1903)  and  Zhitomir  (April, 
1905),  already  began  to  assume  a  bloody  course.  Jews 
were  murdered,  the  victims  numbered  many  dozens. 
After  the  revolution  (1905  and  1906)  the  pogroms 
expanded  both  in  space  and  in  time,  with  about  a 
thousand  victims.  The  organizing  activity  of  the 
lower  and  middle  administrative  officers  was  clearly 
visible,  as  was  shown  in  the  judicial  investiga- 
tions. The  parliamentary  commission  of  the  first 
imperial  Duma,  the  revelations  of  the  former  active 
minister  of  internal  affairs,  Prince  Urussov,  and  of  the 
former  director  of  the  police  department,  Lopuchin, 
confirmed  what  was  generally  known,  that  the  threads 
of  the  entire  pogrom  propaganda  were  held  together  in 
the  hands  of  the  highest  representatives  of  the  state 
force,  the  all  powerful  minister  of  internal  affairs  and 
the  director  of  the  police.  They  determined  the  places 
where  pogrom  dramas  were  to  be  enacted,  and  gave 
proper  instructions  to  the  local  authorities. 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES  3 

The  pogroms  of  the  tsarist  period  took  place  almost 
exclusively  in  the  south,  in  the  Ukraine,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  Ukrainian  cities.  The  large  Ukrainian 
cities  like  Kiev,  Odessa,  and  Yekaterinoslav  formed 
favorable  grounds  for  anti-Jewish  agitation  by  reason 
of  the  great  wealth  and  economic  activity,  the  accentu- 
ated class  differences  and  the  numerous  tramp  class 
existing  in  those  places.  The  officials  and  the  profes- 
sional classes  (teachers,  clergy,  partly  also  the  profes- 
sors) in  the  southern  cities  were  almost  exclusively  on 
the  side  of  the  Black  Hundred.  The  central  govern- 
ment took  great  care  to  see  that  all  those  who  were  in 
their  service  were  thoroughly  "reliable,"  i.e.,  that  they 
were  in  complete  accord  with  the  reactionary  politics 
of  the  central  government  and  carried  out  their  orders 
in  their  several  localities. 

The  pogroms  of  the  tsarist  period  were  almost 
exclusively  confined  to  the  cities.  There  were  none  in 
the  Ukrainian  villages.  Insurrection,  robbery  and  vio- 
lence were  done  by  the  city  hoodlums  in  the  larger 
centers.  Not  so  the  massacres  in  the  year  1919.  Here 
the  Ukrainian  village  played  the  main  role,  the  Ukrain- 
ian peasants,  the  bands  of  military  insurgents  as  well 
as  the  more  or  less  organized  bands  of  insurrectionists. 
The  wave  rolled  from  the  village  to  the  city  and  in  con- 
centric circles  embraced  the  whole  land.  But  the  vil- 
lage occupied  the  center.  The  impulse  and  the  radii 
proceeded  from  the  village.  The  urban  crowd  played  a 
subordinate  role,  and  merely  participated,  actively  to 
be  sure,  in  the  events.  Large  cities  like  Odessa  and 
Kiev  (before  the  invasion  of  Denikin)  were  over- 
whelmed by  this  wave,  which  spread  over  about  700 
localities  and  almost  annihilated  the  entire  Jewish  pop- 
ulation in  the  Ukrainian  villages  and  districts. 


4      SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

This  is  not  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Ukrainian  Jews  that  they  had  to  suffer  from  perse- 
cution. Twice  before  have  they  been  the  object  of 
horrible  attacks  and  cruel  murder,  in  the  times  of  the 
Ukrainian  period  of  storm  and  stress  when  the  peas- 
ants rose  against  their  Polish  oppressors. 

The  Jews  settled  in  Ukrainia  at  the  end  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  The  emigrants  from  Lithuania  and 
Poland  found  here  uncultivated  land  and  sparsely 
populated  villages.  Gradually  there  grew  up  cities, 
castles  and  settlements.  The  Polish  nobility  attracted 
as  colonists  the  petty  nobility,  the  serfs  and  also  the 
Jews  as  a  class  engaged  in  commerce  and  industry. 
Thanks  to  the  Jewish  spirit  of  enterprise  there  soon 
developed  an  extremely  energetic  commercial  activity. 
The  greatest  variety  of  industries,  the  production  of 
nitric  acid  and  potash,  fishing  and  hunting  as  well  as 
the  liquor  business  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Jews. 
Only  a  very  small  part  of  the  Jews  were  rich.  Accord- 
ing to  the  investigations  of  Berschadski  (Die  litau- 
schen  Juden),  the  commercial  and  credit  operations 
of  the  great  majority  of  the  Jews  must  be  measured  in 
dozens  of  rubles,  and  consisted  merely  in  the  granting 
of  small  loans  to  the  peasants,  the  poorer  middle  class 
and  the  Tartars.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  operations 
were  carried  on  with  the  moneys  which  they  themselves 
borrowed  from  the  Christian  clergy,  nobility  and 
poorer  middle  class.  Often  they  borrowed  this  capital 
by  pledging  household  articles,  even  body  linen. 

Is  it  true  that  the  Jewish  masses  were  guilty  of  abus- 
ing the  Christian  population  ?  The  Ukrainian  historian 
Ivan  Franko,  points  out  that  the  sources  of  the 
Khmelnitzky  period  say  nothing  about  the  accusations 
that  were  later  brought  against  the  Jews,  such  as 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES  5 

putting  mortgages  on  the  churches.  "The  unfair  prac- 
tices of  the  Jews,  so  far  as  there  were  such,"  says 
Franko,  "are  insignificant  as  compared  with  the  abuses 
committed  by  the  Polish  government  and  the  Polish 
military."  To  be  sure,  the  Cossack  population  did  not 
investigate  with  any  degree  of  care  as  to  who  was 
really  responsible  for  their  enslavement.  When  the 
Ukrainian  population  rose  in  rebellion,  with  Khmeln- 
itzky  at  their  head,  and  freed  themselves  from  the 
chains  of  political  and  economic  enslavement,  they 
swept  away  not  only  the  lords,  but  also  their  agents, 
the  Jews,  who  were  their  leaseholders  and  tenant 
farmers.  The  events  of  the  years  1648-1658  with 
their  heroes,  Krivonos,  Ganai,  Morosenko,  Timofei 
(son  of  Bogdan  Khmelnitzky) ,  Koloda  and  others, 
cost  the  Ukrainian  Jews,  according  to  the  careful  com- 
putations of  Sabbatai  Cohen,  about  100,000  lives 
(the  "Chronicler"  speaks  of  a  half  million.)  Several 
hundred  Jewish  settlements  were  completely  des- 
troyed. 

One  hundred  years  later,  the  Ukraine  was  again  the 
scene  of  insurrections.  The  Gaidamaks  (this  was 
the  name  of  the  insurrectionary  Cossack  bands  in  the 
1 8th  century)  were  no  whit  inferior  in  savage  cruelty 
to  the  Cossack  rebels  under  Bogdan  Khmelnitzky.  All 
the  hatred  that  had  accumulated  up  to  that  time  on  ac- 
count of  the  political  and  economic  enslavement  ot  the 
people  (introduction  of  serfdom,  persecution  of  their 
faith,  cruel  practices  of  the  administration,  by  state 
authorities  as  well  as  landed  proprietors)  was  let  loose 
in  this  moment.  As  formerly  under  Khmelnitzky,  so  a 
hundred  years  later,  when  the  Jewish  tenant  farmer, 
the  "inevitable  attendant  of  the  Polish  lord"  and  the 
executor  of  his  will  in  relation  to  the  village,  had  again 


6      SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

settled  down,  the  fury  of  the  peasants  once  more  was 
directed  against  him.  The  rebellion  of  1734  under 
the  leadership  of  Griva  adopted  the  following  motto, 
"It  is  permitted  to  plunder  the  Jews  and  kill  the  Po- 
laks." 

In  the  forties  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  "leader 
and  great  Hetman  of  the  Gaidamak  troops/'  Wasski 
Washchilo,  shows  clearly  in  his  proclamation  that  the 
purpose  of  the  rebellion  was  to  destroy  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple for  the  protection  of  Christianity.  "Guided  by 
zeal  for  the  holy  Christian  religion,  and  anxious  that 
the  anger  of  the  Lord  for  all  these  crimes  may  not  fall 
upon  innocent  persons,  I  have  decided,  so  far  as  it  lies 
in  my  power,  together  with  other  good  people  who  love 
Christianity,  to  exterminate  the  accursed  Jewish  peo- 
ple. I  have  already  with  God's  help  killed  the  Jews  in 
the  communities  of  Krichev  and  Propoisk,  and 
although  the  Jews  succeeded  in  having  government 
troops  sent  against  me,  the  just  God  gave  me  his  pro- 
tection in  all  cases.  Trusting  in  the  grace  of  God,  I 
shall  bring  to  end  this  holy  war  against  the  traitors." 
^  The  year  1767  in  which  the  insurrection  under 
Zhelezniak  and  Gonta  took  place  was  pregnant  with 
fate  for  the  Jews.  A  terrible  massacre  of  the  Jews 
took  place  at  Uman.  There  were  also  excesses  against 
the  Jews  in  Fastov,  Granov,  Zhivotov,  Tulchin  and 
Dashev. 

According  to  the  reports  of  eye  witnesses,  50,000  to 
60,000  Jews  lost  their  lives  at  the  time  of  the  Gaida- 
maks.* 

A  hundred  and  fifty  years  had  passed  since  then. 

*The  data  of  the  pogroms  under  Khmelnitzky  and  the  Gaida- 
maks  are  taken  from  the  1st  volume  of  "History  of  the  Jews  in 
Russia,"  Moscow,  1914. 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES  7 

The  Ukrainian  village  became  quiet  again  and  found 
its  equilibrium.  It  cost  the  Jews  in  Ukrainia  much  toil 
and  labor  to  re-establish  their  economic  existence. 
Now  as  before  the  village  population  dealt  principally 
with  the  Jewish  merchant  and  middleman,  coming 
very  rarely  in  contact  with  the  poor  Jewish  popula- 
tion, the  manual  laborers.  In  the  mind  of  the  village 
people  the  Jew  still  occupied  an  intermediate  place, 
"between  the  working  people  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
landlords  and  rich  cities  on  the  other,"  being  essentially 
nearer  to  the  latter  than  to  the  former.  The  historical 
I  antipathy  to  the  Jew  remained,  but  there  was  no  hatred. 
The  Jew  was  merely  distrusted  as  a  stranger  and  the 
Ukrainian  villagers,  blessed  with  the  craftiness  of  the 
peasant,  showed  contempt  for  the  Jewish  middleman 
and  inhabitant  of  the  city.  Nevertheless  peaceful  and 
neighborly  relations  developed  between  the  Jew  and  the 
Ukrainian  peasants,  which  suffered  no  change  during 
the  last  four  decades  of  Russian  rule.  Jews  who 
lost  their  entire  possessions  and  most  of  their  relatives 
in  the  fearful  storms  of  1919,  testify  unanimously  that 
in  a  great  number  of  cities  and  districts,  peaceful  and 
neighborly  relations  had  existed  between  the  Ukrainian 
peasants  and  the  Jews,  and  in  some  cases  they  were 
very  friendly  to  one  another. 

These  neighborly  relations  were  somewhat  disturbed 
during  the  German  occupation.  The  well-being  of  the 
population  both  Christian  and  Jewish  had  increased 
considerably.  It  was  the  time  of  unlimited  specula- 
tion in  goofis  and  money,  of  smuggling  in  and  out  of 
Soviet  Russia  and  the  neutral  zone.  The  peasants, 
however,  could  not  increase  their  earnings  in  the  same 
measure  as  the  others.  The  products  of  the  land  were 
taken  from  them  by  force,  at  low  prices,  and  carried 


8      SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

to  Germany.  On  the  basis  of  exaggerated  reports  of 
"the  wealth  of  the  Jews,"  there  developed  among  the 
peasants  a  feeling  of  envy  and  a  desire  for  city 
products  (manufactured  goods,  shoes),  of  which 
there  was  nothing  in  the  Ukrainian  village,  rumor  hav- 
ing it  that  the  Jews  in  the  larger  centers  enjoyed  a 
superfluity  of  such  things. 

The  anti-Jewish  sentiment  came  to  the  fore  in  the 
Ukrainian  village  at  the  time  when  the  Soviet  govern- 
ment took  the  helm.  This  government  is  in  the  eyes 
of  the  peasants  a  foreign  importation  from  Moscow. 
The  well-to-do  peasant  of  the  Ukrainian  village  is  op- 
posed to  communistic  tendencies.  Besides,  being  a 
landlord  in  possession  of  the  soil  which  he  regards  as 
his  consecrated  and  inviolable  property,  he  sees  in  the 
Soviet  government  principally  a  fiscal  power,  which 
requisitions  his  grain  and  other  agricultural  products 
at  maximum  prices,  paying  for  them  in  worthless  little 
papers.  A  tenacious  and  obstinate  fight  arose  between 
the  Ukrainian  village  and  the  Soviet  government.  The 
Soviet  government  brought  for  the  first  time  into  the 
village  the  Jewish  official,  as  a  representative  of  the 
state  power.  Under  the  tsar  the  law  did  not  allow  the 
Jews  to  hold  any  state  or  public  office.  At  the  time  of 
the  Provisional  Government  the  whole  power  was  actu- 
ally in  the  hands  of  the  central  Rada,  under  which  all 
local  posts  were  held  by  Ukrainians,  usually  represen- 
tatives of  the  local  population.  Under  the  Soviet 
regime,  on  the  other  hand,  Jews  also  were  govern- 
ment representatives,  holding  central  as  well  as 
local  offices.  In  districts  where  the  Jews  formed  the 
majority  of  the  population,  a  large  number  of  Jews 
belonged  to  the  executive  committee.  The  mere  fact 
that  besides  the  Jewish  middleman  there  was  also  a 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES 

Jewish  representative  of  the  state  force  called  forth  a 
feeling  of  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  Ukrainian  peas- 
ant. The  Jew  whom  he  was  accustomed  to  look  down 
upon  and  to  treat  with  contempt,  suddenly  stood  be- 
fore him  as  the  possessor  of  power,  demanding  re- 
spect. In  addition,  this  same  Jew  appeared  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  a  government  foreign  to  the  village  and 
the  object  of  its  hatred.  As  a  result  the  peasant  be- 
came suspicious  of  the  entire  Jewish  population,  re- 
garding all  the  Jews  without  exception  as  members  of 
the  Soviet  regime,  which  enabled  them  to  exercise 
power  against  the  Christian  population.  The  idea  took 
firm  root  in  his  mind  that  the  Jewish  nation  was  en- 
deavoring to  dominate  over  the  Christian  peasant.  In 
the  later  pogroms  this  attitude  found  expression  in  the 
words,  "What!  You  want  to  rule  over  us?"  The 
Ukrainian  peasant  had  a  tendency  to  impute  to  the 
Jewish  commissars  and  generally  to  the  whole  Jewish 
population  in  the  neighboring  towns  and  districts  all 
the  sins  committed  against  him  by  the  new  regime 
(requisitioning,  mobilization,  barrage  troops,  execu- 
tons  by  order  of  the  extraordinary  commissions). 

The  traditional  feeling  of  distrust  and  suspicion  of 
the  Jew  was  excited  and  fostered  by  the  above  men- 
tioned social  and  political  factors. 

There  is  still,  however,  a  great  gulf  between  the 
vague  feelings  of  envy,  contempt,  even  hatred,  and 
those  cruel  acts  perpetrated  upon  the  Jews  in  the 
Ukrainian  massacres.  To  bridge  it  an  external  force 
was  necessary,  which  compelled  the  peaceful  peasants 
to  overcome  their  moral  and  other  inhibitions,  aroused 
the  slumbering  instincts  of  destruction  and  hate,  gave 
to  the  whole  complex  of  vague  feelings  and  senti- 
ments a  political  form  and  instilled  it  into  the  minds  of 


io    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  peasants  by  anti- Jewish  agitation.  For  this  pur- 
pose it  was  necessary  to  accuse  the  Jews  as  such  of 
exploitation  of  labor  and  speculation,  to  represent  them 
as  "bourgeois"  and  at  the  same  time  to  brand  them  as 
advocates  of  the  Soviet  power  and  of  communism,  so 
as  to  organize  the  peasants  and  push  them  in  a  definite 
direction.  Under  the  influence  of  this  force  came  the 
peasant  avalanche,  continually  increasing  in  scope, 
moving  faster  and  faster  and  burying  under  it  tens  of 
thousands  of  Ukrainian  Jews. 

This  force  which  played  so  momentous  a  role  in  the 
history  of  Ukrainian  Jewry,  a  force  which  for  the 
first  time  in  our  revolutionary  epoch  made  use  of  Jew- 
ish massacres  as  a  political  weapon,  against  the  Soviet 
enemy,  is  represented  by  the  later  leaders  and  political 
heads  of  the  Ukrainian  People's  Republic.  They  took 
the  same  bloody  course  that  was  followed  later  by  the 
Russian  reaction  of  the  Denikin  regime  and  the  vol- 
unteer army.  Not  all  at  once  but  gradually,  step  by 
step  and  at  critical  moments,  did  they  begin  to  take  up 
the  method  of  pogroms.  First  they  addressed  threats 
to  the  Jewish  leaders,  warning  them  of  the  people's 
wrath  in  case  they  did  not  exert  the  proper  influence  on 
the  Jewish  masses.  Then  followed  the  actual  applica- 
tion of  the  method  in  question,  first  in  the  form  of 
organized  excesses  and  demonstrations,  and  then  at  the 
most  critical  moment  in  the  form  of  a  systematic  and 
uninterrupted  series  of  organized  blood  baths  and  hor- 
rible devastations.  Forced  back  by  the  Soviet  govern- 
ment to  the  frontier  of  the  Ukraine,  the  leaders  of  the 
Ukrainian  Republic,  as  represented  by  the  Directory 
and  its  responsible  agents,  never  again  let  go  of  this 
bloody  weapon  by  which  they  expected  to  secure  vic- 
tory. 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES          11 

The  history  of  the  Jewish  pogroms  in  the  Ukraine 
is  closely  connected  with  the  political  history  of  the 
country,  and  cannot  be  separated  from  it.  It  seems 
necessary,  therefore,  to  keep  in  mind  the  main  factors 
of  the  revolutionary  movement  in  the  Ukraine,  and  to 
determine  the  dividing  line  between  the  popular  move- 
ment of  the  Ukrainians  and  the  Jewish  socialistic 
parties.  This  division,  accompanied  by  military  de- 
feats, already  carried  in  itself  the  germ  of  the  ap- 
proaching massacres. 

The  March  revolution  exposed  in  sharp  outline  all 
the  problems  of  Russian  life,  including  the  problem  of 
nationality.  The  autocratic  tsar  held  all  the  nation- 
alities inhabiting  the  several  parts  of  the  empire  in 
slavery.  Their  endeavors  to  develop  their  national 
culture  were  exposed  to  persecution.  Every  attempt 
to  attain  even  the  most  modest  share  of  autonomy  was 
regarded  as  a  revolt  against  the  highest  authority  and 
was  rigorously  suppressed. 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  revolution  strong  national- 
istic movements  began  in  certain  parts  of  the  former 
empire.  The  opposing  forces  made  themselves  felt. 
The  nationalistic  element  came  to  the  fore  every- 
where, especially  in  the  large  border  states,  Finland 
and  the  Ukraine.  The  Provisional  Government  tried 
to  evade  the  problem  as  well  as  it  could.  In  its  de- 
pendence upon  the  Russian  bourgeoisie,  especially  upon 
the  party  of  the  Constitutional  Democrats  (Cadets) 
which  represented  them  in  their  efforts  to  create  a 
"united,  strong  and  great  Russia,"  it  saw  in  the 
nationalistic  movement  the  danger  of  secession  of  the 
border  states.  The  Provisional  Government  was  re- 
solved not  to  weaken  the  economic  power  of  the  great 
Russian  bourgeoisie  by  showing  a  pliable  temper,  nor 


12    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

to  weaken  Russia  while  the  imperialistic  world  war  was 
raging.  It,  therefore,  postponed  the  .solution  of 
the  problem  "until  the  calling  of  the  Constitutional 
Assembly,"  which  was  again  and  again  postponed  to 
a  later  date.  The  nationalistic  movement  burst  forth 
with  the  fury  of  a  storm.  Its  waves  rose  higher  and 
higher.  The  Provisional  Government  was  compelled  to 
recognize  it  and  meet  it  step  by  step.  In  the  Ukraine 
a  representative  body  was  formed,  the  Central  Rada 
composed  of  all  socialist  parties,  which  controlled 
the  political  life  of  the  country  and  created  out  of  itself 
the  national  secretariat  as  an  executive  organ. 

To  bring  about  peaceful  relations  between  the  Pro- 
visional Government  and  the  Central  Rada,  the  two 
ministers  Zeretelli  and  Tereschenko  came  from  Petro- 
grad  to  Kiev,  and  actually  succeeded  for  a  time  in 
reconciling  the  nationalistic  aspirations  of  the  Ukraine 
with  the  wavering  and  restraining  tendencies  of  the 
Provisional  Government.  They  recognized  the  right 
of  the  Ukraine  to  a  considerable  degree  of  autonomy. 
But  they  would  not  accept  a  federative  structure  of 
the  Russian  State. 

The  Central  Rada  based  its  hopes  and  claims  upon 
the  enormous  majority  of  the  Ukrainian  village,  upon 
the  nationalistically  minded  intelligentzia  of  the 
cities  as  well  as  upon  parts  of  the  urban  lower  middle 
class.  The  Rada  became,  therefore,  an  important 
political  power,  maintaining  its  independence  of  the 
Russian  Provisional  Government,  which  had  not  the 
slightest  influence  in  the  Ukraine. 

The  Ukrainian  great-bourgeoisie  is  composed  of  rep- 
resentatives of  foreign  nationalities  (Russians,  Jews, 
Poles).  They  were  opposed  to  the  Central  Rada  be- 
cause they  saw  in  it  a  power  destructive  to  the  integ- 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES          13 

rity  of  the  "Russian  Empire."  Without  attacking 
them  seriously  in  the  sphere  of  social  politics,  the  Cen- 
tral Rada  paid  very  little  attention  to  the  great-bour- 
geoisie, and  on  the  other  hand  showed  itself  more  defi- 
nite and  determined  than  the  Russian  Provisional 
Government  in  respect  to  such  cardinal  questions  of 
the  Revolution  as  the  question  of  the  land  and  the 
tei/mination  of  the  war. 

The  Central  Rada  did  not  take  its  support  from  the 
working  population  of  the  cities.  The  urban  work- 
men did  not  entirely  trust  the  Central  Rada  because 
they  saw  in  it  mainly  representatives  of  the  inter- 
ests of  the  middle  peasants  of  the  Ukrainian  vil- 
lage. Nationally,  too,  the  working  classes  were  not 
at  one  with  the  Rada,  consisting  as  they  did  for  the 
most  part  of  Russians,  Poles  and  Jews.  The  Ukrainian 
Soviet  delegates  were  in  their  general  standpoint 
nearer  to  the  Russian  Central  Committee  of  the  Soviet 
labor  delegates  than  to  the  Central  Rada.  Neverthe- 
less the  workmen  as  a  class  and  the  Jewish  workmen 
in  particular  supported  the  Central  Rada  in  their  en- 
deavors after  national  autonomy,  which  would  make 
possible  an  unrestricted  cultural  and  social  develop- 
ment of  the  Ukrainian  forces,  without,  however,  break- 
ing with  the  All-Russian  revolution. 

The  Jewish  Labor  Bund  often  played  the  role  of 
mediator  between  the  Ukrainian  national  movement 
and  the  Russian  revolutionary  democracy.  The  Jew- 
ish workmen  and  laborers,  the  support  of  the  Jewish 
socialistic  parties,  were  afraid  of  the  extravagances  of 
the  Bolshevistic  rule  and  saw  in  the  Central  Rada  a 
power  greater  than  the  Provisional  Government.  Be- 
sides the  Central  Rada  was  in  its  political  structure  a 
democratic  force,  which  at  the  same  time  guaranteed 


I4    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  cultural  needs  of  the  national  minorities  by  the  law 
of  autonomy  in  the  sphere  of  national  culture.  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  Jewish  socialistic  party  belonged  to 
the  Secretariat  (Council  of  Ministers)  of  the  Central 
Rada. 

The  tendency  of  the  Central  Rada  to  favor  separa- 
tion from  Russia  forced  the  Jewish  parties  into  oppo- 
sition. The  Jewish  Labor  Bund  abstained  from  vot- 
ing on  the  third  manifesto  ("Universal"),  which 
opened  wide  the  doors  to  the  separatist  tendencies  of  the 
Ukrainian  movement.  This  resulted  in  the  recall  of  the 
socialistic  representatives  in  the  Secretariat.  A  criti- 
cal moment  in  the  relations  between  the  Jewish  social- 
istic parties  and  the  Central  Rada  was  on  the  occasion 
of  carrying  out  the  fourth  manifesto,  which  proclaimed 
the  "independence"  of  the  Ukraine,  denoting  a  com- 
plete break  with  Soviet  Russia. 

The  fourth  manifesto  was  really  called  forth  by  the 
pressure  of  German  imperialism  upon  Soviet  Russia. 
It  meant  for  the  Ukraine  a  separate  peace  with  Ger- 
many at  the  expense  of  Russia,  and  a  protection  against 
the  danger  of  the  Soviet.  The  manifesto  was  regarded 
with  disfavor  by  the  Ukrainian  proletariat,  because 
they  could  not  reconcile  themselves  to  an  economic, 
political  and  moral  separation  from  Russia.  Moreover 
the  proletariat  sensed  in  the  fourth  manifesto  a  tend- 
ency to  reaction  externally  (union  with  Germany)  as 
well  as  internally.  The  lower  middle  class  circles  in 
the  cities  were  opposed  to  the  manifesto  for  similar 
reasons.  Fear  of  Bolshevism  lamed  their  activity. 
Nevertheless  their  attitude  to  the  new  ways  upon  which 
the  national  movement  had  entered  was  negative.  The 
fourth  manifesto  repelled  the  socialistic  parties  of  the 
Ukrainian  cities  from  the  Central  Rada.  The  latter 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES          15 

continued  to  find  support  in  the  broad  stratum  of  the 
great  and  middle  peasants,  who  were  only  loosely  con- 
nected with  the  Russian  revolution  and  for  the  time 
being  had  no  serious  economic  interests  in  the  war- 
exhausted  cities  in  general  or  in  the  Russian  Soviet 
cities  in  particular. 

In  the  debate  on  the  fourth  manifesto  in  the  Cen- 
tral Rada,  the  Jewish  labor  parties  spoke  against  it. 
The  mere  appearance  on  the  platform  of  the  well- 
known  leader  of  the  Bund,  Liber,  who  was  to  speak  in 
the  name  of  the  Jewish  Labor  Bund,  called  forth  a 
storm  of  indignation.  He  was  regarded  as  an  advocate 
of  centralization  and  an  opponent  of  the  Ukrainian 
national  movement.  The  Jewish  Labor  Bund  voted 
against  the  manifesto.  The  united  Jewish  socialistic 
party  and  the  labor  party  of  the  Poale  Zion  abstained 
from  voting,  but  expressed  themselves  in  strong  criti- 
cism of  the  manifesto. 

After  the  proclamation  of  the  fourth  manifesto  by 
the  Central  Rada,  the  question  of  political  strikes  was 
raised  in  the  council  of  labor  delegates.  In  spite  of 
their  negative  attitude  toward  the  fourth  manifesto,  the 
Jewish  socialistic  parties  stood  foursquare  on  the  basis 
of  the  independence  of  the  Ukraine,  guided  by  the 
desire  to  remain  in  decided  though  not  revolution- 
ary opposition.  On  the  question  of  strikes  great 
differences  and  friction  developed  among  them.  A 
considerable  part  were  against  the  strike.  The  left 
wing  was  not  definitely  opposed  to  it  but  recommended 
strikes  with  a  definite  time  limit. 

At  this  time  began  the  first  threats  of  the  Ukrainians 
against  the  Jews.  The  purpose  of  these  threats  was 
to  frighten  the  wavering  elements  among  the  Jews  by 
calling  attention  to  the  coming  retribution  from  the 


16    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

indignant  masses,  who  felt  that  their  most  sacred  na- 
tional feeling  had  been  outraged. 

Martos  (later  the  president  of  the  council  of  min- 
isters), a  representative,  belonging  to  the  left  wing 
of  the  Ukrainian  national  movement,  addressed  the 
Jewish  deputies  from  the  platform  to  the  following 
effect:  "Yesterday  one  of  your  men  in  the  council  of 
labor  delegates  advocated  the  general  strike.  Do  not 
play  a  double  game.  Say  openly  what  you  want. 
Restrain  your  people  from  such  steps.  We  feel  that 
we  shall  soon  be  unable  to  curb  the  anger  and  the  hate 
of  our  people."  The  nationalistic  agitation  also  was 
utilized  to  hold  the  troops  in  the  Ukraine  together  by 
the  anti-Jewish  feeling  which  was  common  to  them  all. 

The  general  strike  began.  Small  armed  bands  of 
workmen  opposed  the  Central  Rada,  but  were  not  sup- 
ported by  the  great  masses.  The  strike  failed.  In  the 
meantime  Kiev  was  attacked  by  the  troops  of  the 
Bolshevist  Red  Guard,  who  succeeded  in  getting  pos- 
session of  the  city.  The  Central  Rada  removed  their 
sessions  from  Kiev  to  Zhitomir.  The  Jewish  deputies 
remained  in  Kiev.  The  Jewish  socialistic  parties  and 
their  representatives  opposed  the  Bolsheviki  most  bit- 
terly. In  the  fight  of  the  Jewish  socialistic  parties 
against  the  Bolsheviki,  the  tendency  of  the  Jewish  labor 
masses  finds  its  expression.  They  emphasize  not  only 
their  negative  attitude  toward  the  October  revolution, 
but  the  socialistic  parties  advocate  also  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Ukraine,  and  declare  that  the  Soviet  gov- 
ernment can  not  be  regarded  as  the  representative  of 
the  attitude  of  the  Ukrainian  masses,  being  on  the  con- 
trary a  foreign  power  which  came  from  the  outside  to 
conquer  the  Ukraine. 

The  Central  Rada  in  Zhitomir  followed  a  nation- 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES          17 

alistic  and  reactionary  course.  A  new  law  was  made 
depriving  members  of  foreign  elements,  Russians  and 
Jews,  of  the  rights  of  Ukrainian  citizenship.  At  the 
same  time  the  legend  was  circulated  in  Zhitomir  that 
Jews  in  Kiev  had  shot  the  retiring  Ukrainian  troops  in 
the  back.  The  withdrawal  of  the  Ukrainian  troops 
took  place  in  the  greatest  haste.  One  military  defeat 
followed  upon  another.  The  armies  began  to  crumble 
away.  To  keep  them  together  they  made  use  of  agita- 
tion against  the  Moscovites  and  especially  against  the 
Jews.  And  it  was  for  this  purpose  that  agents  of  the 
Rada  spread  the  legend. 

The  anti-Semitic  agitation  increased  after  the 
Ukraine  was  reconquered  by  the  Central  Rada  with  the 
help  of  German  bayonets.  It  was  necessary  to  find  a 
scapegoat  to  bear  the  national  disgrace  and  carry  away 
on  his  back  the  anger  and  hate  of  the  army  and  the 
peasants.  The  Jews  were  made  the  scapegoat,  on  the 
ground  that  they  had  caused  the  occupation  of  the 
Ukraine  by  German  troops  and  were  in  the  service  of 
the  Bolshevist  government.  And  when  Petlura  on  a 
white  horse  entered  Kiev  at  the  head  of  a  small  band 
of  Gaidamaks,  followed  on  foot  by  well  armed  and 
well  disciplined  German  troops,  the  hate  and  desire 
for  revenge  of  the  Ukrainian  soldier  against  the  Jew 
flared  up  in  a  hot  flame.  The  Ukrainian  bands  were 
met  by  a  delegation  of  members  of  the  Central  Rada, 
which  contained  also  representatives  of  the  Ukrainian 
social  democracy.  The  military  authorities  declared 
to  them  calmly  and  definitely,  "Tell  the  Jews  that  we 
will  get  even  with  them."  And  to  Rafes,  a  member  of 
the  Central  Rada,  they  said,  "We  know  your  speeches, 
we  will  dispose  of  you  and  your  associates."  Now  the 
excesses  began  against  the  Jews,  the  first  result  of 


18    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 
which  was  the  death  of  a  few  persons,  mainly  Jewish 
workmen. 

When  the  Central  Rada  returned  from  Zhitomir,  the 
Jewish  representatives  resumed  their  activity  in  the 
Rada.  They  were  received  with  hate,  animosity  and 
threats  and  were  accused  of  Bolshevism  without  any 
reason.  The  only  Ukrainian  representatives  who  de- 
fended them  were  those  who  remained  in  Kiev  during 
the  Bolshevist  rule. 

The  excesses  against  the  Jews  continued  a  long 
time.  Professor  Grushevski,  the  president  of  the  Cen- 
tral Rada,  took  pains  to  suppress  the  attacks.  For  this 
purpose  he  addressed  himself  again  and  again  to  the 
military  and  some  of  their  leaders.  Repeatedly  he 
invited  the  Rada  to  work  in  common,  as  he  pointed  to 
the  difficulty  of  the  situation.  Under  the  pressure  of 
the  Central  Rada  and  the  whole  poltical  situation  (pres- 
ence of  German  military,  who  had  already  spoken  of 
order)  there  were  no  mass  pogroms.  Here  we  see  the 
most  characteristic  feature  of  the  Jewish  pogroms — 
the  moment  the  instigators  cease  to  find  them  useful 
for  their  purpose,  they  suddenly  come  to  a  standstill. 
At  the  time  in  question  a  strong  anti-Semitic  propa- 
ganda was  developed.  The  sentiment  in  favor  of 
pogroms  among  the  Ukrainian  troops  was  genuine  and 
strong.  They  were  firmly  convinced  that  the  Jews 
were  responsible  for  Bolshevism  as  well  as  for  the 
disgrace  of  their  country.  Nevertheless  the  number 
of  victims  was  very  small.  The  military  leaders  who 
excited  and  fanned  these  sentiments  stood  under  the 
influence  of  the  causes  above  mentioned.  They  pre- 
vented an  open  pogrom  and,  what  is  the  main  thing, 
they  gave  no  orders  for  a  pogrom. 

The  German  military  occupation  made  itself  felt. 


SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL  CAUSES          19 

They  tried  to  utilize  the  "bread  peace"  to  the  fullest 
extent  in  their  own  interest.  The  Ukraine  with  its 
bread  and  its  agricultural  products  must  make  it  pos- 
sible for  Germany  to  continue  the  war  in  the  west. 
The  whole  grain  was  often  carried  off  from  the  vil- 
lages by  armed  force.  The  villages  soon  realized  the 
real  meaning  of  the  Force  of  Occupation.  The  Central 
Rada  saw  its  political  mistake.  The  representatives 
of  the  Ukrainian  parties  listened  willingly  to  the 
speeches  of  the  Jewish  opposition  against  the  Force  of 
Occupation.  The  desire  to  liberate  themselves  from 
the  Germans  reconciled  the  Rada  to  the  Jewish  oppo- 
sition. But  the  Central  Rada  had  played  its  role, 
it  was  scattered  by  German  bayonets. 

The  Occupation  covered  its  domination  over  the 
Ukraine  with  the  mantle  of  Hetman  rule.  The  Ger- 
man military  party  introduced  a  congress  of  represen- 
tatives of  the  peasant  land  proprietors,  the  "Corn 
Peasants/'  These  proclaimed  as  head  of  the  Ukrainian 
State,  Paul  Skoropadsky,  a  descendant  of  an  old  Het- 
man family,  a  hitherto  little  known  captain  of  the 
tsarist  regime,  who  had  later  gone  over  to  the  serv- 
ice of  the  Ukrainian  government.  The  Hetman  was 
an  obedient  figurehead  in  the  hands  of  the  Force  of 
Occupation.  He  was  a  devoted  executor  of  their  will 
and  their  efforts.  The  white  terror  prevailed  in  the 
cities  and  even  more  on  the  plains  of  the  country. 
There  was  a  continuous  descent  of  punitive  expedi- 
tions, requisitions,  money  penalties.  The  hate  against 
the  Force  of  Occupation  and  the  external  expression  of 
the  German  rule  grew  from  day  to  day,  and  not  in  the 
village  only  but  also  in  the  city.  At  the  same  time  the 
great  defeats  of  the  Germans  on  the  west  front  and  the 
growing  opposition  among  the  German  soldiers  weak- 


20    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

ened  the  power  of  the  Force  of  Occupation  and  an- 
nounced its  approaching  end.  The  disturbances  in  the 
Ukrainian  villages,  which  were  kept  down  with  the  help 
of  the  Hetman's  government  troops  and  the  German 
punitive  expeditions,  continued.  In  the  cities  secret 
meetings  were  held  between  the  representatives  of  the 
Ukrainian  parties  of  the  Left  and  the  Jewish  socialistic 
parties.  A  complete  rapproachment  was  not  arrived  at. 
The  differences  between  them  were  of  a  radical  nature. 
Mistrust  was  very  great.  The  common  enemy,  how- 
ever, brought  about  an  understanding  and  the  convic- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  making  common  cause  against 
him.  The  understanding,  however,  was  not  of  long 
duration.  The  enemy  was  soon  overcome.  The  politi- 
cal parties  of  the  Ukraine  who  had  created  a  new  na- 
tional government,  the  Directory,  experienced  a  vio- 
lent clash  with  the  Soviet  government.  In  this  embit- 
tered fight  they  carried  to  its  full  development  the  old 
weapon  of  poison,  anti-Semitic  agitation  and  the  sup- 
port of  the  organized  Jewish  pogroms. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE    DIRECTORY 

ON  the  ninth  of  November,  1918,  the  revolution 
broke  out  in  Germany.  The  consequence  was  a  politi- 
cal crisis  in  German-occupied  Ukraine  and  a  revolt 
against  German  domination. 

On  the  thirteenth  of  November  a  political  general 
strike  was  determined  upon  at  a  general  meeting  of 
the  Central  Bureau  of  the  Ukrainian  Labor  Union. 
Everywhere  in  the  basin  of  the  Donetz  where  the  Aus- 
trian troops  retired  there  was  a  revolt.  On  the  fifteenth 
of  November  the  movement  began  in  the  Government 
of  Kiev,  district  of  Tarascha.  Everywhere  insurgent 
bands  were  formed  under  the  leadership  of  Makhno, 
Grigoriev  and  others.  At  the  head  of  the  movement 
was  a  Directory  and  later  Petlura.  Yekaterino- 
slav,  Kharkov  and  Odessa  went  over  to  the  Directory. 
On  the  eleventh  of  December  Kiev  was  occupied. 

The  rebellion  of  Petlura  was  not  so  much  under  the 
banner  of  nationalism  as  under  that  of  Socialism  and 
partly  also  of  Bolshevism.  The  radical  watchwords  of 
the  city  gave  expression  to  the  general  sentiment, 
particularly  the  desire  of  the  villagers  to  obtain  com- 
plete rights  of  disposition  of  the  soil.  This  demand 
had  the  support  not  only  of  the  rich  peasants  under  the 
leadership  of  the  "independent"  socialists,  but  also  of 
the  middle  peasants  under  the  leadership  of  the  social- 

21 


22    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

ist  parties  of  the  left.  The  city  proletariat  inclined  to 
the  Bolsheviki.  Petlura  entered  Kiev  as  a  national 
hero,  but  he  was  followed  by  his  shadow,  the  Bolshevist 
Soviet  power.  As  early  as  the  middle  of  November 
there  was  formed  in  Kursk  the  Ukrainian  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment, which  began  a  campaign  against  the  Direc- 
tory. Advancing  from  north  to  south,  the  Bolsheviki 
occupied  Gomel,  Glukhov,  Sumy,  Kharkov,  Yekater- 
inoslav,  and  finally  on  the  second  of  February,  Kiev ; 
Kharkov  having  been  occupied  by  the  Red  Army  even 
before  Petlura' s  entrance  into  Kiev. 

The  international  position  of  the  Directory  was 
also  altogether  difficult.  Their  negotiations  with  the 
Entente  and  Rumania  through  General  Grekov  in 
Odessa  led  to  no  result.  The  Entente  held  fast  to  the 
principle  of  a  "united  and  undivided  Russia"  and  sup- 
ported Denikin. 

Fermentation  began  among  the  troops  of  the  Direc- 
tory. These  may  be  divided  into  two  groups,  insur- 
rectionist and  regular  troops.  When  Petlura  entered 
Kiev  in  December,  1918,  at  the  head  of  the  Directory, 
the  peasant  rebels  formed  the  majority  of  his  military 
force.  Radically  disposed  as  a  result  of  the  long  guer- 
illa warfare  against  the  rule  of  the  Germans  and  the 
Hetman,  they  formed  at  that  time  a  disciplined  mass, 
who  had  been  for  a  great  part  through  the  school  of 
the  imperialistic  war.  In  general,  however,  this  mass 
was  politically  unstable  and  always  divided,  pro- 
tecting the  Ukrainian  Republic  whenever  there  was 
danger  on  the  right,  and  becoming  disloyal  when  there 
was  a  rebellion  on  the  left.  The  regular  troops  were 
mainly  enrolled  in  Odessa  through  the  so-called  mili- 
tary Rada,  which  stood  under  the  military  and  political 
leadership  of  the  most  reactionary  elements  in  the 


THE  DIRECTORY  23 

Ukrainian  national  movement  (the  independents,  Ata- 
man-Verbitski  and  Doctor  Luzenko),  from  the  circles 
of  the  wealthiest  peasants  as  well  as  the  nationalistic- 
ally  minded  mobs  of  Ukrainia.  These  formed  the 
bands  of  Gaidamaks.  They  were  joined  by  the  Gali- 
cian  sharpshooters  who  had  been  war  prisoners  in 
Germany  and  had  received  there  a  particular  Ukrain- 
ian nationalistic  training.  At  the  head  of  the  army 
was  a  group  of  reactionaries.  The  political  leadership 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  "independent*'  Doctor  Lu- 
zenko, the  military  leadership  was  in  the  hands  of 
Konovaletz.  Kavenko  was  emissary. 

The  leaders  were  confronted  by  an  enormously  dif- 
ficult problem,  that  of  welding  into  a  unit  a  mass  of 
troops  in  which  the  majority  were  radical  while  the 
minority  were  in  favor  of  a  national  military  dictator- 
ship. Such  a  fusion  of  the  army  was  an  absolute  neces- 
sity. The  anti-Semitic  agitation  began.  The  bands  of 
Gaidamaks  had  long  been  hostile  to  the  Jews.  At  a 
time  when  the  relations  were  still  friendly,  a  number 
of  Jews  were  attacked  by  them  with  the  cry,  "Cut  down 
the  Jews !"  Konovaletz,  the  military  leader  of  the 
troops  of  the  Directory,  selected  for  this  special  pur- 
pose from  the  Gaidamaks  two  Ukrainian  Cossacks  and 
certain  well  disciplined  bands,  held  together  by  their 
common  hatred  of  the  Bolsheviki  and  the  Jews.  These 
were  the  so-called  "Kureni  Smerti"  (Clans  of  Death). 
Here  also  belonged  special  bands  under  the  leadership 
of  various  "Batki."  These  bands  were  united  by  love 
of  fighting  in  common,  by  reverence  for  and  obedience 
to  the  Batko  and  by  various  peculiar  privileges  which 
they  enjoyed.  "They  fight  well,  therefore  they  are 
permitted  to  plunder."  This  was  the  judgment  of  the 
military  chiefs. 


24    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  conduct  of  these  troops  in  quiet  and,  if  I  may 
say  so,  pogromless  times,  and  the  attitude  toward  them 
of  the  military  authorities,  are  exhibited  in  a  glaring 
light  in  a  sketch  of  a  memorial  prepared  by  Abrrius, 
the  head  of  the  police  of  Zhitomir,  and  handed  to  the 
Directory  in  the  name  of  the  administration  of  the 
city  of  Zhitomir.    In  this  cautiously  written  memorial 
the  authors  request  the  Directory  to  remove   from 
the  city  the  troops  which  were  quartered  there  during 
the  first  pogrom  (the  sketch  in  question  was  composed 
in  the  time  between  the  first  and  the  second  pogroms). 
The  soldiers  are  "very  much  demoralized,  have  abso- 
lutely no  occupation  and  in  connection  with  the  mob 
strike  fear  and  terror  into  every  inhabitant.  .  .  .  This 
refers  especially  to  the  'Sotnias'  of  the  commandants. 
The  city  administration  and  the,  investigating  com- 
mission had  full  opportunity  to  convince  themselves 
that  persons  in  military  cloaks  caught  with  stolen  goods 
were  in  the  service  of  the  Sotnias  of  the  command- 
ants.   When  they  were  arrested  and  brought  before  the 
commandant,  he  at  once  set  them  free,  whereupon  they 
had  the  impudence  to  visit  the  administration  and  the 
investigating  commission  again  and  again  and  demand 
the  return  of  the  stolen  property.     This  demand  the 
investigating  commission  sometimes  granted  in  view 
of  the  defiant  attitude  of  the  offenders  and  the  circum- 
stance that  they  had  been  let  go  without  any  punish- 
ment.    Later  these  same  persons,  armed,   drove  in 
droshkas  through  the  city,  where  they  no  doubt  kept  up 
their  nefarious  doings." 

After  the  first  pogrom  the  city  administration  organ- 
ized night  patrols  of  the  inhabitants  to  prevent  robbery 
(a  kind  of  self-defense).  The  commandant  gave  his 
consent  to  the  organization.  "Immediately  thereafter 


THE  DIRECTORY  25 

the  city  administration  in  the  first  night  of  the  patrol's 
duty  found  themselves  face  to  face  with  serious  mis- 
understandings. In  the  first  place,  the  commandant 
had  given  an  order  that  no  Cossack  was  to  be  arrested, 
and  there  were  no  exceptions  to  this  rule.  By  this  order 
all  possibility  was  removed  of  doing  anything  to  stop 
the  excesses  committed  by  the  persons  in  gray  cloaks. 
On  the  other  hand,  despite  the  requests  of  the  admin- 
istration, the  commandant  gave  a  special  order  in 
which  he  explained  to  the  soldiers  the  purpose  and  the 
task  of  the  night  patrols.  The  night  patrols  were  at- 
tacked by  persons  in  soldiers'  uniform  and  by  Cossack 
officers.  They  began  to  disarm  the  city  patrols,  first 
in  single  cases,  then  more  and  more  frequently,  and 
finally  the  disarmament  assumed  a  systematic  and  gen- 
eral character.  Besides,  the  persons  in  military  cloaks 
evidently  were  supported  by  the  law,  which  prohibited 
any  action  against  them,  and  became  more  defiant  and 
shameless  every  day.  A  band  of  eight  persons  passed 
through  the  main  streets  at  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
and  robbed  the  passersby  of  their  purses  and  valuables 
under  the  pretext  of  looking  for  arms.  Despite  the 
complaints  of  the  administration  the  excesses  remained 
unpunished.  Attacks  on  dwellings  became  more  and 
more  frequent,  while  at  the  same  time  the  city  patrols 
were  disarmed  and  robbed.  The  bandits  took  away 
their  caps,  watches,  shoes,  abused  and  insulted  them  at 
every  step  and  indulged  in  anti-Semitic  incitations. 
"Later  the  city  administration  which  had  reported 
ic  matter  to  the  commandant  and  commander  of  the 
>rps  was  astounded  to  read  in  the  papers  an  order  by 
rhich  it  was  made  a  duty  of  the  military  patrols  to 
shoot  down  not  only  the  plunderers  but  also  those 
whom  the  patrols  regarded  as  enemies  of  the  Republic 


26    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  propagandists  of  Bolshevism.  In  this  way  the 
peaceful  population  was  handed  over  to  the  arbitrary 
and  unlimited  whims  of  a  degenerate  and  unruly  mob 
in  gray  coats,  and  the  city  administration  was  deprived 
by  this  order  of  every  possibility  of  organizing  any 
resistance  against  the  robbers  and  authors  of  violence." 

In  this  way  the  soldier  bands  were  systematically 
trained  for  the  pogroms.  They  were  demoralized,  the 
life,  honor  and  property  of  the  peaceful  population 
were  given  over  to  them  and  they  disposed  of  life  and 
death. 

They  carried  out  the  order  of  their  chiefs,  because 
the  orders  were  for  and  not  against  them.  They  still 
maintained  discipline.  Later,  in  consequence  of  im- 
punity, they  lost  all  discipline  and  degenerated  simply 
into  robber  bands. 

As  long  as  discipline  still  prevailed  among  them,  the 
pogroms  instituted  by  them  clearly  bore  the  character 
of  the  execution  of  a  military  command.  The  Jewish 
persecutions  began  and  ended  at  a  signal,  mostly  open, 
sometimes  secret. 

All  the  pogroms  carried  out  by  the  regular  troops 
of  the  Directory  followed  a  certain  common  general 
plan.  They  were  intensified  in  number  and  in  degree 
of  cruelty  in  times  when  the  Directory  felt  itself 
especially  threatened  by  the  Bolsheviki,  they  were  re- 
duced in  intensity  when  the  Bolsheviki  were  driven 
out  of  the  Ukraine  by  the  troops  of  Denikin.  The 
resolution  of  the  council  of  ministers  of  the  Petlura 
Government  to  take  radical  measures  against  the 
pogroms  dates  from  the  eighteenth  of  August,  the 
proclamation  of  Petlura  to  the  army  on  the  same  sub- 
ject dates  from  the  twenty-sixth  of  August,  i.e.,  from 
the  day  when  the  Soviet  power  had  already  been  driven 


THE  DIRECTORY  27 

out  of  the  Ukraine  by  Denikin  and  the  days  of  their 
stay  in  Kiev  were  numbered.  The  pogroms  organized 
by  the  Directory  assumed  in  the  year  1919  a  definite 
form. 

THE  JANUARY  POGROMS 

These  were  confined  principally  to  the  eastern  part 
of  the  government  of  Volhynia,  because  the  troops 
of  Petlura  were  obliged  at  that  time,  under  the  press- 
ure of  the  Bolsheviki  who  were  advancing  toward 
Kiev  from  the  north  and  northwest,  to  retire  while 
fighting.  Here  belong  the  pogroms  in  Ovruch  (De- 
cember 31  to  January  16),  as  well  as  in  the  villages  of 
Potapovichi  and  Geshovo  (December  31).  As  these 
pogroms  are  very  significant,  I  shall  take  them  up  in 
more  detail.* 

Ovruch  is  a  capital  city  in  the  government  of  Vol- 
hynia with  a  population  of  about  10,000.  More  than 
two-thirds  of  the  inhabitants  are  Jews.  The  mass  of 
the  Jewish  population  are  not  interested  in  politics  and 
have  not  produced  any  well-known  revolutionists. 
During  the  Jewish  persecutions  under  the  tsar,  Ovruch 
was  spared. 

It  was  not  until  December,  1917,  at  the  time  of  the 
Rada  and  under  the  influence  of  the  agitation  of  the 
Polish  landed  proprietors  and  the  old  tsarist  officials, 
that  the  peasants  of  the  surrounding  villages  began  the 
destruction  of  Jewish  shops.  Dwellings  were  un- 
touched. Under  the  influence  of  WhiteJRussian  Bol- 
sheviki, Bolshevist  sentiments  made  their  appearance 

*We  publish  as  an  appendix  to  this  chapter  the  complete  re- 
port of  these  pogroms  by  the  well-known  attorney,  A.  I. 
Hillerson.  See  pp.  185  ff. 


28    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

among  the  peasants  of  Ovruch.  The  Little-Russian 
Dmitriuk,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  the  "Ovruch  Re- 
public" after  the  fall  of  the  Ataman,  and  the  Jew 
Friedman,  made  protestations  against  the  Bolshevist 
tendency.  The  result  was  that  Dmitriuk  was  put  to 
death  and  Friedman  made  his  escape  by  flight. 

Their  place  was  taken  by  the  Clans  of  Death  and 
later  by  a  special  band  of  freebooters  with  the  Ata- 
man Kozyr-Zyrka  at  the  head.  After  the  reception  of 
a  deputation  of  representatives  of  public  organizations, 
mainly  Poles  and  former  tsarist  officials,  the  Ataman 
gave  an  order  to  arrest  the  Jewish  Rabbi  and  have  him 
brought  before  him.  On  the  26th  of  December  about 
two  o'clock,  the  order  was  carried  out  and  the  Rabbi 
was  brought  to  the  office  of  the  commandant.  He  re- 
mained there  until  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening,  exposed 
the  whole  time  to  the  insults  and  abuses  of  the  Cos- 
sacks. Finally  at  ten  o'clock  he  was  brought  before 
the  Ataman.  The  latter  received  him  with  extreme 
rudeness,  and  after,  an  examination  conducted  "not 
without  prejudice,"  he  said  to  him,  "I  know  that  you 
are  a  Bolshevik,  that  all  your  relatives  and  all  Jews 
are  Bolsheviks.  Know  that  I  am  going  to  destroy 
all  the  Jews  in  the  city.  Get  them  together  in  the 
synagogue  and  inform  them  of  what  I  have  told  you." 
Sporadic  attacks  with  robbery  and  murder  followed. 
Under  the  pressure  of  the  Bolshevist  peasants  of  Poka- 
lev,  Kozyr-Zyrka  found  it  necessary  to  retire.  On 
the  3ist  of  December,  having  received  considerable 
reinforcements,  he  advanced  on  Ovruch.  On  the  way 
thither,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  village  Potapo- 
vichi,  the  road  had  been  made  impassable.  Being  told 
that  this  had  been  done  by  the  Jews,  the  Cossacks  took 
their  revenge  by  putting  a  number  of  Jews  to  death  and 


THE  DIRECTORY  29 

violating  some  of  their  women.  From  there  they  pro- 
ceeded to  the  village  of  Geshovo,  where  they  murdered 
two  old  men,  a  teacher  and  a  butcher.  On  the  3ist  of 
December  the  Cossacks  entered  Ovruch  and  began  to 
plunder  and  murder  the  Jews.  The  pogrom  was  intro- 
duced by  the  violation  of  ten  Jewish  girls  in  the  market 
place  and  the  murder  of  the  Jews  who  opposed  the 
bandits.  Later  the  Cossacks  came  out  in  bands, 
searched  the  houses,  took  money  and  property,  beat  old 
men,  dishonored  women  and  put  to  death  young  peo- 
ple. If  one  had  money  he  could  purchase  his  life.  Thus 
the  family  Rosenmann  bought  a  kind  of  "protection 
certificate"  for  twelve  thousand  rubles.  They  were 
told  that  their  name  was  registered  in  the  office  of  the 
staff,  and  they  were  as  a  matter  of  fact  left  undis- 
turbed. The  Jews  were  disgraced,  having  been  com- 
pelled to  dance  before  Kozyr-Zyrka,  who  amused  him- 
self by  urging  one  of  them  on  by  the:  stroke  of  a  whip. 
They  were  ordered  to  sing  Jewish  songs,  but  it  so  hap- 
pened that  none  of  them  remembered  the  words  by 
heart.  Accordingly  they  were  placed  in  chairs  with 
fooFs  caps  on  their  heads  and  lights  in  their  hands,  the 
words  were  read  to  them  and  they  were  made  to  sing. 
Kozyr-Zyrka  and  his  friend  lay  in  their  beds  shaking 
with  laughter,  so  uproariously  that  the  bed  broke  under 
the  friend.  The  Jews  were  then  compelled  to  fix  up  the 
bed  and  the  officer  remained  in  it.  One  of  the  Jews 
was  so  overcome  by  the  humiliation  that  he  began  to 
weep.  Thereupon  he  was  told  that  his  punishment 
would  be  one  hundred  and  twenty  lashes. 

Seventy  thousand  rubles  was  the  price  the  Jews  paid 
to  be  spared  the  pogrom  which  had  been  instituted  by 
the  order  of  the  Ataman.  The  Jews  were  ordered  to 
assemble  in  the  public  square  and  were  told  by  Kozyr- 


30    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Zyrka  that  he  had  the  right  to  destroy  all  the  Jews,  and 
that  he  would  do  so  if  any  one  of  them  as  much  as 
touched  the  hair  of  a  single  Cossack.  He  had  done 
this  in  Potapovichi,  shooting  down  a  Jewish  spy  with 
his  own  hand.  He  advised  the  Jews  to  strangle  with 
their  own  hands  any  Bolshevist  they  might  find  among 
them.  When  Kozyr-Zyrka  had  finished  the  speech,  the 
Jews  saluted,  and  the  rabbi  proposed  to  take  an  oath 
of  loyalty  to  Ukrainia  from  all  the  Jews  and  to  put  a 
special  body  of  Jewish  fighters  at  his  disposition.  The 
Ataman  thereupon  said  that  he  did  not  need  a  Jewish 
oath  nor  a  Jewish  body  of  fighters.  He  would  let  the 
Jews  breathe  the  air  of  the  Ukraine,  but  they  must  not 
forget  his  warning.  Before  his  departure  a  group  of 
thirty-four  Jews  were  trapped  by  treachery  and  shot. 

From  the  above  description  it  is  clear  that  the  main 
figure  of  the  pogroms  instituted  and  organized  by 
Petlura's  troops  was  the  Ataman,  who  dictated  his  will 
to  his  bands  or  gangs,  his  watchword  being,  "Cut  down 
the  Jews,  for  they  are  communists." 

The  course  of  the  pogrom  in  Ovruch  was  compara- 
tively moderate.  There  were  insults,  plunder,  and  to 
some  extent  dishonor  of  women  and  a  few  cases  of 
murder.  It  was  still  possible  to  redeem  one's  life  with 
money,  a  favor  which  was  later  taken  away.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  Directory  was  not  yet  finally  undermined 
by  the  military  defeat.  There  was  already  agitation 
in  the  army  in  favor  of  pogroms,  but  the  military 
leaders  had  not  yet  given  the  word  to  destroy  every- 
thing Jewish. 

In  January  the  first  pogrom  took  place  in  Zhitomir 
(7th  to  loth  of  January).  It  was  organized  by  the 
retreating  forces  of  Petlura. 

The  Directory  withdrew  under  the  pressure  of  the 


THE  DIRECTORY  31 

Bolshevist  troops.  The  commands  of  the  Batki  bear 
generally  the  character  of  anti-Jewish  agitation  and 
unequivocal  provocation  of  the  Jews. 

On  the  1 6th  of  January,  a  declaration  of  Hetman 
Volynetz  was  posted  in  the  houses  of  Medzhibozh,, 
Government  of  Podolia,  which  read  as  follows:  "By 
order  of  the  high  government  authorities  of  the  Ukrai- 
nian Republic,  I  enter  the  district  of  Medzhibozh 
at  the  head  of  my  army  to  assist  the  local  authorities 
in  their  fight  against  the  Jewish  and  Bolshevist  bands 
who  are  disturbing  the  peace  and  order  of  this  dis- 
trict. Our  ignorant  peasant  population,  which  forms 
the  greater  part  of  these  bands,  are  deceived  by  the 
enemies  of  the  Ukraine,  who  receive  a  great  deal  of 
money  for  this  purpose.  It  is  said  that  the  little  Jew 
Mushlin,  born  in  Medzhibozh,  received  seven  million 
karbovantzy  from  the  Russian  Bolshevist  Comrades 
for  the  organization  of  Bolshevist  bands."  On  the 
2Oth  of  January  a  proclamation  of  Captain  Diachenko 
was  circulated  in  Bielaia  Tserkov,  reading  as  follows : 
"I  learned  from  a  reliable  source  that  the  Jewish  popu- 
lation of  the  city  and  district  of  Bielaia  Tserkov  is 
agitating  against  the  power  of  the,  Directory.  I 
give  them  warning  hereby  that  if  any  demonstration 
should  take  place  as  a  result  of  the  Jewish  activities,  I 
will  hold  the  Jewish  population  wholly  responsible,  as 
has  already  been  done  in  Zhitomir  and  in  other  places 
in  Ukrainia." 

In  an  advertisement  in  the  official  "Information 
Bureau  of  the  Ukrainian  People's  Republic,"  which 
was  circulated  in  the  district  of  Kremenchug,  are  found 
the  following  inciting  lines:  "As  regards  the  Jewish 
bourgeoisie  who  maintain  a  hostile  attitude  to  the 
Ukrainian  Republic,  it  will  do  them  no  good.  The 


32    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Ukrainian  people  have  friends  at  present  and  are  not 
afraid  of  their  enemies — everyone  will  get  what  he 
deserves.  It  is  desirable  that  the  Jewish  people  should 
declare  themselves  as  quickly  and  as  unequivocally  as 
possible  whether  they  will  go  together  with  the  Ukrai- 
nian people,  as  the  Jews  in  Galician  Ukrainia  have 
already  done/' 

On  the  nth  of  January  the  following  announcement 
was  found  posted  in  Felshtin : 

"The  first  warning  to  the  Jewish  population. 

"I  have  learned  that  the  Jewish  population  is  con- 
fusing the  minds  of  the  peasants.  I  warn  the  Jews 
that  the  Information  Bureau  is  well  instructed.  They 
will  all  have  to  pay  dear  for  this  offence,  and  the 
peasants  themselves  will  make  them  pay.  You  have  no 
one  from  whom  to  expect  help ! 

"Head  of  the  Information  Bureau. 


(Signature  illegible) 

The  Jewish  community  of  Vinnitza  received  from 
the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Second  Army  Corps  of  Podo- 
lia  the  following  reply  to  their  request  for  a  suppres- 
sion of  the  pogrom  excesses  in  Proshna :  "The  corps 
commandant  gives  the  following  reply  to  your  request, 
i.  It  will  be  best  if  you  yourselves  should  see  to  it 
that  the  members  of  the  Proshna  community  should  not 
agitate  for  the  Soviet  deputies.  2.  No  other  measures 
can  be  taken,  otherwise  the  Cossacks  will  think  that 
the  military  force  intended  for  the  protection  of  the 
place  is  supporting  the  Bolsheviki,  and  will  put  all 
the  inhabitants  to  death." 

In  an  order  of  the  Ataman  Gavrishko,  "To  all  the 
presidents  of  the  great  villages  and  village  magistrates 


THE  DIRECTORY  33 

of  the  district  of  Priluki,"  special  attention  is  called 
to  the  fact  that  a  portion  of  the  Cossacks,  as  a  result 
partly  of  the  influence  of  agitation  and  of  the  mean 
Bolshevist  Jews,  and  partly  of  the  moneys  handed 
over  to  them,  have  succumbed  to  the  movement  of 
the  agitator  Koptuk  and  are  supporting  the  Soviet 
power. 

The  agitation  and  the  military  failures  excited  the 
army  against  the  Jews.  In  Annapol,  Government  of 
Volhynia,  Petlura's  men  instituted  a  pogrom  under  the 
watchword :  "Kill  the  Jews,  also  the  Jewish  children !" 
Before  this,  officers  of  Petlura's  armies  appeared  at  the 
meetings  which  were  held  in  that  place  and  cried  shame 
on  each  other  because  the  Jews  had  driven  them  out  of 
Berdichev. 

The  attitude  of  the  higher  military  authorities  of 
the  Directory  toward  these  events  appears  from  the 
following  report  of  Mr.  Gutermann,  who  was  at  that 
time  a  member  of  the  Central  Jewish  Relief  Committee 
for  the  pogrom  victims  and  later  authorized  agent  of 
the  relief  committee  of  the  Red  Cross  for  the  popula- 
tion who  suffered  from  the  pogroms. 

FROM  MR.  GUETERMANN'S  REPORT 


In  the  first  days  of  February,  1919,  a  deputation  of 
the  Zhitomir  city  administration  and  other  public 
organizations  was  sent  to  Vinnitza,  where  the  Direc- 
tory and  All-Ukrainian  government  were  then  situ- 
ated. As  a  representative  of  the  Relief  Committee  for 
the  people  who  suffered  from  the  pogroms,  I  took  part 
in  the  deputation.  In  Berdichev  we  were  joined  by  a 
similar  delegation  of  the  Berdichev  city  administration 


34    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  the  administration  of  the  province,  as  well  as  by 
a  deputation  of  the  Jewish  community.  The  represen- 
tatives of  the  latter  were  Krasny,  now  minister  for 
Jewish  affairs  in  the  Petlura  government,  and  the  well- 
known  Fania  Nurenberg,  active  in  public  affairs.  The 
purpose  of  my  journey,  as  well  as  Krasny's  and  Fania 
Nurenberg's,  was  to  receive  the  money  appropriated 
by  the  Ukrainian  Government,  at  the  request  of 
Revutzky,  the  minister  for  Jewish  affairs,  for  the  re- 
lief of  the  population  of  Zhitomir  and  Berdichev  who 
had  suffered  from  the  pogroms. 

On  the  second  and  third  days  after  our  arrival  in 
Vinnitza,  we,  i.e.,  the  representatives  of  Zhitomir  and 
Berdichev,  were  asked  by  Revutzky  to  call  on  him  at 
his  hotel  apartment  with  Kovenko,  the  commandant  of 
the  city  of  Vinnitza  and  the  leader  of  the  Clans  of 
Death  (who  had  instituted  the  pogroms  in  Zhitomir 
and  Berdichev),  in  order  to  establish  the  responsibility 
for  the  pogroms. 

The  thought  of  a  meeting  with  Kovenko,  the  former 
president  of  the  Investigation  Commission  and  the 
murderer  of  Gogol,  the  president  of  the  Jewish  Krie- 
gerbund  (union  of  soldiers) — a  fact  which  Chekhov- 
ski,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  had  also  alluded  to  in 
a  conversation  with  the  delegation  of  the  Socialistic 
parties  received  by  him — the  thought  of  meeting  with 
this  Kovenko  appeared  to  us,  to  say  the  least,  frightful. 
On  the  following  day,  as  we  were  having  dinner  at  the 
restaurant  of  the  Hotel  Savoy,  Revutzky  summoned 
us  to  come  at  once  to  his  room,  where  they  were  ex- 
pecting us.  In  spite  of  everything  we  all,  for  one  rea- 
son or  another,  went,  Madame  Nurenberg,  Krasny 
and  myself.  We  found  there  Kovenko,  three  leaders 
of  the  Clans  of  Death  and  a  Hetman,  who,  as  we 


THE  DIRECTORY  35 

learned  later,  was  the  Ataman  Pashchenko  himself. 
Paschenko  was  the  Ataman  of  the  Clans  of  Death 
who  himself  instituted  the  pogroms  in  Berdichev  and 
Zhitomir,  had  exacted  large  sums  of  money  from  rich 
Jews  in  Zhitomir,  and  whose  staff,  living  at  the  rail- 
way station,  had  murdered  seventeen  Jews  and  among 
them  old  men.  His  guilt  was  so  firmly  established  that 
the  Ukrainian  government  had  to  arrest  him,  and 
Sumkevich,  the  Commissar  of  the  Government  of 
Volhynia,  had  to  declare  that  Pashchenko,  who  was 
without  question  responsible  for  everything,  would  be 
severely  punished. 

The  fact  that  Pashchenko  was  free  in  the  Savoy 
Hotel,  where  the  ministers  of  the  Ukrainian  Govern- 
ment were  staying ;  that  after  the  meeting  he  went  for 
dinner  to  the  restaurant  where  the  members  of  the 
Directory  were  taking  their  meals,  made  the  entire 
meeting  useless.  Among  other  things  Novikov,  a 
member  of  the  Zhitomir  city  administration,  recog- 
nized in  the  officer  on  duty  at  the  building  in  which 
the  Directory  was  located,  the  leader  who  was 
responsible  for  the  most  horrible  episode  during  the 
whole  Zhitomir. pogrom,  which  took  place  on  Theatre 
Street,  when  all  the  men  of  the  Weinstein  house  were 
brought  out,  and  some  shot,  while  the  rest  were  un- 
dressed, and  while  being  led  to  the  railway  station 
were  beaten  to  death  on  the  way  with  sabres  and  the 
butt  ends  of  guns. 

The  meeting  was  opened  by  Revutzky  with  a  speech 
in  which  he  said  that  the  charge  that  the  government 
had  instituted  the  pogroms  reflected  on  him  also  as  a 
member  of  the  Government,  and  that  he  therefore  de- 
sired that  the  question  should  be  settled  at  this  meet- 
ing, which  was  participated  in  by  representatives  of  the 


36    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Clans  of   Death  as   well  as  of   Zhitomir  and   Ber- 
dichev. 

One  of  the  leaders  from  Galich,  who  was  not  in 
Zhitomir  at  the  time  of  the  pogrom,  but  had  been  sent 
there  by  Kovenko  to  establish  the  circumstances  of  the 
pogrom  and  the  responsibility  therefor,  declared  that 
the  pogrom  was  instituted  mainly  by  Jews,  that  it  had 
begun  before  the  Clans  of  Death  had  arrived,  and 
that  Pashchenko  had  not  enough  forces  at  his  disposal 
to  check  the  pogrom.  We  all  protested  against  this 
shameless  declaration.  I  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  Kiev  there  was  a  letter  of  a  certain  Hodman  who 
had  been  beaten  by  soldiers  of  the  Clans  of  Death  in 
Fastov.  He  wrote  in  the  letter  that  he  had  heard 
from  soldiers  that  Clans  of  Death  had  gone  to  Zhito- 
mir to  institute  Jewish  pogroms.  The  letter  arrived 
in  Kiev  on  the  day  before  the  pogrom  broke  out  in 
Zhitomir.  I  also  called  their  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  Investigating  Commission  in  Zhitomir  had  in 
their  possession  a  note  signed  by  Pashchenko  and  ad- 
dressed to  the  well-known  bandits  Bek  and  Dimi- 
trienko,  in  which  they  were  ordered  to  appropriate  the 
money  in  the  Azov  bank  which  belonged  to  the  rich 
Jew,  Rabin.  I  also  asked  Pashchenko  how,  if  it  was 
true  that  the  only  reason  the  pogroms  continued  was 
that  he  had  not  enough  forces  at  his  disposal  to  stop 
them,  he  could  explain  the  fact  that  at  the  station, 
where  he  himself  had  been  with  his  staff,  seven- 
teen Jews  had  been  killed,  among  them  some  very  old 
men. 

Madame  Nurenberg  reported  on  the  pogrom  in 
Berdichev,  which  had  been  directly  instituted  by  the 
Clans  of  Death  and  Pashchenko.  Krasny  reported, 
on  the  basis  of  the  deposition  of  Zolodar,  the  acting 


THE  DIRECTORY  37 

Mayor  of  Berdichev,  that  Pashchenko  had  declared 
publicly  in  the  city  magistrate's  office  that  he  was  go- 
ing to  Zhitomir  "to  get  even  with  the  Jews." 

Pashchenko  made  no  denial.  Kovenko,  however, 
always  defended  him  and  the  Clans  of  Death.  Kov- 
enko did  not  justify  them  nor  deny  their  participa- 
tion in  the  pogrom,  but  in  cynical  fashion  he  abused 
the  whole  of  Jewry  and  accused  them  of  lending  sup- 
port to  the  Bolshemki. 

Quivering  with  anger  he  struck  his  fists  on  the 
table,  and  his. whole  speech  was  nothing  but  an  inco- 
herent hysterical  cry,  to  the  effect  that  the  Clans  of 
Death  had  acted  according  to  instructions,  that  the 
Jews  hated  the  Ukrainians  and  that  the  Jews  them- 
selves had  taken  part  in  the  pogrom.  "The  Clans  of 
Death  are  the  glory  of  the  Ukrainian  army,  Pash- 
chenko is  the  best  son  of  Ukrainia,  and  if  he  had  not 
been  arrested,  we  should  not  have  lost  Kiev.  Now 
that  he  is  free  again  we  shall  regain  Kiev.  They  are 
my  Clans  of  Death.  When  the  Clans  of  Death 
marched  to  Kiev,  they  hurried  so  that  they  upset  all 
the  vehicles  that  were  in  their  way,  for  they  knew  why 
they  must  hurry  to  Zhitomir.  The  Jews  have  plun- 
dered the  city.  We  were  not  shy,  we  killed  and  killed 
and  will  kill  again.  Even  this  night  I  will  have  fifty 
men  hanged  in  Vinnitza.  I  am  a  'gendarme/  and  do 
not  feel  a  bit  embarrassed  about  it." 

When  Revutzky  began  to  say  something  about  a  re- 
habilitation of  the  Ukrainian  army,  Kovenko  cried 
out,  "We  do  not  need  its  rehabilitation." 

The  most  terrible  thing  at  this  meeting  were  the 
objections  which  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Clans  of 
Death,  a  typical  criminal,  raised.  They  made  our 
blood  run  cold. 


38    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

"As  we  were  approaching  Zhitomir,"  he  said,  "there 
came  out  of  one  of  the  trenches  two  Jews  with  two 
long  beards  like  this  (a  gesture  to  indicate  the  length 
of  the  beard)  and  shot  at  us.  When  I  asked  them  why 
they  were  shooting  at  us,  they  replied  that  they  hated 
the  Ukrainians,  whereupon  I  pierced  them  through." 
He  also  said  that  he  had  himself  killed  three  Jews  in 
Zhitomir  because  they  plundered  the  shops  during  the 
pogroms.  "At  the  station  I  caught  two  Jews  with  proc- 
lamations against  the  Directory  and  ran  them  through 
with  my  sword." 

When  I  asked  Revutzky  the  next  day  why  he  had 
arranged  this  depressing  meeting,  he  said  he  wanted 
to  know  what  truth  there  was  in  the  statement  that 
Kovenko  had  been  the  real  organizer  of  the  pogroms. 
I  am  fully  convinced  he  was. 

(Signed)  P.  GUETERMANN. 

To  this  objective  document  it  must  be  added  that 
Krasny,  who  took  part  in  the  conference  just  men- 
tioned, later  became  minister  for  Jewish  affairs  in  the 
Petlura  government. 

In  February,  1919,  the  position  of  the  Directory 
became  worse.  The  Bolshevists  occupied  Kiev.  Pet- 
lura's  troops  finally  evacuated  the  Governments  of 
Kherson,  Poltava  and  Kiev.  The  pogroms  gained  in 
extent.  They  are  reported  in  Yelisavetgrad  (4th  and 
5th  of  February),  Novo-Mirgorod  (about  the  same 
time),  Piriatin  and  a  number  of  other  places  in  the 
Government  of  Poltava.  At  the  railway  station  of 
Ramodan,  Bobrinsky  and  other  towns,  Jews  were 
thrown  out  of  the  cars  and  shot  down. 

In  Lubny  a  pogrom  was  prevented  only  because  some 
hundred  men  among  Petlura's  troops  made  ener- 


THE  DIRECTORY  39 

getic  resistance  to  the  pogrom.  They  even  opposed 
it  with  arms,  designating  themselves  as  the  "Local 
Sotnia."  They  lost  fourteen  men,  but  they  saved  the 
city  from  the  pogrom.  In  Kremenchug  the  pogrom 
was  prevented  at  the  cost  of  one  and  a  half  million 
rubles,  which  the  Jews  gave  to  the  troops.  At  the  same 
time  pogroms  took  place  in  the  Government  of  Kiev, 
at  Vasilkov  (7th  and  8th  of  February),  Rossovo 
(i4th  and  I5th  of  February),  Stiepantsy  (i4th  of 
February),  Radomysl  (i8th  to  2Oth  of  February), 
Skvira  (beginning  and  end  of  February).  The  most 
terrible  pogrom  of  this  month,  which  denoted  a  turn- 
ing point  from  the  primary  "pillage"  pogroms  of  the 
preceding  period  to  the  following  "Jew-annihilating" 
pogroms,  took  place  far  behind  the  Petlura  front, 
in  Proskurov  on  the  I5th  of  February  and  in  Felshtin 
on  the  1 6th  of  the  same  month.  (These  two  pogroms 
are  described  in  greater  detail  in  A.  I.  Hillerson's  re- 
port in  the  Appendix,  pp.  185  ff.) 

Proskurov  is  the  liveliest  city  in  the  Government  of 
Podolia.  It  has  about  50,000  inhabitants,  half  of 
whom  are  Jews.  The  democratic  city  administration 
consisted  of  50  city  commissaries  of  whom  26  were 
Christians  and  24  were  Jews.  The  mayor  and  the 
head  of  the  assembly  of  city  commissaries  were  Poles. 
Kiverchuk,  formerly  in  the  service  of  the  tsar,  was 
the  commandant.  The  city  was  guarded  by  the  militia. 
But  the  city  administration  did  not  trust  them  and 
organized  a  force  of  their  own,  the  so-called  "ward 
guard/'  At  the  head  of  it  were  mostly  Jews.  The 
chief  was  a  Christian  by  the  name  of  Rudnitzky,  his 
second  was  Schenkmann,  a  Jew.  Kiverchuk  distrusted 
the  defending  force  "because  they  were  Jewish,"  and 
put  all  sorts  of  difficulties  in  their  way. 


40    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

At  a  congress  of  the  Bolsheviki  of  the  Government 
of  Podolia,  held  in  Vinnitza,  where  Petlura  resided, 
(some  say  that  the  congress  itself  was  provocatory  in 
character)  it  was  resolved  that  on  the  fifteenth  of  Feb- 
ruary a  Bolshevist  uprising  should  break  out  in  Pros- 
kurov.    The  third  Gaidamak  regiment  which  already 
had  experience  in  the  institution  of  pogroms  appeared 
on  the  scene.    When  the  rumor  spread  in  the  city  that 
an  uprising  was  being  prepared,  Joffe,  a  member  of 
the  Jewish  Labor  Bund  and  presiding  officer  of  a  con- 
ference of  all  the  socialistic  parties   of   Proskurov, 
called  the  representatives  of  the  parties  to  a  consulta- 
tion, at  which  members  of  all  the  factions  including 
the  Bolshevists  were  present.  At  this  meeting  they  put 
in  a  protest  and  pointed  out  that  the  uprising  would  lead 
to  a  collapse.    The  communists  pointed  out  that  the 
question  had  already  been  settled,  that  the  uprising  had 
already  been  prepared,  that  it  would  break  out  simul- 
taneously in  the  whole  Government  of  Podolia,  that  in 
Proskurov  a  part  of  the  garrison  would  side  with  the 
insurgents  and  that  sixteen  villages  were  ready  to  send 
them  help.     On  the  evening  before  the  uprising,  two 
represenatives   of    the    Bolshevists    asked    the    ward 
guard  what  their  attitude  would  be.     The  president, 
Rudnitzky,  and  his  associate,  Schenkmann,  replied  that 
the  ward  guard  was  not  a  party  organization,  that 
its  exclusive  purpose  was  the  protection  of  the  in- 
habitants and  that  they  would  be  completely  neutral  in 
this  case.    At  the  same  time  Schenkmann  pointed  out 
that  their  attempt  was  inopportune  and  that  it  would 
inevitably  lead  to  a  Jewish  pogrom.    The  answer  was 
that  these  demonstrations  would  extend  over  the  whole 
Government  (province),  and  that  a  favorable  result 
was  assured.    Schenkmann  then  tried  to  prove  to  the 


THE  DIRECTORY  41 

Bolshevist  staff  how  senseless  the  uprising  would  be, 
but  failed.  The  insurrectionists  arrested  Kiverchuk, 
whom  they  regarded,  not  without  reason,  as  a  danger- 
ous advocate  of  the  Black  Hundred.  After  he  was 
freed,  Kiverchuk  said  that  he,  a  representative  of  the 
city,  had  been  imprisoned  by  the  Jewish  members  of  the 
ward  guard. 

The  Ataman  Semosenko  took  over  the  duties  of 
Kiverchuk.  The  Gaidamak  soldiers  were  again  con- 
centrated at  the  station.  Arrests  followed  in  the  city. 
At  the  station,  tables  were  set  for  the  entertainment 
of  the  Gaidamaks,  they  were  treated  lavishly  and  given 
brandy  and  cognac.  When  the  entertainment  was 
over  Semosenko  made  a  speech  in  which  he  described 
the  difficult  position  of  Ukrainia ;  he  spoke  of  the  sacri- 
fices which  the  Ukrainians  offered  in  the  war  and 
pointed  out  emphatically  that  the  most  dangerous  ene- 
mies of  the  Ukrainian  people  and  the  Cossacks  were 
the  Jews,  who  must  be  cut  down  with  the  sword  to  save 
themselves  and  the  Ukraine.  He  asked  the  Cossacks  to 
swear  that  they  would  fulfill  their  duty  and  destroy  the 
Jewish  population,  but  must  at  the  same  time  swear 
that  they  would  not  rob  the  Jews  of  their  possessions 
and  property.  The  Cossacks  were  led  to  the  flags  and 
took  an  oath  to  murder  but  not  to  rob.  Having  drawn 
themselves  up — the  regiment  band  in  front  and 
the  sanitary  corps  in  the  rear — the  Cossacks  marched 
to  the  city  along  Alexandrovskaya  street.  Then  they 
divided  in  groups  of  five  to  fifteen  men  and  swarmed 
out  into  the  adjoining  streets,  which  were  inhabited 
exclusively  by  Jews.  With  perfect  sang-froid  they 
entered  two  houses,  drew  their  swords  and  began  to 
cut  down  the  Jewish  inmates  without  regard  to  sex 
or  age.  They  murdered  old  men,  women  and  infants 


42    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

at  their  mothers'  breasts.  They  were  not  content  with 
killing,  but  thrust  their  victims  through  with  their 
bayonets.  They  made  use  of  their  guns  only  when 
some  persons  succeeded  in  running  out  into  the  streets. 
Then  they  sent  a  bullet  after  them.  The  Jews  were 
dragged  out  of  the  cellars  and  lofts  and  murdered. 
Hand  grenades  were  thrown  into  the  cellars,  and  entire 
families  were  put  to  death  in  the  most  brutal  manner. 
The  massacre  lasted  from  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
to  five-thirty.  It  might  have  lasted  till  late  into  the 
night  but  the  commander  Taranovich,  who  had  not 
been  initiated  into  all  the  plans  of  Semosenko  and 
Kiverchuk,  was  frightened  when  he  saw  these  bloody 
orgies.  When  he  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  order 
from  the  commander  Konovalov  to  put  an  end  to  the 
blood  bath,  he  brought  it  to  Semosenko,  who  said, 
"Good,  it  is  enough  for  to-day."  A  trumpet  signal 
was  then  given  to  the  Gaidamaks  to  stop  "work." 
Thereupon  they  assembled  at  a  place  determined  be- 
forehand and  marched  singing  to  their  quarters  behind 
the  railway  station.  The  pogrom  was  to  be  continued 
the  next  day  (the  Gaidamaks  related  that  the  mas- 
sacre was  to  last  three  days).  Thanks  to  the  inter- 
ference of  the  city  administration,  especially  the  city 
commissar  Verkhola,  the  mass  slaughter  was  stopped. 
In  a  proclamation,  in  which  Semosenko  declares  the 
city  and  the  canton  under  martial  law,  he  writes,  "I 
warn  the  population  to  stop  anarchistic  revolts,  since 
I  have  the  power  to  suppress  them.  I  call  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Jews  in  particular  to  this.  You  are  a 
people  hated  by  all  nations.  And  yet  you  bring  such 
confusion  among  the  baptized.  Do  you  really  not 
want  to  live  ?  Are  you  not  sorry  for  your  own  people  ? 
As  long  as  no  one  bothers  you  be  quiet.  Such  a  miser- 


THE  DIRECTORY  43 

able  nation,  and  yet  they  cause  so  much  disturbance 
among  a  poor  people !" 

After  the  pogrom  in  Proskurov  the  bandits  made 
it  their  purpose  to  annihilate  this  "miserable  nation," 
which  brings  confusion  among  the  baptized. 

The  pogrom  in  Felshtin  was  really  an  episode  of 
the  Proskurov  massacre.  It  lasted  several  hours  and 
cost  the  lives  of  about  six  hundred  persons,  that  is, 
almost  a  third  of  the  Jewish  population  numbering 
1,900  souls.  Many  more  women  were  violated  here 
than  in  Proskurov.  Most  of  those  killed  were  first 
dishonored,  and  survivors  underwent  the  same  horror. 
Here  too  the  pogrom  stopped  at  a  given  signal.  When 
the  trumpet  sounded,  the  Gaidamaks  poured  petro- 
leum and  benzine  upon  five  of  the  best  houses  in  the 
town  and  set  them  on  fire.  Thus  these  warriors 
crowned  their  work  for  the  welfare  of  the  Ukrainian 
Fatherland. 

The  month  of  March  is  marked  by  the  successes  in 
arms  of  Petlura's  troops.  In  the  beginning  of  March 
Petlura  succeeded,  by  Sarin's  march  to  Iskorost,  in 
threatening  Kiev.  He  occupied  Iskorost,  Malin,  the 
station  Irsha  and  on  the  2ist  of  March,  Zhitomir.  He 
was  only  150  versts  from  Kiev.  At  the  end  of  March 
the  fortunes  of  war  turned  against  him.  Owing  to 
quick  reinforcements  of  the  Bolsheviki,  the  breach 
through  their  front  was  made  ineffective  on  April  ist. 
Zhitomir,  Malin,  Iskorost  and  other  places  were  re- 
conquered by  the  Bolsheviki.  The  greatest  pogroms, 
as  for  example  the  second  in  Zhitomir,  took  place  at 
the  end  of  March.  In  this  month  Petlura' s  army  in- 
stituted the  following  pogroms :  in  Belashits  (between 
the  7th  and  I2th  of  March),  in  Samgorodok  (i3th  of 
March),  in  Iskorost  and  Ushomir  (3ist  of  March), 


44    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  in  Zhitomir  (second  pogrom,  22nd  of  March). 
Especially  characteristic  and  significant  for  the  con- 
ception of  the  entire  political  situation  are  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  second  pogrom  in  Zhitomir 
took  place.  For  this  reason  we  quote  a  report  of  this 
pogrom  made  by  the  authorized  agent,  Lifschiitz. 

REPORT  OF  MR.  LIFSCHUETZ  OF  THE  SECOND  POGROM 
IN  ZHITOMIR. 

On  the  2ist  of , March  the  Soviet  troops  left  Zhito- 
mir. Early  on  the  22nd  the  troops  of  Petlura  entered. 
After  the  withdrawal  of  the  Soviet  troops,  the  promi- 
nent persons  in  the  public  life  of  Zhitomir  decided  to 
send  a  delegation  to  the  troops  of  the  Directory  in 
order  to  prevent  a  pogrom.  In  view  of  the  intense 
agitation  against  the  Jews,  the  rumor  spread  that  the 
Petlura  troops  would  institute  a  pogrom  in  the  city, 
and  the  delegation  was  to  endeavor  to  keep  them  from 
carrying  out  their  intention.  In  order  to  make  the  anti- 
Jewish  agitation  more  effective  in  the  circles  of  the 
ignorant  population,  especially  the  peasants,  the  rumor 
was  circulated  that  during  the  presence  of  the  Soviet 
troops  the  Bolsheviki,  or,  as  was  stated  by  all  sorts  of 
inciting  police  spies,  the  Jews,  had  put  to  death  1,700 
Christians.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Bolsheviki,  accord- 
ing to  the  complete  and  exact  data  of  the  Extraordi- 
nary Commission,  had,  up  to  the  time  of  their  retire- 
ment from  Zhitomir,  put  to  death  six  persons  in  the 
city  and  sixteen  in  the  surrounding  district,  twenty-two 
persons  in  all,  of  whom  several  were  Jews.  The  rumor 
of  the  1,700  men  shot  was  circulated  among  others  by 
officials,  who  apparently  regarded  this  fable  as  actually 
true  or  at  least  pretended  to  think  so.  On  Friday  it 
was  already  clear  that  the  pogrom  was  unavoidable. 


THE  DIRECTORY  45 

The  Jewish  masses  left  the  city.  The  entire  Jewish 
youth  fled  from  the  city  for  fear  of  a  pogrom.  On 
their  return  they  were  designated  as  fugitive  Bolshe- 
viki.  It  was  only  thanks  to  the  energetic  efforts  of  the 
city  administration  and  a  few  prominent  and  influ- 
ential Christian  citizens  that  they  succeeded  in  saving 
the  young  people  who  returned,  and  who  had  nothing 
to  do  with  Bolshevism,  from  being  shot. 

Early  on  Saturday,  the  delegation,  consisting  of 
three  prominent  Christians  and  the  president  of  the 
Jewish  community,  went  out  to  meet  the  troops.  The 
Jew  was  obliged  to  go  back  while  still  on  his  way,  be- 
cause he  was  in  danger  of  losing  his  life,  as  he  was 
told  by  an  officer  whom  the  deputation  met  on  the  way. 

On  his  way  back,  the  president  of  the  community 
saw  the  first  bodies  of  Jews  who  had  been  put  to  death 
by  the  arriving  soldiers.  The  first  man  killed  was  an 
old  man  of  seventy  on  the  road  leading  from  Vrangel- 
evka  to  the  city.  The  old  man  was  on  his  way  to  the 
synagogue  carrying  the  "talis"  (prayer  shawl)  in  his 
hand.  According  to  the  testimony  of  eye  witnesses,  he 
was  placed  against  a  tree  and  shot  at  without  being 
killed  immediately.  The  wounded  old  man  had  strength 
enough  left  to  drag  himself  several  yards  farther  on 
the  road.  As  a  result  of  the  great  loss  of  blood  he 
began  to  reel,  fell  down  and  died  by  the  wayside. 

The  delegation  led  the  conversation  with  the  staff  to 
the  subject  of  the  1,700  Christians  alleged  to  have  been 
put  to  death  by  the  Jews,  and  when  they  gave  their 
word  of  honor  that  the  story  was  absolutely  untrue, 
they  were  told  by  the  staff  that  intelligent  people  natu- 
rally could  be  convinced,  but  that  the  soldiers  were 
very  much  aroused  against  the  Jews,  and  the  staff 
could  do  nothing. 


46    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  pogrom  began  on  the  22nd  of  March  and  lasted 
five  days.  The  first  three  were  the  bloodiest. 

The  number  of  victims  in  Zhitomir  alone,  not  count- 
ing those  buried  in  the  surrounding  villages,  was  317. 
The  greater  part  of  those  murdered  were  old  men,  wo- 
men and  children.  The  losses  among  the  younger  men 
were  comparatively  slight,  for  these  had  either  left  the 
city  at  the  same  time  as  the  Bolsheviki  or  had  con- 
cealed themselves.  When  dwelling  houses  were  at- 
tacked, the  inmates  succeeded  in  some  cases  in  redeem- 
ing their  lives  by  payment  of  money,  but  there  were  a 
number  of  cases  in  which  the  bandits  took  the  money 
and  then  slaughtered  those  who  expected  to  save 
themselves  in  that  way.  In  general,  Petlura's  men, 
unlike  the  loafers  of  the  first  pogrom  who  confined 
themselves  principally  to  robbery  and  plunder,  endeav- 
ored to  kill  as  many  Jews  as  they  could. 

That  this  second  pogrom  of  Zhitomir  exacted  only 
317  victims  is  due  to  two  reasons,  first,  that  many 
Christians  took  Jews  into  their  houses,  thus  saving  a 
great  many  from  death;  but  principally  that  on  the 
evening  of  the  24th  of  March  the  Bolsheviki  renewed 
their  advance  against  Zhitomir,  and  thus  prevented  a 
further  extension  of  the  pogrom,  since  all  the  soldiers 
had  to  go  to  the  front.  On  the  23rd  of  March,  when 
the  pogrom  was  in  full  swing,  Petlura  came  to  Zhitp- 
mir.  He  was  accurately  informed  of  all  that  had  taken 
and  was  taking  place.  He  said  that  he  had  done  every- 
thing necessary  to  check  the  pogrom.  In  reality,  how- 
ever, no  measures  of  any  kind  were  taken  until  the 
25th  of  March. 

In  addition  to  the  killed,  the  number  of  wounded  and 
injured  was  also  very  great.  It  can  not  be  determined 
even  approximately  because  the  greater  part  of  the  in- 


THE  DIRECTORY  47 

jured  remained  at  home  and  could  not  get  any  medical 
help.  The  victims  of  the  pogrom  belonged  in  the  great 
majority  to  the  poor  classes  and  those  just  above 
them. 

The  pogrom  of  Zhitomir  completely  discloses  the 
cards  of  the  pogrom  politics  of  the  Directory.  A 
delegation  of  the  Jewish  socialistic  parties  once  came 
before  Vinnichenko,  the  former  head  of  the  Ukrainian 
People's  Republic,  and  complained  of  the  terrible  Jew- 
ish persecutions  which  the  regular  Ukrainian  troops  in- 
stituted according  to  a  definite  plan  and  by  order  of  the 
responsible  military  leaders.  His  reply  was:  "Tell 
your  Jews  and  your  young  men  that  they  should  not 
support  the  Bolshevists.  The  Jewish  workmen  organ- 
ized uprisings  in  the  towns  of  Ukrainia  to  hand  over 
the  power  to  the  Bolshevists.  We  shall  soon  be  pow- 
erless against  the  anger  of  our  troops  against  the 
Jews."  Hereupon  a  member  of  the  delegation  justly 
remarked  that  a  similar  reply  was  made  to  a  Jewish 
delegation  after  the  Kishinev  pogrom  by  the  all-power- 
ful satrap  of  the  tsar,  Plehve. 

During  the  Zhitomir  pogrom,  just  as  the  deeds  of 
horror  had  reached  their  highest  point,  Petlura,  the 
head  of  the  Directory,  came  to  Zhitomir.  The  high- 
est Ataman  of  the  Ukrainian  troops  did  not  prevent  the 
pogrom  which  a  few  days  later  the  chief  of  the  Gali- 
cians  easily  suppressed. 

The  attitude  of  Petlura  is  clear  from  the  frank 
conversation  which  Colonel  Petrov,  chief  of  the  gar- 
rison, had  with  a  deputation  of  the  Extraordinary 
Investigation  Commission.  Petrov,  a  former  officer  of 
the  general  staff,  said  of  himself  to  some  persons  in 
public  life  that  he  had  been  a  faithful  servant  of  the 
tsar  until  the  first  of  March.  After  the  ist  of  March 


48    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

he  found  that  he  had  been  mistaken  and  became  a 
socialist.  The  conversation  was  so  significant  that  the 
Extraordinary  Investigation  Commission  resolved  to 
send  the  Directory  an  extract  from  the  Protocol 
which  had  reference  to  the  conversation  with  Petrov. 
The  extract  is  as  follows : 

April  10,   1919. 

REPORT  OF  THE  DELEGATION  CHOSEN  AT  THE  SESSION 
OF  THE  3RD  OF  APRIL. 

The  delegation  consisted  of  the  following  members 
of  the  Commission :  M.  A.  Kitz,  Second  Attorney  Gen- 
eral, Judge  G.  W.  Rublevski,  and  P.  T.  Redko,  Repre- 
sentative of  the  Government  District. 

The  delegation  reported  that  they  first  called  on  the 
Government  commissar  Sumkevich,  who  was  very 
favorable  to  the  work  of  the  Commission.  He  said  it 
was  necessary  to  hand  over  the  matter  of  the  second 
pogrom  to  the  Extraordinary  Investigation  Commis- 
sion that  was  already  in  existence,  and  promised  per- 
sonally to  appeal  to  the  Directory  for  this  purpose.  He 
requested  us  to  let  him  present  a  memoir  of  his  own  on 
this  matter,  advised  us  to  approach  the  military  au- 
thorities, promised  to  secure  the  necessary  means  and 
allowed  the  Commission  an  advance  of  15,000  rubles. 

The  Chief  of  the  Field  Police,  Bogatzky,  was  also 
favorable  to  the  work  done  by  the  Commission  and 
promised  them  his  full  support  in  their  house  search- 
ings  and  arrests. 

Quite  different  was  the  attitude  of  Colonel  Petrov, 
chief  of  the  garrison.  When  the  delegation  greeted 
him  on  the  steps  of  the  Hotel  Frankreich,  he  said, 
"Ah,  this  is  the  Jewish  Commission,  I  have  nothing  to 


THE  DIRECTORY  49 

say  to  you/'  When  it  was  explained  to  him  that 
the  delegation  consisted  of  members  of  the  Commis- 
sion confirmed  by  the  Directory,  Colonel  Petrov  in- 
vited the  members  of  the  delegation  to  his  room.  Dur- 
ing the  conversation  Colonel  Petrov  said  among  other 
things,  "We  march  under  the  banner,  'Cut  down  the 
Jews,  and  cut  down  the  Bolsheviki!'  Can  you  hold 
two  thousand  minor  children  responsible  if,  meeting 
the  Jews  who  were  advancing  against  them  together 
with  the  Bolsheviki,  they  killed  a  few  of  the  former?" 
He  said  further  that  the  pogrom  broke  out  with  such 
elemental  force  that  even  the  students  in  the  military 
schools  were  unable  to  resist  it,  so  much  so  that  in  the 
few  days  of  the  pogrom  he  had  to  send  the  members 
of  the  Yunatsk  School  to  the  front.  If  some  soldier 
took  a  shirt  away  from  a  Jew,  he  must  not,  according 
to  Petrov,  be  held  responsible  for  it.  If  the  soldiers 
are  to  be  held  responsible,  he  can  justify  their  acts 
fourfold.  When  a  member  of  the  Commission  again 
pointed  out  that  the  Commission  was  confirmed  by  the 
Directory,  Colonel  Petrov  said  that  the  Directory 
was  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the  diplomats,  most  ofi 
whom  were  Jews.  If  the  Directory  appointed  a  com- 
mission to  investigate  the  matter  of  pogroms,  it  was 
merely  to  make  a  show  before  public  opinion  that  such 
things  as  pogroms  do  not  remain  unpunished.  The 
delegation  received  the  impression  that  Colonel  Pet- 
rov was  favorable  to  the  existence  of  the  Commission 
but  not  to  their  activity.  The  sense  of  his  reply  was 
that  the  soldiers  should  remain  undisturbed,  but  pri- 
vate plunderers  should  be  made  responsible,  for  these 
would  be  shot  by  the  Government.  At  the  end  of  the 
conversation,  when  the  delegates  again  pointed  out  em- 
phatically that  they  were  acting  according  to  instruc- 


50    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

tions  confirmed  by  the  Directory,  the  chief  of  the 
garrison  promised  to  see  to  it  that  the  Commandant 
Vosny  and  the  Hetman  Bogatzky  should  lend  their 
support  to  the  Commission. 

On  a  second  visit  to  Sumkevich,  the  delegation  in- 
formed him  of  their  conversation  with  Colonel  Petrov, 
which  displeased  the  commissar  very  much.  He  asked 
them  not  to  do  anything  until  his  return  from  Rovno, 
where  he  wanted  to  talk  the  matter  over  with  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Directory.  At  his  request  the  delegation 
handed  over  to  him  a  memoir  concerning  the  delivery 
of  the  documents  of  the  second  pogrom  to  the  Com- 
mission, which  memoir  he  took  along  with  him. 

The  Commission  resolved  as  follows :  "That  part  of 
the  Protocol  of  the  meeting  which  concerns  the  con- 
versations with  Colonel  Petrov  shall  be  laid  before  the 
Directory  after  the  return  of  the  Government  com- 
missar from  Rovno,"  and  they  requested  at  the  same 
time  that  the  delegation  chosen  on  the  3rd  of  April 
be  sent  to  hold  a  conversation  with  him. 

The  original  of  the  protocol  is  signed  by  all  of  the 
members  of  the  Commission. 

The  reply  of  the  Directory  to  the  communication 
sent  to  them  about  Petrov's  talents  as  a  pogrom  maker 
was  his  appointment  as  minister  of  war  of  the  Direc- 
tory. 

After  the  month  of  March  the  pogroms  instituted  by 
the  military  associations  of  the  Directory  cross  the 
path  of  those  organized  by  the  insurrectionary  bands 
of  the  inner  anti-Bolshevist  front,  of  which  more  is 
said  below  in  the  chapter  entitled,  "The  Batko." 

On  the  loth  of  April  a  group  of  Petlura's  followers, 
who  retired  from  Olevsk  to  Novograd-Volynsk,  des- 
troyed the  town  of  Emilchino. 


THE  DIRECTORY  51 

In  May  Petlura's  troops  instituted  the  following 
pogroms  on  their  front  in  the  governments  of  Vol- 
hynia  and  Podolia ;  in  Voronovitsy ,  on  the  gth  of  May ; 
in  Rovno,  on  the  I4th  and  2Qth  of  May;  in  Kremenetz, 
on  the  22nd  of  May;  in  Litin,  on  the  I4th  and  the 
28th;  in  Kodyma  and  other  places  (precise  dates  not 
yet  established). 

In  June,  as  a  result  of  the  varying  fortunes  on  the 
outer  front,  there  were 'pogroms  and  murders  in  Der- 
ashna,  during  the  time  between  the  7th  and  I7th  of 
June,  in  Khmelnik,  Strishanya,  Starye  Siniavka,  and 
other  places. 

In  the  enormous  number  of  pogroms  instituted  in 
July,  which  broke  the  record  in  the  annals  of  terror 
and  death,  portions  of  Petlura's  troops  were  active  in 
the  governments  of  Volhynia  and  Podolia  in  addition 
to  the  insurrectionary  troops  of  freebooters.  At  this 
time  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  distinguish  between  the 
former  and  the  insurgent  bands.  The  extreme  meas- 
ures, namely  the  Jewish  pogroms,  which  the  military 
leaders  took  for  the  purpose  of  welding  together  the 
different  portions  of  their  troops,  brought  about  their 
final  dissolution  and  changed  them  into  robber  bands. 

In  August  the  number  of  pogroms  perpetrated  by  the 
freebooters  and  the  armies  of  the  Directory  was 
very  small.  Instead  of  this  wave  there  arose  a  new  one, 
the  all-Russian  reaction  of  General  Denikin.  In  Aug- 
ust the  political  situation  changed  completely.  As  a 
result  of  the  happenings  on  the  "internal  front,"  the 
freebooters,  the  uprising  of  Grigoriev  and  the  pressure 
of  the  volunteer  army,  the  Soviet  power  was  expelled 
from  the  Ukraine.  Ukrainian  cities  passed  one  after 
another  into  the  possession  of  the  volunteer  army, 
which  in  the  beginning  of  August  occupied  Kharkov, 


52    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Yekaterinoslav,  Poltava.  In  the  middle  of  August  the 
Soviet  Government  had  only  Kiev  in  its  possession,  and 
this  was  occupied  by  Denikin  on  the  2nd  of  September. 
The  Directory  saw  itself  faced  by  another  enemy,  who 
also  used  the  method  of  the  pogrom  against  the  Soviet 
power.  Henceforth  this  method  had  no  further  pur- 
pose in  the  hands  of  the  Directory.  Besides,  this, 
weapon,  which  signified  the  last  anchor  for  the  Direc- 
tory, to  which  it  clung  as  a  drowning  man  to  a  straw, 
appeared  infamous  in  the  eyes  of  West  European 
public  opinion. 

Simultaneously  with  the  gradual  occupation  of  the 
Ukraine  by  Denikin,  the  Directory,  almost  entirely 
driven  out  of  the  Ukraine,  removed  its  activity  abroad, 
where  it  developed  a  lively  diplomatic  and  agitational 
propaganda.  But  rumors  and  reports  of  the  pogroms 
had  already  been  circulated  in  Western  Europe.  The 
Directory  attempted  to  deny  everything,  and  the  best 
method  of  defense  was  to  impute  the  guilt  to  others. 

The  representative  of  the  Petlura  government  at 
the  Peace  Conference,  Dr.  Margoline,  gave  to  the  cor- 
respondent of  the  "Jewish  Chronicle"  the  following 
explanation  of  the  Ukrainian  pogroms : 

"There  is  this  difference  between  the  pogroms  which 
have  unhappily  taken  place  in  the  Ukraine  and  those 
which  occurred  under  the  tsarist  regime.  Whereas 
the  latter  were  instigated  and  connived  at  by  the  au- 
thorities, the  Ukraine  government  has  steadily  set  its 
face  against  the  pogroms,  and  it  has  had  no  part  in,  or 
responsibility  for,  them.  At  the  time  of  Petlura's 
coup  d'etat  at  the  end  of  November,  1918,  I  myself 
read,  in  numerous  towns  and  villages  in  the  Ukraine, 
proclamations  issued  by  the  government  strongly  con- 
demning pogroms,  explaining  to  the  people  that  the 


THE  DIRECTORY  53 

Jews  were  fellow-citizens  and  brothers  who  were  help- 
ing in  the  evolution  of  the  Ukrainian  state,  and  to 
whom  the  fullest  rights  were  due.  The  proclamations 
declared  that  pogroms  must  tend  to  discredit  the 
Ukraine  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world,  and  those 
who  took  part  in  them  were  no  friends  of  the  country. 
Unfortunately,  after  the  Bolshevists  took  Kiev,  and 
disintegration  set  in  among  the  ranks  of  the  Ukrainian 
forces,  the  worst  elements  of  the  army  started  po- 
groms. Once  more  the  government  disavowed  them, 
sentenced  the  perpetrators  to  death,  expressed  their 
deepest  sympathy  with  the  Jews,  and  promised  the 
fullest  compensation  to  the  sufferers.  I  must  unhappily 
admit  that  the  last  pogroms  as  to  which  I  have  infor- 
mation— those  of  February  and  March  last — were 
very  bad,  thousands  of  Jews  being  killed.  They  were 
instigated  by  criminals,  Black  Hundreds,  and  Bolshe- 
vists, who  wished  to  discredit  the  Ukrainian  govern- 
ment." (Jewish  Chronicle,  May  16,  1919.) 

The  explanations  of  Dr.  Margoline  do  not  tally  with 
the  facts.  At  the  time  of  his  interview  (May,  1919), 
the  pogromists  raged  through  the  land  with  elemental 
fury.  A  bitter  fight  ensued  between  the  Directory 
and  the  Soviet  power,  and  thousands  of  Jews  were  done 
to  death  at  the  hands  of  the  insurrectionary  bands  and 
the  armies  of  Petlura.  The  Directory  had  no  thought 
of  expressing  its  sympathy  with  the  Jews.  It  did 
not  fight  against  the  excesses  and  issued  no  proclama- 
tions against  pogroms.  We  have  quoted  above  the  dec- 
larations of  different  heads  of  the  army.  They  all 
bear  unequivocally  the  character  of  incitements  to 
pogroms.  That  the  excesses  were  organized,  we  have 
already  shown.  During  the  second  terrible  pogrom  in 
Zhitomir,  which  began  and  ended  by  order  of  the  high- 


54    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

est  military  authorities,  Petlura,  the  head  of  the  Direc- 
tory, came  to  Zhitomir,  and  the  unfortunate  Jewish 
population  turned  to  him.  Nevertheless  the  pogroms 
kept  on.  It  is  true  that  the  pogrom  tactics  had  so  de- 
moralized the  army  that  it  contained  many  criminal 
elements  and  followers  of  the  Black  Hundred.  But 
the  responsible  parties  were  the  leaders  of  the  Direc- 
tory. 

"The  Directory  fights  against  the  pogroms  .  .  ." 
Read  the  little  book  published  in  Berlin  by  the  Ukrain- 
ian mission  under  the  title,  "Die  Lage  der  Juden  in 
der  Ukraine?'  (The  position  of  the  Jews  in  the 
Ukraine),  and  you  will  come  across  a  resolution  of 
the  Council  of  Ministers  of  the  Ukrainian  People's 
Republic,  in  which  special  attention  is  called  to  the  fact 
that  "the  government  of  the  Ukrainian  People's  Re- 
public has  made  it  its  task  to  remove  the  possibilities  of 
incitements,  pogroms  and  other  excesses." 

This  resolution  was  passed  on  the  i8th  of  August, 
i.e.,  at  the  time,  as  explained  before,  when  the  pogroms 
had  lost  their  value  as  methods  of  political  warfare. 
The  entire  statement  of  the  question  in  this  resolution 
is  also  characteristic:  "The  Council  of  Ministers  hav- 
ing heard  the  report  of  P.  Krasny,  Minister  for  Jew- 
ish affairs,  concerning  the  situation  that  has  developed 
in  connection  with  the  Jewish  pogroms  in  the  Ukraine, 
and  especially  in  Kiev,  and  also  abroad,  makes  the  fol- 
lowing order.  .  .  .  Advices  full  of  lies,  falsehoods 
and  incitements  deliberately  confuse  the  places  where 
the  pogroms  were  perpetrated  by  the  Bolshevists  with 
those  instituted  by  a  reactionary  clique  in  the  Ukraine, 
who  are  in  union  with  the  underhanded  reaction  of 
Denikin  and  the  Poles.  ...  In  lying  publications  and 
in  open  letters  addressed  to  the  most  important  repre- 


THE  DIRECTORY  55 

sentatives  in  Europe  all  of  this  is  imputed  to 
the  Ukrainian  People's  Republic,  which  has  made 
it  its  aim  energetically  to  suppress  all  pogrom 
excesses.  .  .  ." 

The  passages  italicized  by  me  show  clearly  the  mo- 
tives which  led  to  the  publication  of  this  document. 
.  .  .  They  follow  from  the  situation  created  in  Kiev 
(i.e.,  the  public  central  place  where  there  were  no  pog- 
roms, but  where  public  opinion  at  this  terrible  time 
cursed  the  Directory),  as  well  as  the  situation 
abroad,  which  pressed  so  hard  upon  the  Directory  in 
its  fight  against  Denikin's  principle  of  a  "united  and 
undivided  Russia." 

This  resolution  is  not  concerned  with  the  colossal 
evils,  political  and  economic;  it  is  not  concerned  with 
the  destruction  and  extirpation  of  a  nation,  which  was 
"helping  in  the  evolution  of  the  Ukrainian  state" ;  it  is 
not  concerned  with  the  horrors,  which  put  in  the  shade 
those  of  the  middle  ages;  it  is  not  concerned  with  na- 
tional relief  to  those  who  were  injured  through  the  guilt 
of  the  Directory  and  their  agents  (the  offer  to  con- 
tribute 11,460,000  griven,  i.e.,  5,730,000  rubles,  seems 
ridiculous  enough,  besides  the  offer  was  not  made  until 
the  1 5th  of  August,  1919) — it  is  concerned  only  with 
the  political  uselessness  of  the  Jewish  pogroms,  which 
brought  the  Ukrainian  Government  into  an  unfavor- 
able position.  The  resolution  is  only  a  confirmation 
of  what  I  have  already  said. 

To  sum  up,  the  Directory  used  pogrom  politics  as 
long  as  they  promised,  in  a  given  instant  under  the  mili- 
tary and  political  circumstances,  success  in  their  strug- 
gle against  the  Soviet  power.  This  method  was  a 
double-edged  sword  for  the  Directory.  On  the  one 
hand  the  anti- Jewish  parts  of  the  army  were  welded 


56    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

together,  but  on  the  other  hand  military  discipline  was 
undermined.  The  anti-Bolshevist  agitation  under  the 
motto,  "Cut  down  the  Jews,  for  they  are  bourgeois," 
produced  in  the  masses  a  Bolshevistic  radicalism ;  while 
the  motto,  "Cut  down  the  Jews,  for  they  are  commun- 
ists," strengthened  the  reaction,  which  did  not  bow  to 
the  political  course  of  the  Directory,  but  inclined  to  the 
All-Russian  reaction  of  General  Denikin,  whom  the 
Directory  so  much  feared.  The  bitter  fight  against 
the  Soviet  power  transformed  this  method  into  a  con- 
tinuous system.  It  was  only  after  the  Denikin  reaction 
had  triumphed,  when  the  Directory  rehabilitated 
itself  in  the  eyes  of  West  European  public  opinion  and 
had  to  seek  support  from  the  Jewish  socialistic  parties 
of  the  right — it  was  only  then  that  the  Rada  of  the 
People's  Ministers  spoke  a  decisive  word,  and  the 
chief  Ataman,  Petlura,  issued  his  order  of  the  day  to 
the  troops,  on  the  26th  of  August,  1919. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE   BATKO 

WITH  the  occupation  of  Kiev  by  the  Soviet  power,, 
the  so-called  internal  front  was  first  formed,  the  rising 
of  the  Ukrainian  peasants  against  the  Soviet  govern- 
ment. The  latter  extended  its  power  over  the  large 
cities  (Kiev,  Yekaterinoslav,  Kharkov,  Odessa,  Cherni- 
gov and  others)  and  the  territory  covered  by  the  rail- 
roads. The  localities  a  few  versts  away  from  the 
railroads  were  already  in  revolt.  The  suppression  of 
these  uprisings,  which  always  assumed  more  intense 
forms,  was  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  Soviet 
period  in  the  Ukraine,  while  the  history  of  the  peasant 
uprisings  represented  at  the  same  time  the  history  of 
the  Jewish  massacres  in  the  Ukraine. 

The  peasants  in  the  Ukraine  were  armed  to  the  teeth. 
Even  during  the  German  occupation  the  villages  were 
always  provided  with  arms,  not  only  revolvers  and 
guns,  but  also  machine  guns  and  small  cannon.  The 
Soviet  power,  which  always  fought  against  the  troops 
of  the  Directory,  was  not  able  to  penetrate  into  the 
villages  and  disarm  them.  Besides,  the  army  of  the 
Soviet  power  was  unable  to  exercise  sufficient  influ- 
and  not  sufficiently  disciplined.  Politically,  too,  the 
Soviet  power  was  unable  to  exercise  sufficient  influ- 
ence upon  the  middle  peasants.  The  difference  between 
city  and  country  in  the  Ukraine  was  too  great.  The 

57 


58    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Ukrainian  village  is  very  rich;  and  the  peasants  re- 
fused to  give  up  their  products  and  their  grain  to  the 
indigent  city  for  "Kerensky  money"  or  the  Ukrainian 
"karbovantzy,"  which  they  possessed  in  plenty  (there 
was  scarcely  a  house  which  did  not  own  bales  of  worth- 
less paper  money) ;  for  the  peasant  could  not  obtain 
what  he  needed  for  this  money;  he  could  get  neither 
agricultural  machines  nor  manufactured  goods  nor  salt. 
The  blockade  made  it  impossible  for  the  city  to  play 
the  role  of  the  middleman  or  to  obtain  its  necessities. 
The  Soviet  power  was  therefore  compelled  to  take  the 
grain  from  the  peasants  by  force  of  arms.  To  be  sure, 
the  Soviet  government  had  made  a  decree  regulating 
I  the  exchange  of  agricultural  products  for  salt  and 
I  manufactured  goods,  a  standard  of  exchange  had  in 
\  fact  been  established,  one  pound  of  salt  to  equal  one 
pound  of  flour.  This  was  changed  later,  and  one  pound 
of  salt  was  made  equal  to  2  poods  (i  pood  equals  40 
Ibs.)  of  flour.  In  reality,  however,  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  transporting  manufactures  or  salt  and  bringing 
them  to  their  destinations,  after  the  internal  front  made 
railroad  communication  in  the  Ukraine  almost  impos- 
sible by  reason  of  the  continual  blowing  up  and  dam- 
aging of  rolling  stock  and  tracks.  But  the  peasants 
were  not  willing  to  give  anything  away  for  products 
"prospective  in  principle/'  For  they  mistrusted  the 
"commune/'  Not  only  the  rich  peasants  but  the  mid- 
dle peasants,  too,  regarded  the  "commune"  as  a  hydra 
which  strove  to  take  everything  out  of  the  village  with- 
out giving  them  anything  in  return.  The  rich  Ukrain- 
ian village  was  anarchistic  in  temper.  It  recognized 
every  government  so  long  as  it  left  the  village  undis- 
turbed, and  demanded  no  taxes,  agricultural  products, 
recruits,  and  so  on.  But  the  moment  any  government 


THE  BATKO  59 

attempted  to  make  demands  for  the  flat  land  or  to 
press  claims,  the  village  revolted,  took  out  the  buried 
weapons  and  used  them,  and  finally  brought  about  the 
fall  of  the  government  in  question.  The  Ukrainian 
village  was  the  sphinx  whose  riddle  could  not  be  solved 
and  which  destroyed  every  power  that  rose  before  it. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  the  cinematographic  rapidity 
with  which  the  various  governments  followed  each 
other  in  the  Ukraine. 

A  special  peasant  phraseology  was  formed:  "We 
are  Bolshevists,"  said  the  peasants  in  the  Ukraine, 
"but  no  communists.  The  Bolsheviki  gave  us  land, 
while  the  communists  take  away  our  grain  without 
giving  us  anything  for  it.  We  will  not  allow  the 
Red  Army  to  hang  the  commune  about  our  necks. 
Down  with  the  commune !  Long  live  the  Bolsheviki !" 

The  attitude  of  the  Ukrainian  peasants  toward  the 
commune  is  shown  in  the  following  incident,  which 
would  be  humorous  if  it  were  not  that  it  really 
took  place  under  the  tragic  circumstances  of  the 
pogrom  temper.  The  authorized  agent  of  the  Relief 
Committee  of  the  Red  Cross  had  been  commissioned  to 
establish  a  kitchen  in  Iskorost  for  those  who  had  suf- 
fered from  the  pogrom.  Rumors  of  the  creation  of  a 
common  kettle,  that  terrible  common  kettle  with 
which  the  agitators  frightened  the  peasants,  were  cir- 
culated also  in  the  neighboring  district  of  Ushomir. 
The  inhabitants  of  Ushomir  said  then  that  "the  JewS 
had  already  established  the  commune,"  and  affirmed 
that  they  had  seen  the  Kettle  with  their  own  eyes.  The 
peasants  of  Ushomir  threatened  the  Jewish  population 
with  the  words,  "Why  don't  you  go  to  Iskorost? 
There  the  Kettle  is  already  made."  Fearing  an  accu- 
sation of  having  established  the  "commune/*  the  Jews 


60    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  Ushomir  asked  the  agent  of  the  Red  Cross  not  to 
establish  a  kitchen  after  the  model  of  the  one  in  Iskor- 
ost,  so  that  they  might  not  be  exposed  to  the  danger  of 
being  regarded  as  communists. 

^  The  attitude  of  opposition  toward  the  "city  power" 
I  led  to  a  rejection  of  "State  power"  in  general.  The 
I  anarchistic  village  needs  no  government.  Of  what 
good  is  it  ?  The  village  has  its  leaders,  viz.  its  "Elders" 
/  (Batki).  The  government  is  never  constant,  it 
always  changes.  Since  the  March  Revolution  the 
Ukraine  has  had  too  many  governments  to  be  able  to 
believe  in  the  durability  of  any  kind  of  State  order  (the 
Provisional  Government,  the  Central  Rada  and  its  Sec- 
retariat, the  first  period  of  the  Soviet  power,  the  Ger- 
man Occupation,  the  rule  of  the  Germans,  the  Direc- 
tory, the  Soviet  power  again  and  the  armies  pressing 
it  from  two  sides,  the  army  of  Petlura  and  that  of  the 
volunteers).  Their  Ataman  (leader),  however,  their 
Batko,  they  always  have.  He  is  one  of  them  and 
they  believe  in  the  firmness  and  unshakenness  of  the 
armed  regime  of  the  peasants  with  the  Batko  at  their 
head.  The  village  rejects  every  thought  of  the  possi- 
bility of  an  attack  on  the  peasants  and  their  "eternal 
rights  to  the  land  and  its  products"  by  the  landed  pro- 
prietors of  the  White  Guard.  But  in  so  far  as  the  vil- 
lage sees  a  danger  on  the  right,  in  so  far  as  danger 
threatens  the  interests  of  the  village  and  the  right  of 
the  peasants  to  the  land,  they  will  support  the  left  in- 
cluding the  Soviet  power,  which  favors  them  in  this 
matter. 

A  characteristic  episode  will  make  clear  the  attitude 
of  the  village  to  the  Soviet  power  when  there  is  a 
danger  threatening  from  the  right.  In  the  last  months 
of  the  Soviet  government  in  the  Ukraine  (July,  1919), 


THE  BATKO  61 

there  were  frequent  uprisings  among  those  Soviet 
troops  which  consisted  of  peasant  freebooters.  Such  a 
regiment  stationed  near  Kiev  resolved  to  march  to 
Kiev,  "to  slit  the  bellies  of  the  Jewish  commissars,  to 
set  aside  the  commune  and  re-establish  the  'true  Bolshe- 
vist order  I' '  They  allowed  a  representative  of  the 
Soviet  power  to  have  his  say,  and  after  hearing  him 
they  deliberated  and  persisted  in  their  former  resolu- 
tion. In  full  fighting  form  the  regiment  marched  to 
Kiev.  The  political  commissar,  who  was  in  this  case 
the  principal  agitator,  resolved  to  hold  another  meet- 
ing in  order  to  heighten  the  temper  of  the  regiment, 
for  there  were  a  few  who  hesitated  under  the  impres- 
sion of  the  speech  of  the  Soviet  representative.  The 
political  commissar  made  a  long  speech,  pointed  to  the 
harm  that  would  come  from  the  "commune"  and  said 
that  the  war  must  be  ended  altogether.  "Let  us  re- 
move the  commune,  make  peace  with  Denikin  and  go 
home."  These  words  acted  like  an  electric  spark,  "He 
invites  us  to  make  peace  with  the  landed  proprietors, 
he  is  a  traitor !"  The  unfortunate  speaker  was  put  in 
chains,  handed  over  to  the  representatives  of  the  Soviet 
government,  and  the  regiment  was  ordered  to  the  Deni- 
kin front. 

The  Batko — flesh  of  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  blood 
of  the  village — stands  close  to  the  village  in  his  tem- 
per, thought,  life  and  character.  The  Batko  is  not 
always  an  ordinary  peasant.  As  we  shall  see  later,  the 
most  important  Batki  are  highly  developed  persons 
with  European  education.  But  they  can  put  them- 
selves in  the  position  of  the  village,  think  its  thoughts 
and  ideals,  make  its  desires  and  moods  their  own  and 
embody  the  will  of  the  Ukrainian  peasant.  They  are 
able  to  lead  the  peasant  masses,  who  yield  them  respect 


62    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  obedience  so  long  as  they  give  expression  to  the 
will  of  the  village.  The  Batko  understands  how  to 
take  the  peasant,  and  knows  how  to  win  him  over  by 
social  or  national  motives.  The  Batko  is  perfectly 
familiar  with  the  revolutionary  phraseology  and  adapts 
it  successfully  to  the  level  of  the  peasant.  He  is  pri- 
marily a  demagogue.  In  his  speeches  and  proclama- 
tions, the  Batko  expresses  himself  in  favor  of  the 
Soviet  power  without  the  communists.  He  demands 
besides  that  the  Rada  be  controlled  by  the  village.  He 
is  against  the  bourgeoisie  and  against  the  communists, 
but  for  the  Bolsheviki.  Often  he  expresses  himself  to 
the  effect  that  the  communists  treat  the  bourgeoisie  too 
gently.  The  Batko  is  opposed  to  a  centralized  govern- 
ment and  its  apparatus.  He  demands  a  free  associa- 
tion of  anarchistic  peasant  communities  with  the  Batki 
at  the  head.  Socially  the  program  of  the  Batki  is 
primitively  anarchistic:  "Rob,  requisition,  take  posses- 
sion of  the  cities,  take  Yekaterinoslav,  take  Kiev,  take 
Kharkov, — the  cities  belong  to  you,  take  away  the 
property  of  the  wealthy  classes." 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  anarchistic  phrase  and  the 
attacks  against  the  Kiev  Soviet  government,  the  anti- 
Semitic  pogrom  agitation  moved  through  the  land. 
The  Soviet  power  was,  according  to  their  idea,  a  for- 
eign government  of  Moscovitish- Jewish  origin,  which 
the  village  did  not  understand.  The  peasant  knew  only 
that  they  wanted  to  take  everything  out  of  the  village 
and  give  him  in  return  colored  little  papers,  which 
were  found  in  the  village  in  plenty.  He  knew  it  was  a 
government  which  proceeded  against  the  village  with 
armed  force.  In  very  many  cases  Jews  were  the 
agents  of  the  Soviet  government  in  the  villages  and 
districts.  They  often  neglected  the  interests  of  the 


THE   BATKO  63 

local  population  and  had  no  regard  for  them.  The 
mistakes,  abuses  and  offences  of  the  local  agents  of  the 
Soviet  power  were  noted  and  utilized  in  a  definite  way 
by  the  anti-Soviet  powers,  who  represented  them  as 
characteristic  qualities  of  the  "Jewish  nation,"  which 
ruled  over  the  "orthodox"  peasant.  The  poison  of  the 
anti-Semitic  agitation  flowed  in  a  wide  stream  over 
the  whole  of  the  Ukraine.  The  Batki  understood 
clearly  the  value  of  the  Jewish  pogrom  as  a  political 
weapon,  established  by  the  Directory.  They  saw  the 
real  results  of  Jew  baiting  in  the  unruliness  of  the 
mob  which  was  so  necessary  for  them.  Giving  up  the 
Jewish  population  to  the  village  as  booty  seemed  to  the 
Batki  advantageous  in  many  respects. 

In  the  first  place  those  Jews  in  the  cities  and  dis- 
tricts who  had  become  rich  during  the  German  rule 
possessed  objects  which  the  Ukrainian  peasant  needed 
urgently,  as  for  example  household  articles  and,  what 
was  most  important,  clothing,  linen  and  shoes,  of  which 
nothing  could  any  longer  be  found  in  the  village.  Even 
a  pair  of  old  shoes  of  a  poor  Jew  excited  the  atten- 
tion of  the  village  population,  rich  in  grain  and  Keren- 
sky  money  and  poor  in  everything  else.  During  the 
pogroms  the  Jewish  population,  those  who  were  mur- 
dered as  well  as  those  who  survived,  were  stripped  of 
everything  to  the  last  shirt.  The  Batki  in  the  neighbor- 
ing villages  successfully  vied  with  each  other  in  popu- 
larity by  declaring  the  Jewish  possessions  as  the  prop- 
erty of  the  peasants  and  by  distributing  the  plundered 
Jewish  goods  free  of  cost  to  the  "most  needy"  or  by 
instituting  "cheap  sales."  This  method  of  satisfying 
the  needs  of  the  village  received  wide  imitation.  In 
the  second  place  national  baiting  was  a  means  of  unit- 
ing to  a  certain  extent  the  heterogeneous  peasantry. 


64    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

This  was  especially  important  at  those  moments  when 
the  middle  peasants  vacillated  between  the  right  and 
the  left  under  the  pressure  of  the  danger  threatening 
from  the  right.  When  the  political  program  of  the 
Batki  at  this  or  that  moment  did  not  correspond  to  the 
temper  of  the  peasants,  national  baiting  had  to  fill  the 
lacuna  in  its  reciprocal  relations. 

In  the  third  place  the  identification  of  Jews  and  com- 
munists (which,  however,  did  not  hinder  them  from 
at  the  same  time  declaring  the  Jews  to  be  bourgeois  and 
thus  summoning  the  population  to  murder  and  pillage) 
made  it  possible  for  them  to  carry  on  the  fight  against 
their  dangerous  enemies,  the  Soviet  power.  "Down 
with  the  communists,  down  with  the  Jewish  commis- 
sars !"  This  was  the  motto  of  Shtogrin,  a  member  of 
the  left  wing  of  the  Ukrainian  Social  Revolutionists, 
who  carried  on  simultaneously  an  anti-Soviet  and  a 
pogromophile  agitation  in  Uman.  At  the  hearing 
before  the  Extraordinary  Commission  he  was  charged 
with  anti-Semitic  propaganda.  Asked  if  he  did  not 
know  that  he  might  have  caused  a  Jewish  pogrom, 
he  replied  that  he  had  in  fact  incited  the  peasants  to 
make  pogroms,  "for  otherwise  it  was  impossible  to  get 
the  peasants  to  rise."  Order  No.  i  for  the  city  of 
Uman  which  was  issued  after  the  pogrom  and  signed 
by  Klimenko,  the  chief  commander  of  the  rebellious 
troops,  says  among  other  things,  "The  rule  of  the  Jews 
has  fallen,  and  the  insurgents  are  instructed  to  pay  no 
heed  to  Jewish  agents  and  police  spies." 

Kummelman  reports  from  the  district  of  Matusovo 
(Government  of  Kiev)  as  follows:  The  peasants  dis- 
trusted the  Soviet  power,  they  did  not  take  them  seri- 
ously and  regarded  them  as  a  foreign  power,  almost 
as  much  as  the  rule  of  the  Germans.  This  distrust  of 


THE  BATKO  65 

the  new  government  was  artificially  kept  awake  by  the 
local  intelligentzia.  From  the  first  day  they  took  an 
attitude  of  opposition  to  the  new  government.  The 
local  Ukrainian  intelligentzia,  like  the  postmaster, 
the  seminary  students  and  the  teachers,  openly  agi- 
tated against  the  Soviet  power.  They  'played  the 
national  question  as  the  main  trump.  "The  govern- 
ment of  Petlura,"  the  postmaster  Kulik  impresses 
upon  the  peasants,  "is  our  real  native  Ukrainian  gov- 
ernment, but  the  government  of  the  Bolsheviki  is  a 
Jew  government."  "I  was  in  Cherkassy,"  the  teacher 
Palega  assures  the  peasants,  "in  the  Commissariat  for 
the  Enlightenment  of  the  People,  and  what  have  I 
seen  there?  Nothing  but  Jews,  the  whole  Commis- 
sariat filled  with  Jews." 

The  social  position  of  the  Batko  is  various.  There 
are  various  grades,  from  the  Batko  who  controls  a  vil- 
lage, a  district  and  sometimes  several  districts  up  to 
the  Batko  who  rules  over  entire  Governments  (prov- 
inces) and  plays  a  great  political  role,  like  Grigoriev 
and  Makhno.  The  last  named  are  leaders  of  the 
Ukrainian  peasants,  able  men  with  clear  political  pur- 
pose. Batki  like  Zeleny,  Struk,  Angel,  Yatzenko, 
Tiutiunik,  Klimenko,  Popov  are  peasants  who 
have  no  independent  policy,  but  are  instruments  of  the 
leaders  who  know  how  to  comprehend  and  formulate 
the  dissatisfaction  of  the  middle  peasants.  Every 
Batko  has  his  sphere  of  activity.  Struk  worked  north 
of  Kiev,  in  the  district  of  Chernobyl.  Sokolovsky  car- 
ried on  his  activity  west  of  Kiev,  in  the  district  of 
Radomysl  and  in  the  neighboring  part  of  the  circuit  of 
Zhitomir.  South  of  Kiev,  in  the  district  of  Tripolie 
on  the  Dnieper,  Zeleny  had  his  field  of  activity.  In 
the  precincts  of  Tarascha  were  Yatzenko,  Golub  and 


66    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

others.  In  the  district  of  Brussilov  we  find  the  group 
of  Mordylev;  in  Lipovetz  the  association  of  Soko- 
lovsky;  in  the  district  of  Uman  the  bands  of  Klimenko, 
Tiutiunik  and  Popov;  in  the  district  of  Gaisin,  Voly- 
netz,  and  in  the  region  of  Bakhmach,  Angel.  Almost 
all  these  "small"  Batki  are  former  followers  of  Petlura 
(whom  the  Directory  gave  object  lessons  in  political 
fighting,  which  they  have  put  to  good  use)  and  work 
always  within  the  limits  of  their  homes. 

Struk  is  a  twenty-three  year  old  peasant  from  the 
village  of  Grini  near  Gornostaipol ;  Sokolovsky  comes 
from  the  village  Gorbulevo,  nineteen  versts  from  Rado- 
mysl,  and  is  the  son  of  a  deacon  of  the  village.  Zeleny 
lives  in  Tripolie,  is  a  son  of  a  local  cabinet  maker  and 
attained  the  rank  of  corporal  in  the  war.  Mordylev 
comes  from  the  village  Zabylachy,  not  far  from  Brus- 
silov. Sokolovsky  was  formerly  a  lower  official  of 
the  agrarian  administration  of  Lipovetz.  Volynetz 
was  born  in  the  village  Karlovka  near  Gaisin.  He  is  a 
peasant  of  23,  former  clerk  of  the  Forestry  adminis- 
tration. Yatzenko  was  born  in  the  village  Kershan, 
three  versts  from  Tarascha.  He  is  about  24  years 
old,  attended  a  school  of  two  classes  in  Tarascha,  be- 
came a  follower  of  Petlura  in  March  and  initiated 
his  activity  with  Jew  baiting.  "The  Jews  are  all  com- 
munists, they  defile  our  churches  and  change  them  into 
stables." 

The  leading  Batki  often  go  over  from  one  govern- 
ment to  the  other.  This  is  true  of  Grigoriev,  for  ex- 
ample, who  watered  a  great  part  of  the  Ukraine  with 
Jewish  blood.  Under  the  Hetman  he  held  a  respon- 
sible position  in  the  economic  department  of  the  ad- 
ministration and  came  in  close  contact  with  the  village 
(he  is  a  native  Ukrainian  from  the  city  of  Alexan- 


THE  BATKO  67 

dria  in  the  Government  of  Kherson).  Going  from 
village  to  village,  he  organized  groups  of  insurrec- 
tionists, at  the  head  of  which  he  raised  the  banner  of 
Petlura.  The  ambition  to  make  a  career,  the  desire  to 
be  more  conspicuous,  the  comprehension  of  the  tenden- 
cies of  the  peasants  at  that  time  who  were  attempting  a 
reaction  against  German  rule  and  wishing  for  a  radi- 
cal power  of  the  extreme  left,  induced  him  to  put 
himself  on  the  side  of  the  Soviet  government.  Grigo- 
riev  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  strong  associations 
of  freebooters  and  in  a  whirlwind  campaign  conquered 
the  whole  south,  including  Odessa.  But  he  was  not 
satisfied  with  being  a  leader  of  a  Soviet  army.  He  was 
casting  eyes  on  the  position  of  an  independent  ruler  of 
South  Russia  and  dreamed  of  a  dictatorship  of  his 
own.  He  systematically  encouraged  unbridled  con- 
duct among  his  troops,  did  everything  to  please  their 
instincts  and  desires  and  gave  them  to  understand  that 
they  could  do  anything  they  liked  as  long  as  they  were 
masters  of  Odessa.  It  is  significant  that  as  long  as  he 
had  not  broken  with  the  Soviet  government  and  had 
not  refused  to  obey  the  military  commands  given  to 
him  to  go  to  the  Rumanian  front,  Grigoriev  abstained 
from  all  national  baiting.  In  Odessa  his  bands  robbed 
the  population  under  the  pretext  of  fighting  the  bour- 
geoisie, but  there  were  no  serious  excesses  or  pogroms. 
After  the  Soviet  government  declared  Grigoriev  an 
outlaw,  he  adopted  a  means  that  had  been  long  proved 
in  Ukraine  to  weld  together  his  united  bands.  He 
identified  the  Soviet  government  with  Judaism  and 
preached  its  destruction. 

Grigoriev  issued  his  manifesto  of  sad  memory, 
"Universal"  (addressed  to  all  the  people),  which  has 
had  a  very  unfortunate  significance  for  the  Ukrainian 


68    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Jews.  This  manifesto  written  in  revolutionary  phrase- 
ology demands  at  the  end  the  removal  of  the  Soviet 
government,  formed  of  "foreign  elements  from  the 
ever  hungry  land  of  Moscow  and  the  land  where 
Christ  was  nailed  to  the  cross,"  and  the  murder  of  the 
Jews.  The  watchword  of  Grigoriev  found  an  echo  in 
the  Ukrainian  village.  It  was  taken  up  in  the  several 
localities  by  the  local  Batki  as  well  as  by  the  bands 
of  the  Black  Hundred  in  the  Ukrainian  cities  and  vil- 
lages, and  especially  by  the  ultra-reactionary  anti- 
Semitic  intellectuals  who  are  found  in  plenty  in  the 
cities  and  small  towns,  and  was  carried  farther.  This 
is  extremely  characteristic  of  the  period  of  Grigoriev, 
which  may  be  regarded  in  this  respect  as  the  fore- 
runner of  Denikin.  Thus  in  the  country  town  of  Goro- 
dische,  in  the  Government  of  Kiev,  a  former  officer 
Gritsai  stood  at  the  head  of  Grigoriev' s  men.  The 
pogrom  was  led  by  a  small  group  of  residents,  teachers 
and  students  of  the  local  gymnasium  and  agricultural 
school.  They  were  not  only  the  instigators  and  leaders 
of  the  pogrom,  but  also  soon  took  active  part  in  pillage 
and  murder.  In  the  town  of  Zlatopol  (Government  of 
Kiev),  the  participants  in  the  Jewish  massacres  were 
not  only  the  poorer  classes,  but  also  a  part  of  the 
intelligentzia,  as  far  as  they  belonged  to  the  Black 
Hundred  or  sympathized  with  them.  In  the  town  of 
Stavische,  in  the  same  Government,  a  town  of  more 
than  one  thousand  peasant  families,  there  were  among 
the  participants  in  the  pogrom  many  landed  proprie- 
tors, students,  clergy,  who  openly  designated  them- 
selves as  members  of  the  "White  Guard/'  The  ter- 
rible massacre  in  Yelisavetgrad  took  place  under  the 
watchword,  "Cut  down  the  Jews,  cut  down  the  com- 
munists!" The  Rabbi  of  Mirgorod  testified  at  his 


THE  BATKO  69 

examination  that  the  soldiers  seized  him,  pointed  at 
him  and  cried,  "You  are  a  communist,  you  Jewish 
snout!"  In  Boguslav  it  was  the  peasants  who  robbed 
and  murdered  the  Jews  on  the  ground  that  they  were 
all  Bolsheviki  and  communists.  The  same  thing  hap- 
pened in  Tarascha  and  in  dozens  and  hundreds  of 
places  in  which  Grigoriev's  bands  instituted  pogroms. 
In  Cherkassy  the  pogromists  literally  cut  down  all 
Jews,  saying  to  them,  "You  want  to  rule  over  us,  to 
use  violence  against  us!"  Especially  characteristic  of 
the  movement  instigated  by  Grigoriev  is  the  fact  that 
the  intellectuals  in  their  agitation  in  the  villages  used 
a  new  motive  in  addition  to  the  old,  namely  that  the 
Jews  had  done  violence  to  the  Christian  religion  (a 
motive  suggested  by  the  phrase  in  the  manifesto, 
"from  the  land  where  Christ  was  nailed  to  the  cross"). 
This  grouping  about  Grigoriev  not  only  of  the  civic 
elements,  but  also  of  the  Black  Hundred,  who  dream  of 
the  return  of  the  tsarist  order,  lent  to  their  deeds  of 
horror  the  particularly  gruesome  character  of  an  at- 
tempt to  annihilate  and  exterminate  the  Jewish  people. 
The  pogroms  everywhere  followed  a  prearranged  plan. 
The  triumphal  procession  of  the  victorious  Grigoriev 
took  place  under  the  sign  of  pogroms  instituted  by  the 
Ataman  himself  and  his  assistants,  Uvarov,  Tiuti- 
unik  and  Nechayev. 

The  Jewish  persecutions  in  May  must  be  attributed 
to  the  activity  of  Grigoriev.  Three- fourths  of  them 
took  place  in  the  southeastern  projection  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Kiev  (the  district  between  Cherkassy  and 
Chigirin).  The  rest  were  enacted  in  the  neighboring 
parts  of  the  Governments  of  Kherson  and  Poltava. 
In  a  small  number  of  cases  the  pogroms  were  instituted 
not  by  the  bands  of  Grigoriev  but  by  locally  resident 


70    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

elements  and  under  the  influence  of  the  above  men- 
tioned "Universal"  manifesto. 

The  Jewish  massacres  followed  each  other  in  the 
following  order :  Zlatopol,  May  2-5 ;  Znamenka,  May 
3;  Lebedin,  May  5;  Gorodische,  May  11-12;  Orlovetz, 
May  12;  Zolotonosha,  May  12;  Rotmistrovka,  May 
13-14;  Matusovo,  May  13-14;  Belozeria,  May  14-15; 
Smela,  May  14-15;  Yelisavetgrad,  15-17;  Novo-Mir- 
gorod,  17;  Cherkassy,  16-21;  Raigorod,  20;  in  the 
Sablino-Znamenk  sugar  factory,  20;  Alexandria, 
22;  Chigirin,  25;  Alexandrovka,  15-18;  Stepanovka, 
18;  Semyonovka,  18-19;  Grosstjlov,  20. 

There  were  pogroms  at  the  same  time  in  Fundu- 
keievka,  Medvedovka,  Kamenka,  Teleschino,  Station 
Bobrinsky,  Tzvetkovo,  Moshny,  Glovbin,  Kassel, 
Tomashov,  Ivanovka,  Vessyolaya  Kuta,  Vessyolaya 
Podol,  and  others. 

The  following  Jewish  persecutions  during  the  same 
month  are  also  closely  connected  with  Grigoriev's 
manifesto.  They  all  belong  to  the  district  of  Uman, 
situated  at  a  greater  distance  from  the  places  in  which 
Grigoriev's  bands  resided.  Of  these  massacres  the 
most  bloody  were  in  Uman,  May  1 3 ;  Dubovo,  1 3  and 
14;  Talnoie,  13;  Kristinovka,  Ladyzhenka,  and  the 
villages,  Vyasovok,  Mankovka,  Ivanka,  Buki  and 
others. 

The  remainder  of  Grigoriev's  bands  developed  their 
activity  also  in  the  month  of  June.  They  destroyed  in 
the  Government  of  Kiev,  Stavische,  June  15;  Taras- 
cha,  16;  Volodarka,  20;  Ryshanovka,  20;  Skvira,  23; 
on  the  27th  they  instituted  a  second  pogrom  in  Alex- 
andria (Government  of  Kherson). 

The  followers  of  Grigoriev  destroyed  a  whole  line 
of  cities  and  towns  root  and  branch,  put  to  death  or 


THE   BATKO  71 

mutilated  tens  of  thousands  of  Jews  and  violated 
thousands  of  Jewish  women  and  girls,  but  the  political 
aim  of  Grigoriev  to  become  the  ruler  of  the  Ukraine 
was  not  realized.  Grigoriev  was  able  to  gather  the 
masses  about  him  by  the  negative  side  of  his  program 
only,  the  hate  against  the  "Jewish  Soviet  power,"  but 
he  had  nothing  positive  to  offer.  He  could  undermine 
the  power  of  the  Soviet  government  and  open  the  gates 
to  Denikin,  with  whom,  as  is  reliably  stated,  he  tried 
to  get  in  touch,  proposing  to  proceed  in  common  with 
him  against  the  Soviet  government  as  well  as  the  Direc- 
tory. But  he  was  beaten.  His  bands  divided,  one 
part  going  over  to  the  side  of  the  Soviet  government 
and  the  other  devoting  itself  to  "positive  pillage"  under 
the  leadership  of  several  insignificant  Batki. 

Grigoriev  himself  fell  by  the  hand  of  another  Batko, 
superior  to  him,  by  the  name  of  Makhno.  Extremely 
interesting  is  the  "resolution"  passed  by  the  followers 
of  the  "ideal  Batko"  in  reference  to  the  murder  of 
Grigoriev. 

COPY  OF  A  COPY  OF  THE  RESOLUTION  FROM  THE 
PROTOCOL  NUMBER  4  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEM- 
BLY OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  THE  REVOLUTIONARY 

FREEBOOTERS  OF  THE  GOVERNMENTS  OF  KHER- 
SON, TAURIDA  AND  YEKATERINOSLAV  IN  THE 
REPORT  OF  THE  MILITARY  CORPS  ON  THE  28TH 
OF  JULY,  1919. 

"The  assassination  of  the  Ataman  Grigoriev  on  the 
27th  of  July  in  the  village  of  Septovo,  circuit  of  Alex- 
andria, Government  of  Kherson,  by  the  ideal  leader 
of  the  insurrectionists,  the  Batko  Makhno,  must  be 
regarded  as  a  necessary  and  required  historical  fact, 


72    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

for  Grigoriev's  policy,  acts  and  aims  were  counter- 
revolutionary and  had  the  main  purpose  of  supporting 
Denikin  and  other  counter-revolutionists,  as  is  proved 
by  the  Jewish  pogroms  and  the  arming  of  the  thugs. 
The  union  of  his  army  with  that  of  Batko  Makhno 
is  explained  as  being  necessary  in  order  to  take  away 
from  him  all  the  honest  freebooters,  who  are  fighting 
for  revolutionary  ideas  and  follow  him  only  because 
of  their  ignorance. 

"We  cherish  the  hope  that  now  no  one  will  be  found 
who  will  sanction  Jewish  pogroms,  and  that  the  work- 
ing people  will  in  their  honesty  rise  against  the 
counter-revolutionists  like  Denikin  and  others,  as  well 
as  against  the  Bolsheviki  and  communists  who  are  es- 
tablishing a  dictatorship  by  force  with  the  help  of  mer- 
cenary Magyars,  Chinese  and  Letts.  The  followers  of 
Makhno  regard  it  as  their  revolutionary  duty  to  take 
upon  themselves  the  historical  consequences  of  this 
assassination.  Down  with  Jewish  pogroms !  Long  live 
the  revolutionary  uprising  of  the  Ukraine !  Long  live 
the  Ukrainian  Socialist  Soviet  Republic !  Long  live  so- 
cialism !" 

The  original  is  signed  by  the 

President,  VITKO  MAKHNO, 

Secretary,  SHEVCHENKO, 

Attested  by  Acting  Chief  of  Staff,  MIKHAILOV, 

Attested  by  (signature  illegible). 

Reading  this  resolution  one  might  think  that  the 
Batko  Makhno  himself,  who  had  assassinated  Grig- 
oriev  because  he  had  instituted  Jewish  pogroms,  had 
not  a  drop  of  Jewish  blood  clinging  to  his  fingers.  Far 
from  it!  The  bands  of  Makhno  were  guilty  of  the 
maddest  excesses,  they  devastated  Jewish  cities  and 


THE  BATKO  73 

towns.  Makhno  has  thousands  of  murdered  and 
tortured  Jews  on  his  conscience,  and  the  complete  des- 
truction of  almost  all  the  Jewish  colonies  in  the  south 
of  the  Ukraine  is  his  work.  The  "ideal  Batko"  him- 
self was  now  for,  now  against  pogroms,  depending 
upon  the  political  situation  of  the  moment. 

Makhno  is  an  intellectual,  a  former  village  school- 
master once  imprisoned  for  a  political  offence,  a  clever 
and  energetic  man.  During  the  first  phase  of  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution  he  was  a  member  of  the  Yelisavetgrad 
Executive  Committee  of  the  labor  deputies.  At  the 
time  of  the  German  occupation  he  became  a  popular 
personality  in  the  Government  of  Yekaterinoslav, 
where  he  prepared  the  uprising  against  the  German 
rule.  Makhno  was  regarded  by  the  village  population 
as  one  of  those  "holy  fighters''  for  the  cause  of  the  vil- 
lage who  put  an  end  to  a  regime  which  atempted  to 
carry  everything  away  from  the  Ukraine  and  to  estab- 
lish a  terroristic  rule  upon  the  flat  country.  Like  the 
bands  of  Grigoriev,  the  insurrectionist  bands  of 
Makhno  also  occupied  a  whole  line  of  points  in  the 
south  (on  the  i8th  of  March  they  occupied  Berdi- 
ansk;  on  the  3ist,  Melitopol,  Ochakov,  Sivash)  which 
went  over  to  the  side  of  the  Soviet  government. 
Makhno  had  not  definitely  inscribed  himself 
with  the  Soviet  power,  therefore  they  were 
not  so  painfully  affected  by  his  treason  as  by  that 
of  Grigoriev. 

Makhno,  covered  with  glory  as  he  was,  constantly 
tried  to  utilize  his  popularity  among  the  peasants  of  the 
Yekaterinoslav  and  neighboring  governments  for  an 
independent  policy.  He  called  himself  an  anarchist,  but 
denied  all  connection  with  the  party — he  wanted  to  be 
more  anarchistic  than  the  anarchists.  In  general  his 


74    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

politics  in  relation  to  his  own  followers  as  well  as  the 
peasants  in  the  neighborhood  was  characterized  by  the 
attempt  to  distribute  among  them,  especially  among  the 
poorest,  the  property,  mainly  Jewish,  which  had  been 
plundered  and  collected  in  the  small  towns.  Thus  he 
took  possession  of  salt  in  the  south  (a  very  rare 
and  therefore  a  very  expensive  product)  and  had  it 
distributed  free  to  the  peasants.  As  regards  the  Soviet 
power  he  was  the  typical  representative  of  the  temper 
prevailing  among  the  middle  peasants.  He  never  stood 
on  the  side  of  the  Soviet  government.  During  the  first 
period,  after  the  fall  of  the  German  rule,  he  supported 
the  Soviet  power  because  he  regarded  it  as  stronger 
and  more  consistent  than  the  Directory,  but  he  opposed 
it  as  being  a  city  power.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
an  opponent  of  the  volunteer  army  of  Denikin,  an  op- 
pressor of  the  peasants  and  fighter  for  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  the  pre-revolutionary  order.  He  defended  the 
Soviet  power  and  at  the  same  time  opposed  the  "Bol- 
sheviki  and  the  communists,  who  established  a  dicta- 
torship by  force  with  the  help  of  hired  Magyars, 
Chinese  and  Letts."  When  danger  threatened  from  the 
right,  he  was  ready  to  fight  against  Denikin.  He 
fought  against  Grigoriev  and  assassinated  him.  He 
justified  this  act  by  Grigoriev* s  anti-revolutionary  atti- 
tude, which  expressed  itself  in  Jewish  pogroms,  and 
was  even  ready  to  negotiate  with  the  Kiev  government. 
But  when  Makhno  fought  against  the  Soviet  gov- 
ernment, he  summoned  his  people  to  murder  and  exter- 
minate the  Jews,  using  the  watchwords  which  are 
already  familiar  to  us.  As  a  personality,  Makhno  is  not 
a  typical  Batko.  He  is  too  individualistic  in  his 
make-up.  As  a  politician,  however,  he  is  the  most 
typical  of  them  all,  for  he  embodies  completely  at 


THE  BATKO  75 

every  moment  the  interests  and  desires  of  the  middle 
peasants  of  the  Ukrainian  village. 

Interesting  but  not  typical  is  the  third  prominent 
personality  on  the  dark  horizon  of  the  Batko  insti- 
tution, Mazurenko,  who  calls  himself  in  his  pronunci- 
amentos  and  proclamations  the  chief  of  the  insurrec- 
tionists, the  oldest  among  the  numerous  and  small  vil- 
lage and  circuit  Batki.  Mazurenko  comes  from  a  well- 
known  Ukrainian  family,  whose  members  have  been 
active  in  public  and  political  life.  He  is  an  intellectual 
in  the  European  sense  of  the  word.  At  the  beginning 
he  held  responsible  positions  in  the  service  of  the  Soviet 
government.  He  was  the  head  of  the  Art  Department 
of  the  whole  Ukraine  and  member  of  the  Ukrainian 
Council  of  Labor  Deputies.  He  belongs  to  the  left 
wing  of  the  Ukrainian  Social  Democracy  (the  Inde- 
pendent Social  Democracy),  who  are  trying  to  democ- 
ratize the  Soviet  system  in  the  Ukraine  by  giving  the 
controlling  influence  in  the  Soviet  organs  to  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  peasants.  One  can  scarcely  imagine 
that  the  humane  Mazurenko  later  became  the  author  of 
a  whole  series  of  terrible  Jew  baiting  pamphlets,  in 
which  he  incited  the  people  to  pogroms. 

We  designated  above  in  detail  the  names  and  spheres 
of  activity  of  the  most  important  among  the  lower 
Batki.  They  overran  the  whole  Ukraine  and  caused 
terrible  devastation  in  "their"  districts.  The  Jewish 
population  depends  entirely  upon  the  temper  of  the 
Batki  and  their  bands.  There  is  no  escape.  The  whole 
Ukraine  is  divided  into  a  number  of  such  districts,  in 
which  cities  and  railway  junctions  are,  like  desert  isl- 
ands, to  be  met  with  only  rarely,  and  which  the  Soviet 
power  is  able  to  hold  for  a  while.  But  the  moment  a  city 
gets  into  the  hands  of  such  a  band,  the  Jewish  popula- 


;6    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

tion  is  plundered  and  murdered,  until  the  Soviet  govern- 
ment succeeds  in  getting  possession  of  the  place  again. 

From  the  end  of  March  the  bands  began  a  system- 
atic activity.  In  the  precinct  of  Radomysl  the  Soko- 
lovsky  bands  did  their  work.  In  April  it  was  mainly 
Struk  who  developed  a  feverish  activity  covering  the 
precinct  of  Chernobyl.  In  the  days  from  the  seventh 
to  the  twelfth  of  April,  the  bands  raged  in  Chernobyl 
(sic)  itself.  At  the  beginning  of  the  following  month 
(May  3)  Gornostaipol  was  destroyed,  and  the  next 
day  (May  4)  Ivankov  met  a  similar  fate.  In  the  time 
intervening  they  did  murder  and  death  in  a  whole  line 
of  neighboring  villages  and  settlements,  especially  on 
the  banks  of  the  Dnieper,  where  they  stopped  ships  and 
drowned  the  Jewish  passengers.  By  the  end  of  August 
there  were  thirty-two  such  places.  During  the  whole 
month  of  April  Sokolovsky  raged  in  his  district.  Zel- 
eny's  bands  too  made  their  appearance  hard  by  Kiev. 
In  the  days  from  the  7th  to  the  i$th  of  April  they 
devastated  Vasilkov,  the  village  Olshanka,  and  others. 
In  the  circuit  Tarascha  freebooters  also  appeard  on 
the  scene,  who  did  their  criminal  work  in  Boguslav 
between  the  4th  and  25th  of  April. 

In  the  following  months  the  bands  continued  their 
horrible  activity.  Radomysl  had  to  suffer  again  on 
the  1 3th  of  July.  On  the  I5th  of  June  the  bands  were 
in  Brussilov;  on  the  2Oth  in  Khodorkov;  on  the  24th 
in  Cherniakhov,  then  in  Kornip.  On  the  I7th  of 
June  a  pogrom  was  again  made  in  Dubovo;  Obykhov 
was  plundered  at  the  same  time,  and  on  the  25th  of 
June,  Kagarlyk. 

The  pogrom  activity  of  the  bands  assumed  a  speci- 
ally dangerous  scope  in  the  month  of  July  in  the  gov- 
ernments of  Podolia,  Kiev  and  Volhynia,  Kiev  suf- 


THE  BATKO  77 

fering  most  as  in  the  preceding  month.  It  has  been 
exactly  established  that  the  number  of  pogroms  in  the 
government  of  Kiev  during  the  month  in  question  was 
26,  in  Volhynia  8,  in  Podolia  13.  In  the  Government 
of  Kiev  the  accursed  work  was  done  by  the  bands,  in 
the  two  other  governments  the  regular  troops  of  Pet- 
lura  also  participated. 

Of  new  districts  which  had  hitherto  been  spared, 
the  first  to  be  affected  was  the  circuit  Pogrebische, 
in  which  pogroms  were  instituted  in  Borshchagovka  on 
the  3rd  of  July;  in  Dzunkov  on  the  5th;  in  Novo- 
Fastov  on  the  nth;  in  Volodarka  and  a  number  of 
neighboring  villages  on  the  2nd,  9th,  and  nth.  To 
the  west  of  these  places  near  the  boundary  of  Vol- 
hynia, the  pogromists  were  in  Priluki  on  the  4th  of 
July ;  in  Vakhnovka  on  the  8th ;  in  Turbov  on  the  9th 
and  in  Kalinovka  on  the  I4th.  In  the  district  of  Soko- 
lov-Roshevo  a  Jewish  massacre  took  place  on  the 
3rd  of  July;  in  Makarov  on  the  6th;  in  Brussilov  on 
the  5th;  in  Kornip  on  the  9th;  in  Yassnogorodka  on 
the  1 5th.  In  the  sphere  of  activity  of  the  Batko  Zel- 
eny,  pogroms  took  place  in  Rzhischev  on  the  ist  and 
1 3th  of  July,  in  Kosin  on  the  I7th;  in  Pereyaslev 
(Government  of  Poltava)  on  the  I5th  to  the  ipth  of 
July.  In  the  circuit  Tarascha  the  pogrom  heroes 
distinguished  themselves  on  the  2nd  of  July  in  Boyarki, 
on  the  nth  to  the  24th  in  Koshevatoie.  Finally  at 
the  end  of  the  month,  on  the  29th  of  July,  a  new  blood 
bath  took  place  in  Uman. 

In  the  government  of  Volhynia  the  pogroms  in 
July  are  distributed  as  follows:  Kodry  (6  and  15), 
Khamovka  (9  and  11),  Kamenny-Brod,  Kotelnya  and 
Sarubintzy  (10),  Dombrovitzy  (10),  Slovechno  (10), 
Ksavrov  (10). 


78    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

In  the  government  of  Podolia,  pogroms  took  place 
in  the  following  localities:  Zhmerinka  (July  3)  ;  Brai- 
lov,  Pikov,  Shenderov,  Voronovitzy,  Obodin  (10); 
Yanov  (10-15);  Tulchin  (14);  Litin  (18);  Novo- 
Konstantinov,  Teplik,  Gaisin,  Pecheri  (20-25). 

Many  of  the  places  mentioned  were  visited  by  the 
pogromists  more  than  once  (Radomysl,  Cherniakhov, 
Kornip,  Volodarka,  Yelisavetgrad,  and  others).  In 
some  places  there  were  as  many  as  four,  five  and  even 
ten  pogroms  until  the  Jewish  population  disappeared 
entirely  and  no  trace  of  Jewish  possessions  was  left. 

In  August  the  number  and  extent  of  pogroms  was 
comparatively  small.  Pereyaslev,  in  the  government  of 
Poltava,  was  again  visited  by  the  bands  of  Lopatkin. 
On  the  3rd  of  August  Jewish  persecutions  took  place 
in  Vinnitza ;  on  the  4th  in  Golovanevsk ;  on  the  25th  in 
Bielaia  Tserkov. 

The  watchwords  of  the  bands  of  the  Batki  are  the 
same  as  those  of  Petlura's  men,  with  variations  now 
and  then.  In  Matusovo  the  Jews  were  attacked  by 
the  bandits  under  the  motto,  "Will  you,  Jewish  rabble, 
still  keep  ruling  over  us?"  In  Slovechno  the  mas- 
sacre was  accompanied  by  the  words,  "Here  is  your 
commune  for  you,  here  is  your  Jewish  Empire !"  In 
Chernobyl,  Struk's  bands  rushed  into  the  Jewish 
houses,  shouting  and  shrieking,  "Open,  you  commu- 
nist Jews,  or  we  will  beat  you  to  death,  we  will 
slit  your  bellies  and  drown  you!"  Struk's  chieftains 
explained  to  their  bandits  the  purpose  of  their  coming 
as  being  to  plunder  and  drown  the  low  communists 
who  rob  the  workmen  and  peasants.  "Low  commun- 
ists" means  the  Jews.  In  his  proclamations  Struk  al- 
ways spoke  of  the  communists  and  the  capitalistic 
defenders  of  the  Jews.  Now  and  then  the  motto  was 


THE  BATKO  79 

enlarged  by  adding  the  motive  of  the  independence 
of  the  Ukraine.  In  a  popular  assembly  in  Chernobyl, 
Struk  called  out  to  the  crowd,  "Kill  the  Jews  and 
save  the  Ukraine!"  In  Radomysl  Sokolovsky's  band 
forced  the  Jews,  before  they  were  shot,  to  sing,  "The 
Ukraine  is  not  yet  lost." 

As  stated  before,  the  activity  of  the  bands  and  of 
their  Batki  had  terrible  consequences  for  the  Jewish 
population  of  the  Ukraine.  The  question  arises  what 
were  the  relations  between  the  Batko  institution  and 
the  Directory.  As  said  before,  a  whole  line  of  Batki 
were  followers  of  Petlura.  In  the  school  of  Petlura 
and  of  the  Directory  they  learned  the  custom  and 
the  practice,  the  inclination  and  the  political  wisdom 
of  carrying  on  the  fight  against  Bolshevism  by  means 
of  Jewish  persecutions.  The  institution  of  the  Batko 
supplements  the  pogrom  activity  of  the  Directory. 
As  long  as  the  Batki  carried  on  it  was  not  neccessary, 
except  occasionally,  to  have  recourse  to  military  pog- 
roms. The  latter  demoralize  the  army,  undermine  dis- 
cipline and  change  the  troops  into  a  band  of  robbers 
and  murderers,  which  naturally  is  highly  undesirable 
for  the  state  force.  The  institution  of  the  Batko  is  a 
local  phenomenon,  which  affects  mainly  the  local  peas- 
ant population  and  appears  irresponsible  in  respect  to 
public  opinion  in  western  Europe.  The  Batki  need  not 
put  any  restraint  upon  their  activities  in  persecuting  the 
Jews,  in  the  interest  of  high  politics.  Before  the  En- 
tente the  Batki  could  be  designated  as  "local  robbers." 
At  the  same  time  they  carry  out  in  splendid  fashion  the 
dirty  work  of  intimidating  the  Jewish  population,  dis- 
organizing the  cities  and  towns  and  in  this  way  fight- 
ing the  Soviet  power.  The  Directory  enjoyed  the 
fruit  of  the  Batko  institution.  The  former  tried  there- 


80    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

fore  to  organize  the  uprisings,  to  centralize  the  efforts 
of  the  insurrectionists  and  to  guide  their  activity  in  a 
definite  direction.  In  the  army  reports  are  found  not 
only  communications  concerning  the  movements  on 
Petlura's  front,  but  also  data  concerning  the  aims  on 
the  front  of  the  insurrectionists.  In  August,  1919, 
Petlura  and  Denikin  approached  Kiev  simultaneously 
under  cover  of  the  bands  of  Zeleny  and  other  Batki 
who  had  forced  their  way  into  the  city. 

The  Batko  of  all  Batki,  Mazurenko,  stood  very  near 
to  the  Directory,  and  it  is  very  probable  that  he  was 
the  connecting  link  between  it  and  the  insurrec- 
tionists. There  is  evidence  that  the  Directory 
sent  special  emissaries  to  the  points  of  insurrection  for 
the  purpose  of  maintaining  proper  connection  between 
itself  and  the  Batki.  But  even  apart  from  this, 
the  Directory  showed  the  bloody  example  and 
by  the  political  utilization  of  the  terrible  weapon, 
created  the  conviction  throughout  the  Ukraine  that 
Jewish  pogroms  were  not  punished,  that  the  posses- 
sions of  the  Jews  might  be  plundered,  that  Jewish 
women  might  be  violated  and  that  there  was  no  pro- 
hibition against  the  annihilation  of  the  Jews. 

This  conviction  created  the  atmosphere  in  which  the 
elemental  force  of  the  masses,  aroused  and  excited  in 
the  process  of  the  revolutionary  ferment,  could  be 
guided  in  the  direction  of  annihilating  this  defenseless 
nation  for  the  sole  purpose  of  thereby  injuring  the 
political  enemies  of  the  Directory.  The  Directory 
fanned  the  national  hate,  drew  forth  from  the  depths 
of  the  Ukrainian  national  soul  the  slumbering  dis- 
trust and  antipathy,  planted  in  the  course  of  histori- 
cal development,  against  the  Jews  as  strangers,  the 
Jews  as  commercial  middlemen,  the  Jews  as  the  former 


THE  BATKO  81 

farmers  of  the  lord's  estates,  who  were  hanged  by  the 
ancestors  of  the  peasant  of  to-day  together  with  the 
priest  and  the  Polish  "pan"  (proprietor  of  great 
landed  estates).  The  Directory  knew  how  to  awaken 
this  hate  and  to  give  it  a  definite  form  and  di- 
rection and  a  definite  political  content.  No  wonder, 
therefore,  that  this  Machiavellian  method  bore  such 
fruit.  The  agitation  of  the  Directory  was  not  merely 
an  incitement  of  the  masses  in  an  indefinite  way,  it  was 
in  actual  content  an  unequivocal  instigation  to  murder 
the  Jews.  The  lamentations  and  pharisaic  attempts 
at  justification,  to  the  effect  that  the  Directory  could 
not  control  the  bands  or  the  crowds,  that  the  latter  had 
gone  further  than  the  Directory  had  intended,  can 
not  exculpate  it  in  any  way,  not  even  legally,  not 
to  say  morally  and  politically.  It  is  not  merely  that 
it  could  have  foreseen  the  consequences  of  its  doings, 
it  did  foresee  them,  it  desired  them,  counted  on  them 
and  took  advantage  of  them.  What  is  known  in 
criminal  law  as  "excess  of  the  executor"  does  not  ap- 
ply here.  Here  the  executors  played  the  motif  whis- 
pered to  them,  with  the  precision  of  a  virtuoso,  and 
did  it  to  the  greatest  satisfaction  and  joy  of  the  in- 
stigators. 

In  August  the  pogrom  crowds  became  smaller.  The 
political  situation  changed.  The  Bolsheviki  were  driven 
from  the  Ukraine.  Petlura  and  his  people  attained 
what  they  wanted — the  enemy  was  beaten.  The 
beneficiary  of  the  success,  however,  was  another. 
Denikin  occupied  Kharkov,  Yekaterinoslav,  Poltava, 
and  was  approaching  Kiev.  The  changed  situation 
demanded  other  methods  of  fighting.  The  method  of 
Jewish  massacres  was  no  longer  needed,  and  so  was 
given  up.  As  already  mentioned,  the  Directory 


82    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

even  passed  a  resolution  to  fight  against  pogroms.  To 
be  sure  there  was  another  element  here  that  must  be 
mentioned.  According  to  communications  sent  to  us 
from  many  sides  and  according  to  the  existing  reports 
of  the  Ukrainian  papers,  the  standpoint  of  international 
politics  was  also  taken  into  consideration  in  the  pogrom 
agitation.  Not  only  the  heads  of  the  political  bodies, 
but  the  village  intellectuals  and  to  a  certain  extent  even 
the  masses  were  aware  of  the  significance  of  the  inter- 
national position  of  the  Ukraine.  The  Ukrainian  flat 
country  had  had  a  thorough  object  lesson  in  this  mat- 
ter, such  as  the  German  occupation  with  its  stringent 
regime,  the  occupation  of  Odessa  and  the  southern 
coast  by  the  Allies,  the  negotiations  of  the  Directory 
with  the  Allies  through  General  Grekov,  and  so  on. 
Suffering  from  want  of  the  most  absolute  necessities, 
manufactured  ware,  shoes,  salt,  machines,  etc.,  the 
Ukrainian  village  was  eager  for  commercial  relations 
with  western  Europe.  The  village  intellectuals  repre- 
sented by  the  priests  and  teachers  (we  have  seen  that 
they  took  an  active  part  in  the  excesses  of  the  bands) 
carried  on  their  agitation  by  saying  that  the  Entente 
desired  the  destruction  of  the  Bolsheviki.  As  Jews  and 
communists  were  the  same,  Jewish  pogroms  would 
represent  the  gift  which  the  Ukrainian  people  must 
present  to  the  Entente,  and  the  latter  would  not  be  long 
in  signifying  their  recognition  of  the  Ukrainian  people 
in  return.  Now  in  August  the  Jewish  pogroms  as  a 
method  of  fighting  proved  themselves  not  only  useless, 
but,  as  was  said  before,  harmful  for  the  reason  that 
the  vague  rumors  of  the  massacres  which  had  pene- 
trated to  the  West  had  produced  great  public  indigna- 
tion. The  withdrawal  which  was  now  whispered  to 
the  regular  trpops  by  the  Directory  was  understood 


THE  BATKO  83 

by  their  devoted  Batki.  .  .  .  The  pogroms  diminished 
in  violence,  they  were  no  longer  all-destructive,  but 
like  the  distant  thunder  of  a  past  storm,  they  as- 
sumed the  innocent  form,  according  to  Ukrainian 
concepts,  of  pillage  of  Jewish  possessions  and  occa- 
sional acts  of  violence  and  murder. 

We  learned  later  from  a  reliable  source  that  Batko 
Makhno  had  issued  a  proclamation  to  his  insurrec- 
tionists, in  which  he  ordered  them  to  discontinue  Jew- 
ish pogroms,  for  "according  to  a  communication  of 
Batko  Petlura,  the  Entente  is  very  much  dissatisfied 
on  that  account" — a  step  which  seems  very  likely  on 
the  part  of  the  wise  and  far  sighted  Makhno. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE    SOVIET    POWER 

THE  political  fight  against  the  Soviet  power  was  car- 
ried on  not  only  in  the  Ukraine,  but  also  in  Great  Rus- 
sia, in  many  cases  under  the  cover  of  anti-Semitism. 
The  press  of  the  Black  Hundred  of  all  shades  is  never 
weary  of  enumerating  the  Jewish  commissars,  Jewish 
Popular  commissars,  Jewish  members  of  the  Central 
Executive  Committee,  etc.  The  Soviet  power,  they 
say,  is  a  Jewish  power.  The  Russians  who  belong  to 
the  Soviet  Government  do  so  as  a  result  of  a  misunder- 
standing, and  there  are  very  few  Russians  in  it.  As 
for  the  Russian  masses,  the  good  natured  Ivan  allows 
himself  to  be  taken  in  by  the  shrewd  Jew,  who  is  aim- 
ing for  world  rule.  The  dull,  obtuse  and  ignorant 
masses  for  the  moment  follow  the  Jewish  leaders, 
who  turn  their  heads,  unchain  their  passions  and  show 
themselves  complacent  to  their  lower  instincts. 

Mamontov  in  Great  Russia,  Petlura  and  Denikin  in 
the  Ukraine,  together  with  their  followers,  drew  from 
this  theoretical  postulate  the  practical  conclusion  that 
the  armed  fight  against  the  Soviet  power  must  be  sup- 
ported and  strengthened  by  Jewish  pogroms.  The 
Soviet  Government  was  obliged  to  strike  at  the  root  of 
all  anti-Semitic  agitation,  for  such  agitation  was  the 
unmistakable  sign  of  opposition  to  the  Soviet.  The 
agitations  of  the  anti-Semites  were  in  the  great  major- 

84 


THE   SOVIET   POWER  85 

ity  of  cases  the  precursors  of  hostilities  against  the 
Soviet  power.  Anti-Semitic  agitation  was  therefore 
regarded  in  Great  Russia  as  a  counter-revolutionary 
act.  The  guilty  were  brought  to  account  before  the 
revolutionary  tribunal  and  condemned  to  severe  penal- 
ties in  the  form  of  hard  labor. 

To  the  nightmare  of  Jewish  pogroms  in  the  Ukraine 
belong  also  the  anti- Jewish  excesses  and  pogroms  by 
bands  calling  themselves  "Reds"  and  belonging  at  the 
moment  in  question  to  the  Ukrainian  Red  Soviet  army. 

In  proportion  to  the  entire  number  of  Jewish  per- 
secutions the  excesses  of  these  people  play  an  insignifi- 
cant role.  They  concern  themselves  mainly  with  rob- 
bery and  theft,  although,  as  for  example  in  Theophipol, 
some  deaths  must  also  be  laid  at  their  door.  Of  all  the 
violence  done  the  Jews  the  following  instances  only  are 
attributable  to  them. 

i.  Pogrom  in  Rossovo  (March  3).  After  the 
shameful  deeds  committed  by  Petlura's  men,  the  city 
was  occupied  by  a  Bolshevist  "mounted  advance 
guard"  who  freed  the  city  from  the  bands  of  Petlura's 
men.  Later  Makhno's  bands  entered  the  city  and  rob- 
bed and  killed  the  Jews.  Makhno's  men  were  followed 
by  the  first  Ducat  cavalry  regiment  of  Zolotonosha. 
After  the  cruelties  perpetrated  by  Makhno's  men,  the 
Jews  did  not  receive  the  regiment  in  a  friendly  way. 
The  soldiers,  however,  quieted  the  population,  con- 
demned the  conduct  of  their  comrades  who  had  come 
before,  promised  a  strict  investigation  of  the  affair, 
instituted  a  search  in  the  houses  of  suspected  persons, 
took  away  from  them  what  they  had  plundered  of  the 
Jews  and  gave  it  back  to  their  owners.  This  regiment 
soon  left.  Peasants  from  the  neighborhood  of  Rossovo 
killed  the  commander  of  a  certain  Red  troop.  A  divis- 


86    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

ion  sent  from  Mironovka  (it  is  not  certain  what  divis- 
ion it  was)  instituted  a  pogrom  among  the  Jews.  They 
were  accused  of  being  enemies  of  the  Soviet  power — 
"We  must  avenge  on  you  the  murder  of  our  com- 
mander. "  Then  came  the  demands,  "Give  money,  gold, 
silver,  etc."  The  Jewish  population  was  plundered, 
beaten  and  killed. 

2.  Pogrom   in   Korosten    (March    12).      Excesses 
were  committed  by  members  of  the  Red  Army,  who 
even  demanded  the  delivery  of  their  own  officer  who 
had  defended  a  Jewish  woman  from  a  soldier  who  had 
taken  away  from  her  twenty  pounds  of  sugar. 

3.  Pogrom  in  Cherniakhov,  Government  of  Vol- 
hynia.    On  the  i8th  of  April  the  Qth  Soviet  regiment 
passed  the  unfortunate  spot  which  had  suffered  any 
number  of  pogroms.     There  was   much  pillage,   in 
which  peasants  also  took  part.     The  soldiers  justified 
their  conduct  by  alleging  that  the  Jews  supported  Pet- 
lura.    There  were  none  killed. 

4.  Annopol,  Government  of  Volhynia.    In  the  com- 
plaint addressed  to  the  Section  for  Social  Relief,  the 
Jews  of  the  place  speak  of  plunder  and  excesses  by  the 
Taraschan  regiment.    There  were  no  death  victims. 

5.  Volochisk,    Government   of    Volhynia.      In    the 
complaint  to  the  Revolutionary  Committee  the  Jewish 
population  report  excesses  by  members  of  the  Red 
Army.     No  cases  of  death  are  reported. 

6.  Pillage  by  a   Soviet  regiment  in  Vasilkov,   in 
April. 

7.  Pillage  by  the  Sumsky  regiment  in  the  town  of 
Gorodische    (May  3ist),  in  which  Jewish  members 
of  the  Red  Army  also  took  part.    There  was  robbery 
but  no  murder. 

8.  Uman.    Here  the  eighth  Soviet  regiment  of  free- 


THE  SOVIET   POWER  87 

hooters  carried  on  its  activities  twice.  On  the  22nd  of 
March  the  freebooters  instituted  a  great  predatory 
expedition.  On  the  22nd  of  May  after  a  terrible  pog- 
rom made  by  bands,  the  same  regiment  came  again  to 
Uman,  and  began  to  plunder  the  population,  especially 
the  Jews,  en  masse.  There  was  murder  and  rape  of 
women  and  girls.  Many  Jewish  freebooters  belonged 
to  the  regiment,  who  were  known  in  the  city  as  pro- 
fessional thieves. 

From  the  detailed  minutes  of  a  meeting  of  party 
functionaries  and  public  men  of  the  city  of  Uman  it 
can  be  seen  that  the  local  authorities  were  trying  to 
fight  these  excesses.  Orders  were  issued  making 
participation  in  the  pogrom  punishable  with  death, 
and  about  ten  of  the  less  important  bandits  were  shot. 
But  the  military  authorities  did  not  succeed  in  check- 
ing the  anti-Semitic  sentiment  that  prevailed  in  the 
regiment.  Up  to  the  first  days  of  July  this  regiment 
was  not  replaced  by  another  despite  the  urgent  request 
and  categorical  demands  of  the  authorities  of  Uman, 
who  repeatedly  made  appeals  orally  and  in  writing  to 
the  authorities  at  Kiev.  The  regiment  could  not  be 
relieved  because  of  the  critical  situation  on  the  outer 
and  inner  front,  and  also  for  the  reason  that  authori- 
ties held  the  eighth  regiment,  which  was  reputed  to  be 
an  important  body  of  fighters,  in  readiness  to  keep 
down  the  insurrectionary  movement  in  the  precinct  of 
Uman.  It  is  clear  from  the  same  minutes  that  the 
eighth  regiment  did  in  fact  prove  itself  a  dangerous 
opponent  in  defending  the  cities  against  the  insurrec* 
tionary  forces  who  made  the  district  unsafe  the  whole 
time  and  attempted  again  and  again  to  take  posses- 
sion of  Uman.  The  troops  of  Tiutiunik,  Popov  and 
Klimenko  were  defeated,  and  their  arms,  equipment 


88    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  munitions  were  taken  away  from  them.  As  long 
as  the  eight  regiment  remained  in  Uman  there  was  no 
fear  of  its  being  occupied  again  by  the  insurrec- 
tionists with  a  possible  repetition  of  the  first  terrible 
pogrom. 

It  was  relieved  later  by  the  first  Ukrainian  Soviet 
Cavalry  Regiment.  With  the  departure  of  the  eighth 
regiment  the  plundering  also  ceased.  To  be  sure,  this 
regiment  too  was  not  very  friendly  to  the  Jewish  popu- 
lation, but  plundering  happened  only  occasionally.  A 
company  of  this  regiment  which  committed  acts  of 
violence  in  the  villages  demanded  among  other  things 
that  the  people  give  up  the  "communists  and  the 
Jews."  In  a  certain  village  the  soldiers  of  this  com- 
pany were  on  the  point  of  killing  a  Jewish  girl  because 
according  to  their  opinion  she  turned  the  heads  of  the 
men  by  her  beauty. 

On  the  fifth  of  July  the  regiment  proceeded  from 
Uman  to  Poltava.  In  its  place  came  the  Fourth  Inter- 
national Soviet  Regiment.  This  regiment  was  the  first 
disciplined  body  of  Soviet  soldiers  that  the  people  of 
Uman  saw.  No  more  robbery,  no  more  murder  took 
place  on  account  of  national  or  class  divisions.  The 
population  of  the  town  was  able  to  breathe  freely 
again. 

9.  Jewish  pogrom  in  Zolotonosha. 

10.  Pogrom  in  Obuchovo  (May  7;  6th  Soviet  regi- 
ment). 

11.  Pogrom  in  Pogrebische   (May  18;  8th  Soviet 
regiment). 

12.  A  violent  pogrom  in  Theophipol,  Government  of 
Volhynia. 

According  to  a  brief  report  of  A.  Wertheim,  auth- 
orized agent  of  the  Red  Cross  for  the  support  of  the 


THE   SOVIET   POWER  89 

victims  of  the  pogroms,  the  Fourth  Taraschan  Soviet 
Regiment  and  the  second  cavalry  brigade,  having 
defeated  a  Petlura  company  of  120  peasants  and  27 
Jews,  entered  the  town  without  the  slightest  offer  of 
resistance  by  the  population.  Directly  after  the  occu- 
pation of  the  place,  the  soldiers  began  to  rob,  plunder 
and  set  houses  on  fire.  About  300  persons  were 
killed,  about  150  houses  were  burned,  and  a  number 
of  women  and  girls  were  violated.  Further  details 
are  wanting. 

All  the  pogroms  and  excesses  were  expressly  military 
in  character.  Before  we  go  on  to  show  how  the  Soviet 
power  fought  politically  and  by  means  of  agitation 
against  the  anti-Semitic  spirit  of  the  troops,  how  they 
fought  against  it  from  the  first  day  of  their  appearance 
in  the  Ukraine — we  will  describe  the  constitution  and 
character  of  the  military  bodies  belonging  to  the  Red 
Army. 

The  overwhelming  majority  of  the  Soviet  troops 
consisted  at  the  time  in  question  of  insurrectionist 
bands  of  freebooters.  Some  of  these  were  formed 
independently,  others  went  over  during  the  fight  from 
Petlura  to  the  freebooters  after  the  second  occupation 
of  Kiev  by  the  Soviet  troops.  Finally  there  belonged 
to  them  also  in  part  the  bands  of  Makhno  and  Grigo- 
riev  who  remained  loyal  to  the  Soviet  government. 
These  troops  consisted  of  Ukrainian  peasants.  Like 
all  Ukrainian  freebooters  they  were  radical  in  senti- 
ment. One  charteristic  of  theirs  is  antipathy  to 
strangers,  especially  Jews.  They  are  therefore  easily 
accessible  to  anti-Semitic  agitation,  especially  in  mo- 
ments of  doubt  when  they  are  not  ckar  what  attitude 
they  should  assume  toward  the  Soviet  power.  They 
are  always  vacillating  in  their  loyalty  to  the  Bolshevist 


90    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

government.  Again  and  again  they  go  from  the  Soviet 
power  to  the  side  of  Petlura  or  the  Batki.  After  a 
defeat  or  an  unsuccessful  uprising  they  go  back  to  the 
Soviet  troops.  Often  it  happens  that  certain  portions 
of  the  troops  declare  themselves  "independent,"  retain- 
ing the  entire  revolutionary  phraseology  and  watch- 
words. They  still  call  themselves  Soviet  troops  but 
are  in  reality  in  the  service  of  the  enemies  of  the  Kiev 
Soviet  government.  Such  troops  are  in  many  cases 
under  the  influence  of  the  so-called  "Independent 
Ukrainian  Social  Democracy."  This  party  has  played 
a  momentous  role  in  the  history  of  the  Soviet  power 
in  the  Ukraine.  After  they  broke  with  the  official 
social  democratic  party  (Vinnichenko  and,  Petlura), 
they  took  into  their  program  the  principle  of  the  Soviet 
power,  instead  of  that  of  the  social  democracy,  and 
joined  the  Soviet  organ  in  the  Ukraine.  In  conse- 
quence of  their  close  relations  to  the  freebooters,  they 
began,  after  they  had  broken  with  the  Soviet  power 
also,  to  incite  these  people  against  the  communistic- 
Jewish  government.  They  are  opponents  of  Denikin, 
but  they  are  also  opponents  of  a  false  commune.  They 
are  also  against  the  power  of  the  Jews,  but  are  for  a 
"Ukrainian  Independent  Socialistic  Republic."  This 
party  was  led  by  Mazurenko,  the  Batko  of  all  Batki, 
mentioned  in  the  last  chapter.  The  proclamations  of 
these  people  are  so  significant  that  it  seems  useful  to 
quote  one  of  them  in  full. 

"Comrades,  Red  Cossacks!  ask  yourselves.  Were 
you  not  the  first  to  rise  against  the  force  of  the  Ger- 
mans, have  you  not  shed  your  blood  for  a  better  lot  and 
life  of  the  Ukrainian  working  people?  Where  are 
these  rights  that  we  fought  for?  We  see,  comrades, 
how  we  must  fight  our  way  through,  while  those  who 


THE  SOVIET  POWER  91 

do  not  work  hang  on  our  necks  and  lead  and  enslave 
us. 

"Comrades !  can  we  not  arrange  our  own  life  in  our 
own  house  better,  in  the  interest  of  the  working  people  ? 

"What  are  we  waiting  for?  Why  don't  we  get 
these  Jews  out  of  the  way?  Why  don't  we  take  into 
our  own  hands  this  matter,  which  is  so  important  for 
the  working  people? 

"Comrades,  we  have  fought  against  the  Hetman, 
we  have  learned  the  injustice  of  the  Directory,  we 
fought  and  are  still  fighting  against  Denikin  and  the 
reactionary  officers.  But  if  we  see  injustice  on  the 
side  of  the  communists,  Jews  and  similar  people,  are 
we  not  in  duty  bound  to  say,  Out  of  our  house !  You 
have  done  us  harm!  Liberate  therefore,  Comrades, 
our  land  from  the  Jews  and  other  communists. 

"Long  live  the  Soviets  of  the  working  peasantry, 
and  the  laboring  population ! 

"Long  live  the  local  and  central  power  of  the  Batki ! 

"Long  live  the  Ukrainian  independent  socialistic 
Soviet  republic! 

"Death  to  General  Denikin! 

"Down  with  the,  false  commune ! 

(Signed)  The  Council  of  the  Insurrectionary 
Troops  of  Ukrainia  on  the  Left  Side. 
The  Hetman  of  the  Troops,- LOPATKIN. 
The  Chief  of  Staff,  ZAVGORODNY." 

These  troops,  who  call  themselves  Soviet  troops, 
were  guilty  of  excesses.  The  pogrom  in  Rossovo  was 
also  according  to  all  probability  the  work  of  such  a 
band.  The  sentiment  of  the  troops  who  enacted  these 
pogroms  can  be  seen  from  their  watchwords. 

The  acts  of  violence  in  Zolotonosha  (see  above  No. 


92    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

9)  were  perpetrated  under  the  cry,  "Ah!  you  are  a 
communist,  we  will  teach  you!"  In  Vasilkov  (No. 
6),  the  soldiers  of  the  "Red  Hundred"  cried,  "Down 
with  the  Jewish  commissars!" 

It  is  clear  that  when  such  troops  as  these  proceed 
against  Jews,  they  are  under  the  influence  of  another 
party  hostile  to  the  Soviet  power,  with  which  they  are 
sometimes  even  united  in  the  same  organization. 

The  bands  of  freebooters  consisting  of  deserters 
were  the  cause  of  the  instability  and  insecurity  of  the 
Soviet  power  at  Kiev.  They  prepared  its  fall  while 
ostensibly  acting  in  its  name  and  under  its  flag. 

The  great  majority  of  the  freebooting  troops  finally 
fell  away  from  the  Soviet  power  and  went  over  to  the 
side  of  their  enemies  amid  the  enactment  of  horrible 
blood  baths  (Grigoriev  and  his  people).  It  must  be 
openly  and  honestly  admitted  that  the  effect  of  the 
Soviet  government  upon  the  troops  must  have  been  ex- 
traordinarily great,  for  as  long  as  they  were  actually 
subject  to  the  Soviet  government  at  Kiev,  they  were 
scarcely  guilty  of  any  excesses.  We  see  here  at  any 
rate  that  two  opposite  political  systems  (the  Kiev 
Soviet  government  fighting  against  pogroms,  and  the 
opposite  party  making  use  of  them)  working  on  the 
same  basis,  namely  the  anti-Jewish  feeling  throughout 
the  Ukraine,  and  on  the  same  human  material,  led  to 
entirely  opposite  results. 

The  freebooters  were  not  the  only  troops  on  which 
the  Soviet  government  supported  itself.  In  their  fight 
against  the  unreliable  troops  and  the  excesses  com- 
mitted by  them,  the  Soviet  government  supported 
itself  on  not  large  but  loyally  devoted  associations  of 
communists,  the  so-called  "International  Division." 
To  the  communistic  troops  belonged  members  of  the 


THE   SOVIET   POWER  93 

mobilized  Ukrainian  communistic  party  as  well  as 
workmen  of  other  socialist  parties,  who  were  called 
to  the  service  of  the  army,  as  a  result  of  a  resolution 
of  the  Soviets,  by  the  union  and  trade  councils.  To 
prevent  a  dissolution  of  the  insurrectionist  troops  and 
to  maintain  their  firmness,  communists  were  assigned 
to  the  several  military  associations.  In  this  way  a 
disciplined  Red  Army  was  formed. 

The  international  divisions  (whose  appearance,  as 
mentioned  before,  was  greeted  so  gladly  by  the  Jewish 
representatives  in  Uman)  were  small  and  very  reliable 
units  made  up  of  groups  of  Hungarian,  Austrian  and 
German  prisoners,  who  were  under  the  leadership  of 
their  Soviets.  They  were  sent  by  the  government  to 
relieve  politically  unreliable  troops  and  to  fight  against 
the  excesses  committed  by  the  latter.  At  the  time  of 
the  fight  against  the  volunteer  army  of  Denikin,  troops 
appeared  also  from  Great  Russia  in  consequence  of  a 
resolution  of  the  Central  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Ukraine  that  the  military  leadership  of  the  two  repub- 
lics should  be  uniform. 

In  connection  with  the  excesses  mentioned  above  it 
should  be  stated  that  the  constantly  vacillating  and  un- 
reliable freebooters  were  under  the  influence  of  certain 
agents  whom  they  trusted  and  thus  betrayed  the  Soviet 
government.  We  have  already  referred  to  Grigoriev 
and  Mazurenko.  Beside  these  prominent  men  there 
are  a  number  of  less  important  ones,  whom  we  shall 
name. 

In  Cherniakov,  Davidenko,  the  president  of  the  revo- 
lutionary committee,  who  was  at  the  same  time  com- 
missar for  military  affairs,  was  in  connection  with  the 
bands  of  Sokolovsky.  The  result  was  a  Jewish  pogrom. 
In  Matusovo,  Government  of  Kiev,  the  following 


94    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

thing  happened.  A  few  days  before  the  beginning  of 
the  excesses,  the  Executive  committee  (the  highest 
Soviet  organ  in  the  place)  received  from  Shpola  a 
provocatory  letter,  purposely  signed  with  a  Jewish 
name  (Goldstein  if  we  are  not  mistaken),  reading  as 
follows :  "The  churches  should  be  sealed  and  the  church 
furniture  and  fixtures  brought  to  Shpola."  On  the 
tenth"  of  May  some  riders  brought  to  Matusovo  a 
manifesto  of  Grigoriev,  which  was  read  on  the  same 
day  to  an  assembly  of  the  inhabitants  called  for  the 
purpose,  by  Kesser,  the  Secretary  of  the  Executive 
Committee.  Whether  that  which  Kesser  read  was 
actually  contained  in  the  copy  of  the  manifesto  handed 
to  him,  or  whether  he  read  something  of  his  own 
making  (which  is  more  likely),  we  shall  have  to  leave 
undecided.  At  any  rate  Kesser  told  the  assembled 
peasants  that  an  order  had  come  to  destroy  the  Jews. 
A  terrible  blood  bath  followed,  due  to  a  treacherous 
government  official,  who  stood  under  the  protection  of 
the  government  and  inspired  confidence  by  his  official 
position  and  the  assurance  that  he  was  acting  in  the 
name  and  interest  of  the  Soviet  power. 

From  the  beginning  the  Soviet  government  in  the 
Ukraine  carried  on  a  decisive  battle  against  the  lust 
for  pogroms,  by  preventive  measures  and  the  devel- 
opment of  agitation,  propaganda  and  organizing  activ- 
ity to  that  end,  as  well  as  by  threats  and  strict  penalties. 

In  the  first  order  issued  by  Rakovsky  in  Kharkov, 
which  was  repeatedly  confirmed  by  the  Soviet  govern- 
ment of  Kiev,  the  penalty  of  death  is  threatened  for 
pogrom  excesses  of  any  kind,  and  heavy  punishments 
are  laid  down  for  all  anti-Jewish  agitation. 

"The  Jewish  proletariat  and  the  poor  population  are 
our  confederates.  The  Jewish  bourgeoisie  is  as  good 


THE   SOVIET   POWER  95 

as  any  other.  The  order  to  fight  against  the  Jews  is  a 
provocation  by  the  enemy  who  wants  to  introduce  into 
the  Red  Army  the  spirit  of  demoralization  and  betray 
the  interests  of  the  workers  and  peasants  to  their  ene- 
mies." So  reads  a  government  pamphlet.  At  the 
same  time  the  fight  against  anti-Semitism  took  an 
important  place  in  the  pages  of  the  People's  Commis- 
sariat for  military  affairs  and  in  their  political  activity. 
The  anti-Semitic  propaganda  of  the  enemies  of  the 
government  became  a  dangerous  factor  in  the  forma- 
tion of  disciplined  military  associations.  The  idea  of 
the  government  and  the  people's  commissariat  for  mili- 
tary affairs  was  to  supplement  the  peasant  bands  of  in- 
surrectionists with  workmen.  For  this  purpose  they 
intensified  the  above  mentioned  mobilization  through 
the  unions  and  trade  councils,  and  prepared  the  mili- 
tary education  of  the  workmen.  In  addition  to  this 
the  People's  Commissariat  for  Military  Affairs,  in  the 
months  of  March  and  April,  turned  to  the  Jewish  soci- 
alist parties  of  the  Labor  Bund,  to  the  United  Soci- 
alists and  to  the  Poale  Zionists  with  the  request  that 
they  make  serious  efforts  to  mobilize  the  Jewish  social- 
ist workmen,  pointing  to  the  fact  that  all  of  the 
experiences  of  the  Red  Army  during  the  last  months 
showed  that  even  the  most  backward  and  anti-Semiti- 
cally  prejudiced  peasants  became  more  sensible  after 
living  with  the  Jewish  workmen  for  any  length  of  time, 
and  were  accessible  to  appropriate  influence  and  en- 
lightenment.* 

*This  step  of  the  People's  Commissariat  for  Military  Affairs 
had  no  significance  as  a  numerical  strengthening  of  the  troops, 
for  the  summons  to  the  Red  Army  took  place  on  the  basis  of 
the  general  regulations.  The  aim  here  was  to  utilize  most  effi- 
ciently the  forces  necessary  for  carrying  out  the  task  indicated. 


o6    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  political  administration  of  the  People's  Com- 
missariat for  Military  Affairs  formed  besides  a  special 
Jewish  section  for  propaganda,  the  purpose  of  which 
was  to  distribute  the  Jewish  workmen,  called  to  the 
service  by  general  decree,  among  the  several  military 
units  and  thus  to  influence  the  troops  so  as  to  make  the 
Jew-baiting  propaganda  ineffective. 

This  section,  which  had  branches  in  all  parts  of 
Ukrainia,  received  reports  from  various  sides  concern- 
ing the  relation  between  the  Jewish  workmen  and  the 
other  members  of  the  army.  According  to  existing 
information  backward  troops  received  the  Jews  with 
the  greatest  distrust  and  even  animosity.  Here  and 
there  there  were  also  excesses.  The  Jewish  "intru- 
ders" sometimes  had  to  overcome  the  greatest  difficul- 
ties. It  happened  sometimes  that  the  sections  were 
urgently  entreated  to  transfer  the  Jews  to  a  part  of  the 
army  that  was  more  tolerant. 

The  second  phase  of  the  mutual  relations  ended 
almost  always,  even  in  the  case  of  the  most  prejudiced 
parts  of  the  army,  with  the  admission,  "They  are  no 
Jews,  they  belong  to  us."  This  was  usually  connected 
with  discussions  about  Jews  and  anti-Semitism.  This 
part  of  the  work  was  hard,  but  it  produced  political 
results.  Living  together  gradually  led  to  a  removal 
of  the  anti-Semitic  feelings  which  had  been  implanted 
in  the  character  of  the  Ukrainian  peasant  in  the  course 
of  centuries  of  historical  development. 

In  addition  to  the  political  and  cultural  work,  the 
government  employed  force  and  inflicted  penalties. 
The  perpetrators  of  anti-Jewish  excesses  and  the 
authors  of  propaganda  were  tried  and  condemned  as 
being  counter-revolutionists.  On  the  other  hand  those 


THE   SOVIET   POWER  97 

troops  that  were  incurably  anti-Jewish  were  isolated, 
relieved  and  their  constituency  changed. 

Thus  at  the  end  of  May  in  Kiev  a  whole  regiment  re- 
fused to  obey  an  order  to  fight,  given  by  the  chief  mili- 
tary officers,  and  gave  out  the  watchword,  "Down 
with  the  Jewish  commissars !"  The  rebels  were  sur- 
rounded by  the  loyal  portion  of  the  regiment  and  forced 
to  execute  the  order.  The  instigators  were  arrested. 

In  June  an  open  rebellion  broke  out  in  another  regi- 
ment that  was  quartered  in  Kiev.  They  were  burning 
to  plunder  the  Jews,  and  announced  a  similar  watch- 
word. In  both  cases  the  agitation  came  from  obscure 
elements,  which  were  supported  by  some  officers  of  the 
old  tsarist  army. 

In  this  last  case  the  regiment  was  disarmed  by  the 
Kiev  communistic  reserve  regiment  and  dissolved. 

An  objective  study  of  the  investigations  of  the 
authorized  agent  of  the  relief  committee  of  the  Red 
Cross  and  of  the  annals  of  the  Jews  in  the  Ukraine 
leads  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Soviet  troops  preserved 
the  Jews  from  complete  annihilation.  Retirement  of 
the  Soviet  troops  signified  for  the  territory  left  behind 
the  beginning  of  a  period  of  pogroms  with  all  their 
horrors.  On  the  other  hand  the  advance  of  the  Soviet 
troops  meant  the  liberation  from  a  nightmare  (Zhito- 
mir, Yelisavetgrad,  Novo-Mirgorod,  Proskurov,  Goro- 
dische,  etc.). 

The  watchword  of  the  Jew-haters,  identifying 
Judaism  and  communism,  had  terrible  consequences 
for  the  Jews.  On  the  retirement  of  the  Soviet  power 
the  Jews  abandoned  their  homes  and  possessions  and 
followed  the  Soviet  army,  being  exposed  to  an  un- 
certain existence  and  the  prospect  of  dying  of  hunger 
or  meeting  death  in  some  other  way  in  the  civil  war 


98    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

that  was  raging.  At  the  time  of  the  second  pogrom  in 
Zhitomir  the  Jewish  youth  followed  the  retiring  Bol- 
shevist army.  In  Tarascha  (Government  of  Kiev) 
the  retiring  Soviet  regiment  was  followed  by  almost 
the  entire  Jewish  population  (4,000  persons).  The 
tragedy  of  the  situation  can  only  be  fully  realized  when 
we  consider  that  a  very  great  part  of  the  Jewish  middle 
class  are  skeptical  in  their  attitude  to  the  Soviet  power, 
and  the  Jewish  bourgeoisie  is  decidedly  hostile  to  it. 
Certain  death  forced  the  Jewish  bourgeoisie  to  flee 
under  the  cover  and  protection  of  Bolshevist  divisions. 

In  Lebedin  (Government  of  Kiev)  a  Bolshevist 
armored  car  came  in  while  a  pogrom  was  being  insti- 
tuted by  bandits,  fetched  the  surviving  Jews,  who  had 
concealed  themselves  in  the  cellars  and  lofts,  and  took 
them  along,  thus  saving  them  from  certain  death. 

It  is  no  wonder  therefore  that  the  Jewish  youth, 
especially  in  the  pogrom  districts,  tried  to  enter  the 
Red  Army  without  regard  to  their  sympathies  other- 
wise in  regard  to  the  Soviet  power.  They  entered  their 
ranks,  seeing  therein  the  only  possibility  of  saving 
the  lives  of  their  nearest  and  the  honor  of  their  wives 
and  daughters. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    DENIKIN    REGIME 

THE  Grigoriev  uprising  opened  the  gates  wide  to 
the  Ukrainian  volunteer  army.  The  Ukrainian  Red 
Army  could  not  recover  from  the  blow  it  received  and 
was  compelled  to  retire  before  the  supreme  power  of 
the  well  equipped  troops  of  the  volunteer  army.  The 
internal  front  was  becoming  stronger,  which  meant 
that  the  Ukrainian  cities  were  evacuated  by  the  Soviet 
power,  one  after  the  other.  Denikin  occupied  gradu- 
ally Kharkov,  Yekaterinoslav,  Poltava  and  finally  on 
the  twentieth  of  September,  Kiev.  The  Ukraine  was 
"freed"  from  the  Bolsheviki.  The  troops  of  Petlura 
remained  inactive.  Where  they  opposed  the  volun- 
teer bands,  they  were  disarmed.  The  number  of  Pet- 
lura's  troops  was  small.  Their  position  was  some- 
where on  the  Galician  frontier.  There  was  quiet  for 
a  while  on  the  internal  front.  It  seemed  as  if  the  peas- 
ants wanted  to  find  out  first  what  the  new  ruler,  the 
representative  of  a  "united  and  undivided  Russia," 
would  bring  them.  The  peasants  had  no  particular 
illusions  in  the  matter.  At  any  rate  the  transfer  of 
power  into  other  hands  meant  a  slight  breathing  spell. 
Besides  the  men  of  the  village  hoped  that  they  would 
be  able  to  get  wares,  especially  manufactured  goods, 
from  the  Entente.  It  was  otherwise  in  the  city.  The 

99 


ioo    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

upper  and  middle  classes  who  more  than  others  were 
made  to  feel  the  Soviet  rule;  the  intellectual  classes, 
who  for  the  most  part  stood  aloof  from  the  Soviet 
order  and  while  securing  positions  in  the  Soviet  organ- 
izations yearned  for  the  coming  of  another  power, 
closer  and  more  akin  to  their  ideas ;  the  poorer  citizens 
who  dreamed  of  cheap  bread  and  believed  that  the  bay- 
onet of  the  volunteer  army  would  bring  back  the  five- 
kopek  loaf  of  white  bread  (instead  of  black  bread  at 
the  price  of  50  or  60  rubles  a  pound)  ;  the  nationalistic 
part  of  the  tramp-proletariat  of  the  Ukrainian  cities, 
recruited  from  the  Black  Hundred — all  these  set  great 
hopes  on  the  coming  of  the  new  government.  The 
Jews,  all  except  the  workers,  baited  to  death  as  the 
great  majority  of  them  were,  awaited  the  new  masters 
not  without  a  feeling  of  unrest,  but  still  in  the  quiet 
hope  that  instead  of  the  unstable  Soviet  government 
there  would  finally  come  a  government  of  permanent 
stability  which  would  bring  quiet  to  the  village  and 
conclude  peace  with  the  loyal  portion  of  Jewry. 

The  memorial  handed  to  General  Denikin  by  the 
representatives  of  the  Jewish  communities  of  Yeka- 
terinoslav,  Kharkov,  Rostov  and  Taurida  (Bulletin  du 
Comite  des  Delegations  Juives  aupres  de  la  Con- 
ference de  la  Paix,  No.  9),  reads: 

"Ukrainian  Jewry,  which  belongs  economically  to 
the  poorer  class  of  citizens  (90  per  cent,  artisans  and 
traders,  5  per  cent,  capitalists  and  only  5  per  cent, 
laborers),  awaited  with  suppressed  impatience  the 
coming  of  the  volunteer  army,  from  whom  it  expected 
liberation  from  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat. 
The  Jewish  population  therefore  prepared  an  enthusi- 
astic reception  for  the  volunteers  and  was  ready  to 
support  them  with  money  and  men." 


THE    DENIKIN   REGIME  101 

To  be  sure  the  expressions  of  humility  were  partly 
exaggerated.  But  speaking  generally,  the  middle  class 
of  Jewry,  not  to  speak  for  the  moment  of  the  higher 
classes  at  all,  and  perhaps  also  a  part  of  the  smaller 
artisans,  secretly  cherished  the  hope  that  the  new 
government  would  make  it  possible  to  come  to  a  toler- 
able understanding  with  it.  These  classes  had  not 
believed  that  the  Soviet  regime  could  be  lasting.  Now 
they  had  to  feel  in  their  own  persons  the  "benevolent" 
policy  of  the  Directory  toward  the  Jews.  They 
had  dreamed  of  a  tolerable  and  quiet  life;  for  two 
years  of  boiling  in  the  Ukrainian  witches'  caldron,  the 
various  political  changes  and  upheavals,  the  pogroms, 
the  Batko  institution — all  this  created  in  them  a  desire 
to  be  able  to  maintain  their  life  in  some  manner  or 
other.  They  were  willing  to  renounce  the  national  and 
cultural  autonomy  legally  assured  to  them  by  the  Direc- 
tory, as  long  as  they  were  given  their  bare  lives  and 
the  possibility  of  economic  existence.  From  the 
economic  standpoint  the  return  to  an  order  which  made 
speculation  legal  seemed  to  them  desirable.  On 
the  other  hand  there  was  a  rumor  that  Denikin 
was  well  disposed  to  the  loyal  portion  of  Jewry.  They 
even  spoke  of  his  benevolent  attitude  towards  the 
labor  unions  and  the  socialistic  organizations  of  the 
right  (menshevist).  They  were  skeptical  also  of  the 
(as  was  assumed)  party-colored  reports  which  were 
communicated  in  the  "Soviet  News  of  the  City  of 
Kiev"  concerning  the  cruelties  of  the  Denikin  govern- 
ment. A  proclamation  published  by  the  followers  of 
Denikin  in  Kiev  speaks  of  his  "benevolence  towards  the 
moderate  classes  and  parties."  About  Jews  specifically 
it  said  (I  quote  from  memory)  :  "Jewish  citizens,  I 
know  that  not  only  the  Christians  but  also  the  Jewish 


102    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

population  is  suffering  under  the  Bolsheviki.  The 
volunteer  army  brings  peace  to  all  citizens  of  Russia 
without  regard  to  creed.  Wait  quietly  for  the  coming 
of  the  volunteer  army  and  support  it,  for  it  will  pro- 
tect you  from  the  Bolshevist  terror.  I  am  convinced 
that  you  will  yourselves  deliver  up  from  your  midst 
all  scoundrels  and  loafers." 

Finally  the  volunteer  army  occupied  Kiev  and  thus 
became  master  of  the  situation  in  the  Ukraine.  After 
gaining  his  victory  Denikin  thought  it  was  time  to  un- 
mask and  show  himself  before  the  world  in  his  true 
ugliness.  The  village  was  again  made  happy  with  the 
landed  proprietors  of  blessed  memory.  The  land  was 
returned  to  the  former  owners.  Then  came  the  famous 
order  about  the  third  sheaf  which  the  peasant  had  to 
give  up  to  the  landed  proprietor  "for  using  the  lord's 
estate."  The  volunteer  army  was  not  able  to  deliver 
/  any  Entente  goods  at  all,  which  the  peasant  needed  so 
//much.  On  the  other  hand,  grain  was  again  requisi- 
tioned and  confiscated.  The  peasant  in  the  Ukraine 
began  to  use  the  same  methods  of  fighting  the  new 
{  government  as  he  used  against  the  previous  one.  Sud- 
denly and  with  quick  precision  there  grew  up  before 
Denikin's  army  the  internal  front  already  described. 
The  Batki  and  new  heroes  who  joined  them  carried  on 
a  stubborn,  intensive  and  very  successful  fight  against 
the  volunteer  army.  The  Ataman  Angel  started  the  up- 
rising in  the  government  of  Poltava  and  for  a  short 
time  even  occupied  the  outer  precincts  of  the  city  of 
Poltava.  The  Ataman  Zeleny  developed  an  extraordi- 
nary activity  south  of  Kiev  in  the  precinct  of  the  city 
of  Vasilkov.  It  is  said  that  it  was  the  "division" 
Zeleny  which  occupied  the  western  suburbs  of  Kiev. 
The  Ataman  Shepel  developed  great  activity  on  the 


THE    DENIKIN   REGIME  103 

Kiev-Poltava  railway  line  and  on  the  highway  between 
the  cities  of  Pereyaslev  and  Zolotonosha  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Dnieper,  calling  upon  the  peasants  to  rise 
against  Denikin.  The  Batki  Sokolovsky  and  Arbel 
succeeded  in  organizing  quite  considerable  bodies  of 
troops  along  the  Kiev-Poltava  railroad  line,  and  the 
Ataman  Malinov  did  the  same  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Kherson.  Makhno,  however,  was  the  man  who  played 
the  chief  role  in  the  rise  of  the  Ukrainian  peasants 
against  Denikin.  His  troops  of  freebooters  continued 
their  activity  along  the  whole  lower  course  of  the 
Dnieper  between  Melitopol  and  Yekaterinoslav.  A 
whole  line  of  reports  state  that  all  the  activities  of  the 
several  units  were  subordinated  to  the  united  leader- 
ship of  Makhno' s  staff  and  that  they  were  even  partly 
united  with  his  main  forces.  That  Makhno,  who  had 
recognized  as  early  as  the  time  of  Grigoriev  the  danger 
that  a  Denikin  invasion  would  have  for  the  Ukrainian 
middle  class  peasant  and  had  fought  against  it,  should 
have  been  able  to  step  into  the  centre  of  the  free- 
booter movement  against  Denikin  is  easily  under- 
stood. 

The  internal  front,  the  uprising  of  the  village  against 
the  now  "white"  city,  from  which  nothing  came  except 
the  order  "concerning  the  third  sheaf,"  requisitions  and 
confiscations,  with  the  appearance  of  penal  companies, 
had  disappointed  the  hopes  of  the  urban  middle  classes 
about  cheap  bread.  The  price  of  bread  (which  deter- 
mines all  other  prices)  remained  after  some  relatively 
slight  variation  very  high  (to  be  sure  it  was  lower  than 
under  the  Soviet  government).  The  "karbovantzy" 
as  well  as  the  money  of  the  Soviet  government,  the  very 
medium  which  was  current  among  the  middle  classes, 
were  declared  of  no  value. 


104    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  Ukrainian  culture  was  proscribed,  the  schools 
were  closed  and  as  a  result  the  nationalistic  tendencies 
bore  the  most  luxuriant  flowers. 

The  white  terror  prevailed  in  the  occupied  city.  In 
the  mind  of  the  Restoration  Government,  for  in  the 
last  resort  this  is  what  the  Denikin  Government  was, 
the  principal  crimes  were  the  March  revolution  and  the 
destruction  of  absolutism,  for  they  had  destroyed  the 
"great,  united  and  undivided  Russia"  and  introduced 
great  confusion  and  ruin.  "All  social  forces,  all  parties 
who  participated  in  them  are  equally  'seditious/  dan- 
gerous and  illicit,  equally  deserving  of  persecution  and 
partial  annihilation.  Bolsheviki,  Mensheviki,  Trudo- 
viki  (group  of  laborers)  or  people's  socialists — they 
are  all  rebels  and  responsible  for  the  reduced  state  of 
the  land." 

Anti-Semitism  was  one  of  the  fundamental  elements 
of  the*  Restoration  rule,  exactly  as  under  the  tsar,  and 
the  rule  of  Denikin  approached  this  ideal  with  gigantic 
steps.  All  traces  of  the  "liberties"  promised  in  the 
Kerensky  period  were  definitely  wiped  out,  among 
them  the  liberties  granted  to  the  Jews. 

The  volunteer  army,  which  was  composed  princi- 
pally of  officers,  admitted  Jews  also,  who  from  the 
time  of  Kornilov  were  loyally  devoted  fighters  for  a 
democratic  order  and  opposed  to  a  dictatorship  of  the 
Bolsheviki.  Denikin  and  his  followers  regarded  them- 
selves as  conquerors  and  resolved  to  free  the  army 
from  Jews.  In  the  volunteer  bodies  anti-Semitism  was 
in  full  flower.  The  politically  experienced  officers  saw 
in  the  Jews  the  persons  responsible  for  all  the  mis- 
fortunes of  Russia.  They  imputed  to  them  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  Bolshevistic  terror  under  which  so  many 
persons  near  to  them  had  had  to  suffer.  They  carried 


THE   DENIKIN    REGIME  105 

on  an  anti-Jewish  agitation  which  had  but  one  mean- 
ing. The  names  and  pseudonyms  of  all  Jewish  Bolshe- 
vist commissars  were  cited  to  show  that  the  Bolshevist 
government  was  a  "Jewish  government."  The  respon- 
sible positions  in  the  volunteer  army  were  held  by 
members  of  the  Black  Hundred  and  anti-Semites. 
At  the  head  of  the  department  of  propaganda  of  the 
volunteer  army  of  Kiev  stood  the  well  known  leader 
of  the  Black  Hundred  in  the  time  of  the  tsar,  Savenko. 
The  rage  against  the  Jews  among  the  troops  was  enor- 
mous and  the  high  command  considered  it  its  duty  to 
exclude  Jews  from  the  army.  In  the  above  mentioned 
memorial,  handed  to  Denikin  by  representatives  of  the 
Jewish  communities,  the  following  facts  are  cited: 
"The  commander  of  the  first  infantry  division  sent 
back  thirteen  officers  who  had  been  assigned  to  him 
to  the  staff  of  the  first  army  corps  with  an  official  note 
in  which  he  requests  that  no  Jewish  officers  be  sent  to 
him  to  make  up  his  division.  The  commandant  of  the 
second  railroad  battalion  sent  back  Corporal  Spunt 
to  the  head  of  the  army  transport  with  the  statement 
that  he  'belonged  to  the  Jewish  religion,  whose  fol- 
lowers, as  is  well  known,  are  not  fit  for  military  rail- 
road service.'  The  chief  commander  of  Kharkov  an- 
nounced in  the  newspapers  that  officers  of  the  Jewish 
faith  would  be  assigned  to  a  special  category  and  that 
until  further  notice  they  would  be  free  from  service." 
In  a  memorandum  of  the  Central  Relief  Committee 
for  Jews  injured  by  pogroms  in  Russia,  which  was 
handed  to  the  Zionist  Actions  Committee  in  London 
and  to  Dr.  Margoline,  the  representative  of  the  Ukrai- 
nian republic  in  London  (the  memorandum,  by  the 
way,  is  written  with  a  certain  bias),  the  following 
credible  communication  is  found : 


io6    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

By  an  order  to  the  volunteer  army  of  the  6th  of 
October,  1919,  sub  No.  21,322,  General  Denikin  re- 
moved all  Jewish  officers  from  the  army  solely  because 
of  their  race.  A  deputation  of  representatives  of  four 
communities  (Kiev,  Kharkov,  Poltava,  and  Yekateri- 
noslav)  respectfully  called  to  the  attention  of  General 
Denikin  that  this  order  would  indirectly  incite  the 
ignorant  masses  against  the  Jews,  which  might  lead 
to  new  pogroms  (the  volunteer  army  had  at  that 
time  already  perpetrated  several  pogroms).  The  Gen- 
eral explained  to  the  delegation  that  the  order  had 
been  given  in  the  interest  of  the  state,  and  that 
he  placed  the  welfare  of  the  fatherland  above 
everything. 

The  official  information  bureau  of  the  chief  com- 
mander of  the  volunteer  army  developed  an  enormous 
anti-Semitic  agitation.  Theoretically  this  agitation 
found  expression  in  the  sanguinary  anti-Semitic  arti- 
cles of  the  well-known  follower  of  the  Black  Hundred, 
the  able  and  talented  Shulgin,  a  convinced  monarchist 
and  Jew-hater.  He  was  the  editor  of  the  official  organ 
of  the  Denikin  government,  "Velikaya  Rossia"  (Great 
Russia),  was  a  member  of  the  "Dictatorship  Confer- 
ence," a  minister  without  portfolio,  and  carried  on 
unbridled  agitation  against  the  Jews  as  well  as  against 
all  democratic  elements.  We  quote  below  a  quite 
lengthy  extract  from  the  "Kievlianin,"  from  which 
can  be  seen  his  attitude  to  the  proclamation  of  the 
labor  unions,  directed  against  anti-Semitism,  as  well 
as  his  attitude  to  the  events  that  happened  during  the 
period  of  the  pogroms  instituted  by  the  volunteer  army. 
In  his  opinion  the  original  sin  of  progressive  Russia  is 
the  first  Revolution  of  February  and  March. 
Following  is  an  abstract  of  the  article: 


THE   DENIKIN   REGIME  107 

KIEV,  October  13,  1919. 

There  came  accidently  into  our  hands  a  printed  copy 
of  a  circular  addressed  by  the  Kiev  labor  union  to  its 
members.  This  circular  deserves  greater  attention  than 
it  claims  for  itself.  Even  those  workmen  who  recently 
diagnosed  with  apparent  correctness  the  class  struggle 
into  which  their  ringleaders  and  "intensifiers  of  the 
Revolution"  drew  them,  must  ponder  very  carefully  the 
contents  of  the  circular.  The  same  holds  true  of  the 
whole  Russian  intelligentzia  with  whom  the  class- 
conscious  laborers  now  desire  to  work  in  common,  and 
also  of  the  government  which  has  reconquered  our 
homes  from  their  destroyers  and  robbers  and  is  making 
efforts  to  build  a  common  house  for  the  whole  Russian 
people  and  all  its  classes. 

The  circular  begins  with  the  words :  We  are  living 
in  a  terrible  time.  The  days  through  which  we  live 
are  terrible  not  because  of  the  new  efforts  of  the  Bol- 
sheyiki,  if  only  for  a  short  time,  to  take  to  themselves 
a,  few  important  points,  our  Kiev  among  them,  from 
which  they  were  driven  out  by  the  volunteer  army,  but 
because  "a  wave  of  bloody,  cruel  and  bestial  Jewish 
pogroms  is  approaching  Kiev." 

After  a  lyric  and  dramatic  description  "of  the 
bloody  extermination  of  a  whole  people,  of  the  loss 
again  and  again  of  thousands  of  new  victims,  of  de- 
fenseless women  and  children,  of  old  men  and  vigorous 
youths  who  were  shot  or  cut  down  with  the  sword,  torn 
in  pieces  and  left  to  perish  beneath  the  ruins  of  burned- 
down  villages  and  towns" — a  description  of  such  defi- 
niteness  as  if  it  dealt  with  a  principle  or  a  well-known 
fact  of  undoubted  certainty — the  circular  says,  "Now 
this  disgrace  is  passing  through  Kiev." 

"In  the  name  of  the  provocatory  calumnies,  pub- 


io8    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

lished  even  in  the  press,  charging  the  Jews  with  sup- 
porting the  Bolshevist  advance,  low  elements  of  the  city 
population,  sharpers  demoralized  by  soldiers  (as  has 
been  established  from  special  orders)  enter  the  houses 
in  bright  daylight,  impose  contributions  on  the  Jewish 
population  (sic!)  in  amounts  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  rubles,  take  away  their  last  shirt  and  commit  mur- 
der and  excesses  of  all  sorts. " 

So  this  is  what  happened  in  Kiev,  and  this  is 
what  we  learn  from  the  organ  of  the  Kiev  council  of 
labor  unions.  This  literary  and  political  masterpiece 
would  completely  suffice  to  establish  the  author  of  the, 
doubtless,  inspired  circular,  as  well  as  the  purpose  of 
the  composition.  The  quoted  fragments  are,  how- 
ever, only  the  beginning,  the  necessary  introduction 
merely  to  a  lengthy  explanation  of  the  question  laid 
down  in  the  circular.  What  is  the  ground  of  this  blind 
hate,  i.e.  the  hate  against  the  Jews? 

In  their  attempt  to  throw  light  historically  upon  the 
Jewish  question  in  Poland  and  the  Ukraine,  the  authors 
of  the  circular  solve  this  complicated  question  simply, 
easily  and  without  the  slightest  doubts.  The  respon- 
sible parties  in  all  things  are  the  Polish  landlords,  who 
left  the  peasants  too  little  land,  drove  them  into  the 
net  of  the  usurers  and  then  took  away  the  gains  from 
the  usurers  themselves.  The  Russian  peasant  and  the 
Jew,  so  it  says,  had  to  suffer  equally  from  the  land- 
lords and  their  rule.  But  the  peasant  did  not  know 
who  was  his  real  enemy  and  hated  the  Jew.  When  the 
Ukraine  came  under  the  rule  of  the  tsar,  there  was 
no  change.  The  tsar's  government  taught  the  people 
that  all  evil  came  from  the  Jews,  furthered  pogroms, 
supported  them  directly,  and  in  this  way  prolonged  the 
time  before  its  downfall.  Finally,  however,  the  work- 


THE   DENIKIN    REGIME  109 

men  and  then  the  whole  people  recognized  that  it 
was  not  this  or  that  people  who  were  their  enemy,  but 
the  government,  under  which  the  peasant  lived  in  want 
and  under  which  the  workman  was  compelled  to  be 
satisfied  with  miserable  conditions  of  work.  The  peo- 
ple rose  against  the  real  enemy  and  overthrew  the 
tsarist  regime.  The  enemies  of  the  people,  however, 
knew  that  if  they  could  again  make  the  latter  see  in 
the  Jews  the  responsible  authors  of  their  want,  they 
would  place  no  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  attempt 
to  restore  the  tsaristic  regime,  which  was  the  real  cause 
of  the  suffering  of  the  people.  And  so  they  began 
again  to  spread  calumnies  against  the  Jews,  and  "the 
people,  wearied  by  harrassing  agitation  and  exhausted 
by  long  years  of  intolerable  sufferings,  vents  its  fury 
and  hate  on  the  innocent,  unhappy  and  tormented 
Jewish  people." 

And  "in  this  terrible  moment"  the  Kiev  council  of 
the  labor  unions  directed  a  passionate  appeal  to  all 
confederates  to  unite  in  fighting  for  the  preservation 
of  that  which  the  great  revolution  of  1917  had  brought. 

Much  can  be  said  about  this  circular,  as  the  reader 
sees.  Having  given  extracts,  we  do  not  consider  it 
necessary  at  this  moment  to  say  anything  further  about 
it.  For  is  it  really  worth  while  to  say  anything  about 
the  "passionate  appeal"  to  fight  for  the  preservation  of 
that  which  the  treasonable  revolution  of  1917  brought 
to  Russia  and  the  Russian  people,  when  everybody 
knows  that  it  caused  a  disgraceful  desertion  of 
the  front  in  the  World  War,  a  shameful  betrayal 
of  our  common  cause  with  the  Allies,  defense  of  the 
freedom  and  independence  of  the  several  states,  the 
dissolution  of  Russia,  destruction  of  the  entire  econ- 
omic life,  general  impoverishment  and  the  triumph  of 


i  io    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Bolshevism,  against  which  the  newly  rising  Russia 
and  the  volunteer  army  are  fighting?  How  much 
courage  is  necessary  to  appear  publicly  with  such  a 
circular  proclamation  in  Kiev,  which  is  after  all  still 
in  the  possession  of  the  volunteer  army !  How  degen- 
erate the  Kiev  labor  union  must  be  if  after  the  many 
acts  of  destruction  which  the  Bolsheviki  have  caused 
in  Kiev,  they  dare  to  come  out  openly  with  such  an- 
nouncements F 

We  repeat,  the  "Kievlianin"  was  the  official  govern- 
ment organ  and  the  ideal  herald  of  the  current  policy 
of  the  government. 

This  agitation  led  to  very  definite  results.  The 
volunteer  army  was  already  in  a  state  of  decomposition. 
The  great  majority  of  obtuse  ordinary  officers  dreamed 
of  plunder,  and  in  their  lust  and  wanton  unrestraint 
they  saw  an  object  of  their  sadistic  and  rapacious  incli- 
nations in  the  lives,  honor  and  possessions  of  the  Jews 
who  were  left  to  their  mercy,  particularly  since  the 
official  press  declared  these  heroic  deeds  to  be  deeds  of 
patriotism. 

The  pogroms  perpetrated  by  the  volunteer  army  took 
the  following  course.  As  soon  as  the  volunteer  army 
entered  a  city,  one  could  find  everywhere  on  the  walls 
next  to  the  official  communications,  proclamations 
against  the  Jews,  which  were  almost  all  alike  in  form 
and  content — "Underlings  of  the  Red  Guard !"  "To 
All" — and  called  the  people  to  make  pogroms  (evi- 
dently the  authorities  of  the  Denikin  government 
simply  adopted  the  method  of  the  tsar's  police  depart- 
ment, namely  to  send  proclamations  for  pogroms  from 
their  main  printing  office  to  the  places  where  they 
planned  to  enact  them).  The  careful  memorial  men- 


THE   DENIKIN   REGIME  in 

tioned  above  states  that  in  all  places  without  exception 
to  which  the  volunteer  troops  came  there  invariably 
took  place  more  or  less  important,  but  always  systemat- 
ically carried  out  excesses,  which  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  developed  into  pogroms.  "So  in  Kharkov 
there  were  robberies  and  acts  of  violence  every  day.  In 
Yekaterinoslav  all  Jewish  houses  in  the  four  most 
important  Jewish  streets  were  destroyed.  Many  Jews 
were  killed,  hundreds  of  Jewish  women  and  girls  were 
dishonored/* 

The  volunteer  army  instituted  pogroms  in  the  fol- 
lowing places :  Sinelnikov,  Bespalovka,  Losovaya, 
Mikhailovka,  Valki,  Kremenchug  (350  women  vio- 
lated), Motovilovka,  Borispol,  Grebyonka,  Smela,  Kor- 
sun,  Germanovka,  Cherkassy,  Makarov,  Gorodische, 
Stepany,  Ignatovka,  Tripolie,  Rossovo,  Bielaia  Tser- 
kov,  Fastov  and  Kiev. 

In  Fastov  the  volunteers  searched  all  the  Jewish 
houses  (they  overlooked  two  houses  by  accident) .  The 
furniture  was  dragged  out  of  the  houses  or  destroyed ; 
women  were  violated.  All  imaginable  kinds  of  tor- 
tures and  cruelties  were  perpetrated  on  the  Jews.  Even 
children  of  six  weeks  were  slaughtered.  The  number 
of  dead  amounts  to  from  1,500  to  1,800.  More  than 
100  houses  were  burned  down.  The  pogrom  in  Kiev 
was  also  terrible.  On  the  I4th  of  October  the  city  was 
again  occupied  by  the  Bolsheviki.  Two  days  later  they 
were  driven  out  by  the  volunteers.  Hardly  had  the 
city  been  cleared  of  the  Bolshevist  troops  when  an 
organized  pogrom  set  in  which  lasted  five  days,  from 
the  1 6th  to  the  2Oth  of  October.  The  plundering  bands 
consisted  for  the  most  part  of  soldiers,  who  went  from 
house  to  house  and  robbed,  tortured,  violated  and  mur- 
dered. The  heart-rending  cries  of  the  victims  were  of 


ii2    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

no  avail.  No  one  came  to  their  assistance.  All  the 
money  and  valuables  that  the  bandits  were  given  as 
ransom  they  put  in  their  pockets,  and  kept  on  all  the 
same,  murdering  men,  dishonoring  women  and  then 
killing  them  in  a  brutal  manner  or  throwing  them  from 
the  fifth  and  sixth  stories  into  the  street.  Many  were 
thrown  into  the  Dnieper  and  found  their  death  there. 
The  number  of  killed  is  given  at  500  to  600,  the  ma- 
terial loss  is  estimated  in  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars. 

When  the  pogrom  had  reached  its  highest  point,  the 
organs  of  the  Black  Hundred,  "Vecherniye  Ogni" 
(Evening  Fires)  and  "Kievlianin,"  published  provoca- 
tory  and,  as  was  shown  later,  knowingly  untrue  state- 
ments to  the  effect  that  the  Jews  had  shot  at  the  troops 
as  they  were  retiring  before  the  Bolsheviki.  In  "Vech- 
erniye Ogni"  data  were  given  indicating  the  time  of 
the  shooting,  the  house  from  which  it  was  done  and 
sometimes  the  person  who  did  it.  An  investigation 
undertaken  by  the  "League  to  Combat  Anti-Semitism," 
with  the  active  cooperation  of  the  Mayor,  Ryabtsov, 
the  magistrates,  Butenko  and  Zagorsky,  the  high  priest 
of  the  Greek  Catholic  Church,  K.  M.  Agayev,  the 
woman  physician,  Potkanov,  the  city  commissioner 
Zanubin  and  the  representatives  of  various  public, 
trade  and  socialist  organizations,  showed  that  not 
one  of  the  alleged  facts  stated  in  the  papers  was  true. 
In  many  cases  there  were  no  such  numbers  as  those 
mentioned  in  "Vecherniye  Ogni/' 

The  military  censor  canceled  the  articles  which  were 
brought  to  the  above  named  paper  for  the  purpose  of 
fanning  the  pogrom  sentiment,  and  struck  out  the  re- 
ports of  other  papers  about  the  participation  of  the 
troops  in  the  pogrom  and  the  horrors  that  had  been 


THE   DENIKIN   REGIME  113 

committed.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  legal  steps 
were  taken  against  the  instigators  when  the  falsity  of 
their  reports  became  clear. 

The  terrors  of  the  Kiev  pogrom  and  the  cynically 
clear  and  definite  explanation  of  the  causes  of  this  as 
well  as  the  other  pogroms  that  were  perpetrated  by  the 
volunteer  troops  are  shown  in  their  most  terrible  pre- 
cision and  clearness  in  the  article  of  Shulgin,  "The 
Torture  of  Fear." 

THE  TORTURE  OF  FEAR 

At  night  there  moves  in  the  streets  of  Kiev  an  awful 
medieval  spirit.  In  the  general  stillness  and  emptiness 
of  the  streets  there  suddenly  breaks  out  a  heart-rending 
cry.  It  is  the  cry  of  the  Jews,  a  cry  of  fear.  In  the 
darkness  of  the  street  there  appears  a  group  of  "men 
with  bayonets."  At  their  sight  gigantic  five  and  six- 
story  houses  begin  to  shriek  from  top  to  bottom. 
Whole  streets  seized  with  mortal  anguish  scream  with 
inhuman  voice  and  tremble  for  their  life.  These  awful 
cries  remind  one  of  the  night  of  the  revolution. 
Naturally  this  fear  is  exaggerated  and  assumes,  from 
our  point  of  view,  senseless  and  degrading  forms. 
Nevertheless  it  is  a  real  anguish,  a  real  "torture  of 
fear"  which  has  come  upon  the  Jewish  population. 
The  government  fights,  as  far  as  is  in  its  power,  to 
prevent  robbery  and  murder.  But  the  Russian  popula- 
tion who  hears  this  horrible  groaning  which  bursts 
from  the  breasts  of  the  Jews  under  the  "torture  of 
fear"  thinks  its  own  thoughts.  It  is  thinking, 
Will  the  Jews  in  these  nights  of  terror  learn  some- 
thing, will  they  learn  what  it  means  to  incite  the  classes 
against  each  other  according  to  the  recipe  of  the  "great 


ii4    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

master,  Karl  Marx"?  Will  they  understand  what  is 
socialism,  from  whose  bosom  have  come  the  Bolshe- 
viki?  Will  they  understand  what  it  means  to  realize 
in  Russia  the  principle  of  the  rule  of  the  people  ?  Will 
they  understand  what  they  must  now  do?  Will  they 
go  to  their  synagogues  and  before  all  the  world  pro- 
nounce a  curse  upon  all  those  Jews  who  had  a  hand  in 
all  the  confusion  ?  Will  the  mass  of  the  Jewish  people 
withdraw  from  the  "Fathers"  of  the  "new"  regime 
with  the  same  passionateness  with  which  they  attacked 
the  old  regime?  Will  the  Jews  beat  their  breasts,  cover 
their  heads  with  ashes  and  repent  before  all  the  world 
that  the  sons  of  Israel  took  such  active  part  in  the  Bol- 
shevist madness?  Will  the  Jews  found  a  league  to 
combat  socialism  ?  Or  will  everything  remain  as  be- 
fore after  these  dreadful  nights  full  of  anguish,  and 
as  before  will  they  form  a  "League  to  Combat  anti- 
Semitism,"  senselessly  denying  well-known  facts,  and 
thus  still  more  inflaming  anti- Jewish  feelings?  The 
Jews  have  two  ways  before  them.  One  is  to  confess 
and  repent.  The  other  is  to  accuse  every  one  else  but 
themselves.  Their  fate  will  depend  upon  the  way  they 
follow.  Is  it  really  possible  that  the  torture  of  fear 
will  not  show  them  the  right  way? 

SHULGIN. 

This  article  places  Jewry  before  the  following 
dilemma:  They  must  either  repent,  i.e.,  take  upon 
themselves  all  the  sins  of  the  Soviet  government  before 
the  volunteer  army  and  their  leaders,  or  they  must  per- 
ish. The  Denikin  government  had  really  devoted  the 
Jews  to  destruction.  And  in  this  they  found  moral 
support  in  the  Cadet  party  (Constitutional  Demo- 
crats). This  party  of  the  humblest  opposition  to  His 


THE   DENIKIN   REGIME  115 

Majesty  (the  tsar)  forms,  in  the  excellent  characteri- 
zation of  Maxim  Gorky,  a  sore,  consuming  the  Rus- 
sian intelligentzia,  for  they  adapt  themselves  to  the 
absolutist  regime  of  Rasputin  and  Shekheglovitov, 
who  brought  the  country  to  the  brink  of  ruin.  The 
party  which  called  itself  in  Siberia  the  "party  of 
the  coup  d'etat"  proved  to  be  an  ultra-reactionary 
party  in  the  Ukraine.  In  the  Ukraine  the  Cadets  sup- 
ported from  the  very  beginning  the  Ataman  Skoro- 
padsky  as  soon  as  this  stage-dictatorship  came  into  be- 
ing with  the  help  of  Baron  von  Mumm  and  German 
bayonets.  The  main  leader  of  the  party,  Pavel  Niko- 
laievich  Miliukov,  approved  of  this  act  and  at  once 
went  over  from  a  pro-English  to  a  pro-German  policy. 
In  the  south  of  Russia  the  central  committee  of  the 
party,  as  well  as  the  party  as  a  whole,  were  the  only 
"moral"  support  of  Denikin,  whose  predecessor  Alex- 
eiev  had  also  been  supported  by  them.  The  Cadet  party 
demanded  a  "military  dictatorship."  Miliukov  de- 
clared that  the  Russian  democracy  was  not  able  to 
organize  the  state  and  a  military  dictatorship  alone 
was  able  to  do  this.  The  party  yielded  to  the  will  of 
its  leader,  and  demanded  that  all  power  be  taken  over 
by  the  volunteer  army  and  that  all  democratic  organi- 
zations, the  provincial  and  city  administrations,  etc., 
should  renounce  all  independent  policies  and  all  inde- 
pendent activity  as  organs  of  force,  for  "the  time 
demands  a  military  dictatorship."  This  party,  which 
was  so  proud  of  its  liberalism  and  had  Jews  also  among 
its  leaders,  took  the  standpoint  of  Shulgin  in  respect  to 
the  pogroms.  Their  attitude  to  the  Jews  is  the  same 
as  that  of  the  author  of  the  terribly  candid  article  ex- 
cept that  they  are  not  so  frank  and  cover  their  thoughts 
with  a  pharisaic  cloak.  At  the  party  conference  of 


ii6    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the    ipth   of   November  in    Kharkov,   where   all   the 
organizations  of  South  Russia  and  the  Ukraine  were 
assembled,  the  following  resolution  was  adopted  on 
the  Jewish  question  (taken  from  the  Warsaw  Jewish 
paper,  "Moment,"  of  the  I4th  of  December,  1919)  : 
"The  Kharkov  conference  of  the  party  for  popular 
freedom  (Cadets)  expresses  the  conviction  that  Jew- 
ish pogroms  are  undesirable  not  merely  from  humani- 
tarian considerations,  but  also  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  great  purpose  which  the  volunteer  army  is  fight- 
ing to  realize.    At  the  same  time  the  conference  repudi- 
ates every  suspicion  that  the  deeds  of  violence  are  not 
counteracted  by  the  competent  authorities.     The  con- 
ference considers  it  its  paramount  duty  to  approve  a 
whole  line  of  means  and  measures  undertaken  by  the 
government  for  the  prevention  of  pogroms  and  the 
protection  of  the  innocent  population.     The  Jewish 
pogroms,"  the  resolution  continues,  "are  a  consequence 
of  the  general  demoralization  due  to  Bolshevism  as 
well  as  the  result  of  direct  incitement  by  Bolshevist 
agents  in  their  attempt  to  create  confusion  behind  the 
front.    The  reasonable  and  the  leading  circles  in  Jewry 
must  carry  on  a  bitter  and  unrelenting  fight  against  all 
elements  in  Jewry  who  take  active  part  in  the  Bolshe- 
vist movement  and  thus  are  guilty  of  a  wicked  and 
criminal  deed.     Russian  Jewry  must  understand  that 
if  absolute  and  unconditional  support  is  not  given  to  the 
national  dictatorship  and  the  volunteer  army,  who  are 
restoring  Russian  political  life,  there  is  no  source  of 
safety  left.    Nothing  but  a  strong  order  based  on  law, 
such  as  the  national  government  administration  is  en- 
deavoring to  establish,  can  guarantee  the  security  of  all 
citizens  of  Russia  without  distinction  of  nationality  or 
religion." 


THE   DENIKIN    REGIME  117 

If  we  add  to  this  that  in  the  Cadet  organ  "Svobo- 
dnaya  Rossia"  (Free  Russia)  anti-Semitic  articles  of 
the  not  unknown  Mr.  Nashivin  were  published,  in 
which  the  proposal  is  made  to  declare  all  Jews 
foreigners,  the  picture  becomes  clear.  The  first  para- 
graph of  the  resolution  does  not  change  the  matter  in 
any  way.  To  be  sure,  the  party  (just  like  Shulgin)  is 
opposed  to  pogroms  if  the  Jews  will  unconditionally 
support  the  volunteer  army  and  the  national  dictator- 
ship which  aim  to  exterminate  these  very  Jews. 

The  civil  war  pulled  down  the  last  remains  of  the 
liberal  veil  which  covered  the  lean  forms  of  the  "Party 
for  the  Freedom  of  the  People."  The  People's  Social- 
ist, N.  Tchaikovsky,  member  of  the  Russian  delegation 
in  Paris  (of  the  foreign  representatives  of  General 
Denikin  and  Admiral  Kolchak),  said  in  an  interview 
with  the  correspondent  of  the  "Moment,"  the  Jewish 
paper  of  Warsaw  (No.  15,  Jan.  18,  1920),  that  the 
Cossacks  "merely"  committed  robbery,  and  had  no 
part  in  murders;  that  the  horrors  committed  by, 
Makhno  and  Grigoriev  as  well  as  by  the  insurrection- 
ary freebooters  were  unjustly  charged  against  the  vol- 
unteer army  and  General  Denikin,  while  it  was  the 
former  whose  aim  it  was  to  exterminate  all  Jews. 
Tchaikovsky  declares  categorically  that  Denikin  and 
Kolchak  were  against  pogroms  and  that  they  had  even 
issued  an  order  prohibiting  all  anti-Semitic  agitation. 
The  Bolsheviki,  he  says,  utilize  all  excesses  and  give 
exaggerated  accounts  of  the  pogroms.  (In  this  re- 
spect his  statements  completely  agree  in  method  with 
those  made  by  the  foreign  representatives  of  the  Pet- 
lura  government,  who  denied  that  the  pogroms  were 
made  by  them  and  pointed  to  the  deeds  of  horror  com- 
mitted by  the  volunteer  army,  remarking  at  the  same 


ii8    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

time  that  the  Bolshevik!  grossly  exaggerated  the  pog- 
rom excesses.) 

Under  the  influence  of  "foreign  opinion"  Admiral 
Kolchak  gave  the  following  "liberal"  interview  to  an 
American  journalist:  "You  may  be  assured  that  in 
Siberia  there  is  no  anti-Semitism  and  no  so-called 
Jewish  question.  Those  Jews  who  have  lived  long 
in  Siberia  are  regarded  as  having  the  same  rights  as 
other  members  of  society.  In  so  far  as  anti-Semitism 
is  to  be  met  with  there,  it  comes  from  the  outside,  from 
Russian  fugitives.  In  any  case  the  influence  of  anti- 
Semitism  is  very  insignificant  in  that  part  of  the  world. 
When  we  have  conquered  Bolshevism,  the  senseless 
charges  that  all  Jews  are  Bolsheviki  will  disappear. 
The  average  Jew  is  more  loyal  and  more  conservative 
than  the  Russian  middle  class.  And  if  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple are  to  be  made  responsible  for  the  deeds  of  Trot- 
sky, Sverdlov,  Joffe,  etc.,  then  the  whole  Russian 
people  must  answer  for  the  activity  of  Lenin,  Kry- 
lenko  and  Lunacharsky."  ("Dalnevostotchnoye 
Obozrenye"— "View  of  the  Far  East,"  of  Sept.  21, 
1919;  taken  from  "Le  Temps"  of  Dec.  14,  1919). 

Kolchak  could  easily  express  himself  on  the  "Jewish 
Question"  for  there  are  no  Jewish  masses  in  Siberia 
and  there  could  be  no  pogroms  there.  Deeds  of  violence 
were  committed  there  also,  and  some  of  them  were 
perpetrated  against  the  pure  Russian  peasants.  The 
matter  of  pogroms  was  not  so  simple  as  the  explana- 
tion of  General  Denikin  and  other  responsible  leaders 
of  the  volunteer  army  would  make  us  believe.  News 
about  pogroms  reached  the  foreign  press  which  could 
not  be  passed  over  in  silence.  The  chief  of  the  Kiev 
precinct,  General  Dragomirov,  had  a  conversation  with 
representatives  of  the  military  and  administrative 


THE   DENIKIN   REGIME  119 

authorities  in  which,  among  other  things,  he  said: 
"Excesses  have  taken  place  in  a  whole  series  of  locali- 
ties in  which  the  Jews  had  to  suffer.  The  chief  com- 
mander has  taken  decisive  measures  to  prevent  a  repeti- 
tion. All  those  whose  guilt  has  been  discovered  were 
handed  over  for  court  martial,  and  the  same  will  be 
done  in  the  future.  But  repressive  measures  alone 
are  not  enough.  Preventive  measures  are  no  less 
important.  The  ignorant  masses  must  be  made  to 
understand  that  the  Jewish  nation  cannot  be  held 
responsible  for  crimes  of  the  Jewish  Bolsheviki,  that 
innocent  persons  must  not  be  punished  for  the  sins  of 
other  guilty  persons.  Care  must  be  taken  that  the 
Jews  should  separate  themselves  from  the  Bolsheviki 
and  their  sympathizers  and  that  the  ideas  propagated 
by  the  volunteer  army  should  be  circulated  among 
them." 

This  conversation  was  published  in  "Svobodnaya 
Rech"  (Free  Speech),  a  paper  appearing  in  Rostov, 
and  had  apparently  taken  place  a  short  time  before. 
Directly  after  the  conversation,  when  the  Bolsheviki 
had  held  Kiev  in  their  hands  for  two  days,  this  was 
laid  to  the  charge  of  the  entire  Jewish  population, 
which  had  to  expiate  this  offence  under  an  organized 
slaughter  of  the  "men  with  the  bayonets."  And  this 
massacre  was  not  prevented  by  the  telegram  sent  by 
Denikin  in  Odessa  to  the  chief  commander  of  the  Kiev 
military  district.  The  telegram  read  as  follows:  "I 
have  received  new  reports  of  violence  perpetrated  by 
the  troops  against  the  Jews.  I  order  that  proper  meas- 
ures be  taken  to  suppress  the  excesses.  Most  severe 
penalties  must  be  imposed  upon  the  guilty.  Signed: 
Denikin."  ("Svobodnaya  Rech,"  Rostov,  October  16, 
1919).  This  telegram  did  not,  however,  prevent  the 


120    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

educational  experiment,  which  was  intended  to  teach 
the  unhappy  Jewish  population  that  they  must  not  des- 
troy "a  state  that  they  did  not  create"  and  must  not 
"realize  the  principle  of  the  rule  of  the  people."  The 
pogrom  lasted  till  the  2Oth.  Systematically,  methodi- 
cally, step  by  step,  house  by  house,  street  by  street,  the 
Jewish  population  was  killed,  violated  and  extermi- 
nated. Of  counter  measures  there  was  not  a  trace. 
Reports  by  opposition  papers  of  the  participation  of  the 
troops  in  the  pogroms  were  not  allowed  by  the  censor. 
The  instigators  of  the  "Kievlianin"  and  the  "Vecher- 
niye  Ogni,"  who  incited  the  troops  to  violence  not 
merely  against  the  Jewish  population  in  general,  but 
also  against  the  inhabitants  of  definite  streets  and 
houses  and  against  definite  persons,  were  not  taken  to 
account  in  any  manner,  although  their  acts  were  in  vio- 
lation of  definite  articles  of  the  criminal  law.  Savenko 
continued  his  dirty  work  and  remained  in  his  position 
as  "Chief  of  Propaganda." 

The  telegram  of  Denikin  is  a  typical  example  of 
political  hypocrisy,  a  document  to  mislead  foreign 
opinion. 

To  summarize,  the  pogroms  instituted  by  the  volun- 
teer army  of  Denikin  took  people's  breath  away  by  their 
inevitable  necessity,  the  exactness  with  which  they  were 
carried  out  and,  as  is  correctly  said  in  the  "memorial," 
by  their  systematic  execution.  In  this  way  they  are 
differentiated  from  the  pogroms  which  were  charged 
to  the  Directory  of  Petlura. 

The  pogroms  instituted  directly  or  indirectly  by  the 
Directory  and  their  responsible  agents  did  not  arise 
on  the  ground  of  hatred  for  the  Jewish  masses  as  such, 
and  are  not  connected  by  the  representatives  of  the 
national  Ukrainian  movement  with  the  prejudice  that 


THE   DENIKIN    REGIME  121 

grew  on  the  ground  of  feudalism.  The  unconscious 
antipathy  against  the  Jews  as  such  and  the  instinctive 
anti-Semitism  were,  on  occasion  of  need  and  in  con- 
sequence of  political  and  in  part  military  circumstances, 
transformed  into  an  "actual  method."  The  occupation 
of  the  Ukraine  by  the  Bolsheviki  made  of  this  means 
an  almost  uninterruptedly  working  system.  The  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Bolsheviki  from  the  Ukraine  caused  the 
Directory  to  give  up  this  two-edged  weapon  and  to 
look  for  support  in  the  Jewish  socialistic  party  of  the 
right.  At  the  end  of  August  the  Rada  of  the  people's 
ministers  as  well  as  the  chief  Ataman  expressed  them- 
selves decidedly  against  pogroms  and  even  took  prac- 
tical measures  to  combat  them,  all  of  which  naturally 
did  not  exclude  the  possibility  of  a  renewed  use  of 
this  terrible  fighting  instrument  in  case  of  political 
necessity.  The  victorious  national-Ukrainian  move- 
ment did  not  take  refuge  in  pogroms. 

Quite  different  must  be  the  political  estimate  of 
the  pogroms  of  the  volunteer  army.  They  were  not 
merely  a  political  means  but  also  an  act  of  retribution, 
"for  the  dishonored  and  violated  Russia."  Not  only 
the  political  leaders,  but  almost  all  ordinary  officers 
of  the  volunteer  army  were  filled  with  hate  and  thirst 
for  revenge.  The  old  spirit  of  caste  in  the  officer  corps 
of  the  tsarist  period  was  strengthened  by  the  feeling  of 
revenge  called  forth  by  the  destruction  of  thousands 
of  persons  close  and  related  to  them  in  consequence  of 
the  Red  Terror,  which  they  ascribed  to  the  "Jewish 
Extraordinary  Commission."  The  same  thing  applies 
to  the  agitation  of  the  Black  Hundred  in  the  official 
"Osvaga"  as  well  as  to  journalists  like  Shulgin  and 
Savenko. 

With  the  increasing  power  of  the  volunteer  army 


122    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  pogroms  gained  in  extent.  Reaction  increased  as 
the  power  of  the  government  grew  firmer.  The  vic- 
torious regime  of  Denikin  advanced  over  the  dead 
bodies  of  the  Jews. 

The  most  terrible  thing  about  the  Denikin  pogroms 
was  the  apparent  durability  of  the  government.  The 
institution  of  the  Batko  was  felt  to  be  the  work  of 
robber  bands,  the  attitude  of  the  Directory  was  re- 
garded as  that  of  a  weak  and  temporary  government 
whose  residence  was  in  some  out-of-the-way  city  like 
Vinnitza  or  Kamenetz-Podolsk.  But  a  great  part  of 
Ukrainian  Jewry  believed  in  the  permanence  of  the 
restoration  government,  which  was  based  upon  inter- 
national recognition  and  actual  military  support  by  the 
Entente.  This  created  a  completely  hopeless  and  des- 
perate situation.  And  the  more  so  because  the  upper 
as  well  as  the  middle  classes  of  Jewry  had  cherishedj 
certain  illusions  with  regard  to  this  government  as  the 
means  of  restoring  legal  order,  which  would  put  an 
end  to  civil  war  and  make  it  possible  for  tortured 
Ukrainian  Jewry  to  lead  a  tolerable  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SELF-DEFENSE 

The   Attitude    of    the    Several    Groups    of 
the  Christian  Population  to   the  Pogroms. 

THE  watchword  "Self-defense"  played  a  great  role 
in  its  day;  in  the  tsarist  period  it  was  regarded  as 
revolutionary. 

The  pogroms  of  the  eighties  took  place  without 
meeting  resistance  by  the  Jews,  who  as  in  the  middle 
ages  looked  upon  it  as  an  unavoidable  punishment  of 
Heaven.  Young  and  old  hid  in  cellars  and  lofts  and 
did  not  venture  in  the  daylight  until  the  danger  was 
over.  So  also  in  the  Kishinev  pogrom  in  1903,  which 
was  enacted  by  the  dictator  Plehve  as  a  method  for 
intimidating  the  Jewish  socialist  youth.  It  was  after 
this  pogrom  that  the  Bund  for  the  first  time  gave 
out  the  watchword  "Self-defense."  Under  the  condi- 
tions of  the  time  it  proved  to  be  pretty  effective  and 
even  led  to  definite  positive  results. 

Up  to  the  year  1905  the  pogroms  were  organized 
according  to  a  definite  plan.  At  the  instance  of  the 
police  department,  the  governors  with  the  help  of  the 
heads  of  the  police  staged  the  "popular  indignation  and 
revolt  against  the  Jews"  by  means  of  a  crowd  con- 
sisting of  disguised  policemen,  domestic  servants, 
police  spies  and  well-paid  city  hoodlums.  By  reason 

123 


i24    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  the  comparative  weakness  of  the  opposition  and 
revolutionary  movement  at  that  time,  the  tsarist  gov- 
ernment took  pains  to  preserve  a  measure  of  decorum 
before  western  Europe,  and  the  police  as  well  as  the 
military  remained  neutral.  It  was  therefore  not  diffi- 
cult to  offer  resistance  to  the  cowardly  and  more  or 
less  drunken  crowd,  who  thought  themselves  quite 
secure.  At  the  first  shots  the  crowd  dispersed.  On  the 
purely  technical  side  the  pogroms  were  so  organized 
that  the  actors  were  divided  into  small  groups,  every 
group  taking  a  different  street.  By  organized  recon- 
naissance the  defenders  could  block  their  way.  A  few 
shots  in  the  air  sometimes  and  the  pogromists  would 
scatter.  So  it  was  during  the  pogrom  in  Gomel,  where 
the  Self-defense  organized  by  the  Bund  played  a  very 
important  role. 

Quite  different  is  the  character  of  the  pogroms  in 
the  years  1905  and  1906,  in  which  the  participation  of 
the  authorities  is  clearly  evident.  In  South  Russia  as 
well  as  in  other  places  the  pogromists  were  surrounded 
by  armed  policemen  and  sometimes  soldiers,  who  de- 
fended them  against  all  attacks  of  the  "Self-defense 
divisions."  The  latter  were  prevented  from  getting  to 
the  places  where  the  pogroms  were  going  on,  or  they 
were  shot  at  when  they  came  near.  The  former  type 
of  self-defense  (primitive  groups  armed  with  revol- 
vers, knives,  etc.)  were  no  longer  adequate  to  offer 
resistance.  It  was  now  necessary  to  organize  properly 
armed  divisions.  So  it  was  in  Riga  in  the  year  1905. 
The  pogrom,  in  which  the  police  and  the  army  partici- 
pated, was  stifled  in  its  very  beginning  by  armed  Let- 
tish divisions,  who  were  essentially  disciplined,  revolu- 
tionary war  divisions.  Where  such  divisions  did  not 
exist,  the  pogroms,  which  had  the  character  of  military 


SELF-DEFENSE  125 

punitive  expeditions  (Siedlce,  Bielostok),  passed  off 
safely  for  the  actors.  To  be  able  to  offer  resistance  it 
was  no  longer  sufficient  to  have  Self-defense  in  the 
technical  sense  of  the  word,  but  it  was  necessary  to 
have  an  organization  of  military  divisions,  a  thing 
which  was  impossible  except  in  localities  where  certain 
conditions  obtained,  in  which  such  things  as  open 
armed  insurrection  occurred  (in  the  Baltic  provinces). 

A  summons  to  Self-defense  necessarily  meant  under 
such  conditions  a  call  to  an  armed  uprising. 

From  the  foregoing  chapters  can  be  seen  the  char- 
acter of  the  pogroms  in  the  Ukraine  in  the  year  1919. 
Since  their  purpose  was  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish 
nation  according  to  a  concretely  worked  out  plan  and 
by  means  of  armed  regular  troops  or  insurrectionist 
bands  which  were  likewise  armed  to  the  teeth,  it  was 
necessary  in  order  to  fight  against  them  to  create  an 
army  similar  to  that  of  the  aggressors.  From  the  sad 
chronicle  of  events  during  the  pogroms  in  the  Ukraine 
it  can  be  seen  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  it 
was  only  after  a  temporary  defeat  of  the  aggressors 
that  the  pogrom  in  each  case  came  to  an  end.  Some- 
times, as  we  shall  see  later,  the  cessation  was  due  to 
the  assistance  of  the  Christian  elements  of  the  popula- 
tion. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  pogrom  wave  the  Jews  had 
recourse  to  the  old  method  of  protection,  namely  brib- 
ing the  commanders  of  the  various  divisions.  By 
paying  a  considerable  sum  to  the  authorities  it  was 
sometimes  possible  to  buy  one's  safety  (as  was  the  case 
in  Kremenchug).  Often,  however,  this  was  not  suc- 
cessful. The  money  was  taken  and  the  massacres 
went  on  nevertheless.  Nay  it  was  worse  in  such  cases, 
for  the  Jews  believed  they  were  safe  and  did  not  hide. 


126    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

So  it  was  in  Felshtin  (Government  of  Podolia). 
When  the  Jewish  community  heard  of  the  frightful 
massacres  in  Proskurov,  they  began  to  negotiate  with 
the  commander  of  the  militia  about  taking  measures 
for  protection,  gave  him  15,000  rubles  and  promised 
a  valuable  set  of  furniture  besides.  He  promised  that 
he  would  invite  the  security  police  of  the  village  Po- 
richie  to  support  his  soldier  militia.  And  in  fact  the 
security  police  actually  appeared  the  next  day.  But 
their  activity  consisted  in  not  allowing  any  Jews  to 
leave  the  place,  so  that  the  latter  fell  into  a  trap  and 
were  cut  down  in  considerable  numbers. 

In  a  number  of  cities  Self-help  was  organized.  The 
fate  of  this  organization  is  very  instructive. 

In  Kremenchug  the  union  of  Jewish  soldiers  organ- 
ized a  volunteer  security  police  numbering  about  1,000 
men.  During  the  first  pogrom  in  Yelisavetgrad  a 
portion  of  these,  about  200  men,  proceeded  thither  and 
brought  the  pogrom  to  an  end.  This  security  police 
consisted  mainly  of  Jews,  but  there  were  Christians  in 
it  also.  It  was  under  the  command  of  Grag. 

During  the  second  pogrom  in  Yelisavetgrad  the 
security  police  no  longer  played  any  role.  This  time 
the  resistance  came  from  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  which  controlled  a  sufficient  number  of  defend- 
ers. They  had  22  men  killed  (8  Jews  and  14  Chris- 
tians) and  about  30  men  wounded.  During  the  third, 
genuinely  military  and  most  frightful  pogrom,  which 
was  carried  out  by  the  bands  of  Grigoriev,  no  security 
police  could  do  anything. 

On  the  day  after  the  pogrom  the  union  of  metal 
workers  and  the  members  of  the  peasant  congress 
organized  the  class-conscious  workmen  into  a  division 
for  the  protection  of  the  city.  A  number  of  automo- 


SELF-DEFENSE  127 

biles  with  armed  workmen  passed  through  the  city. 
The  soldiers  and  sailors  thought  that  this  division  was 
organized  by  order  of  the  staff.  But  when  they  found 
out  the  next  day  that  no  such  order  had  been  given, 
they  began  to  kill  the  Jews.  The  Jews,  who  had  come 
out  of  their  hiding  places,  thinking  that  the  pogroms 
were  over,  could  not  hide  themselves  so  well  on  the 
third  day,  and  the  number  of  victims  on  this  day  was 
therefore  particularly  large.  The  infuriated  bandits 
murdered  whole  families  and  spared  neither  old  men 
nor  infants. 

On  representations  being  made  by  the  unions  of 
metal  workers  and  the  president  of  the  peasant  con- 
gress to  the  staff  of  the  troops  of  Grigoriev,  the  pog- 
roms were  checked. 

We  see  from  this  case  that  the  volunteer  organiza- 
tion of  the  security  police  was  not  able  to  offer  resis- 
tance to  the  troops.  The  same  thing  is  shown  in  the 
pogroms  of  Golovanevsk  and  Alexandria. 

Golovanevsk  is  situated  in  the  government  of  Po- 
dolsk on  the  boundary  of  the  circuit  Uman,  in  the 
government  of  Kiev.  This  place  had  gained  legendary 
fame  among  the  Jews  by  reason  of  its  well  organized 
Self-defense,  composed  of  several  hundred  young  Jews 
who  had  guns,  machine  guns  and  even  bombs.  The 
surrounding  peasants  had  respect  for  the  Self-defense 
of  Golovanevsk  and  did  not  dare  to  attack  the  place. 
The  Self-defense  succeeded  even  in  driving  away  a 
band  of  1,000  to  2,000  men.  But  even  this  "safe 
rampart,"  in  which  by  reason  of  its  safety  more  than 
2,000  fugitives  had  gathered  from  the  neighboring 
pogrom-visited  places,  was  powerless  when  the  strong 
band  of  Sokolovsky  appeared.  The  Self-defense  could 
not  offer  adequate  resistance,  and  in  the  course  of  a 


128    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

half  hour  about  200  Jews  lay  dead  in  the  streets.  The 
band  killed  all  who  came  in  their  way. 

The  same  fate  befell  the  "Workmen's  Fighting  De- 
fense" in  Alexandria,  at  the  time  of  the  second  attack 
of  Grigoriev  on  the  27th  of  June.  The  Defense  con- 
sisted of  600  men,  of  whom  300  were  trained  in  arms, 
while  the  other  300  were  just  learning  to  shoot.  They 
stationed  watches  every  day.  The  suddenly  appearing 
band  of  Grigoriev  met  a  division  of  only  40  men. 
These  resisted  them  in  a  four-hour  fight  and  lost  n 
men  killed.  The  remaining  members  of  the  Defense 
did  not  appear  at  this  moment  when  action  was  im- 
perative. But  they  would  not  really  have  made  any 
change  in  the  general  picture  of  the  pogroms.  After 
the  pogrom  the  members  of  the  Defense  fled,  fearing 
the  vengeance  of  Grigoriev' s  bands. 

Very  instructive  in  this  regard  is  the  history  of  the 
pogrom  which  was  instituted  by  the  troops  of  Petlura 
in  the  city  of  Rovno  on  the  2ist  of  May,  1919  (Com- 
munication of  A.  Cherkassky).  Petlura's  armored 
train  "Streletz"  came  into  the  city.  About  12  o'clock 
midnight  pillage  began  in  some  streets,  especially  in 
the  "Volya,"  the  Jewish  part  of  the  town.  The  soldiers 
who  came  in  the  armored  train  went  from  house  to 
house  and  took  money,  valuables,  clothing  and  other 
things.  .  .  .  Everywhere  one  heard  heartrending 
cries.  ....  A  group  of  young  Jews  who  were  in  a 
house  waited  for  daylight,  armed  themselves  and  re- 
solved to  offer  resistance  to  the  pillagers.  Being  ten  in 
number  they  ventured  to  enter  into  an  armed  fight  with 
the  bandits  in  the  "Volya,"  where  the  pillaging  was 
going  on.  In  one  hour  they  had  cleared  a  few  streets 
(Dubenskaya,  Alexandrovskaya,  Novakovskaya  and 
a  part  of  the  Minskaya)  of  the  bandits.  At  the  same 


SELF-DEFENSE  129 

time  they  caught  two  soldiers  and  shot  them.  The  suc- 
cess of  this  group  encouraged  the  male  inhabitants  of 
the  adjacent  part  of  the  town,  who  gradually  grew 
into  a  Self-defense.  They  divided  themselves  into 
groups  of  6  to  8  men  and  covered  the  whole  suburb 
Volya.  The  Self-defense  so  created  in  the  Volya 
forced  the  bandits  to  go  back  to  their  train.  In  a  half 
hour  stronger  divisions  of  plunderers  were  sent  from 
there  to  the  Volya,  who  took  up  the  fight  against  the 
Self-defense.  To  help  the  bandits  drive  away  the 
Self-defense,  they  shot  into  the  Volya  with  cannon 
from  the  armored  train.  It  is  clear  that  the  Self- 
defense  could  not  withstand  such  force  and  had  to 
withdraw,  which  they  did  in  good  order.  .  .  .  When 
the  bandits  had  driven  away  the  Self-defense,  the  pil- 
laging of  dwellings  and  shops  began  again.  A  few 
persons  who  had  nothing  that  could  be  plundered  were 
put  to  death. 

We  have  treated  the  Self-defense  in  Rovno  at  such 
length  because  we  find  there  both  the  stages  of  which 
we  spoke  above,  namely  the  stage  of  resistance  to 
groups  of  bandits  who  do  not  feel  quite  secure  and  are 
therefore  cowardly,  and  the  other  stage  of  the  military 
pogrom,  which  it  requires  an  organized  military  power 
to  oppose.  It  is  true  that  the  Self-defense  succeeded 
in  a  number  of  small  places,  situated  away  from  the 
pogrom  wave,  in  driving  away  the  small  local  bands 
(Bogopolie,  Golta,  Golovskov,  Krivoie  Ozero),  but 
this  does  not  change  the  general  position  of  Jewry, 
given  up  to  destruction. 

The  need  felt  for  protecting  themselves  was  very 
great.  The  masses  of  Ukrainian  Jewry  were  filled  with 
the  desire  to  defend  their  lives  with  arms,  or  at  least 
to  sell  them  dear,  and  to  avoid  disgraceful  death  in 


j  30    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

some  cellar  or  loft.  In  Zlatopol  for  example  (Govern- 
ment of  Kiev),  the  survivors  of  the  pogroms  were 
gathered  at  the  station,  as  they  feared  another  pogrom. 
They  were  defenseless  and  could  not  even  save  them- 
selves by  flight.  They  ran  hither  and  thither  but  there 
was  no  help  anywhere.  Their  leader,  Mr.  Rqmsen, 
sent  telegrams  in  all  directions,  Kiev,  Odessa,  Yelisa- 
vetgrad.  He  asked  for  a  division  of  defenders  or  at 
least  for  arms  for  self-defense,  but  there  was  no  answer 
from  anywhere.  According  to  his  communication,  old 
men,  women  and  children  cried  with  one  voice,  "We 
want  nothing.  We  are  hungry  and  barefoot,  but  in- 
stead of  bread  give  us  protection,  give  us  arms !"  They 
asked  for  arms  in  the  name  of  those  250  volunteers 
who  entered  the  Red  Army;  they  said,  "Give  their 
fathers  and  mothers  the  possibility  of  arming  them- 
selves, so  as  to  die  honorably  at  least."  This  was 
their  only  wish.  If  they  must  die,  let  it  be  at  least 
with  arms  in  their  hands  and  not  in  a  cellar.  Yet  arms, 
too,  would  scarcely  help  the  unfortunates.  But  they 
were  not  to  be  had ;  there  was  not  enough  even  for  the 
army  which  protected  the  population  against  the  at- 
tacks of  the  bands. 

Equally  unsuccessful  were  the  attempts  to  organize 
purely  Jewish  military  divisions.  In  Skvira,  after  the 
first  pogrom,  when  the  same  band  appeared  again,  the 
"Ispolkom"  (executive  committee  of  the  Soviet) 
quickly  organized  a  Jewish  military  division  of  900 
men.  There  were  also  a  number  of  workmen  among 
them  and  members  of  the  Red  Army.  Thirty  men 
fell  in  battle,  and  they  had  to  withdraw  together  with 
the  Soviet  division.  Thereupon  the  insurrectionists 
took  possession  of  the  town. 

This  came  out  very 'clearly  in  the  pogrom  in  Cher- 


SELF-DEFENSE  131 

kassy.  This  case  being  extraordinarily  important,  we 
shall  deal  a  little  more  at  length  with  the  statements  of 
a  member  of  the  left  flank  (the  Jewish).  On  the 
1 5th  of  May  at  daybreak  the  Soviet  troops  left  the  city. 
In  consequence  of  the  unsafe  situation  at  the  front,  the 
staff  ordered  the  organization  not  only  of  the  com- 
munists but  also  of  the  trade  unions.  The  Christian 
workmen  withdrew  from  the  meeting.  The  labor  divi- 
sion going  to  the  front  consisted  mainly  of  Jews.  The 
sending  of  such  a  division  excited  new  talk  among  the 
population  incited  by  the  reactionary  officers  and 
pogromists.  This  division  occupied  the  extreme  left 
flank.  Their  equipment  was  for  technical  reasons  in- 
sufficient. The  arms  brought  to  the  city  could  not,  by 
reason  of  certain  conditions,  be  kept  at  the  front.  Dur- 
ing the  clash  the  soldiers  of  Grigoriev  purposely  al- 
lowed themselves  to  be  captured  and  then  developed  an 
anti-Semitic  agitation.  They  had  a  very  definite  theme : 
"Brothers  are  fighting  against  one  another.  There  is 
no  difference  in  our  aims.  It  is  the  'Jews  and  the  Com- 
munists' who  circulate  reports  that  Makhno  is  coming 
with  a  great  army.  .  .  ."  "This  agitation,"  the  wit- 
ness says,  "was  successful  even  among  the  members  of 
the  Red  Army,  despite  the  protests  of  the  intelligent 
persons  and  of  the  whole  party  and  labor  division." 

The  two  partisan  armies,  the  army  of  the  Soviet  and 
of  Grigoriev,  find  a  common  speech  and  common  feel- 
ings and  sentiments  (anti-Semitic).  Between  these 
two  the  purely  Jewish  division  forms  a  wedge,  as  it 
were,  which  by  its  protest  apparently  represents  the 
third  party,  which  prevents  the  "brothers"  from  unit- 
ing. The  union  came  to  pass.  During  its  retirement  to 
the  bridge,  the  Jewish  division  was  pressed  back  to  the 
premises  of  a  sugar  factory  inhabited  by  a  poor  class 


i32    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  laborers  engaged  in  the  factory.  They  already  knew 
that  the  Soviet  troops  had  suffered  a  defeat,  for  Grigo- 
riev's  troops  were  already  in  the  city  (in  consequence 
of  poor  information  service,  the  Jewish  division  knew 
nothing  of  it  as  yet  and  withdrew  too  late).  The 
majority  of  the  local  workmen  armed  themselves  and 
opposed  the  retiring  division.  They  shot  at  the  men 
who  were  retiring  to  the  bridge  over  the  Dnieper. 
"Great  numbers  of  men  attacked  them  as  they  retired 
from  their  positions  and  killed  them  on  the  spot  with 
stones,  pulling  them  down  from  their  horses.  Young 
people  and  women,  also,  took  part.  They  fired  on  them 
from  the  gates  and  from  behind  house  corners  as  they 
withdrew  to  the  Dnieper.  They  killed  every  one  who 
looked  like  a  Jew  even  if  he  did  not  belong  to  the  Red 
Army.  The  Jews  who  were  captured  in  their  positions 
were  at  once  torn  to  pieces.  One  division  under  the 
leadership  of  an  officer  met  a  body  of  prisoners.  He 
had  the  Jews  separated  from  the  Christians  and  shot 
the  former  on  the  spot.  .  .  .  Their  bodies  were 
mutilated  as  were  those  of  the  men  killed  at  the  sugar 
factory." 

The  statements  of  this  participant  are  fully  confirmed 
by  the  account  of  the  former  president  of  the  city 
Duma,  V.  Petrov.  The  latter  said,  "I  know  that  the 
executive  committee  of  the  Soviet  proposed  to  the 
trade  unions  to  organize  city  guards,  that  a  commit- 
tee was  appointed,  but  received  no  arms  or  cartridges 
from  the  executive  committee,  since  there  were  not 
enough  even  for  the  troops.  Some  of  the  members  of 
the  unions,  mainly  mechanics  (needle  makers,  shoe- 
makers and  others),  went  with  the  troops  to  the  front, 
where  they  fought  on  the  left  flank  near  the  sugar 
factory.  When  they  retired  on  this  flank  the  workmen 


SELF-DEFENSE  133 

were  killed  almost  to  a  man  by  the  local  population." 
From  the  tragedy  of  Cherkassy  we  may  draw  the 
conclusion  that  the  idea  of  a  Jewish  legion  advocated 
by  some  nationalistic  groups  of  Ukrainian  and  other 
Jews  is  a  political  idea  thoughtless  and  naive;  practi-/ 
cally,  however,  and  in  its  realization  it  represents  an 
enormous  provocation  which  might  lead  to  the  complete 
annihilation  of  the  whole  of  Jewry,  for  the  Ukrainian 
peasants  saw  in  this  legion  a  union  of  Jews  to  destroy 
Christianity.  The  anti-Semitic  front  would  have  been 
very  much  strengthened  by  such  a  legion. 

The  reader  must  not  suppose  that  the  whole  Ukraine 
was  divided  into  two  camps,  a  Jewish  and  a  Christian, 
and  that  Ukrainian  Jewry  was  opposed  by  a  closed 
anti-Semitic  front.  If  this  had  been  the  situation 
there  would  be  no  trace  of  Jews  left  in  the  Ukraine. 
In  reality  the  feeling  of  the  peasants  toward  the  Jews 
was  subject  to  variation.  The  transition  from  an 
anti-Semitic  attitude  to  active  participation  in  anti- 
Semitic  pogroms  was  for  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
peasantry  neither  simple  nor  easy.  Many  years  of 
living  together  in  peace  had  struck  deep  roots,  which 
could  not  so  easily  be  pulled  out  even  by  the  hurricane 
of  civil  war.  The  vacillating  attitude  of  the  peasantry 
is  also  shown  in  the  fact  above  mentioned  that 
Makhno's  division  once  themselves  made  pogroms  and 
then  approved  of  the  murder  of  Grigoriev  by  their 
Batko  because  "Grigoriev  was  a  counter-revolutionist 
and  organized  Jewish  pogroms."  They  discuss  the 
question,  and  sometimes  at  length,  whether  they  should 
begin  a  pogrom  or  whether  they  should  continue  a 
pogrom  that  had  already  begun.  .  .  .  When  the 
bands  of  Makhno  took  Yekaterinoslav  the  first  time 
(in  November,  1918),  they  called  a  meeting  at  the 


134    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

staff  headquarters,  of  the  responsible  leaders  of  the 
several  partisan  divisions,  where  the  question  was  dis- 
cussed almost  a  whole  day,  whether  they  should  make 
a  Jewish  pogrom  or  not.  There  was  much  weighing 
of  arguments  pro  and  con. 

It  is  clear  therefore  that  every  circumstance  which 
makes  Jews  appear  in  the  specific  role  of  an  active, 
closed  and  organized  body  aggravates  their  position  and 
makes  the  masses  of  the  Jews  who  are  not  scattered 
among  the  Ukrainian  peasantry,  even  more  defenseless 
than  before.  The  peasants  often  distinguish  between 
"their"  Jews,  whom  they  have  known  a  long  time  as 
honest  people,  artisans  and  traders,  and  the  "strange" 
Jews  who,  in  the  inciting  words  of  the  provocators, 
introduce  the  terrible  commune. 

This  can  be  clearly  seen  in  the  country  town  of 
Ushomir,  in  the  district  of  Korosten.  The  peasants  of 
the  surrounding  villages  came  there  all  armed.  There 
was  such  a  crowd  of  peasants  that  they  filled  town  and 
village.  They  came  from  all  sides.  .  .  .  The  peasants 
went  from  street  to  street.  The  Jews  in  their  anxiety 
concealed  themselves,  but  the  peasants  quieted  them, 
saying  that  they  had  nothing  against  them,  that  they 
had  in  mind  the  town  of  Iskorost  where  the  "com- 
mune" had  made  its  nest,  and  that  they  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  get  even  with  those  (the  Jews  of  Isko- 
rost). But  they  called  upon  the  Jews  of  Ushomir  to 
join  them,  registered  them  and  gave  them  certain 
"certificates"  with  seals  at  ten  rubles  apiece.  They 
had  in  this  way,  so  to  speak,  attached  the  Jews  of 
Ushomir  to  their  movement.  The  old  peasants  said  to 
the  Jews  that  they  were  forced  to  do  this.  The  peas- 
ants not  merely  did  not  lay  their  hands  on  any  one, 
they  took  nothing  away  from  the  Jews  and  paid  for 


SELF-DEFENSE  135 

everything  they  took.  The  peasants  also  actively  de- 
fended "their"  Jews  against  the  bandits. 

There  appeared  in  the  town  the  vanguard  of  Soko- 
lovsky's  band,  five  armed  riders,  who  went  to  the 
market  place  and  began  to  beat  the  Jews  whom  they 
met.  These  riders  attracted  attention  at  once  by  their 
brutal  appearance.  .  .  .  Hearing  of  the  disorder  on 
the  market  place,  the  local  peasants  appeared,  pro- 
tected the  Jews  and  asked  the  Sokolovsky  band  why 
they  had  come.  The  riders  replied  that  they  wanted 
to  get  even  with  the  Jews.  The  peasants  then  said 
to  the  riders  that  they  should  not  dare  lay  their 
hands  on  a  single  Jew,  for  the  Jews  of  Ushomir  stood 
together  with  the  peasants  and  that  if  a  single  Jew 
was  harmed  the  riders  would  be  called  to  account.  The 
latter  withdrew  with  the  excuse  that  they  "did  not 
come  to  kill  the  Jews,  but  to  take  out  the  bombs  which 
Petlura's  men  had  thrown  into  the  river."  Soon  the 
riders  disappeared.  This  case  is  not  the  only  one  of  its 
kind. 

In  other  places  the  local  population  took  part  in  the 
pogroms,  especially  in  the  cities,  where  the  reactionary 
element  of  the  poorer  classes  and  the  officials  in  the 
south  always  were  distinguished  by  their  anti-Semi- 
tism. In  Cherkassy,  Uman,  Zlatopol  and  other  places, 
the  local  population  played  the  chief  role,  especially  in 
Cherkassy,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Jewish  fighters 
on  the  left  flank  were  torn  to  pieces  by  the  local  popula- 
tion of  the  factory  precincts.  In  Uman  we  have  the 
same  phenomenon.  On  the  third  day  of  the  massacres 
a  procession  took  place  with  church  banners,  at  the 
head  of  which  marched  the  orthodox  clergy,  and  the 
devotees  passed  the  fresh  bodies  of  the  Jews  shot  or 
stabbed  to  death.  But  even  in  Uman  there  was  a  part 


136    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

J  .••;! 
of  the  Christian  population  that  was  opposed  to  the 

pogroms.  During  the  pogrom  an  assembly  of  the 
peasants  was  called  by  the  insurrectionists.  Here  many 
Ukrainians  spoke  against  the  pogrom  and  in  favor  of 
the  Jews.  A  Jewish  delegation  was  received  by  the 
assembly  who  heard  what  they  had  to  say.  Under  the 
impression  of  these  speeches  the  assembly  repudiated 
the  pogrom  and  condemned  the  poorer  classes,  the 
clergy  and  the  officials — the  elements  which,  as  the 
speakers  showed,  were  alone  responsible  for  the  pog- 
roms. The  peasants  as  a  class,  the  speakers  thought, 
took  no  part  in  the  pogroms  and  massacres,  and  only  in 
isolated  cases  did  they  allow  themselves  to  be  misled 
by  the  provocatory  agitation  of  the  Black  Hundred. 
Even  if  the  speakers  exaggerated  the  role  of  the  in- 
surrectionists, it  is  clear  in  any  case  that  the  peasants 
as  a  class  were  opposed  to  the  pogrom  in  Uman. 

In  the  country  town  of  Dubovo  (Government  of 
Kiev)  at  a  meeting  held  at  the  residence  of  the  captain 
of  the  insurrectionists,  many  peasants  said  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Jewish  delegation  that  they  had  nothing 
against  the  Jews. 

In  Cherkassy,  a  group  of  local  public  men,  mainly 
members  of  the  city  Duma,  tried  at  the  beginning  of 
the  pogrom  (May  17)  to  send  a  delegation  to  the  staff 
of  the  Grigoriev  troops  at  the  station  with  the  pur- 
pose of  asking  the  staff  to  withdraw  the  soldiers  from 
the  city  and  prevent  murder  and  robbery,  but  they 
could  not  do  it  on  account  of  the  bombardments  which 
had  begun.  On  the  8th  (i8th?)  of  May  they  came  to 
the  staff  in  a  first-aid  wagon  but  accomplished  nothing 
(one  of  the  officers  of  Grigoriev  said  to  the  delegation 
that  the  Christian  population  need  not  be  disturbed,  for 
only  the  Jews  were  robbed  and  murdered).  On  the 


SELF-DEFENSE  137 

same  day  a  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  took  place  in 
the  city  Duma  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  see 
that  the  staff  issued  an  order  forbidding  arbitrary 
searching  of  houses,  plundering  and  shooting,  and 
ordering  a  control  of  the  soldiers  loafing  about  in  the 
city.  The  committee  which  was  elected  at  the  follow- 
ing general  assemblies  succeeded  in  two  very  serious 
cases,  in  which  many  Jews  were  threatened  with  death, 
in  saving  the  situation  and  proving  to  the  staff  the 
innocence  of  the  Jews.  Besides  the  delegation  of  the 
population  a  delegation  of  railway  officials  also  came 
to  Grigoriev's  staff,  protesting  against  the  murders  and 
the  shootings. 

In  Kremenchug,  during  the  pogrom  of  May  12-14, 
which  was  instituted  by  the  bands  of  Grigoriev,  a  com- 
mittee of  public  safety  was  quickly  called  together. 
They  organized  a  defense  consisting  of  Russian  work- 
men, who  succeeded  in  checking  the  excesses. 

In  Yelisavetgrad  it  was  shown,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
the  Christian  defending  force  organized  by  the  peas- 
ant congress  and  the  unions  of  metal  workers  was  not 
able  adequately  to  check  the  pogrom.  Soldiers,  sailors 
and  the  city  mob  intensified  their  pogrom  activity  when 
they  saw  that  the  defense  was  a  volunteer  force  and 
was  not  established  by  order  of  the  government.  The 
union  of  metal  workers  and  the  peasant  congress  then 
urgently  implored  Pavlov,  the  commander  of  the  front, 
to  put  an  end  to  the  horrors,  and  this  time  they  suc- 
ceeded.* In  the  evening  an  announcement  was  posted, 
dated  the  7th  of  May,  which  began  with  the  following 
words:  "I  have  heard  the  voice  of  the  representatives 
of  the  workmen  and  the  peasants,  and  have  decided  to 

*  Twice  they  appealed  to  the  government  in  vain.  It  would 
not  listen  to  them. 


138    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

put  an  end  at  once  to  the  destruction  of  the  economic 
life."  The  frightful  pogrom  then  ceased.  During 
the  pogroms  a  few  representatives  of  the  Christian 
intellectuals  attempted  to  give  protection. 

In  Novo-Mirgorod  the  local  clergy  had  a  procession 
which  marched  to  the  pogromists  while  they  were  mak- 
ing their  gruesome  preparations  for  the  pogrom  (they 
were  digging  graves  for  the  future  victims,  who  hid 
themselves  and  awaited  in  despair  their  inevitable 
death)  and  tried  to  intercede  with  them,  but  in  vain. 
The  bandits  would  not  listen  to  their  admonition.  To 
diminish  the  number  of  Jewish  victims  the  executive 
committee  of  the  "Volost"  had  a  great  number  of  the 
Jews  arrested  together  with  their  families  (about  1,300 
persons)  and  kept  them  in  custody  89  days.  This 
saved  them  from  death.  In  Matusovo  (Government  of 
Kiev)  the  pogrom  due  to  the  reactionary  agitation  of 
the  local  intellectuals  began  with  the  watchword,  "How 
long  will  you  Jews  continue  to  rule  us?"  In  the  com- 
munal assembly  the  question  of  continuing  the  pogrom 
was  discussed.  Two  teachers  spoke  energetically  in 
favor  of  protecting  the  Jews,  pointing  out  that  the 
power  of  the  Jews  had  already  been  removed  for  the 
time  being  and  that  the  survivors  were  poor  unfortu- 
nate creatures.  At  first  they  were  not  allowed  to  speak. 
Even  their  colleagues  turned  against  them  and  threat- 
ened to  get  even  with  them.  But  tne  peasants  who  had 
become  sobered  heard  them  and  the  pogroms  were 
stopped.  The  active  interference  for  defense  by  the 
Christian  population  caused  the  cessation  of  the  po- 
groms even  in  those  cases  in  which  the  massacres  were 
organized  by  disciplined  military  forces  who  could  be 
depended  upon  by  the  military  authorities.  This  was 
the  situation  in  Proskurov.  The  request  of  a  group  of 


SELF-DEFENSE  139 

city  deputies  that  the  commandant  put  a  stop  to  the  po- 
grom had  no  effect.  A  session  was  called  of  the  city 
Duma  (a  Jewish  deputy  was  the  only  one  who  suc- 
ceeded in  having  this  done).  The  chief  culprits, 
Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk,  participated  in  the  meeting. 
Semosenko  maintained  that  the  Jews  alone  were  re- 
sponsible for  what  was  going  on;  that  being  mostly 
Bolsheviki,  their  purpose  was  to  kill  off  the  Gaidamaks 
and  the  other  Cossacks.  He  said  that  he  would  con- 
tinue to  act  in  the  future  as  he  had  done  in  the  past, 
as  he  considered  it  his  sacred  duty.  Kiverchuk  spoke 
to  the  same  effect.  The  city  deputy  Verkhola  replied 
to  them.  He  addressed  the  Duma  in  a  long  speech  in 
which  he  brought  out  that  the  things  that  happened  in 
Proskurov  were  a  disgrace  to  the  Ukraine.  He  spoke 
of  the  meritorious  deeds  of  the  Cossacks  in  the  past  and 
pointed  out  that  in  the  present  case  Semosenko  had  put 
robbers  in  Cossack  clothes  and  made  himself  their  cap- 
tain. Turning  to  Semosenko,  he  said,  "You  are  fight- 
ing against  the  Bolshevists,  but  were  the  old  men  and 
children  whom  your  Gaidamaks  massacred,  Bolshe- 
vists? You  insist  that  only  Jews  are  Bolshevists. 
Do  you  not  know  that  there  are  Bolshevists  among 
the  other  peoples  too,  even  among  the  Ukrainians?" 
After  the  session  of  the  city  Duma  there  were  no  repe- 
titions of  massacres  on  a  large  scale.  Semosenko  gave 
an  order  to  that  effect,  although  according  to  the  origi- 
nal plan  the  massacres  were  to  last  three  more  days. 
Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  Verkhola,  who  actually  saved 
the  Jews  of  Proskurov  from  complete  destruction, 
Semosenko  was  recalled  from  Proskurov.* 

*  Concerning  the  personality  of  Verkhola,  who  played  so  im- 
portant a  role  in  defending  the  Jews  of  Proskurov,  see  Appendix, 
p.  214. 


I4o    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  Jews  therefore  were  not  alone  in  their  fight  for 
life  in  the  midst  of  a  raging  sea.  Many  of  the  Chris- 
tian population  were  on  their  side.  Not  only  in  the 
first  period  of  the  pogroms,  during  the  military  pog- 
roms of  Petlura  and  the  so-called  "Batkovschina,"  but 
also  in  the  pogroms  of  Denikin,  the  best  Christian  ele- 
ments among  the  intellectuals  as  well  as  among  the 
workmen  took  the  part  of  the  Jews,  often  risking  their 
own  lives  in  doing  so.  Hence  that  fearful  hate  in  the 
above  mentioned  articles  of  Shulgin  against  the 
League  to  Combat  Anti-Semitism,  which  was  active 
in  the  Ukraine  and  gathered  to  itself  the  best  Russian- 
Ukrainian  intellectuals.  There  we  saw  clergy,  pro- 
fessors, teachers  and  representatives  of  the  liberal  pro- 
fessions and  of  the  working  people. 

The  assistance  of  the  Christian  population  often  led, 
as  we  have  seen,  to  a  pogrom  being  checked ;  in  many 
cases,  too,  it  had  no  effect  at  all;  still  it  had  an  enor- 
mous moral  'significance  for  the  Jews,  who  felt  that 
they  were  not  altogether  alone  and  abandoned  in  their 
mortal  terror  before  the  approaching  pogrom  wave. 


CHAPTER  VII 
POGROM    PICTURES— A    FEW    EPISODES 

THE  insane  tragedy  which  we  are  considering  from 
the  historical  and  political  standpoint  in  order  to  lay 
bare  its  roots  and  place  the  guilt,  is  so  horrible  that 
human  speech  is  too  poor  in  words  to  describe  the 
infinite  despair  and  hopelessness  and  the  various  phases 
of  human  misery  which  the  Jews  in  the  Ukraine  have 
suffered.  One  single  episode,  the  massacre  in  Novo- 
Mirgorod,  is  a  symbol  of  the  entire  tragedy,  a  living  ex- 
pression of  the  frightful  events. 

The  bandits  entered  the  town,  armed  and  equipped 
for  robbery,  murder  and  rape.  The  Jews  of  the  place 
in  mortal  anxiety  had  concealed  themselves  with  their 
wives  and  children  in  the  lofts  and  the  cellars  of  the 
houses,  in  dumb  despair  and  helplessness,  and  very 
likely  also  doubting  the  goodness  of  the  All-high  who 
allows  such  frightfulness  to  happen.  The  bandits  made 
their  preparations.  A  grave  was  dug  in  the  Jewish 
cemetery.  Lime  was  secured  for  those  who,  dreaming 
of  life  and  love,  expected  a  miracle.  But  no  miracle 
happened.  The  murderers  went  from  house  to  house, 
raping,  beating  and  killing.  They  were  followed  by 
vehicles,  on  which  were  placed  those  who  had  not  yet 
succumbed  to  their  wounds.  When  loaded  full,  the 
vehicles  were  taken  to  the  cemetery,  where  the  living 
and  the  dead  were  thrown  in  without  delay.  The 

141 


142    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

graves  were  covered  with  lime  so  that  when  they  were 
opened  many  bodies  were  no  longer  recognizable. 

The  episode  in  Novo-Mirgorod  contains  the  trag- 
edy of  all  Ukrainian  Jewry,  who  live  scattered  thinly 
in  many  towns  and  villages  of  beautiful  Ukraine. 
Novo-Mirgorod  is  a  symbol.  Everywhere  the  Jews 
felt  the  sword  of  Damocles  of  armed  bands/freebooters, 
regular  troops,  Batki,  and  so  on,  and  they  saw  the 
inevitableness  of  their  fate  and  the  certainty  of  their 
destruction.  In  despair  the  Jews  looked  for  a  way 
out.  But  there  was  none.  Wherever  they  went 
they  were  overtaken  by  their  fate  and  met  a  horrible 
death.  In  Cherkassy  the  city  was  fired  on  from  with- 
out, while  inside  a  band  of  murderers  and  plunderers 
went  from  house  to  house  and  killed  all  Jews.  "The 
city  was  under  fire  continually.  The  shells  exploded 
over  the  houses  and  only  during  the  night  the  cannon- 
ading stopped  for  a  few  hours.  The  Jews,  seeking 
safety  from  the  shells  and  the  bandits,  fled  from  loft 
to  cellar  and  from  cellar  to  loft.  Even  now  when  I 
close  my  eyes  I  see  these  people,  men,  women,  children, 
insane  with  terror,  like  a  frightened  herd  of  sheep, 
running  now  here,  now  there,  not  knowing  where  they 
should  go  or  where  it  would  be  better  for  them.  Just 
now  they  have  gone  up  to  the  loft  and  think  they  are 
safe  there.  The  cannonading  begins.  It  is  so  horrible 
there:  they  can  hear  the  whizzing  of  the  shells  dis- 
tinctly. So  they  flee  to  the  sticky,  dark  and  damp  cel- 
lars. There  it  is  really  gruesome.  The  crying  and 
weeping  of  the  children  confuses  their  understanding. 
The  shooting  stops.  All  stream  out  of  the  cellars  into 
the  yard  and  from  there  again  to  the  loft.  And  so  it 
goes  during  the  five  long,  long  days  and  nights.  .  .  . 
and  then  .  .  .  then  you  see  dead  bodies  lying  every- 


POGROM  PICTURES  143 

^  where  in  the  streets,  horribly  disfigured  bodies,  lakes 
of  blood.  .  .  .     And  then  you  see  again  the  mass 

graves  opened,  and  the  people  trying  to  identify  their 
friends  and  relatives  by  their  buttons,  by  their  mono- 
grams, for  the  bodies  are  unrecognizable. ..  .  .  .     You 

see  the  burial  of  the  dead.  .  .  .     You  hear  sobbing, 

the  long  uninterrupted  sobbing  of  an  entire  city."  * 

In  Rotmistrovka  the  entire  Jewish  population  was 
driven  into  the  synagogue,  where  1,200  persons,  men, 
women  and  children,  huddled  together  in  a  heap,  spent, 
without  food  and  drink,  endless  hours  of  anxiety  in 
fear  of  their  lives.  The  bandits  had  a  bomb  ready  to 
blow  up  the  house  of  prayer.  Only  by  a  miracle  did 
they  at  the  last  moment  succeed  in  averting  the  disaster 
and  buying  their  freedom.! 

The  pogrom  held  full  sway  in  Uman.  (Whole 
families  were  put  to  death,  horribly  tortured  and 
slaughtered.  Women  were  violated.  All  this  was 
going  on  often  in  one  half  of  the  house,  while  in  the 
other  half  inhabited  by  Christians,  the  inmates  re- 
mained quiet  and  undisturbed,  having  pasted  crosses 
on  the  walls  and  placed  crucifixes  in  the  windows. 

The  pogrom  finally  came  to  an  end,  and  by  order  of 
the  Ataman  Klimenko,  the  leader  of  the  insurrection- 
ists, the  freebooters  drove  the  Jews  together  and  told 
them  to  gather  the  bodies  of  the  murdered  in  the  houses 
and  streets  and  load  them  on  the  wagons.  They  were 
taken  to  the  Jewish  cemetery  and  buried  in  three 
gigantic  graves.  The  Jews  were  not  allowed  to  dig 
individual  graves,  all  had  to  be  quickly  thrown  into 
the  mass  graves.  While  the  Jews,  thus  collected, 

*See  Appendix,  pp.  248  ff. 

f  See  testimony  of  the  authorized  investigator,  I.  G.  Tzifrino- 
vich,  in  Appendix,  pp.  300  ff. 


144    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

fathers,  mothers,  wives,  brothers,  sisters  and  children, 
were  making  the  graves  and  weeping,  they  were  in- 
sulted, scoffed  at  and  mocked  in  every  way  by  the  in- 
surrectionists. Under  threat  of  violence  the  women 
were  forbidden  to  weep.  A  company  of  insurrection- 
ists passing  the  cemetery  began  to  sing  jovial  songs 
as  they  saw  the  Jews  burying  their  dead.* 

At  every  step  one  met  the  greatest  moral  corruption, 
the  most  refined  torture,  the  evidence  of  sadistic  incli- 
nations. The  murderers  were  lost  to  all  human  feel- 
ing. Bloodthirsty  animals  were  at  work.  This  atmos- 
phere of  corruption  took  hold  of  the  young  people  and 
children  also.  The  district  agent  of  the  relief  com- 
mittee makes  the  following  report : 

On  the  pth  of  June  a  peasant  brought  to  the  Jewish 
hospital  the  two  last  Jews  of  Ladyzhenka  (before  the 
pogrom  there  were  1,600  Jews  in  that  town).  They 
were  two  young  girls,  frightfully  mutilated,  one  with 
her  nose  broken  off,  the  other  with  broken  hands. 
They  are  now  in  Kiev,  suffering  not  only  from  exter- 
nal injuries  but  also  from  venereal  diseases  contracted 
from  their  violaters. 

In  Rotmistrovka  a  father  and  a  son  were  shot  in  a 
house.  The  father  was  hanged  later,  and  all  this  took 
place  before  the  eyes  of  the  mother  and  wife.  The 
mother  begged  to  be  killed  also.  But  the  bandits  re- 
fused, and  as  she  kept  on  screaming  aloud  they  drove 
her  out  of  the  house.  In  the  same  place  when  the 
bandits  had  taken  everything  out  of  a  certain  house, 
they  put  the  whole  family  of  four  persons  against  the 
wall  (the  father,  65  years  old,  the  mother  of  the  same 
age,  the  son,  30,  and  the  daughter  28).  They  began 

*  See  Appendix,  pp.  310  ff. 


POGROM  PICTURES  145 

with  the  daughter  so  as  to  take  revenge  on  the  par- 
ents. All  were  killed  except  the  son,  who  as  if  by  a 
miracle  remained  alive. 

In  Slovechno  the  fiends  stuck  a  four  year  old  child 
on  a  bayonet  and  killed  it.  In  Rotmistrovka  a  woman 
(the  wife  of  the  local  Rabbi)  fled  with  her  children 
from  the  city.  On  the  way  she  injured  her  foot.  Her 
fourteen  year  old  son,  seeing  his  mother  bleeding,  asked 
some  peasants  to  help  her.  One  of  them  consented  to 
take  them  to  the  neighboring  village.  He  then  took  a 
pick  and  killed  the  mother.  The  two  children  of  four- 
teen and  five  years  respectively  he  wounded  with  the 
same  pick.  In  the  same  town  there  was  an  old  woman, 
a  grandmother,  her  daughter  and  five  grandchildren 
(the  oldest  child  was  seven  years,  the  youngest  six 
months  old),  who  were  looking  for  a  place  to  hide. 
On  the  way  they  were  all  put  to  death.  The  children 
of  three  and  one-and-a-half  years  had  their  heads  split. 
The  youngest  of  six  months  was  left  to  itself  and  died 
of  hunger  the  next  day.* 

In  Uman  five  Jews  were  killed  in  the  fields.  One  of 
these,  an  old  man  with  a  white  beard,  was  not  killed 
at  once,  but  met  his  death  in  a  long  agony  and  great 
torture.  This  attracted  the  attention  of  Christian 
children,  who  gathered  around  him  and  threw  stones 
at  him,  thus  hastening  his  death.  Not  far  from  there 
the  bandits  murdered  a  Jew,  who  fell  down  dead.  He 
was  then  lifted  up,  tied  to  a  tree  and  made  a  target  at 
which  the  fiends  kept  shooting  a  long  time. 

At  the  same  time  a  mother,  crazed  with  despair, 
killed  her  own  child.  In  Rotmistrovka  a  mother  fled 
with  her  children  to  the  woods,  thinking  that  there  she 

*  See  Appendix.  pi>,  300  ff. 


146    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

had  found  a  hiding  place.  When  she  heard  shooting 
she  was  seized  by  the  fear  that  the  cries  of  her  eleven- 
months  child  might  betray  her  and  choked  it  with  her 
own  hands. 

There  were  at  the  same  time  also  examples  of  most 
noble  humanity,  cases  of  self-sacrifice,  of  covering 
one's  neigbhor  with  one's  own  breast.  Cases  are  known 
in  which  persons  were  glad  to  accompany  others  out  of 
this  tearful  valley  of  life  and  sorrow.  It  happened  sev- 
eral times  in  Cherkassy  that  Christian  servant  girls  put 
themselves  in  front  of  their  masters  to  protect  them. 
One  of  these  was  actually  killed  together  with  her  mis- 
tress. 

In  Uman  a  woman  tried  to  protect  her  husband  and 
her  father  with  her  own  body,  and  received  a  bullet  in 
the  breast.  The  woman  was  in  an  advanced  stage  of 
pregnancy  and  on  the  following  day  gave  birth  to  a 
boy,  so  that  there  were  three  dead  bodies  lying  on  the 
floor  of  the  house,  among  them  that  of  the  husband 
and  the  father.  In  the  same  place  a  young  pregnant 
woman  tried  to  protect  her  husband  and  was  killed  by 
a  bullet.  The  heroic  death  of  the  beautiful  young 
woman  affected  even  the  murderer.  In  many  houses 
which  he  visited  later  he  said  regretfully,  "Ah,  we 
killed  a  Jewess  in  the  Kahan  house ;  how  she  looked  at 
me  before  she  died — I  shall  never,  never  forget  the 
eyes  of  that  Jewess."  * 

In  Trostianetz  two  young  girls  (the  daughters  of 
Beerman)  hung  on  their  father's  neck  and  begged  to 
be  killed  together  with  him.  Father  and  daughters 
were  tortured  and  killed  in  the  most  brutal  manner. 
The  same  fate  befell  the  two  daughters  of  Mogilev, 

*See  Appendix,  pp.  314-315. 


POGROM  PICTURES  147 

who  did  not  want  to  survive  their  father  (testimony  of 
Sandier).*  All  descriptions  of  cruelty  in  the  world's) 
literature  pale  into  insignificance  before  the  horrors  of 
the  Jewish  tragedy.  This  tragedy  knows  no  shades, 
no  high  lights.  All  is  equally  horrible  and  frightful. 
, V  .  .  Terrible  is  the  birth  of  a  son  from  a  wounded 
mother  in  a  room  where  the  father  and  the  grandfather 
lie  lifeless  on  the  floor.  Terrible  is  the  plight  of  the 
son,  who,  seeing  the  torture  and  death  of  all  his  rela- 
tives, loses  his  reason.  Horrible  is  the  case  of  the 
mother  who  chokes  her  own  child  in  order  to  save  the 
others.  Out  of  the  enormous  material  collected  by  in- 
vestigators of  the  Ukrainian  tragedy,  in  which  every 
line  reports  Jewish  grief,  where  Jewish  blood  trickles 
from  every  paragraph,  we  will  present  only  a  few 
sketches  and  incidents,  the  testimony  of  eye  witnesses 
who  by  a  miracle  escaped  from  hell  where,  however, 
they  had  to  leave  their  friends  and  relatives.  Who- 
ever has  seen  these  tragic  witnesses,  who  knew  how 
to  tell  of  the  horrors  they  endured,  with  epic  dignity, 
without  coloring  and  exaggeration;  whoever  has  seen 
their  sunken,  earth-colored  faces,  their  eyes  filled  with 
insane  sorrow  and  despair,  having  no  desire  for  re- 
venge or  life — must,  like  Lazarus  in  the  gospel,  lose 
the  power  to  laugh;  he  must  wander  with  a  poisoned 
soul  through  the  world,  without  finding  a  resting 
place. 

Involuntarily  one  thinks  of  the  words  of  the  poet: 

"Ye  Clouds,  if  behind  you  in  the  depths  of  the  blue 
the  ancient  God  still  lives  on  his  throne  though  invisi- 
ble to  me — I  ask  you,  pray  for  me  and  my  bloody  fate ! 
I  have  no  more  prayer  in  my  breast  nor  strength  in 

*  See  Appendix,  pp.  396  ff. 


i48    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

my  hands,  nor  hope How  long,  how  long,  how 

long!" 

(H.  BIALIK,  on  the  massacres.) 

Following  are  a  few  episodes  selected  almost  at  ran- 
dom. For  in  this  tragedy  everything  is  typical. 
There  are  no  exceptions.  Every  incident  is  an  ex- 
ample of  what  hundreds  of  unfortunate  towns  and 
villages  in  the  Ukraine  had  to  undergo.  They  are  all 
illustrations,  essentially  similar  to  each  other  and  mo- 
notonous like  the  groaning  and  the  weeping  and  the 
corpses  and  the  graves.  All  is  one  great  cry  of  the  lie 
of  life,  and  the  shameless  cruelty  of  man,  who  desires 
to  gain  power  at  such  a  price. 

I.    BROWNINGS  IN  THE  DNIEPER. 
a.  Steamer  "Baron  Gunsburg." 

Testimony  of  Shifra  Shklovskaya,  40  years  old, 
Widow,  Shopkeeper.     Only  Survivor. 

On  the  7th  of  April  I  boarded  the  steamer  "Baron 
Gunsburg"  in  Kiev.  The  steamer  was  going  to  the 
village  Sukhovchi  with  a  cargo  of  sugar.  It  was 
chartered  by  three  Jews  of  Sukhovchi,  who  took  pas- 
sengers on  board  on  their  own  account.  To  be 
exact,  I  was  sleepy  when  I  boarded  the  steamer  and 
did  not  observe  the  passengers  on  board  or  how  many 
there  were.  I  found  a  seat  in  a  corner  and  sat  there 
dozing.  I  was  awakened  by  a  noise.  The  Jews  were 
terribly  excited  and  frightened.  "Nothing  can  be  done, 
they  are  shooting,"  I  heard,  and  at  the  same  time  came 
the  crackling  of  arms  and  bullets  penetrating  the  ship's 


POGROM  PICTURES  149 

side.  I  lost  my  head  completely.  The  whole  unhappy 
occurrence  that  took  place  after  this  has  remained 
in  my  memory  only  partly.  I  saw,  heard  and  did 
everything  as  in  sleep.  I  still  recall  vaguely  that  the 
steamer  reached  the  shore  and  five  or  six  brutalized 
bandits,  armed  with  weapons,  rushed  on  board, 
stamped  their  feet  and  gave  the  order,  "Jews  here, 
Christians  there !"  The  Russian  passengers  stepped 
aside.  Then  came  a  new  order,  "Women  aside."  The 
men  were  apparently  taken  on  deck.  If  I  am  not  mis- 
taken three  women  remained  behind  under  the  care  of 
several  bandits.  Shortly  after,  the  bandits  who  had 
gone  on  deck  returned.  We  were  then  dragged  on 
deck.  We  began  to  cry  and  lost  our  senses.  The  ban- 
dits first  seized  an  old  woman  and  threw  her  into  the 
river  just  as  she  was.  Then  came  I.  I  lost 
consciousness.  I  do  not  know  how  I  succeeded 
in  swimming  down  the  river.  I  imagine  I  must  have 
been  carried  down  by  the  current.  I  felt  swampy 
ground  under  my  feet  and  clambered  upon  a  small 
island  covered  with  shrubs.  How  long  I  lay  there  I 
do  not  know.  When  I  came  to  myself  somewhat  and 
looked  around,  I  noticed  that  something  extraordinary 
was  going  on  on  the  opposite  bank.  There  was  shoot- 
ing, cries  and  alarms.  I  crept  deeper  into  the  sedge 
and  lay  there.  My  clothing  stuck  to  my  body,  my 
limbs  were  numb  and  I  felt  an  intolerable  dryness  in 
my  mouth.  So  I  spent  two  days  and  two  nights.  In 
the  early  dawn  of  the  third  day  I  saw  a  boat  with  two 
peasants  in  it.  It  was  clear  to  me  that  lying  there  I 
should  die  anyway,  so  I  resolved  to  ask  the  peasants 
to  take  me  to  the  opposite  bank.  The  peasants  agreed 
and  brought  me  as  far  as  the  village  Meshigorye.  I 
entered  the  hallway  of  a  convent  and  hid  myself  under 


150    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  steps.  How  long  I  remained  there  I  do  not  know. 
When  I  opened  my  eyes,  I  saw  a  nun  tending  me. 
She  was  very  kind,  led  me  to  her  cell,  gave  me 
warm  milk,  took  off  my  clothing  to  dry,  placed 
me  near  the  stove,  stroked  my  hair  and  tried  to 
comfort  me  in  the  kindest  way.  She  kept  me  several 
hours.  Then  she  told  me  to  go,  for  the  whole  convent 
might  suffer  on  my  account.  I  went,  but  was  afraid 
to  look  for  the  village.  So  I  hid  myself  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  convent  in  the  pig-trough,  which  was  empty. 
I  lay  on  the  wet  dirty  ground,  but  here  too  my  rest  was 
not  long.  A  peasant  came  with  pigs.  He  did  me  no 
harm,  but  told  me  to  go,  for  he  was  afraid.  Such  were 
the  tortures  I  was  exposed  to  for  five  or  six  days.  I 
crept  from  one  trough  into  another  and  from  one  hole 
into  another.  What  I  ate  I  do  not  know,  and  if  I  know 
I  cannot  say  it.  In  this  way  I  was  saved.  In  the 
village  the  bandits  raged  the  whole  time  uninterrupt- 
edly. They  shot,  screamed,  played  accordions  and 
sang  merry  songs  until  far  into  the  night. 

Signed  for  the  witness,  who  cannot  write, 
KHASSYA  KARPIROVSKAYA. 

b.   Steamer  Kazak. 

Testimony  of  Bar  Borukhov  Mogulevich, 
39  Years  Old,  Butcher. 

On  the  7th  of  April  I  travelled  on  the  steamer 
"Kazak"  from  Kiev  to  Chernobyl.  Twenty-five  Jews 
whom  I  knew  were  on  board  and  about  twenty  Rus- 
sians. There  was  a  rumor  that  armed  bandits  were 
also  on  board.  But  we  felt  comparatively  safe,  as 
among  the  passengers  there  were  fifteen  members  of 
the  Red  Army  with  machine  guns  and  a  whole  chest 


POGROM  PICTURES  151 

full  of  firearms.  As  we  drew  near  Meshigorye  our 
steamer  was  fired  on.  THe  military  leader  of  Cher- 
nobyl, who  was  on  the  "Kazak,"  came  out  on  deck 
and  saw  signaling  from  the  shore  with  a  flag.  He 
thought  it  was  a  military  signal  for  an  inspection  of 
the  steamer,  and  ordered  the  captain  to  stop  at  the 
shore.  When  we  reached  shore  about  six  or  eight 
young  men  came  on  board  armed  with  rifles  and 
sticks,  armed  peasants  wrapped  in  half-fur  coats. 
Holding  their  weapons  ready  to  shoot,  they  ordered, 
"The  Russians  step  aside ;  the  Jews  hands  up !"  The 
Russian  passengers  and  soldiers  separated  from  us, 
and  we  were  instantly  surrounded  by  the  bandits.  We 
were  searched,  our  bodies  were  pinched  and  our 
clothes  torn  from  our  bodies.  They  took  away  all  our 
valuables,  such  as  money,  watches,  etc.,  and  earrings 
from  the  women.  A  few  more  men  came  in  village 
dress  and  armed  like  peasants,  who  divided  us  in  pairs 
and  drove  us  to  the  bank.  There  we  found  almost  the 
entire  Jewish  population  of  the  village  Petrovichi, 
young  and  old,  girls  and  women  with  children  in  their, 
arms.  We  were  all  huddled  together.  We  learned 
from  the  Jews  of  Petrovichi  that  all  of  the  Jews  who 
were  on  the  steamer  "Baron  Giinsburg"  had  been 
drowned.  The  Jews  of  Petrovichi  had  been  seized  in 
the  night  and  had  just  been  brought  to  the  bank,  also 
to  be  drowned.  They  said  that  the  peasants  had  had 
a  meeting  in  the  evening  to  determine  what  they 
should  do  with  the  Jews.  The  old  peasants,  who  had 
often  been  in  the  Jewish  houses  and  had  grown  up 
with  the  Jews,  said  that  the  village  should  not  take 
such  a  sin  upon  itself,  recommending  that  the  Jews 
should  merely  be  expelled  from  the  village,  that  their 
fate  should  overtake  them  at  a  distance,  out  of  the 


152    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

peasants'  sight.  But  the  young  peasants  insisted  that 
now  was  a  favorable  opportunity,  that  they  must  not 
hesitate  nor  allow  the  Jews  to  escape  them;  that  the 
Jews  in  the  whole  of  the  Ukraine  were  now  being 
drowned  and  killed,  and  Petrovichi  must  not  stand 
back. 

We  were  kept  some  time  on  the  bank  and  then  we 
were  driven  into  the  village.  We  tried  to  find  out  from 
the  bandits  where  they  were  taking  us.  The  answers 
were  blows,  an  order  to  keep  quiet  and  with  a  gnash- 
ing of  teeth  they  said,  "for  examination."  We  were 
brought  to  the  inn  of  the  convent.  It  was  still  early, 
between  six  and  seven  in  the  morning.  We  were  all 
shut  up  in  a  room  and  the  shutters  were  locked.  Soon 
there  came  armed  bandits  and  many  older  peasants  of 
Petrovichi.  We  were  searched  again.  Anything  that 
pleased  them  they  took  away.  A  little  later  a  new 
band  came  and  did  the  same  thing.  After  a  time  there 
came  a  third.  This  lasted  two  hours,  until  we  were 
stripped  of  all  our  clothing  except  our  underwear ;  and 
those  of  us  who  were  unfortunate  enough  to  have  good 
underwear  remained  entirely  naked.  Among  the  peas- 
ants who  came  in  there  were  many  good  acquaintances 
of  the  Jews  of  Petrovichi.  The  latter  turned  to  those 
of  the  peasants  whom  they  knew  and  asked  them  to 
save  them.  Instead  of  answering  they  searched  with 
greedy  eyes  to  see  if  there  was  not  something  else  that 
they  could  appropriate.  Among  our  visitors  there 
were  also  some  who  explained  indignantly,  "You  Jew- 
ish communists,  you  changed  our  holy  houses  of  God 
into  stables.  In  Kiev  you  killed  our  brothers.  We 
will  torture  you  as  you  tortured  them."  There  were  also 
some  who  told  with  special  gusto  how  the  Jews  were 
being  massacred  everywhere,  how  their  eyes  were 


POGROM  PICTURES  153 

being  gouged  out  and  the  women's  breasts  cut  off,  etc. 
It  was  clear  to  us  that  we  were  lost.     We  lay  on  the 
floor  motionless  and  without  a  sound.     The  women 
did  not  even  shed  tears.    Only  here  and  there  one  heard 
a  child  cry  or  ask  for  something  to  eat.     During  the 
day  twelve  more  Jews  were  brought  in,  who  were 
caught  in  a  boat  on  the  river,  and  also  the  Jewish  com- 
munist agitator  Shapoval,  who  boarded  the  steamer 
with  us  at  Kiev  in  the  company  of  the  members  of  the 
Red  Army.     Shapoval  was  brought  in  by  a  powerful 
fellow  of  middle  age,  wearing  a  red  military  uniform. 
As  I  learned  later,  this  was  Klimenko,  the  chieftain  of 
the  band.     Shapoval  told  us  confidentially  that  it  was 
possible  to  come  to  terms  with  this  man  and  buy  our 
freedom.     We  fell  at  his  feet,  embraced  and  kissed 
him,  begged  for  our  lives  and  promised  "mountains  of 
gold/'    He  said  coolly,  "Give  me  30,000  rubles."    The 
Jews  of  Petrovichi  entreated,  "Let  two  of  us  go  to  the 
village  and  we  will  bring  you  the  money."     "60,000 
rubles,"  was  the  answer.    "We  will  give  you  100,000. 
Keep  our  women  and  children  as  hostages,  let  us  go  to 
the  village  and  we  will  bring  you  the  money."     Kli- 
menko went  away  with  the  statement  that  he  would 
come  back  later.     In  the  meantime  peasants  came  in 
and  out,  and  when  they  saw  the  naked  persons  before 
them  from  whom  there  was  nothing  further  to  take 
they  insulted  us  in  the  coarsest  fashion.     Klimenko 
came  back.    We  began  to  hope  again.    We  kissed  his 
boots  and  begged  him,  "Let  two  of  us  go  to  the  village 
and  bring  you  the  money."     Klimenko  heard  the  sob- 
bing and  crying,  accepted  our  kisses  graciously  and 
demanded  900,000  rubles.     We  promised.     But  he 
thought  differently,  asked  us  for  the  addresses  that  he 
might  get  the  money  himself  and  departed.    The  day 


154    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

lasted  an  eternity.  Then  came  night.  Klimenko  did 
not  return.  We  were  sure  then  that  we  were  lost.  We 
prayed  to  God,  said  our  last  prayer,  the  "viduy"  (con- 
fession), took  leave  of  one  another  and  sought  each 
one  of  us  a  corner  to  collect  our  last  thoughts.  I  found 
a  block-book  and  a  lead  pencil  and  we  began  to  write 
our  wills.  The  paper  was  not  enough  for  all,  and  many 
scratched  their  names  on  the  walls  of  the  convent  inn. 
Our  wills  we  gave  to  a  very  old  Jewish  woman.  We 
felt  sure  that  they  would  have  pity  on  her.  About  one 
o'clock  after  midnight  six  bandits  appeared,  seized 
seventeen  persons  and  bade  them  go  with  them.  Even 
now  I  find  it  hard  to  tell  what  happened.  The  seven- 
teen persons  took  leave  of  us  and  went.  Through  the 
cracks  in  the  shutters  we  could  see  that  they  were  going 
toward  the  river.  About  an  hour  passed.  The  ban- 
dits came  back  and  took  a  second  batch  of  fifteen  per- 
sons. Again  some  time  passed  and  the  bandits  came 
to  take  the  rest.  Everyone  clung  to  his  nearest  and 
to  his  relatives.  When  we  were  taken  out  it  was 
already  very  dark.  I  went  along  with  two  friends  of 
mine.  We  resolved  to  die  together.  We  were  taken 
on  the  steamer  again.  We  felt  that  the  steamer 
was  pushing  off  from  shore.  The  bandits  seized 
one  of  my  friends  and  led  him  out.  I  wanted 
to  follow  him,  but  was  pushed  back.  I  listened  for  a 
few  minutes.  Everything  was  still.  Suddenly  I  heard 
a  noise  as  of  a  tree  trunk  falling  into  the  water.  Then 
my  second  friend  was  taken  out.  Two  or  three  min- 
utes later  I  heard  the  same  noise.  Now  came  my  turn. 
I  had  nothing  on  but  torn  drawers  and  a  "talis  koten" 
(a  prayer  mantle  worn  over  the  shirt).  I  was  led  by 
two  soldiers.  One  of  them  pulled  off  my  "talis  koten." 
I  kissed  the  soldiers  and  begged  them  to  give  it  back  to 


POGROM  PICTURES  155 

me.  I  thought  it  might  be  useful  in  having  me  buried 
in  the  Jewish  cemetery.  But  it  was  of  no  avail.  I  was 
taken  out  on  deck.  The  soldiers  had  already  taken  hold 
of  me.  But  I  closed  my  eyes,  called  out,  "Shma 
Isroel"  (Hear,  O  Israel!)  and  jumped  into  the  water. 
A  wave  threw  me  under  the  steamer.  The  steamer 
went  on  and  I  swam  with  the  current.  I  was  still  con- 
scious and  made  for  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  where 
Chernigov  is  situated.  I  have  no  idea  how  long  I 
struggled  in  the  water  and  what  forces  carried  me. 
It  seems  to  me  that  I  had  seized  a  tree  stump  in  the 
river  and  made  for  somewhere,  I  know  not  where.  My 
strength  gave  away  entirely,  when  I  noticed  that 
the  bank  was  near.  I  crept  to  the  bank, 
rolled  myself  in  the  sand  to  get  rid  of  the 
water  which  I  had  swallowed  and  to  warm  myself 
a  little.  Naked  as  I  was  I  walked  on  in  the  cold  damp 
night.  I  saw  a  fire  gleaming  and  proceeded  in  that 
direction.  Two  peasants  with  boat  rudders  in  their 
hands  ran  up  to  me  and  told  me  to  stop.  I  begged  them 
not  to  hold  me  back  and  told  them  that  I  was  a  butcher 
in  a  neighboring  village  and  that  bandits  had  attacked 
me  on  the  road  and  robbed  me.  The  peasants  called 
some  one.  A  man  appeared,  who  asked  me  in  Jewish 
who  I  was.  My  joy  knew  no  bounds.  I  told  him  my 
name.  The  man  threw  himself  around  my  neck.  He 
was  a  good  friend  of  mine.  He  talked  the  matter  over 
with  the  peasants,  with  whom  he  was  carrying  fish  for 
sale.  They  gave  me  room  in  their  boat  and  covered  me 
with  a  half -fur  coat.  In  the  early  morning  we  came 
to  the  little  village  of  Strakholessye.  We  came  to  a 
peasant  hut.  The  peasant  showed  himself  very  kind, 
looked  at  me  and  shook  his  head  in  sympathy.  He 
gave  me  old  torn  clothes  and  allowed  me  to  warm  my- 


156    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

self  near  the  stove.  I  thought  that  my  life  was  no 
longer  in  danger,  when  two  young  peasants  came  in. 
"What,  you  have  Jews  here?  There  is  an  order  to 
take  them  to  the  Staff.  In  these  days  all  Jews  should 
be  killed  and  drowned."  The  owner  of  the  hut  asked 
them  to  let  us  alone,  seeing  that  God  himself  had  saved 
us,  and  it  would  be  a  sin  to  mix  in  his  affairs.  The 
young  peasants  were  unconvinced  and  sat  down.  The 
peasant  allowed  us  to  escape  through  a  window  in  the 
adjoining  room  and  told  us  to  run.  We  ran  into  the 
bushes,  then  into  swampy  land  where  human  beings  do 
not  usually  go.  Wading  in  mud  and  water  up  to  our 
waists,  we  looked  for  a  place  where  there  would  not 
be  a  trace  of  a  human  being.  Again  and  again  we  had 
to  hide  ourselves  in  the  bushes  when  we  saw  armed 
men  pass.  There  was  a  great  deal  in  store  for  us  yet. 
Finally  we  came  to  a  factory,  where  Russian  work- 
men gave  us  some  clothing,  warmed  us  up,  gave  us 
something  to  eat  and  provided  us  with  a  vehicle,  which 
brought  us  to  Kiev.  There  I  became  ill  and  was  con- 
fined to  bed  for  a  considerable  time.  I  remember  that 
I  found  in  the  inn  a  note  addressed  to  the  alderman  of 
the  village  of  Petrovichi,  in  which  it  said,  "Now  all 
the  Jews  must  be  produced  without  delay."  The  note 
was  signed  by  Lazarenko. 

BAER  BORUKHOV  MOGULEVICH, 
June  ist,  1919.  Butcher  in  Chernobyl. 

Strakholessye  is  six  versts  from  the  village  Pechki. 
There  were  nine  Jewish  families  there.  The  village 
consisted  of  about  three  hundred  houses.  Most  of  the 
Jews  are  artisans.  The  relations  between  the  Jews 
and  the  peasants  were  so  good  that  Strakholessye  was 
known  for  its  friendliness  to  the  Jews.  Strak- 


POGROM  PICTURES  157 

holesseye  did  not  give  any  volunteers  to  the  gangs  of 
Struk.  Under  the  rule  of  Struk  the  peasants  began 
to  cavil  at  the  Jews.  Now  the  peasants  have  become 
sobered  again. 

II.     TOWN  OF  SMELA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

a.   Testimony  of  Cantor  Gersh  Zaslavsky,  60 
Years  Old 

On  the  1 6th  of  May,  1919,  about  seven  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  I  came  to  the  synagogue  to  pray.  When 
I  had  put  on  my  "tfilin"  (phylacteries),  two  armed 
soldiers  rushed  in  and  called  out,  "Jews,  get  to- 
gether !"  They  began  to  beat  us  and  drive  us  out  of  the 
synagogue  (there  were  in  all  eight  old  men  there). 
When  I  asked  one  of  the  soldiers  where  they  were 
taking  us,  he  said,  smiling  ironically,  "You  communists 
will  be  taken  to  death."  A  few  minutes  later  I  found 
myself  in  the  midst  of  42  Jews,  and  we  were  told  to 
proceed  by  twos.  The  insults  and  annoyances  to  which 
we  were  exposed  are  beyond  description.  One  old  man 
had  his  beard  pulled  out.  In  this  way  we  were  led 
/  along  the  main  street  to  the  Smela  station.  There  a 
railroad  car  was  standing  ready,  and  we  were  or- 
dered to  get  in.  We  climbed  in  by  standing  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  others.  The  car  was  then  locked 
up,  and  shifted  awhile  hither  and  thither.  Then 
they  began  to  shoot.  After  we  had  gone  about 
three  versts  the  car  was  finally  opened.  A  man 
came  iii  and  threw  us  out  one  by  one,  shooting 
after  each  as  he  was  thrown  out.  Terrible 
cries  of  "Shma  Isroel"  (Hear,  O  Israel)  could 
be  heard  far  away.  The  blood  of  those  shot  flowed 
into  a  brook  nearby.  I  was  the  eighteenth.  As  by  a 
miracle  I  fell  alive  among  the  dead.  Dead  men  fell  on 


158    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

top  of  me  and  I  swam  in  their  blood.  When  the 
slaughter  was  over,  a  wild  drunken  voice  called  out, 
"Hurrah !  all  Jewish  communists  are  dead.  Comrade 
sailor  (leader  of  the  Grigoriev  bands),  what  shall  we 
do  now?"  "Go  home,"  was  the  answer.  "It  is  not 
worth  while  to  use  up  any  more  bullets  on  the  Jews." 
Before  leaving,  one  of  them  said  that  he  had  noticed 
that  one  of  the  communists  had  good  shoes  on  (he 
meant  me).  He  took  off  my  shoes,  and  to  make  sure 
that  I  was  dead  he  stabbed  at  me  with  his  bayonet. 
After  the  Grigoriev  men  left,  I  raised  myself  with 
great  difficulty  and  looked  around.  Then  I  saw  the 
frightful  scene.  The  Jews  who  had  been  shot  lay  on 
the  ground  and  the  blood  flowed  into  the  river.  Com- 
pletely exhausted  I  began  to  walk  at  random.  Wading 
in  water  up  to  my  neck  I  crossed  the  river  and  went 
into  the  woods.  I  came  near  a  tree.  Not  far  from  this 
tree  stood  a  man  with  a  machine  gun,  shooting  in  the 
direction  of  the  tree.  I  threw  myself  on  the  ground 
and  pressed  against  the  tree.  Thus  I  lay  48  hours.  In 
the  evening  I  drank  water  from  the  river.  A  peasant 
came  along.  I  asked  him  for  a  piece  of  bread.  He 
refused.  Another  peasant  came  along  and  gave  me  a 
piece.  When  at  last  I  came  out  of  the  woods  to  go 
home,  I  saw  many  wagons  carrying  loads  of  wood.  I 
asked  the  drivers  to  take  me  under  their  protection, 
but  they  all  emphatically  refused.  They  would  not 
even  let  me  hold  on  to  a  board,  though  I  was  nearly 
ready  to  drop  of  exhaustion.  With  difficulty  I  reached 
home.  GERSH  ZASLAVSKY. 

b.   Testimony  of  Dina  Lif shuts,  32  Years  Old 

On  the  eleventh  of  May,  about  three  o'clock  in 
the  night,  there  was  a  knock  at  our  door.    Three  men 


POGROM  PICTURES  159 

in  military  uniform  came  in  and  asked  for  arms.  They 
searched  the  house,  but  found  no  weapons.  Then  they 
chased  us  all  into  a  room  of  the  sub-tenant  and  kept 
asking  for  arms.  Ekhiel  Lifshiitz,  my  father-in-law, 
affirmed  on  his  knees  that  there  were  no  arms  in  the 
house.  Schlema  Lifshiitz,  a  son  of  the  old  man,  showed 
them  a  document  which  proved  that  he  had  only  re- 
cently returned  from  a  German  military  prison.  At 
first  this  seemed  to  do  some  good.  A  few  minutes 
later,  however,  they  were  all  told  to  place  themselves 
against  the  wall.  One  of  the  bandits  gave  the  order  to 
shoot.  Schlema  Lifshiitz  fell  dead.  Ekhiel  Lifshiitz 
was  severely  wounded.  They  wanted  to  kill  me  too. 
But  one  of  them  had  pity  on  a  five-months  old  infant 
that  I  was  carrying  in  my  arms.  I  remained  alone  in  the 
room,  which  was  overflowing  with  the  blood  of  the 
men  killed.  Another  band  came  in,  and  when  they 
saw  the  severely  wounded  Ekhiel  Lifshiitz,  they  began 
to  shoot  at  him  and  at  the  dead  body  of  Schlema  Lif- 
shiitz.  I  sat  for  a  time  as  if  petrified.  When  I  came 
to  myself  somewhat  I  noticed  that  Schlema  Lifshiitz 
was  still  alive.  I  asked  for  medical  assistance,  but  it 
was  refused.  I  was  compelled  to  take  him  to  the  hospi- 
tal, where  he  died  three  hours  after  the  operation. 

DlNA  LlFSCHUETZ, 

III.     CHERKASSY  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

j  . 
a.   Testimony  of  the  Wood  Merchant,  Getzel  Rot- 

mistrovsky,  59  Years  Old 

On  Friday  and  Saturday,  May  16  and  17,  there  were 
no  excesses  of  any  kind  in  Krasnaya  street.  We  saw 
only  the  men  who  live  on  the  river  bank  dragging 


160    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

stolen  goods.  People  spoke  of  two  or  three  murders, 
but  they  were  regarded  as  accidental  attacks.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  street  became  more  and  more  anx- 
ious and  began  to  look  for  hiding  places.  On  Sunday 
May  1 8,  at  6  o'clock  in  the  evening,  four  military  per- 
sons appeared  in  Rotmistrovsky's  cellar,  where  a  few 
neighbors  had  sought  protection  against  the  shooting, 
took  money,  rings,  boots  and  shoes  from  the  people 
and  went  away  telling  the  people  not  to  dare  give  the 
alarm.  A  half  hour  later  they  came  back  and  ordered 
the  men  to  follow  them  to  the  station.  They  quieted 
the  weeping  and  praying  women  by  saying  that  those 
who  were  not  communists  would  suffer  no  harm  at  the 
station.  The  men,  nine  of  them,  left.  On  the  corner 
they  saw  eleven  more  men  under  military  escort. 
There  were  in  all  twenty  men  between  the  ages  of  19 
and  60,  the  old  men  predominating.  On  the  way  to 
the  station,  they  insulted,  tortured  and  beat  them  with 
clubs ;  they  were  forced  to  sing  songs,  and  were  stripped 
to  their  underwear.  When  they  were  brought  to  the 
station,  a  man,  whom  Rotmistrovsky  did  not  know, 
jumped  out  and  cried,  "What  sort  of  a  communist  is 
Rotmistrovsky,  why  did  you  bring  him  here?"  He 
seized  Rotmistrovsky  by  the  hand  and  pulled  him  away 
with  great  difficulty  from  the  soldier  who  was  escort- 
ing him  and  would  not  let  him  go.  Rotmistrovsky 
wanted  to  beg  for  his  children,  19  and  33  years  old 
respectively,  but  his  rescuer  explained  that  now  was 
not  the  time  to  intercede  for  anyone  else,  that  his  life 
was  in  danger,  and  pushed  him  into  a  railway  car.  He 
locked  the  doors  of  the  car  and  promised  to  get  him 
home  in  some  way.  When  he  was  alone  and  recalled 
the  words  of  his  saviour  he  understood  what  danger 
threatened  the  other  nineteen  men,  his  sons  among 


POGROM  PICTURES  161 

them.  He  looked  out  of  the  upper  windows  and 
listened,  but  the  noise  of  the  drunken  bands  drowned 
everything  else.  After  one  or  two  hours  Rotmistrovsky 
recognized  by  the  light  of  a  lantern  Tkachtenko,  a 
young  peasant  from  the  neighboring  village,  Russkaya 
Polyana,  and  asked  him  to  let  him  out.  The  peasant 
also  recognized  Rotmistrovsky  and  threatened  to  shoot 
him  on  the  spot.  After  a  time  Rotmistrovsky  observed 
to  his  horror  that  his  car  was  moving  in  the  direction 
of  Smela.  On  the  siding  in  Belozeria  the  train  stopped 
and  wounded  men  were  put  in  and  taken  off.  In  Belo- 
zeria Rotmistrovsky  again  saw  a  peasant  (an  old  man 
dressed  like  a  peasant,  but  armed)  and  asked  him  to 
help  him  out,  but  the  peasant  paid  no  attention  to  him. 
In  the  early  morning  they  came  to  Smela.  He  looked 
for  acquaintances  among  the  curious  persons  who  were 
at  the  station  but  found  none.  Suddenly  a  military 
person  stopped  before  his  car.  He  was  evidently  sur- 
prised to  see  Rotmistrovsky.  He  brought  him  a  sheet, 
wrapped  him  up  in  it  and  promised  under  all  circum- 
stances to  get  him  home.  He  was  a  commissar  and 
had  formerly  been  a  longshoreman  and  knew  Rotmis- 
trovsky well.  A  little  later  a  Russian  shoemaker  who 
lived  in  Smela  came  to  the  car  and  said  to  Rotmistrov- 
sky that  he  had  recognized  him  long  before  and  wanted 
to  help  him  out,  but  that  he  was  prevented  and  was 
told  that  there  was  no  pity  for  Jews.  At  Bobrinsky 
station  they  gave  Rotmistrovsky  a  pair  of  trousers,  a 
coat  and  rubber  shoes  and  a  certificate  entitling  him 
to  go  to  Cherkassy.  But  they  advised  him  to  remain 
a  few  days  in  Smela,  as  they  could  not  guarantee  his 
life  in  Cherkassy.  He  followed  their  advice.  Of  the 
other  nineteen  who  had  been  brought  along  with 
him  to  the  station,  only  one  survived.  Wounded,  he 


162    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

secretly  got  away  and  reached  home.  All  the  others 
including  the  sons  of  Rotmistrovsky,  the  33  year  old 
Srul  and  the  19  year  old  Shier,  were  shot  to  death  at 
the  station. 

GETZEL  SRULEVICH  ROTMISTROVSKY. 

b.   Testimony  of  a  Man  Who  Escaped  Death 

It  was  on  Tuesday,  May  2Oth,  about  5  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon.  A  division  of  soldiers  was  marching 
through  the  street,  also  bandits  in  civilian  clothes. 
They  stopped  everyone  they  met  and  asked  him  where 
the  communists  were  hiding.  I  lay  in  the  cellar.  A 
girl  ran  up  to  me  and  just  had  time  to  say,  "The  sol- 
dies  are  coming."  Soon  after  two  soldiers  came  up  and 
began  to  persuade  me  to  leave  the  cellar,  for,  they  said, 
the  pogrom  was  over  and  the  men  were  ordered  by  the 
commandant  to  go  to  the  station  and  be  registered.  As 
soon  as  their  names  were  entered  they  would  be  freed. 
I  came  out.  At  the  gateway  sixteen  Jews  of  various 
ages  were  standing,  among  them  a  venerable  old  man 
of  sixty.  We  were  taken  to  the  station.  We  all  had 
our  documents  ready,  but  there  was  no  examination  at 
the  station.  The  soldiers  chased  us  away  from  the 
tracks,  stripped  us  of  our  clothing,  leaving  us  in  our 
underwear,  and  began  to  fire  on  us.  The  first  who  fell 
was  Kanevsky,  then  the  older  Rotmistrovsky.  What 
happened  later  I  do  not  remember  any  more.  About 
ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  I  regained  consciousness.  I 
had  such  pains  in  my  bones  and  in  the  stomach  that  I 
lost  consciousness  again,  but  came  to  in  a  few  min- 
utes. Dead  bodies  lay  near  me.  I  rose,  my  under- 
wear was  all  soiled  with  blood,  and  near  me  I  heard 
the  groans  of  a  dying  man.  I  summoned  all  my 
strength  to  get  to  the  dying  person.  All  around  there 


POGROM  PICTURES  163 

was  no  one,  it  was  quiet  and  the  groaning  was  dis- 
tinctly audible,  but  I  could  not  find  the  man.  Again 
I  lost  consciousness.  How  long  I  lay  there  unconscious 
I  do  not  know.  But  when  I  woke  up  I  realized  I 
was  lying  next  to  Kanevsky  and  it  was  he  who 
was  groaning.  "Kanevsky,"  I  said,  "maybe  you 
can  get  up  and  we  will  try  to  go  home."  "No," 
he  replied,  "I  am  dying.  I  beg  you,  find  my  son  and 
put  him  next  to  me.  I  should  like  to  embrace  him  be- 
fore I  die."  I  found  his  son.  He  was  dead.  I  moved 
the  father  near  the  son.  He  embraced  him,  burst  into 
tears,  heaved  a  deep  sigh  and  died.  Driven  by  fear, 
I  suddenly  began  to  run  straight  ahead  without 
knowing  where,  but  I  kept  on  running.  By  some  mira- 
cle I  came  to  the  bank  of  the  river  and  from  there  I 
got  home.  In  the  morning  I  was  taken  to  the  hospital. 
It  appeared  that  a  shot  had  grazed  the  tissue  of  my 
stomach.  M.  N. 

c.    Testimony  of  Niunia  Krasnopolsky,  Nine  Years 
Old,  the  Only  Survivor  of  His  Family 

Saturday,  May  17,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
we  were  all  at  home.  At  our  house  were  also  our 
neighbor  Maya  Lyss,  his  wife,  my  mother,  my  little 
sister,  my  little  brother  and  myself.  One  other  neigh- 
bor came  running  to  us;  her  husband  had  just  been 
killed,  she  said,  and  asked  us  to  take  her  somewhere. 
Our  neighbor  and  I  were  going  with  her.  We  had  no 
sooner  opened  the  door  than  about  fifteen  or  so 
bandits  rushed  in.  ."Where  are  you  going?"  said  one 
of  them  and  shot  twice.  Our  neighbor  was  hit  and 
fell.  I  ran  into  a  room,  our  woman  neighbor  into  an- 
other room,  where  she  also  was  killed.  The  whole 
time  I  crouched  under  the  bed  and  saw  how  one  of  the 


164    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

band,  dressed  in  a  sailor's  uniform,  shot  everybody. 
The  soldiers  were  all  quiet.  They  asked  for  no  money 
and  did  not  shout.  They  remained  about  five  minutes. 
When  they  left,  I  crawled  out  from  under  the  bed 
and  saw  that  all  were  dead.  I  remained  in  the  house. 
A  little  later  another  band  came.  I  jumped  out 
of  the  window  and  ran  to  the  station.  There  I 
saw  Jews  being  shot,  and  heard  their  cries.  But 
I  did  not  cry.  I  asked  a  boy  to  tell  me  in  detail 
what  he  had  seen  at  the  station,  but  he  said,  "I  cannot, 
it  is  too  frightful."  I  collected  cartridges  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  as  if  mama  had  not  been  killed.  I  had 
quite  forgotten  everything.  Then  I  ran  through  the 
city  and  came  to  the  river's  bank.  I  went  along  the 
bank.  Nobody  touched  me  because  they  thought  I  was 
a  Russian.  A  soldier  came  up  to  me,  gave  me  a  sack 
and  said,  "Go  plundering."  Then  I  began  to  run  to 
my  relatives',  but  all  was  in  ruins  at  the  house  of  one 
aunt  as  well  as  the  other,  and  they  were  not  at  home. 
Finally  I  came  to  the  third  aunt  and  there  I  remained. 

NIUNIA  KRASNOPOLSKY. 

d.    Testimony  of  Terpiansky 

Saturday,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  there  was 
a  knock  at  the  house  of  Boganovsky.  He  would 
not  open.  Then  they  began  to  break  the  doors  in. 
Seeing  this,  Boganovsky  opened  the  door.  Six  soldiers 
came  into  the  room  and  asked  for  money.  The  women 
had  hidden  themselves  under  the  bed.  One  of  the 
soldiers  must  have  noticed  it,  for  he  pulled  the  women 
out  from  under  the  bed  by  their  legs.  After  he  had 
pulled  them  all  out,  they  were  told  to  go  out  into  the 
yard.  There  the  women  had  to  lie  on  the  ground  while 
the  men  had  their  money  taken  away.  After  they  had 


POGROM  PICTURES  165 

taken  the  money  from  Boganovsky  they  placed  him 
against  the  wall  and  fired  on  him..  One  shot  went 
through  his  hand,  the  other  grazed  his  head.  The 
women  raised  a  terrible  cry.  The  bandits  began  to 
fire  on  the  women.  Boganovsky  meanwhile  was  left 
in  peace.  He  lay  half  unconscious  and  they  thought 
he  was  dead.  After  they  had  murdered  the  women, 
the  bandits  attacked  Mandel  and  Khazonov.  They 
were  taken  out  on  the  street.  One  soldier  knocked 
Mandel  down  and  shot  him.  Khazonov  fell  down 
himself  (apparently  he  fainted),  and  was  shot  as  he 
lay.  Khazonov  left  a  son,  who  lost  his  reason  as  a 
result  of  the  horrors.  He  lay  the  whole  time  under 
the  bed  and  was  not  noticed  by  the  soldiers. 

IV.    TOWN  OF  DUBOVO  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Testimony  of  Ben  Yankelevich  Tsukernik,  65  Years 
Old,  An  Innkeeper,  Who  Can  Read  and  Write 

On  the  i /th  of  June  a  man  of  Koziakov's  and 
Popov's  gangs,  with  arms  in  his  hand,  came  into  my 
beer  house  through  the  window  and  demanded  money. 
On  the  approach  of  the  gang  I  hid  my  family  in  the 
cellar.  I,  a  feeble  old  man,  remained  in  the  house 
alone.  I  at  once  gave  the  man  100  rubles.  Then  an- 
other soldier  came  in,  said  he  was  the  chief  and  ordered 
the  first  one  to  return  the  money.  Soon  others  ap- 
peared and  with  the  consent  of  the  chief  began  to 
plunder  my  house.  After  they  had  taken  away  every- 
thing I  had,  they  demanded  that  I,  being  a  communist 
as  they  maintained,  should  go  to -the  Staff  with  my 
50  year  old  nephew  Mendel  Vinokur.  The  Staff  were 
in  the  cellar  of  the  Feldman  house,  where  there  were 
already  a  number  of  victims  who  had  been  brought  to 


166    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

be  slaughtered.  One  after  the  other  was  taken  into 
the  cellar.  The  leader  was  an  adjutant  of  Popov 
and  Shevchenko.  The  order  was  "Cut  them  down, 
spare  your  bullets!"  Near  the  door  stood  the  two 
executioners,  a  Russian  and  a  Moldavian,  with  drawn 
sabers  in  their  hands.  The  command  was,  "One,  two, 
three,  strike !"  As  my  foot  touched  the  lowest  step  of 
the  cellar,  I  received  a  stunning  blow  with  a  saber,  one 
on  my  hand  and  one  on  my  head.  Although  I  felt 
that  I  was  still  able  to  stand  on  my  feet,  my  instinct 
told  me  that  it  would  be  better  to  fall  down  into  the 
darkness  below  farther  away  from  my  executioners. 
I  fell  on  the  wet,  slippery  floor  soiled  with  my  own 
blood  and  that  of  the  others.  With  one  foot 
I  touched  a  body  that,  was  altogether  unrecogniz- 
able. I  began  to  feel  about  me.  There  were  dead 
bodies  all  over.  Near  me  there  were  twelve.  Here  and 
there  you  could  hear  low  groans.  Soon  a  new  body 
fell  on  top  of  me.  In  the  dark  I  recognized  my  good 
friend,  the  sixty-three-year-old  Shmul  Pasternak.  He 
was  groaning,  yet  he  tried  to  touch  me  lightly,  and 
whispered,  "Sha,  sha!"  (Keep  quiet.) 

Creeping  along  and  pulling  my  friend  with  me,  I 
got  into  the  corner  of  a  room  and  hid  myself  behind  a 
barrel.  In  the  short  distance  which  I  covered  as  I 
crept,  I  came  upon  severed  hands  and  other  parts  of 
the  human  body,  which  I  thrust  away  from  me  in 
horror.  After  an  hour,  which  seemed  to  me  a  whole 
eternity,  I  heard  calling,  "Whoever  is  alive  come  out !" 
But  I  was  afraid  to  utter  a  sound.  After  listening, 
however,  more  carefully  I  heard  the  lamentations  of 
our  women  and  mothers  in  the  Jewish  language  and 
understood  that  the  bandits  must  have  gone  away.  It 
was  in  fact  the  peasants  of  our  place  who  had  come  out 


POGROM  PICTURES  167 

of  sympathy  to  carry  us  out.  With  great  difficulty  I 
took  my  friend  on  my  back,  came  out  to  the  exit  and 
gave  a  sign  of  life.  They  pulled  us  out  and  took  us 
into  the  fresh  air.  I  was  saved,  I  know  not  how.  I 
was  saved  by  a  miracle.  My  friend  died.  My  nephew 
who  was  seized  along  with  me  was,  as  was  proved 
later,  tortured  and  slaughtered  in  the  most  brutal 
fashion.  I  remember  as  I  was  being  taken  to  the 
Staff,  the  executioners  said  to  me  that  I  would  be  at 
once  cut  down  with  the  saber.  I  began  to  beg  them 
and  said  it  would  be  better  if  they  would  shoot  me. 
Thereupon  they  answered,  "It  can't  be  done,  we  have 
been  ordered  to  cut  down  with  the  saber."  With  these 
words  they  picked  up  a  hand  lying  near,  showed  it  to 
me  and  said,  "You  see,  it  is  a  pity  to  use  a  bullet." 
After  these  words,  I  received  the  blows  on  the  head 
and  the  hand. 

BEN  YANKELEVICH  TSUKERNIK. 
July  9,  1919. 

V.    TOWN  OF  TROSTIANETZ  (GOVERNMENT  OF 
PODOLIA) 

Report  of  B.  Sandier,  President  of  the  Temporary 
Soviet  of  Trostianetz 

In  my  home  town,  Trostianetz,  unhappy  and  ruined 
forevermore,  there  was  a  belief  among  the  people  that 
on  account  of  a  blessing  it  once  received  from  a  saint 
there  would  never  be  pogroms  or  bloodshed  there.  The 
people  were  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  legend,  espe- 
cially during  the  last  months  when  the  bands  of  Petlura 
in  their  retreat  swept  away  and  destroyed  everything, 
and  yet  comparatively  spared  our  town  and  confined 
themselves  to  a  partial  pogrom  and  the  destruction  of 


168    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

property.  Some  time  passed.  The  population  began 
to  recover  from  the  injuries  and  losses  caused  by  the 
bandits.  Again  they  thought  of  the  good  saint  who 
with  invisible  eyes  was  protecting  the  welfare  of  the 
town.  Life  in  the  town  flowed  along  normally  and 
peacefully,  when  the  Soviet  power  established  its  rule 
and  the  political  department  appointed  a  military-revo- 
lutionary committee,  to  which  our  town  sent  one  of  its 
representatives.  Then  came  the  ninth  of  May,  and  one 
of  the  greatest  tragedies  in  the  world  was  enacted  in 
our  town,  which  led  to  an  unsparing  extermination  of 
almost  the  entire  male  population  at  the  hands  of  the 
insurrectionary  bands. 

When  I  begin  to  describe  the  bloody  events  of  which 
I  was  an  eye-witness  from  beginning  to  end,  a  shud- 
der takes  hold  of  me.  It  is  too  much  for  me  to  bear, 
for  wherever  I  look  I  see  the  same  thing — blood,  blood. 
From  whatever  side  you  approach  the  tragedy,  from 
whatever  angle  you  consider  it,  it  appears  frightful  and 
gruesome  both  in  regard  to  the  acts  of  the  fiendish 
intellectuals  of  the  place,  the  insults  and  tortures  which 
they  inflicted  upon  their  victims,  and  in  regard  to  the 
organization  and  extension  of  the  districts  in  which 
the  persecutions  took  place,  the  diabolical  thirst  for 
blood  exhibited  by  the  mob  and  the  secrecy  of  the  plan 
which  was  hatched  long  before  this  unhappy  day  and 
was  carried  out  obstinately  to  the  minutest  detail. 
Yes,  it  is  too  terrible  to  describe  all  this.  I  feel  as  if  I 
were  beginning  to  kill  people  myself.  But  it  can  not 
be  helped.  I  shall  have  to  carry  my  memories  with 
me  to  the  end.  We,  eye-witnesses,  who  saw  those 
streams  of  blood;  who  heard  the  groans  of  the  mar- 
tyrs; the  weeping  and  wailing  of  hundreds  of  widows 
and  orphans,  of  brothers  and  sisters  and  children; 


POGROM  PICTURES  169 

who  for  eight  days  heard  the  terrible  tolling  of  bells 
in  all  church  towers ;  who  saw  the  pogromists,  execu- 
tioners with  pitchforks,  spades,  axes,  pickaxes — we 
who  saw  and  heard  all  this,  are  marked  men,  men 
departed  from  life. 

An  armed  insurrectionary  band  came  in  like  a  flood, 
drove  back  the  members  of  the  Red  Army,  a  part  of 
whom  ran  to  the  station  while  the  others  joined  the  in- 
surrectionists. One  heard  the  cries  of  the  people  who 
were  seized  by  a  wild  panic,  and  the  furious  and  unin- 
terrupted tolling  of  the  bells,  which  struck  fear  into 
our  hearts  and  announced  a  storm.  I  was  seized  by  a 
terrible  excitement  and  despair  and  hurried  to  the 
city.  In  the  city  the  usual  pogrom  scenes  were  being 
enacted.  From  all  sides  men  came  running  with  arms 
in  their  hands.  They  robbed,  they  screamed,  they 
scoffed,  "Now  where  is  your  Red  Army?  Give  up 
your  arms  or  we  strike  you  dead."  This  bacchanal 
lasted  some  time,  until  they  began  to  pull  out  all  men 
and  boys,  and  beat  them  and  carried  them  away.  Some 
said  they  were  going  to  be  fined,  others  said  they 
would  be  imprisoned  and  shot.  In  this  way  until  eve- 
ning almost  all  the  men  had  been  captured,  except 
those  who  knew  how  to  hide  themselves  well.  The 
town  was  like  dead.  The  men  who  had  been  collected 
together  and  a  few  fathers,  brothers,  husbands  and 
wives  who  came  of  their  own  accord  were  taken  into 
the  building  of  the  former  Commissariat. 

A  frightful  and  anxious  night  descended  upon  the 
town.  The  stillness  was  as  that  of  the  grave,  broken 
here  and  there  by  occasional  shots  and  heart-rending 
cries.  In  the  morning  it  became  known  that  during 
the  night  the  bandits  had  killed  eighteen  persons  in 
their  homes,  among  them  two  women. 


170    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  following  day  the  bands  took  up  their  pogrom 
activity  in  an  intensified  degree.  They  ran  through 
the  place,  busied  themselves  with  pillage  and  plunder, 
perpetrated  a  few  murders,  sought  out  concealed  per- 
sons and  took  them  to  the  building  of  the  Commis- 
sariat, which  together  with  the  entire  street  was  cor- 
doned off  from  the  town,  so  that  no  one  could  get  in 
or  out. 

What  fate  was  being  prepared  for  the  persons  under 
arrest ;  what  they  intended  to  do  with  them ;  what  they 
were  preparing  in  secret  when  they  began  to  dig  that 
terrible  grave  of  thirty-five  "arshin"  in  length,  which 
later  received  all  those  martyrs  who  had  to  spend  thirty 
hours  in  the  building  of  the  Commissariat  under  the 
darkest  forebodings,  thirsty  and  in  stifling  air;  what 
was  going  on  behind  the  wall  of  the  town — was  veiled 
in  deepest  darkness.  We  only  saw  more  armed  men 
marching  in  from  the  neighboring  villages.  Besides, 
we  all  cherished  the  hope  that  surely  they  could  not 
kill  all  those  people  who  were  taken  to  the  Commis- 
sariat. No  one  had  such  horrible  premonitions.  That 
was  a  terribly  sad  mistake.  The  fate  of  the  martyrs 
had  been  decided  in  advance.  On  the  morning  of  the 
loth  of  May  they  began  to  dig  their  graves.  The 
counter-revolutionists  and  monarchists  of  all  stations 
and  tendencies  exerted  themselves  to  the  utmost  on  this 
unhappy  day.  They  worked  untiringly  the  whole  night 
and  the  whole  day,  preparing  the  bloody  events  which 
began  on  the  loth  of  May  at  five  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, and  which  will  never  disappear  from  the  history 
of  the  people. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  people  assembled 
in  the  community  house  to  decide  definitely  what  to 
do  with  the  "little  Jews."  Various  opinions  were  ex- 


POGROM  PICTURES  171 

pressed.  The  numerous  assembly  was  divided  into 
several  groups.  Some  cried,  "Down  with  the  Jews, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  let  not  a  soul  remain." 
Others  demanded  that  the  young  people  alone  should 
be  done  away  with  and  the  others  should  have  to  pay  an 
mdemnity.  The  third  group  recommended  that  only 
those  who  belonged  to  the  Red  Army  should  be  exter- 
minated. Only  a  few  tried  to  restrain  the  crowd  from 
the  disgraceful  work  on  the  ground  that  enough  blood 
had  already  been  shed.  It  came  to  a  vote.  The 
assembly,  according  to  the  testimony  of  a  peasant, 
divided  into  two  camps,  which  balanced  each  other, 
some  having  abstained  from  voting.  Suddenly  the 
bloody  ambassador  who  played  the  decisive  role  in  the 
tragedy  rushed  up  on  horseback  and  called  out  to  the 
crowd,  "Brothers,  to  the  harness  quickly!  The  Jews 
from  Obodovka  and  Verkhovka  are  coming  up  behind 
us  in  armored  automobiles."  This  hellish  fiend  was 
Drevinsky,  a  former  Petlurist  officer,  who  had  just 
been  declared  commandant  of  the  rebels.  There  was 
great  excitement.  Amid  the  tumult  one  heard  cries, 
"Go  on,  brothers,  we  will  kill  them  all  and  not  leave 
a  single  one  alive." 

The  two  camps  became  one,  and  were  transformed 
into  a  furious  mob,  who  ran  straight  to  the  Commis- 
sariat, surrounded  it  and  opened  fire. 

The  unhappy  victims,  consisting  of  several  hundred 
men  and  boys,  fell  on  the  ground  in  terror,  begged  for 
help,  cried  and  wept,  but  in  vain.  The  bloody  watch- 
word was  announced  to  them,  "No  survivor." 

The  bestial  crowd  soon  found  that  it  was  not  easy 
to  destroy  so  many  people  by  shooting  through  the 
windows.  They  went  inside  and  threw  bombs  and 
hand  grenades  into  the  mass  of  people  crazed  with 


i;2    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

terror  and  threatening  to  choke  and  kill  each 
other.  A  bloody  dance  of  death  began.  Knives 
flashed,  axes  whizzed,  special  weapons  were  im- 
provised for  the  occasion,  pickaxes  and  boot  heels 
were  employed.  A  river  of  blood  was  formed  with 
the  victims  swimming  in  it.  There  were  tortures  and 
abuses  such  as  the  world  never  knew.  Dead  and  half- 
dead  bodies  were  desecrated,  red  bows  dipped  in  their 
blood  were  fastened  to  their  breasts  with  the  words, 
"There  you  have  your  commune!"  Here  Beer- 
man  and  his  two  daughters  were  killed  in  the  most 
bestial  manner,  as  the  latter  fell  on  their  father's  neck 
and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  die  with  him.  Mogilev, 
the  father,  died  too,  and  his  daughters  made  the  same 
request  as  the  others.  Deutschman,  too,  perished  there 
with  his  four  sons,  of  whom  the  oldest  was  28,  the 
youngest  15.  Here  all  the  five  brothers  Kaphun  lost 
their  lives,  their  father  having  been  murdered  by 
bandits  the  year  before.  Here  a  martyr's  death  came 
to  a  father  with  three  sons  of  ten,  twelve  and  thirteen 
years  respectively;  to  two  fathers  and  their  only  sons; 
here  two  octogenarians  met  their  end,  and  here  Bossa- 
kovsky  died  in  the  arms  of  his  wife  (who  by  a  miracle 
found  her  way  out  of  this  hell)  at  the  hands  of  Kos- 
subsky.  Look  at  the  building  of  the  Commissariat  or 
ask  this  living  witness — they  will  tell  you  a  frightful 
history,  the  meaning  of  which  is  not  clear  to  all,  but 
which  sounds  in  our  ears  like  a  sentence  of  death. 

Thus  in  the  course  of  five  hours,  from  five  o'clock 
until  ten  in  the  evening,  several  hundred  human  lives 
were  extinguished. 

When  the  bloody  work  was  over,  some  of  the  rob- 
bers hurried  to  bring  vehicles  to  carry  away  the  bodies 
of  the  tortured  victims  to  the  reservoirs  where  the 


POGROM  PICTURES  173 

sugar  factory  drains  off  the  water  during  its  operation. 
There,  a  verst  from  the  town,  a  ditch  had  been  pre- 
pared, like  the  graves  at  the  front,  where  the  mutilated 
mass  of  human  beings  was  thrown  in. 

Another  gang  of  bandits  fell  upon  the  terror-stricken 
population,  began  to  drag  out  of  the  houses  those  who 
had  been  left  unharmed  during  the  day,  as  for  example 
sick  persons  suffering  from  typhus,  convalescents,  etc., 
and  killed  them  before  the  eyes  of  their  relatives,  vio- 
lated girls  and  robbed  and  plundered  until  suddenly 
there  appeared  a  body  of  defense  which  had  been 
formed  and  organized  by  the  criminal  leaders  them- 
selves when  they  became  aware  of  the  enormities  they 
had  committed  and  were  frightened  of  their  own  deeds. 

What  happened  in  the  town  the  first  morning  when 
it  became  known  that  all  the  persons  collected  in  the 
Commissariat  had  been  killed  cannot  be  reported — 
weeping,  sobbing,  wailing,  hysterical  cries,  madness, 
fainting  and  death  from  heart  failure.  All  wept,  the 
heaven  and  the  angels,  the  disinterested  stars  and  the 
unhappy  human  beings — a  sea  of  tears  and  endless 
despair.  Ruined  widows  and  orphaned  children  sent 
threatening  curses  against  the  whole  world,  threw 
themselves  in  measureless  grief  on  the  ground  and 
begged  God  for  death. 

The  executioners  who  organized  themselves  as  a 
defense  in  the  morning  did  not  even  leave  the  victims 
to  their  sorrow,  but  chased  them  back  into  the  houses 
every  moment.  The  houses  were  no  longer  occupied 
by  single  families,  but  by  several,  which  consisted  only 
of  women  and  children.  The  remaining  houses  were 
left  to  the  mob  and  the  women  of  the  village,  who  car- 
ried away  the  last  remnants  of  value  "under  the  over- 
sight of  the  defense."  No  one  asked  for  food  or  help.( 


174    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  children  died  quietly  on  the  breasts  of  their  half- 
dead  mothers.  Now  and  then  you  could  hear  the  noise 
in  the  uninhabited  houses  where  the  village  women 
and  the  mob  were  carrying  on.  On  the  I7th  of  May 
Soviet  troops  appeared,  who  chased  away  all  the  ban- 
dits and  drove  them  into  the  woods.  The  seemingly 
dead  place  woke  up  and  the  people  crept  out  of  their 
holes.  There  was  terrible  hunger.  The  troops  shared 
their  rations  with  the  people.  When  the  Soviet  troops 
left,  the  town  was  again  transformed  into  a  cemetery. 
Two  monuments  of  sorrow  remained  in  the  unhappy 
town,  the  blood-stained  building  of  the  Commissariat 
and  the  silent  grave  in, which  the  remains  of  about 
400  innocent  victims  found  their  rest. 

B.  SANDLER. 

President  of  the  temporary  Soviet  of  the  Town  of 
Trostianetz.  i 

May  30,  1919. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
RESULTS 

THE  results  of  the  sad  events  cannot  be  expressed  in 
exact  numbers,  especially  at  a  time  when  the  civil  war 
is  still  going  on,  and  there  is  no  connection  between 
different  parts  of  the  Ukraine,  which  are  occupied  by 
various  powers  fighting  each  other.  The  internal  front 
of  the  Batki  has  divided  the  Ukraine  into  a  number  of 
unconnected  parts.* 

According  to  the  information  in  the  office  of  the  re- 
lief committee  of  the  Red  Cross  for  those  injured  in 
the  pogroms,  the  complete  number  of  places  affected 
up  to  September  22nd  of  last  year,  i.e.,  up  to  a  time 
when  the  wave  of  the  Denikin  pogroms  had  not  reached 
its  highest  point,  was  372.  The  number  of  pogroms  in 
these  places  is  however  essentially  larger  and  will 
amount  to  at  least  700,  as  in  many  places,  for  ex- 
ample Rodomysl,  Cherniakhov,  Kornip,  Volodarka, 
Yelisavetgrad,  Vasilkov,  there  were  four,  five  and  even 
ten  pogroms.  Some  places  suffered  from  one  pro- 
longed pogrom  until  the  entire  Jewish  population  and 
every  trace  of  Jewish  possessions  were  completely 
wiped  out. 

The  following  number  of  places  were  destroyed: 

*This  is  true  only  of  the  pogroms  of  1919. 

175 


176    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 
Government  of  Kiev 

District  of  Chernobyl  (Struk) 43 

"  Tripolie  (Zeleny)  9 

"  Cherkassy-Chigirin  (Grig- 

oriev) 21 

"  Berdichev  5 

"  Tarascha  20 

"  Uman  12 

"  Skvira  and  Pogrebische ....  30 

"  Kiev  16 

"  Radomysl-Zhitomir  ( Soko- 

lovsky)      52 

Total    208 
Government  of  Volhynia 

District  of  Ovruch   26 

Zhitomir      20 

Rovno     10 

Total      56 


Government  of  Podolia 

District  of  Gaisin 29 

"  Balta      8 

"  Vinnitza     16 

"  Proskurov    I 

"  Kamenetz-Podolsk      i 

Total  55 


RESULTS  177 

Government  of  Kherson 23 

"   Poltava     15 

"    Chernigov    7 

Yekaterinoslav     i 

Grand  total      365 

Below  is  a  classification  according  to  bands: 
Regular  Troops  and  Bands  of  Petlura 

Zhitomir,  Proskurov,  Ovruch,  Felshtin,  Korosten, 
Balta,  Rovno,  Litin,  Kremenetz-Kodyma,  Trostianetz, 
Krivoie  Ozero,  Theophipol,  Kotelnya,  Zhmerinka, 
Pikov,  Yanov,  Gaisin,  Pecheri,  Tulchin,  Radomysl, 
Vasilkov,  Rossovo,  Skvira,  Boguslav,  Yelisavetgrad, 
Novo-Mirgorod,  Poltava,  Kobeliaki,  Ramodan,  Piria- 
tin,  Berdichev,  Znamenka,  etc. 

Places  destroyed   120 

Killed     15,000 

Bands  of  Sokolovsky  (District  of  Radomy si- 
Zhitomir) 

Radomysl,  Makarov,  Brussilov,  Kornip,  Khodorkov, 
Korostyshev,  Yassnogorodka,  etc. 

Places  destroyed   70 

Killed     3,ooo 

Bands  of  Zeleny  (District  of  Tripolie) 

Tripolie,  Rzhischev,  Vasilkov,  Obuchovo,  Pereyas- 
lev,  Pogrebische,  Bielaia  Tserkov,  Tatiev,  Pliskov, 
Rushin,  etc. 


i;8    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Places  destroyed  15 

Killed       2,000 

Bands  of  Struk  (District  of  Chernobyl) 

Chernobyl,  Gornostaipol,  Ivankov,  Khabno,  Meshi- 
gore,  Vishgorod,  etc. 

Places  destroyed 41 

Killed         1,000 


Bands  of  Sokolovsky  and  Others  (District  of  Uman- 
Skvira-Pogrebische  ) 

Uman,  Dubovo,  Talnoie,  Kristinovka,  Ladyzhenka, 
Skvira,  Volodarka,  Novo-Fastov,  Pogrebische,  Dzhun- 
kov,  Borshchagovka,  Priluki,  Turbov,  Vakhnovka, 
Lipovetz,  Golovanevsk,  etc. 

Places  destroyed  38 

Killed     2,000 

Bands  of  Grigoriev  (District  of  Cherkassy-Y  elisav- 

etgrad) 

Cherkassy,  Belozeria,  Smela,  Rotmistrovka,  Zlato- 
pol,  Chigirin,  Gorodische,  Matusovo,  Yelisavetgrad, 
Novo-Mirgorod,  Znamenka,  Alexandria,  etc. 

Places  destroyed 40 

Killed     , , ,  ,6*000 


RESULTS  179 

Bands  of  Yatzenko  and  Golub  (District  of  Tarascha) 

Tarascha,  Boguslav,  Mironovka,  Rossovo,  Stie- 
pantsy,  Stavische,  etc. 

Places  destroyed  16 

Killed     1,000 

Red  Bands 

Vasilkov,  Zolotonosha,  Obuchovo,  Rossovo,  Pogre- 
bische,  Volochisk,  Korosten,  Brailov,  Korsun,  Klevan, 
Rovno,  Gaisin,  etc. 

Places  destroyed  13 

Killed     500 

Grand  total  killed     30,500 

This  figure,  however,  does  not  by  any  means  give 
a  correct  idea  of  the  actual  number  of  persons  who 
perished.  No  account  is  taken  in  the  above  figures 
of  the  many  victims  who  gave  up  their  lives  in  places 
that  could  not  be  recorded  because  there  has  not  been 
any  connection  with  them  so  far  and  no  investigations 
in  those  regions  have  yet  been  made,  as  for  example  in 
the  western  parts  of  the  Governments  of  Volhynia  and 
Podolia,  in  the  southern  part  of  the  Government  of 
Kherson,  etc.  Nor  have  those  missing  Jewish  families 
been  included  who  were  exterminated  in  numerous 
villages  and  hamlets,  or  those  who  were  killed  during 
their  flight  from  their  ruined  homes  as  they  wandered 
from  place  to  place,  or  those  who  were  pulled  out  of 
railway  trains  and  beaten  to  death,  or  those  who 
were  drowned  by  being  thrown  out  of  steamers,  or 
those  who  were  killed  in  the  woods  and  the  highways. 


i8o  SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

There  is  no  account  taken  of  the  great  numbers  of 
those  who  succumbed  to  their  injuries  and  fell  victims 
of  contagious  and  other  diseases  which  they  contracted 
during  their  imprisonment  in  dark  rooms  without  food, 
drink  or  clothing. 

The  entire  number  of  persons  who  perished  during 
the  first  period  of  the  pogroms  at  the  time  of  the  Direc- 
tory and  the  Batki  amounts  to  at  least  70,000. 

We  have  no  data  on  the  number  of  persons  who  fell 
victims  of  the  Denikin  pogroms.  The  figure  167,000 
given  in  the  above  mentioned  memorandum  which  was 
handed  to  the  Zionist  Actions  Committee  and  to  Dr. 
Margoline  is  no  doubt  exaggerated.  According  to  the 
statements  of  persons  recently  arrived  from  the 
Ukraine,  the  number  of  those  killed  in  the  second 
period  of  the  pogroms  is  50,000.  If  we  assume  that 
120,000  deaths  were  due  directly  to  the  pogroms,  we 
shall  not  be  guilty  of  exaggeration.  To  these  must  be 
added  the  injured  and  wounded,  those  suffering  from 
nervous  and  mental  shock  and  the  violated  women. 
The  pogroms  swept  the  Ukraine  like  a  hurricane,  and 
it  was  impossible  to  undertake  a  census  of  such  cases. 
The  number,  however,  must  be  prodigious,  running 
into  the  tens  of  thousands. 

So  also  the  number  of  victims  who  suffered  material 
loss.  It  may  be  said  that  in  all  of  the  places  which 
were  visited  by  the  pogroms  the  possessions  of  the 
Jews  were  completely  destroyed.  We  have  a  typical 
report  in  this  connection  from  the  village  of  Orlovetz 
(Government  of  Kiev),  which  reads  as  follows:  "The 
plunderers  rushed  at  the  Jewish  houses.  .  .  .  Here 
they  were  helped  by  the  whole  Russian  population. 
Everything  was  loaded  on  wagons  and  carried  away. 
After  they  had  completely  emptied  the  houses  and 


RESULTS  181 

squeezed  out  in  every  possible  way  the  last  savings  of 
the  Jews  they  proceeded  to  destroy  the  houses  and  the 
shops.  Shutters,  window  panes,  doors  were  taken  out, 
roofs  were  torn  off,  and  so  on.  The  greatest  zeal  was 
shown  in  searching  for  money.  The  floors  were  torn 
up,  the  soil  was  turned  up  again  and  again  in  the  barns, 
cellars  and  yards,  ovens  were  taken  apart.  ..."  A 
similar  report  comes  from  Zlatopol,  "The  shops  were 
plundered  and  then  burned  down  (of  285  shops  275 
were  plundered  and  then  burned  down).  Everything 
was  taken  away,  from  hatchets  and  wooden  spoons  to 
pianos.  The  poor  water-carrier  had  his  last  blind  nag 
taken  away.  Of  1,100  Jewish  houses,  1,065  were  des- 
troyed. The  goods  and  possessions  were  carried  away 
on  thousands  of  vehicles.  The  looting  lasted  two 
weeks."  As  the  local  physician,  Dr.  Isaacson,  ex- 
pressed himself,  'The  pogrom  stopped  of  itself,  since 
everything  was  looted  and  all  the  inhabitants  had  fled 
to  Mirgorod."  *  The  Jewish  population  of  the  vil- 
lages and  hamlets  visited  by  the  pogroms  left 
everything  behind  as  it  was,  and  fled  without  further 
thought  to  a  larger  place.  The  roads  were  covered 
with  the  bodies  of  old  men,  women  and  children,  and 
in  the  larger  places  the  same  horrible  death  awaited 
the  fugitives.  .  .  .  The  economic  situation  of  the 
Jews  in  the  large  Government  cities  of  the  Ukraine  is 
desperate.  The  authorized  agent  of  the  Relief  Com- 
mittee of  the  Red  Cross  reports  from  Yelisavetgrad, 
"There  is  need  of  assistance  in  every  shape  and  form. 
If  Yelisavetgrad  should  not  get  any  support,  the  entire 
population  will  die.  This  is  no  exaggeration.  The 
people  have  not  a  shirt  to  change  and  there  is  no  possi- 

*See  Appendix,  pp.  288  ff. 


182    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

bility  of  getting  any.  If  no  help  should  come  the  out- 
break of  disease  is  unavoidable.  Food  exists  only  in 
very  small  quantities.  The  peasants  do  not  come  to 
market  as  they  have  nothing  to  buy.  Articles  of  food 
are  not  coming  in  and  hunger  is  approaching."  An- 
other agent  reports,  "More  than  a  thousand  inhabitants 
of  Ladyzhenka  are  to  this  day  living  in  Golovanevsk. 
Ragged  and  barefoot,  with  a  completely  decayed  shirt 
on  the  body  or  without  any  shirt,  healthy  and  con- 
tagiously diseased  men  and  women  are  squatting  in 
the  synagogues,  in  empty  barns  or  simply  in  the  streets. 
God  alone,  or  the  livid  and  tightly  closed  lips  of  these 
people,  can  tell  you  how  they  live  and  pass  the  day. 
One  sees  many  biers  in  the  crooked  streets  of  Golo- 
vanevsk, and  many  collections  are  made  to  secure 
shrouds  for  the  Jews  of  Ladyzhenka.  .  .  ." 

According  to  existing  data,  150,000  men  suffered 
material  loss  in  August,  1919,  in  the  Government 
of  Kiev.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  In  the  Govern- 
ments of  Podolia,  Volhynia  and  Kherson,  the  damage 
was  not  less.  It  would  not  therefore  be  an  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  in  the  Governments  of  Kiev,  Volhynia 
and  Podolia  about  600,000  persons  suffered  material 
loss.  This  was  the  calculation  of  the  Relief  Commit- 
tee of  the  Red  Cross  for  the  time  up  to  the  coming  of 
the  Denikin  pogroms.  We  may  assume  that  not  less 
than  half  a  million  were  affected  materially  by  the 
latter,  and,  therefore,  that  the  entire  number  affected 
was  over  a  million. 

If  we  add  about  50,000  or  60,000  orphans  we  get  a 
complete  picture  of  the  destruction  of  Jewish  life  in 
the  Ukraine.  The  pogroms  in  the  Ukraine  in  the  year 
1919  form  one  of  the  most  tragic  episodes  in  the  dark 
history  of  the  much-suffering  Jewish  people. 


APPENDIX 

I 


SUPPLEMENT  TO  CHAPTER  II 

REPORT  OF  A.  I.  HILLERSON 
I.    CITY  OF  OVRUCH 

Ovruch  is  a  cantonal  capital  of  the  government  of  Volhynia, 
with  a  population  of  about  10,000  people.  More  than  two  thirds 
of  this  population  are  Jews. 

The  Jewish  population  is  mostly  unpolitical;  there  were  no 
notable  revolutionaries  among  them.  In  the  period  of  the  im- 
perial pogroms  Ovruch  did  not  suffer. 

The  first  pogrom  in  Ovruch  took  place  in  December,  1917, 
under  the  first  Rada.  Polish  land-owners  sojourning  in  the  city 
and  canton,  and  likewise  former  tsarist  officials,  true  to  tsaristic 
principles,  sowed  seeds  of  division,  and  instilled  hatred  for  the 
Jews,  attributing  to  their  machinations  the  increase  in  the  prices 
of  products 

Under  the  influence  of  their  agitations  the  i6sth  Ukrainian 
regiment,  quartered  in  Ovruch,  upon  its  demobilization  in  De- 
cember, 1917,  began  to  wreck  Jewish  stores  and  destroy  the 
wares.  Peasants  of  the  neighboring  villages  came  with  carts  and 
carried  away  all  that  remained  undestroyed.  Then  the  local 
population  did  the  same.  Only  the  stores  were  destroyed.  The 
homes  of  the  Jews  did  not  suffer. 

This  pogrom  gave  occasion  for  the  Jewish  ex-soldiers  in 
Ovruch  to  form  an  organization  for  self-defense.  This  operated 
for  a  considerable  time  but  finally  broke  up. 

Attitude  Towards  the  Jews  Under  the  Hetman 

Under  the  Hetman  there  were  no  pogroms  at  all.  The  power 
of  the  Hetman  was  in  reality  a  restorational  power;  it  was  col- 
ored in  tsarist  colors,  but,  according  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  moment,  in  a  decidedly  faint  shade.  Under  the  Hetman 

185 


i86    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

there  was  no  pogrom-agitation,  but  there  was  no  lack  of  anti- 
Semitic  propaganda.  Among  other  things,  from  Zhitomir  there 
was  received  in  Ovruch  a  secret  order  not  to  accept  Jews  in  the 
state  service,  and  gradually  to  discharge  those  previously 
taken  in. 

The  power  of  the  Hetman,  being  a  continuation  of  the  tsarist 
power,  although  in  a  weakened  form,  was  extremely  unpopular 
among  the  Ukrainian  peasants.  And  when  the  Germans,  owing 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  began  to  abandon  the  country, 
uprisings  flared  up  in  many  places. 

Uprising  of  the  Peasants  and  formation  of  the  Republic  of 
Ovruch 

On  November  30,  1918,  the  peasants  of  the  Pokalev  district 
[volost],  canton  of  Ovruch,  arose.  They  declared  the  power 
of  the  Hetman  overthrown  and  formed  the  republic  of  Ovruch. 
The  volunteer  officers  who  had  been  guarding  the  German  power 
in  Ovruch,  about  one  hundred  in  number,  fled  without  making 
resistance. 

The  peasants  introduced  strict  order  in  Ovruch.  They  imme- 
diately freed  the  political  prisoners  from  prison,  and  named  one 
of  their  number,  the  peasant  Dmitriuk,  city  commissar;  a  Jew, 
Friedman,  member  of  the  Bund,  was  named  his  assistant. 

Among  other  things  the  peasants  proposed  to  the  Jewish  com- 
munity that  they  organize  from  their  own  midst  a  military  de- 
tachment of  one  hundred  and  fifty  men.  But  the  Jews,  having 
considered  this  proposal  and  recognized  that  the  peasant  govern- 
ment which  had  been  formed  had  not  sufficient  guarantees  of 
durability,  wisely  declined  to  form  such  a  detachment. 

At  this  time  the  power  of  the  Hetman  in  Ukraine  definitely 
fell;  the  Directory  of  Petlura  came  into  power. 

Bolshevism  Among  the  Pokalev  Peasants 

Under  the  influence  of  the  White  Russian  bolsheviks,  who  on 
the  side  of  Kalinkovichi  are  the  nearest  neighbors  of  the  Pokalev 
peasants,  tendencies  to  bolshevism  began  to  develop  in  violent 
measure  among  the  latter,  and  bolshevist  demands  were  heard 
ever  more  loudly.  There  was  formed  a  majority  of  bolsheviks, 
and  a  minority  which  was  ready  to  join  the  Ukrainian  national 
movement. 

Dmitriuk  and  Friedman,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  the  Ovruch 
republic,  came  out  against  the  bolshevist  tendencies  of  the 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        187 

Pokalevites.     Dmitriuk  was  killed  and  Friedman  saved  himself 
by  flight. 

A  certain  Meschanchuk,  as  I  believe  an  anti-Semite  and  black- 
hundred  man,  had  already  been  named  by  the  Pokalevites  as  com- 
mandant of  the  city  of  Ovruch.  He  secretly  entered  into  agree- 
ment with  the  Petlura  government  in  Korosten,  informed  it  of 
the  bolshevist  tendencies  in  Ovruch  and  invited  thither  the  so- 
called  "Clan  of  Death." 

"The  Clan  of  Death"  (Kuren  Smerti) 

The  Clan  of  Death  arrived  in  the  city  by  night,  surrounded 
the  Pokalevites  and  disarmed  them.  Then  the  Cossacks  of  this 
Clan  began  to  go  around  to  the  homes  of  the  Jews,  to  remove 
the  weapons.  They  found  no  weapons,  but  did  find  money  and 
valuable  property  in  many  houses.  All  this  they  took.  Thus 
began  the  plundering  in  Ovruch. 

The  Jews  went  with  complaints  to  the  commandant  Meschan- 
chuk. He  quieted  them  by  declaring  that. the  regular  army 
would  soon  appear  and  that  then  the  plunderings  would  stop.  In 
fact,  there  did  appear  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  in  Ovruch 
a  detachment  of  guerrilla-soldiers  with  the  ataman  Kozyr-Zyrka 
at  their  head.  To  those  who  met  him  Kozyr-Zyrka  declared 
that  he  had  come  to  introduce  order  in  the  city.  Some  say  that 
Meschanchuk,  in  presenting  a  report  on  the  condition  of  the 
town,  had  declared  that  bolshevism  was  raging  there  and  that 
the  Jews  were  to  blame  for  it. 

The  Ataman  Kozyr-Zyrka 

Legends  have  sprung  up  in  Ovruch  about  the  personality  of 
Kozyr-Zyrka.  Some  assert  that  he  was  a  certain  count  from 
Bielaia  Tserkov,  and  that  Kozyr-Zyrka  was  not  his  real  name, 
but  only  a  pseudonym. 

Others  declare  that  he  was  a  runaway  Galician  convict,  in 
support  of  which  they  point  among  other  things  to  the  tattooing 
on  his  arms. 

But  all  descriptions  agree  in  this,  that  he  was  a  handsome 
young  fellow,  a  fiery  brunet  of  gypsy  type,  with  good  manners, 
a  fine  orator,  speaking  exclusively  in  the  Galician-Ukrainian 
dialect.  He  did  not  speak  Russian,  though  he  understood  the 
language  very  well. 

Kozyr-Zyrka  considered  it  his  first  duty  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  attitudes  of  the  various  social  groups.  Therefore  he 


188    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

invited  to  meet  him  the  mayor  of  the  town,  a  Pole  named 
Moshinsky,  and  the  representatives  of  various  social  organiza- 
tions, mostly  Poles  and  former  tsarist  officials.  What  these 
invited  guests  told  Kozyr-Zyrka  remained  unknown,  but  it  is 
not  difficult  to  make  a  guess. 

Arrest  of  the  Clerical  Rabbi 

Having  heard  the  representatives  of  the  Christian  community, 
the  Ataman  decided  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  representative 
of  the  Jewish  community.  Therefore  he  ordered  the  Jewish 
clerical  Rabbi  arrested  and  brought  to  him. 

The  Rabbi  was  arrested  December  26  about  2  P.M.,  and  was 
brought  to  the  commandant's  headquarters.  There  he  was  de- 
tained until  10  P.M.,  steadily  exposed  to  all  manner  of 
taunts  on  the  part  of  the  Cossacks.  At  last  at  10  P.M.  he 
stood  before  the  eyes  of  the  ataman  Kozyr-Zyrka.  The  latter 
received'  him  extremely  rudely,  and,  after  questioning  him  in 
a  prejudiced  way,  announced  to  him :  "I  know  that  you  are  a 
bolshevik,  that  all  your  relatives  and  all  Jews  are  bolsheviks. 
Know  that  I  am  going  to  destroy  all  the  Jews  in  the  city.  Get 
them  together  in  the  synagogue  and  inform  them  of  what  I  have 
told  you." 

First  Murders 

With  these  words  he  dismissed  the  Rabbi,  late  at  night.  In 
the  same  night  Cossacks  surrounded  a  peasant's  cart,  in  which 
Jewish  boys  and  girls,  gymnasium  students  from  Mozyr,  were 
riding.  The  Cossacks  demanded  that  the  peasants  give  up  to 
them  the  "Jewish  brats,"  but  the  peasants  saved  them.  How- 
ever, they  arrested  a  young  Jew  from  Kalinkovichi,  who  was 
passing  through  Ovruch,  and  took  him  to  the  Ataman.  And  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  from  Kalinkovichi,  which  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  bolsheviki,  Kozyr-Zyrka  declared  him  also  a  bol- 
shevik and  ordered  him  shot. 

Persecutions 

There  were  also  arrested  two  Jews  passing  through  from  the 
hamlet  Narodichi;  they  were  peddlers  of  cheap  tobacco  and 
matches.  They  were  declared  profiteers  and  brought  to  the 
Ataman.  There  they  were  stripped  naked,  scourged  with  whips, 
and  made  to  dance.  At  the  same  time  a  bundle  of  tobacco  was 
thrust  into  the  mouth  of  one  and  a  box  of  matches  into  the 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        189 

other's.  Kozyr-Zyrka  himself  stood  with  raised  revolver  and 
threatened  to  shoot  them,  if  they  stopped  dancing.  Afterwards 
they  made  them  beat  each  other  and  kiss  the  spot  beaten.  They 
also  compelled  them  to  cross  themselves,  etc.  After  amusing 
themselves  with  them  as  much  as  they  liked  they  drove  them 
out  naked  on  the  street,  and  then  threw  out  their  clothes  after 
them.  (Testimony  of  Rabbi  Kipnis  10-11,  Weilerman  13-16, 
et  a/.) 

Departure  of  Kozyr-Zyrka  and  Second  Seizure  by  the 
Pokalevites 

The  twenty-seventh  of  December  passed  in  petty  robberies  in 
Jewish  homes.  At  this  time  the  following  incident  occurred. 
A  detachment  of  Cossacks  went  to  the  hamlet  Narodichi  for 
the  requisition  of  leather.  Returning,  the  detachment  halted  in 
a  certain  village.  There  the  Cossacks  drank  too  much.  When 
they  went  on,  the  peasants  ambushed  them  and  fired  upon  them. 
Four  Cossacks  were  killed;  the  rest  rode  into  Ovruch.  This 
incident  produced  a  profound  impression  upon  Kozyr-Zyrka  and 
his  partisans,  and  in  the  same  night  they  left  Ovruch  and  re- 
turned to  Korosten. 

The  Pokalev  peasants  again  took  command  of  the  city.  First 
of  all  they  went  to  the  prison,  where  were  the  land-owners  and 
foresters  whom  they  had  previously  arrested,  and  slaughtered 
them  all.  Then  they  fell  upon  several  land-owners  living  in  the 
city,  and  wounded  them  badly,'  and  likewise  severely  wounded 
the  wife  of  a  forester  who  was  under  arrest,  and  her  sister, 
who  was  visiting  her,  and  the  latter's  child. 

Second  Attack  of  Kozyr-Zyrka 

On  December  31  Kozyr-Zyrka  again  approached  Ovruch  with 
heavy  reinforcements  and  began  to  fire  on  the  town  with  heavy 
guns.  The  Pokalevites  replied  to  them  for  the  course  of  an 
hour,  but  then  were  silenced.  Kozyr-Zyrka  continued  to  fire 
on  the  town,  and  finally  his  bands  burst  into  the  city,  where  a 
bloody  bacchanalia  began. 

Pogrom  in  the  Villages  Potapovichi  and  Geshovo. 

By  way  of  preface  it  must  be  observed  that  on  the  way  to 
Ovruch  near  the  village  Potapovichi  the  road  was  found  torn  up. 
Someone  said  to  the  Cossacks  that  the  Jews  had  done  this. 


190    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Then  the  Cossacks  decided  to  settle  with  the  Jews  of  the  near-by 
villages. 

In  Potapovichi  there  were  only  four  Jewish  families,  and  the 
Cossacks,  entering  the  village,  began  to  rob  and  murder  them 
and  violate  the  women.  In  one  house  the  owner  was  away;  his 
three  daughters  and  son-in-law  were  there.  On  the  person  of 
one  of  the  daughters  was  hidden  about  a  hundred  rubles.  The 
Cossacks  took  this  and  other  money,  and  likewise  every  piece 
of  valuable  property.  They  violated  the  women,  and  since  the 
latter,  especially  the  two  girls,  resisted,  they  beat  them  until 
their  faces  were  turned  into  masses  of  blood.  The  son-in-law, 
who  had  just  returned  from  war-captivity,  was  taken  out  in  the 
yard,  where  another  Jew  was  found.  They  shot  both  of  them, 
killing  the  son-in-law  outright,  while  the  other  Jew  was  only 
wounded,  but  pretended  to  be  dead,  and  so  saved  himself.  From 
this  house  they  went  to  a  Jewish  blacksmith,  who  had  just 
returned  from  the  front.  They  sent  two  bullets  into  him,  and 
were  preparing  to  shoot  a  Russian  boy  servant  of  his,  who 
was  in  hysterics.  The  mortally  wounded  blacksmith  gath- 
ered his  strength  together  and  cried:  "Why  are  you  killing 
him?  He  is  Russian."  The  Cossacks  made  sure  the  boy  really 
was  Russian,  and  left  him  in  peace.  But  since  the  blacksmith, 
by  interceding  for  him,  had  shown  that  he  was  still  alive,  they 
finished  him  off.  After  this  they  went  out  into  the  yard,  where 
they  met  an  old  man,  the  blacksmith's  father-in-law,  and  killed 
him,  as  well  as  a  boy,  the  blacksmith's  nephew. 

From  Potapovichi  they  went  to  the  village  of  Geshovo,  to  hunt 
for  Jews  there.  In  this  village  lived  a  number  of  Jews,  but  they 
all  had  time  to  flee;  only  one  deaf  old  melamed  (teacher)  re- 
mained. The  Cossacks  took  him  along  with  them  and  set  out 
in  the  direction  of  Ovruch.  On  the  way  they  met  an  old  shokhet 
returning  to  his  home.  They  seized  him,  too,  and  on  the  spot 
hung  both  old  men  on  a  high  tree,  one  by  a  telegraph-wire,  the 
other  by  a  strap.  The  latter,  the  peasants  say,  fell  down  several 
times,  but  each  time  they  hung  him  up  again.  Then  they  took 
them  down  from  the  high  tree  and  hung  them  on  a  small  tree, 
to  which  they  affixed  a  placard  saying  that  "Whoever  takes  them 
down  has  not  more  than  two  minutes  to  live."  In  consequence 
of  this  the  peasants  would  not  let  them  be  taken  down.  And 
only  when  the  bodies  began  to  decay  did  the  Jews  succeed  in 
taking  them  down  and  burying  them  in  a  nearby  place. 

In   all   nine   Jews   were   killed   in   Potapovichi   and    Geshovo. 

(Testimony  of  Glossman,  pp.  33-35.)     Such  was  the  prelude  to 

what  afterwards  took  place  in  Ovruch. 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        191 

Murders,  Violations  and  Robberies 

Having  entered  Ovruch  after  midday,  December  thirty-first, 
the  Cossacks  scattered  over  the  city  and  began  to  rob  and 
murder  the  Jews.  One  detachment  went  to  the  market-place  and 
there  seized  about  ten  Jewish  girls,  whom  the  Cossacks  dragged 
into  the  Feitelson  inn,  where  the  girls  were  exposed  to  inde- 
scribable persecutions  and  violence. 

Other  Cossacks  at  this  time  were  killing  every  Jew  they  met. 
One  Jew  whom  they  attacked  took  refuge  in  a  near-by  house. 
The  Cossacks  went  into  a  house,  where  they  thought  he  was 
hiding,  and  found  a  father  and  three  sons  sitting  at  table.  They 
led  all  four  out  into  the  yard  and  shot  them  one  after  another. 
They  came  to  the  house  of  the  lawyer  Glossman,  an  educated 
man,  a  member  of  the  commune.  They  took  him  and  his  old 
father  out  in  the  street,  then  decided  to  free  the  old  man  and 
told  him  to  go.  But  he  refused  to  abandon  his  son,  and  the 
Cossacks  began  to  beat  the  old  man  with  whips,  in  the  course 
of  which  they  struck  out  his  only  eye  (he  had  long  lost  his 
other  eye)  ;  and  they  shot  the  younger  Glossman  on  the  spot. 
The  Ataman  Kozyr-Zyrka  was  present  on  horseback  at  this 
shooting. 

The  mayor  of  the  town,  Moshinsky,  was  passing  by  at  that 
time,  and  young  Glossman,  who  was  very  well  known  to  him, 
applied  to  him  to  intercede  and  tell  the  Cossacks  whether  he 
was  a  bolshevik.  But  Moshinsky  went  on,  pretending  not  to 
hear  the  entreaty.  This  is  a  characteristic  incident. 

The  Cossacks  dispersed  about  the  town,  and  in  parties  entered 
the  houses,  stole  money  and  property,  beat  up  old  men,  violated 
women,  and  killed  young  Jews.  Many  of  those  whom  they  pre- 
pared to  shoot  bought  their  safety  with  money,  the  price  of  the 
ransom  being  very  considerable.  Thus,  late  in  the  evening,  a 
number  of  Cossacks  appeared  in  the  house  of  Rosenmann.  In 
this  house,  besides  the  old  mother  and  two  daughters,  were  two 
sons,  one  of  whom  had  for  several  weeks  been  lying  sick  abed. 
The  son  who  was  well  they  took  for  a  Russian  (he  is,  in  fact, 
not  Jewish  in  appearance),  and  told  him  to  go,  but,  finding  that 
he  was  a  son  of  the  house,  detained  him.  They  also  demanded 
that  the  sick  son  should  get  dressed  and  go  with  them.  But, 
having  convinced  themselves  that  he  was  really  seriously  sick 
and  could  not  get  up,  they  contented  themselves  with  leaving 
one  Cossack  by  his  bedside ;  the  well  son  they  took  out  into  the 
yard,  where  the  other  Cossacks  were  waiting  for  them.  There 
they  stood  him  up  against  a  wall,  and  one  Cossack  loaded  his 


I92    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

gun.  The  young  man  began  to  beg  them  not  to  kill  him,  prom- 
ising a  large  ransom.  "Give  us  twelve  thousand,"  demanded  one 
of  the  Cossacks.  The  young  man  assured  them  that  his  family 
would  pay  this  sum  for  him.  Then  the  Cossacks  led  him  into 
the  house,  where  his  mother  and  sisters  lay  in  a  deep  swoon. 
They  brought  the  women  to  consciousness,  and  the  women  be- 
gan to  search  the  house  for  money.  But  only  two  thousand 
rubles  were  found  in  the  house.  The  Cossacks  consented  to 
take  this  money  on  condition  that  the  remaining  10,000  rubles 
should  be  paid  on  the  next  day  by  10  A.M.  They  said  they 
would  appear  at  this  time,  and  if  the  money  should  not  be 
handed  over  they  would  kill  all. 

In  fact,  on  the  next  morning  at  the  appointed  time  two 
Cossacks  appeared,  and,  having  received  the  10,000  rubles  as 
agreed,  they  declared  that  the  Rosenmanns  could  now  live  in 
peace,  since  their  names  would  be  recorded  at  headquarters  and 
no  one  would  disturb  them  further.  The  Cossacks  kept  their 
word.  The  Rosenmanns  were  not  troubled  further,  whereas 
visits  were  made  to  other  Jews  by  different  parties  of  Cossacks, 
the  later  parties  taking  whatever  their  predecessors  had  failed 
to  get.  The  Cossacks  disdained  absolutely  nothing;  they  took 
off  the  Jews'  clothing  and  shoes.  It  is  characteristic  that  the 
Cossack  who  led  out  Rosenmann  to  shoot  him  gave  the  impres- 
sion of  being  a  cultivated  man ;  he  had  clean  hands,  and  valuable 
rings  shone  on  them.  He  spoke  with  a  marked  Polish  accent. 
(Testimony  of  Rosenmann,  p.  27.) 

In  another  case  a  somewhat  drunken  officer,  a  captain,  de- 
manded of  the  Jewish  keeper  of  a  small  inn  that  he  should 
immediately  serve  dinner  to  his  entire  company,  and  pay  him 
personally  5,000  rubles.  When  the  innkeeper  declared  that  it 
was  impossible  to  fulfil  this  at  once,  since  he  had  no  money  and 
still  less  provisions  to  feed  a  whole  company,  the  captain  gave 
orders  to  lay  him  out  and  beat  him  with  whips.  His  daughter, 
who  had  been  about  to  hide  herself,  ran  out  and  covered  her 
father  with  her  own  body.  Then  lashes  were  distributed  upon 
her  and  everyone  else  in  the  house.  Then  the  captain  took  the 
innkeeper  away  with  him.  His  daughter  followed  her  father. 
At  first  the  captain  demanded  that  she  go  away,  but  finally  al- 
lowed her  to  follow  her  father.  He  took  them  to  his  quarters, 
placed  a  revolver  on  the  table,  and  ordered  the  daughter  to 
prepare  a  dinner  for  his  company  in  the  course  of  the  day  and 
provide  him  with  5,000  rubles,  otherwise  her  father  would  be 
shot  at  evening.  It  occurred  to  the  old  man  to  use  this  pro- 
posal to  save  himself.  He  assured  the  captain  that  his  daughter 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        193 

could  do  nothing,  but  that  if  they  would  let  him  go  for  a  single 
hour,  he  would  get  the  money  and  provisions.  After  long  hesi- 
tation the  captain  agreed  to  let  the  old  man  go  for  half  an 
hour.  The  old  man  ran  to  his  home,  which,  by  that  time,  had 
been  stripped  bare  by  the  Cossacks.  He  advised  his  family  to 
hide  wherever  they  could,  and  then  hid  himself  in  a  garret  with 
acquaintances.  Afterwards  he  and  his  family  fled  from  the 
town.  (Testimony  of  Wachlis,  p.  36.) 

In  the  first  two  days  seventeen  Jews  were  killed.  The  Jews 
applied  to  the  mayor,  Moshinsky,  begging  him  to  send  a  depu- 
tation of  two  Christians  and  one  Jew  to  the  Ataman  to  beg  him 
to  stop  the  pogrom.  The  mayor  promised  to  do  so,  but  in  the 
end  did  nothing.  Then  the  old  men  and  women  (the  young 
Jews  were  all  hiding)  went  with  tears  and  lamentations  to  the 
house  of  the  Ataman.  The  Ataman  consented  to  receive  a  depu- 
tation of  three  from  those  who  had  come.  When  the  deputation 
was  admitted,  he  demanded  that  all  the  male  Jewish  popu- 
lation between  the  ages  of  15  and  40  should  appear  on  the 
square  near  headquarters  on  the  next  day. 

Panic  Among  the  Jews 

This  demand  threw  the  Jewish  population  into  a  fearful  panic. 
All  were  convinced  that  the  working  Jewish  population  was 
being  demanded  for  slaughter.  However,  it  was  impossible  to 
disobey  the  command.  So  on  the  next  day  the  entire  Jewish 
population  between  the  ages  of  15  and  40,  protected  by  old  men 
and  women,  appeared  at  the  appointed  spot  near  the  headquarters 
building.  After  about  an  hour  Kozyr-Zyrka  at  last  rode  up  in 
an  automobile.  The  Jews  cried  "Long  live  the  Ataman,  long 
live  Ukraine!"  Kozyr-Zyrka  got  out  of  the  automobile  and 
delivered  a  speech  to  them  in  which  he  enumerated  all  their 
"bolshevistic  crimes." 

Kozyr-Zyrka 's  Speech  to  the  Jews 

In  his  speech,  spoken  in  beautiful  Galician-Ukrainian  dialect, 
he  said  that  he  had  the  right  to  destroy  all  the  Jews,  and  would 
do  so  if  even  a  single  Cossack  suffered.  In  Potapovichi  he  had 
already  done  so,  shooting  a  Jewish  spy  himself.  He  would 
destroy  all  Jews  in  Ovruch,  if  a  single  Cossack  suffered.  There- 
fore he  advised  the  Jews,  if  there  was  a  single  bolshevik  spy 
among  them,  to  strangle  him  with  their  own  hands. 

When  Kozyr-Zyrka  finished  his  speech,  the  Jews  cried  hurrah. 


194    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  fiscal  Rabbi  proposed  to  him  that  all  Jews  should  swear 
loyalty  to  Ukraine  and  furnish  a  military  detachment  from  their 
midst.  The  Ataman  replied  that  he  had  no  use  for  Jewish 
oaths  or  Jewish  detachments.  He  permitted  the  Jews  to  breathe 
the  air  of  Ukraine,  but  demanded  that  they  remember  his  warn- 
ing. The  Jews  dispersed  and  began  to  consider  how  they  could 
move  the  Ataman.  They  collected  about  20,000  rubles  and  gave 
it  to  him,  for  gifts  to  the  Cossacks. 

Collections 

Kozyr-Zyrka  accepted  the  money,  but  observed  that  not  many 
gifts  could  be  bought  for  this  sum.  He  demanded  50,000  rubles 
more.  The  Jews  promised  to  collect  it.  But  since  they  were 
all  plundered  and  ruined,  it  was  not  easy  to  collect  such  an 
amount.  It  was  necessary  to  apply  to  the  small  artisans  and 
Jewish  servants,  who  contributed  their  savings. 

Having  received  the  extra  sum,  Kozyr-Zyrka  issued  an  order 
forbidding  plundering.  But  plundering  continued  on  that  and 
the  following  days. 

Requisition   of   Tailors  and  Cobblers 

At  the  same  time  Kozyr-Zyrka  requisitioned  all  Jewish  tailors 
and  cobblers,  and  ordered  them  to  work  on  the  clothing  stolen 
from  the  Jews.  They  made  shoes,  cloaks,  uniforms,  trousers, 
etc.  Out  of  women's  silk  skirts  were  made  scarfs  and  the  like. 
They  were  compelled  to  work  from  8  A.M.  to  midnight,  even  on 
Fridays.  No  food  was  allowed  them  during  working  hours. 
(Testimony  of  Shetman,  p.  21;  Stoland,  p.  12.) 

Kozyr-Zyrka  as  Judge 

Kozyr-Zyrka  also  undertook  to  settle  civil  disputes.  To  give 
an  idea  of  the  sort  of  judge  he  was  it  is  enough  to  cite  the  fol- 
lowing case.  A  certain  Jewess  was  in  possession  of  some  land 
by  inheritance.  The  original  owner  had  acquired  the  land  from 
a  peasant  by  purchase.  A  peasant,  descendant  of  the  seller, 
taking  advantage  of  the  agrarian  disorder,  had  already  brought 
suit  for  the  land  under  the  first  Rada,  and  his  suit  had  been 
denied.  When  Kozyr-Zyrka  appeared,  and  the  peasant  felt  sure 
that  Jews  had  no  rights,  he  applied  to  him  with  a  suit  for  this 
same  land.  Kozyr-Zyrka  ordered  the  peasant  to  bring  to  him 
the  husband  of  the  respondent.  But  the  latter  did  not  believe 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        195 

that  Kozyr-Zyrka  had  really  summoned  him,  and  did  not  go. 
Then  the  Ataman  sent  for  him.  When  the  Jew  arrived,  he  asked 
him  why  he  had  not  come  before.  He  replied  that  he  had  no 
reason  to  believe  that  the  peasant  was  really  conveying  to  him 
the  command  of  the  Ataman.  Kozyr-Zyrka  ordered  the  Jew 
stripped  and  twenty-five  lashes  administered  to  him,  which  was 
done  in  his  presence.  Half  an  hour  after  this  he  proceeded  to 
question  the  Jew  about  the  land.  The  latter  replied  that,  being 
fearfully  beaten,  he  was  not  in  condition  to  talk  at  all,  and  that 
as  far  as  the  land  was  concerned  it  belonged  not  to  him  but  to  his 
wife,  who  could  give  the  necessary  information.  The  Ataman 
summoned  the  wife.  She  showed  him  a  copy  of  the  court 
decision  recognizing  her  right  to  the  ownership  of  the  land. 
Kozyr-Zyrka  was  not  satisfied  with  this  and  demanded,  for  the 
settlement  of  the  dispute,  the  presentation  of  witnesses  by  both 
sides.  The  witnesses  were  presented,  and  all  confirmed  the 
fact  that  the  Jewess  was  the  lawful  owner  of  the  land.  Then 
Kozyr-Zyrka  ordered  the  Jewess  to  hand  over  a  written  docu- 
ment to  the  effect  that  she  voluntarily  yielded  the  land  to  the 
peasant  and  renounced  forever  all  claims  to  that  land.  The 
document  was  furnished.  (Testimony  of  Kheierman,  p.  35.) 

Requisition  of  Musicians 

Kozyr-Zyrka  also  was  fond  of  entertainment.  He  requisi- 
tioned a  Jewish  orchestra,  making  it  its  duty  to  play  at  all 
Cossack  parties.  To  the  sounds  of  the  music  of  this  same 
orchestra  Kozyr-Zyrka  once  scourged  two  bolshevik  peasants. 
They  were  given  a  countless  number  of  blows,  and  then  shot. 

Kozyr-Zyrka  Amuses  Himself 

Kozyr-Zyrka  also  was  fond  of  more  "refined  entertainments." 
One  evening  they  brought  him  nine  comparatively  young  Jews 
and  one  elderly  and  stout  one.  The  Cossacks  had  driven  them 
pellmell  through  the  streets.  When  the  Jews,  panting,  came  at 
last  into  the  Ataman's  rooms,  he  was  lying  in  his  bed  undressed, 
and  his  assistant  was  also  lying  undressed  in  another  bed.  Right 
there  they  compelled  the  Jews  to  dance,  meanwhile  chasing 
them,  especially  the  stout  one,  with  whips.  After  this  they 
demanded  that  they  sing  Jewish  songs.  But  it  turned  out  that 
none  of  them  knew  the  Jewish  songs  by  heart.  Then  the  Ata- 
man's assistant  began  to  recite  the  words  of  the  songs  in  the 


196    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

"jargon"  (Yiddish),  and  the  Jews  had  to  repeat  them  in  sing- 
song. For  a  long  time  they  sang  and  danced,  while  Kozyr- 
Zyrka  and  his  friend  and  assistant  laughed  merrily.  Then  the 
Jews  were  taken  into  another  room  and  fools'  caps  were  put 
on  their  heads.  They  were  brought  before  the  Ataman  again, 
a  candle  was  put  in  the  hands  of  each,  and  in  that  aspect  they 
had  to  sing  songs.  Kozyr-Zyrka  and  his  friend  were  so  con- 
vulsed with  laughter  that  the  latter's  bed  even  broke  down 
under  him.  The  Jews  were  compelled  to  raise  the  bed  and  put 
it  in  order,  while  the  officer  remained  lying  upon  it.  One  of 
the  Jews  could  not  endure  these  persecutions  and  began  to  weep. 
Kozyr-Zyrka  observed  to  him  that  120  rods  was  the  penalty  for 
crying.  The  Jew  said:  "In  that  case  I  will  sing."  "Well,  sing 
then,"  was  the  answer,  and  the  Jew  began  to  sing  again. 

During  an  "entracte"  the  Ataman's  friend  said:  "It's  time  to 
let  them  have  their  trousers."  But  Kozyr-Zyrka  this  time  did 
not  agree.  Having  amused  himself  as  much  as  he  liked,  the 
Atamans  let  the  Jews  go,  and  gave  them  a  chauffeur  as  escort  so 
that  the  guards  should  not  shoot  them.  The  chauffeur  con- 
ducted them,  but  demanded  to  be  paid  15,000  rubles  for  saving 
their  lives.  Of  course  they  had  no  such  sum.  But  the  chauffeur 
went  home  with  each  one  and  collected  of  their  families  as  much 
as  each  could  pay.  (Testimony  of  Beioband,  p.  23.) 

It  is  hard  to  count  all  the  characteristic  incidents  which  took 
place  in  Ovruch  while  it  was  Kozyr-Zyrka's  capital.  But  we 
must  dwell  on  the  following  incident. 

The  Case  of  Herzbein 

The  Poles  and  former  tsarist  officials,  in  their  newspapers, 
spread  the  report  that  the  Jews  had  plotted  a  St.  Bartholomew's 
night  against  the  Christians,  and  had  marked  as  many  as  150 
victims.  They  asserted  that  a  list  of  the  fated  ones  existed, 
and  that  the  list  was  written  by  the  hand  of  a  petty  advocate 
Herzbein.  The  latter  was  arrested.  As  often  happens  in  such 
cases,  those  who  had  invented  this  calumny  ended  by  believing 
themselves  in  their  own  invention.  The  Christians  became 
excited,  and  applied  to  Kozyr-Zyrka.  He  confirmed  the  existence 
of  the  list,  but  showed  it  to  no  one.  The  excitement  increased. 
Some  of  the  Christians  began  to  leave  the  town. 

In  reference  to  Herzbein  it  must  be  noted  that  he  took  no 
part  in  politics  at  all.  He  moved  entirely  among  Christians, 
where  he  had  many  friends;  he  scarcely  had  any  dealings  with 
Jewish  society.  His  wife  applied  to  Christian  friends  to  inter- 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        197 

cede  for  her  husband,  whom  they  knew  well,  as  a  man  not  con- 
nected with  politics  or  with  Jews.  But  they  refused. 

The  probable  history  of  the  above-mentioned  "list"  is  some- 
thing like  this.  Upon  the  fall  of  the  Hetman's  power  the  mayor, 
Moshinsky,  summoned  an  assembly  of  many  Christians,  mostly 
land-owners  and  officials,  and  proposed  to  organize  for  self- 
defense  in  case  of  the  arrival  of  the  Petlurists.  A  list  was 
drawn  up  in  which  were  entered  about  100  names,  exclusively 
Christians.  Since  Herzbein  was  noted  for  his  good  handwriting 
— but  also,  perhaps,  for  other  reasons — Moshinsky  asked  him  to 
copy  this  list,  which  he  did.  It  is  extremely  likely  that  some- 
one, with  provocatory  intent,  handed  over  this  list  to  the  com- 
mandant, as  a  list  of  Christians  marked  for  slaughter. 

Herzbein's  wife  applied  to  the  mayor,  asking  him  to  summon 
the  council  to  unveil  the  slander  and  re-establish  her  husband's 
good  name.  Moshinsky  gave  his  promise,  but  when  she  came  to 
see  him  again,  she  was  told  that  he  had  left  town.  She  then 
applied  to  his  substitute,  who  likewise  promised,  but  did 
nothing. 

Only  the  president  of  the  council,  the  notary  Olshansky,  sym- 
pathized with  her.  He  sent  around  a  summons  to  a  session  of 
the  council.  But  only  Jews  appeared  for  that  session;  the 
Christians  absented  themselves ;  there  was  no  quorum,  and 
the  session  could  not  be  held.  Since  the  reports  of  the  impend- 
ing "St  Bartholomew's  eve"  continued  to  excite  the  Christians, 
some  of  them  applied  to  Kozyr-Zyrka  to  investigate  and  find  out 
how  serious  the  rumors  were.  There  also  appeared  before  him 
the  notary  Olshansky  and  an  official  who  knew  Herzbein  well. 
They  declared  that  they  were  firmly  convinced  that  Herzbein 
could  not  be  the  author  of  such  a  list.  Kozyr-Zyrka  an- 
swered that  he  himself  attributed  no  serious  significance  to  the 
list  and  to  the  rumors  that  were  circulating,  and  that  to  quiet 
the  Christian  population  he  would  issue  an  announcement  to 
this  effect.  As  for  Herzbein,  he  promised  to  free  him  at  once. 
He  confirmed  his  promise  to  free  Herzbein  to  the  latter's  wife. 
He  did  actually  issue  an  announcement  to  the  effect  that  the 
rumors  about  a  St.  Bartholomew's  eve  planned  by  the  Jews 
appeared  to  be  a  "provocation."  This  announcement,  largely 
dealing  with  the  establishment  of  the  home  guard,  about  which 
more  will  be  said  below,  is  attached  hereunto.  As  for  Herz- 
bein, in  spite  of  all  his  promises,  he  did  not  release  him,  and 
he  was  finally  shot.  (Testimony  of  Taube  Herzbein,  p.  29; 
of  Yudin,  p.  28.) 

The  regime  of  Kozyr-Zyrka  lasted  up  to  the  16th  of  Jan- 


198    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

uary.     The  Cossacks  continued  to  plunder  Jewish  houses,  and 
occasional  murders  took  place. 

The  Civil  Commissar  and  the  Home  Guard 

Rumors  of  Kozyr-Zyrka's  doings  reached  Zhitomir  and  the 
commissar  of  civil  (internal)  affairs  was  sent  from  there. 
This  commissar  proved  a  decent  man  and  the  Jews  reposed 
complete  confidence  in  him.  But,  as  he  himself  said,  he  was 
powerless  to  give  them  any  real  help,  since  Kozyr-Zyrka  even 
held  up  his  telegraphic  reports  to  Zhitomir.  The  one  thing  in 
which  he  succeeded  was  the  organization  of  home  guards,  about 
which  later  the  Ataman  issued  a  proclamation  (see  above- 
mentioned  proclamation.)  But  these  home  guards,  consisting 
mainly  of  Jews,  did  not  constitute  a  real  power.  The  members 
of  the  guard  were  beaten,  and  one  even  killed,  by  the  Cossacks. 
(Testimony  of  Waderman  and  others,  p.  13.) 

Mobilization  of  Jews  for  Dirty  Work 

On  January  15  the  Cossacks  began  early  in  the  morning  to 
drive  young  Jews  to  the  station,  to  sweep  and  clean  the  cars. 
They  took  mostly  young  Jews,  but  did  not  neglect  old  ones 
either.  On  the  way  the  Cossacks  robbed  them.  At  the  station 
they  were  compelled  to  do  all  kinds  of  dirty  work,  even  un- 
necessary work.  They  mocked  them,  and  beat  them  with  whips 
and  scourges.  They  took  the  better  dressed  ones  to  one  side 
and  took  their  clothes  and  shoes  away  from  them.  By  evening 
almost  all  had  been  robbed,  one  killed,  another  seriously 
wounded.  And  while  they  were  at  the  station,  other  Cossacks 
plundered  their  homes  in  the  town. 

Panic  Reaches  Highest  Pitch 

An  extremely  perturbed  state  existed  in  the  city.  It  was  felt 
that  a  new  catastrophe  was  approaching.  The  Jews  were  in  a 
panic  of  terror.  They  decided  to  die  all  together.  So  towards 
evening  they  began  to  gather  in  the  synagogue.  But  the  syna- 
gogue could  not  accommodate  all.  It  became  unendurably 
stifling.  Many  fell  in  swoons.  Some,  being  unable  to  endure 
the  closeness  and  the  throng,  knocked  out  windows  and  ran 
away  at  random.  Individual  Cossacks  got  into  the  synagogue 
and  robbed  whomever  they  could.  At  the  same  time  other 


OVRUCH:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT        199 

Cossacks   robbed  members  of   the   home  guard,   and,   as   above 
mentioned,  even  killed  one  of  them. 

Mass  Execution  and  Departure  of  Kozyr-Zyrka 

Thus  the  Jews  of  the  city  of  Ovruch  spent  the  night  of  the 
fifteenth  of  January.  On  the  morning  of  the  sixteenth  the 
Cossacks  spread  about  the  city  the  report  that  the  commissar 
of  internal  affairs,  in  whom,  as  was  said,  the  Jews  had  the 
greatest  confidence,  was  inviting!  the  representatives  of  the 
Jewish  population  to  listen  to  an  announcement  of  great  im- 
portance to  the  Jews,  just  received  from  Zhitomir. 

The  Jews  welcomed  this  news,  believed  it,  and  about  fifty  or 
more  men  went  to  the  station.  On  the  way  they  were  sur- 
rounded by  mounted  Cossacks,  who  pursued  them  with  whips 
and  made  them  sing  maiefis  (a  Jewish  song)  and  other  songs. 
The  poor  wretches  understood  that  they  had  fallen  into  a  trap. 
When  this  extraordinary  procession  drew  near  to  the  station, 
the  Cossacks  surrounding  the  Jews  began  to  cut  them  down 
with  sabres  and  fire  at  them  with  revolvers.  The  Jews  scat- 
tered and  fled,  bullets  raining  after  them.  At  the  same  time 
other  Cossacks  near  the  station  itself,  who  had  prepared  an 
ambush  for  the  Jews,  opened  fire  on  them  with  machine  guns. 
Thirty-two  corpses  remained  on  the  spot.  Many  others  were 
wounded;  a  few  escaped.  When  this  hecatomb  was  finished, 
Kozyr-Zyrka  appeared  among  the  Cossacks,  who  greeted  him 
with  the  words :  "Thank  the  Lord,  little  father,  we  shot  a  lot 
of  the  Jews."  Photograph  of  three  corpses  is  attached  hereto. 
(Testimony  of  Nemerzel,  p.  95;  Weinermann,  p.  13;  Kaplan, 
p.  1-10.) 

In  the  same  night,  in  view  of  an  attack  of  the  bolsheviks 
from  the  direction  of  Kalinkovichi,  Kozyr-Zyrka  with  his  crew 
abandoned  the  town  and  departed  for  Korosten.  Thus  ended 
the  regime  of  Kozyr-Zyrka  in  the  city  of  Ovruch. 

Summary 

As  a  result  of  this  regime  as  many  as  80  Jews  were  killed 
and  as  many  as  1,200  houses  plundered.  Not  more  than  ten 
or  fifteen  homes  were,  by  accident,  left  unharmed.  In  the 
given  case  the  pogrom  took  place  under  the  slogan:  "Kill 
the  Jews  because  they  are  bolsheviks."  But  the  attitude  of  the 
masses  in  Ukraine  towards  the  Jews  is  such  that  any  other 


200    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

slogan  would  suit  as  well  for  a  pogrom.  The  pogrom  came  near 
levelling  all  the  Jews  in  Ovruch  in  respect  to  property;  almost 
all  became  comrades  in  beggary.  The  losses  must  be  reckoned 
at  a  hundred  million,  at  the  present  rate  of  exchange  per- 
haps in  milliards. 

Local  Committee  of  Assistance  to  Pogrom  Victims 

In  Ovruch  a  committee  of  assistance  for  pogrom  victims  was 
formed,  which  is  working  very  effectively.  But  the  help  it 
gives,  of  course,  is  infinitesimal  in  comparison  with  what  is 
needed.  For  Ovruch  help  is  needed  on  the  very  largest  scale, 
on  a  national  scale.  Regarding  the  character  of  the  assistance 
given  by  this  committee,  as  also  regarding  the  movements  of 
money  in  general,  a  report  has  been  prepared  by  S.  S.  Kahan, 
who  traveled  with  me  to  Ovruch. 

Soviet  Commission  for  the  Investigation  of  Pogroms 

In  Ovruch  we  found  the  Soviet  Commission  for  the  investi- 
gation of  pogroms,  which  had  come  from  the  city  of  Mozyr  on 
orders  of  the  late  Sverdlov,  president  of  the  all-Russian  Cen- 
tral Committee  of  Soviets.  The  commission  upon  its  arrival 
issued  a  proclamation,  a  copy  of  which  is  attached  hereto. 
Unfortunately  the  activities  of  this  commission  will  not  give 
the  proper  results,  since  for  comprehensible  reasons  the  Jews 
are  afraid  to  give  the  names  of  persons  connected  with  the 
pogroms,  even  when  they  know  them.  As  a  result  some  persons, 
known  accomplices  of  the  pogromists,  are  enjoying  liberty,  and 
some  of  them  actually  are  in  the  service  of  the  local  Soviet 
regime.  We  came  in  contact  with  this  commission  and  learned 
from  its  members  that  Sverdlov  promised  to  appropriate  almost 
three  million  rubles  for  the  pogrom  victims.  It  is  hard  to  say 
how  genuine  this  promise  is,  but  it  is  indubitable  that  even  such 
a  sum  would  amount  to  little  for  the  restoration  of  what  was 
destroyed  in  that  city. 

Pogrom  in  Korosten* 

The  pogrom  in  Korosten  began  with  robberies  and  murders 
of  Jews  at  the  station.  Afterwards  the  pogrom  spread  through 
the  town.  The  homes  which  chanced  to  be  nearest  to  the  Podol- 

*  Cf .  below,  pp.  365  ff. 


KOROSTEN:   HILLERSON'S  REPORT     201 

sky  station  suffered  most.  In  one  household,  consisting  of  nine 
people,  the  pogromists  manifested  exceptional  barbarity.  They 
began  by  violating  three  daughters  of  the  house.  Since  the 
young  women  showed  superhuman  resistance,  they  were  all 
mutilated  and  mangled.  Even  now  they  are  still  suffering,  with 
broken  arms.  They  killed  the  old  grandmother,  who  tried  to 
protect  her  granddaughters,  after  first  tearing  out  her  tongue 
and  cutting  off  her  nose.  In  this  house  they  also  killed  two 
men  and  a  little  girl.  The  other  members  of  the  family  were 
mutilated.  One  man  died  later  of  the  wounds  he  received. 
The  house  was  plundered. 

There  were  murders  also  in  other  houses.  Ten  people  in  all 
were  killed  in  the  town.  I  cannot  refrain  from  speaking  of  the 
following  very  characteristic  incident. 

In  one  house,  whose  owners  hid  themselves,  only  one  old 
Jewess  remained.  The  pogromists  came  into  the  house  and 
demanded  to  be  fed.  The  old  woman  received  them  kindly 
and  fed  them  abundantly.  They  ate,  thanked  her  for  the 
hospitality,  and  went  away,  without  touching  anything  in  the 
house.  After  their  departure  a  seriously  wounded  Jew  ran 
into  the  house  and  implored  her  help.  The  old  woman 
rushed  for  help.  It  was  dark,  and,  without  knowing  it,  the  old 
woman  happened  upon  the  same  pogromists  who  had  been 
in  her  home.  They  asked  her  where  she  was  hurrying,  and  she 
explained.  Then  the  pogromists  returned  to  her  home,  and 
one  of  them,  rolling  up  his  sleeves,  washed  his  hands,  and,  in 
.  perfectly  correct  fashion,  bound  up  the  Jew's  wound.  When 
they  were  gone,  the  Jew  told  the  old  woman  that  they  were  the 
same  pogromists  who  had  wounded  him. 

I  arrived  at  Korosten  on  March  12.  About  two  days  before 
a  fresh  company  of  the  Red  Army  had  come  to  Korosten.  On 
the  thirteenth  one  of  them  went  into  the  store  of  a  Jewish 
woman  and  took  about  twenty  pounds  of  sugar,  without  paying. 
The  Jewess  ran  out  on  the  street  and  raised  an  outcry.  An  offi- 
cer passing  by  stopped  the  Red  soldier,  took  the  sugar  away  from 
him,  and,  striking  him  in  the  face,  placed  him  under  arrest.  His 
comrades  of  the  same  company  took  his  part,  and  demanded  of 
the  commandant  that  their  comrade  be  freed,  and  the  officer 
handed  over  to  them.  The  soldier  was  freed,  but  they  were 
refused  the  surrender  of  the  officer.  Then  they  began  to  hold 
meetings,  and  at  8  P.M.  opened  an  incessant  fire  into  the  air 
from  rifles  and  shotguns.  This  firing  was  the  signal  for  the 
beginning  of  a  Jewish  pogrom.  The  pogrom  began.  One  Jew, 
the  cantor  of  the  synagogue,  was  killed.  The  pogrom  stopped, 


202    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

owing  to  an  unexpected  cannonade  on  the  part  of  the  Petlurists, 
who  began  to  attack  Korosten. 

I  did  not  succeed  in  collecting  testimony  either  about  this 
pogrom,  or  about  the  one  preceding  it,  since  on,  the  next  day  I 
was  compelled  to  leave  the  town  under  the  incessant  roar  of 
guns. 


II.     CITY  OF  PROSKUROV 

Proskurov  has  the  aspect  of  a  very  lively  town,  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  Podolia.  Its  population  amounts  to  50,000,  of  which 
nearly  25,000  are  Jews.  Its  democratic  municipal  council  con- 
sisted of  50  members ;  26  Christians  and  24  Jews.  Of  the  Jewish 
members  18  ran  on  Jewish  tickets,  the  others  on  general  socialist 
tickets.  At  the  head  of  the  council  in  Proskurov,  as  almost 
everywhere  in  Podolia  and  Volhynia,  were  Poles.  The  mayor 
was  a  Pole,  Sikora,  and  the  president  of  the  municipal  council 
was  a  Pole,  Dr.  Stavinsky. 

In  administrative  matters  Proskurov  was  governed  by  the 
military  commandant  Kiverchuk  and  the  commissar  Taranovich. 
The  former  was  in  the  military  service  even  under  the  tsar,  but 
the  latter  was  a  former  schoolteacher.  The  town  was  defended 
by  militia,  which  was  primarily  subordinate  to  the  commandant. 
The  municipal  government,  not  wholly  trusting  the  militia, 
organized  a  guard  of  its  own,  called  the  "ward-guard."  At  the 
head  of  this  guard  stood  a  Central  Bureau,  having  as  its  presi- 
dent the  Christian  Rudnitzky  and  as  vice-president  the  Jew 
Schenkmann.  Since  the  municipal  guard  consisted  mainly  of 
Jews,  it  did  not  at  all  enjoy  the  favor  of  the  commandant 
Kiverchuk,  and  he  made  all  sorts  of  difficulties  for  it. 

Even  under  the  tsar  there  were  on  hand  in  Proskurov  not 
only  all  the  legal  parties,  but  also  the  illegal  ones.  It  goes  with- 
out saying  that  social-political  life  in  Proskurov  was  greatly 
enlivened  after  the  fall  of  tsarism. — Under  the  Hetman  the 
representatives  of  the  socialist  parties  in  Proskurov,  and  espe- 
cially the  bolsheviks,  were  repeatedly  subjected  to  repressive 
measures.  With  the  fall  of  the  Hetman  and  the  accession  of 
Petlura's  regime,  the  bolshevik  units  in  Proskurov  continued  to 
exist,  but  illegally.  But,  as  a  whole,  all  the  socialist  groups  in 
Proskurov,  not  excluding  even  the  bolsheviki,  formed  a  common 
front,  headed  by  the  Bund  member  Joffe. 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    203 

About  three  weeks  before  the  Proskurov  massacre,  the  follow- 
ing event  took  place.     It  proved  fatal  for  Proskurov. 


Convention  of  Bolsheviki  in  Vinnitza 

A  convention  of  the  bolsheviki  of  the  government  of  Podolia 
took  place  in  Vinnitza,  Petlura's  own  capital.  It  lasted  two 
days  and  its  sessions  went  off  without  interference,  though  it 
carried  resolutions  for  the  raising  of  a  bolshevik  revolt 
throughout  the  government  of  Podolia,  naming  February 
15  as  the  day  of  the  uprising.  The  circumstance  that  this 
convention  was  not  interfered  with  caused  some  persons  to 
assert  that  it  was  summoned  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Petlura 
regime,  with  provocatory  intent.  But  unprejudiced  investiga- 
tions lead  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  no  provocation  in 
the  case,  and  that  the  convention  went  off  all  right,  owing  to 
the  poor  state  of  organization,  and  consequently  deficient  in- 
formation, of  the  Petlura  regime.  It  is  pointed  out  that  the 
bolshevist  uprising  took  place  only  in  Proskurov,  whereas  in 
other  places  in  the  government  of  Podolia,  even  at  the  station 
Zhmerinka,  where  there  are  nearly  7,000  railroad  workers,  no  at- 
tempts were  made  at  an  uprising.  In  this  respect  also  reasons  are 
seen  for  believing  that  there  was  no  revolt  in  the  other  places, 
because  at  the  head  of  the  bolshevist  organizations  in  those 
places  were  more  intelligent  people,  who  saw  that  the  moment 
was  not  suitable  for  a  revolt. 

In  Proskurov,  on  the  other  hand,  the  heads  of  the  bolshevist 
units  were  too  young  and  heedless.  But,  besides,  there  was  one 
material  circumstance  which  prompted  the  bolsheviki  of  Prosku- 
rov to  begin  their  uprising.  In  Proskurov  were  quartered  two 
regiments,  the  15th  Bielgorod  and  the  8th  Podolia,  which  were 
definitely  bolshevik  in  tendency. 


Appearance  of  the  Ataman  Semosenko  at  Proskurov 

Some  ten  days  before  the  pogrom  in  Proskurov,  there  ap- 
peared a  brigade  of  "beyond-the-rapids"  '  (Zaporozhsky)  Cos- 
sacks of  the  Ukrainian  republican  army,  commanded  in  the  name 
of  the  head  Ataman  Petlura  by  the  Ataman  Semosenko.  With 
this  brigade  appeared  also  the  3rd  Gaidamak  regiment.  Both 
brigade  and  regiment,  according  to  Semosenko's  announcement, 


204    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

had  come  from  the  front  for  a  rest  and  to  perform  garrison 
duty  in  Proskurov.  On  February  6  Semosenko  sent  to  the 
printers  a  proclamation  in  which  he  announced  that  he  was 
assuming  the  duties  of  garrison-commander,  and  in  that  capacity 
forbade  any  unauthorized  meetings  and  gatherings  in  the  city. 
He  warned  that  any  agitation  against  the  existing  regime 
would  be  punished  according  to  the  laws  of  wartime.  All 
instigations  to  a  pogrom  were  also  forbidden,  and  anyone 
caught  in  the  act  of  instigating  one  was  to  be  shot  on  the 
spot. 

He  also  sent  word  to  the  municipal  council  that  he 
had  assumed  the  duties  of  commandant  of  the  garri- 
son, that  he  intended  to  prosecute  every  disturber  of  order, 
and  at  the  same  time  informed  them  that  at  one  of  the  stations 
he  had  had  a  Cossack  officer  shot  who  had  attempted  to  loot. 
The  vice-president  of  the  Central  Bureau  of  the  ward-guard, 
Schenkmann,  heard  about  this  communication,  and  set  off  to 
Semosenko,  to  make  his  personal  acquaintance.  Semosenko  re- 
ceived him  cordially,  promised  to  supply  the  guard  with  muni- 
tions, and  to  co-operate  in  every  way  to  prevent  pogroms.  This 
conversation  with  Schenkmann,  and  also  the  fact  that  Semo- 
senko had  sent  the  above-mentioned  proclamation  to  be  set  up 
in  type,  became  known  to  certain  agents  of  the  municipal  inde- 
pendent government,  and  they,  according  to  the  words  of  Dr. 
Stavinsky,  president  of  the  municipal  council,  went  to  the  com- 
mandant Kiverchuk,  to  make  inquiries  as  to  how  much  authority 
Semosenko  had  and  who  had  given  it  to  him.  Kiverchuk  an- 
swered that  he  knew  nothing  about  it,  and  took  steps  to  see 
that  the  proclamation,  already  set  up  in  the  printer's  office,  should 
not  be  published. 

It  must  be  observed  that  with  the  appearance  in  the  city  of 
the  3rd  Gaidamak  regiment  a  perturbed  tension  arose  among 
the  Jews.  This  regiment  conducted  itself  in  a '  challenging 
manner,  and  it  was  definitely  said  of  it  that  it  had  a  past  record 
for  pogroms.  No  one  in  the  city  knew  that  a  bolshevik  uprising 
was  being  planned.  Only  two  days  before  February  15  the 
commander  of  the  militia,  Kara-Zheliazkov,  informed  Joffe  that 
he  had  heard  that  a  revolution  was  being  planned  in  Proskurov 
and  that  it  was  definitely  alleged  in  the  commandant's  head- 
quarters that  a  future  bolshevist  regime,  with  Joffe  at  its  head, 
was  already  named. 

Joffe,  disquieted,  summoned  the  representatives  of  the  social- 
ist parties,  among  them  the  bolsheviks.  Two  representatives  of 
the  communist  party  who  appeared  at  this  meeting  stated  that 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    205 

an  uprising  really  was  being  planned  and  that  the  new  govern- 
ment was  being  formed.  The  representatives  of  the  other 
groups  protested  and  pointed  out  that  the  uprising  would  end 
in  failure  and  bring  the  Jews  to  complete  destruction.  They 
replied  that  the  uprising  would  take  place  simultaneously  in 
the  whole  government  of  Podolia  and  that  a  part  of  the  garrison 
in  Proskurov  would  be  on  the  side  of  the  rebels,  and  that  six- 
teen villages  were  ready  to  come  to  their  aid.  They  did  not 
give  information  as  to  when  the  uprising  would  take  place. 
(See  testimony  of  Joffe,  pp.  84-87  and  92-99.) 

Beginning   of  the  Bolshevik   Uprising 

On  the  evening  of  Friday,  February  14,  there  appeared  in 
the  Central  Bureau  of  the  ward  guards  two  young  men  of  the 
bolshevist  faction,  who  declared  that  a  bolshevist  uprising  was 
scheduled  for  midnight,  and  asked  the  president,  Rudnitsky,  and 
his  assistant  Schenkmann,  what  position  the  ward  guards  would 
take  in  reference  to  it.  The  reply  was  that  the  ward  guards,  by 
their  very  nature,  were  a  non-partisan  organization,  having  for 
their  purpose  only  the  protection  of  the  inhabitants,  and  that  in 
the  assumed  circumstances  they  would  be  absolutely  neutral. 
At  the  same  time  Schenkmann  pointed  out  the  inopportuneness 
of  the  uprising  and  the  fact  that  it  would  certainly  lead  to  a 
Jewish  pogrom.  But  he  also  was  answered  that  the  rising  would 
affect  the  entire  government  and  that  its  favorable  outcome  was 
assured.  Later  another  member  of  the  communist  organization 
appeared,  who  declared  that  by  order  of  the  revolutionary 
committee,  which  was  being  organized,  he  was  appointed  com- 
missar of  the  bureau  of  the  ward  guards,  and  that  Schenkmann 
was  appointed  by  them  to  maintain  relations  with  the  bolshe- 
vist staff,  which  was  already  being  organized.  He  gave  Schenk- 
mann the  password  by  which  the  latter  could  get  into  the 
headquarters.  According  to  Schenkmann's  testimony  he  and 
Rudnitsky  collected  all  the  individual  members  of  the  guard 
and  informed  them  that  full  freedom  of  action  was  allowed 
them,  and  called  upon  them  to  remove  then  and  there  all  external 
evidences  of  membership  in  the  ward  guards.  This  was  done. 
At  the  same  time  all  who  were  questioned  declared  that  they 
would  take  no  part  in  the  political  uprising.  With  the  password 
he  had  received  Schenkmann  went  to  the  bolshevist  revolutionary 
committee,  and  then  to  the  general  staff.  Having  become  con- 
vinced that  the  bolsheviks'  business  was  not  going  right  and 
that  the  proposed  uprising  would  turn  out,  in  his  words,  a  bluff, 
he  approached  the  most  responsible  bolshevik  and  urged  the 


206    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

inopportuneness  of  the  uprising.  The  latter  in  his  turn  stated 
that  the  uprising  had  been  postponed  from  12  at  night  to  6 
A.M.,  and  said  he  would  see  to  it  that  it  was  further  postponed 
to  a  more  favorable  occasion.  In  truth,  when  Schenkmann,  after 
this  conversation,  returned  to  the  Central  Bureau,  the  commis- 
sar of  the  bolshevik  revolutionary  committee,  who  had  been  left 
there,  told  him  that  he  had  received  a  telephone  message  that 
the  uprising  was  postponed.  Schenkmann  then  went  around 
the  city  to  make  sure  that  the  guards  were  in  their  places.  And 
when  he  returned  again  to  the  bureau,  the  same  commissar  in- 
formed him  that  a  new  change  had  been  made  and  that  the 
uprising  was  appointed  for  after  6  A.M.;  the  signal  would  be 
given  by  shots. 

Shots  were,  in  fact,  fired  at  a  quarter  to  seven  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  the  uprising  began.  The  bolsheviks  first  seized  the 
post  and  telegraph  office,  and  arrested  commandant  Kiverchuk, 
considering  him,  not  without  reason,  a  dangerous  black-hun- 
dreder  and  pogromist.  In  one  of  the  apartments  of  the  Trach- 
tenberg  house  on  Alexandrovskaya  street  in  the  very  center  of 
town,  they  opened  their  headquarters.  Some  of  them  went  to 
the  barracks  of  the  15th  Bielgorod  and  the  8th  Podolia  regi- 
ments. There  they  awakened  the  sleeping  soldiers  and  informed 
them  that  the  uprising  had  begun  and  that  the  organs  of  the 
bolshevist  regime  were  already  being  formed.  They  proposed 
to  the  soldiers  to  sally  out  against  Petlura's  soldiers,  who  were 
concentrated  in  cars  at  the  station.  When  the  soldiers  pointed 
out  that  they  had  no  machine  guns,  they  were  told  that  the 
peasants  had  them  and  were  already  nearing  the  city  to  take 
part  in  the  uprising.  Then  the  bolshevistically  inclined  soldiers 
arrested  their  officers,  and  also  the  soldiers  who  were  against 
the  uprising.  They  seized  the  regimental  weapons  and  started 
in  the  direction  of  the  station.  There  they  opened  fire  on  the 
cars  in  which  were  the  Gaidamaks  and  other  Cossacks.  But 
when  the  latter  came  out  of  their  cars  and  the  attacking  soldiers 
saw  how  numerous  they  were,  they  retreated  to  their  barracks. 
The  Cossacks  pursued  them  and  began  to  fire  on  the  barracks. 
Then  the  soldiers  withdrew  to  Felshtin  and  Yarmolintsy, 
whither  a  part  of  them  had  previously  been  sent  to  arouse  the 
bolshevist  revolt;  and  afterwards  they  dispersed  to  various 
places  and  thus  escaped  pursuit. 

After  the  withdrawal  of  the  soldiers  it  was  clear  that  the 
revolt  had  failed.  The  shooting  which  took  place  early  in  the 
morning  had  aroused  the  councilmen  of  the  city,  and  they  began 
to  assemble  in  the  Town  Hall.  Several  times  the  mayor  and 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    207 

the  president  of  the  council  went  to  the  commandant's  head- 
quarters, but  no  information  was  given  them  there.  At  last 
they  saw  Kiverchuk  driving  up  to  headquarters,  and  learned 
from  him  that  he  had  been  arrested.  When  they  asked  who  had 
arrested  him,  he  replied,  "The  Jews,  members  of  the  ward 
guard."  He  added  that  his  own  orderly  had  joined  them,  and 
that  he  had  just  shot  the  orderly  with  his  own  hands. 

End  of  Bolshevist  Uprising 

According  to  the  testimony  of  witness  Marantz  (p.  17-32)  he, 
on  Saturday  morning,  dressed  as  a  soldier,  came  down  Alex- 
androvskaya  street  to  the  Trachtenberg  house,  which,  as  he 
learned  afterwards,  was  the  bolshevist  headquarters.  He  noticed 
many  workmen  about  the  house,  dressed  as  soldiers.  One  of  them 
asked  him  to  join  them.  He  'then  went  over  to  the  other  side 
of  the  sidewalk.  At  this  time  he  noticed  that  commandant 
Kiverchuk's  hundred  Cossacks,  with  his  assistant  Novitsky 
at  the  head,  was  riding  horseback  from  the  station  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Trachtenberg  house.  He  then  turned  to  a  Russian 
workman,  an  acquaintance,  who  was  standing  there,  and  asked 
what  Novitsky's  appearance  meant.  The  other  replied:  "No- 
vitsky is  with  us,  and  is  at  the  head  of  the  uprising."  But  he 
did  not  have  time  to  finish  the  sentence  when  this  same  Novit- 
sky gave  the  loud  command:  "Load  your  guns."  Shortly  a 
volley  rang  out.  As  was  afterwards  discovered,  it  killed  a  young 
woman,  daughter  of  the  Trachtenberg  who  owned  the  house, 
who  was  in  her  own  room.  The  bolsheviks  surrounding  the 
Trachtenberg  house  fled,  and  the  revolt  was  definitely  ended. 
Other  volleys  were  heard  in  various  parts  of  the  city,  but 
apparently  with  blank  cartridges.  The  Gaidamak  soldiers  were 
again  concentrated  at  the  station.  Arrests  took  place  in  town, 
while  at  the  station  tables  were  laid  to  entertain  the  Gaidamaks. 
The  Ataman  Semosenko,  this  time  in  full  accord  with  Kiverchuk, 
took  up  the  duties  of  garrison  commandant.  He  celebrated 
his  assumption  of  the  post  by  a  luxurious  entertainment  of  the 
Gaidamaks,  and  after  dinner  furnished  them  vodka  and  cognac. 
At  the  end  of  the  banquet  he  delivered  a  speech  to  the  Gaida- 
maks, in  which  he  described  the  serious  situation  of  Ukraine, 
and  the  efforts  they  had  put  forth  upon  the  field  of  battle,  and 
added  that  the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  the  Ukrainian  people 
and  the  Cossacks  were  the  Jews,  whom  it  was  necessary  to  ex- 
tirpate in  order  to  save  Ukraine  and  themselves.  He  demanded 
of  the  Cossacks  an  oath  that  they  would  fulfil  their  sacred  duty 
and  extirpate  the  Jewish  population;  but  at  the  same  time  they 


208    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

were  also  required  to  swear  that  they  would  not  loot  Jewish 
property.  The  Cossacks  were  led  to  the  colors  and  took  oath 
that  they  would  massacre  but  not  loot.  When  an  under-officer 
proposed,  instead  of  the  massacre,  to  levy  a  contribution  on 
the  Jews,  Semosenko  threatened  to  shoot  him.  One  captain 
was  also  found  who  declared  that  he  would  not  let  his  com- 
pany kill  unarmed  people.  This  captain,  who  had  important 
connections  in  Petlura's  government,  was  sent  out  of  town  with 
his  company.  The  other  Cossacks  drew  up  in  line  of  march, 
with  music  in  the  van  and  sanitary  corps  behind,  and  marched 
into  the  city  along  Alexandrovskaya  street,  where  they  broke  up 
into  separate  groups  and  scattered  over  the  side  streets,  which 
were  thickly  populated  with  Jews.  (See  v.  II,  p.  14,  testimony 
of  Baliner.) 

The  Massacre 

The  mass  of  the  Jews  had  hardly  heard  of  the  bolshevist  revolt 
which  had  occurred.  Accustomed  in  recent  times  to  all  kinds 
of  firing,  they  paid  no  particular  attention  to  the  shots  which 
were  heard  that  morning.  It  was  Saturday  and  the  orthodox 
Jews  had  gone  early  to  the  synagogue,  where  they  prayed,  and 
then,  returning  home,  sat  down  to  the  Sabbath  dinner.  Many, 
according  to  established  custom,  after  the  Sabbath  dinner,  had 
lain  down  to  sleep. 

The  Cossacks  scattered  over  the  Jewish  streets  in  groups  of 
five  to  fifteen,  and  with  perfectly  calm  faces  entered  the  houses, 
took  their  sabres,  and  began  to  cut  down  all  the  Jews  in  the 
houses,  without  distinction  of  age  or  sex.  They  killed  old  men, 
women,  and  even  nursing  babies.  They  not  only  cut  them 
down  with  the  sword,  but  also  thrust  them  through  with  bayo- 
nets. They  resorted  to  firing  only  in  case  individuals  succeeded 
in  breaking  forth  into  the  street.  Then  bullets  were  sent  after 
them.  When  news  of  the  beginning  of  the  massacre  spread 
among  the  Jews,  they  began  to  hide  in  attics  and  cellars,  but  the 
Cossacks  dragged  them  down  from  the  attics  and  killed  them. 
Into  the  cellars  they  threw  hand  grenades. 

According  to  the  testimony  of  the  above-mentioned  Schenk- 
mann  the  Cossacks  killed  his  younger  brother  on  the  street 
near  the  house,  and  then  ran  into  the  house  and  split  the  skull 
of  his  mother.  The  other  members  of  the  family  hid  under  beds, 
but  when  his  little  brother  saw  his  mother's  death  he  crept  out 
from  under  the  bed  to  kiss  her  body.  The  Cossacks  started  to 
cut  down  the  boy.  Then  the  old  father  could  endure  it  no  longer 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S   REPORT    209 

and  also  came  out  from  under  the  bed,  and  one  of  the  Cossacks 
killed  him  with  two  shots.  Then  they  went  to  the  beds  and 
started  thrusting  at  those  who  lay  under  them.  He  himself 
happened  not  to  be  hurt. 

According  to  the  witness  Marantz,  fifteen  people  were  killed 
and  four  seriously  wounded  in  the  house  of  his  friend  Auerbach. 
When  he  applied  to  his  Christian  neighbors  to  help  him  bind 
up  the  wounded,  only  one  Christian  woman  consented  to  help; 
the  others  refused. 

The  witness  Griinfeld  (v.  I,  p.  29)  says  that  from  the  window 
of  her  dwelling  she  saw  a  gang  of  about  20  Gaidamaks  stop 
at  the  opposite  house,  Khaselev's;  four  of  them  left  the  others 
and  went  into  the  Schiffmann  house,  where  they  remained  a 
very  short  time,  and  on  coming  out  began  to  clean  their  bloody 
sabres  in  the  snow.  In  that  house  it  turned  out  that  eight 
people  were  killed.  Another  part  of  this  gang  went  into  the  inn 
"France,"  which  was  next  door ;  out  of  it  ran  the  old  proprietor, 
pursued  by  the  Gaidamaks,  and  after  them  ran  the  old  man's 
children  begging  for  mercy. 

According  to  the  witness  Spiegel  (v.  I,  p.  76)  he  and  his 
brother  were  visiting  the  Potekha  family,  when  he  heard  that 
there  was  a  massacre  going  on  in  town.  Disturbed  for  the  fate 
of  his  old  mother,  he  went  home,  and,  by  roundabout  ways,  con- 
ducted the  old  woman  to  the  house  of  Polish  acquaintances. 
But  they  absolutely  refused  to  take  them  in,  saying  they  were 
afraid  for  their  own  fate.  When  he  returned  to  the  Potekha 
house,  Christians  who  were  standing  around  it  (so-called  petty 
bourgeois)  warned  him  not  to  enter,  as  a  massacre  was  go- 
ing on  inside.  But,  disturbed  about  his  brother,  he  never- 
theless went  in  and  found  that  the  whole  Potekha  family  and 
all  who  had  been  in  the  house  were  cut  down,  among  them  his 
brother.  The  old  mother  was  so  hacked  that  he  could  recognize 
her  only  by  her  figure.  Near  her  lay  the  body  of  her  son, 
hacked  with-  sabre-cuts  and  thrust  through  with  bayonets.  In 
the  same  manner  her  oldest  daughter  had  been  killed.  The 
youngest  daughter  was  also  killed,  and  the  middle  one  was  lying 
severely  wounded.  A  woman  relative  visiting  them  was  also 
severely  wounded.  In  the  yard  were  two  brothers  Bressler  and 
their  aged  mother.  His  brother  was  severely  wounded,  but  still 
breathing,  and  died  in  his  arms.  "Out  of 'curiosity  Christian 
neighbors  came  into  the  house,  and  I  asked  them  to  help  me 
lay  the  wounded  in  beds,  but  they  refused.  Only  one  neighbor 
named  Sikora  rendered  me  some  help.  Two  of  the  wounded 
died;  the  rest  recovered,  but  remained  cripples." 


210    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

In  the  house  of  Wolfzup  (v.  II,  p.  16)  all  the  family  were 
killed  except  one  young  woman  who  remained  alive  with  2B 
wounds.  The  murderers  came  to  the  house  with  machine  guns 
and  a  sanitary  detachment.  On  the  command  "Haiti"  some 
spread  themselves  out  cor  don- fashion,  and  some  began  right 
there  to  sharpen  their  weapons.  Then  the  command  "Get  to 
work!"  was  given,  and  the  Cossacks  dispersed  among  the 
neighboring  houses  and  began  the  massacre.  In  the  house  of 
Semmelman  (p.  13)  21  were  killed  and  two  wounded.  The 
Gaidamaks  came  to  the  house  in  regular  order  with  two 
machine  guns.  There  were  with  them  a  sister  of  mercy  and  a 
man  with  a  red-cross  band,  who  proved  later  to  be  Skornik,  in 
command  of  a  sanitary  detachment.  In  the  house  of  Blechman 
(p.  15)  six  were  killed;  one  by  a  stroke  on  the  head  which  split 
his  skull  into  two  parts.  A  girl  was  wounded  in  the  hind  part 
of  her  body,  for  which  purpose  her  dress  was  raised.  At  the 
house  of  Korchak  (p.  9,  v.  II)  eight  men  arrived  and  first  of 
all  smashed  the  windows  to  bits.  Five  entered  the  house,  three 
staying  in  the  street.  Those  who  entered  seized  old  Korchak 
by  the  beard  and  dragged  him  to  the  kitchen  window,  from 
which  they  threw  him  out  to  those  who  were  standing  in  the 
street.  These  killed  him.  Then  the  men  inside  killed  the  aged 
mother  and  two  daughters.  A  young  woman  visitor  they  dragged 
by  the  hair  into  another  room,  then  threw  her  out  into  the  street, 
where  she  was  killed  barbarously.  Then  they  returned  into  the 
house  and  inflicted  several  serious  wounds  on  a  13-year-old 
boy,  who  afterwards  became  totally  deaf.  They  inflicted  nine 
wounds  in  the  abdomen  and  side  upon  the  oldest  brother,  placed 
him  upon  the  dead  body  of  his  mother,  inflicted  two  more 
wounds,  and  said:  "Now  we  have  finished  with  them." 

In  the  house  of  Zazul  (p.  16)  they  killed  a  daughter  after 
torturing  her  a  long  time.  A  boy  in  the  house  received  several 
wounds  and  pretended  to  be  dead.  The  mother  offered  the  mur- 
derers money,  but  they  replied:  "We  have  come  only  for  your 
lives."  According  to  the  witness  Glusmann  (v.  II,  p.  17)  he 
was  in  the  street  on  Saturday,  February  15,  but  militiamen  ad- 
vised him  to  go  home.  Arriving  at  home,  he  found  16  neigh- 
bors in  his  dwelling.  From  the  window  they  saw  a  detach- 
ment of  Gaidamaks,  armed  from  head  to  foot,  approaching  the 
house  in  complete  order.  He  tried  to  urge  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters to  hide,  fearing  for  their  honor.  But  they  refused  to  hide 
without  him.  The  Gaidamaks  drove  them  all  out  in  the  yard, 
and  then  one  went  to  the  gate  and  shouted  to  those  who  re- 
mained there :  "Come  here,  here  are  a  lot  of  Jews,"  The  Gaida- 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    211 

maks  soon  surrounded  them  all.  Glusmann  found  himself  near 
the  door  leading  to  the  cellar,  and  his  family  was  beside  him. 
He  was  struck  twice  with  a  bayonet  and  fell  into  the  cellar; 
this  saved  him.  His  wife,  who  stood  above,  was  killed.  He 
also  observed  that  a  young  wounded  man  asked  to  be  shot.  A 
Gaidamak  shot  at  him  twice.  Then  another  said  to  him :  "Why 
are  you  shooting?  Didn't  the  Ataman  say  to  cut  them  down, 
but  not  to  shoot  them?"  The  other  answered:  "I  know,  but 
what  can  I  do?  He  asks  me  himself." 

The  massacre  lasted  from  two  to  five  in  the  afternoon.  It 
probably  would  have  lasted  till  late  at  night,  but  commissar 
Taranovich,  who  was  not  initiated  into  all  the  plans  of  Semo- 
senko  and  Kiverchuk,  was  horrified  at  the  sight  of  the  bloody 
carnival  enacted  in  the  town.  He  flew  to  Semosenko  and  began 
urgently  to  request  him  to  stop  the  massacre,  but  the  other  paid 
no  attention  to  his  words.  Taranovich  went  to  the  telegraph 
office  and  over  a  direct  wire  informed  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment, Kamentsy,  of  what  was  happening  in  Proskurov.  From 
there  he  learned  that  Konovalov,  the  commandant  of  the  front, 
was  on  the  spot,  and  Taranovich,  also  by  direct  wire,  called  the 
latter  and  informed  him  of  what  was  going  on.  Konovalov 
at  once  telegraphed  to  Semosenko  an  order  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
massacre  at  once.  Taranovich  brought  this  order  to  Semosenko, 
who  then  said:  "All  right,  for  to-day  we've  had  enough  killing." 
By  the  signal  of  a  horn  the  Gaidamaks  were  notified  of  the 
termination  of  their  activities.  The  Gaidamaks  then  gathered 
at  a  place  previously  agreed  upon  and  from  there  went  in  regu- 
lar line  of  march,  with  songs,  to  the  place  of  their  bivouac  at 
the  station.  The  facts  about  what  commissar  Taranovich  did 
were  communicated  by  the  witness  Verkhola  (p.  44-65),  and 
are  also  established  in  the  investigation  conducted  by  the  bolshe- 
vist  regime  regarding  the  acts  of  Taranovich.  I  have  person- 
ally seen  the  material  of  this  investigation. 

We  must  be  just  to  the  Gaidamaks;  they  honestly  fulfilled 
their  oath;  they  cut  down  without  mercy,  but  did  not  loot.  In 
some  houses  they  were  offered  money,  and  tore  the  money  to 
bits.  If  there  were  individual  cases  of  looting,  they  were  excep- 
tional. But,  together  with  the  Gaidamaks,  some  other  Cossacks 
joined  in  massacring  the  Jews — mainly  from  Kiverchuk's  hun- 
dred, and  also  militiamen.  These,  who  were  bound  by  no  oath, 
not  only  slew,  but  also  looted.  But  for  the  most  part  the 
robberies  took  place  in  the  night  after  the  massacre.  They 
were  not  lootings  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  words,  but  spiriting 
away  of  property  which  had  been  left,  so  to  speak,  ownerless, 


212    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

in  consequence  of  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  families.  In  the 
stealing  of  this  property  an  active  part  was  taken  by  the  criminal 
element,  which  had  been  released  from  prison,  according  to  all 
information,  by  order  of  Kiverchuk,  who  did  this  apparently 
with  the  object  of  blaming  what  happened  on  them,  in  case  of 
necessity.  By  the  same  Kiverchuk's  orders  the  militia  was  dis- 
armed, and  only  those  militiamen  remained  armed  who  showed 
themselves  accomplices  of  the  Gaidamaks. 

By  the  irony  of  fate,  brightly  lighted  windows  testified  to  the 
fact  that  all  in  the  house  were  massacred.  Namely:  in  Prosku- 
rov  all  houses  are  lighted  by  electricity,  which  is  very  moderate 
in  price  there.  Now  the  orthodox  Jews,  who  are  the  majority 
in  Proskurov,  true  to  their  law,  do  not  put  out  the  fires  and  do 
not  shut  off  the  electric  lights  on  Saturday,  or  rather  on  the 
night  from  Friday  to  Saturday.  So  the  electricity  burns  till 
morning,  when  it  goes  out  with  the  cutting  off  of  the  current, 
but  then  in  the  evening  of  Saturday,  when  the  current  is  turned 
on,  it  lights  of  itself.  After  the  awful  Saturday,  February  15, 
the  Jews  lighted  no  lights.  But  all  the  more  brightly  burned 
the  light  in  the  windows  of  the  houses  where  Jewish  families 
had  been  totally  wiped  out.  And  the  plunderers  went  for  those 
lights.  There  were,  of  course,  accidents,  and  they  entered  some 
Christian  houses.  This  explains  the  isolated  occurrences  of  at- 
tacks on  Christian  homes  during  the  night  Saturday  to  Sunday, 
of  which  the  witnesses  Verkhola  and  Dr.  Stavinsky  made  men- 
tion in  their  testimony  (p.  70-75). 

The-  witness  Verkhola  and  Dr.  Stavinsky,  president  of  the 
municipal  council,  state  that  they  did  not  hear  of  the  massacre 
that  had  taken  place  until  late  in  the  evening.  They  went 
through  the  city  on  foot,  and  saw  many  corpses  lying  around. 
They  also  entered  lighted  dwellings  in  which  murdered  people 
were  lying.  Intending  to  establish  a  base  for  treating  the 
wounded,  they  went  to  several  drug  stores,  but  there  they  met 
the  above-named  Dr.  Skornik,  who  was  requisitioning  all  bandag- 
ing material  for  the  use  of  the  Cossacks,  alleging  that  there 
were  many  wounded  among  them,  brought  from  the  front. 
Upon  investigation  that  was  found  totally  untrue. 

This  Dr.  Skornik,  with  a  sister  of  mercy  and  two  sanitary- 
corps  members,  took  an  active  part  in  the  massacre.  Dr.  Skornik 
especially  distinguished  himself.  When  another  sister  of  mercy, 
outraged  by  his  behavior,  cried  out  to  him:  "What  are  you 
doing?  You  are  wearing  the  Red  Cross  band!"  he  tore  off  the 
band  and  threw  it  to  her,  and  continued  killing. 

According  to  the  testimony  of  three  gymnasium-students,  who 


PROSKUROV:    HILLEkSON'S  REPORT    213 

had  been  drafted  in  Yelisavetgrad  by  the  Gaidamaks  to  serve  in 
the  sanitary  corps,  Skornik,  when  he  returned  to  his  car  after 
the  massacre,  boasted  that  in  one  house  they  met  such  a  beauti- 
ful girl  that  not  a  single  Gaidamak  could  make  up  his  mind  to 
kill  her;  then  he  thrust  her  through  with  his  own  hand.  Ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  witnesses,  a  body  of  a  young  woman 
of  extraordinary  beauty,  thrust  through,  was  in  fact  found 
among  the  corpses  at  the  cemetery.  Since  the  whole  personnel 
of  Dr.  Skornik's  sanitary  corps  fell  ill  of  typhus,  no  one  of  the 
corps  succeeded  in  leaving  when  the  Petlurists  evacuated  the 
town.  They  all  came  into  the  hands  of  the  bolshevik  forces,  and, 
after  an  investigation,  those  found  guilty  were  sent  to  Odessa 
without  a  trial.  I  have  seen  the  data  of  the  investigation  and 
must  state  that  Dr.  Skornik  was  unquestionably  proved  guilty 
of  active  participation  in  the  massacre.  It  was  established, 
moreover,  that  he  was  a  morphine  addict;  and  in  general  he 
produced  a  strange  impression  on  all.  (See  testimony  of  Dr. 
Stavinsky,  p.  88-90.) 

On  the  next  morning  occasional  murders  of  Jews  continued, 
both  on  the  streets  and  in  the  houses.  The  Jews  remained  in 
hiding  and  very  few  ventured  out  on  the  streets.  According  to 
the  witness,  Tzatzkis  (35-40),  he,  on  Sunday  morning,  dressed 
himself  in  peasant's  garb,  went  to  Alexandrovskaya  street,  and 
approached  a  group  of  Gaidamaks,  who  were  talking  with 
townspeople.  He  heard  the  Gaidamaks  say  that  up  to  two 
o'clock  they  would  be  killing  Jews  individually,  but  after  two 
o'clock  they  would  repeat  the  general  slaughter  of  yesterday. 

Dr.  Stavinsky,  in  the  capacity  of  president  of  the  municipal 
council,  together  with  the  mayor  and  other  persons,  went  to  the 
commandant's  headquarters  and  begged  that  the  massacre  be 
stopped.  The  witness  Verkhola  also  appeared  there  and  par- 
ticularly insisted  upon  it.  Right  there  in  the  headquarters  it  was 
decided  to  call  the  municipal  council,  and  Semosenko  and  Kiver- 
chuk  promised  to  attend  its  session.  When  Verkhola  and  Stav- 
insky went  to  the  council,  they  were  compelled  on  the  way  to 
witness  individual  instances  of  murder  and  wounding  of  Jews. 
One  was  shot  before  their  eyes  at  the  Town  Hall  itself, 

Very  few  members  appeared  at  the  Council  meeting,  and  only 
one  Jew,  Raigorodsky;  the  other  Jews  had  to  turn  back,  because 
attacks  were  made  upon  them.  (See  testimony  of  Marantz.) 
The  council  opened  its  session  immediately  upon  the  appearance 
of  Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk.  Dr.  Stavinsky  opened  the  session 
and  in  a  few  words  described  the  situation  which  had  arisen. 
Semosenko  then  spoke  and  declared  that  what  ha'd  happened  had 


214    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

been  called  forth  exclusively  by  the  Jews,  who,  being  ond  and 
all  bolsheviks,  had  plotted  to  murder  the  Gaidamaks  and  other 
Cossacks.  He  would  continue  to  act  in  the  same  way  in  the 
future,  since  he  considered  it  his  sacred  duty.  Kiverchuk  ex- 
pressed himself  in  the  same  spirit. 

Then  Verkhola  spoke.  I  consider  it  necessary  to  say  a  few 
words  about  the  personality  of  Verkhola.  Verkhola  sprang  from 
the  people  and  was  self-educated.  He  graduated  from  a  School 
of  Art,  taught  in  folk-schools,  and  attended  lectures  at  the 
university.  In  his  politics  he  is  a  Social  Democrat  and  Ukrain- 
ian nationalist.  Under  the  first  Rada  he  was  elected  to  the 
municipal  council,  and  also  to  the  Zemstvo  board.  Twice  he  ful- 
filled the  duties  of  commissar  of  the  city  of  Proskurov.  When 
the  revolution  in  favor  of  the  Hetman  took  place,  he  considered 
the  Hetman's  regime  reactionary  and  believed  it  impossible  per- 
sonally to  continue  his  social  and  administrative  work.  He  re- 
signed from  all  his  offices  and  retired  to  private  life.  When 
the  peasant  uprisings  against  the  Hetman  began,  the  Austrian 
authorities  arrested  Verkhola  and  accused  him  of  organizing 
these  uprisings.  He  was  taken  to  Tarnopol,  where  he  remained 
two  months  in  prison.  But  then,  while  he  was  being  taken  into 
court,  he  succeeded  in  escaping;  and  all  the  rest  of  the  time 
he  was  in  hiding.  He  returned  to  Proskurov  only  on  February 
13,  two  days  before  the  massacre.  It  was  immediately  proposed 
to  him  that  he  withdraw  his  resignation  as  member  of  the  coun- 
cil,, and  he  consented.  When  the  massacre  began,  Verkhola 
devoted  himself  to  incessant  efforts  to  put  a  stop  to  the  occur- 
rences taking  place. 

Speaking  after  Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk,  he  delivered  a  long 
speech  to  the  Council,  in  which  he  declared  that  the  events  in 
Proskurov  were  a  disgrace  to  Ukraine.  Speaking  of  the  past 
services  of  the  Cossacks  he  declared  that  in  the  present  case 
Semosenko  had  clothed  thugs  in  the  garb  of  Cossacks  and  be- 
come their  Ataman.  Turning  to  Semosenko  he  said:  "You  are 
fighting  bolsheviks ;  but  were  those  old  men  and  children  bolshe- 
viks, whom  your  Gaidamaks  cut  down?  You  assert  that  only 
Jews  produce  bolsheviks;  but  do  you  not  know  that  there  are 
bolsheviks  among  other  nations,  too,  including  the  Ukrainians?" 
He  urged  Semosenko,  for  the  sake  of  Ukraine's  honor,  to  put  an 
immediate  stop  to  the  horrors  taking  place. 

After  Verkhola  Raigorodsky  expressed  himself  in  a  few 
words,  in  the  name  of  the  Jews  entirely  agreeing  with  Verkhola's 
speech. 

Semosenko  replied  to  Verkhola   in  the  same  words   he  had 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    215 

used  in  his  previous  speech.  He  said  he  was  not  fighting  old 
men,  women  and  children,  but  only  bolsheviks.  Looking  straight 
at  Verkhola,  he  said  that  he  did  not  doubt  it  was  true,  unfor- 
tunately, that  there  were  bolsheviks  even  among  the  Ukrainians, 
but  that  he  would  not  spare  them  either.  He  would  consent  to 
issue  an  order  to  stop  what  was  going  on,  on  condition  that  the 
bodies  of  the  dead  should  immediately  be  committed  to  the 
earth.  He  also  considered  it  necessary  to  observe  to  the 
municipal  council  that,  knowing  of  the  impending  bolshevist 
uprising,  it  had  not  warned  him  of  it.  Dr.  Stavinsky  and  the 
members  of  the  council  denied  this  charge. 

Verkhola  again  spoke,  thanking  Semosenko  for  his  readiness 
to  issue  orders  stopping  these  horrors,  but  insisted  that  he 
order  back  the  Cossacks  who  had  been  sent  to  Felshtin  and 
other  places  to  perpetrate  Jewish  massacres  there.  To  this 
Semosenko  replied  that  in  Felshtin  also  a  similar  bolshevist 
revolt  had  taken  place,  just  as  in  Proskurov,  and  that  it  must 
have  the  same  consequences  as  here.  However,  after  long  in- 
sistence, Semosenko  consented  to  recall  the  Cossacks  who  had 
been  sent  out. 

In  the  same  session  of  the  Council,  in  the  presence  of  Semo- 
senko and  Kiverchuk,  it  was  voted  that  the  guard  of  the  city 
should  be  entrusted  to  the  aviation  corps,  with  the  commander 
of  which  Verkhola  had  succeeded  in  speaking  previously.  Verk- 
hola himself  was  appointed  supervisor  of  this  guard.  Losing  no 
time,  he  sent  the  following  proclamation  to  a  printing  shop  to 
be  printed:  "On  the  Ataman's  orders  and  with  his  consent, 
expressed  in  the  council,  the  massacre  of  the  peaceful  population 
is  terminated.  The  Cossacks  are  ordered  out  of  town.  The 
guard  of  the  city  is  entrusted  to  the  aviation  corps,  and  the 
council  guarantees  complete  security  to  the  inhabitants.  Normal 
conditions  of  life  should  be  re-established.  Order  has  been 
issued  to  shoot  all  who  are  caught  in  the  act  of  looting,  and 
likewise  Cossacks  who  appear  in  the  city  after  6  P.M."  When 
this  order  was  set  up,  Verkhola  took  the  proof  of  it  to  the 
commandant's  to  get  permission  to  have  it  pasted  up  around 
town.  But  there  he  was  arrested,  because  Semosenko  and 
Kiverchuk  found  that  he  had  no  right  to  issue  such  a  procla- 
mation, which  furthermore  was  couched  in  improper  language. 
By  Semosenko's  orders  Verkhola  was  to  be  taken  to  the  station 
for  trial — which,  in  reality,  meant  to  be  shot.  But  the  mayor 
Sikora  and  members  of  the  Ukrainian  national  union,  who 
came  to  the  commandant's  and  found  out  about  what  had 
happened,  declared  to  Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk  that  to  deal 


216    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

so  with  Verkhola  would  call  forth  violent  revenge  from  many 
Ukrainian  organizations,  which  knew  him  well.  Finally  Semo- 
senko  ordered  an  investigation  of  Verkhola,  and  he  was  im- 
mediately released. 

Instead  of  the  proclamation  which  Verkhola  intended  to 
issue,  Semosenko  issued  an  order  in  which  he  declared  Prosku- 
rov  and  the  canton  under  martial  law,  and  forbade  any  move- 
ment in  the  streets  after  7  P.M.  In  this  order  he  writes,  among 
other  things:  "I  warn  the  population  to  stop  anarchistic  revolts, 
since  I  have  the  power  to  suppress  them.  I  call  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Jews  in  particular  to  this.  You  are  a  people 
hated  by  all  nations.  And  yet  you  bring  such  confusion  among 
the  baptized.  Do  you  really  not  want  to  live?  Are  you  not 
sorry  for  your  own  people?  As  long  as  no  one  bothers  you,  be 
quiet.  Such  a  miserable  nation,  and  yet  they  cause  so  much 
disturbance  among  a  poor  people."  Further  on  in  the  same 
order  Semosenko  demands  that  all  shops,  stores,  and  places  of 
business  should  at  once  begin  to  function.  He  also  orders  that 
in  three  days'  time  all  shop-signs  be  translated  into  Ukrainian, 
"that  I  may  not  see  a  single  Muscovite  sign."  The  signs  must 
be  inscribed  in  good  style;  pasting  on  of  letters  is  strictly  for- 
bidden. Persons  guilty  in  this  regard  will  be  delivered  over 
to  courtmartial. 

On  the  same  day  another  proclamation  was  issued,  in  which 
Semosenko  writes  that  "In  the  night  of  the  14th  of  February, 
some  unknown,  dishonorable,  conscienceless  persons  raised  an 
insurrection  against  the  existing  regime.  According  to  infor- 
mation at  hand,  these  persons  belonged  to  the  Jewish  nation, 
and  intended  to  take  the  power  into  their  own  hands,  in  order 
to  produce  confusion  in  the  affairs  of  state  and  to  bring  Ukraine, 
which  has  suffered  so  much,  to  anarchy  and  disorder.  Most 
decisive  measures  were  taken  to  suppress  the  revolt.  It  is 
possible  that  among  the  victims  were  many  innocent  persons, 
since  nothing  can  be  done  without  mistakes.  But  their  blood 
must  fall  as  a  curse  upon  those  who  showed  themselves  provo- 
cators  and  adventurists."  On  the  next  day  another  proclamation 
was  issued,  in  which  Semosenko  writes  that  the  sad  fact  is 
established  that  at  the  time  of  the  bolshevist  uprising  of  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  of  February  the  local  garrison  supported 
the  bolsheviki ;  that  the  soldiers  of  that  garrison  went  over  openly 
to  their  side.  Therefore  he  declares  the  15th  Bielgorod  regi- 
ment and  the  8th  Podolia  disbanded.  For  -the  purpose  of  taking 
from  them  their  property  and  documents  he  appoints  repre- 
sentatives of  the  3rd  Gaidamak  regiment  and  a  commission  from 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    217 

the  "beyond-the-rapids"  brigade.     (All  these  proclamations  pub- 
lished; see  p.  3.) 

As  is  evident  from  Verkhola's  testimony,  as  well  as  from  that 
of  other  witnesses,  the  murders  continued  during  the  course 
of  three  days.  But  after  the  session  of  the  municipal  council, 
mass  slaughter  was  terminated.  However,  all  day  Sunday  and 
likewise  Monday,  there  were  numerous  cases  of  isolated  mur- 
ders of  Jews,  both  in  houses  and  on  the  streets.  Massacres  of 
Jews  also  took  place  in  neighboring  villages,  into  which  the 
Gaidamaks  penetrated  either  at  their  own  discretion  or  upon 
invitation  of  the  peasants.  The  Jews  cast  about  in  all  direc- 
tions, seeking  escape  from  the  situation.  Most  of  all  they  placed 
their  hopes  on  Verkhola. 

Since  commissar  Taranovich  had  long  been  weary  of  his 
duties  and  had  been  asking  to  retire,  which  he  had  not  been 
permitted  to  do  because  of  the  lack  of  a  suitable  substitute, 
the  public  officials,  and  particularly  the  Jews,  besought  Verk- 
hola to  assume  the  duties  of  commissar.  The  latter  con- 
sented, and  he  and  Taranovich  together  called  up  the  commissar 
of  the  government  (gubernia)  on  direct  wire.  This  official  knew 
Verkhola  well  from  his  previous  service,  and  gladly  consented 
to  substitute  him  for  Taranovich.  Telegraphic  orders  were  im- 
mediately issued  naming  Verkhola  commissar,  which,  incidentally, 
was  extremely  displeasing  to  Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk.  As 
soon  as  he  took  up  the  reins  of  office,  Verkhola  issued  two 
proclamations,  in  which  he  indicated  that  "any  appeal  to  na- 
tional hatred,  and  particularly  to  pogroms,  is  a  disgrace  to 
Ukraine  and  a  hindrance  to  her  regeneration."  Such  appeals 
were  always  weapons  for  the  reactionaries.  Every  hostile  mani- 
festation on  the  part  of  a  more  powerful  nation  against  a  weaker 
shows  that  that  nation  cannot  assume  those  forms  which  are 
based  on  equality  and  fraternity.  Such  behavior  only  helped  the 
enemies  of  Ukraine,  and  he  expressed  the  hope  that  the  popu- 
lation would  not  yield  to  such  provocation.  He  demanded  that 
all  agitators  inciting  to  pogroms  should  be  arrested  and  handed 
over  to  a  field  court-martial,  (v.  III.)  In  the  other  proclama- 
tion he  demanded  that  all  stolen  property  be  brought  to  the 
commissariat  to  be  returned  to  its  owners. 

As  already  stated,  it  was  intended  to  repeat  on  Sunday  the 
massacre  of  Saturday.  Three  Gaidamaks'  who  appeared  Sun- 
day morning  at  the  city  headquarters,  among  other  things,  de- 
clared, in  the  presence  of  Verkhola,  that  they  were  granted 
permission  to  keep  killing  the  Jews  for  three  days.  But  after 
the  Sunday  session  of  the  city  council,  Semosenko  really  did 


218    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

see  to  terminating  the  slaughter,  and  it  was  not  repeated  again 
in  mass  proportions.  But  the  murders  of  individual  Jews,  as 
already  stated,  were  repeated  on  Sunday  and  Monday.  These 
murders  were  numerous. 

By  Semosenko's  directions  the  victims  of  Saturday's  massacre 
were  to  be  buried  on  Monday.  Thus  the  bodies  remained  in  the 
houses  or  lay  about  the  streets  from  Saturday  till  Monday. 
Many  of  the  bodies  were  gnawed  by  swine. 

On  Monday,  beginning  early,  numerous  peasant's  carts,  with 
bodies  heaped  up  on  them,  started  for  the  Hebrew  cemetery. 
Bodies  kept  arriving  throughout  the  day  and  filled  the  whole 
cemetery.  According  to  the  testimony  of  the  witness,  Finkel 
(pp.  1-4),  he  himself,  while  in  the  cemetery,  counted  more  than 
a  thousand  corpses.  Hired  peasants  dug  in  the  cemetery  a 
ditch  of  enormous  proportions,  which  was  to  become  the  common 
grave  of  the  victims  of  the  massacre.  In  the  cemetery,  as  re- 
ported by  the  same  Finkel,  there  appeared  marauders,  who, 
under  various  pretexts,  approached  the  bodies,  handled  them 
over,  and  robbed  them.  There  also  appeared  relatives  of  the 
slain,  who  sought  out  their  corpses  and  took  out  of  their  pockets 
valuables,  in  many  cases  very  considerable  ones ;  but  very  many 
of  the  corpses  proved  to  have  been  previously  robbed.  Women 
were  found  with  fingers,  on  which  there  had  evidently  been 
rings,  cut  off  their  hands.  The  inspector,  Dobrovolsky,  had 
charge  of  the  burials.  He  had  orders  that  not  a  single  body 
should  remain  unburied  by  night.  However,  they  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  burying  all  the  bodies  until  four  o'clock  Tuesday 
morning.  It  should  be  added  that  besides  the  common  grave  four 
smaller  graves  were  dug  and  many  buried  in  them.  Some  Jews 
succeeded  in  burying  their  relatives  in  separate  graves. 

As  already  stated,  individual  murders  of  Jews  continued  also 
on  the  following  days,  both  in  Proskurov  and  the  vicinity. 
Many  were  killed  on  the  road  to  neighboring  places,  in  the 
fields,  and  woods,  and  nearby  villages  and  hamlets.  Besides 
those  Jews  who  were  killed  by  the  Gaidamak  horde  that  was 
turned  loose,  the  authorities  themselves  arrested  many  Jews  on 
the  pretext  that  they  were  bolshevists,  and  afterwards  shot  them. 
In  this  regard  Kiverchuk's  assistant,  Kovalevsky,  especially  dis- 
tinguished himself — a  son  of  a  local  householder,  a  very  corrupt 
and  cruel  young  man.  (See  testimony  of  Sarah  Hellman,  pp. 
13-15.) 

Extremely  interesting  in  this  connection  is  the  testimony  of 
the  witness  Tzatzkis,  who,  with  ten  others,  was  condemned  to 
be  shot,  but  escaped  by  a  sort  of  miracle.  This  Tzatzkis,  who 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    219 

has  been  mentioned  before,  disguised  in  peasants'  costume,  over- 
heard some  Gaidamaks  on  Sunday  morning  say  to  a  group  of 
Christians  that  after  two  o'clock  they  were  going  to  repeat  the 
massacre  of  the  day  before.  He  set  off  for  the  house  of 
his  parents,  who  lived  in  Alexandrovskaya  street  near 
the  commandant's  house,  to  warn  them  of  the  impend- 
ing massacre.  In  the  house,  besides  his  parents  and  sisters, 
he  found  his  younger  brother,  a  cousin,  and  a  more  distant 
relative.  From  the  window  they  soon  saw  five  Gaidamaks  with 
the  commandant's  assistant,  Kovalevsky,  approaching  the  house. 
This  Kovalevsky  was  well  acquainted  with  his  younger  brother 
and  had  even  granted  him  permission  to  carry  a  revolver.  They 
quickly  hid  their  old  father  and  the  women  who  were  in  the 
house  in  the  garret,  and  themselves  opened  the  door  to  the 
Gaidamaks.  Kovalevsky  came  in  and  announced  that  he  had 
come  to  search  the  house  for  secret  implements  and  weapons. 
The  brother  replied  that  there  were  no  "implements"  in  the 
house,  and  that  he  had  a  revolver  by  permission  of  Kovalevsky 
himself.  This  revolver,  along  with  the  permit,  he  straightway 
handed  over  to  him.  Kovalevsky  pretended  to  search  for  imple- 
ments under  the  beds,  and  then  ordered  them  all  to  follow  him. 
When  they  pointed  out  that  they  could  not  leave  the  house  and 
that  some  one  had  to  be  left,  he,  after  long  entreaties,  consented 
to  leave  their  distant  relative  in  the  house.  Two  Gaidamaks 
also  remained,  while  three  led  them  to  headquarters  and  placed 
them  in  a  room  where  there  were  already  many  prisoners,  both 
Jews  and  Christians,  suspected  of  being  bolsheviks.  All  through 
the  day  many  new  prisoners  kept  arriving,  and  finally  Tzatzkis' 
father  was  brought  in.  It  turned  out  that  the  two  Gaidamaks 
who  had  stayed  in  the  house  went  up  into  the  garret  and  ar- 
rested his  father.  By  evening  there  were  32  Christians  and  15 
Jews.  The  prisoners  were  persecuted  in  all  sorts  of  ways.  A 
certain  Pole,  a  former  land-owner,  was  exposed  to  especially 
severe  persecutions,  constant  beating  with  ramrods  and  other 
tortures.  Individual  persons  were  called  to  be  examined,  among 
them  Tzatzkis'  brother. 

The  same  Kovalevsky  did  the  examining;  but  it  was  no 
genuine  examination,  only  an  appearance  of  one,  since  the 
questions  put  were  wholly  trivial.  On  the  next  day,  about 
5  P.M.,  all  the  prisoners  were  taken  out  in  the  street  and  drawn 
up  in  rank  and  file,  Christians  and  Jews  separately.  A  vigorous 
Gaidamak  came  up  to  the  group  of  Jews  and  said  triumphantly: 
"Well,  you  Jews,  you  won't  come  back  to  us  any  more,  we  are 
going  to  send  you  all  into  the  land  committee,"  which,  in  the 


220    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

language  of  the  Gaidamaks,  meant  "to  the  other  world."  They 
conducted  all  the  prisoners  to  the  station,  and  continued  to 
persecute  them  on  the  way,  especially  that  same  Pole.  At  the 
station  they  were  all  put  in  a  separate  car.  In  the  evening  they 
began  to  call  out  the  Christians  in  turn.  They,  it  appears,  were 
called  into  a  neighboring  car,  where  three  tipsy  Cossacks  ques- 
tioned them  about  something  or  other  and  then  took  them  into 
a  third  car.  Some  time  passed,  and  they  led  five  Jews  out  of 
the  car,  among  them  Tzatzkis'  brother.  When  they  did  not 
return  in  the  course  of  an  hour  and  nothing  was  heard  about 
them,  the  remaining  Jews  understood  that  they  had  been  taken 
out  to  be  shot.  As  indicated,  they  put  the  Christians,  after 
questioning  them,  in  another  car,  sending  only  one  of  them 
back  into  the  car  where  the  Jews  remained.  About  10  o'clock 
they  took  all  of  them,  that  is,  ten  Jews  and  one  Russian,  out  of 
the  car  on  to  the  bed  of  the  railroad.  They  took  the  Jews  aside, 
and,  first  of  all,  searched  them  and  took  away  their  money. 
Then  they  arranged  them  in  two  rows  and  led  them  to  a 
river  slope  about  10  versts  from  the  place  where  the  cars  were. 
It  was  clear  that  they  were  being  led  to  be  shot.  On  the  way 
the  Gaidamak  marching  beside  Tzatzkis  felt  of  his  sheepskin 
coat.  "Are  you  looking  to  see  how  fine  a  coat  you  are  going 
to  inherit  from  me?"  Tzatzkis  asked.  "Shut  up,  you  damned 
Jew,  or  I'll  smash  you  with  the  butt  of  my  gun  I"  the  Gaidamak 
replied,  threatening  him  with  the  butt  of  his  gun.  His  father 
marching  in  front  overheard  these  words  and  asked  him  in 
Hebrew  not  to  quarrel,  lest  they  torture  before  killing  them.  At 
last  the  river-slope  was  reached.  The  prisoners  had  to  take  off 
their  clothes  and  shoes  and  remain  in  nothing  but  their  under- 
clothes. Tzatzkis  asked  permission  to  say  farewell  to  his  father. 
It  was  granted.  He  went  up  to  his  father,  took  him  by  the 
hand,  and  together  with  him  began  to  pronounce  the  words  of 
the  prayer  before  death,  mentioning  in  it  the  names  of  his  chil- 
dren. Then  all  were  placed  in  one  line  with  faces  to  the  river, 
and  behind  them  the  word  was  given  and  three  volleys  were 
fired.  All  fell,  including  himself.  The  groans  and  cries  of 
the  wounded  resounded.  The  Gaidamaks  ran  up  and  began  to 
finish  off  those  who  were  groaning.  They  had  to  busy  them- 
selves a  particularly  long  time  with  the  Russian,  who  struggled 
with  death  stubbornly.  Finally  all  was  silent.  The  Cos- 
sacks departed.  Tzatzkis  began  to  feel  of  himself  and 
was  amazed  to  find  that  he  was  not  only  alive,  but  not 
even  wounded.  Making  sure  that  no  one  was  near,  he 
hurried  and  ran  as  fast  as  he  could  towards  the  nearest 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    221 

village.  In  one  place,  crossing  a  stream,  he  fell  through  the  ice 
and  got  up  to  his  knees  in  water.  But  he  did  not  feel  either 
fatigue  or  cold.  At  last  he  arrived  at  the  village  and  came  to 
the  house  of  a  peasant  whom  he  knew,  aroused  him,  and  told  him 
what  had  happened.  The  peasant  wept  when  he  heard  his 
story,  but  advised  him  not  to  stay  in  his  house,  because  it  was 
near  the  city.  He  gave  him  shoes  and  clothes,  and  Tzatzkis 
went  on  to  the  next  village,  from  which  he  succeeded  in  getting 
to  the  town  of  Medzhibozh. 

There  were  other  cases  of  marvelous  escapes. 

In  this  regard  the  story  of  a  young  man  named  Halperin 
(pp.  31-34)  is  very  interesting.  Four  times  he  found  himself 
face  to  face  with  death,  but  each  time  he  escaped.  He  was  a 
pupil  in  the  commercial  school,  and,  before  the  pogrom,  was  a 
member  of  the  ward  guard.  He  was  dressed  in  a  soldier's  cloak 
and  cap.  On  Saturday,  after  dinner,  when  bodies  of  murdered 
people  were  already  lying  about  the  streets,  he  went  to  his 
home,  which  was  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  in  the  direction 
of  the  village  of  Zarechie.  Near  his  house  he  met  a  crowd  of 
Gaidamaks,  and  one  of  them  stopped  him  and  asked  whether 
he  was  a  Jew  or  a  Russian.  He  replied  that  he  was  a  Russian. 
The  other  demanded  evidence,  and  he  showed  him  his  card  as 
a  student  in  the  commercial  school,  in  which  his  creed  was  not 
stated.  The  Cossack  turned  the  card  over  a  bit,  looked  at  him 
rather  suspiciously,  but  then  said:  "Well,  go  along."  When 
other  Cossacks  then  rushed  at  Halperin,  the  first  shouted  to 
them:  "Let  him  go,  he's  a  Russian."  Halperin  went  to  his 
house,  and  found  it  locked,  with  a  window  broken.  He  did  not 
dare  enter  the  house.  Only  afterwards  did  he  find  out  that  his 
family  had  hidden  and  had  not  been  injured.  But  a  rich  Jew 
named  Blechman,  who  lived  in  the  same  house,  was  found  to 
have  been  robbed  and  murdered,  with  his  whole  family,  con- 
sisting of  six  persons.  Halperin  went  to  the  neighboring  village 
of  Zarechie  and  visited  a  Jewish  acquaintance  named  Rosen- 
feld.  About  9  P.M.  there  began  a  battering  at  the  door,  and 
some  young  peasant  lads  forced  their  way  into  the  house;  they 
fell  on  the  old  man  Rosenfeld  and  killed  him.  He  himself, 
with  Rosenfeld's  son,  fled  in  the  direction  of  the  woods.  Being 
unable  to  run  far,  he  stopped.  The  young  men  surrounded  him 
and  fired  at  him,  but,  finding  that  he  was  not  wounded,  they 
decided  to  take  him  to  the  city  and  hand  him  over  to  the  Gaida- 
maks. Just  then  a  peasant  appeared  from  the  city  and  be- 
gan to  tell  of  what  was  going  on  there.  The  young  men 
stopped  to  listen  to  the  newcomer,  and  Halperin  succeeded  in 


222    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

hiding.  Then  he  went  towards  the  village  of  Grinovtsy.  In 
this  village  lived  Jewish  acquaintances  of  his  named  Bucher, 
but,  since  it  was  now  very  late,  he  did  not  venture  to  go  to  their 
house,  but  spent  the  night  in  the  open  fields.  Next  day  he  went 
to  the  house,  but  there  it  was  learned  that  the  peasants  were 
holding  a  meeting  to  decide  the  question  of  how  to  deal  with 
the  Jews  living  in  the  village.  He  then  went  back  to  the  city, 
but,  since  things  were  very  unsettled  there  and  he  did  not  find 
his  family,  he  returned  to  the  village  again,  where  he  spent  the 
night.  Monday  morning  three  Gaidamaks  appeared  and  began 
to  hunt  for  Jews.  Halperin,  with  two  young  men  and  a  girl, 
fled  to  the  woods  to  hide.  After  remaining  some  time  in  the 
woods,  they  decided  it  would  be  less  dangerous  to  go  to  town, 
and  started  for  Proskurov.  On  the  way  they  met  three  young 
peasants  returning  from  town  to  the  country.  One  of  them  had 
a  rifle.  The  fellows  stopped  them  and  examined  their  docu- 
ments, and  said,  "These  are  just  the  sort  we  want,"  and  turned 
them  back  towards  the  village.  Halperin  was  seated  in  a  sledge 
with  the  armed  peasants.  The  two  other  young  men  and  the 
young  woman  went  on  foot.  There  they  met  the  same  three 
Gaidamaks,  who  had  come  to  the  village  earlier,  and  were  now 
returning  to  the  city.  The  Gaidamaks  stopped  them.  The 
peasant  with  the  rifle  got  down  from  the  sledge  and  explained 
to  the  Gaidamaks  that  he  was  taking  the  Jews  he  had  caught 
back  to  the  village.  The  Gaidamaks  pulled  out  their  sabres  and 
began  to  strike  the  young  people  who  were  on  foot.  All  three 
were  killed.  Halperin,  who  was  still  in  the  sledge,  whipped  up 
the  horse,  which  dashed  towards  the  village.  One  of  the  Gaida- 
maks rushed  after  him,  but  could  not  catch  up.  Having  gone 
a  considerable  distance,  Halperin  got  down  from  the  sledge, 
ran  into  the  field,  and  stretched  himself  out  on  the  snow.  In 
the  mist  he  was  not  easily  distinguishable.  However,  after  a 
time  some  peasant  boys  came,  who  decided  to  hand  him  over  to 
the  civil  authorities  as  a  Jew.  They  took  him  to  the  village  of 
Grinovtsy,  taking  from  him  his  wrist-watch  on  the  way.  In 
Grinovtsy,  where  the  Buchers  lived,  it  appeared  that  all  the 
Jews  had  been  arrested,  and  he  was  added  to  the  number. 

There  were  about  forty  Jews,  including  children,  in  Grinovtsy. 
They  all  had  the  name  of  Bucher,  and  represented  the  de- 
scendants of  a  certain  Bucher  who  had  settled  in  the  village 
long  before.  Between  the  Buchers  and  the  local  peasants  good 
and  neighborly  relations  had  always  subsisted.  Nevertheless, 
when  the  news  of  the  Proskurov  massacre  came  to  the  village, 
the  young  peasants  decided  to  settle  with  their  Jews,  too.  Some 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT    223 

of  them  went  to  Proskurov  and  brought  back  the  three  Gaida- 
maks  of  whom  mention  has  been  made.  Hearing  of  this, 
all  the  Jews  hid,  but  the  peasants  hunted  them  down  and 
rounded  them  up  with  the  Gaidamaks'  help.  The  question  was 
raised  whether  to  settle  with  them  there  or  in  another  place. 
The  Gaidamaks  first  searched  the  Jews  and  took  their 
money  and  valuables,  amounting  to  more  than  30,000  rubles. 
Then  the  Gaidamaks  proposed  to  massacre  them  all  on 
the  spot  But  the  old  peasants  told  the  Gaidamaks  that  they 
themselves  would  deal  with  their  own  Jews,  but  not  here  in  the 
village,  rather  outside  the  village.  They  put  the  Jews,  with 
their  wives  and  children,  in  sledges,  and  started  them  in  the 
direction  of  Proskurov.  On  the  way  the  young  peasants  wanted 
to  put  an  end  to  them,  but  the  old  peasants  insisted  that  they 
be  handed  over  to  the  authorities,  who  would  mete  out  justice. 

They  were  taken  to  the  commandant's  headquarters  in  Prosku- 
rov, and  thence  to  the  station-commandant  at  the  station.  The 
latter,  in  turn,  took  them  to  the  office  of  the  field  court-martial, 
but  from  there  they  were  taken  back  to  the  commandant's, 
and  thence  to  a  chamber  for  prisoners.  Since  the  will  to  mas- 
sacre had  by  that  time  sensibly  diminished  in  Proskurov,  it  was 
decided  to  set  them  all  free  next  morning.  But  when  they  were 
freed  they  did  not  return  again  to  their  homes  in  Grinovtsy. 
(Testimony  of  the  Buchers,  p.  3.)  As  for  Halperin,  during 
one  of  the  transfers,  he  succeeded  in  escaping. 

The  witness  Marantz  also  tells  of  a  marvelous  deliverance. 
On  Sunday,  February  15,  he,  as  a  member  of  the  council,  started 
for  the  council-chamber  to  take  part  in  the  memorable  session 
at  which  Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk  appeared.  On  the  way  he 
met  the  councilman  Storr,  and  joined  him.  They  noticed  that 
a  Gaidamak  officer  was  chasing  them  in  a  cab.  When  he  caught 
up  with  them  he  jumped  out  of  the  cab,  took  out  his  sabre  and 
attacked  them.  In  a  moment  more  the  blows  of  the  sabre  would 
have  struck  them.  At  that  moment  some  one  on  the  opposite 
sidewalk  called  the  officer  by  name;  he  turned  around,  and 
Marantz  and  Storr  succeeded  in  hiding  in  the  nearest  house, 
and  so  escaped. 

On  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  February  19,  comparative 
quiet  prevailed  in  the  city.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the 
Jews  did  not  open  their  shops,  since  they  had  no  interest  in 
that.  But  Semosenko  issued  an  order  that  the  shops  should 
immediately  be  opened. 

On  February  22,  Semosenko  issued  a  proclamation  to  the 
effect  that,  according  to  information  in  his  hands,  there  were 


224    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

many  bolshevik  agitators  in  Proskurov,  and,  therefore,  he  de- 
manded of  the  population  that  on  this  same  day  by  8  P.M.  all 
bolshevik  agitators  should  be  handed  over  to  the  authori- 
ties. If  not,  the  most  decisive  measures  would  be  adopted.  At 
the  same  time  he  again  demanded  that  all  shops  should  be 
opened  immediately  under  penalty  of  6,000  rubles  fine  for  each 
merchant.'  The  Jews  saw  a  new  provocation  and  a  new  threat 
in  this  proclamation.  To  pacify  Semosenko  they  collected  a 
sum  of  300,000  rubles  and  decided  to  offer  it  through  the  local 
government  for  the  needs  of  the  garrison.  The  mayor,  Sikora, 
took  it  upon  himself  to  present  this  sum,  but  managed  it  so 
badly  that  Semosenko,  though  knowing  that  the  money  had  been 
collected  by  Jews  alone,  issued  a  proclamation  stating  that  he 
had  received  300,000  rubles  "from  the  entire  population  of  Pros- 
kurov," which  he  thanked  for  properly  appreciating  the  labors 
of  his  Cossacks. 

To  the  central  authorities  he  announced  that  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Proskurov,  in  gratitude  for  the  keeping  of  order  in  the 
city  and  for  saving  them  from  the  bolsheviks,  had  presented 
him  with  300,000  rubles  for  the  needs  of  the  garrison. 

On  February  27,  Semosenko  issued  a  proclamation  which  be- 
gins with  these  words:  "Jews,  I  have  heard  that  yesterday  you 
wanted  to  hold  a  meeting  in  Alexandrovskaya  street  in  order  to 
seize  the  power,  and  that  you  are  preparing  in  four  days  to 
start  another  such  revolt  as  occurred  on  February  14-15."  After 
this  follow  corresponding  threats.  (See  vol.  III.) 

This  proclamation  completely  overwhelmed  the  Jews,  since 
they  knew  that  no  meeting  had  been  planned  and  that  the 
Jews  were  not  thinking  in  the  least  of  seizing  the  power. 
First  of  all  they  applied  to  Commissar  Verkhola.  Now  Ver- 
khola  had  certain  facts  in  his  hands,  which  indicated  that  some- 
one in  Proskurov  was  circulating  provocatory  rumors  in  his 
own  selfish  interests.  It  must  be  observed  that  a  commission 
had  been  sent  from  Kamenetz  to  Proskurov  to  investigate  the 
recent  disturbances.  But  Semosenko,  as  Verkhola  testifies,  on 
his  own  authority,  disbanded  the  commission,  and  named  his  own 
commission  to  investigate,  not  the  pogrom,  but  the  bolshevik 
revolt.  One  of  the  most  active  members  of  this  commission 
was  the  Gaidamak  Rokhmanenko,  whose  real  name  was  Rokh- 
man.  This  Rokhman,  a  Jew,  according  to  his  statement,  en- 
tered the  ranks  of  the  Gaidamaks  as  a  volunteer.  He 
gave  himself  out  for  a  former  student  and  the  son  of  a  rich 
tanner  of  Kiev.  But,  according  to  evidence  I  have  collected, 
he  was  a  man  of  little  education,  and  no  means,  who  had  for- 


PROSKUROV:    HILLERSON'S   REPORT    225 

merly  lived  on  money  which  he  earned  by  giving  lessons  in 
Jewish.  This  Rokhman  got  himself  into  Semosenko's  favor, 
was  named  on  the  investigating  commission,  and,  as  a  member 
of  the  commission,  received  power  to  arrest  people  on  his  own 
responsibility  and  bring  them  to  trial.  He  arrested  principally 
sons  of  rich  parents,  and  through  another  Jew  Prosser,  in  whose 
house  he  lived,  received  ransom  for  them.  (See  testimony  of 
Storr,  pp.  7-9.) 

Verkhola  succeeded  in  proving  not  only  that  Rokhmanenko 
was  dealing  in  extortion  and  blackmail,  but  that  other  members 
of  the  commission  were  also  taking  bribes.  He  made  a  detailed 
report  of  all  this  to  Semosenko,  and  insisted  that  he  give  him 
power  to  arrest  them  all.  Semosenko,  after  long  delibera- 
tion, consented  to  the  arrest  of  Rokhmanenko,  but  absolutely 
refused  to  let  the  others  be  arrested.  Verkhola  searched  Rokh- 
manenko's  quarters,  took  away  from  him  18,000  rubles  in  cash, 
arrested  him,  and  compelled  him  on  examination  to  admit  ex- 
tortion and  blackmail.  At  the  same  time  Rokhmanenko  declared 
that  he  had  handed  over  most  of  the  bribes  he  had  received  to 
Semosenko's  chief  of  staff,  Garaschenko.  Verkhola  communi- 
cated to  Semosenko  the  results  of  his  examination,  and  gave 
Rokhmanenko  himself  over  to  the  public  prosecutor.  In  spite 
of  repeated  urgings  from  Verkhola,  the  prosecution  of  the  case 
against  him  was  conducted  very  feebly,  and  at  last  lapsed 
altogether.  Though  Semosenko  was  asked  at  least  to  release 
the  records  of  the  investigation  of  the  case,  the  latter  were  not 
returned.  Rokhmanenko  himself,  while  in  prison,  boasted  that 
no  one  dared  bring  him  to  trial,  and  that  he  would  soon  be 
free  and  would  then  be  bitterly  revenged  on  his  enemies.  When 
the  evacuation  of  Proskurov  by  the  Petlurists  began,  it  was 
decided  to  conduct  Rokhmanenko  from  the  common  prison  to 
another  place,  it  being  expected  that  his  friends  would  liberate 
him  and  take  him  away.  While  he  was  being  transferred,  some 
one,  out  of  personal  revenge,  shot  him.  Thus  ended  the  days 
of  this  adventurist  and  renegade,  who,  by  the  way,  boasted  that 
he  had  taken  an  active  part  in  the  massacre  of  the  Jews. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  Semosenko's  proclamation  of 
February  27  was  issued  under  the  influence  of  the  provocatory 
activity  of  Rokhmanenko  and  other  members  of  the  special 
commission,  who  in  their  own  selfish  interests  needed  to  sow 
panic  and  alarm  among  the  Jews. 

And,  in  fact,  the  Jews  could  not  shake  off  their  panic  of  fear. 
In  company  with  Commissar  Verkhola  they  considered  all  means 
which  could  be  adopted  for  getting  rid  of  Semosenko.  At  last 


226    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Verkhola  applied  to  the  president  of  the  Ukrainian  national 
union,  Mudry,  who  was  in  friendly  relations  with  Semosenko's 
immediate  superior,  the  corps-commander  Konovaletz,  and  asked 
him  to  use  his  influence  with  Konovaletz  to  get  Semosenko 
transferred  to  another  place,  since,  while  he  was  there,  the 
tranquilization  of  the  population  of  Proskurov  was  unthinkable. 
In  this  respect  Verkhola  also  made  sure  of  the  co-operation  of 
Kiverchuk,  who  did  not  like  seeing  all  the  power  in  the  hands 
of  Semosenko,  and  undoubtedly  was  envious  of  the  latter.  Be- 
sides this,  Kiverchuk  thought  that  Semosenko,  in  slaughtering 
a  large  part  of  the  Jewish  population,  had  done  his  work  and 
that  there  was  no  further  need  for  him.  Together  with  Mudry, 
Verkhola  went  to  Konovaletz's  headquarters  and  there  got  from 
him  an  order  that  Semosenko  should  lay  down  the  duties  of 
garrison-commander  and  return  to  the  front.  Kiverchuk,  in 
turn,  was  also  soon  removed  from  the  post  of  commandant  of 
the  city  of  Proskurov,  and  remained  only  commandant  of  the 
canton  of  Proskurov. 

However,  Semosenko  was  slow  to  lay  down  his  office.  He 
schemed  to  remain  in  Proskurov,  and,  in  his  turn,  intrigued 
against  Kiverchuk.  Apparently  he  especially  disliked  the  moral 
satisfaction  which  his  going  would  give  the  Jews.  But  when 
he  saw  that  he  had  to  go,  he  made  use  of  the  fact  that  he  was 
suffering  from  a  chronic  venereal  disease,  called  a  consultation 
of  physicians,  and,  through  his  adjutant,  persuaded  them  to 
give  him  their  verdict  to  the  effect  that  in  the  interests  of  his 
health  it  was  necessary  for  him  temporarily  to  give  up  service 
entirely,  and  to  retire  to  some  hospital  at  a  good  distance  from 
Proskurov.  (See  testimony  of  Dr.  Salitronik,  pp.  41-43.)  With 
great  pomp,  attended  by  sanitary  detachments  and  sisters  of 
mercy,  Semosenko  at  last  left  Proskurov. 

This  Semosenko,  who  bathed  the  houses  and  streets  of  Prosku- 
rov with  Jewish  blood,  was,  according  to  the  description  of 
witnesses,  a  weak  young  man  of  22  or  23,  who  had  begun 
his  service  as  a  volunteer  under  the  tsar.  With  the  forced 
seriousness  of  his  face  he  produced  on  all  the  impression  of  a 
half-witted,  nervous  and  unbalanced  man.  Judging  by  some  of 
his  resolutions  in  the  reports  which  I  have  seen,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  he  was  at  the  same  time  characterized  by  great 
powers  of  calculation  and  decisiveness. 

According  to  my  approximate  reckoning  more  than  1,200 
persons  were  killed  in  Proskurov  and  environs.  Besides  this, 
out  of  over  600  wounded,  more  than  300  died. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  in  his  first  proclamation  Semosenko 


FELSHTIN:  HILLERSON'S  REPORT       227 

threatened  to  shoot  on  the  spot  anyone  who  instigated  a 
pogrom,  and  that  this  proclamation  was  not  published  owing  to 
Kiverchuk,  who  at  that  time  was  hindering  Semosenko's  entry 
into  power  by  every  means;  and  in  view  of  the  further  fact 
that  Kiverchuk  willingly  let  him  have  this  power  when  he  ex- 
pressed readiness  to  massacre  the  Jews ;  I  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  Semosenko  was  mainly  the  physical  instrument  of  those 
bloody  horrors  which  took  place  in  Proskurov.  But  the  chief 
inspiration  of  the  bloody  times  in  Proskurov  appears  to  have 
been,  in  my  opinion,  Col.  Kiverchuk — that  old  tsarist  official  and 
unquestioned  pogromist  and  black-hundreder. 

It  was  the  sad  function  of  Proskurov  to  establish  a  new 
phase  in  the  technique  of  pogroms.  Previous  pogroms  had  as 
their  chief  purpose  robbery,  that  is,  the  stealing  of  Jewish 
property;  murders  followed  the  looting,  but  still  they  were  not 
the  principal  purpose.  The  Cossacks  regarded  the  looting  as  the 
just  reward  for  their  faithful  service;  and  in  the  killing  of 
peaceful  and  unarmed  people  they  saw  a  manifestation  of  their 
valor  and  personal  prowess.  Beginning  with  Proskurov  the 
basic  purpose  of  the  pogroms  in  Ukraine  appears  as  the  total 
destruction  of  the  Jewish  population.  Looting  was  also  widely 
practised,  but  it  took  second  place. 

In  Proskurov  the  Uman  massacre  of  the  time  of  Honta  was 
repeated.  The  difference  is  only  that  in  Uman,  under  Honta, 
Poles  and  Jews  were  massacred,  while  in  Proskurov  only  Jews 
were  massacred,  with  strict  neutrality  on  the  part  of  the  Poles 
and  other  Christians. 


III.    FELSHTIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

The  Felshtin  pogrom  must  be  regarded  not  as  an  independent 
pogrom  but  as  an  episode  of  the  Proskurov  massacre. 

As  I  stated  in  my  report  on  Proskurov,  a  part  of  the  soldiers 
who  revolted  on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  February  15,  went 
along  the  road  to  Felshtin,  in  order  to  raise  a  revolt  there. 
Upon  arriving  there  they  first  arrested  the  commandant  of 
militia  and  announced  to  all  that  a  bolshevik  revolution  had 
taken  place  in  Proskurov,  and  that  a  similar  revolution  was  to 
take  place  in  the  whole  canton  of  Proskurov.  But  soon  they 
released  the  commandant  of  militia  and  took  from  him,  as  from 
other  people,  their  signed  statements  that  they  unqualifiedly  sub- 
mitted to  the  newly  organized  bolshevik  regime.  However,  on 


228    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  same  day,  February  15,  they  learned  that  the  bolshevik  revolt 
in  Proskurov  had  failed.  They  then  hastily  quitted  Felshtin  and 
scattered  in  various  directions. 

This  episode  with  the  bolshevist  uprising  greatly  disturbed  the 
local  Jewish  population.  In  the  evening,  this  disquietude  in- 
creased when  vague  rumors  began  to  arrive  about  the  events  in 
Proskurov.  The  alarm  of  the  Jews  increased  more  when  on 
the  next  day,  Sunday,  these  rumors  became  more  definite. 

The  Jews  applied  to  the  commandant  of  militia,  asking  him 
to  strengthen  the  guard.  He  promised  to  summon  peasants  from 
the  neighboring  village  of  Porichie,  and  also  from  Proskurov, 
to  help  the  local  guard.  For  this  he  received  from  the  Jews 
a  corresponding  sum  of  money.  And,  in  fact,  on  Monday 
morning  there  appeared  armed  peasant  youths  from  Porichie, 
who  surrounded  the  place.  This  was  the  auxiliary  guard  which 
the  commandant  of  militia  had  collected.  He  himself  went  to 
Proskurov  on  Monday  morning.  He  returned  at  6  P.M.  and 
after  him  appeared  Cossacks  with  "red  caps,"  that  is,  those  same 
Gaidamaks  who,  as  was  now  definitely  known  in  Felshtin,  had 
massacred  the  Jews  in  Proskurov. 

The  Jews  understood  that  they  were  fated  for  slaughter  and 
began  to  hide  wherever  they  could.  Most  of  them  hid  in  cellars 
and  garrets.  Many  tried  to  leave  the  place,  but  the  guard  sur- 
rounding the  place,  which  the  commandant  of  militia  had  in- 
vited from  Porichie,  did  not  let  the  Jews  pass  through.  Thus 
the  Jews  were  completely  hemmed  in ;  very  few  got  out. 

The  night  was  spent  in  great  agitation.  Occasionally  individ- 
ual shots  were  heard. 

According  to  the  testimony  of  the  witness  Landa,  whose  house 
opens  on  the  square  of  the  main  street  of  the  town,  he  saw  from 
the  window  of  his  house  that  several  hundred  Gaidamaks  were 
collecting  in  the  square,  and  with  them  many  peasants'  carts  from 
the  neighboring  villages.  In  the  morning,  approximately  at  seven 
o'clock,  he  heard  the  sound  of  a  horn,  and  saw  the  Gaidamaks 
forming  in  line  on  the  square.  Someone  addressed  them,  after 
which  they  scattered  through  the  town.  Soon  he  began  to  hear 
the  cries  of  people  being  murdered.  Four  Gaidamaks  came  in 
to  his  own  house,  and  one  of  them  made  a  motion  at  him  with 
his  sabre,  but  another  stopped  him.  They  demanded  money  of 
him,  and  he  gave  them  about  6,000  rubles,  assuring  them  that 
he  had  no  more,  and  offering  them  all  his  things,  but  asking  that 
they  spare  his  life.  They  took  no  things  and  went  to  the  door. 
The  same  Gaidamak  who  had  stopped  his  comrade  when  he 
threatened  him  with  a  sabre  said :  "You  had  better  hide,  because 


FELSHTIN:    HILLERSON'S   REPORT     229 

others  will  come  and  will  certainly  kill  you.'"  Landa,  who  was 
alone  in  the  dwelling,  since  he  had  previously  sent  his  wife  and 
only  daughter  to  another  place,  with  the  aid  of  this  same  Gaida- 
mak  got  up  into  the  garret  by  a  hanging  ladder,  which  the 
Gaidamak  handed  up  to  him  in  the  garret,  where  he  hid  it. 
From  the  garret  Landa  was  able  to  view  all  the  horrors  which 
were  taking  place  in  Felshtin.  He  saw  old  men  and  children 
dragged  out  of  the  houses  and  murdered.  After  a  long  time  he 
saw  three  women  near  his  house,  and  thinking  that  one  was  his 
wife,  jumped  down  to  look  at  the  body.  He  found  that  it  was  not 
his  wife,  but  did  not  venture  to  return  to  his  dwelling  because  the 
ladder  remained  in  the  garret.  He  then  ran  into  the  house  of 
a  Russian  neighbor  and  begged  for  refuge,  but  was  driven  out 
Then  he  ran  into  the  garret  of  a  neighboring  house  and  hid 
there  in  the  straw.  Two  lads  of  the  Porichie  guard  saw  this, 
and  pursued  him;  they  went  up  into  the  garret,  but  did  not  find 
him.  They  tried  to  set  the  straw  on  fire,  but  did  not  succeed. 

Another  witness,  Sviner,  who  had  recently  returned  from  the 
front,  tells  how  he,  with  his  mother  and  sisters,  hid  in  their 
house,  and  several  groups  of  Gaidamaks  visited  them.  He 
bought  them  off  with  money.  When  the  last  group  appeared, 
he  had  no  money  left.  He  went  out  on  the  street  to  them  and 
began  to  beg  them  to  spare  him.  He  took  refuge  in  cunning 
and  turned  to  one  Gaidamak  and  said  that  he  had  lain  with  him 
in  the  trenches  during  the  war.  The  Gaidamak  began  to  look 
him  over,  and  then  turned  his  glance  towards  his  legs  and  said: 
"You  have  some  fine  shoes,  give  them  to  me."  He  gladly  agreed, 
and  went  into  the  house  with  the  Gaidamaks  and  took  off  his 
boots.  The  Gaidamak  in  turn  took  off  his  own  boots  and  put  on 
Sviner's.  Then  he  took  out  of  his  pocket  a  fresh  pair  of  stock- 
ings, gave  them  to  Sviner,  and  helped  him  put  on  his  old  boots. 
Having  received  a  pair  of  rubbers  also,  he  turned  to  his  com- 
panions and  said :  "We  won't  kill  a  man  with  whom  I  sat  in  the 
trenches."  Towards  evening  Sviner  and  his  family,  not  knowing 
that  the  massacre  was  over,  decided  not  to  stay  in  the  house  any 
longer,  and,  making  their  way  through  the  corpses  on  the  street, 
they  all  left  the  town  and  spent  the  whole  night  in  the  fields. 
They  only  returned  on  the  next  day,  when  they  learned  that  the 
town  was  quiet.  Sviner  then  went  to  the  bouse  of  his  brother, 
who  had  been  president  of  the  Jewish  community.  With  difficulty, 
walking  over  bodies,  he  got  to  the  house,  and  there  found  his 
brother,  his  wife,  her  parents,  and  also  several  other  people  who 
had  hidden  in  the  house,  all  murdered. 

The  witness  Kreimer  states  that  he  was  in  Proskurov  at  the 


230    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

time  of  the  pogrom  there.  Having  saved  his  life,  on  Sunday, 
February  16,  at  12  noon,  he  started  on  foot  for  Felshtin,  where 
he  regularly  lives.  But  at  the  village  of  Malinichi  he  was  ar- 
rested by  a  militiaman  and  taken  to  the  militia  headquarters. 
The  commandant  of  militia  said  he  must  take  him  back  to 
Proskurov,  to  the  commandant's.  When  he  said  he  would  be 
shot  there  and  begged  him  not  to  send  him  there,  the  commander 
of  militia  replied  that  he  himself  would  undergo  a  serious  risk 
if  he  did  not  do  so.  He  showed  him  a  telegram  received  from 
Kiverchuk,  commandant  of  Proskurov,  telling  him  to  shoot  on 
the  spot,  or  send  to  him  in  Proskurov  to  be  shot,  all  agitators 
and  Jews. 

At  this  time  militiamen  brought  in  an  entire  family  which 
had  escaped  from  Proskurov  in  the  same  way  and  was  heading 
for  Felshtin.  But  when  asked  whence  and  whither  the  family 
was  going,  the  head  of  the  family  was  clever  enough  to  answer 
that  they  were  going  from  Felshtin  to  Proskurov.  Then  the 
commander  of  militia  took  steps  to  send  this  family  back  to 
Felshtin.  The  witness  Kreimer  made  use  of  this  and  immedi- 
ately asked  this  family  to  tell  his  relatives  in  Felshtin  of  his 
dangerous  situation,  and  to  ask  them  to  spare  no  means  what- 
ever to  save  him.  After  this  the  commander  agreed  to  let  him 
stay  in  the  village  till  the  next  morning.  But  after  some  time, 
approximately  two  hours,  the  militiamen  brought  in  sixteen  other 
Jews,  who  had  escaped  from  Proskurov.  Then  the  commander 
of  militia  declared  that  he  could  not  keep  such  a  crowd  of 
people  until  morning,  and  decided  to  send  all  of  them,  including 
Kreimer,  to  Proskurov  at  once.  They  were  already  placed  on 
carts,  but  at  this  time  a  telephone  call  came  from  Felshtin  and 
the  (Felshtin)  commander  of  militia,  who  knew  him,  asked  in- 
sistently for  Kreimer.  Then  it  was  again  decided  to  let  them  all 
stay  in  the  village  till  morning.  In  the  evening  Kreimer  suc- 
ceeded in  speaking  with  a  certain  local  Jew,  who  entered  into 
negotiations  with  the  commander  of  militia  on  his  behalf  and 
that  of  four  other  Jews,  to  let  them  go  to  Felshtin  for  a  fixed 
sum.  The  amount  agreed  upon  was  five  thousand  rubles,  which 
was  paid.  Owing  to  this,  Kreimer  and  the  four  other  Jews,  with 
the  latter's  families,  succeeded  in  getting  away  in  carts  to 
Felshtin.  But  the  other  Jews,  not  having  money  to  pay  a 
thousand  rubles  apiece,  were  taken  back  to  Proskurov.  Kreimer 
arrived  in  Felshtin  on  Monday  during  the  day;  in  the  evening 
the  Gaidamaks  arrived  there.  He  succeeded  in  getting  his  rela- 
tives to  a  neighboring  village  in  good  time,  and  he  himself  hid 
in  the  cellar,  where  he  spent  the  whole  night,  and  likewise  all 


FELSHTIN:    HILLERSON'S   REPORT     231 

the  next  day.  Through  a  crack  in  the  boards  with  which  the 
cellar  was  covered  he  watched  various  episodes  of  the  massacre, 
and  also  saw  how  the  militiamen,  especially  peasants,  stole 
goods  from  the  shops,  and  also  property  from  the  houses. 

The  witness  Schneider  assures  us  that  telegrams  similar  to 
the  one  received  from  Kiverchuk  by  the  military  commander  in 
Malinichi,  were  sent  also  to  other  villages  and  hamlets,  and  that 
owing  to  them  many  Jews  were  shot  on  sight.  He  knows  of 
the  fact  that  a  Jewess  named  Brauer,  who  was  fleeing  with  her 
children  from  Proskurov,  was  in  this  manner  led  out  to  be  shot, 
but  ransomed  herself  for  a  large  sum  of  money.  The  same 
witness  Schneider  states  that  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the 
head  of  the  post  and  telegraph  bureau,  who  likewise  managed 
the  local  Bureau  of  Information,  and  that  he  went  to  see  him  at 
twelve  o'clock  noon  to  find  out  about  the  situation.  While  he 
was  there  the  postmaster  was  called  on  direct  wire  from  Prosku- 
rov, and  remained  at  the  telephone  more  than  an  hour.  When 
he  returned,  Schneider  asked  him:  "Well,  what  do  they  tell  you 
from  Proskurov?"  The  other  answered  that  the  Gaidamaks 
had  gone  out  over  the  whole  canton  of  Proskurov,  and  would 
probably  come  to  Felshtin,  too.  When  he  asked  what  was 
going  to  happen  in  Felshtin  then — surely  not  a  repetition  of  the 
horrors  in  Proskurov,  the  other  gave  an  evasive  answer.  Upon 
the  repetition  of  the  question  he  made  no  reply.  Then  Schneider 
hastily  said  good-bye  to  him,  so  as  to  communicate  what  he 
had  heard  to  the  Jews.  As  he  left  the  postmaster  said  to  him: 
"Come  and  see  me  this  evening."  But  Schneider  in  his  heart 
replied  that  he  had  no  time  to  go  visiting  at  such  a  time. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Gaidamaks  arrived  the  evening  be- 
fore, but  nevertheless  did  not  let  the  Jews  leave  their  houses. 
Schneider  spent  the  night  from  Monday  to  Tuesday,  the  whole 
day  Tuesday,  and  the  following  night,  in  the  cellar  where  he 
had  hidden  himself.  He  did  not  know  that  the  massacre  had 
ended  at  two  o'clock  on  Tuesday.  Only  on  Wednesday  morning 
did  he  come  out  of  the  cellar.  But  even  then  corpses  in  great 
numbers  were  still  lying  about  the  streets.  He  started  to  help 
the  wounded  and  with  this  object  went  to  the  public  hospital. 
The  militia  commander  happened  to  be  there,  and  Schneider  was 
an  involuntary  witness  to  the  following  conversation  of  the 
militia  commander  with  the  regional  ("government,"  gubernia) 
commander  from  Kamenetz.  Evidently  in  reply  to  a  question 
about  the  'happenings  in  Felshtin,  the  militia  commander  re- 
ported: "Monday  morning  some  Cossacks  appeared,  who  said 
they  were  Gaidamaks.  Their  ataman  suggested  to  me  that  I 


232    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

should  not  hinder  them  from  dealing  with  the  Jews  as  they 
might  see  fit.  And  when  he  asked  me  whether  I  consented  to 
this,  I  replied:  'I  haven't  the  power  to  oppose  you,  and  I  shall 
not  interfere  with  you.' "  Further  he  communicated  the  facts 
about  the  massacre  that  had  taken  place  in  the  town,  and  stated 
that  the  number  of  killed  was  about  500.  "Before  leaving  the 
place,"  he  said,  "the  same  ataman  said  to  me:  'Don't  interfere 
with  the  peasants;  let  them  do  what  they  think  best.  Let  them 
take  that  which  the  Jews  have  sucked  out  of  the  people  for 
such  a  long  time.' "  And,  in  fact,  the  peasants  did  come  with 
carts,  and  plundered  the  property  of  the  Jews. 

At  Felshtin  there  were  gathered  several  hundreds  of  Gaida- 
maks ;  that  is,  apparently,  all  the  Gaidamaks  who  were  in  Prosku- 
rov,  since  the  whole  third  Gaidamak  regiment  consisted  of  only 
several  hundreds  all  told. 

It  is  characteristic  that  some  of  the  Gaidamaks  who  arrived 
at  Felshtin  on  Monday  evening  went  to  Jewish  homes  and 
asked  for  lodgings.  They  were  not  only  furnished  with  lodg- 
ings, but  fed  an  abundant  supper  with  sweetmeats.  These 
Gaidamaks  behaved  themselves  very  decently  and  even  respect- 
fully. They  declared  that  they  had  come  to  Felshtin  without 
any  evil  intentions,  and  that  they  would  go  back  the  next  day. 
However,  in  the  morning,  after  the  signal-horn,  those  same 
Gaidamaks  cut  down  the  very  same  Jews  who  had  entertained 
them. 

The  question  has  arisen  how  to  reconcile  the  massacre  in 
Felshtin  with  the  promise,  which,  according  to  Verkhola  and 
others,  Semosenko  gave  on  Sunday  to  the  session  of  the  council, 
namely,  to  call  the  Gaidamaks  back  from  Felshtin.  The  Jews 
of  Felshtin  declare  that  Semosenko  gave  orders  to  this  effect 
by  telegraph,  but  that  the  telegram  was  hidden  by  the  head  of 
the  post  and  telegraph  bureau.  This  rests  on  an  evident  mis- 
understanding. The  distance  from  Proskurov  to  Felshtin  is 
only  25  versts  in  all,  and  the  Gaidamaks  who  came  to  Felshtin 
Monday  evening  unquestionably  left  Proskurov  on  the  morning 
of  the  same  day.  It  is  clear  that  what  was  needed  was  not  for 
Semosenko  to  recall  the  Cossacks  from  Felshtin,  but  simply  not 
to  send  them  there.  But  it  is  possible  that  it  was  no  longer  in 
Semosenko's  power  to  keep  them  in  Proskurov. 

We  must  remember  that  the  Gaidamaks  had  been  promised 
bloody  sport  with  the  Jews  in  Proskurov  for  three  days.  But 
the  experience  of  the  first  day,  Saturday,  surpassed  the  expec- 
tations, apparently,  of  Semosenko  and  Kiverchuk  themselves. 
It  was  therefore  decided  to  stop  the  massacre  in  Proskurov. 


FELSHTIN:    HILLERSON'S  REPORT     233 

But  at  the  same  time  the  Gaidamaks,  having  tasted  Jewish  blood, 
got  a  liking  for  it,  and  showed  a  desire  for  further  slaughter. 
It  was  not  so  easy,  apparently,  to  stop  them.  Besides  this,  the 
telegrams  sent  out  all  over  the  canton  by  Kiverchuk,  of  which 
mention  has  been  made,  stirred  up  the  entire  canton.  From 
Kiverchuk's  point  of  view,  after  what  had  happened  in  Prosku- 
rov,  the  capital  of  the  canton,  it  would  have  been  unjust,  perhaps 
insulting,  to  the  rest  of  the  canton,  to  leave  it  entirely  without 
Jewish  blood.  However  this  may  be,  at  any  rate,  the  Gaidamaks 
received  permission  to  go  out  into  the  canton.  Moreover  we 
must  remember  that  they  were  afforded  freedom  to  act  on  their 
own  responsibility.  It  depended  on  them  to  act  in  this  way  or 
that.  This  explains  the  fact  that  in  Yarmolintsy,  where  the 
bolsheviki  had  also  been,  they  contented  themselves  with  a 
considerable  sum  of  money.  The  local  Jews  went  out  of  the 
town  to  meet  them  and  furnished  this  sum  to  them;  and  they 
did  not  start  a  massacre.  But  when  they  came  to  Felshtin  they 
found  a  pogrom-like  frame  of  mind  already  prepared  there. 
This  frame  of  mind  had  been  created  by  the  guard  from 
Porichie,  which  the  militia  commander  had  summoned,  and  also 
by  the  commander  of  militia  himself,  who,  according  to  all  the 
evidence,  .sympathized  and  co-operated  with  the  pogrom.  Even 
his  eighty-year-old  father,  during  the  massacre,  took  a  stout 
board  in  his  hands  and  finished  killing  wounded  Jews,  as  is 
confirmed  by  several  witnesses  who  saw  it  from  the  garret 
where  they  were  hiding.  This  pogrom-like  frame  of  mind  was 
also  helped  on  by  the  head  of  the  post  and  telegraph  bureau, 
who  was  informed  of  everything,  but  not  only  did  nothing  to 
avert  the  pogrom,  but  did  not  even  try  to  mitigate  it.  This  b 
made  sufficiently  clear  from  the  testimony  of  the  witness 
Schneider.  Under  the  influence  of  this  pogrom-like  frame  of 
mind,  the  debauch  of  the  Gaidamak  horde  in  Felshtin  was  irre- 
strainable. 

The  pogrom  in  Felshtin  lasted  several  hours.  There  were  485 
people  killed,  and  180  wounded.  Of  the  wounded  more  than  a 
hundred  died  of  their  wounds.  Thus  the  killed  amounted  in  all 
to  600  people,  which  amounts  to  nearly  a  third  of  the  Jewish 
population  in  the  town ;  it  contained  in  all  about  1,900  Jewish 
inhabitants. 

It  should  be  observed  that  in  Proskurov-  the  Gaidamaks,  who 
had  taken  an  oath  on  Saturday  to  slay  but  not  to  steal,  hon- 
estly fulfilled  their  sacred  oath.  Robberies  on  the  part  of  the 
Gaidamaks  were  rare  there.  But  from  Saturday7  to  Tuesday, 
when  the  Felshtin  massacre  took  place,  several  days  had  elapsed, 


234    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  in  this  time  the  sanctity  of  the  oath,  apparently,  had  evap- 
orated from  the  consciousness  of  the  Gaidamaks.  In  Felshtin 
robberies  went  hand  in  hand  with  murders. 

It  must  also  be  noted  that  while  in  Proskurov  the  assaults  on 
women  were  isolated,  in  Felshtin  there  were  a  great  many.  The 
majority  of  the  murdered  women  had  first  been  violated,  and 
many  women  who  were  not  killed  also  suffered  violation. 
Twelve  cases  were  registered  in  which  the  unfortunate  women 
needed  surgical  attention  as  a  result. 

As  they  left  after  the  giving  of  the  signal  by  trumpet,  the 
Gaidamaks  poured  kerosene  and  benzine  over  five  of  the  best 
houses  in  town  and  set  them  on  fire. 

Thus  these  champions  completed  their  work  for  the  welfare 
of  the  Ukrainian  fatherland,  and  thus  ended  this  bloody  baccha- 
nalia  in  Proskurov  and  Felshtin. 

(End  of  A.  I.  Hillerson's  Report.) 


SUPPLEMENT  TO  CHAPTER  III 

I.  POGROMS  OF  STRUK'S  GANGS 

HAMLET  OF  PECHKI  (CANTON  OF  RADOMYSL) 

Testimony   of  Simon-Leib  Rabinovich,   age  42,   fish-dealer. 

On  March  20,  when  navigation  began,  there  came  to  Pechki 
20  Strukists.  They  were  appointed  to  guard  the  river;  perhaps 
steamers  might  pass,  and  then,  as  the  soldiers  themselves  put  it, 
"there  will  be  gold  bracelets,  watches,  and  fine  boots."  Ten 
of  them  were  quartered  about  the  hamlet.  The  rest  of  the  day 
and  the  night  passed  quietly.  On  the  next  day,  early  in  the 
morning,  two  armed  Strukists  came  to  my  house  and  ordered 
me  to  go  with  them.  When  I  asked  where  they  were  taking 
me,  they  answered,  "To  headquarters,  to  Struk's."  I  went  with 
them.  On  the  way  the  bandits  took  three  other  Jews  and 
started  us  in  the  direction  of  Gornostaipol.  When  we  came 
out  of  the  house,  the  soldiers  began  to  demand  money.  Having 
received  a  comparatively  small  sum,  the  soldiers  let  us  go.  We 
returned  to  the  hamlet.  There  a  Strukist  met  me  and  yelled 
at  me:  "You  are  a  Jew!  You  Jews  want  a  commune!  You'll 
find  it  in  the  water  or  under  the  ground!"  I  began  to  reply 
to  him.  Peasants  gathered  around  us.  The  soldier  proved 
rather  dull,  he  had  no  answer  for  my  arguments,  and  the 
peasants  looked  ironically  at  him.  The  soldier  let  me  go  and 
went  away.  (As  I  afterwards  found  out,  that  bandit  was  a 
Jew  named  Orosky,  from  the  hamlet  of  Gorodische;  no  one 
knows  what  his  former  occupation  was.)  On  the  same  even- 
ing the  bandits  rounded  up  all  the  local  Jews,  old  men  and 
women,  and,  showing  them  a  machine-gun,  demanded  a  con- 
tribution of  4,000  rubles.  We  began  to  bargain  with  them  and 

235 


236    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

struck  a  bargain  at  1,800  rubles.  Things  became  peaceful.  On 
March  23  firing  began;  a  bolshevist  detachment  began  to  attack 
the  Strukists  from  Oster.  The  Jews  left  the  village  and  hid 
themselves  as  best  they  could  in  the  vicinity.  The  Strukists 
won,  and  again  became  the  only  government  in  the  whole 
region.  Three  days  later  the  Jews  returned  to  the  hamlet. 
Their  houses  had  been  completely  plundered.  In  my  own  house 
the  windows  and  doors  were  smashed,  and  all  the  furnishings 
had  vanished.  I  learned  that  the  Strukists  had  only  made  a 
beginning  at  this;  all  the  goods  had  been  seized  by  the  local 
peasants.  I  began  to  demand  insistently  that  the  peasants  return 
the  plunder  to  me.  This  helped.  The  peasants  got  frightened 
(on  this  day  there  were  no  Strukists  in  the  village),  and  began, 
little  by  little,  to  bring  my  goods  back  to  me.  I  was  told  that 
my  neighbor  had  taken  my  feather-bed  and  cushions.  I  went 
to  ask  him  to  return  my  bed  to  me.  He  fell  on  me  like  a  wild 
beast;  how  did  I  dare  to  demand  of  him,  the  head  man  of  the 
village?  He  would  arrest  me  and  hand  me  over  to  the  Strukists 
as  a  communist.  I  saw  that  some  change  had  taken  place  in 
my  neighbor.  He  had  previously  been  peaceable,  and  extraor- 
dinarily conscientious,  and  had  always  been  kind  with  me.  I 
understood  that  I  could  not  stay  any  longer  in  the  village.  I 
had  to  get  away  to  save  my  life.  I  left  the  house,  and  slowly, 
as  if  taking  a  stroll,  so  that  they  should  not  notice  my  plans, 
began  to  go  out  of  the  village.  On  the  way  I  kept  chatting 
and  joking  with  the  peasants.  I  felt  by  the  behavior  of  the 
peasants  that  something  was  due  to  happen  to  me  there.  For 
a  minute  I  entered  a  peasant's  hut.  In  a  couple  of  minutes  the 
head  man  ran  after  me  with  a  gun  in  his  hand:  "Aha,  you're 
here!  I'll  shoot  you  right  here  at  once.  You  want  to  give  us 
the  slip."  I  managed  to  appease  the  head  man  with  words,  and 
got  him  pacified.  He  went  away  and  told  me  to  wait  for  the 
overseers  (desiatniki) ,  for  whom  he  had  sent.  I  again  sneaked 
out  of  the  hut  without  being  noticed,  and,  slinking  along  over 
fences  and  through  fields,  going  in  up  to  my  neck  in  water,  got 
to  the  river,  and  from  there  got  across  in  a  boat  to  Oster.  As  I 
learned,  the  Strukists  came  to  the  village  on  the  next  day. 
They  took  the  entire  Jewish  population  of  the  place,  young 
and  old,  out  beyond  the  village  into  the  fields.  They  demanded 
money.  Whoever  had  money  with  him  bought  himself  off,  re- 
ceived blows  to  boot,  and  was  undressed  (they  undressed  them 
all  and  left  them  in  nothing  but  underclothes).  My  father,  a 
75-year-old  man,  had  no  money  with  him  and  was  killed  on  the 
spot,  before  the  eyes  of  the  other  Jews.  Now  there  is  no  one 


ORONY:     STRUK'S    GANGS  237 

left  of  the  Jews.     The  peasants  are  quite  friendly  to  us  when 
we  visit  them. 

SIMON-LEIB  RABINOVICH. 

VILLAGE  OF  ORONY   (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Testimony  of  Vasia  Makovskaia 

Our  village  furnished  many  Strukists.  There  had  never  been 
any  friction  between  the  Jews  and  the  peasants.  The  Jews  had 
been  living  there  a  long  time  and  were  on  good  terms  with  the 
peasants.  When  the  Struk  gangs  appeared  in  our  region,  the 
attitude  to  the  Jews  changed  in  our  village.  The  Strukists  from 
the  village  and  their  comrades  came  there  on  every  convenient 
occasion.  They  brought  with  them  malice  and  hatred  for  the 
Jews.  The  peasants'  attitude  to  the  Jews  became  worse  and 
more  hostile  from  day  to  day.  They  began  to  discover  that  the 
Jews  were  in  the  way  there,  and  disturbed  the  freedom  of  life. 
Every  time  when  the  Strukists  came  into  the  village  the  peas- 
ants told  them  what  could  be  demanded  of  each  of  the  Jews. 
Often  they  would  send  the  Strukists  into  Jewish  stores  or  homes 
to  seize  something  that  suited  their  own,  the  peasants',  needs. 
In  a  short  time  there  had  disappeared  from  the  Jews'  houses 
much  property,  clothing,  and  money.  I  won't  go  over  in  detail 
all  that  happened  among  us  at  this  time,  how  they  stole  all  our 
money,  took  our  shoes  and  clothing  off  from  us,  how  they  beat 
us  and  threatened  us  with  death.  All  this  is  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  what  happened  to  us  afterwards. 

At  Passover  about  ten  bandits  came  to  us.  The  "guests" 
were  very  impudent.  Whenever  they  saw  a  Jewish  face,  they 
mercilessly  beat  him.  From  the  peasants  we  found  out  that  they 
were  getting  ready  to  hold  a  Jewish  massacre  the  next  day. 
Then  all  the  Jews  left  the  place  by  stealth.  My  husband  was 
93  years  old  and  I  had  to  hunt  for  a  cart  for  him.  All  the 
peasants  to  whom  I  applied  for  a  cart  refused,  explaining  that 
they  had  been  strictly  ordered  not  to  transport  Jews.  My 
husband  and  I  hid  in  a  poor  peasant's  hut.  At  night  I  was 
informed  that  the  Strukists  had  left.  My  husband  and  I  re- 
turned home.  About  ten  minutes  afterwards  ten  bandits  burst 
in  and  demanded  that  we  tell  them  where  our  "communist"- 
sons  were.  They  began  to  beat  us.  My  husband  gave  them  our 
last  200  rubles,  and  the  bandits  left.  We  could  not  stay  in  the 
house  any  longer  and  decided  to  hide  again  somewhere.  We 
had  only  gone  a  few  paces  when  we  saw  the  Strukists  coming 


238    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

towards  us.  We  tried  to  get  into  the  barn ;  I  succeeded  in  doing 
so.  But  they  saw  my  old  husband  and  took  him  to  the  nearest 
hut.  I  heard  them  demanding  of  him  that  he  surrender  his 
sons.  The  old  man  replied,  in  exasperation,  that  they  should 
leave  him  in  peace.  One  of  them  shot  at  him  three  times.  He 
fell  dead.  Another  soldier,  when  he  was  already  dead,  beat  his 
head  and  cut  his  face.  They  undressed  him,  took  the  things, 
and  went  out  of  the  hut.  I  heard  them  saying  to  each  other: 
"We  must  find  his  wife,  she  must  be  somewhere  about  here. 
It  would  be  a  good  thing  to  hitch  her  up  and  have  her  take  her 
husband  to  the  river,  and  then  drown  her."  I  don't  know  where 
I  got  such  strength  and  skill.  As  soon  as  the  soldiers  left,  I 
began  to  make  my  way  across  fences  until  I  got  to  the  end  of 
the  village.  There  I  betook  myself  to  the  grain-fields,  where 
I  spent  the  night.  Early  in  the  morning  I  left  the  grain-field 
and  went  to  a  certain  peasant  who  was  very  well  acquainted 
with  us.  He  was  sorry  for  me  but  was  afraid  to  let  me  into  his 
hut.  He  took  me  into  the  barn  with  the  potatoes  and  locked 
me  up.  I  spent  two  days  in  the  barn.  On  the  third  day,  when 
the  bandits  left  the  village,  the  peasant  brought  me  into  the 
house.  I  fell  in  a  faint,  and  was  brought  to.  I  lay  abed  several 
days.  When  I  came  to  myself,  I  didn't  even  look  at  my  house 
and  started  for  Gornostaipol.  Two  of  my  sons  are  serving  in 
the  Red  Army. 

(Signed  for  Vasia  Makovskaia,  who  is  illiterate,  at  her  re- 
quest.) 

Orony  is  a  village  of  300-400  huts,  eight  versts  from  Gor- 
nostaipol. Four  Jewish  families  lived  there.  The  name  of  the 
93-year-old  man  who  was  killed  was  Benzion  Mikhelev  Oranik; 
he  is  buried  in  the  Gornostaipol  cemetery. 

VILLAGE  OF  KARAGOD  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

The  village  of  Karagod,  canton  of  Radomysl,  14  versts  from 
Chernobyl,  consists  of  approximately  300  peasants'  huts.  Fifteen 
families  of  Jews  lived  there.  The  village  lies  on  the  road  from 
Chernobyl  to  Khabno.  The  Jews  of  Karagod  had  lived  very 
peacefully  with  the  peasants.  When  the  gangs  of  Strukists 
began  to  operate  in  the  region  of  Chernobyl  and  Khabno,  misery 
began  to  be  widespread.  Many  Jewish  houses  were  destroyed 
down  to  the  foundation.  Peasants  took  part  in  this,  in  Karagod, 
as  in  a  whole  series  of  other  villages.  All  the  Jews  of  Karagod 
abandoned  the  places  they  had  occupied,  and  fled.  In  Chernobyl 


KARAGOD:    STRUK'S   GANGS  239 

I  happened  to  meet  three  Jews  from  Karagod.  I  must  say 
things  went  off  comparatively  well  there,  since  there  were  no 
human  lives  lost.  Of  three  Jews  whom  I  questioned,  one  had 
been  considered  the  rich  man  of  the  place.  He  left  the  village 
in  good  time.  On  the  way  "soldiers"  fell  upon  him,  and  took  off 
his  clothes  and  left  him  half  naked.  Now  he  is  going  tattered 
and  hungry,  and  relies  on  people's  charity,  to  escape  death  from 
hunger.  Of  the  other  two,  one  has  his  head  bandaged;  his 
skull  was  hurt.  Sometimes  he  cries  from  pain  in  an  inhuman 
voice.  His  face  is  nothing  but  a  mass  of  livid  wounds;  from 
the  bloated  mass  his  eyes  look  out  through  little  cracks.  The 
other  Jew  looks  better.  His  left  hand  is  hurt  and  he  cannot  use 
it.  I  could  not  question  them  long,  I  could  not  bear  to  listen 
to  their  broken,  hoarse  words,  full  of  sighs.  I  was  simply  not 
able  to  see  the  tears  slowly  wandering  through  the  Jew's  gray 
beard.  Here,  in  brief,  is  what  they  say: 

Zolotar,  Nukhim  Avrumov,  41  Years  Old,  Married,  Tailor 

Beginning  in  December,  1918,  the  gangs  of  Struk  visited  our 
village  endlessly.  They  were  peasants  of  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages, mostly  former  soldiers,  or  simply  scum  with  a  very  bad 
reputation.  From  our  village  also  some  young  peasants,  who 
loved  to  live  well  and  had  little  hankering  for  agriculture,  ad- 
hered to  the  Strukist  horde.  When  the  Strukist  gangs  passed 
by  not  far  from  us,  groups  of  them  came  in  to  the  village  to 
visit  their  people,  and  on  the  way,  playing  with  their  rifles,  to 
empty  Jewish  pockets  or  carry  away  some  domestic  articles  from 
the  Jews.  This  lasted  for  a  rather  long  time,  and  we  got  used 
to  such  a  condition  of  things.  On  April  10  there  appeared  in 
the  village  seven  such  bandits.  One  of  them  came  to  me  while 
I  was  sitting  at  work.  At  the  time  several  peasant  customers 
were  with  me.  When  the  soldiers  came  in  they  said  to  the  peas- 
ants: "Take  your  cloth,  and  if  you  recognize  cloth  belonging 
to  other  peasants  here,  take  that,  too,  because  we  are  going  to 
clean  things  up  here  right  away."  The  peasants  did  so  and  left. 
The  bandits  demanded  money  from  me.  I  felt  at  once  by  their 
tone  and  all  their  behavior  that  a  more  serious  matter  was 
impending  than  in  the  previous  attacks,  and  I  gave  them  all  the 
cash  I  had.  Having  taken  the  money  they  began  to  pack  up  the 
linen,  clothes,  and  household  goods,  as  much  as  they  could 
carry  away  with  them,  and  departed.  I  hoped  that  I  had  gotten 
off  with  this,  but  I  was  mistaken.  After  about  ten  minutes  one 
of  them  returned  with  an  order  from  the  leader  to  bring  me  to 


240    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

him.  I  tried  to  buy  myself  off  with  money.  The  soldier  took 
the  money,  but  nevertheless  took  me,  too,  to  the  leader.  The 
latter  demanded  200  rubles  of  me.  I  had  no  more  money.  The 
leader  began  to  beat  me  with  a  whip  and  the  handle  of  his 
revolver.  I  was  covered  with  blood.  I  began  to  implore  him 
to  let  me  go  into  the  village,  where  I  would  be  able  to  borrow 
the  amount  from  an  acquaintance.  The  leader  consented  and 
went  in  person  with  me.  On  the  way  we  met  a  crowd  of  peas- 
ants. The  bandit  began  to  beat  me,  make  me  sing  Jewish  songs, 
dance,  fall  on  my  knees,  and  cross  myself.  I  was  compelled  to 
do  all  this.  The  peasants  did  not  interfere.  But  the  spectacle 
was  apparently  not  very  pleasing  to  them,  because  they  began 
to  disperse.  The  leader  took  me  farther.  Meeting  a  Russian 
girl  he  knew,  the  bandit  bade  me  repeat  the  dance,  the  singing, 
etc.  The  peasants  to  whom  I  applied  for  money  would  not 
lend  it  to  me.  Blows  rained  upon  me  without  end.  In  one  hut, 
where  I  went  for  money,  I  found  a  Jewess  of  the  place  with 
black  and  blue  marks  on  her  bare  arms,  in  tears.  Three  bandits 
stood  around  her.  What  happened  afterwards  it  is  unnecessary 
to  relate.  With  great  difficulty  I  got  200  rubles  from  a  peasant 
lad.  The  soldier  let  me  go.  For  several  days  I  hid,  and  then 
went  away  to  Chernobyl.  I  was  informed  that  absolutely  noth- 
ing was  left  in  my  house  and  establishment.  I  must  add  that 
they  took  my  clothing  and  shoes  off  me  and  compelled  me  to 
perform  the  "comedy"  in  nothing  but  my  underclothes  and  bare 
feet. 

(Signature.) 

Khatutzky,  Moise  Duvidov,  42  Years  Old,  Married,  Shop-Keeper. 

With  the  appearance  of  the  Strukists  I  had  nothing  left  to 
sell  in  my  shop.  The  goods  were  stolen  by  troops  of  bandits, 
who  paid  me  for  them  with  vilest  epithets  and  blows.  To  hide 
the  goods  anywhere,  to  bury  them  in  the  ground,  did  not  help. 
They  did  not  spare  the  trouble  of  hunting  everywhere,  and  the 
longer  the  search  lasted,  the  more  blows  were  inflicted  on  me 
and  my  wife.  I  don't  remember  when  this  was ;  but  two  soldiers 
came  to  me  and  demanded  money.  I  gave  them  two  hundred 
rubles  which  I  had.  They  were  not  satisfied  with  this  and  com- 
manded me  to  go  with  them.  I  knew  that  this  threatened  seri- 
ous danger  for  me.  because  there  had  been  several  similar  cases. 
The  Jews  returned  with  such  disfigurements  that  it  was  hard 
to  recognize  them,  and  told  of  horrible  things.  I  began  to  en- 
treat the  soldiers  and  offered  them  various  things.  But  nothing 


CHINKOV:     STRUK'S    GANGS  241 

helped.  They  began  to  beat  me,  and  I  had  to  go.  The  soldiers 
took  me  to  a  brook  and  threw  me  into  the  water.  They  appar- 
ently wanted  to  drown  me.  But  the  water  there  was  very 
shallow.  They  threw  me  around  every  way;  in  spite  of  all,  I 
remained  alive.  Then  they  took  me  out  of  the  village  and  threw 
me  into  a  pond  which  was  near  the  distillery.  There  death  ap- 
peared inevitable.  But  it  happened  that  two  peasant  acquaint- 
ances went  past,  and  they  interceded  for  me,  saying  that  I  was 
a  "good  Jew."  Cursing,  the  soldiers  left  me  in  peace. 

(Signature.) 
VILLAGE  OF  CHINKOV 

The  village  of  Chinkov  is  25  versts  from  Chernobyl ;  has  about 
100  houses ;  only  two  Jewish  families  lived  there.  When  Struk's 
gangs  appeared  there  and  began  to  pay  special  attention  to  these 
two  Jewish  families  (to  visit  them  often,  take  away  what  they 
liked,  and  threaten),  one  of  them  left  the  village,  while  of  the 
other  there  remained  an  old  man  (he  hoped  that  his  age  would 
save  him  from  danger)  with  a  youth  of  16-18  years,  his  assist- 
ant in  his  mill.  This  boy  is  the  only  witness  of  what  happened 
in  the  village.  He  is  now  in  the  Chernobyl  alms-house,  seriously 
ill,  according  to  the  physicians.  He  is  all  done  up  in  bandages, 
and  cannot  move  his  arms.  On  one  arm  are  four  open  wounds, 
on  the  other  hand  one  finger  is  entirely  cut  off.  On  his  head 
are  several  serious  wounds,  and  his  nose  is  badly  injured.  Here 
is  his  story: 

We  got  used  to  frequent  visits  from  guests  who  grossly 
reviled  us.  The  visits  always  ended  with  the  receipt  of  small 
sums  of  money  or  of  articles  having  no  special  value.  My 
employer  had  rented  the  mill  for  a  long  time  and  was  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  local  peasants.  He  always  hoped  that 
the  peasants,  with  whom  he  had  grown  up  together  and  with 
whom  he  constantly  associated,  would  save  him.  I  cannot  say 
that  the  peasants  instigated  the  bandits  or  sympathized  with 
them.  But  they  did  not  do  the  least  thing  on  their  part  to 
avert  the  actions  of  the  bandits.  The  word  of  a  single  local 
peasant  was  enough  (of  this  we  have  seen  ocular  proof)  to 
stop  the  action  of  the  bandits.  I  don't  remember  myself  on 
what  day  this  occurred.  A  tall,  vigorous  soldier  came  in  and 
demanded  money.  The  old  man  agreed  with  him  on  2,000  rubles. 
This  was  the  last  cash  which  the  old  man  had.  Several  days 
later  the  soldier  came  again  and  demanded  now  20,000  rubles. 


242    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Three  other  soldiers  were  waiting  in  the  street.  The  old  man 
had  no  money.  The  soldier  became  furious,  and,  shouting 
"Damned  Jewish  communist,'*  struck  him  so  violently  with  his 
bare  sabre  that  the  old  man  fell  dead  on  the  spot,  without  even 
uttering  a  sound.  I  started  to  move  for  the  door.  The  soldier 
noticed  this  and  struck  me  on  the  head  with  his  sabre.  I  fell. 
The  soldier  called  his  companions  from  the  street  and  they  all 
began  to  run  around  the  place  and  take  everything  they  liked. 
As  they  left  our  house  one  bandit  noticed  that  I  was  still  alive. 
He  struck  me  several  times  more  with  his  sabre.  Then  they 
set  fire  to  the  house  and  barn.  I  did  not  lose  consciousness. 
When  I  began  to  suffocate  with  the  smoke  I  tried  to  jump  out 
of  a  window.  But  the  bandits  noticed  me  and  I  had  to  go  back 
into  the  house.  The  barn  was  already  in  flames  and  the  fire 
was  beginning  to  penetrate  the  house.  I  approached  the  win- 
dow. The  bandits  were  gone.  I  went  out  from  the  house  in 
the  direction  of  Chernobyl.  What  happened  afterwards  I  do 
not  know.  They  say  that  peasants  found  me  on  the  road  and 
took  me  to  Chernobyl.  Recently  they  brought  the  charred  bones 
of  my  employer  there,  too,  and  buried  them. 


VILLAGE  OF  DITIATKI 

The  fortunate  village  of  Ditiatki  got  off  without  human  vic- 
tims. It  consists  of  approximately  300  peasants'  huts ;  it  is  eight 
versts  from  Gornostaipol.  In  December,  1918,  the  Strukists 
began  to  appear  there.  They  were  young  peasants  from  the 
neighboring  villages,  with  rifles.  They  permitted  themselves 
frequent  taunts  at  the  Jews,  of  course  not  without  blows  and 
threats  with  revolvers.  The  peasants  soon  fell  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Strukists  and  began  to  dig  up  ancient  sins  of  the 
Jews.  They  began  to  hunt  for  old  "unpaid"  debts  and  to  think 
up  various  crimes  (the  Jews  served  as  spies  of  the  bolsheviki, 
had  invited  the  Hetman  to  return  to  Kiev,  etc.).  And  they  de- 
manded unconditional  fulfilment  of  their  demands  and  claims, 
otherwise  they  would  summon  the  Strukists  thither.  The  Jews 
were  compelled  to  pay  and  pay.  This  became  a  chronic  phe- 
nomenon. "For  a  lark"  they  would  arouse  the  Jews  by  night, 
or  would  stop  them  on  the  street,  saying,  "Why,  those  shoes  are 
mine."  The  Jews  could  not  endure  this  any  longer  and  left  the 
village,  abandoning  their  property  to  the  will  of  fate.  And 
they  did  well.  Soon  they  heard  that  they  were  being  searched 
for.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  search  was  for  the  sake 


YELISAVETGRAD:    GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS   243 

of  money,  of  which  they  long  since  had  no  more.    Even  yet  the 
Jews  of  Ditiatki  have  not  returned  to  the  village. 

Testimony  of  Gusovsky,  Joseph  Berkov,  45   Years  Old, 
Married,  Shop-keeper 

The  Strukists  often  visited  our  village  and  every  time  came  to 
me  and  took  whatever  they  liked.  Often  they  divided  my  goods 
among  the  peasant  children,  who  followed  them  in  throngs.  If 
anything  was  not  given  to  them  quickly  enough,  they  would  beat 
me,  threaten  me  with  rifles,  etc. 

Once,  as  I  was  coming  home,  I  heard  Strukists  asking  the 
peasants,  "Where  does  the  spy  Gusovsky  live  here?"  I  under- 
stood what  this  meant.  I  hid  in  a  peasant's  barn.  At  night  I 
returned  home.  They  had  wounded  my  wife,  and  completely 
plundered  my  household  goods.  Everything  had  vanished;  they 
had  taken  the  feathers  out  of  the  pillows.  My  wife  told  me 
that  the  bandits  had  come  looking  for  me,  and  said  they  would 
come  again.  I  understood  that  it  was  impossible  to  stay  in  the 
village  any  more,  and  with  my  wife  and  children  left  the  place, 
carefully  creeping  through  fences. 

(Signature) 


II.  POGROMS  OF  GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS  AND  OTHERS 

YELISAVETGRAD  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KHERSON) 
Pogrom  of  May  15-17,  1919 

On  May  15,  16  and  17  of  this  year  a  pogrom  of  which  I  was 
an  eye-witness  occurred  in  Yelisavetgrad,  Government  of 
Kherson. 

The  Soviet  forces,  which,  under  the  leadership  of  the  ataman 
Grigoriev,  had  taken  Nikolaiev,  Kherson  and  Odessa,  after  the 
taking  of  Odessa,  disposed  themselves  on  the  line  Voznesensk- 
Pomoschnaia-Yelisavetgrad-Znamenka-Kremenchug,  and  Zna- 
menka-Korystovka-Piatikhatki.  Among  these  guerrilla  forces, 
consisting  exclusively  of  the  dregs  of  the  peasant  population  of 
the  Kherson  government,  there  were  very  many  criminals,  who 
poured  into  the  divisions  of  Grigoriev  during  their  occupation 
of  the  towns,  since  upon  the  transfer  of  the  towns  to  the  Pet- 
lura-Grigoriev  regime  all  the  criminals  were  released  from 
prison,  and  part  of  them  entered  Grigoriev's  ranks.  The  frame 


244    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  mind  of  the  Grigoriev  forces  was  always  hostile  to  the  Jews, 
and  when  these  forces,  after  the  taking  of  Odessa,  freed  from 
military  activities,  began  to  stretch  out  in  squadrons  along  the 
line  of  the  railroad,  the  pogrom  agitation  began  to  increase 
among  them  and  speeches  began  to  be  delivered  ever  more 
frequently  on  the  theme  of  "the  injuriousness  of  Jews  and  com- 
munists." 

Two  days  before  a  Jewish  pogrom  had  been  carried  out  by 
the  Grigoriev  troops  in  Znamenka  (36  versts  from  Yelisavet- 
grad),  and  the  Grigoriev  squadrons  from  there  began  to  arrive 
in  Yelisavetgrad.  Great  agitation  arose  in  the  city.  The  stores 
did  not  open;  attacks  on  dwellings  began;  on  all  the  streets 
groups  of  soldiers  went  about  questioning  passers-by  _ whether 
they  were  not  communists.  On  the  tenth  there  appeared  on  the 
streets  of  the  city  a  manifesto  ("Universal")  with  the  signature 
of  the  ataman  Grigoriev,  calling  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Soviet 
regime,  which,  according  to  the  manifesto,  consisted  of  foreign- 
ers from  "Moscow  and  the  country  where  they  crucified  Christ." 
The  Soviet  institutions  were  destroyed,  the  militia  units  broken 
up;  the  city  remained  without  protection.  Throughout  the  city 
there  began  to  pop  up  everywhere  hooligans,  dwellers  in  the  out- 
skirts, tramps  from  the  market  place,  and  educated  black-hun- 
dreders  and  members  of  the  Union  of  the  Russian  People.  They 
carried  on  open  agitation  and  called  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Jews.  To  arouse  the  masses  of  the  people  against  the  Jews 
the  genuine  Russians  disinterred  the  bodies  of  the  well-known 
local  bandit,  Petka  Smely,  and  the  former  mayor,  Verischagin, 
who  had  been  shot  by  the  bolsheviks  immediately  upon  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Petlurists,  and  held  a  solemn  funeral.  Un- 
official and  isolated  attacks  on  Jewish  houses  continued  for  about 
a  week.  On  the  tenth  of  May  there  approached  the  city  from 
the  direction  of  Odessa  a  small  detachment  of  Soviet  forces 
that  had  been  despatched ;  it  consisted  of  Georgians  and  sail- 
ors. The  Grigorievists  hastily  left  the  city  towards  the  station 
of  Znamenka.  The  town  went  over  to  the  previous  regime,  but 
not  for  long.  For  the  ataman  Grigoriev,  learning  that  the 
number  of  the  detachment  sent  out  was  not  large,  again  attacked 
the  city,  and  on  the  night  of  the  14th  a  battle  took  place  near 
Yelisavetgrad  between  several  thousand  Grigorievists  and  the 
Soviet  detachment. 

When  the  sailors  and  bolsheviks  drove  the  Grigorievists  out 
of  the  city,  the  latter  threatened  to  return  and  massacre  all 
Jews,  so  that  the  Jewish  population  knew  that  if  the  city  was 
taken  this  time  there  was  no  escape  from  a  pogrom.  The  Soviet 


YELISAVETGRAD :    GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS   245 

detachment  of  Georgians  and  sailors  resisted  for  only  some 
hours.  Seeing  that  the  enemy  was  superior,  the  Georgians  re- 
treated and  succeeded  in  escaping  towards  Odessa,  while  the 
sailors  went  over  to  Grigoriev's  side  and  together  with  him 
entered  the  city  on  the  morning  of  May  15.  Immediately  the 
Grigoriev  forces  opened  the  prison,  let  out  all  the  prisoners, 
and  then  dispersed  about  the  city  in  groups  of  five  or  ten  and 
began  to  smash  shops  and  houses.  They  were  soon  joined  by 
Russian  inhabitants  of  the  outskirts,  market  women,  tramps 
and  hooligans,  and  also  educated  black-hundreders.  In  the  mass 
of  excited  people  you  could  find  officials,  teachers,  etc.  The 
local  Social-Democratic  newspaper  "Our  Life"  (Nasha  Zhizn) 
a  few  days  after  the  pogrom  came  out  openly  reproaching  the 
workmen  for  the  fact  that  even  they  took  part  in  the  pogrom. 
Compatriots  who  hid  in  the  cellar  of  the  house  where  I  live 
heard  some  one  playing  excellently  on  the  piano  for  more  than 
an  hour  while  the  house  was  being  wrecked. 

On  the  first  day  the  pogrom  was  carried  on  by  the  soldiers, 
sailors,  and  inhabitants  of  the  place.  On  the  second  and  third 
days  the  city  was  filled  with  peasants  from  the  neighboring 
villages,  who  came  to  plunder  and  carry  off  Jewish  property. 
The  murders  were  committed  principally  by  soldiers,  sailors  and 
criminals ;  the  rest  looted.  They  operated  as  if  on  definite  plans. 
A  group  of  soldiers  armed  with  rifles  would  come  up  to  a  house 
or  shop,  break  the  doors  or  windows,  enter  the  house,  kill  the 
Jews  who  did  not  succeed  in  hiding  or  hid  ineffectively,  and 
take  away  everything  of  value — money,  gold,  and  silver.  When 
the  soldiers  left  the  premises  a  wild  mob  would  break  in  and 
plunder  the  whole  property,  not  excluding  furniture  and  the 
heaviest  articles,  which  were  then  and  there  loaded  on  peasants' 
carts  and  taken  away  to  the  outskirts  of  the  city  and  to  the 
villages.  What  could  not  be  taken  or  carted  away  was  smashed 
and  destroyed.  Whirlwinds  of  feathers  from  feather-beds  and 
pillows  blew  around  the  streets.  The  soldiers,  who  devoted  them- 
selves principally  to  killing  and  looting,  hunted  around  in  gar- 
rets and  cellars,  hauled  out  the  Jews  from  wherever  they  could, 
demanded  money,  and  then,  having  got  money,  shot  them  on 
the  spot.  If  no  money  was  produced  they  killed  both  men  and 
women.  Through  all  the  streets  ran  gangs  crying,  "Kill  the 
Jews,  kill  the  communists."  The  Jewish  population  hid  in  gar- 
rets, cellars,  barns,  and  in  the  houses  of  Christian  acquaintances. 
Very  many  Christian  householders  concealed  Jews  and  saved 
thousands  of  them;  for  the  pogromists  did  not  touch  a  single 
Christian  house  or  shop.  On  the  Christian  houses  were  depicted 


246    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

crosses,  and  saints'  images  were  set  in  the  windows;  or  the 
people  stood  in  the  doors  of  their  own  houses,  and  the  thugs 
ran  past  them. 

The  pogrom  began  May  15  in  the  morning.  On  the  same  day 
the  trade  union  of  metal-workers  and  the  president  of  the 
Peasants'  Assembly,  which  was  being  held  at  that  time  in  Yeli- 
savetgrad,  went  to  the  station  and  demanded  of  the  command- 
ant of  the  Grigoriev  forces  on  the  front,  Pavlov,  that  he  im- 
mediately stop  the  pogrom.  But  neither  on  the  15th  nor  on 
the  following  day,  the  16th,  were  they  listened  to.  They  were 
even  warned  that  in  case  of  a  revolt  of  the  population  against 
the  Grigorievists  the  city  would  be  shelled  with  cannon.  On 
the  second  day  towards  evening  a  "revolutionary  committee" 
which  had  been  organized  in  the  city,  and  which  consisted  of 
the  trade  union  of  metal-workers  and  a  representative  of  the 
Peasants'  Assembly,  succeeded  in  organizing  a  small  detachment 
of  the  most  class-conscious  workers  to  defend  the  town;  sev- 
eral automobile  loads  of  armed  workmen  were  sent  through 
the  town,  and  the  plunderers  stopped  their  activities.  The 
pogrom  died  down  and  the  Jews  began  to  show  themselves  on 
the  streets.  On  the  third  day,  May  17,  it  was  quiet,  but  about 
10  A.M.  the  thugs,  thinking  that  the  city-guard  was  weak,  and 
also  the  soldiers  and  sailors,  finding  out  that  the  order  to  stop 
the  pogrom  had  not  come  from  the  commander  of  the  forces, 
again  began  to  plunder  and  kill.  Since  by  this  time  almost  the 
whole  city  was  already  plundered,  the  soldiers  devoted  them- 
selves chiefly  to  killing  Jews.  Those  who  had  come  out  of  their 
hiding-places  on  the  second  day  did  not  succeed  in  hiding  as 
well  on  the  third  day  as  on  the  first,  and,  consequently,  the 
quantity  of  victims  on  the  third  day  was  particularly  large. 
Whole  families  were  slaughtered;  neither  old  men  nor  infants 
in  arms  were  spared.  The  mob  ran  around  the  city  in  throngs 
and  finished  smashing  up  houses  and  shops. 

The  Metal-workers  Union  and  the  Peasants'  Assembly  again 
asked  the  commander  on  the  front,  Pavlov,  to  stop  the  horrors. 
This  time,  at  last,  on  the  evening  of  the  third  day,  they  suc- 
ceeded. That  evening  a  proclamation  was  pasted  up,  which  be- 
gan: "I  have  listened  to  the  representatives  of  the  workmen 
and  peasants,  and  have  decided  immediately  to  stop  the  devasta- 
tion of  industrial  life." 

The  pogrom  ended.  The  Grigorievists  returned  to  the  station, 
the  robbers  disappeared,  and  it  became  quiet  in  the  town.  For 
three  days  anarchy  reigned  in  the  city,  since  the  Grigorievist 
commanders  took  no  measures,  while  the  revolutionary  com- 


YELISAVETGRAD:   GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS   247 

mittee  had  no  power  to  take  measures  without  the  Grigorievists. 
On  the  21st  or  22nd  four  Soviet  regiments  came  to  Yelisavet- 
grad  from  Odessa,  and  after  a  brief  exchange  of  shots  the 
Grigorievists  withdrew  to  Znamenka.  The  city  was  occupied 
by  the  Soviet  Voznesensky  regiment;  the  other  three  regiments 
continued  to  pursue  the  enemy. 

With  the  entry  of  the  Soviet  forces  the  Jewish  population 
came  out  of  its  places  of  refuge,  but  it  was  impossible  to  return 
to  their  houses,  since  all  the  Jewish  houses  had  been .  plundered, 
all  the  furniture  and  beds  taken  away  or  smashed  to  bits,  all 
the  articles  of  the  households  stolen,  so  that  there  was  nothing 
to  sleep  on,  cover  oneself  with  at  night,  or  cook  dinner  with. 
In  Yelisavetgrad  the  number  of  Jewish  inhabitants  was  reckoned 
at  50,000,  and  they  were  all  left  beggars.  In  the  city  there  had 
been  some  provisions,  but  most  of  them  had  been  stolen,  and 
what  remained  with  the  Christian  co-operatives  was  enough  for 
a  week.  The  flour  in  the  mills  had  been  plundered  at  the  time 
of  the  pogrom;  in  several  mills  the  communicating  cords  had 
been  removed,  so  that  they  could  not  function.  The  population 
was  utterly  ruined  and  condemned  to  extinction.  Commerce 
was  destroyed,  and  from  this  the  peasant  population  also  suf- 
fered. Out  of  hundreds  of  stores  there  were  only  five  counted 
which  happened  to  be  spared  by  accident. 

On  the  day  after  the  pogrom  they  began  to  take  the  bodies 
to  hospitals  and  cemeteries.  All  the  hospitals  were  filled  with 
the  dead,  who  were  reckoned  at  two  thousand  people.  The 
Grigorievists  ordered  burial  immediately  after  the  pogrom  and 
forbade  anyone  to  go  to  the  cemetery  except  people  needed  to 
dig  the  graves.  An  accurate  count  is  still  going  on  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  since,  when  I  left  Yelisavetgrad  on  May  27,  they  were 
still  finding  bodies  of  the  dead  in  various  places. 

Aid  in  all  shapes  and  forms  is  necessary.  If  aid  is  not  fur- 
nished to  the  city  of  Yelisavetgrad,  the  entire  Jewish  population 
will  perish.  This  is  no  exaggeration.  People  have  no  change 
of  linen  and  no  possibility  of  getting  it,  so  that  unless  help  is 
furnished  the  appearance  of  contagious  diseases  is  unavoidable. 
There  are  very  few  provisions,  and  the  peasants  do  not  come 
to  market,  since  there  is  nothing  for  them  to  buy;  there  is  no 
importation  of  provisions,  and  famine  has  already  begun.  There 
remain  thousands  of  widows  and  orphans;  there  are  wounded, 
and  they  must  be  treated. 

In  Yelisavetgrad  a  committee  of  aid  for  the  suffering  popula- 
tion has  been  formed ;  it  consists  of  Christian  and  Jewish  persons 
in  public  life.  This  committee  empowered  me  to  use  every 


248    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

means  to  get  aid.  In  the  name  of  this  committee  and  in  the 
name  of  the  fifty  thousand  Jewish  population,  I  appeal  to  you 
for  immediate  assistance.  I  cannot  set  definite  limits.  The 
losses  are  reckoned  in  hundreds  of  millions.  It  is  necessary 
immediately  to  send  underclothes  and  other  garments,  pro- 
visions, and  medical  aid.  It  is  necessary  to  establish  feeding 
stations,  to  treat  the  wounded,  and,  if  possible,  to  prevent  the 
fearful  plague  of  an  epidemic  from  arising. 

From  eight  to  ten  thousand  Jewish  families  are  ruined.  Ten 
to  fifteen  feeding  stations  are  required  for  the  feeding  of  ten 
to  fifteen  thousand  people.  The  necessary  medicines,  band- 
ages, and  medical  personnel  are  on  hand  in  the  city.  For  the 
first  about  ten  thousand  suits  of  underwear  for  men  and 
women  are  necessary. 

CHERKASSY  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Pogrom  of  May  16-20,  1919 

Preface  to  the  Material  Collected  by  I.  G.  Tzlfrlnovlch;  by  the 
District  Teacher  Kliiger,  July  15,  1919 

From  the  material  evidence  collected  offhand,  and  still  more 
from  the  valuable  statements  of  persons  who  were  utterly 
unwilling  to  furnish  written  testimony  (through  fear  of  re- 
venge, since  their  testimony  involves  a  whole  series  of  people, 
persons  in  public  life,  and  organizations,  which  are  now  flour- 
ishing and  peacefully  functioning), — from  all  this  evidence  it 
is  clear  that  the  pogrom  was  planned  in  advance  and  carried 
out  according  to  definite  plans.  There  are  strong  suspicions 
that  the  people  of  Cherkassy,  who  took  direct  part  in  the  mur- 
ders and  robberies  and  at  the  same  time  concealed  in  their 
houses  many  Jewish  neighbors,  did  this  with  the  definite  pur- 
pose of  rehabilitating  themselves  afterwards  in  regard  to  their 
activity  in  the  pogrom.  All  Russian  servants  in  service  with 
Jews  left  their  places  before  Grigoriev's  entrance,  evidently 
being  informed  of  what  was  coming.  Peasant  women  and  city 
market-wives,  who  arrived  at  the  market  to  hang  around  even 
on  May  12,  complained,  saying:  "They  said  it  would  start  at 
two  o'clock,  and  here  it  is  almost  three  and  nothing  doing  I 
Maybe  they  have  postponed  it." 

Following  the  course  of  the  massacre  it  is  easy  to  establish 
the  fact  that  almost  one  and  the.  same  gang,  without  demanding 
money  or  ransom,  and  without  looting,  kept  on  slaying  and 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S    GANGS     249 

shooting,  as  if  it  had  taken  for  its  aim  the  wiping  out  of  a 
certain  fixed  quantity  of  Jews.  In  this  group  was  Fedorovsky,  a 
degenerate  with  earrings  in  his  ears,  a  human  beast,  who  had 
no  use  for  money.  In  this  same  group  also  "worked"  some  of 
the  "intellectuals,"  who  had  succeeded  in  dividing  among  them- 
selves money  from  the  treasury  and  consequently  had  no  need 
for  more,  but  did  their  work  as  "amateurs."  The  killing  was 
done  by  orders;  such  orders  were  issued,  or  given  orally,  by 
Grigoriev,  as  follows  from  the  following  scene.  In  one  place 
the  stony  heart  of  Fedorovsky  shuddered,  and  he  was  on  the 
point  of  sparing  his  victim.  "You  forget,  sir,  Ataman  Grigo- 
riev's  orders,"  one  of  his  companions  in  arms  reminded  Fedo- 
rovsky, who  had  almost  forgotten  his  role;  and — the  Jew  was 
killed. 

Other  similar  gangs,  but  without  leadership,  added  loot- 
ing to  their  primary  duty  of  killing  "Jew-communists"  and  Jews 
in  general.  From  these  it  was  possible  to  purchase  safety,  unless 
there  were  local  people  among  them ;  the  latter,  fearing  to  be 
recognized  afterwards,  put  an  end  to  their  victims  without 
mercy.  After  them  came  the  "manufacturists,"  as  Grigoriev 
himself  called  his  soldiers.  These  were  "commissary"-soldiers, 
collecting  household  supplies.  The  majority  of  them  wore  red 
bands  or  ribbons.  After  these  came  "marauders" — local  inhabi- 
tants, servants,  boys  and  girls,  who  grabbed  and  carried  off  all 
that  was  still  left.  The  Jews'  own  servants  came — and  they 
knew  very  well  where  everything  was,  and  even  where  anything 
was  hidden;  for  you  could  not  hide  things  from  servants  who 
had  been  in  service  five  to  eight  years.  However,  we  must  be 
just  to  the  servants.  There  were  some  among  them  who 
guarded  their  employers  and  their  property  with  their  own 
breasts.  There  was  even  one  who  was  killed  along  with  her 
employers.  Except  for  the  first  gang,  which  did  its  work  calmly, 
— I  should  have  said,  mocking  their  victims  in  every  possible 
way  (in  one  place  Fedorovsky  offered  to  grant  his  victim  life 
in  exchange  for  his  daughter's  honor), — all  the  other  gangs  were 
in  a  terrible  hurry,  worked  in  haste,  and  were  very  cowardly; 
they  were  afraid  to  go  into  cellars  and  garrets.  This,  perhaps, 
explains  the  absence  of  violations  of  women.  They  were  afraid, 
apparently,  because  the  force  of  soldiers  consisted  of  not  more 
than  300  men  in  all,  and  it  is  said  by  those  who  were  at  the 
station  and  at  the  cars  that  they  kept  running  away  every  couple 
of  hours  to  the  station  of  Smela,  because  the  bolsheviki  were 
firing  on  the  town  very  often  and  they  feared  an  attack.  It 
can  be  said  with  confidence  that  150  to  200  men  could  have 


250    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

driven  them  out  of  town,  and  that  the  two  hundred  or  two  of 
Jewish  youths  who  perished  on  the  left  flank  in  covering  the 
retreat  of  the  bolsheviki  would  have  been  sufficient,  if  disposed 
to  advantage,  to  have  saved  the  whole  city  from  the  frightful 
massacre. 

On  Friday,  May  16,  when  the  Grigorievists  began  to  press 
upon  Cherkassy,  and  the  bolsheviki,  not  relying  on  their  units, 
began  to  evacuate  their  establishments,  they  started  in  to 
mobilize  the  trade  unions  and  dispatch  them  to  protect  and 
cover  their  retreat.  On  the  left  flank  were  Jews,  namely  in  the 
center  of  that  wing.  There  a  butchery  in  the  literal  sense  of 
the  word  took  place.  Almost  without  rifles,  without  cartridges, 
without  defense,  and  with  a  flank  uncovered  and  not  connected 
with  the  general  staff  and  the  other  units,  they  were  hurled 
to  the  attack,  surrounded  by  Grigorievists,  and  almost  all  killed. 

To  complete  the  picture  it  will  not  be  superfluous  to  add  that 
from  Friday  the  16th  to  Wednesday  the  21st  the  city  was  under 
unintermittent  fire,  bombs  kept  tearing  over  the  houses,  and  only 
for  a  few  hours  at  night  the  cannonade  ceased.  The  Jews  had 
to  hide  both  from  the  bombs,  and  from  the  bandits;  they  went 
from  garret  to  cellar  and  from  cellar  to  garret.  Even  now, 
when  I  shut  my  eyes,  I  see  before  me  those  men,  women  and 
children,  rushing  around  in  frantic  fear,  like  a  frightened  herd 
of  sheep,  not  knowing  where  to  take  refuge,  where  it  would  be 
best.  They  have  just  got  up  into  the  garret.  They  are  afraid 
there.  They  clearly  hear  the  hissing  of  the  bombs.  They  rush 
to  the  close,  dark,  gloomy  cellar.  There  they  are  still  more 
afraid.  Their  minds  are  numb  with  the  cries  and  wailing  of 
children.  The  cannonade  quiets  down.  All  drag  themselves  out 
of  the  cellar  into  the  yard  and  again  up  into  the  garret.  And 
this  continues  for  five  long,  long  days  and  nights.  And  then 
.  .  .  then  the  sight  of  the  killed,  lying  about  the  streets,  torn 
corpses,  pools  of  blood.  Then  the  common  graves  dug,  the 
recognition  of  one's  family  and  friends  by  buttons,  by  marks, 
since  the  bodies  were  mutilated.  The  funeral  .  .  .  and  lamen- 
tation, long,  incessant  lamentation  of  the  whole  great  city. 

It  is  comprehensible  that  many  of  those  who  were  saved 
by  some  miracle,  who  lived  through  all  those  horrors,  are  not  in 
a  condition  to  give  any  sort  of  testimony.  Furthermore  very 
many  of  the  eyewitnesses  immediately,  as  soon  as  it  was  possible, 
fled  pellmell,  only  to  get  away  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
nightmare.  This  and  the  time-limit  of  the  work  explain  the 
insufficiency  of  the  officially  reported  material  evidence.  Very 
many  request  that  no  publicity  be  given  to  their  testimony. 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     251 

The  photographs  are  monotonous,  as  groans  and  wails  are 
monotonous.  Bodies  and  tombs,  tombs  and  bodies.  And  on 
them  is  a  fearful  inscription,  an  inscription  which  gives  no 
rest:  "Why  and  wherefore?" 

/.     Testimony  of  the  ex-President  of  the  Municipal  Council, 
V.  Petrov 

I  have  lived  in  Cherkassy  about  six  years  and  know  little 
about  life  in  the  town  in  the  past,  but  I  know  it  very  well  for 
the  past  two  and  a  half  years.  In  spite  of  its  favorable  geo- 
graphical position  and  nearness  to  large  centers,  Odessa  and 
Kiev,  the  composition  of  the  city's  population  and  the  general 
basis  of  life  create  the  impression  of  an  uncultivated  provincial 
city.  The  most  numerous  group  of  the  population  is  the  petty 
bourgeois  (meshchane}  ;  small  householders,  renting  pieces  of 
city  land  and  transferring  it  to  peasants  of  neighboring  villages, 
kitchen-gardeners,  formerly  construction-workers  in  the  building 
of  the  railroads,  and  men  who  work  for  small  contractors ;  some 
workmen  in  the  local  factories  and  industries.  These  groups, 
centering  about  the  orthodox  parishes,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
revolution  of  1917,  played  the  part  of  a  constant  and  hostile 
opposition  to  the  Executive  Committee  of  social  organizations, 
the  democratic  council  (Duma),  and  the  Council  (Soviet)  of 
Workmen's  Delegates.  However,  at  the  time  when  the  Bolshe- 
viki  came  into  power  (in  February,  1918  and  1919),  out  of  these 
groups  there  had  split  off  some  communists  and  sympathizers 
with  them,  who  understood  the  war  upon  the  bourgeoisie  and 
the  speculators  as  a  punishment  of  the  Jews. 

At  difficult  moments  in  the  state  of  provisions,  in  turn  at  the 
shops,  at  the  bakeries,  and  in  the  crowds  that  indulged  in  un- 
authorized visits  of  search  while  looking  for  provisions,  it  was 
always  possible  to  hear  anti-Semitic  opinions  and  expressions. 
But,  nevertheless,  during  a  whole  series  of  changes  of  govern- 
ment— from  the  Rada  to  the  Bolsheviki,  from  the  Bolsheviki  to 
the  Germans,  from  the  Hetman  to  the  Directory,  from  the 
Directory  to  the  Soviet  regime — the  tense  atmosphere  expressed 
itself  in  night  robberies  and  attacks  on  the  streets,  but  did  not 
take  on  more  serious  forms.  Though  it  must  be  said  that  in  the 
period  after  the  occupation  of  Cherkassy  by  the  Petlurist  forces 
(December- January,  1919),  the  actions  of  the  guerrilla  soldiers 
in  the  way  of  general  searches,  with  removal  of  articles  declared 
to  belong  to  the  state,  and  with  arrests  of  "profiteers,"  took 
place  by  preference  in  Jewish  streets  from  house  to  house. 


252    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

And  the  representatives  of  the  Ukrainian  authorities,  both 
military  and  civil,  treated  the  population's  complaints  and  the 
municipal  council's  protests  at  this  as  something  of  no  conse- 
quence, something  that  had  its  explanation,  and  a  very  natural 
one  in  their  opinion,  in  the  elemental  frame  of  mind  of  the 
masses;  they  thought  people  were  too  much  excited  over  such 
phenomena.  This  view  of  the  local  administrative  authorities 
was  entirely  accepted  by  the  militia,  which  in  the  period  of  the 
Soviet  regime  had  encouraged  the  anti-Semitic  feeling  in  the 
population,  because  of  the  setting  of  the  bourgeoisie  to  forced 
labor,  the  searches  for  provisions,  etc.  The  experiments  of 
local  communists  had  great  significance  as  propaganda  by  "ac- 
tion"; such  things  as  the  taunting  of  the  bourgeoisie  when  they 
brought  in  the  levies,  the  beating  of  bourgeois  hostages  in 
prison  by  local  communists,  the  shooting  of  "green"  hostages 
from  among  Christian  counter-revolutionaries  taken  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  movement,  the  shooting  of  ten  of  them  after 
the  attack,  which  was  not  investigated  afterwards,  upon  the 
assistant  to  the  President  of  the  Executive  Committee  (who 
was  wounded  in  the  finger),  the  arrest  of  two  local  clergymen, 
etc.  The  dark  reactionary  petty-bourgeois  masses  who  even 
before  then  were  pervaded  with  anti-Semitic  feelings,  had  prac- 
tical lessons  in  an  attitude  of  levity  towards  human  life  and 
in  the  impunity  of  bloody  experiments. 

And  so,  what  did  not  happen  in  Cherkassy  throughout  the 
series  of  earlier  changes  of  government,  but  what  the  people  in 
public  life  in  the  city  (of  whom  there  are  very  few)  all  the  time 
expected  with  alarm,  dreaded,  and  tried  to  avoid — this  happened 
on  the  second  entry  into  the  city  of  Grigoriev's  gangs,  on  May  16. 

The  chronological  order  of  events  preceding  the  pogrom  was 
as  follows.  After  the  Grigoriev  forces  had  occupied  the  station 
of  Bobrinsky  and  after  the  treachery  of  part  of  the  forces  sent 
by  the  Executive  Committee  to  fight  with  them  at  the  station  of 
Belozeria,  on  the  evening  of  May  10  the  Executive  Committee 
gave  orders  for  all  the  Soviet  institutions  to  abandon  the  city. 
But  when  the  latter  with  their  necessary  things,  property,  and 
money  arrived  at  the  station,  got  loaded  into  a  train,  and  started 
off,  the  train  was  fired  upon  and  had  to  stop.  A  meeting  was 
held,  after  which  a  delegation  from  the  garrison  was  sent  out 
to  Smela  to  the  Grigorievists ;  there  were  attempts  at  the  station 
to  deal  roughly  with  communistic  Jews.  The  members  of  the 
Soviet  institutions  were  compelled  to  return  to  town.  On  the 
next  day  at  twelve  o'clock  the  members  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee, with  a  detachment  of  the  Extraordinary  Committee 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     253 

(Chrezvychaika) ,  and  a  small  military  detachment,  left  the  city 
on  horseback  and  in  carts,  going  across  the  strategic  bridge  to- 
wards Zolotonosha.  Soon  after  this  the  city  was  occupied  with- 
out opposition  by  Grigorievist  guerrilla  soldiers,  with  a  detach- 
ment. The  commander  of  the  mobilization  division  of  the  Soviet 
military  committee  was  made  commander  of  the  garrison. 
On  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  the  Grigorievist  forces 
entered  Cherkassy.  These  days  were  marked  by  organized  at- 
tacks on  a  number  of  Jewish  dwellings.  Soldiers  under  the 
command  of  officers,  on  the  pretense  of  searching,  plundered  and 
carried  off  clothing,  money,  and  other  things,  taunting  the 
Jews  and  calling  them  both  bourgeois,  and  communists  or 
bribers  of  communists.  The  feeling  on  the  streets  in  these  days 
was  agitated;  groups  of  petty  bourgeois  kept  collecting,  expect- 
ing something;  people  talked  of  retaliation  for  the  cruelties  of 
the  Extraordinary,  for  the  shooting  of  hostages,  for  the  arrest 
of  priests,  etc.  On  the  eleventh  I  met  on  the  main  street  a 
group  of  Ukrainian  agents,  who  came  to  me  and  said  they  were 
alarmed  by  the  state  of  feeling  in  the  city,  that  they  wanted  to 
prevent  a  pogrom,  but  did  not  know  how  to  go  about  it.  I 
advised  them  to  stay  around  the  headquarters  at  the  station  and 
persuade  the  commanding  powers  to  restrain  the  soldiers  from 
excesses  in  the  city.  The  Ukrainians  went  to  the  station,  but 
the  results  of  their  conversations  with  the  general  staff  are 
unknown  to  me.  On  the  morning  of  the  13th  a  Soviet  detach- 
ment with  some  of  the  members  of  the  Executive  Committee 
returned  to  Cherkassy.  Apparently  the  Grigoriev  forces  aban- 
doned the  city  during  the  night  before.  But  towards  evening 
on  the  16th  a  hasty  evacuation  began.  I  know  that  the  Executive 
Committee  proposed  to  the  trade  unions  to  organize  city  guards, 
that  a  committee  was  appointed,  but  received  no  arms  or  cart- 
ridges from  the  Executive  Committee,  since  there  were  not 
enough  even  for  the  troops.  Some  of  the  members  of  the 
unions,  mainly  mechanics  (needle  makers,  shoe  makers  and 
others),  went  with  the  troops  to  the  front,  where  they  fought 
on  the  left  flank  near  the  sugar  factory.  When  they  retired 
on  this  flank  the  workmen  were  killed  almost  to  a  man 
by  the  local  population.  Towards  evening  on  the  16th  the 
Grigoriev  forces  broke  into  the  town.  The  soldiers  dis- 
persed about  the  streets  and  began  shooting  at  crossways, 
looting  and  killing  in  houses,  and  plundering  in  shops. 
The  local  petty  bourgeois,  women  and  children,  readily  took 
part  in  the  plundering,  pointed  out  Jewish  houses  to  the  soldiers, 
etc.  Late  in  the  evening  the  pogrom  quieted  down,  but  it  broke 


254    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

out  again  with  renewed  force  on  the  next  day,  the  17th  of 
May.  Bands  of  soldiers,  conducted  by  volunteer  guides,  went 
through  the  streets  from  house  to  house  asking:  "Who  lives 
here,  Jews  or  Russians?"  and,  according  to  the  answer  and  its 
plausibility,  either  went  past  or  entered  the  houses  and  yards, 
killed  the  men  if  they  did  not  succeed  in  ransoming  themselves, 
looted,  and  then  went  on  to  the  next  house,  leaving  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  work  begun  to  a  crowd  of  women  and  boys.  I 
saw  soldiers,  evidently  sent  out  from  the  station,  hurrying  along ; 
they  said  they  were  allowed  to  go  into  the  city  until  8  A.M. ;  and, 
in  fact,  about  that  hour  I  saw  soldiers  collecting  at  the  Executive 
Committee's  office,  and  then  getting  on  their  horses  and  depart- 
ing in  the  direction  of  the  station.  But  the  pogrom  did  not 
stop;  groups  of  soldiers,  and  bands  of  local  inhabitants,  small 
householders  and  workmen,  roamed  over  the  city  and  continued 
to  slay  and  pillage.  It  was  mainly  the  Jewish  men  that  they 
killed,  but  in  a  number  of  houses  and  apartments  they  killed 
women  and  children  and  even  entire  families.  By  night  and 
during  the  shelling  of  the  town  by  the  communists  the  pogrom 
temporarily  stopped.  On  the  18th  and  19th  there  were  more 
cases  of  removal  of  Jewish  men  to  the  station,  where  most  of 
them  were  shot.  On  the  19th  the  pogrom  began  to  subside,  but 
on  the  20th  the  city  again  experienced  an  alarm  and  the  pogrom 
threatened  to  break  out  again  with  new  force  in  connection 
with  the  spreading  of  the  news  among  the  soldiers  that  on  the 
evening  of  the  19th  a  soldier  had  been  killed  by  a  number  of 
Jews,  who  offered  resistance  when  he  tried  to  shoot  them.  In 
connection  with  this  there  began  searches  along  the  Krasnaya 
street  and  further  throughout  the  city.  Whole  wards  were 
surrounded  by  the  soldiery  and  only  through  the  agency  of 
negotiations  between  the  Committee  of  Safety  and  the  general 
staff  did  they  succeed  in  scattering  the  ever-increasing  and  in- 
furiated bands  of  soldiers.  Towards  evening  the  murders  and 
robberies  ceased.  On  the  morning  of  the  21st  there  began  a 
violent  bombardment  of  the  city  by  the  Soviet  troops,  after 
which  during  the  day  the  town  was  occupied  by  them. 

Already  on  May  17th  a  group  of  local  people  in  public  life, 
mostly  former  members  of  the  municipal  council,  tried  to 
organize  a  delegation  to  go  to  the  station  to  the  staff  of  the 
Grigorievist  detachment  with  the  object  of  persuading  them  to 
call  off  the  soldiers  from  the  city  and  put  a  stop  to  the  killing 
and  pillaging.  But  on  account  of  the  repeated  bombardment, 
and  because  there  was  no  previously  established  center,  they 
did  not  succeed  in  going  to  the  station.  On  the  17th  the  dele- 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     255 

gation  met,  and  on  the  18th  it  got  to  the  station,  using  a  first-aid 
wagon  for  the  trip.  At  the  station  the  delegation  was  received 
by  the  commander  of  the  detachment  and  by  several  officers 
of  the  staff.  Uvarov  said  he  was  busy  with  exclusively  military 
matters.  The  staff  officers  said  that  all  necessary  measures  for 
the  protection  of  the  town  were  being  taken — a  horse-patrol  was 
going  through  the  town  and  dispersing  the  plunderers.  One  of 
the  officers  suggested  that  the  delegation  should  attend  to  the 
removal  of  the  dead  bodies.  The  position  of  the  delegation  was 
very  difficult;  on  the  one  hand,  asking  for  the  withdrawal  of 
the  troops  from  town;  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  sending  of 
reliable  patrols  to  guard  the  city.  The  main  thing  was  that 
there  was  no  common  language.  One  of  the  staff  officers,  for 
instance,  openly  declared  that  the  Christian  population  need  not 
be  alarmed;  they  were  robbing  and  murdering  only  Jews.  The 
delegation  returned  to  the  city  with  no  real  accomplishment. 
On  the  19th  a  more  extensive  conference  of  a  group  of 
local  inhabitants  was  held  in  the  court  of  the  municipal  council. 
An  "initiative"  group  of  three  persons  was  elected,  plans  were 
started  for  the  establishment  of  a  militia,  and  a  summons  was 
issued  for  a  meeting  on  the  next  day  of  trade  unions  and  of 
the  population  in  general  to  elect  a  committee  of  safety  and  take 
measures  to  re-establish  life  in  the  city.  The  "initiative"  group 
printed  a  short  circular  addressed  to  the  population,  hunted  up 
the  assistant  commander  of  militia  and  the  commander  of  the 
first  region  and  proposed  to  them  that  they  make  it  their  busi- 
ness to  re-establish  the  militia  and  postal  service.  On  the  same 
day  this  group  again  went  to  the  staff  at  the  station,  and  re- 
ceived permission  to  summon  a  meeting  and  establish  militia, 
and  again  discussed  the  situation  in  the  city.  Reciprocal  aid  was 
planned  between  the  militia  and  the  patrols,  and  the  staff  prom- 
ised to  co-operate  with  the  committee  in  protecting  the  town 
and  re-establishing  normal  life.  The  group  proposed  that  the 
staff  issue  an  order  to  stop  the  unauthorized  searchings,  pillag- 
ing, and  shooting,  and  to  control  the  soldiers  who  were  wander- 
ing about  the  town.  The  staff  consented  to  issue  such  an  order 
and  asked  the  group  to  prepare  a  draft  of  it.  The  draft  was 
prepared  and  sent  to  the  staff  next  day.  The  latter  made  im- 
portant additions  at  the  beginning  and  end,  and  Order  No.  1 
was  printed  and  pasted  up  in  the  city.  On  the  next  day,  May 
20,  an  assembly  of  the  inhabitants  was  held,  which  elected  a 
committee  of  safety  of  five  persons.  The  make-up  of  the  as- 
sembly was  very  mixed ;  there  were  few  laborers ;  largely  small 
bourgeois,  and  groups  of  intellectuals.  The  membership  of  the 


256    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

committee  elected,  in  spite  of  the  mixed  character  of  the  assem- 
bly, proved  pretty  good.  The  committee  went  to  work  immedi- 
ately upon  the  conclusion  of  the  assembly.  The  main  part  of  its 
work  consisted  in  attempts  to  intervene  in  the  activities  of  the 
gangs  of  soldiers.  Two  serious  efforts  were  made  on  that  day. 
A  telephone  message  came  from  Dicker's  drugstore  that  a 
detachment  of  soldiers  had  come  there  with  an  order  from  the 
staff  to  carry  out  a  search,  whereby  during  the  search  a  rifle  and 
a  revolver  were  found  in  an  apartment  adjoining  the  drug- 
store. The  soldiers  were  for  arresting  all  the  people  in  the 
drugstore.  Immediately  the  committee  despatched  the  vice-com- 
mander of  militia  and  Uspensky,  a  member  of  the  committee, 
who  succeeded  in  explaining  to  the  soldiers  that  the  rifle  and 
revolver  had  been  left  in  the  apartment  by  the  vice-commander 
of  the  cantonal  militia,  who  lived  in  the  apartment,  and  who  had 
gone  out  into  the  country.  The  soldiers  departed,  but  after  some 
time  came  back  again  and  took  away  to  the  station  all  who  were 
in  the  drugstore,  both  attendants  and  wounded.  When  we  in  the 
committee  heard  of  this,  I  with  Uspensky,  member  of  the  com- 
mittee, went  to  the  station,  and  there  in  our  presence  all  those 
who  had  been  taken  were  called  from  the  prison  car  and  re- 
leased. At  the  same  time  Uvarov  explained  that  the  arrest  had 
taken  place  on  the  ground  of  a  soldier's  report  that  in  Dicker's 
drugstore  was  concealed  an  armed  detachment  of  Jews  with 
supplies  of  weapons,  cartridges,  and  machine  guns,  waiting  for 
a  chance  to  attack  the  Grigorievists.  Here  at  the  station  we 
were  informed  that  36  prisoners  had  been  freed  at  the  staff 
headquarters  up  to  the  20th.  Here  we  also  saw  whole  groups 
of  Jews  coming  to  the  station,  worn  out  with  ceaseless  and 
anxious  hiding  in  cellars  and  dugouts;  and  here  after  a  brief 
questioning  permits  were  issued  giving  them  the  right  to  live 
freely  in  the  city.  The  second  serious  case  was  on  Krasnaya 
street  and  elsewhere,  in  connection  with  the  searches  instituted 
because  of  the  killing  of  a  soldier  by  some  Jews  on  the  evening 
before.  Around  this  region  and  in  the  neighboring  streets 
ever-increasing  bands  of  soldiers  began  to  wander.  After  un- 
successful attempts  to  stop  the  murders  and  searches  by  talking 
with  the  soldiers,  we  communicated  to  headquarters  about  it  and 
asked  that  the  bands  be  dispersed.  The  staff  sent  a  detachment 
with  an  officer  at  its  head  into  the  city,  and  with  some  difficulty 
the  detachment  succeeded  in  dispersing  the  bands.  But  many 
of  those  who  were  seized  in  this  district  and  taken  to  the  station 
were  killed  upon  the  hasty  retreat  of  the  Grigorievists  next 
day.  The  rest  of  the  work  of  the  committee  consisted  in  hunt- 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     257 

ing  up  carts  for  the  department  of  health  to  remove  the  corpses, 
co-operation  with  the  hospitals  in  getting  wood  and  flour,  and 
attempts  to  re-establish  the  public  institutions,  which  attempts 
did  not  succeed,  owing  to  frequent  bombardments. 

I  know  that  besides  the  delegations  from  the  population  a 
delegation  from  the  railroad  workers  also  went  to  the  Grigorievist 
general  staff  to  protest  against  the  murders  and  shoot- 
ings. When  I  was  at  the  station  I  saw,  among  the  military, 
workmen,  students,  and  gymnasium  boys.  I  heard  from  third 
parties  that  when  they  were  about  to  shoot  a  Jewish  gymnasium 
student,  named  Bahr,  at  the  station,  several  gymnasium  students 
among  the  Grigorievists  ran  to  the  officer  who  had  charge  of 
the  shooting  and  tried  to  persuade  him  to  let  their  comrade  off. 
But  the  officer  proposed  then  that  one  of  them  should  take 
Bahr's  place.  No  one  cared  to  do  this,  and  Bahr  was  shot.  I 
know  that  there  was  a  series  of  cases  in  the  city  in  which  the 
intervention  of  Christians,  especially  from  the  common  people, 
stopped  or  prevented  murders.  There  were  quite  a  good  many 
Christians  who  hid  Jews  in  their  houses,  cellars  and  barns,  but 
there  were  also  cases  of  refusal  to  hide  and  protect  them.  In 
trying  to  explain  to  myself  the  attitude  of  the  workmen  during 
these  terrible  days,  I  received  the  impression  from  their  repre- 
sentatives, from  exchanges  of  opinion  on  the  subject  in  the 
Soviet  of  trade  unions,  that  the  masses  of  workmen  were  indif- 
ferent in  feeling,  and  that  the  worst  elements  among  them 
took  part  in  the  pillaging  and  even  in  the  murders.  Those 
who  had  been  connected  with  the  party  activities  of  the  com- 
munists withdrew  with  them,  or  hid.  But  there  were  among 
the  workmen  some  who,  blinded  by  Grigoriev's  manifesto 
("Universal"),  at  the  same  time  genuinely  did  not  want  to  see 
the  return  of  the  Soviet  regime,  which,  because  of  its  ranks  of 
guards,  the  procrastination  of  the  Extraordinary  Committee,  the 
inaccessibility  of  the  commissars,  and  owing  to  its  distrust  of 
the  masses  of  workers,  was  always  too  remote  from  them  and 
in  no  way  dependent  on  them. 

Ex-President  of  the  Municipal  Council  of  Cherkassy, 

V.  PETROV. 

APPENDIX  I.  Circular  to  the  population  on  the  necessity  of 
an  assembly  for  the  election  of  a  committee  of  safety;  prom- 
ulgated in  the  city  on  May  19. 

"Citizens  1     The  population  of   Cherkassy  is   stunned  by  the 
horrible  occurrences  which  have  taken  place  during  the  last  few 


258    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

days  in  the  city.  All  the  inhabitants  are  in  anguish  and  in  fear 
for  their  lives.  In  the  environs  military  operations  are  going 
on,  and,  owing  to  that,  the  activities  of  previously  existing  in- 
stitutions have  ceased.  It  is  necessary  to  care  for  the  guarding 
of  the  city,  and  for  removing  the  bodies  of  the  slain ;  it  is  neces- 
sary to  have  a  care  for  the  sale  of  bread,  for  keeping  up  the 
water-supply,  etc.  Therefore  a  group  of  persons,  on  the  request 
of  various  institutions  and  citizens,  summons  all  to  help  in  the 
common  cause.  All  citizens  who  can  help  in  the  common  cause 
by  deed  and  counsel,  and  especially  representatives  of  all  in- 
stitutions and  professional  organizations,  are  requested  to  meet 
on  Tuesday  at  eight  o'clock  local  time,  at  the  Town  Hall,  to 
decide  what  measures  should  be  immediately  adopted,  and 
who  should  be  entrusted  with  the  conduct  of  the  city's  affairs 
and  the  care  for  the  needs  and  defense  of  the  population  hence- 
forth, until  such  time  as  the  fighting  shall  cease  and  a  govern- 
ment be  organized. 

"Citizens !  Preserve  order,  and  help  each  one  in  establishing 
peace  among  the  population.  Do  not  spread  abroad  false  ru- 
mors, but  live  peaceably,  by  honest  labor.  It  is  time  to  under- 
stand this  and  everyone  should  persuade  his  neighbor  of  it — 
that  robberies  and  violence  must  not  be  permitted." 

A  true  copy :   Ex.-Pres.  of  the  Council, 

V.  PETROV. 
APPENDIX  II.     Order  No.  1 

"I,  Ataman  Uvarov,  commander  of  the  guerrilla  detachments, 
order  the  population  of  the  city  of  Cherakssy  and  the  surround- 
ing villages  to  be  quiet.  All  who  have  weapons  not  registered 
with  the  guerilla  detachments  are  to  surrender  them  at  the  staff 
headquarters  of  the  Personal  Military  Detachment  (station  of 
Cherkassy)  in  the  course  of  24  hours  from  the  day  of  publi- 
cation of  this  order. 

Every  form  of  violence,  pillaging,  murders,  unauthorized 
searches,  and  other  disorders  are  most  strictly  forbidden. 
Searches  and  arrests  may  be  made  only  by  order  of  the  staff  of 
the  Cherkassy  garrison.  All  persons  appearing  on  the  streets 
with  weapons,  and  not  belonging  to  the  organization  of  defense 
or  the  military  patrols,  will  be  disarmed  and  taken  to  the  Per- 
sonal Staff  (station  of  Cherkassy).  For  disobedience  to  this 
order  the  guilty  will  be  exposed  to  the  laws  of  wartime  with  all 
rigor,  even  to  execution. 

Citizens  1  Understand  that  the  time  for  violence  and  arbi- 
trariness has  passed.  Come  to  your  senses  and  each  take  up  his 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     259 

honest  labor.  Do  not  conceal  agitators  and  others  who  are 
undermining  the  authorities.  Only  by  simultaneous  common 
endeavor  can  the  government  be  strong  and  the  life  of  every 
worker  be  secure. 

May  20,  1919.  The  Commander  of  the  group  of  Cherkassy 
forces,  Ataman  of  the  Personal  Detachment,  UVAROV.  .  .  The 
head  of  the  general  staff,  ABRAMOV  .  .  .  Adjutant  FEDOROVSKY. 

II.     Testimony  of  Mariam  Dubnikova 

On  Saturday  morning,  May  17,  two  soldiers  entered  the  house 
of  Bielotzerkovsky,  next  door  to  ours,  and  started  pillaging. 
Bielotzerkovsky  succeeded  in  hiding.  My  husband  went  to  them, 
opened  the  way  to  them,  and  tried  to  reason  with  them.  They 
took  away  from  us  money  up  to  20,000,  watches,  rings,  and 
other  things.  "But  now  what's  to  be  done  with  you?"  one  of 
them  asked  my  husband.  My  husband  again  began  to  argue 
with  them,  telling  them  that  he  and  the  others  were  not  com- 
munists. "We  aren't  after  communists,  we  are  after  Jews." 
Then  they  took  everybody  out  in  the  yard  and  ordered  the  men 
separated  from  the  women.  A  fearful  outcry  arose,  Silber- 
man's  wife  cried  violently.  At  this  moment  there  burst  into 
the  yard  a  gang  of  forty  or  fifty  men  with  curses  and  cries  of 
"What  are  you  bawling  for?"  "They  wanted  a  commune." 
"We'll  fix  them."  Incidentally,  one  of  them  noticed  an  in- 
scription in  Jewish  on  a  kindergarten  sign,  and  said  to  another: 
"Here  must  be  a  Bund."  Straightway  they  began  to  beat  and 
torment  the  men,  and  took  them  away,  as  they  told  us,  "to  be 
examined,"  because  there  were  a  great  many  there  and  it  was 
necessary  to  find  out  who  they  were.  On  the  way  to  the  station 
they  took  off  their  clothes  and  killed  them  near  a  dumping 
ground.  In  the  yard  a  patrol  remained,  who  would  not  let  us 
pass,  however  much  we  struggled.  When  the  patrol  left,  my 
daughter  and  another  girl  ran  to  the  station.  On  the  way  they 
met  Bondarev,  who  was  shocked  at  what  had  occurred  and  con- 
sented to  go  with  them  to  the  station.  They  went  by  roundabout 
ways  by  his  direction  and  on  the  way  counted  28  corpses.  At 
the  station  they  asked  where  the  commandant  was.  They  were 
told  that  he  was  on  the  ninth  road.  They  went  thither.  The 
commandant  was  not  there,  but  some  soldier  or  other  came 
out  and  when  asked  if  17  Jews  had  been  brought  there  replied 
that  no  such  persons  had  been  there.  But  when  my  daughter 
started  to  insist,  saying  that  they  had  brought  them  there,  he 
replied :  "Your  staff  is  in  the  field." 

Among   the   17   slain,   whom   they   found,   on   the   way  back 


260    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

from  the  station,  were:  my  husband  and  son  Benjamin,  the 
fiscal  rabbi  Silberman,  Bolakhovsky,  Kapitanovsky,  Vimunsky, 
Vinokur,  Polonsky,  Eidelman,  two  Ruthman's,  Chernobylsky, 
Bielotzerkovsky,  and  his  son,  a  boy  of  16  years,  Brusilovsky,  and 
two  others  unknown  to  me. 

MARIAM  DUBNIKOVA. 

III.    Testimony  Given  by  M.  T.,  Who  Was  at  the  Station 

On  May  18  at  11  A.M.,  there  burst  into  the  yard  of  Lurie's 
match  factory  a  band  of  about  20  men,  armed  and  in  military 
uniforms.  The  first  victim  of  this  gang  was  Simon  Antono- 
vich  Yakhnis,  manager  of  the  factory.  The  story  of*his  mur- 
der was  told  by  the  soldier  B.  E.  Lurie,  who  went  with  them 
to  the  station.  In  the  yard  a  bandit  met  Yakhnis  and  started 
to  load  his  gun.  The  other  seized  the  barrel  and  began  to 
plead:  "Don't  kill  me;  here  is  money  for  you."  The  soldier 
took  the  money  and  killed  Yakhnis.  M.  T.,  upon  being  ques- 
tioned, communicated  the  following  facts  about  himself. 

I  was  sitting  in  the  cellar.  Hearing  a  voice,  I  came  out  and 
saw  a  soldier.  I  started  to  run  away.  In  the  yard  blocks  of 
wood  and  boards  were  lying  around.  I  started  to  run  around 
the  boards.  There  I  met  Lurie,  and  we  began  to  circle  around 
together.  About  three  soldiers  met  us.  "Hands  upl"  We  put 
our  hands  up,  and  were  searched;  they  took  our  money  and 
began  to  load  their  guns.  The  workmen  and  guards  came  out 
of  the  factory  and  asked  them  not  to  harm  us.  Then  we  were 
surrounded  and  taken  to  the  station.  On  the  way  various  gangs 
came  up  to  the  soldiers  and  asked  them  where  they  were  taking 
us.  One  of  the  bandits  who  met  us  cried:  "Why  don't  you  cut 
off  their  noses?"  On  the  Smolianskaya  street  we  heard  cries: 
a  number  of  bandits  were  chasing  a  Jew.  He  was  struck  on  the 
head  with  a  gun-butt;  some  one  fired,  and  he  fell.  The  bandits 
rushed  at  the  dead  man  and  began  to  strike  him  with  sabres.  We 
kept  going.  Outside  the  city,  along  the  road  leading  to  the 
station,  bodies  of  Jews  were  lying  about.  Everywhere  were 
traces  of  blood  and  brains ;  papers  and  passport  books  lay  around. 
We  arrived  at  the  station.  I  was  no  longer  walking  with  Lurie, 
who  had  been  taken  away  somewhere,  but  they  put  with  me  an 
old,  tall  Jew.  We  were  led  to  a  car.  In  the  car  were  soldiers 
and  a  Russian  woman  with  two  children.  A  soldier  came  up  to 
me  and  began  to  yell:  "You  want  to  rule!"  Then  the  chief  of 
staff,  Uvarov,  inspected  my  papers ;  though  he  thought  they  were 
not  genuine,  he  nevertheless  decided  to  spare  me.  "We  were 
not  spared,  and  we  shall  not  spare  you;  but  it  is  enough  for 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     261 

the  present,  we  have  enough.  We  shan't  be  able  to  dispose  of 
the  .bodies.  Take  him  home  and  see  to  it  that  you  get  him  home 
alive."  We  went  back.  On  the  way  we  were  stopped  many 
times.  One  bandit  on  horseback  stopped,  questioned  us,  and, 
when  he  found  out  the  facts,  said:  "Well,  look  out,  don't  kill 
any  more,  or  you  will  suffer  yourselves." 

M.  T. 

IV.     Testimony  of  the  Son  of  a  Murdered  Shoemaker,  Simon 
Pogrebizhsky:   Israel,  Aged  13 

The  killing  took  place  on  Saturday,  May  17,  at  10  A.M. 
Four  men  knocked  on  the  door.  It  was  opened  to  them.  Among 
them  was  Fedorovsky/  personally  known  to  Israel,  and  three 
whom  he  did  not  know,  but  who  were  local  people  according  to 
the  statement  of  neighbors.  All  those  who  entered  were  armed 
with  rifles.  Two  of  them  were  in  civilian  clothes.  They  began 
to  demand  money.  Fedorovsky  shouted :  "If  you  want  to  live, 
give  me  a  thousand  rubles."  This  amount  was  in  the  house, 
and  Simon  gave  it  to  them.  Then  Fedorovsky  bade  him  show 
him  the  cellar,  as  he  said,  in  order  to  hunt  for  communists. 
The  other  started.  His  son  Jacob,  a  gymnasium  student  of  the 
sixth  class,  fifteen  years  old,  asked:  "Can  I  go,  too?"  "Why 
not?  Come  along,"  said  Fedorovsky.  As  soon  as  father  and 
son  entered  the  cellar  they  began  to  load  their  guns.  Under- 
standing what  it  meant,  the  unhappy  wretches  ran  down  the 
steps  and  succeeded  in  slamming  the  door.  Then  Fedorovsky 
cried:  "If  you  don't  open  up,  we  will  kill  the  children  that  are 
left  in  the  house."  The  father  opened  the  door  and  instantly 
they  brought  him  down  in  his  tracks  with  shots.  Having  done 
their  job,  they  returned  to  the  house  again,  where  four  children 
were  left,  of  whom  the  oldest,  who  told  the  story,  was  thirteen, 
the  youngest  seven.  They  began  to  demand  more  money,  threat- 
ening to  kill  them.  There  was  a  little  more  money  in  the 
house,  which  they  took;  they  also  carried  off  the  leather  that 
was  on  hand  and  several  other  things.  They  were  not  satisfied 
with  this  and  demanded  money  again.  The  children  swore  that 
they  had  no  more.  Then  Fedorovsky  seized  the  child  of  seven 
by  the  neck,  threw  him  violently  on  the  floor,  and  departed. 

ISRAEL  POGREBIZHSKY. 

V.    Testimony  of  Abram  Skenderov 

On  Saturday,  May  17,  at  4  A.M.,  there  was  a  knocking  at  our 
house.  My  son  David,  18  years  old,  opened  the  door,  and  four 


262    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

soldiers  rushed  in  to  the  room  with  the  cry:  "Communists, 
Jews,  just  such  little  fellows  were  on  the  front  yesterday." 
They  began  to  pillage.  Then  they  stood  my  son  up  against  a 
wall.  He  ransomed  himself,  giving  them  seven  thousand  rubles. 
About  12  o'clock  another  gang  knocked  once  more.  David,  the 
same  son  who  opened  the  door  before,  opened  to  them.  They 
killed  him  instantly  on  the  spot.  Then  they  ran  into  the  rooms, 
and,  without  demanding  or  saying  anything,  killed  in  the  cor- 
ridor eighteen  people,  men  and  women.  By  accident  my  son 
Judah  escaped ;  he  was  wounded  in  the  hand  and  fell,  and  they 
apparently  thought  he  was  dead.  My  other  boy,  who  hid  under 
a  bed,  was  killed  afterwards,  when  they  began  to  turn  the  rooms 
upside  down,  looking  for  more  Jews.  They  found  him  and  sent 
15  bullets  into  him.  This  boy,  named  Hesia,  was  only  thirteen 
years  old.  Among  the  slain  were  my  wife,  Lieba-Reizia,  my 
daughter,  aged  16,  my  son  David,  aged  18,  and  Boruch,  aged 
14;  also  ten  persons  of  the  Ostrovsky  family  and  three  strangers. 

For  his  father:  G.  A.  SHENDEROV. 

VI.     Testimony  of  Isaac  Khaimovich  Trotzky 

Since  Friday  around  four  o'clock  we  had  been  hiding  with 
our  Russian  landlady,  but  towards  morning,  being  afraid,  we 
all  went  into  the  cellar.  There  were  23  or  24  of  us  there,  men, 
women,  and  children.  All  night  long  we  remained  there  in 
peace.  In  the  morning  a  servant  came  and  said  that  they  were 
going  to  search  in  the  cellar,  but  that  there  was  no  reason  for 
us  to  fear,  since  they  were  only  searching  for  communists.  A 
little  while  later  four  soldiers  came  and  shouted:  "Come  out!" 
They  had  evidently  been  informed  that  we  were  hiding,  for  it  is 
impossible  to  see  from  above  what  is  going  on  in  the  cellar. 
We  began  to  come  out.  My  brother  Benzion  and  his  family 
went  out  first,  then  my  nephew  Zania  Trotzky,  after  him  Smyl- 
ansky  with  his  wife,  daughter,  and  sister.  Then  Joseph  Topo- 
liansky  with  his  wife  and  children,  after  him  the  barber  Berman 
with  his  wife  and  child.  The  last  were  Volodarsky,  myself,  my 
wife  and  father.  We  had  not  had  time  to  get  upstairs  when  a 
shot  rang  out,  we  were  enveloped  in  smoke,  and  the  student 
Volodarsky,  who  went  out  ahead  of  us,  rolled  into  the  cellar. 
Then  we  did  not  go  up,  but  hid  in  one  of  the  apartments  of  the 
cellar,  from  which  we  heard  the  shooting.  They  killed  all  the 
men,  after  going  over  them  all  and  after  accepting  ransom  from 
them.  After  this  one  of  the  bandits  came  to  the  cellar  and  cried 
out:  "Comrades,  there  must  be  Jews  still  in  the  cellar."  His 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S    GANGS     263 

comrades  responded  to  the  cry  and  came  down  and  began  to 
search  the  cellar,  lighting  matches  one  after  another.  They 
went  over  two  apartments,  and  came  into  the  apartment  where 
we  sat,  pressing  close  to  one  another — myself,  my  wife  and 
father.  One  passed  around  the  apartment  with  a  match  so  close 
to  me  that  it  burned  my  face.  "No  one  here."  From  nervous 
excitement  we  sat  in  the  cellar  more  than  an  hour,  motionless 
as  stone.  Then  at  last  we  heard  the  groans  and  cries  of  my 
nephew:  "Uncle,  help!"  With  difficulty  we  succeeded  in  finding 
a  physician  and  took  him  to  a  hospital,  where  he  died  two  days 
later. 

ISAAC  TROTZKY. 

VII.     Testimony  of  the  Midwife  Bela  Moshenskaia 

On  Saturday,  May  17,  at  half-past  four  A.M.,  the  Moshensky 
family  heard  a  knock  on  the  front  door.  No  one  of  the  family 
answered  the  knock.  After  a  few  minutes  they  heard  steps  in 
the  blind  passage.  About  fifteen  men  rushed  into  the  room,  all 
armed  with  rifles  and  sabres,  with  cries  of  "Where  are  the 
men?  Give  us  the  men!"  We  answered:  "There  aren't  any 
men."  There  were  in  the  house  old  Moshensky,  aged  72,  his 
wife,  two  daughters  and  two  small  children.  "Give  us  money." 
They  were  given  all  the  money  there  was  in  cash,  about  five 
thousand.  The  bandits  took  the  money  and  began  to  take  away 
watches  and  to  pick  up  articles  of  value.  "Give  us  gold."  The 
women  swore  that  they  had  no  gold,  that  they  were  poor 
people.  "You  lie,  you  Jew,  you  lie.  Give  us  gold.  Put  him 
against  the  wall,  against  the  wall."  The  old  folks  began  to  weep 
before  them,  to  plead  with  them:  "Dear  friends,  spare  us,  let 
us  live,  we  have  lived  so  many  years,  let  us  die  in  peace.  Dear 
comrades,  don't  hurt  us."  In  reply  to  this  they  struck  the  old 
woman  on  the  head  with  a  sabre,  and  she  rolled  over  on  the 
floor,  bathed  in  blood;  the  old  man  they  struck  in  the  side  with 
a  sabre,  and  he  fell  on  a  chair  dead.  But  this  did  not  satisfy 
them.  They  rushed  at  the  dead  man  and  began  to  beat  him  up 
with  gun-butts.  "You  lie,  Jew,  you  are  pretending."  When  the 
dead  man's  children  began  to  wail,  they  rushed  at  them  and 
began  to  beat  them  with  gun-butts  and  sabres;  by  good  luck 
none  of  them  was  seriously  injured.  The  bandits  took  the  things 
and  departed.  On  the  next  day  a  bandit  appeared.  When 
he  asked  who  lived  there,  he  was  told  that  the  owner  had  been 
killed,  his  wife  seriously  wounded,  and  only  one  daughter  was 
left.  "Where  is  she  then?  Why  is  she  hiding?  Never  mind, 


264    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

we'll  kill  them  all,  if  not  to-day  then  to-morrow,  all  to  the  very 
last." 

Midwife  B.  MOSHENSKAIA. 

VIII.    Testimony  of  G.  Krasnov 

Saturday  morning  there  came  to  us  several  armed  men,  led 
by  the  ataman  Uvarov.  They  entered  from  the  blind  passage. 
In  one  of  the  apartments  (belonging  to  neighbors)  some  sol- 
diers arrested  N.  Krasnov  and  brought  him  to  us.  The  family 
began  to  plead  with  Uvarov  to  let  him  go,  to  which  Uvarov 
replied:  "I  am  an  intelligent  man  and  shall  do  no  harm  to  him. 
We  shall  simply  verify  some  documents  and  let  him  go."  The 
soldier  conducting  Krasnov,  under  the  influence  of  the  plead- 
ings, began  to  waver,  and  turned  to  Uvarov:  "Mr.  Ataman, 
how  about  it?"  "I  said,  take  him  along."  At  this  time  Uvarov, 
after  a  search  and  examination  of  another  brother,  a  pharma- 
cist, who  was  with  difficulty  saved  by  an  acquaintance  whom 
they  took  for  a  Christian,  rested  for  several  minutes  and  sat 
down  at  the  table  and  drank  some  milk.  They  went  out,  taking 
Krasnov  with  them.  They  did  not  touch  money  or  goods. 
Uvarov  took  Krasnov  to  the  Executive  Committee  and  there 
shot  him  with  his  own  hand.  This  is  narrated  by  the  keeper 
of  the  courtyard  of  the  Executive  Committee.  At  the  same 
time  Fedorovsky  brought  in  Garelik,  Boguslavsky  and  Garnitz- 
sky,  and  they  also  were  shot  at  the  same  place.  The  keeper  of 
the  courtyard  of  the  Executive  Committee  buried  all  four  of 
them. 

G.  KRASNOV. 

IX.    Testimony   of  G.   Ukrainskaia 

On  Saturday,  May  17,  at  four  A.M.,  a  band  of  thirty  men 
surrounded  the  house  of  those  who  were  killed  and  began  to 
knock  at  the  doors,  from  the  front  gate  and  from  the  side 
towards  the  courtyard.  The  doors  were  opened.  They  started 
to  search  everyone  and  to  take  articles  and  money.  Then  they 
said  to  the  old  man:  "Come  along."  They  led  him  out  to  the 
front  passage  and  shot  him.  From  the  other  door  they  led 
out  Brusilovsky,  searched  him,  took  all  the  things  that  he  had 
on  his  person,  and  said  to  him :  "Go  in  peace."  But  he  had  not 
had  a  chance  to  go  two  paces  when  they  sent  a  bullet  into  his 
back,  and  he  fell  without  a  sound.  Three  hours  later,  bandits 
came  to  them  again.  The  women  who  were  left  in  the 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     265 

barn  saw  how  the  neighbors'  servants  were  stealing  their 
property.  After  a  time  they  came  out.  The  servants  saw 
it  and  ran  up  to  the  bandits  who  were  passing  by,  say- 
ing (in  Ukrainian):  "The  Jewess  saw  us  taking  things;  come 
and  kill  them,  for  if  you  go  away  they  will  put  us  in  prison." 
The  bandits  rushed  into  the  house  looking  for  the  women. 
Brusilovskaia  ran  into  the  garden ;  they  ran  after  her.  She 
started  to  plead  with  them:  "Comrades,  my  husband  has  been 
killed;  three  orphans  are  left.  I  am  in  such  a  position — how 
can  I  hurt  anyone?  I  beg  you  not  to  deprive  my  children  of 
their  mother."  "They'll  be  all  right,  your  Jew  brats;  shut  upl" 
And  they  killed  hej.  The  bandits  found  Ukrainskaia  at  the 
wicket-gate,  led  her  to  a  wall  and  started  to  load  their  guns.  It 
turned  out  there  were  no  more  bullets.  All  but  one  went  for 
more  bullets.  The  remaining  one  waited  for  a  time  for  his 
comrades.  They  apparently  were  detained  somewhere.  The 
bandit  got  tired  of  waiting,  swore,  and  went  away. 

G.  UKRAINSKAIA. 

X.     Testimony  of  M.  Narodnitzkaia 

At  5  P.M.  on  May  16  the  gangs  began  to  break  into  the 
houses  in  this  court.  They  came  and  went,  demanded  money, 
and  stole  goods.  They  took  the  men's  clothes  off.  Then  all 
those  who  lived  in  this  court  went  into  the  yard  of  the  Provin- 
cial Hospital,  which  bordered  on  their  court.  They  had  not  had 
time  to  get  into  the  yard  when  the  same  bands  began  to  appear 
there.  Apparently  some  of  the  Russian  neighbors  told  them 
that  Jews  were  hiding  here.  L.  Narodnitzky  and  his  wife  saw 
the  superintendent  of  the  hospital  and  two  sisters  coming  out 
of  the  hospital.  They  ran  to  them  and  implored  them  to  hide 
them.  They  refused.  At  this  time  several  bandits  came  up  to 
L.  Narodnitzky :  "Come  along  to  the  station."  His  wife  implored 
them  to  let  him  go.  They  quieted  her :  "It's  all  right,  don't  be 
afraid.  We  will  just  verify  his  documents  and  let  him  go  right 
away."  His  wife  went  with  him.  All  the  way  she  kept 
beseeching  them:  "Let  us  go;  take  what  you  like.  We  live 
right  near  here.  Come  along  with  us,  we  will  give  you  all  our 
money."  They  replied  to  her:  "You  may  go,  but  we  will  verify 
his  documents  and  then  let  him  go."  Thus  they  led  us  to  the 
small  bridge  near  the  Polish  cemetery.  There  another  band 
was  waiting  for  them.  "We  are  bringing  a  communist,"  they 
cried  to  them.  (The  man  had  never  belonged  to  any  party.) 
The  wretches  understood  what  was  in  store  for  them  and  again 
began  to  implore  them  to  let  them  go.  They  fell  on  their  knees 


266    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  swore  that  they  had  never  belonged  to  any  party.  Then 
the  bandits  brushed  aside  the  woman,  shouting:  "Shut  up,  if 
you  don't  want  your  eyes  gouged  out."  The  man  they  threw 
to  the  ground  and  killed  him  with  shots.  The  woman  began 
to  cry  terribly.  They  said  to  her:  "There's  no  use  in  crying 
now,  go  along."  She  went,  weeping  and  crying  along  the  street. 
Some  bands  met  her  and  beat  her  with  gun-butts.  They  beat 
her  head  and  face.  She  does  not  remember  what  happened 
afterwards.  She  came  to  in  the  Provincial  Hospital;  she  does 
not  remember  whether  she  went  there  herself  or  was  taken 
there. 

MANIA  NARODNITZKAIA. 

XI.     Testimony  of  Abram  Safian 

This  happened  on  Friday,  May  16,  at  half-past  twelve  at 
night.  There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  I  did  not  open.  There 
were  more  violent  knocks.  "Who  is  there  ?"  I  asked.  "Open ;  it 
is  soldiers."  I  opened  the  door.  A  gang  of  fifteen  men  rushed 
in.  "Give  us  money."  I  gave  them  my  purse.  "To  the  walll 
Where  is  the  rest  of  your  money?"  I  pointed  out  the 
chest.  Some  ran  to  the  chest,  others  went  to  the  bedroom, 
where  my  sick  father  was  lying.  "What  are  you  lying  there  for, 
old  Jew?"  My  father  began  slowly  to  get  up.  One  of  the  ban- 
dits struck  him  on  the  head  with  a  sabre.  "Don't  strike  him, 
he  is  sick,  strike  me  instead."  "Don't  worry,  your  turn  will 
come,  too.  Where  is  your  shop?  Show  it  to  us."  I  showed 
them  the  shop.  Some  ran  into  the  shop,  others  were  busy  with 
the  cupboards ;  some  were  with  my  father,  some  in  the  shop. 
The  door  was  open.  I  ran  out  and  hid.  I  don't  know  what 
happened  afterwards,  but  was  told  that  they  looked  hard  for 
me  in  the  yard.  They  cut  my  father  to  pieces  in  the  literal 
sense;  we  found  him  under  the  table  in  the  kitchen. 

XII.    Testimony  of  Gurevich  about  the  Killing  of  Her  Husband 
and  Two  Sons 

It  happened  on  May  17  at  4  A.M.  A  gang  ran  into  the  yard 
with  outcries  and  shots  and  began  to  knock  at  the  door.  My 
husband  opened  to  them.  They  killed  him  on  the  spot.  Then 
they  killed  my  second  son,  Samuel.  Then  they  went  down  into 
the  cellar,  where  my  older  son  Srul  was.  We  began  to  implore 
him,  and  my  boy,  aged  15,  took  hold  of  the  muzzle  of  the  gun, 
begging  the  soldier  not  to  shoot.  He  went  away.  Afterwards 
he  came  back,  evidently  under  the  influence  of  some  one's  direc- 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     267 

tions,  and  killed  him,  crying:  "You  are  a  communist;  you  want 
a  commune."    Then  they  plundered  the  house. 

BUZIA  GUREVICH. 


XIII.     Testimony  of  M.  Ukrainskaia 

Marusia  Ukrainskaia,  who  is  very  like  a  Russian  in  appear- 
ance, was  at  the  station  all  the  time  the  Grigorievists  were  in 
Smela.  On  Friday,  May  16,  five  bandits  arrested  a  certain 
Tyverovsky,  a  relative  of  Ukrainskaia,  and  took  him  to  the 
station.  After  some  time  Ukrainskaia  also  rushed  to  the  station. 
There  she  passed  for  a  Russian  the  whole  time,  and  by  this 
means  succeeded  in  seeing  much  of  interest.  All  the  soldiers 
to  the  last  man  were  drunk,  and  Ukrainskaia  did  not  know 
whom  to  apply  to.  One  of  the  railroad  men  advised  her  to 
apply  to  a  sailor,  who  was.  in  command  of  some  band  or  other 
(this  sailor  afterwards  shot  forty  people  at  the  third  verst). 
His  name  was  Commander  Mozzhukhin,  and  he  asked  Ukrain- 
skaia what  she  wanted.  She  answered  that  among  the  prisoners 
in  the  car  was  a  neighbor  of  hers  and  she  was  asking  in  his 
behalf.  "Asking  for  a  Jewl  What  good  have  they  done  you?" 
Ukrainskaia  began  to  implore  and  to  say  that  her  neighbor  was 
a  fine  man,  that  he  was  not  involved  in  anything,  etc.,  and 
begged  that  he  be  freed.  "Yes,  I  can — I  can  shoot,  and  I  can 
pardon.  You  know  I  hate  Jews  terribly,  but  I  will  fulfill  your 
request ;  go  and  pick  out  your  Jew."  At  this  time  at  the  station 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  shouting,  laughter,  noise  and  hubbub. 
This  meant  that  they  had  brought  in  looted  goods  and  the 
band  was  dividing  them  up.  Among  the  gang  Ukrainskaia  recog- 
nized boys  and  girls  from  the  gymnasium  of  Cherkassy,  officers, 
and  people  who  had  social  standing.  All  this  assembly  was 
dancing  to  the  sound  of  a  gramophone.  Shouts,  tumult,  and 
the  most  unrestrained  merriment  .  .  . 

M.  Ukrainskaia,  an  inhabitant  of  Cherkassy,  happened  to  be 
at  the  station  of  Smela,  and  shared  with  us  her  impressions  of 
what  she  saw  there. 

XIV.    Testimony  of  One  of  the  Participants  in  the  Battle 
on  the  Left  Flank 

On  Thursday,  May  15,  at  dawn,  the  Soviet  forces  left  the  city, 
and  in  view  of  the  alarming  situation  on  the  front,  towards 
evening  all  the  party  strength  in  the  city  was  mobilized.  Into 
the  party  ranks  entered  also,  voluntarily,  upon  the  suggestion  of 


268    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  operative  staff,  the  workmen  of  several  trade  unions.  It  was 
intended  to  mobilize  on  the  next  day  all  the  organizations  in 
which  workmen  were  taken  into  account;  but  they  were  not 
called  to  arms,  because  arms  were  not  received  in  time.  It 
should  be  observed  that  among  these  workmen  there  were,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  no  Christians,  because  they  obviously 
evaded  it;  so  that  the  departure  for  the  front  of  a  workmen's 
division  almost  exclusively  composed  of  Jews  caused  fresh 
comments  among  the  population,  which  had  already  been  suf- 
ficiently stirred  up  by  black-hundred  officers  and  pogromists. 

The  detachment  of  Cherkassy  occupied  on  the  left  flank  the 
extreme  section  of  the  flank,  from  the  sugar-factory  past  the 
brick  works  in  the  direction  towards  the  station.  About  2  P.M. 
on  Friday,  May  16,  the  detachment,  being  in  line  with  the 
detachments  of  Lokhvitz,  Piriatin  and  others,  went  into  action, 
and,  having  repulsed  the  attacks  of  the  Grigorievist  lines,  drove 
the  Grigorievists  back  to  Belozeria.  Of  the  negative  aspects  of 
the  moment  must  be  mentioned  the  absence  of  cartridges  and 
arms.  Many  comrades  started  going  without  rifles,  with  noth- 
ing but  revolvers,  or  even  with  nothing  at  all.  Cartridges  soon 
ran  out.  All  these  things  had  been  brought  up  near  the  city  in 
sufficient  quantities,  but  the  train  was  unable  to  get  into  the  city. 
Further,  connections  were  wholly  destroyed;  on  the  defeat  of 
the  second  Soviet  regiment,  the  commanding  personnel  of  which 
went  over  to  the  Grigorievists,  all  technical  facilities  were  seized. 

All  these  and  many  other  conditions  brought  it  about  that  the 
right  wing  and  after  it  the  center  wavered  and  fell  back.  Be- 
cause there  were  no  communications  and  the  lines  were  inter- 
rupted, the  retreat  of  the  first  part  was  not  known  on  the  left 
wing,  and  it  held  for  two  or  three  hours  after  the  right  wing 
had  broken.  Besides  this,  the  more  the  lines  of  the  left  wing 
advanced  against  the  Grigorievists,  the  less  became  the  distance 
between  the  two  lines;  and  there  came  a  time  when  the  enemy 
were  clearly  visible  to  the  writer  (at  a  distance  of  100-150  sa- 
zhens).  At  this  period  the  Grigorievists  completely  stopped 
firing  and  stood  up  at  full  length;  they  began  to  wave  their 
swords,  and  it  looked  as  if  they  were  surrendering.  In  response 
to  the  cries  of  our  red  soldiers  they  scattered  over  the  field  and 
some  of  them  surrendered,  possibly  with  provocatory  intent,  be- 
cause they  immediately  started  a  violent  agitation  among  the 
red  soldiers  (the  prisoners  remained  in  the  lines,  since  we  were 
far  from  the  city  and  there  was  no  one  to  take  them  away). 
This  agitation  followed  the  definite  theme  that  the  war  was 
between  brothers,  that  there  was  no  difference  in  their  aims,  that 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     269 

only  the  "Jews  and  communists"  had  spread  rumors  that  Makhno 
was  coming  with  a  large  army,  etc.  The  agitation  had  success 
among  the  red  soldiers,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  class- 
conscious  ones,  and  of  the  entire  party  and  workers'  division, 
which  continued  to  fight.  The  ranks  of  the  Extraordinary 
Committee,  perceiving  the  desire  of  the  enemy  to  cease  firing, 
also  rose  and  went  to  meet  the  Grigorievists,  waving  their  swords 
and  not  firing.  But  the  situation  was  still  such  that  it  seemed 
that  the  Grigorievists  were  going  to  surrender.  They,  however, 
let  them  come  close  up,  and  then  opened  furious  fire  from 
machine  guns,  etc.  This  threw  confusion  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Extraordinary  Committee,  the  ranks  broke  up,  and  most  of 
them  were  taken  prisoners.  And  when  the  neighboring  part  of 
the  front  gave  way,  evidently  the  section  of  the  party  and  work- 
ers' division  was  also  surrounded.  Almost  all  of  them  were 
taken  prisoners,  being  surrounded  by  both  infantry  and  cavalry 
scouts,  except  those  who  fell  in  battle.  The  rest  were  driven 
during  the  retreat  to  the  bridge.  The  rear  of  the  battlefield 
at  the  close  of  the  battle  was  the  territory  of  the  sugar- factory, 
all  the  houses  belonging  to  bourgeois  workmen  who  worked  in 
the  factory.  They  all  knew  of  the  defeat  of  the  Soviet  forces 
before  the  retreat  on  the  left  wing,  because,  as  I  said,  the  Grig- 
orievist  forces  had  entered  the  city  long  before.  Most  of  them 
were  armed  and  fired  upon  the  retreating  soldiers  on  their  way 
to  the  bridge  across  the  Dnieper.  Others  collected  in  gangs  and 
seized  them  as  they  withdrew  from  the  position,  and  killed  them 
on  the  spot  with  stones,  or  dragged  them  from  their  horses. 
Even  boys  and  women  took  part.  From  the  thresholds  and  from 
behind  the  corners  of  the  houses  they  fired  on  the  soldiers  going 
along  the  road  to  the  Dnieper.  They  killed  not  only  Red  soldiers, 
but  all  who  looked  like  Jews.  The  Jews  who  were  taken  in  the 
field  were  immediately  shot;  the  Christians  in  large  numbers 
went  over  to  the  Grigorievists.  The  rest  of  those  who  were 
taken  prisoners  spent  the  night  on  the  battlefield,  and  in  the 
morning  were  taken  out  and  sent  towards  the  city.  On  the  way 
they  were  met  by  a  detachment  with  an  officer,  who  made  the 
Christians  go  apart  on  one  side,  the  Jews  on  the  other.  The 
Jews  were  all  killed  on  the  spot  (at  the  corner  of  Sadovaya  and 
Alexandrovskaya  streets).  The  bodies,  as  well  as  those  killed 
in  the  region  of  the  factory,  were  mangled  and  mutilated. 

At  the  same  time  several  comrades  who -had  hidden  during 
the  night,  and  who  ventured  to  come  out  on  Saturday  to  change 
their  hiding-places,  were  killed.  The  bodies  were  mutilated. 
Crowds  of  soldiers  searched  all  corners,  and  several  times 


270    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

searched  over  the  field-hospital  stations  in  the  region  of  the 
sugar- factory,  looking  for  "Jews  and  communists."  As  I  hid 
near  the  factory  I  heard  some  Grigorievist  soldier-agitators  and 
civilians  going  from  house  to  house,  collecting  all  the  inhabi- 
tants and  inviting  them  to  the  pogrom  in  town.  Throngs  of  in- 
habitants were  in  the  square ;  a  great  many  workmen.  Two  days 
later  similar  agitators,  with  militiamen  and  armed  soldiers,  went 
around  the  streets  of  this  region,  going  into  all  the  houses,  and 
called  out  the  men,  demanded  a  call  to  arms,  and  shouted  that 
"We  have  beaten  the  Jews,  but  now  we  must  all  defend  our- 
selves." Large  military  detachments,  with  the  director  of  the 
factory  at  their  head,  were  formed. 

(Signature) 

XV.    A  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  "Cherkassy  Izvestia"    '. 

COMRADE  EDITOR: 

In  order  to  make  clear  to  the  people  and  the  workers  the 
truth  about  the  personality  of  Ataman  UVAROV  and  his  agents, 
do  not  refuse  to  print  the  following. 

As  is  now  at  the  present  time  known  to  all,  Uvarov  and  his 
hereafter-mentioned  agents  have  shown  themselves  provocators, 
and  murderers  of  innocent  people  in  the  cities  of  Cherkassy, 
Chigirin,  Medvedovsky  and  others.  Besides  this  they  have  turned 
out  to  be  thieves,  who  have  stolen  from  the  deceived  and  starv- 
ing workers.  Millions  of  the  people's  money  in  the  treasury  of 
Cherkassy,  which  ought  to  have  gone  to  maintain  the  detach- 
ments, was  seized,  and  almost  half  of  the  money  received 
by  Uvarov  was  stolen  and  appropriated  by  the  following  persons : 

Ataman  Uvarov,  500,000  rubles.  Abramov,  his  chief  of  staff, 
250,000  rubles.  Nedelka,  treasurer  of  the  division,  150,000  rubles. 
Andrei  Romanovsky,  assistant  to  the  treasurer,  and  his  brother, 
200,000  rubles.  Vasili  losifovich  Gontkovsky,  secretary  of  the 
detachment,  100,000  rubles.  Adjutant  Fedorovsky,  150,000  rubles. 
Ivan  losifovich  Gagarin  and  his  son  Kostia,  100,000  rubles. 
Vasili  Ivanovich  Oziran,  50,000  rubles.  Grigori  Ivanovich 
Shramenko,  50,000  rubles.  Sergei  Ivanovich  Vasilievsky,  25,000 
rubles.  In  all,  about  1,600,000  rubles. 

Here  you  see  for  whom  and  for  what,  comrades,  we  have 
spilled  our  blood,  gone  hungry,  fed  parasites; — so  that  a  bunch 
of  these  bandits,  thieves,  murderers  and  pillagers  might  stuff 
their  pockets  and  rob  you — protecting  themselves  with  your 
honorable  name  and  your  support.  You,  comrades,  spilled  your 
blood  without  a  murmur,  suffered  from  parasites,  hunger  and 
cold,  thinking  that  you  were  suffering  and  fighting  for  the  estab- 


CHERKASSY:    GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS     271 

lishment  of  order  .and  legality,  while  in  fact  you  were  only 
helping  the  above-mentioned  bandits  and  provocators  to  fill  their 
pockets  with  your  own,  the  people's,  money,  and  helping  them 
to  plunder  and  kill  perfectly  innocent  people,  peaceful  inhabi- 
tants. 

When  you  read  this  letter,  comrades,  you  will  understand 
yourselves  whom  you  followed ;  and  your  conscience  will  tell 
you  what  to  do  next.  But  in  the  first  instance  we  must  merci- 
lessly reckon  with  the  thieves  referred  to  and  take  from  them 
the  people's  money  they  stole.  And  for  this  purpose  it  is  neces- 
sary to  help  with  all  your  might  the  workers'  and  peasants' 
Soviet  authorities  to  search  for  those  thieves  and  mercilessly 
punish  them  in  public,  as  they  have  deserved  for  deceiving  and 
robbing  you.  When  you  read  this  do  not  imagine  that  it  is 
written  by  some  agitator  who  wants  to  blacken  the  name  of 
your  former  government.  No,  it  is  written  by  your  former 
comrade,  who  suffered  with  you,  and  you  can  verify  all  that  I 
have  written  by  your  comrades  whom  you  trust  most  of  all,  who 
were  taken  prisoners  at  Raigorod  on  the  day  of  the  battle.  All 
this  was  made  known  at  a  meeting  in  their  presence,  together 
with  the  sixth  regiment,  and  it  was  announced  to  all  in  the 
presence  of  your  delegates,  who  had  been  sent  to  negotiate  with 
the  sixth  regiment  about  joining  them.  There  were  present 
about  forty  of  our  prisoners,  the  whole  third  battalion  of  the 
regiment  and  your  delegates. 

Your  former  comrade  of  the  7th  company, 

P.  BUKREIEV. 

XVI.    A  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  "Cherkassy  Izvestia." 

COMRADE  EDITOR: 

I  am  sending  herewith  a  list  of  persons  who  killed  and  robbed 
Jews  and  where  they  are  at  the  present  time,  and  also  in  part 
where  the  money  they  stole  is;  which  list  I  beg  you  to  deliver 
to  the  proper  persons  that  they  may  go  after  these  persons  and 
take  from  them  the  people's  money. 

UVAROV — the  money  is  at  his  mother-in-law's,  in  Cher- 
kassy. 

NEDELKA  and  the  ROMANOVSKY  brothers  went  to  Nale- 
snoe,  and  from  there  to  Kremenchug.  Search  must  be  made  in 
both  places.  The  money  is  partly  with  him,  the  rest,  about 
400,000  rubles,  his  wife  brought  from  the  Motrovsky  monastery 
to  Cherkassy  and  in  all  probability  hid  it  in  her  dwelling. 

GONTKOVSKY,  Vasili  losifovich,   is  himself  hiding  in   Raigo- 


272    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

rod,  with  the  teacher  K.,  or  if  not  there  then  he  has  gone  to 
his  father's  in  the  village  of  Piliavo.  His  wife  has  the  money 
in  Cherkassy,  or  if  she  hasn't,  then  his  sister  M.  Kerezhegin  or 
his  mother-in-law,  who  lives  at  Russko-Polianskaya  street  68; 
in  the  house  is  a  storeroom  with  a  double  hidden  partition, 
where  all  stolen  and  pillaged  goods  are  hidden.  His  sister  and 
mother-in-law  live  opposite.  He  formerly  served  as  a  commis- 
sary official,  where  he  also  stole  about  200,000  rubles.  He 
bought  a  house  all  furnished  at  Ozeron  in  his  wife's  name. 

FEDOROVSKY,  if  not  yet  arrested,  is  either  at  the  house  of 
his  uncle  Kaurov  or  at  Dr.  Chiprina's;  the  same  also  have  his 
money  and  stolen  goods. 

GAGARIN  and  his  son  Kostia  are  in  adjacent  villages;  it  will 
be  easy  to  find  them,  since  he  is  traveling  with  his  whole  family, 
that  is,  his  wife  and  children.  His  money  is  hidden  in  his  own 
house  in  Cherkassy,  where  it  should  be  searched  for  in  the  secret 
places  of  the  house. 

OZIRAN,  Vasili  Ivanovich;  I  do  not  know  where  he  is  hid- 
ing, but  the  money  is  at  the  house  of  his  father,  Ivan  Terentiev 
Oziran,  Alexandrovskaya  II. 

SHRAMENKO,  Grigori  Ivanovich;  his  money  and  stolen 
goods  are  located  with  Stepan  Mikhailovich  Vasiok,  his  brother 
Ivan  Ivanovich  Shramenko,  and  Feodosi  Mikhailovich  Borisenko 
or  Borisenko's  son-in-law  Pechikin,  together  with  whom  he 
robbed  the  Zaritzkys ;  he  is  also  hiding  with  the  same. 

VASILIEVSKY,  Sergei  Ivanovich;  the  money  is  with  him  or 
else  with  his  son-in-law  Rybakov,  former  presiding  justice  of 
the  peace.  He  is  hiding  with  the  same;  he  has  shaved  off  his 
mustache  and  beard,  has  put  on  eyeglasses,  and  is  living  with 
him  under  the  name  Ismailov.  He  plundered  Jews  in  the  com- 
pany of  Pratzenko  Grigoriev ;  he  lives  corner  of  Bulvarnaya  and 
Beloserskaya. 

With  Ilia  Mikhailovich  Lobzenko,  Belozerskaya  street,  and 
Grigori  Fedosievich  Orovia,  Kavkaskaya  street  (near  the  tower), 
they  destroyed  Zisin's  .strongbox,  etc. 

LANSKY  sent  the  money  with  his  wife  to  Cherkassy;  he  him- 
self has  gone  over  with  others  to  the  sixth  regiment. 

BONDAREV,  Nazar  Filimonov,  robbed  and  killed  Jews  in 
Chigirin;  I  do  not  know  where  he  is. 

This  is  all  I  know  at  the  present  time  about  these  robbers 
and  thieves,  both  those  who  departed  with  Uvarov  for  Milastyr, 
and  those  who  remained  in  Cherkassy  after  the  looting. 

P.  BUKREIEV. 


GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS  273 

CHIGIRIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Testimony    of    Nison    Meyerovich    Milevsky,    Bookkeeper    of 

the  Mutual  Credit  Society  of  Chigirin;  Taken  Down  by 

Our  Associate  Maizlish;  6.  VI.,  1919 

Chigirin  is  a  cantonal  capital  in  the  government  of  Kiev.  It 
is  35  versts  from  the  railroad  station  Fundukeievka  and  18 
versts  from  the  landing-place  Buzhin  (not  far  from  Kremen- 
chug).  The  inhabitants  of  Chigirin  number  about  seventeen  or 
eighteen  thousand,  of  which  five  or  six  thousand  are  Jews.  The 
population  is  mostly  occupied  with  commerce  and  trade,  partly 
with  handicrafts.  In  manufactures  the  tanning  industry  is  much 
developed  here;  there  are  twelve  tanneries  with  about  four  or 
five  hundred  workmen.  Of  these  twelve  tanneries  seven  were 
in  the  hands  of  Jews.  There  were  about  a  hundred  to  a  hundred 
and  fifty  Jewish  workmen  in  the  tanneries.  Up  to  the  end  of 
1918  all  the  tanneries  were  working,  and  the  owners  got  enough 
raw  materials  for  production.  Before  the  coming  into  power 
of  the  Directory  (at  the  beginning  of  November,  1918)  the 
Jewish  proprietors  of  several  tanneries  left  town,  and  their  tan- 
neries were  municipalized  by  the  city  government,  which  named 
commissars  for  the  tanneries  and  took  charge  of  production  and 
sales.  The  municipal  government,  however,  was  not  able  to 
manage  production  as  successfully  as  the  private  enterprise  of 
the  owners,  and  the  Jewish  tanneries  began  to  fall  off,  while 
the  tanneries  of  non-Jews,  which  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
private  owners,  are  working  almost  at  full  capacity. 

The  Jewish  population  of  Chigirin  is  rather  poor,  and  lived, 
as  has  been  said,  mostly  by  trade.  Jewish  social  life,  as  in  the 
typical  Jewish  provincial  town,  was  not  developed.  The  only 
political  parties  which  appeared  on  the  scene  anywhere  were  the 
Zionists  and  the  Bund.  The  only  social  organizations  were  the 
Talmud-Torah,  a  hospital  and  an  impoverished  library. 

The  years  of  war  and  revolution  brought  no  very  special 
changes  in  the  life  of  the  population  of  Chigirin.  Of  course, 
during  war-time,  speculation  became  widespread ;  some  made 
money,  but  not  in  large  proportions. 

In  general  the  Jewish  and  non-Jewish  populations  lived  peace- 
fully with  each  other.  Signs  of  private  anti-Semitism  were  not 
visible. 

The  Hetman's  power  fell  in  Chigirin  at  the  beginning  of 
November,  1918.  The  regime  which  succeeded  it  was  the  rebel 
detachment  of  Kotzyr,  which  arrived  in  Chigirin  November  8, 
arrested  the  Sovereign  Guard  (the  militia),  removed  some  of 


274    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  Hetman's  officials,  appointed  political  and  military  commis- 
sars, and  established  relations  with  the  Directory,  which  was 
then  in  Bielaia  Tserkov.  Kotzyr  was  an  Ukrainian,  an  agricul- 
turist, born  in  the  river-source  village  Subbotovo  (eight  versts 
from  Chigirin).  He  was  known  as  an  old  revolutionary  who 
had  spent  12  years  in  Siberia  at  hard  labor  for  participation  in 
the  revolutionary  movement  of  1905.  He  enjoyed  the  sympathy 
of  the  surrounding  and  local  population,  which  co-operated  with 
him  in  overthrowing  the  power  of  the  Hetman  and  the  Germans, 
and  in  supporting  the  Ukrainian  popular  movement  in  the  person 
of  Petlura  and  the  Directory. 

On  November  10  Tikhonenko,  with  a  detachment,  appeared  in 
Chigirin,  and  declared  himself  also  on  the  side  of  the  Directory, 
and  became  a  close  associate  of  Kotzyr.  Tikhonenko,  born  in 
the  village  of  Kitaigorod  (thirty  versts  from  Chigirin),  was 
well  known  to  the  people  of  Chigirin  for  his  previous  activities 
as  a  member  of  the  Zemstvo  governing  board,  and  was  known  as 
an  adherent  of  bolshevism. 

The  power  of  Kotzyr  and  Tikhonenko  lasted  all  the  time  up 
to  the  pogrom,  which  was  perpetrated  by  Grigorievist  gangs 
(under  Uvarov)  who  arrived  at  the  end  of  May.  Even  during 
the  period  of  the  Directory  Kotzyr  and  Tikhonenko  began  to 
incline  to  the  side  of  the  Soviet  regime.  When  the  Industrial 
Congress  met  in  Kiev,  there  was  sent  as  delegate  from  Chigirin, 
Braiko,  who  spoke  for  a  resolution  in  bolshevist  spirit.  With 
the  arrival  of  the  Soviet  regime,  Kotzyr's  detachment  remained, 
and  the  military  power  continued  in  his  hands. 

Incidentally,  all  this  time  the  political  commissar  was  the 
Ukrainian  Dzygar,  who  was  sufficiently  pliable  to  be  able  to 
hold  his  place  as  commissar  under  all  regimes;  under  the  Di- 
rectory, under  the  bolsheviki,  and  also  under  the  Grigorievists, 
and  then  again  under  the  Soviet  regime. 

During  all  the  time  of  Kotzyr's  government  no  excesses  of 
any  sort  occurred,  and  specifically  none  against  Jews,  With 
the  arrival  of  the  Soviet  power  part  of  Kotzyr's  detach- 
ment left,  and  only  a  battalion  commanded  by  a  certain  Les- 
chenko  remained.  At  first  Leschenko  was  peaceable  in  his 
behavior,  and  the  population  felt  no  special  constraints.  But 
later  requisitions  began  (mainly  of  the  Jews)  and  searches. 
A  contribution  was  imposed,  which  in  the  last  analysis  was  paid 
only  by  the  Jews,  because  the  non-Jews  were  able  to  get  them- 
selves absolved  from  it. 

Already  in  the  beginning  of  May,  with  the  attack  of  the  Grig- 
orievists, the  peace  of  Chigirin  was  broken,  and  agitations  con- 


ALEXANDROVKA:  GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS    275 

stantly  arose.  On  May  14  the  bandit  Ovcharenko  arrived  at  the 
city  with  a  small  detachment,  but  his  onset  was  quickly  stopped. 
Leschenko,  with  his  battalion,  energetically  took  the  field  against 
him  and  drove  him  off.  The  Jewish  population  lived  in  dis- 
quietude, but  still  did  not  expect  a  pogrom. 

On  Monday,  May  19,  an  incident  occurred  which  greatly 
alarmed  the  population,  and  which  seemed  entirely  incompre- 
hensible to  the  people  of  Chigirin.  It  has  remained  inexplicable 
up  to  the  present  time. 

On  that  day,  May  19,  on  the  usual  day  of  the  market-fair,  the 
frightened  population  gathered  only  very  languidly;  and  only 
after  Leschenko  had  given  assurance  that  he  would  permit  no 
excesses,  had  brought  a  machine  gun  into  the  fair  and  had 
calmed  everybody,  did  the  people  begin  to  collect  at  the  fair  and 
to  engage  in  trade.  But  at  that  same  time  Leschenko  with  men 
from  his  detachment  was  going  about  the  city  to  the  dwellings 
of  ten  persons  previously  marked  out,  and  took  away  five  men 
and  one  woman,  all  Jews,  and  shot  them. 

After  this  occurrence  the  population  was  still  more  frightened 
and  lived  in  constant  terror. 

Beginning  with  May  20  various  gangs  of  Grigorievists  began 
to  appear.  On  the  21st  Kudriavtzev  (Uvarov's  lieutenant) 
arrived,  and  on  the  22nd  "Uvarovists"  probably  from  the  region 
of  Cherkassy.  The  Uvarovists  behaved  very  well  for  the  first 
few  days,  did  not  allow  robberies  or  murders,  and  the  whole 
population  met  them  cordially.  Leschenko's  detachment  had 
abandoned  Chigirin  on  the  20th.  On  the  days  following  this 
still  other  bands  arrived,  operating  from  a  base  at  the  town  of 
Kholodny  Yar  (about  16  versts  from  Chigirin).  On  Sunday, 
May  25,  there  arrived  from  Tzybulevo  a  "Smeliansky"  detach- 
ment which  was  already  infected  with  the  poison  of  anti-Semi- 
tism and  pogrom  agitation,  and  which  immediately  started  the 
slogans  of  "Kill  the  Jews"  and  "Save  Russia."  On  the  same 
day  pillaging  began,  and  eleven  Jews  were  killed.  The  rob- 
beries continued  on  Monday  and  Tuesday,  and  several  more 
people  were  killed.  On  Wednesday,  probably  under  pressure 
from  the  Soviet  forces,  the  gang  disappeared. 

TOWN  OF  ALEXANDROVKA   (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV)     3,000 
INHABITANTS 

Testimony   of   Yelisavetsky,  Presented  by   Tztfrinovich 

The  pogrom  began  on  May  15  and  ended  on  May  22.  All  the 
inhabitants  of  the  place  suffered.  The  victims  numbered  211 


276    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

killed  and  about  30  wounded,  of  whom  many  have  since  died, 
and  some  are  still  in  danger  of  death.  Eruptive  typhus  is  raging 
in  the  town.  It  is  impossible  to  get  flour.  The  majority  of  the 
victims  were  small  shop-keepers,  who  at  present  have  no  means 
of  Iivelih6od.  The  pogrom  was  perpetrated  on  the  initiative  of 
the  Grigorievists,  but  the  local  population  took  part  in  it.  There 
was  violent  anti-Semitic  agitation.  It  was  carried  on  by  peas- 
ants, and  by  teachers  of  the  local  gymnasium,  who  went  through 
the  villages  and  said  that  the  Jews  wanted  to  usurp  religion, 
that  the  Jews  were  communists,  etc.  The  pogrom  was  ferocious 
in  the  degree  of  taunts  and  revilings  of  people.  There  were 
many  cases  of  violation  of  women,  who  were  then  killed  after- 
wards. In  general  not  only  young  people,  but  also  old  men  and 
children  were  killed.  Whole  families  were  killed.  One  family 
of  17  persons  was  wiped  out  completely. 

(Signature) 

NOVO-MIRGOROD  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KHERSON) 

Written  June  20,  1919,  from  the  Dictation  of  the  Fiscal  Rabbi 
S.  Schwars  and  the  Shokhet  F.  Reznichenko 

Novo-Mirgorod  is  a  "supernumerary  town"  (zashtatny — town 
without  a  district)  of  the  government  of  Kherson,  canton  of 
Yelisavetgrad,  situated  on  the  railroad.  It  has  12,000  inhabi- 
tants, of  whom  about  1,500  are  Jews  (300  families).  Its  occu- 
pations are  handicrafts  and  petty  commerce.  There  was  no 
poverty.  There  were  few  speculators  ("profiteers")  among  the 
Jews.  In  general,  thrift  was  prominent,  and  it  increased  during 
the  war.  There  had  never  been  any  pogroms  before.  The  re- 
lations between  the  Christian  and  Jewish  populations  were  good. 

The  Directory  penetrated  to  Novo-Mirgorod  in  January,  1919. 
The  Soviet  regime  replaced  it  approximately  in  April.  Under 
the  Directory  a  mobilization  (draft)  was  declared,  but  the  Jews 
did  not  answer  the  summons.  Among  the  Hebrew  youth  there 
were  rather  many  communists. 

A  verst  from  Mirgorod  is  Zlatopol,  in  the  neighboring 
government  of  Kiev.  There  pogroms  began  as  early  as  May  6, 
starting  from  local  gangs ;  but  on  May  10  or  11  the  Grigorievists 
arrived  there.  The  number  of  Jewish  families  was  as  many 
as  1,100.  Sixty  Jews  were  killed  and  very  many  wounded. 
Under  the  influence  of  this  the  local  peasants  tried  to  start 
plundering,  but  the  volost  (district),  that  is,  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee, stopped  the  looting.  But  when  the  Grigorievist  detach- 
ments arrived,  May  17,  they  perpetrated  a  savage  pogrom,  ac- 


NOVO-MIRGOROD:  GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS   277 

companied  by  murders  and  pillaging.  Murders  were  fixed  in 
advance  as  the  main  object,  since  graves  for  the  expected  corpses 
were  dug  in  good  season  the  day  before  in  the  Jewish  cemetery, 
and  lime  was  prepared  for  disinfection.  More  than  a  hundred 
people  were  killed.  The  local  priest  vainly  went  with  a  proces- 
sion of  the  cross  to  the  robbers,  entreating  them  not  to  kill  or 
rob.  The  number  of  the  slain  would  have  been  incomparably 
higher,  but  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  volost  purposely 
arrested  an  enormous  number  of  Jews  with  their  families  (up 
to  1,300  souls),  and  "kept  them  for  eight  days  in  a  house  of 
detention,  supplying  them  with  food.  This  saved  them  from 
massacre.  But  their  dwellings  were  stripped  bare  during  this 
time  by  robbers,  the  doors  broken  in,  and  the  windows  smashed. 
There  were  no  burnings,  nor  violations  (of  women).  About 
May  22  a  Soviet  detachment  under  the  command  of  Zhivoder 
arrived.  The  Grigorievists  disappeared. 

To  the  Head  Mission  of  the  Russian  Red  Cross  Society  in 
Ukraine 

Note  of  Report  from  the  Representatives  of  the  Committee  of 

Aid  to  the  Pogrom-Sufferers  in  the  City  of  Novo-Mir- 

gorod,  Government  of  Kherson:  S.  Schwarz  and 

F.  Reznichenko 

On  May  17  the  Jewish  community  of  our  city  suffered  an 
extremely  severe  pogrom,  which  caused  the  death  of  over  a 
hundred  victims  and  the  complete  economic  ruin  of  the  city. 
Out  of  three  hundred  Jewish  families,  one  or  two  escaped  during 
the  outbreak.  Everything  was  taken— wares,  money,  valuables, 
and  stores  of  provisions.  The  pogrom  itself  had  an  exception- 
ally savage  character.  On  the  day  before  the  pogrom,  graves 
were  dug  in  the  Jewish  cemetery;  lime  was  prepared;  carts  fol- 
lowed the  murderers,  upon  which  were  loaded  the  bodies  of  the 
wounded  before  they  were  actually  dead.  As  soon  as  a  cart  was 
full  it  started  for  the  cemetery,  where  immediately  both  dead 
and  living  were  buried.  Lime  was  strewn  in  the  graves,  so  that 
it  was  impossible  to  recognize  many  corpses  when  the  graves 
were  opened. 

The  consequences  of  the  pogrom  are  frightful.  About  two 
hundred  orphans  are  deprived  of  any  sort  of  aid.  There  are 
sixty  wounded,  a  part  of  whom  are  lying  in  a  hospital  which 
will  have  to  close  for  lack  of  means.  The  rest  of  the  popula- 
tion is  starving.  The  peasants  until  very  recently  have  scarcely 
been  selling  provisions  to  the  Jews.  We  are  getting  aid  from 
nowhere,  since  Novoukrainka,  the  only  city  that  has  helped  us, 


278    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

is  at  present  cut  off  from  Novo-Mirgorod.  The  local  regime  is 
not  affording  help  to  the  suffering  population.  The  committee 
of  aid  which  has  been  formed  is  also  unable  to  relieve  the  con- 
dition of  the  starving,  on  account  of  the  absence  of  means.  In 
the  meantime  the  condition  of  the  sufferers  becomes  worse  with 
every  day.  There  is  nothing  to  bind  up  the  wounded  with,  there 
is  no  one  to  look  after  the  orphans,  there  is  nothing  for  the 
healthy  to  eat.  Help  is  needed  at  once,  and  on  an  extensive 
scale.  (Signature) 

ALEXANDRIA    (GOVERNMENT  OF  KHERSON) 
SECOND  GRIGORDEVIST  POGROM  OF  JUNE  24,  1919 

Testimony  of  Nukhim  Levin,  Member  of   the  Alexandria 
Militia  Troop.     July  8,  1919 

After  the  first  pogrom,  perpetrated  by  Grigoriev  on  May  20, 
there  was  formed  in  Alexandria  a  workers'  military  troop  at 
the  Central  Bureau  of  the  trade  unions,  which  was  entered  by  30 
"military"  members  and  300  who  had  learned  to  shoot.  The 
troop  consisted  almost  exclusively  of  Jews,  since  Russians  did 
not  enter  it.  The  Jews,  however,  entered  it  freely.  In  the 
synagogues  it  was  proclaimed  as  the  duty  of  every  Jew  to  enter 
the  troop,  which  thus  represented  the  Jewish  self-defense  at  the 
Central  Bureau.  There  were  close  to  300  rifles. 

On  Friday,  May  9,  two  weeks  before  the  second  pogrom,  the 
12th  Moscow  sharpshooters  regiment  burnt  Grigoriev's  own 
house  beyond  the  embankment.  Grigoriev  is  a  native  of  the 
place.  The  burning  was  done  by  incendiary  bombs  to  the  sounds 
of  the  Internationale.  The  military  troop  took  no  part  whatever 
in  this  act.  Nevertheless  provocatory  rumors  had  it  that  Jews 
had  burnt  Grigoriev's  house. 

The  300  members  of  the  troop  were  divided  into  four  pla- 
toons, each  of  which  was  on  duty  for  a  night.  The  commander 
was  a  Jew;  his  assistant  a  Russian. 

On  June  23  the  rumor  spread  that  Grigoriev  was  coming 
again,  and  on  the  24th  he  entered  the  town  by  night.  In  his 
detachment  it  is  said  there  were  about  800  men.  Grigoriev  him- 
self, Tereschenko,  and  Gorbenko  (of  his  staff),  with  their  wives, 
rode  horseback  at  the  head.  Of  the  troopers  there  were  in  all 
about  forty  effectives  on  guard.  They  sustained  a  four-hour 
fight  with  the  Grigorievists.  Two  or  three  communists  also  took 
part  in  the  fight.  Eleven  troopers  fell  in  it. 

The  most  of  Grigoriev's  detachment  at  once  started  to  rob 
and  kill  Jews.  Grigoriev  himself  was  apparently  against  po- 


TARASCHA:  YATZENKO'S  GANGS        279 

groms  and  murders.  He  rode  around  on  horseback  and  stopped 
the  pillaging.  According  to  the  account  of  Mikhail  Chverkin, 
who  had  been  stripped  naked  and  was  about  to  be  killed,  Grig- 
oriev  saved  him  from  the  hands  of  the  murderers.  A  part  of 
the  troop  after  the  battle  withdrew  to  the  village  of  Abramovka, 
where  the  peasants  killed  six  or  seven.  The  total  number  of 
the  slain  was  43  Jews  (including  18  troopers).  Among  the  slain 
were  old  men  and  women. 

Grigoriev  plundered  the  arsenal,  the  Executive  Committee,  and 
the  treasury,  where  he  is  said  to  have  taken  three  millions,  and 
went  on  to  Novaia  Praga  and  Verbliushka,  having  remained  in 
Alexandria  only  a  few  hours  in  all.  He  took  his  own  dead  and 
wounded  with  him.  According  to  what  the  transport  convoy 
said,  there  must  have  been  about  300  such. 

Grigoriev  was  a  second-captain  (stabs-kapitan) ,  owning  many 
forests  in  the  region  of  Alexandria  and  Znamenka,  where  he  hid 
with  his  wife  and  two  children. 

After  the  occurrences  of  June  24  the  Jewish  youth  of  Alex- 
andria began  to  leave  town,  fearing  the  vengeance  of  Grigoriev, 
who,  according  to  rumors,  had  got  hold  of  a  list  of  the  troop. 
Among  those  who  left  was  the  author  of  this  testimony  Nukhim 
Levin.  But  nevertheless  a  new  troop  was  formed. 

TARASCHA  (GOVERNMENT  OP  KIEV) 
Testimony  of  Goldfarb,  written  in  Kiev,  June  27,  1919 

Tarascha  is  a  cantonal  capital  of  20,000  inhabitants,  of  which 
7,500  are  Jews  (500  families),  22  versts  from  the  railroad  at 
Olshanitz.  The  city  was  not  rich;  for  instance  at  Passover 
30,000  rubles  were  distributed  to  the  poor.  The  relations  with 
the  local  bourgeoisie  were  peaceful  but  they  were,  of  course, 
anti-Semitic.  In  November,  1918,  the  region  of  Tarascha  was 
the  starting  point  of  the  uprising  against  the  Hetman. 

On  June  16,  1919,  the  city  experienced  its  fifth  pogrom.  They 
were  caused  by  the  band  of  Yatzenko,  a  native  of  the  village 
of  Kerdan,  three  versts  from  Tarascha.  All  around  are  vast, 
thick  pine  forests,  where  it  is  easy  to  hide.  Yatzenko  is  24 
years  old  and  completed  the  course  of  the  two-class  school  in 
Tarascha.  In  March  he  declared  himself  for  Petlura  and  im- 
mediately started  an  anti-Semitic  agitation,  saying  that  "the 
Jews  are  all  communists,  they  defile  our  sacred  edifices,  turn 
them  into  stables."  In  the  Executive  Committee  of  Tarascha 
were  many  Jews,  all  local.  The  Extraordinary  Committee  had 


280    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

shot  six  local  counter-revolutionaries  not  long  before  the  June 
pogrom.  Although  there  was  not  a  single  Jew  in  it  (the  Extraor- 
dinary Committee),  the  gang  spread  the  report  abroad  that  they 
had  been  killed  by  Jews,  their  tongues  and  ears  cut  off,  etc.,  and 
that  for  these  six  slain,  six  thousand  Jews  ought  to  be  de- 
manded. When  the  city  was  taken  they  ordered  the  bodies  dis- 
interred. 

This  band,  beginning  in  March,  several  times  broke  into  the 
city  and  perpetrated  pogroms,  but  they  were  comparatively 
trifling  and  were  limited  to  pillaging  and  extortions.  In  May  it 
was  driven  out  by  a  Soviet  detachment,  after  which  the  Soviet 
regime  lasted  about  a  month  in  Tarascha.  But  in  the  middle 
of  June  the  band  again  approached  the  city  in  larger  numbers 
(about  800  men).  The  garrison  numbered  not  more  than  a 
hundred  men  and  therefore  withdrew.  The  band  seized  the 
town.  It  consisted  of  Yatzenko's  men  and  some  remnants  of 
Grigorievists  under  Col.  Nechai.  Immediately  plundering  began 
and  devastation,  which  lasted  two  days.  The  local  bourgeoisie 
took  no  active  part  in  this  pillaging.  A  contribution  of  a  mil- 
lion rubles  was  levied  on  the  Jewish  population.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  300,000,  and  -announced  that  if  the  rest  were 
not  furnished  they  would  massacre  everybody,  At  this  point 
the  sixth  Soviet  regiment  arrived  and  the  band  departed.  The 
Soviet  regiment  put  a  stop  to  the  plundering  of  the  city. 

All  the  shops  were  smashed  and  plundered.  The  losses  were 
more  than  ten  millions.  Two  persons  were  killed. 

Approximately  on  June  20  the  rumor  went  around  that  the 
"villagers"  ("village- workers")  were  again  attacking  the  city. 
The  Soviet  regiment  withdrew,  and  with  it  departed  almost  the 
whole  Jewish  population.  Four  thousand  Jews  went  to  the  town 
of  Rakitnoe.  The  rumor  proved  untrue,  but  not  more  than 
fifteen  Jewish  families  remained  in  the  city. 

LEBEDIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Pogrom  of  M,ay  5,  1919 

Testimony  of  L.  Dashevsky,  Emissary  of  the  Authorised 

Investigator  Tzifrinovich 

Lebedin  is  located  several  versts  from  Zlatopol,  near  the 
boundary  of  the  government  of  Kherson.  All  the  winter  of 
1918-19  the  Jews  of  Lebedin  suffered  from  the  attacks  of  local 
bandits,  who  terrorized  the  Jewish  population  beyond  all  measure 
and  very  often  indulged  in  pillaging.  The  frightened  Jewish 
population  hastened  to  leave  Lebedin,  and  about  sixty  families 


LEBEDIN:    LOCAL  GANGS  281 

/ 

left  the  place.  Those  who  remained  were  chiefly  Jewish  paupers 
and  the  operatives  of  a  sugar- factory;  about  forty  or  fifty 
families. 

The  pogrom  took  place  on  Monday,  May  5.  During  the  day 
before  the  Jews  learned  of  the  approach  of  the  rebels,  and  began 
in  large  numbers  to  leave  for  Shpola,  ten  versts  from  Lebedin. 
The  pogrom  was  perpetrated  not  by  Grigorievists  but  by  local 
bandits,  who  were  egged  on  by  the  local  intellectuals.  On  Mon- 
day morning  the  bandits  broke  into  the  office  of  the  sugar- 
factory,  drove  out  all  Jewish  employees  and  immediately  re- 
placed them  with  non-Jews.  At  the  same  time  there  began  in 
the  market-place  in  the  center  of  the  town  a  shooting  in  which 
four  Jews  fell.  There  were  instances  of  torture  and  barbari- 
ties. 

On  the  next  day  an  armed  force  of  bolshevists  from  Shpola 
went  and  collected  the  Hebrews  who  remained  alive,  and  who 
were  hiding  in  cellars,  and  took  them  away  to  Shpola,  abandon- 
ing Lebedin  to  the  will  of  the  bandits.  Now  there  is  not  a  single 
Jew  in  Lebedin.  The  Jewish  houses  have  been  broken  open  and 
robbed  bare.  Some  have  been  burned.  The  bandits,  having  no 
more  Jews  to  rob,  are  killing  rich  peasants. 

DIRECTION  OF  SUGAR  PRODUCTION  TO  THE  KIEV  PROVINCIAL 
FROM  THE  STATION  OF  ZNAMENKA 

From  the  Jewish  Employees  of  the  Refined  Sugar  Factory  of 

Lebedin,  Who  Were  Victims  of  the  Pogrom  in  Lebedin 

and  at  the  Factory 

PETITION 

On  May  5  of  this  year  the  Jewish  employees  were  informed 
by  telephone  that  within  24  minutes  not  a  single  Jew  must  re- 
main in  the  factory.  Many  fled  from  the  factory  to  the  nearest 
towns  of  Matusovo  and  Shpola.  But  before  they  got  out  of  the 
region  of  the  factory  they  were  met  with  volleys  of  shots  by 
bandits  lying  in  wait  near  by,  and  four  employees  were  killed 
on  the  spot. 

From  this  time  there  began  to  operate  here  a  small  band  of 
local  bandits,  who  by  their  onslaughts  and  pillaging  brought 
alarm  and  terror  to  the  Jewish  population.  The  local  adminis- 
tration of  the  factory  and  the  authorities  took  no  steps  to  stop 
the  pillaging  and  murders.  The  slaying  was  accompanied  by 
cruel  torments  and  violations.  What  the  bandits  could  not  take 
with  them,  they  destroyed  and  burned.  And  then  the  wave  of 
bloodshed  poured  into  the  territory  of  the  factory  even.  The 


282    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

bandits  began  to  execute  their  destructive,  death-dealing  work 
upon  the  Jewish  laborers,  who  with  blood  and  sweat  had  been 
earning  their  living  at  this  factory  for  many  years.  And  here, 
in  the  territory  of  the  factory,  a  drunken  rout  began,  accom- 
panied by  violence,  murders,  and  destructive  looting.  This  took 
place  under  the  influence  of  anti-Semitic  pogrom  agitation,  which 
had  inflamed  the  passions  of  these  monsters  and  infuriated  ban- 
dits. We  are  the  victims  of  this  agitation:  we,  the  Jews  work-, 
ing  in  the  factory — ruined,  plundered,  and  beaten.  We  have  been 
turned  into  beggars ;  we  have  no  roof,  no  refuge ;  we  are  naked, 
barefooted;  and  yet  we  have  been  working  all  our  lives;  with 
hard  toil  we  had  gained  everything  we  had,  every  trinket  in  our 
homes,  every  article,  is  the  product  of  stubborn,  long  labor. 
And  now,  all  that  we  have  won  by  our  honest,  persistent  toil, 
has  been  plundered  and  carried  off  by  a  drunken  gang. 

We  apply  to  the  Soviet  government  as  the  protector  and 
guardian  of  the  interests  of  the  laborers;  and  our  just  prayer 
is  tKat  the  losses  inflicted  upon  us  be  replaced.  This  will  be  an 
act  of  humanity  and  justice  in  relation  to  us  as  laborers.  We 
believe  that  this  government,  which  is  introducing  into  life  the 
principle  of  justice  and  of  defense  of  labor,  which  stands  on 
guard  over  the  interests  of  the  workers,  will  pay  due  attention  to 
our  sad  situation  and  will  satisfy  our  just  petition,  since  this 
is  the  petition  of  people  who  have  worked  all  their  lives.  Among 
us  there  are  those  who  have  worked  twenty  to  thirty  years  in 
this  factory,  and  at  this  day  have  been  driven  from  their  settled 
abodes  and  find  themselves  with  their  families  beggars  in  the 
street. 

We  are  at  present  living  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Shpola; 
some  have  fled  to  Kiev.  We  have  no  possibility  of  going  to 
Lebedin.  We  are  living  in  the  most  terrible  conditions.  The 
administration  of  the  factory  refused  to  send  us  even  provisions 
of  the  first  necessity. 

The  lists  of  things  plundered  and  the  family  situation  of 
each  one  is  appended  herewith. 

The  delegates  of  the  workers  in  the  Refined  Sugar  Factory  at 
Lebedin.  (Signatures) 

THE  SUGAR-FACTORY  OF  SABLINO-ZNAMENKA,  EIGHT  VERSTS 

FROM  THE  STATION  OF  ZNAMENKA 
From  the  Statement  of  the  Son-in-Law  of  the  Former  Owner 

of  the  Factory,  Bernburg 

In  the  region  of  the  Sablino-Znamenka  sugar-factory,  eight 
versts  from  the  railroad  station  of  Znamenka,  lived  several 


LEBEDIN:     LOCAL    GANGS  283 

hundred  families  of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  members  of  which  were 
workmen  and  employees  of  the  factory  and  thus  supported  their 
families.  In  general  the  entire  population  of  this  settlement  was 
supported,  so  to  speak,  by  the  factory.  The  workmen  and  em- 
ployees of  the  factory  itself  numbered  about  300,  and  among 
this  number  were  52  Jews. 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  1918  the  peasants  of  the  village  of 
Moshorino,  about  three  versts  from  the  factory,  raised  a  revolt 
against  the  Germans  and  the  Hetman,  and,  with  the  appearance 
of  the  Directory,  adhered  to  it.  At  the  head  of  the  rebels  was 
a  certain  Tkachenko. 

When  the  Soviet  forces  approached,  the  peasants  went  over 
to  their  side.  Then  the  revolters  seized  the  factory  and  declared 
it  the  property  of  the  peasants.  A  detachment  of  sixty  men, 
with  a  commander  at  its  head,  was  formed;  it  was  quartered  in 
the  factory  and  formed  its  defense.  All  the  employees  for  the 
time  being  remained  in  their  places;  the  family  of  the  owner, 
Bernburg,  also  remained  at  the  factory. 

At  the  beginning  of  May,  1919,  traces  of  anti-Semitic  agitation 
began  to  appear  at  the  factory.  The  members  of  the  guard,  and 
also  some  of  the  employees  of  the  factory,  such  as  the  manager, 
cashier,  and  others,  took  part  in  it.  The  slogan  of  the  anti- 
Semitic  agitation  was  the  accusation  that  the  Jews  filled  the  best 
positions,  and  the  like.  The  Jews  who  lived  in  the  region  of  the 
factory  had  grounds  for  alarm  and  for  expecting  disorders. 
They  applied  several  times  to  the  local  powers,  that  is,  to  that 
same  guard  which  was  itself  the  home  of  the  anti-Semitic  agi- 
tation, and  asked  that  measures  be  taken  against  the  occurrence 
of  disorders  in  general  and  of  anti-Jewish  outbursts  in  particular. 
Each  time  they  were  promised  that  measures  would  be  taken. 
Even  on  May  19  the  commander  of  the  guard,  Moroshuk,  calmed 
them  and  assured  them  that  he  would  allow  no  uprisings  or  dis- 
orders. 

At  twelve  o'clock  midnight  between  May  19  and  20,  shots 
were  suddenly  heard,  and  the  members  of  the  "guard,"  with 
perhaps  some  other  elements,  began  shooting,  and  scattered  over 
the  settlements  in  the  territory  of  the  factory,  crying,  "Kill 
the  Jews,  save  Russia"  and  the  like ;  and,  falling  upon  the  Jews, 
they  began  to  pillage  and  slay.  In  that  night  42  Jewish  employ- 
ees were  killed.  Their  property  was  plundered.  Many  of  the 
members  of  the  factory  "guard"  took  part  in  the  murders,  so 
that  in  some  cases  it  is  possible  to  state  definitely  who  killed 
whom. 

On  the  next  day  the  pillaging  and  killing  continued,  and  seven 


284    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

more  people  were  killed  at  the  factory  and  on  the  road  to  it. 
Thus  there  were  in  all  49  human  victims  of  the  pogrom  at  the 
Sablino-Znamenka  sugar-factory  in  May,  1919.  Only  two  or 
three  of  the  Jewish  employees  of  the  factory  were  uninjured, 
and  also  Bernburg's  family,  whom  some  threatened  to  massacre. 

TOWN  OF  GORODISCHE   (GOVERNMENT  OF  KlEV) 

Pogrom  of  May  11-12,  1919 

Communicated  by   the  Authorized  Investigator  Deschinsky 

The  town  of  Gorodische  is  about  50  versts  to  the  southwest 
of  Cherkassy  and  forty  versts  west  of  Smela,  on  the  rail- 
road from  Shpola  to  Fastov.  Inhabitants,  about  25,000;  of  these 
close  to  3,500  Jews  (800  families). 

By  the  first  day  of  the  Jewish  3Rassover  it  became  known  to 
the  local  Executive  Committee,  though  its  agents,  that  some 
sort  of  counter-revolutionary  outbreak  was  being  prepared, 
having  as  its  object  the  seizing  of  power  and  the  perpetration 
of  a  Jewish  pogrom.  The  Executive  Committee  knew  the  names 
of  the  persons  who  had  charge  of  this  and  who  had  arranged 
a  meeting  outside  the  city,  at  which  it  was  agreed :  1.  To  plunder 
the  Jews,  but  not  to  kill  them;  2.  To  begin  the  pogrom  after 
the  giving  of  signals  agreed  upon,  namely,  the  violent  ringing 
of  a  church-bell  and  a  bonfire. 

The  Executive  Committee  made  no  arrests,  but  strengthened 
the  guard  and  personally  went  around  by  night  and  inspected 
the  posts  that  were  established.  In  a  panic  of  alarm  the  Jewish 
population  looked  for  a  pogrom  during  the  second  day  of  the 
passover,  but  it  did  not  take  place.  This  was  the  situation  in 
which  the  Jewish  population  had  to  remain  all  the  time  until  the 
Grigorievists  arrived. 

On  May  8  it  became  known  in  the  town  that  Grigorievist 
bands  had  occupied  Znamenka  and  were  advancing  on  the  line 
Bobrinsky  to  Tzvetkovo.  On  May  11  the  situation  was  still  more 
serious.  On  May  11  the  Executive  Committee  summoned  the 
Jewish  bourgeoisie  exclusively,  and  after  maltreatment,  such  as 
beating,  personally  performed  by  the  finance  commissar,  and 
firing  at  one  of  those  arrested,  a  contribution  of  95,000  rubles 
was  paid  in  full.  This  was  the  second  contribution  levied  after 
the  first  one  of  250,000  rubles,  which  was  paid  almost  exclusively 
by  the  Jewish  population.  Towards  evening  of  the  same  day 
the  Executive  Committee,  taking  with  it  all  papers  and  the 
detachment  which  it  had  with  it,  left  the  town.:  "The  commander 
of  militia  remained  in  town  with  his  militian  having  first 


GORODISCHE:    GRIGORIEV'S    GANGS    285 

agreed  with  the  Executive  Committee  that  the  defense  of  the 
town  against  any  outbreaks  whatever  should  be  entrusted  to 
him. 

On  May  11  at  9  P.M.,  the  militiamen  who  had  remained  to 
guard  the  town  opened  a  violent  fusillade  with  rifles  on  the 
main  street.  The  first  victim  of  it  was  L.  Kahan.  At  the  same 
time  the  ringing  of  the  bell  was  heard.  The  pogromists  flocked 
together.  They  set  off  a  rocket  (as  signal)  and  plundered  two 
shops,  and  then  started  to  besiege  the  homes  of  rich  Jews.  All 
night  long  they  raged.  During  this  night  L.  Trigub,  R.  Sosnov- 
skaia,  and  E.  Dinerstein  were  killed. 

On  the  morning  of  May  12  it  became  known  that  local  Grig- 
orievists  had  seized  the  power.  At  their  head  were  Gritzai,  a 
former  officer,  who,  under  the  Central  Rada,  had  served  as  ata- 
man of  the  Cossacks  and  T  n  ruler  of  the  town ;  and  Onis- 
chenko,  former  commissar  cu  Mleievo  village  (seven  or  eight 
versts  from  Gorodische)  under  the  Directory,  and  delegate  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Kiev  at  the  industrial  congress.  On  the  same 
day  the  Jews  paid  to  Gritzai  25,000  rubles  and  to  the  com- 
mander of  militia  15,000,  which  was  intended  to  pacify  them 
and  stop  the  pogrom.  But  the  pogrom  not  only  continued  but 
became  more  violent.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  a  local 
group  of  teachers  and  pupils  in  the  gymnasium  and  the  school 
of  agricultural  economics  appeared  as  leaders  of  the  pogrom. 
They  not  only  inspired  and  led  it,  but  themselves  actively  robbed 
and  murdered. 

Thus  it  continued  until  the  15th  of  May.  On  May  17  Soviet 
forces  entered  the  town.  The  sum  total  of  the  pogrom:  seven 
killed,  three  wounded,  of  them  one  mortally,  and  135  houses 
wrecked.  The  losses  were  about  three  millions. 

After  all  these  horrors  the  Jewish  population  had  to  go 
through  a  second  pogrom  on  May  31,  at  the  hands  of  the  7th 
Sumsky  regiment,  which  finished  the  plundering  of  the  Jewish 
population.  In  this  new  pogrom  it  is  characteristic  that:  1.  Jew- 
ish Red  soldiers  of  the  7th  regiment  took  active  part  in  it; 
2.  Not  only  were  people  robbed  in  their  houses,  but  they  were 
stripped  in  the  streets  and  in  the  synagogues;  3.  The  attack 
was  perpetrated  on  Saturday. 

APPENDIX  1.    List  of  Victims  Who  Perished  During  the  Raid 
of  Grigorievist  Bands  in  the  Villages  near  Gorodische 

Village  of  Khlystunovka,  7  versts  from  Gorodische: 

Killed,  L.  Bylr  ky,  55  years  old,  small  trader,  with  three  sons. 
Four  Jews  in  Killed. 


286    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Village  of  Viazovok,  12  versts  from  Gorodische: 

Killed,  Kh.  Rabinovich,  24  years,  inhabitant  of  the  village  of 
Svinarka.  Was  visiting  in  Viazovok. 

APPENDIX  2.    Proclamation  of  Commissar  Onischenko,  May  13[ 
Town  of  Gorodische,  Government  of  Kiev 

All  the  Jewish  population  are  ordered  to  hand  in  all  weapons 
by  8  P.M.  Disobedience  to  this  order  will  be  judged  by  laws  of 
wartime. 

COMMISSAR  ONISCHENKO. 

May  12,  1919.     Original  in  Ukrainian  language. 

APPENDIX  3.    Proclamation  of  Commissar  Onischenko,  May  15 
Town  of  Gorodische 

I  order  all  Jewish  shops  to  be  opened  at  once. 

COMMISSAR  ONISCHENKO. 
May  15,  1919.     Original  in  Ukrainian  language. 

VILLAGE  OF  ORLOVETZ    (GOVERNMENT  OF   KIEV) 

On  May  12,  towards  evening,  three  horsemen  rode  into  the 
village  from  Smela  (they  were  inhabitants  of  Orlovetz)  with 
cries  of  "Kill  the  Jews,"  "Save  Russia."  The  local  Executive 
Committee  arrested  them,  but  in  an  hour  or  two  they  were 
released,  and,  together  with  a  gang  of  peasants  who  joined  them, 
started  to  wreck  Jewish  shops.  On  May  13  the  plunderers  at- 
tacked Jewish  houses.  Now  all  the  Russian  population  came 
to  their  aid.  Everything  was  carried  off  in  carts.  When  the 
houses  were  completely  stripped  bare,  and  when  by  all  manner  of 
extortion  even  their  money  savings  had  been  collected  from  the 
Jews,  then  they  started  to  destroy  the  houses  and  shops  com- 
pletely. The  shutters,  doors,  windows,  iron  from  the  roofs,  etc., 
were  taken  out.  They  hunted  for  money  in  the  most  determined 
way,  tore  up  the  floors,  dug  up  the  earth  in  the  barns,  cellars 
and  yards,  broke  open  ovens.  And  even  now  it  is  still  going 
on,  only  a  more  quiet  pillaging;  everything  is  removed.  The 
summation  of  the  pogrom  is  two  killed,  one  wounded,  sixty 
houses  and  25  shops  in  all  plundered. 

The  village  of  Orlovetz  is  situated  about  50  versts  to  the  south- 
west of  Cherkassy,  about  35  versts  to  the  west  of  Smela, 
several  versts  from  Gorodische,  on  the  railroad  from  Shpola  to 
Fastov.  About  16,500  inhabitants,  among  them  about  350-400 
Jews  (60  families). 


GRIGORIEV'S   GANGS  287 

TOWN  OF  STAVISCHE  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Pogrom  of  June  5-15,  1919 
Testimony  of  a  Refugee,  Taken  Down  by  S.  Y.  Maizlish 

The  town  of  Stavische,  canton  of  Tarascha,  government  of 
Kiev,  is  located  30  versts  from  Tarascha.  It  has  approximately 
fifteen  to  eighteen  thousand  inhabitants ;  approximately  1,000 
Jewish  families. 

Early  in  1919  there  was  organized  in  the  town  a  detachment 
under  the  leadership  of  a  certain  Zemnevsky,  who  supported  the 
Soviet  regime.  This  detachment  was  small,  about  forty  to  fifty 
men,  and  it  preserved  order  in  the  town.  Later,  when  the  Grig- 
orievist  uprising  occurred,  the  detachment  departed  for  Tarascha. 

Approximately  on  June  5  there  arrived  at  Stavische  from  the 
town  of  Gobuslav  a  band  which  had  formerly  operated  in  Kaneva 
(probably  Grigorievists)  ;  they  called  themselves  "White 
Guards."  They  began  to  plunder,  and  killed  four  Jews.  Ac- 
cording to  accounts  of  eye-witnesses,  many  land-owners,  stu- 
dents, and  priests  were  among  the  members  of  the  band, 
and  it  was  precisely  these  that  openly  called  themselves  "White 
Guards."  When  the  band  arrived  it  herded  together  all  the 
Jews  in  the  synagogue,  accused  them  of  being  bolsheviks  and 
communists,  and  demanded  that  they  surrender  their  weapons 
and  pay  a  contribution  of  400,000  rubles.  Entreaties  and  ex- 
hortations were  of  no  avail,  and  after  long  agonies  they  col- 
lected among  the  Jewish  population  357,000  rubles  and  handed 
it  over,  through  the  Rabbi,  to  the  head  of  the  detachment.  The 
Rabbi  remarked  as  he  handed  it  over  that  the  money  was  taken 
from  poor  people ;  the  head  of  the  detachment  "showed  mercy" 
and  handed  back  seven  thousand.  The  gang  stayed  in  the  town 
about  seven  or  eight  days,  during  which  robberies  and  murders 
continued.  Two  more  Jews  were  killed.  Moreover,  two  non- 
Jewish  communists  were  also  killed.  Then  a  part  of  the  gang 
departed  for  Tarascha,  where  the  Soviet  troops  defeated  them 
and  drove  them  away.  Then,  approximately  on  June  16,  they 
returned  to  Stavische  and  began  to  pillage  again,  and  killed  22 
people.  In  all  about  forty  Jews  were  killed.  On  the  next  day 
the  6th  Soviet  regiment  arrived  in  town.  The  "Grigorievists" 
naturally  retreated  and  disappeared.  The  soldiers  of  the  6th 
regiment  also  indulged  in  some  plundering.  But  the  6th  Soviet 
regiment  only  remained  one  day  in  all  and  on  the  next  (ap- 
proximately June  18)  left  Stavische.  The  town  remained 
entirely  unguarded,  and  the  Jews  had  grounds  to  fear  new 
attacks  of  Grigorievist  gangs.  The  greater  part  of  the  Jewish 


288    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

population  abandoned  their  property  to  the  will  of  fate,  arose 
and  left  for  Bielaia  Tserkov,  which  is  about  fifty  versts 
from  Stavische.  At  twelve  versts  from  the  town  the  flee- 
ing Jews  were  held  up  by  a  detachment  of  the  6th  Soviet 
regiment,  which  perpetrated  some  robberies  and  wanted  to 
turn  them  back  to  Stavische.  Some  scattered  through  the 
villages  and  towns  (e.g.,  Volodarka,  canton  of  Skvira),  but 
about  seven  or  eight  hundred  of  them  arrived  at  Bielaia  Tserkov. 
Here  a  committee  of  aid  was  organized  for  the  refugees  from 
Stavische,  who  spent  about  a  week  in  Bielaia  Tserkov.  When 
some  reassuring  tidings  were  received  from  Stavische,  the  com- 
mittee of  aid  hired  carts  and  took  the  refugees  home. 

TOWN  OF  ZLATOPOL  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Pogrom  of  May  2-8,  1919 

I.     Testimony   of  the  Physician  Joseph  Benjaminovich 
Isaacson,  July  21 

Zlatopol  is  a  town  in  the  government  of  Kiev,  canton  of 
Chigirin,  a  verst  and  a  half  from  Novo-Mirgorod  and  the  border 
of  the  government  of  Kherson.  It  has  15,000  inhabitants,  of 
whom  ten  or  twelve  thousand  are  Jews.  The  chief  occupations 
are  small  handicrafts  and  commerce.  During  the  war  and  the 
revolution  speculation  throve.  Previously  the  town  was  consid- 
ered very  poor,  but  later  it  began  to  be  considered  decidedly 
rich;  there  was  no  poverty  at  all.  This  was  true  of  the  Chris- 
tian population  as  well  as  the  Jewish.  There  was  no  open  anti- 
Semitism  visible,  but  the  Christians  lived  a  separate  life  from 
the  Jews. 

From  the  time  of  the  fall  of  the  Hetman's  power,  and  the 
appearance  of  the  Petlurist  regime,  and  afterwards  of  the  Soviet 
regime,  the  town  constantly  was  visited  by  various  detach- 
ments and  gangs,  which  seized  the  power,  levied  contributions, 
and  sometimes  pillaged  and  took  away  weapons.  There  came  the 
gangs  of  Kotzyr,  Lopata,  and  Yastrensky,  in  general  each  with 
about  sixty  to  eighty  men,  not  more  than  a  hundred.  There  was 
a  militia  and  a  home  guard  in  the  town,  and  latterly  even  a  self- 
defense  guard,  but  they  all  ran  away  at  the  first  shots,  and  the 
gangs  would  penetrate  into  the  town  without  resistance. 

When  the  Soviet  regime  was  established,  the  local  population 
discovered  with  amazement  that  Jews  were  at  the  head  of  many 
of  its  institutions.  This  led  to  the  accusation  that  all  Jews 
were  responsible  for  the  disorganization  of  life,  and  anti-Semi- 


ZLATOPOL:    KOTZYR'S   GANGS          289 

tism  increased.  At  the  same  time  there  arose  among  the  sur- 
rounding peasantry  an  opposition  and  a  rebellious  movement 
against  the  communistic  Soviet  regime.  In  the  neighboring  vil- 
lage of  Listopadovo  (two  versts  from  Zlatopol)  the  peasants 
were  armed,  and  threats  came  from  there  against  the  town.  The 
holiday  of  May  1  was  the  occasion  for  the  pogrom.  The  local 
intellectuals  (young  students  and  gymnasium  boys)  wanted  to 
parade  with  the  Ukrainian  flag.  But  the  Executive  Committee 
would  not  allow  it.  The  May-day  manifestation  took  place ; 
many  Jews,  artisans  and  apprentices,  took  part.  The  day  passed 
without  disturbance,  but  on  the  next  day  there  appeared  armed 
groups  from  the  direction  of  Listopadovo,  which  opened  fire 
and  entered  the  town.  Some  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants  hurriedly 
fled  to  Novo-Mirgorod ;  the  rest  hid  in  cellars  and  garrets.  They 
began  to  shoot  all  the  Jews  they  met,  and  on  the  next  day  began 
a  general  pogrom  and  pillaging,  which  lasted  a  whole  week. 
The  Executive  Committee  and  all  officials,  without  difference  of 
nationality,  had  already  fled  in  the  morning  (May  2).  About 
sixty  Jews  were  killed.  They  set  fire  to  the  whole  market  square 
and  to  several  houses,  expecting  that  the  whole  town  would  burn 
up.  But  fortunately  there  came  a  rain  so  heavy  that  the  other 
houses  were  saved.  The  local  bourgeoisie  and  part  of  the  intel- 
lectuals took  part  in  the  pogrom  and  the  looting.  The  pogrom 
stopped  "of  itself,"  since  everything  was  looted  and  all  the 
inhabitants  had  fled  to  Novo-Mirgorod.  After  about  a  week 
the  inhabitants  began  to  return.  There  remained  in  town  the 
head  of  Kotzyr's  band,  who  had  set  up  a  government,  in  the 
expectation  that  Grigoriev's  uprising  would  succeed.  When  a 
pogrom  broke  out  later  in  Novo-Mirgorod  (May  17),  the  pogrom 
was  repeated  also  in  Zlatopol  on  the  same  day.  With  the  sup- 
pression of  Grigoriev's  uprising  Kotzyr  disappeared  from  Zlato- 
pol. The  narrator  is  an  inhabitant  of  Zlatopol,  where  he  prac- 
tised medicine.  He  also  escaped  to  Novo-Mirgorod,  and  on  his 
return  found  his  entire  apartment,  his  chemical-biological  labor- 
atory, and  all  his  instruments,  plundered.  Certain  instruments 
were  found  on  the  premises  of  the  local  hospital,  from  which  he 
infers  that  the  hospital  staff  took  part  in  the  pillaging. 

II.    Extract  from  Report  on  the  Town  of  Zlatopol  by  the 
Instructor  of  the  Government  of  Kiev,  Comrade  Romsen 

INFORMATIONAL  PART 

Until    the    revolutionary    overturn,    Zlatopol    had    not    been 
touched  by  any  pogrom  outbreaks,  even  in  the  year  1905,  when 


290    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

a  wave  of  pogroms  broke  out  all  around.  It  did  not  reach 
Zlatopol ;  and  this  was  not  accidental.  As  far  as  can  be  ex- 
plained, these  relations  with  the  peasantry  were  based  on  mutual 
confidence  and  solidarity,  and  with  the  intellectuals  there  existed 
a  bond  based  on  culture  and  enlightenment.  But  the  revolution 
broke  out,  and  the  population  triumphantly  reacted  to  that  joyous 
sound.  The  Jewish  inhabitants  also  took  open  part  in  the  fes- 
tivity. Soon  the  local  intellectuals  and  the  nearby  landowners, 
seeing  before  them  dangerous  rivalry  in  the  persons  of  capable 
and  intelligent  Jewish  workers,  united  with  the  ruined  land- 
owners. They  stood  in  opposition  to  the  changes  that  were 
being  carried  out.  They  adopted  the  usual  methods,  playing 
upon  the  ignorance  of  the  peasant  masses,  inflaming  them  with 
various  calumnies.  They  said  the  revolution,  speculation,  high 
prices,  everything  was  the  handiwork  of  the  Jews,  and  the  only 
way  out  was  repression.  The  agitation  grew,  and  the  village 
teacher  in  the  country,  and  the  priest  and  the  intellectuals  in  the 
town,  at  markets,  at  peasant  gatherings,  in  the  co-operatives — 
everywhere  the  work  went  on.  And  soon  its  harvest  appeared  in 
the  form  of  individual  outbreaks  of  looting  of  wares  belonging 
to  shopkeepers  and  Jews. 

Petlura  appeared  on  the  political  horizon,  and  gave  free  rein 
to  the  chauvinistic  feelings  of  that  crowd  with  its  mad  thirst  for 
Jewish  blood.  Then  came  bands  under  the  flag  of  the  slogans 
of  the  bolsheviks,  mainly  from  Chigirin;  under  the  pretext  of 
searches  they  systematically  terrorized  the  Jewish  population. 
The  band  of  Yastrensky,  and  then  that  of  Lopata  established 
arbitrary  regimes,  always  solely  in  regard  to  the  Jewish  inhabi- 
tants. The  local  League  of  Labor,  composed  of  representatives 
of  the  trade  unions  of  the  town,  declared  itself  an  Executive 
Committee;  but  they  were  not  able  to  accomplish  anything  owing 
to  absence  of  connections  with  the  central  power.  Only  in  Feb- 
ruary, when  the  Soviet  regime  was  growing  stronger,  was  a 
Soviet  elected  here,  into  which  honorable  and  conscientious  peo- 
ple entered.  About  April  2  there  arrived  80  of  Lopata's  men, 
occupied  the  Soviet,  tore  down  the  portraits  of  Lenin  and 
Trotzky  ,and  tried  to  start  a  pogrom;  but  the  Soviet  entirely 
forestalled  this  outbreak,  and  called  for  120  men  from  Yelisavet- 
grad,  who  after  killing  40  of  Lopata's  men  took  the  rest  pris- 
oners (40  men).  Lopata  got  away,  but  promised  to  be  avenged 
on  the  "Jew  Soviet."  But  the  Soviet  at  this  time  sent  two  dele- 
gates to  Kiev  to  solicit  the  separation  of  Zlatopol  into  an  inde- 
pendent unit,  unconnected  with  Chigirin,  which  was  a  nest  of 
bandits  and  counter-revolutionaries. 


ZLATOPOL:  LOPATA'S  GANGS 


291 


At  this  time,  having  misgivings  as  to  the  weakness  of  the 
government  over  the  canton,  the  local  and  volost  Executive  Com- 
mittees quarreled;  and  the  local  intellectuals  decided  to  make 
use  of  this  moment  in  unison  with  Lopata,  Kotzyr  and  other 
bandits  from  Chigirin.  They  sent  their  agitators  through  the 
towns  and  villages  calling  people  to  an  open  uprising  against 
the  Jews.  Upon  a  designated  signal  fifteen  villages  were  to 
take  up  this  crusade.  There  was  needed  only  an  external  occa- 
sion, which  was  not  slow  in  presenting  itself.  This  was  the 
day  of  the  international  holiday,  May  1.  When  the  procession 
under  red  flags  began,  there  suddenly  appeared  the  Ukrainian 
national  flag,  which  was  to  figure  in  the  first  ranks.  The  authori- 
ties declared  that  it  was  an  international  holiday,  and  that  con- 
sequently international  flags  had  to  be  in  the  first  position.  The 
flag  was  removed.  On  the  next  day  the  sound  of  the  warning 
bell  rang  out,  rifle-shots  were  fired,  and  the  bloody  feast  began. 
The  first  day  yielded  modest  results,  several  innocent  victims 
and  complete  destruction  of  their  property.  On  the  third  of 
May  they  carried  out  the  wares  from  the  shops,  accompanying 
it  by  incessant  shooting. 

But  the  systematic  pogrom  began  only  on  Sunday  the  fourth. 
On  that  day  both  the  year-old  child,  and  the  eighty-year-old  man, 
both  the  workman  and  the  factory-owner,  were  alike  found 
guilty  of  bolshevism  and  mercilessly  shot.  Of  course  cases  of 
violation  of  girls  were  not  lacking.  The  result  was  69  killed 
and  300  wounded. 


TABLE  II 

By  categories      No.  of  persons 
Breadwinners  5 

Cabmen  3 

Undefined  professions  21 
Artisans  10 

Liberal   professions        5 
Servants  5 

Petty  tradesmen  11 

Unknown  9 

Total  69 


Of  the  wounded  I  did  not  succeed  in  getting  statements  by 
categories. 


TABLE 

I 

By  age                 No 

.  of  persons 

15 

6 

20 

5 

25 

4 

30 

6 

35 

2 

40 

2 

45 

7 

50 

9 

55 

9 

Unrecorded 

19 

Total 

69 

292    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  burning  of  the  plundered  homes  and  shops  lasted  about 
three  weeks.  They  stole  everything,  beginning  with  pokers  and 
wooden  spoons  and  ending  with  pianos.  Nails  were  taken  out 
of  the  walls,  doors  and  window-frames  were  removed,  the  win- 
dow-glass was  taken  from  the  frames.  They  took  the  last 
blind  nag  from  a  pauper  water-carrier.  The  result: 

No.  of  houses  in  Zlatopol  before  pogrom 1100 

No.  of  houses  burned 15 

No.  of  stores  before  pogrom 285 

No.  of  stores  burned 275 

Homes  wrecked   1065 

Homes  remaining  undestroyed 20 

Stores  remaining  undestroyed 10 

The  wares  and  property  were  carried  away  by  thousands  of 
carts.  From  the  Artisans'  Loan  and  Savings  Association  alone 
they  took  out  130  poods  of  butter,  9,000  poods  of  wheat,  and 
30,000  poods  of  sugar.  It  is  curious  that  in  some  way  or  other 
a  part  of  these  goods  came  into  the  hands  of  the  Russian  co- 
operatives, and  are  to  this  day  being  sold,  without  a  return 
being  made  to  the  owners.  There  have  been  cases  of  the  seizure 
by  a  Russian  co-operative  of  the  Jewish  co-operative's  premises ; 
for  the  latter  is  still  active.  The  public  hospital  robbed  drug- 
stores and  has  not  yet  made  any  returns.  The  approximate 
results  of  calculations  covering  only  one  quarter  of  the  popula- 
tion that  remains  show  the  following  picture  of  losses  of  prop- 
erty: 

Categories  No.  of  families    Extent  of  losses 

Merchants  and  factory-owners  62  9,062,100 

Small  tradesmen  146  4,476,700 

Artisans  296  9,849,000 

Liberal  professions  47  2,688,800 

Servants  50  1,494,000 

Undefined  occupations  84  2,540,400 


Total  685  30,111,000 

To  complete  all  this  horror  famine  was  added,  since  the  peas- 
ants were  forbidden  to  export  their  products  under  pain  of  most 
severe  punishment,  and  the  stricken  population  was  condemned 
to  drag  out  its  existence  for  the  course  of  seven  weeks  without 
bread  and  without  any  assistance  from  outside.  Of  the  govern- 
ment there  was  no  trace.  Both  the  Soviet  and  the  trade  unions 


ZLATOPOL  293 

had  scattered  at  the  moment  of  the  pogrom.  At  last  a  detach- 
ment of  Zhivoder's  brigade  of  sharpshooters  arrived  at  the 
station,  and  occupied  the  place  after  a  brief  exchange  of 
shots.  He  issued  an  order  about  bearing  arms,  but  the  order 
had  no  effect.  Zhivoder  soon  departed,  and  with  him  half  the 
population  dragged  themselves  away — all  who  could  in  any  way 
get  away  anywhere ;  to  such  an  extent  had  horror  mastered  them. 
There  remained  almost  no  one  but  beggars,  among  whom  famine 
typhus  began  to  rage.  The  public  hospital  refused  to  take  the 
sufferers.  Gradually  the  peasantry  began  to  sober  down,  asking 
themselves  where  was  that  malicious  Jewish  speculation? — be- 
fore the  pogrom  a  box  of  matches  cost  a  ruble  and  a  half, 
while  after  the  pogrom  the  robbers  sold  them  for  ten  and 
twelve  rubles ;  and  so  with  all  wares.  Peasants  began  to  appear 
in  the  market,  in  many  cases  expressing  sympathy  and  trying 
to  justify  themselves,  saying  that  it  was  not  their  fault,  but  that 
the  landowners  and  intellectuals  had  deceived  them.  They  be- 
gan to  bring  in  bread,  and  relations  in  a  way  became  smoothed 
out.  On  June  20  a  punitive  detachment  from  the  third  army 
arrived,  under  the  command  of  Zinkov,  and  began  trials,  but 
in  the  majority  of  cases  not  with  the  right  persons;  while  the 
flagrant  hooligans  and  robbers  whom  they  succeeded  in  arrest- 
ing were  let  off  with  a  fine  of  ten  to  fifteen  thousand.  They  took 
away  the  stolen  goods,  but  gave  back  almost  none  to  the  naked 
and  barefooted  population,  but  took  it  all  to  the  station  and 
loaded  it  on  their  own  cars.  So  it  went  on  for  about  eight  days. 
No  one  was  in  the  least  concerned  to  establish  a  government 
and  a  local  punitive  detachment ;  on  the  contrary,  the  militia's 
last  three  rifles  were  taken  away.  In  such  circumstances  the 
punitive  detachment  decided  to  leave  this  unhappy  town ;  and 
together  with  the  detachment  all  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants 
started  out,  but  they  were  thrown  out  of  the  cars.  The  detach- 
ment departed,  and  the  population,  seized  with  terror,  remained 
in  expectation  of  death  and  a  repetition  of  the  nightmare,  since 
the  peasants,  the  bandits,  and  the  intellectuals  were  much  ruffled 
after  the  trials  conducted  by  Zinkov.  It's  the  Jews,  they  said, 
that  brought  in  this  Jew  detachment  (the  commander,  Zinkov, 
was  a  Jew).  On  that  night  of  evil  memory  I  arrived  at  the 
station,  and  found  a  picture  of  frozen  horror  like  that  of  a 
struggling  trapped  animal.  When  they  found  that  I  had  come 
as  an  instructor  to  show  them  aid,  they  advised  me  to  depart 
at  once  by  the  return  train,  for  they  were  actually  all  there  at 
the  station  and  were  preparing  to  leave.  But  I  decided  to  re- 
main as  long  as  there  were  even  a  few  families  there.  Towardf 


294    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

morning  the  rumor  went  around  that  the  bandits  killed  by  the 
punitive  expedition  were  going  to  be  exhumed;  and  since  the 
graves  were  at  the  station,  the  whole  population  was  in  danger. 
And,  however,  hard  as  it  was,  we  had  to  apply  to  those  who  in 
one  way  or  another,  whether  by  their  passive  attitude  or  by 
active  work,  had  perpetrated  the  pogroms,  and  had  to  ask  them 
for  help,  assuring  them  that  if  it  were  repeated  the  punitive  de- 
tachment would  again  take  vengeance  on  innocent  intellectuals. 

At  last,  we  succeeded  in  persuading  the  president  of  the  trade 
unions  at  Novo-Mirgorod  to  send  a  guard  of  three  men  to  the 
station,  after  entreating  him  to  organize  a  home  guard  in  gen- 
eral, and  giving  him  5,000  rubles  for  the  expense.  When  the 
train  came  some  hundreds  of  people  in  all  left;  the  rest  wan- 
dered back  home. 

When  I  came  in  touch  with  realities,  my  first  help  was  de- 
voted to  buying  a  number  of  rifles  for  self-protection  from  the 
bandits.  I  telegraphed  in  all  directions,  to  Kiev,  Odessa,  Yelisa- 
vetgrad,  asked  for  a  detachment  or  at  least  for  weapons  for  self- 
protection;  but  have  not  yet  received  an  answer.  In  the  meet- 
ings old  men,  women  and  children  cried  with  one  voice:  "We 
want  nothing,  we  are  hungry  and  barefoot,  but  instead 
of  bread  give  us  protection,  give  us  arms."  And  up  to  the 
present  day  nothing  has  been  done  ip  this  respect.  Every  day 
almost  there  are  murders  and  robberies.  In  the  name  of  those 
250  Jewish  volunteers  who  entered  the  Red  Army,  they  demand 
that  at  least  the  possibility  be  afforded  to  their  fathers  and 
mothers  to  arm  themselves,  that  they  may  at  least  die  an  hon- 
orable death.  This  is  the  single  desire  of  all;  if  they  must  die, 
let  it  be  not  in  a  garret,  but  with  arms  in  their  hands. 

III.     To  the  Commission  for  Furnishing  Aid  to  Persons  Who 
Have  Suffered  from  the  Counter-Revolution   (Central  Sec- 
tion of  Aid  to  Victims  of  Pogroms}  :  Note  of  Report 
of  the  Members  of  the  Zlatopol  Executive  Committee 

The  pogrom  in  Zlatopol  began  on  May  3  and  continued  almost 
uninterruptedly  during  the  space  of  four  weeks.  Two  months 
before  the  pogrom  the  Executive  Committee  knew  that  if  special 
measures  were  not  taken,  a  pogrom  in  Zlatopol  was  unavoid- 
able. All  the  guerrilla  detachments  of  the  canton  of  Chigirin, 
when  they  arrived  at  Zlatopol  or  passed  by  Zlatopol,  introduced 
a  special  anti-Semitic  atmosphere.  In  this  respect  the  detach- 
ment commanded  by  Lopata  was  especially  distinguished.  He 
openly  agitated  in  the  volost  assemblies  and  in  the  villages,  and 


ZLATOPOL  295 

roused  the  peasants  to  pogroms.  This  was  early  in  April,  1919. 
Lopata  with  his  detachment  from  Chigirin  went  to  Lebedin,  and 
thence  via  the  villages  of  Lipianko,  Turlo  and  others  headed  for 
Zlatopol.  Even  before  his  arrival  peasants  from  the  villages 
came  to  us  in  the  Executive  Committee  and  reported  that 
Lopata  in  his  speeches  at  the  assemblies  was  urging  them  to 
pogroms.  Upon  Lopata's  arrival  in  Zlatopol,  on  April  5,  or  a 
few  days  earlier,  the  air  of  the  place  reeked  with  pogrom  senti- 
ment. Lopata  did  not  conceal  his  views  and  openly  declared 
before  the  Executive  Committee  that  the  Jews  ought  to  be  cut 
down.  Then  the  Executive  Committee  had  to  summon  an  armed 
detachment  from  Yelisavetgrad  to  prevent  a  massacre;  and  Lo- 
pata's detachment  was  destroyed.  The  Executive  Committee 
had  recourse  to  this  extreme  measure  only  when  several  members 
of  the  committee  had  been  arrested,  and  when  Lopata  declared 
a  state  of  siege  in  the  town  and  demanded  that  within  24  hours 
the  population  pay  the  arrears  of  national  taxes  reckoned  against 
them.  In  his  order  on  this  subject  he  stated  that  failure  to  pay 
the  arrears  in  the  time  allotted  would  result  in  repressive  meas- 
ures even  to  the  point  of  bombarding  the  place.  After  this 
incident  a  delegation  went  to  Kiev  to  report.  From  Kiev  an 
extraordinary  prosecutor  was  sent  to  Zlatopol,  who  collected  a 
mass  of  documentary  evidence  implicating  Lopata,  the  members 
of  the  Chigirin  Extraordinary  Commission,  and  others.  The 
prosecutor  left  Zlatopol  on  April  23,  and  stated  that  he  was 
going  to  Kiev  for  a  detachment,  and  that  he  would  go  with  the 
detachment  to  Chigirin  and  would  take  all  measures  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  criminal  activities  of  the  Chigirin  "workers"  and  to 
clear  the  whole  canton  of  Chigirin  of  bandits.  But  from  that 
time  the  Executive  Committee  has  received  no  information  as 
to  the  results  of  the  investigation,  while  it  is  reliably  known  that 
Lopata  and  the  others  are  at  liberty  in  Chigirin  to  this  very  day. 
Two  days  after  the  beginning  of  the  pogrom  in  Zlatopol,  on 
May  4,  a  detachment  arrived  there  from  Chigirin  under  the 
command  of  Kotzyr  the  younger,  but  this  detachment  only  served 
to  make  the  pogrom  more  violent,  since  the  bandits  felt  complete 
impunity  and  even  support  from  the  soldiers  and  the  commander 
of  the  detachment.  Of  the  activities  of  these  gentry  details  arc 
set  forth  in  the  report  of  A.  Khromchenko.  At  present  the 
situation  in  the  town  is  tragic.  The  Jewish  population  is  literally 
dying  of  hunger.  The  whole  population  is  left  without  any 
means — both  the  merchants,  who  were  well-to-do  before  the 
pogrom,  and  the  artisans,  who  have  lost  their  instruments  and 
materials.  Famine  typhus  is  raging  in  the  town.  The  Executive 


296    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Committee  considers  that  the  sum  of  300,000  rubles,  released  by 
the  governmental  section  for  furnishing  aid  to  Zlatopol,  is  en- 
tirely insufficient,  since  with  present  high  prices  such  a  sum  can 
only  serve  for  very  temporary  aid,  and  it  is  far  from  possible 
by  such  means  to  render  assistance  to  the  artisans,  to  get  them 
the  instruments  of  production  and  to  provide  for  the  collective 
shops.  It  is  necessary  also  to  consider  that  the  Jewish  Loan 
and  Savings  Association,  and  the  co-operative  "Self-aid,"  which 
supplied  the  Jewish  poor  people  with  their  supplies  of  pro- 
visions, have  been  left  without  means  and  until  now  have  not 
begun  to  function.  These  enterprises  served  eight  thousand  of 
the  Jewish  population,  and  this  population  cannot  get  along  with- 
out them.  They  must  be  subsidized  extensively  in  order  that 
they  may  begin  to  operate  again.  It  is  also  necessary  to  organ- 
ize the  issuance  to  the  population  of  long-time  loans  without 
interest,  in  order  that  they  may  again  engage  in  their  occupa- 
tions, and  not  be  turned  into  chronic  beggars. 

In  conclusion  we  solicit  for  Zlatopol  a  sum  of  several  million 
rubles.  Only  in  that  case  can  it  be  hoped  that  in  time  the  popu- 
lation will  be  able  to  get  out  of  its  tragic  situation. 

President  of  the  Executive  Committee  (Signature). 
Assistant  to  the  President  (Signature). 

MATUSOVO   (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Pogrom  of  May  13-14,  1919 
Communication  of  Kummelman 

Matusovo  is  a  town  in  the  canton  of  Cherkassy  with  a  popu- 
lation of  seven  or  eight  thousand,  of  which  160  to  180  families 
are  Jewish.  There  is  a  sugar- factory  with  200  local  workers. 
The  Jewish  population  of  Matusovo  lived  almost  entirely  by 
petty  trade.  It  was  not  very  thrifty  and  remained  in  the  same 
condition  throughout  the  whole  period  of  the  war,  and  in  con- 
trast to  other  places  did  not  engage  in  speculation  and  did  not 
get  rich.  In  political  matters  the  Jewish  population  had  no 
interest  in  politics  or  party  divisions.  The  relations  between 
Jews  and  Christians  were  in  general  satisfactory,  although  iso- 
lated clashes  had  sometimes  taken  place.  With  the  last  change 
of  government  the  relations  between  the  two  parts  of  the  popu- 
lation changed  sharply  for  the  worse.  The  peasants  of  the 
region  around  Matusovo  regarded  the  new  regime  with  great 
suspicion;  they  considered  it  as  something  accidental  and  not 
to  be  taken  seriously,  almost  as  foreign  as  the  regime  of  the 


MATUSOVO:    GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS      297 

Germans.  This  suspicion  towards  the  new  regime  was  arti- 
ficially stimulated  in  the  peasant  masses  by  the  local  intellect- 
uals, who  from  the  first  day  were  in  opposition  to  the  new 
regime.  The  local  Ukrainian  intellectuals,  in  the  persons  of  the 
postmaster  Kulik,  the  seminarist  Masig,  the  teachers  Palega, 
Garnitzsky,  Zimnitzsky  and  others,  carried  on  open  agitation 
against  the  Soviet  rule;  and  their  chief  trump  in  this  game  was 
the  national  question.  "The  government  of  Petlura,"  the  post- 
master Kulik  would  explain  to  the  peasants,  "is  our  real,  native 
Ukrainian  government,  but  the  government  of  the  bolsheviki  is 
a  Jew  government."  The  teacher  Palega  assured  the  peasants: 
"In  Cherkassy  I  visited  the  commissariat  of  education,  and  what 
did  I  see  there  ?  Nothing  but  Jews ;  the  whole  commissariat  is 
full  of  them." 

In  the  very  first  days  of  the  new  government,  by  order  of 
the  Soviet  guerrilla  detachment  which  passed  through  in  pursuit 
of  Petlura,  there  was  formed  in  Matusovo  a  revolutionary  com- 
mittee, which,  however,  did  not  decide  a  single  question  without 
an  assembly.  After  three  weeks  the  revolutionary  committee 
was  succeeded  by  an  Executive  Committee,  but  it  was  little 
different  from  the  revolutionary  committee;  the  same  make-up, 
the  same  influence,  the  same  "assembly"  form  of  government, 
and  finally  the  same  negative  attitude  towards  the  Jewish  portion 
of  the  population — which  was  sharply  manifested  more  than  once 
(the  cases  of  Leschinsky,  Kholkovsky,  Babitsky,  the  taking 
away  of  portions  of  land  from  Jews  who  had  received  them  in 
1918,  etc.) 

Several  days  before  the  pogrom  the  Executive  Committee  re- 
ceived from  Shpola  a  provocatory  document  with  the  signature 
of  a  commissar  of  distinctly  Jewish  name  (I  think  Goldstein), 
whose  contents  were  as  follows :  that  the  churches  should  be 
sealed  and  the  church  furniture  and  fixtures  brought  to  Shpola. 
The  rumor  of  this  "document"  quickly  spread  among  the  peas- 
ants, and  through  them  also  among  the  Jews,  who  interpreted  it 
as  a  signal  for  a  pogrom.  Two  or  three  days  later,  on  May  10, 
certain  horsemen  brought  to  Matusovo  Grigoriev's  manifesto 
("Universal"),  which  was  made  public  on  that  same  day  by  the 
secretary  of  the  Executive  Committee,  Kesser,  before  a  special 
assembly  called  for  that  purpose.  Whether  he  really  read  this 
from  the  manifesto  or  whether  it  was  his  own  invention,  at  any 
rate  Kesser  declared  that  an  order  had  been  received  to  destroy 
all  Jews.  The  ground  for  such  inventions  was  prepared  to  this 
extent,  that  the  peasants  saw  nothing  improbable  in  such  an 
order,  believed  in  it  fully,  and  talked  about  it  to  the  Jews  they 


298    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

knew,  some  with  malicious  joy,  some  with  sympathy.  On  the 
same  day  the  Jews  observed  that  Borodiansky,  who  had  lived 
most  among  the  peasants  and  best  knew  their  activities  and 
frame  of  mind,  left  the  place  with  all  his  family.  All  these 
facts,  together  with  many  others,  convinced  the  Jews  of  Matu- 
sovo  that  the  same  catastrophe  which  the  Jews  of  Lebedin,  Zlato- 
pol  and  other  places  had  recently  experienced  was  approaching 
them.  Continuing  to  hope  up  to  the  last  minute,  though  hoping 
rather  for  a  miracle  than  for  any  definite  help,  some  Jews  on 
the  day  before  the  pogrom  wanted  to  send  their  families  and 
some  of  their  things  to  Shpola,  near  by;  but  they  met  with  the 
definite  opposition  of  the  militia.  This  still  more  increased  the 
feeling  of  alarm,  which  grew  with  every  minute. 

On  the  night  of  Monday,  May  12,  at  12.30,  the  pogrom  began. 
That  evening  the  Jews  had  begun  to  hide,  some  in  barns  of 
peasant-acquaintances,  some  in  ravines  and  gardens.  In  the 
house  of  the  smith  Srul  Kapustiansky  there  collected  a  consid- 
erable group  of  the  more  well-to-do  Jews,  who  thought  that 
here,  as  in  Zlatopol,  the  poor  and  artisans  would  not  be  dis- 
turbed. But  this  expectation  proved  unreliable.  Perhaps  just 
because  a  considerable  number  of  Jews  were  concentrated  there, 
the  bandits  went  thither  first  of  all.  About  11.30  at  night  a 
band  of  25  men  knocked  at  the  house.  The  owner  ran  to  the 
garret  and  thence  began  to  cry  for  help.  In  reply  he  heard 
someone  compassionately  inquiring  from  below  what  the  matter 
was.  Kapustiansky  was  convinced  that  the  bandits  had  de- 
parted and  that  he  was  now  dealing  with  people  of  good  inten- 
tions. He  came  down  from  the  garret  and  opened  the  door  to 
them.  "Stand  still!"  cried  one  of  the  bandits,  rushing  in.  Ka- 
pustiansky recognized  among  the  bandits  an  acquaintance  of  his, 
and  begged  him  to  take  his  part,  calling  him  by  name.  "Aha, 
you've  recognized  me,  you  damned  Jew.  Well,  then,  take  thatl" 
And  he  killed  him  with  a  shot.  At  the  shot  his  wife  sprang 
forth  with  their  three-months'  child,  but  the  same  fate  met 
them,  too.  Having  finished  with  the  Kapustianskys,  the  bandits 
rushed  on  into  the  house  with  wild  cries :  "Jewish  wretches,  how 
long  are  you  going  to  keep  ruling  over  us?"  and  opened  an 
irregular  fusillade  among  the  people  hiding  in  the  house.  As  a 
result,  only  four  of  the  sixteen  people  who  were  in  the  house 
escaped. 

On  the  next  day,  Tuesday  the  13th,  the  Executive  Committee 
called  an  assembly  to  decide  the  question  of  disposal  of  the 
bodies  of  the  12  Jews  killed.  The  assembly  decided  to  have 
certain  peasants  bury  them  near  the  synagogue.  (There  was  no 


MATUSOVO  299 

Jewish  cemetery  in  Matusovo  and  the  dead  were  usually  carried 
to  Shpola  to  be  buried.)  The  Jews,  who  had  almost  all  scat- 
tered by  this  time,  somehow  learned  about  this  assembly  and 
apparently  laid  hopes  upon  it.  A  certain  girl,  Aniuta  Axelfeld, 
ran  to  the  assembly  and  began  to  weep  and  entreat  them  to  in- 
tervene, declaring  that  robbers  had  just  attacked  her  house. 
But  the  assembly  not  only  decisively  refused  to  do  anything, 
but  even  remained  entirely  uninterested  when  right  there  before 
their  eyes  a  militiaman  began  to  beat  the  girl.  The  girl  started 
to  run  away,  but  the  militiaman  Sheremet  ran  after  her,  caught 
her  in  the  prince's  park  and  shot  her.  At  this  time,  having  de- 
cided about  the  bodies,  the  assembly  proceeded  to  "current 
questions."  The  postmaster  Kulik  made  known  a  telephone 
message  which  he  alleged  he  had  received  to  the  effect  that  the 
communists  were  marching  on  Matusovo  on  account  of  the 
killing  of  the  Jews.  Kesser  informed  the  assembly  to  the 
same  effect.  The  drift  of  the  information  was  that  the  com- 
munists and  Jews  had  declared  war  on  the  peasants, 
and  the  latter,  therefore,  must  kill  all  the  Jews  as  quickly  as 
possible.  With  this  object  the  assembly  decided  to  arm  to  the 
fullest  extent,  so  as  to  resist  both  the  invading  communists  and 
the  attacking  Jews.  With  this  object  a  military  troop  of  forty 
men  was  organized  then  and  there,  into  which  the  most  flagrant 
bandits  entered,  the  two  brothers  Krasota,  Sheremet,  the 
ex-commander  of  militia  Kikidanetz,  and  others.  The 
assembly  decided  to  bring  its  decisions  to  the  attention  of 
the  other  villages  which  composed  the  volost  (district)  of  Matu- 
sovo, and  to  propose  to  them  that  they,  too,  organize  their  mili- 
tary troops  on  the  pattern  of  Matusovo,  for  active  warfare  with 
the  Jews  and  communists.  The  military  troop  immediately  left 
the  place  to  ward  off  the  imaginary  attack  of  the  Jews,  and  in 
the  country  they  happened  upon  a  group  of  26  Jews  with  a 
Rabbi  at  their  head.  These  were  killed  to  a  man.  On  the  same 
day  fifteen  other  people  were  killed  in  various  places. 

On  the  next  day,  May  14,  an  assembly  was  called  again.  This 
time  two  teachers  appeared,  Prisovosky  and  Bubnov,  who 
decided  to  come  energetically  to  the  defense  of  the  Jews,  point- 
ing out  that  the  power  of  the  Jews  was  already  gone  and 
only  poor  wretches  remained.  At  first  they  were  not  al- 
lowed to  speak;  the  other  teachers,  their  own  colleagues, 
attacked  them,  threatening  them  with  chastisement.  But  by  this 
time  the  peasants  had  had  time  to  sober  down  somewhat.  They 
were  now  convinced  that  all  the  tales  of  Jewish  attacks  were 
nothing  but  pure  inventions  of  Kulik,  Kesser,  Masin  and  others. 


300    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

The  eight  or  ten  Jews  who  remained  in  the  town  (the  others 
who  had  not  been  killed  had  fled  to  Shpola)  were  brought  to 
the  volost  headquarters,  and  thence  to  Nukhim  Mokievsky's 
barn,  where  they  were  kept  under  guard.  The  arrival  of  Soviet 
forces  freed  them. 

At  the  present  time  only  a  single  family  remained  living  in 
Matusovo,  that  of  Borko  Borodiansky,  which  adopted  the  ortho- 
dox religion  after  the  pogrom.  For  this  the  peasants  allowed 
them  to  remain  in  Matusovo,  returned  a  pair  of  horses  stolen 
from  them  during  the  pogrom,  some  of  their  other  stolen  prop- 
erty, their  parcel  of  land,  etc. 

ROTMISTROVKA    (GOVERNMENT   OF    KlEV) 

•  Pogrom  of  May  13-14,  1919 

From  the  Materials  of  the  Authorized  Investigator  I.  G. 
Tsifrinovich 

In  the  chain  of  Jewish  pogroms  which  took  place  in  Ukraine, 
the  pogrom  in  Rotmistrovka  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
links. 

Rotmistrovka  is  on  the  road  from  Shpola  to  Cherkassy,  18 
versts  from  Smela,  7  versts  from  the  railroad  station  of  Vladi- 
mirovka,  on  the  line  Fastov-Znamenka.  The  town  counts  a 
population  of  350  Jewish  families,  the  majority  of  whom  lived 
in  good  circumstances,  being  materially  provided  for,  thanks  to 
the  position  which  the  town  occupies  in  the  commerce  between 
Smela  and  Cherkassy,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  towns  lying 
beyond  it  on  the  other  hand. 

The  population  was  always  on  good  terms  with  the  local  peas- 
ant population,  dwelling  near  the  town.  The  local  peasantry 
was  always  considered  pacific.  No  disorders  of  any  kind  had 
ever  occurred  in  Rotmistrovka — neither  specifically  Jewish  nor 
any  other.  It  is  a  characteristic  fact  that  after  the  October  revo- 
lution, when  the  peasants  in  the  neighboring  villages  plundered 
estates,  our  peasants  remained  passive  on  account  of  the  fear 
that  they  might  suffer  for  it  afterwards.  Owing  to  this  the 
greater  part  of  the  Jewish  population  became  permeated  with 
the  conviction  that  they  would  have  no  pogrom.  This  convic- 
tion was  not  shaken  even  when  rumors  began  to  arrive  from 
the  neighboring  towns  and  villages  about  the  Jewish  pogroms 
which  were  going  on  there.  And  this  was  the  principal  reason 
why  the  town  was  so  utterly  destroyed — not  a  single  chair  or 
piece  of  pottery  being  left 


ROTMISTROVKA  301 

The  start  of  the  pogrom  may  be  considered  the  attack  on  the 
owner  of  a  mill,  which  occurred  on  Saturday,  May  10,  and  dur- 
ing which  two  Jewish  members  of  the  night  watch  were  killed. 
It  became  clear  that  the  bandits  now  felt  that  there  was  no 
government  and  that  killing  Jews  was  no  great  sin.  This  inci- 
dent produced  great  alarm  among  the  Jewish  population,  and 
fear  began  to  spring  up  among  them,  which  increased  on  the 
next  day,  when  the  pogrom  in  Smela  became  known,  and  the 
overthrow  of  the  existing  regime  by  Grigoriev,  and  his  mani- 
festo ("Universal"),  which  was  being  read  before  the  peasants. 
In  the  evening  a  committee  of  the  poorer  classes  began  to  make 
searches  preparatory  to  requisitions,  which  no  longer  had  the 
character  of  earlier  searches,  but  became  more  malicious.  The 
searches  continued  on  the  next  day,  too,  and  in  general  it  was 
felt  that  the  atmosphere  was  getting  more  tense  all  the  time. 
Nevertheless  the  confidence  of  the  Jewish  population  was  still 
great  enough  so  that  life  continued  to  flow  along  almost  nor- 
mally. 

On  Monday,  May  12,  at  night  a  band  of  50  men  arrived, 
among  them  not  a  few  locals.  On  Tuesday  morning  the  pogrom 
began.  The  local  peasants  took  part  in  it.  Later  peasants  from 
the  nearby  villages  also  collected,  and  the  pogrom  was  in  full 
swing.  Murders,  however,  did  not  take  place  by  day.  Only 
towards  night,  perceiving  their  complete  impunity,  the  bandits 
committed  their  first  murder — of  a  father  and  son,  after  they 
had  bought  their  freedom.  In  the  early  part  of  the  night  they 
began  to  set  on  fire  houses  and  shops,  and  the  whole  population 
broke  and  ran  to  hide,  everyone  wherever  he  could.  Many  Jews, 
as  is  the  custom,  rushed  to  the  cemetery,  which  is  outside  the 
city,  and  digging  themselves  in  between  the  graves,  expected 
death  any  minute,  as  it  threatened  them  with  every  shot  and 
tongue  of  flame.  So  it  went  on  for  about  eight  hours,  when  the 
bandits  really  did  arrive.  After  hysterical,  heart-rending  cries 
the  Jews  succeeded  in  ransoming  themselves  with  money  and 
everything  they  had  with  them.  We  were  ordered  not  to  go 
away  before  several  hours  should  have  passed,  and  only  later 
were  we  driven  forth  to  put  out  the  conflagration.  There  we 
saw  before  us  a  terrible  spectacle  of  plundered,  burning,  empty 
houses.  There  and  then  began  to  peer  out,  as  if  out  of  a  mouse- 
hole,  faces  that  were  beaten  unmercifully,  full  of  mortal  terror, 
and  we  began  to  hear  of  frightful,  barbarous  things.  Everyone 
hurried  to  his  own  house,  and  those  who  found  the  four  walls 
bare,  the  windows  and  frames  broken,  feathers  strewn  about, 
etc.,  were  lucky,  for  many,  very  many  found  only  mountains 


302    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  ashes  and  the  bodies  of  their  dear  ones  in  rivers  of  blood. 
Two  were  burnt  after  having  first  been  shot  and  then  hung. 

But  no  one  had  time  to  look  around  before  another  gang 
arrived,  and  seized  whatever  anyone  had  left.  Then  the  entire 
population  was  driven  into  a  prayer-house,  where  1,200  people, 
men,  women,  and  children,  jammed  into  a  single  heap,  lived 
through  endless  hours  of  mortal  terror.  There  was  a  moment 
when  they  actually  had  bombs  in  their  hands  to  blow  up  the 
prayer-house,  and  it  was  only  by  a  miracle  that  the  Jews  suc- 
ceeded in  saving  themselves  with  a  ransom.  No  small  amount 
of  mortal  terror  did  the  population  live  through,  and  for  the 
space  of  eight  days  after  this  no  one  ventured  to  go  out  of  the 
yard  where  the  prayer-house  was  (it  belonged  to  a  well-known 
Rabbi  of  Rotmistrovka).  If  anyone,  owing  to  want  and 
hunger,  did  venture  to  go  out  into  the  village  to  get  anything, 
he  went  with  uncertain  footsteps,  trembling  every  minute. 
Several  days  later,  in  fact,  after  the  pogrom,  when  a  boy  of 
sixteen,  Brunstein,  went  out  to  look  for  his  family,  who  had 
hidden,  he  was  wounded.  And  when  the  local  peasants,  thinking 
him  dead,  told  the  family  so  that  they  might  come  and  get  him, 
no  one  dared  to  go.  Later  when  his  brother  ran  to  him,  the 
peasants,  seeing  that  he  was  still  alive,  shot  him  to  death.  For 
several  days  the  dead  and  wounded  lay  about  before  the  Jews 
made  up  their  minds  to  collect  them  under  the  protection  of  a 
local  militiaman.  Almost  all  the  slain  were  stripped  naked; 
some,  according  to  what  eyewitnesses  say,  were  stripped  on  the 
second  and  third  day  after  they  had  been  murdered,  by  local 
peasants,  who  went  around  looking  to  see  if  anything  had  been 
left. 

The  following  fact  is  also  worthy  of  note.  In  one  house  a 
father  and  son  were  shot.  The  father  was  afterwards  hung,  and 
all  this  was  done  before  the  eyes  of  the  wife  and  mother.  The 
mother  implored  them  to  kill  her,  too,  but  they  would  not,  and 
when  she  began  to  scream,  they  drove  her  from  the  house.  In 
one  house,  after  taking  every  thing  out  of  the  house,  the  ban- 
dits stood  up  the  entire  family,  which  consisted  of  four  persons 
(the  father  of  65  years,  mother  of  the  same  age,  a  son  of  30  and 
daughter  of  28),  stood  them  up  to  be  shot,  beginning  with  the 
daughter,  as  revenge  on  the  parents.  The  son  out  of  fright  fell 
down  beside  his  sister,  and  they  thought  he  was  dead.  Later, 
when  he  went  out  of  the  house,  he  saw  the  bandits  coming  to 
make  sure  that  he  was  dead,  because  they  remembered  that  they 
had  fired  only  at  the  father,  mother  and  sister. 
A  third  fact  worthy  of  attention  is  this.  A  woman  (the  wife 


SMELA  303 

of  the  local  Rabbi)  ran  out  of  the  city  with  her  children.  On 
the  way  she  was  wounded  in  the  leg.  Her  son,  aged  14,  seeing 
that  her  blood  was  flowing,  asked  some  passing  peasants  to  help 
her.  One  of  them  volunteered  to  take  her  to  a  neighboring 
village,  and  going  up  to  her  ran  her  through  with  a  pike.  Her 
children,  a  boy  of  14  and  an  infant  of  five,  he  wounded  with  the 
pike.  Many  such  facts  might  be  enumerated.  There  are  two 
others  which  are  worthy  of  being  recorded.  A  mother  and  sev- 
eral children,  trying  to  hide,  remained  in  a  forest.  Hearing 
firing,  the  mother,  fearing  that  they  would  be  discovered  be- 
cause of  the  cries  of  her  two-months-old  baby,  strangled  him 
with  her  own  hands.  An  old  mother  with  her  daughter  and  five 
children  (the  oldest  twelve  and  the  youngest  half  a  year)  were 
running  away  to  hide.  On  the  road  all  were  killed.  (The  chil- 
dren of  three  years  and  a  year  and  a  half  had  their  heads 
crushed.)  The  youngest  infant,  of  half  a  year,  they  left  there. 
The  next  day  he  died  of  hunger. 

TOWN  OF  SMELA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Pogrom  of  May  14-15,  1919 
I.    Testimony  of  Moishe  Sumsky,  Merchant,  52  Years  Old 

I  and  several  other  Jews  hid  in  a  Russian's  garret.  Several 
armed  men  came  in  and  asked  whether  there  weren't  Jews  there. 
That  moment  a  baby  began  to  cry  in  the  garret,  and  this  gave  us 
away.  A  fearful  scene  began.  Wild  cries  resounded:  "Come 
here,  comrades,  here  is  where  the  Jew-communists  are  hiding. 
Come  down !  To  the  wall !"  We  were  searched,  and  everything 
we  had  taken  from  us.  It  was  awful.  The  women  and  children 
raised  the  most  terrible  cries.  They  drew  us  up  to  shoot  us,  and 
our  Russian  protector  with  us.  With  great  difficulty  we  suc- 
ceeded in  saving  our  lives.  They  left  the  Russian  householder 
alone  only  because  he  was  not  the  owner  of  the  house. 

(Signature) 

II.    Testimony  of  Hannah  Pavletssky,  38  Years  Old,  Merchant 

On  Sunday,  May  18,  after  all  the  ways  of  leaving  the  city 
had  been  cut  off  (the  soldiers  met  those  who  tried  to  leave  with 
pointed  rifles),  we  crept  through  the  fence  to  a  Russian  neigh- 
bor's garret.  Besides  our  family  there  were  about  15  other 
people  there — men,  women  and  children.  About  9  A.M.  we 
heard  noises  and  the  cry:  "Haven't  you  some  Jews  here?"  We 


304    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

all  got  scared  and  one  began  to  go  down  from  the  garret.  Im- 
mediately a  man  in  military  uniform  ran  up,  fired  twice,  and 
cried:  "Come  here,  comrades,  you  see  where  the  Jew-commun- 
ists are  firing  on  us  from."  In  answer  to  his  summons  there 
gathered  about  ten  armed  men  in  military  uniforms  and  shouted : 
"Come  down,  come  down,  you  communists,  Jewish  dogs,  give 
up  your  weapons."  And  they  immediately  began  to  throw  us 
down  from  the  garret.  When  we  came  down  we  were  carefully 
searched,  and  all  our  money  and  clothes  taken  from  us.  Some- 
one gave  the  command:  "All  to  the  wall."  The  children  who 
were  with  us  raised  a  scream  and  began  to  cry  hysterically. 
Then  they  separated  the  women  from  the  men.  The  latter,  in- 
cluding also  the  Russian  householder,  were  taken  to  the  com- 
mandant of  the  station  Bobrinsky.  The  wife  and  daughter  of 
the  householder  swore  that  not  one  of  us  had  a  weapon,  and 
that  they  had  admitted  us  to  their  house  because  we  lived  peace- 
fully and  amicably  together.  Finally  the  Russian  householder 
was  freed  because  it  was  not  his  own  house.  And  we  Jews  were 
freed  because  on  one  of  us  was  found  a  document  showing  that 
he  worked  in  the  mines. 

(Signature) 

III.  Testimony  of  Krasnopolsky,  Aged  36 

On  the  morning  of  May  11  I  heard  firing  at  the  door.  Bullets 
were  coming  through  the  window.  We  swiftly  left  the  house  and 
went  into  our  'own  garden.  After  a  few  hours  I  saw  through 
a  crack  in  the  fence  that  Mazariuk,  a  former  student,  now  a 
militiaman,  was  organizing  a  band  of  pupils  of  the  middle 
schools ;  he  went  with  them  into  the  neighboring  yard,  dug  up 
fifteen  rifles  there,  and  then  went  to  report  that  Jews  were  hid- 
ing where  they  lived,  and  afterwards  started  pillaging  with  the 
entire  gang. 

IV.  Testimony   of  Chernikhov,  Aged  24 

On  Sunday,  May  11,  at  noon,  the  Grigorievists  came  to  our 
house,  conducted  a  search,  and  finding  on  one  of  us  a  Zionistic 
document  with  the  mogen  dovid  (Shield  of  David),  began  to  yell 
that  the  owner  of  this  document  was  a  genuine  communist  and 
stood  him  against  the  wall.  When  it  was  explained  to  them  that 
this  was  not  a  communist  document,  they  took  the  goods  and 
clothing  and  departed.  After  two  hours  they  returned  again 
to  look  for  the  "communist,"  but  he  was  no  longer  there. 


SMELA  305 

V.     Testimony  of  Fastovsky 

On  May  14,  at  twelve  midnight,  there  came  to  our  house  four 
armed  men  in  military  uniforms,  who  demanded  weapons, 
searched  us,  and  beat  us  terribly.  My  husband  gave  them  a 
thousand  rubles  and  they  left  the  house  and  ordered  them  to  go 
along.  They  took  my  husband  and  three  sons  with  them.  Half 
an  hour  later  the  youngest  son  came  running  back  and  asked 
for  another  thousand  rubles.  He  hastily  explained  that  they 
had  been  terribly  tormented  along  the  road.  His  father  be- 
sought them:  "Let  me  live  for  the  sake  of  my  little  children." 
The  reply  was:  "Shut  up,  Jew."  They  took  them  to  the  river, 
stripped  them  naked,  and  began  to  beat  them  with  gun-butts. 
When  the  father  couldn't  speak  from  pain,  he  cried :  "I  must 
have  a  thousand  rubles  more ;  take  them,  but  let  us  live."  When 
the  boy  arrived  with  the  money,  he  found  his  father  and  two 
brothers  lying  dead  in  pools  of  blood. 

VI.    Testimony  of  Gersh  Kazakevich,  Aged  56,  Baker 

From  May  10  to  18  there  were  about  a  hundred  people  hiding 
from  the  pogrom  in  his  dwelling.  All  that  time  the  owner's  son 
kept  walking  up  and  down  in  peasant's  garb,  guarding  the  place. 
The  bands  that  passed  took  him  for  a  peasant  and  asked: 
"Where  is  the  headquarters  of  the  Jew-communists  here?"  He 
replied  to  this  that  the  Jews  had  already  been  plundered.  On 
Thursday,  the  15th,  in  the  evening,  bandits  surrounded  the  house 
and  demanded  that  he  give  the  Jews  up  to  them,  but  he  insisted 
that  there  were  no  Jews  there.  They  departed.  On  the  next 
day,  May  16,  they  came  again,  surrounded  the  house,  and  de- 
manded that  the  Jews  be  surrendered;  if  not,  they  would  shoot 
the  son.  The  latter  was  compelled  to  hide.  They  broke  into 
the  house,  and  seized  five  Jews,  whom  they  beat  terribly  and 
took  away  to  the  railway  train. 

VII.    Testimony  of  David  Meyer  Goldstein 

On  Saturday,  May  17,  1919,  at  6  A.M.,  bandits  broke  into  the 
house  of  Aria  Levitzsky,  found  several  people  there,  and  de- 
manded money  from  them.  The  first  to  be  killed  was  the  teacher 
of  the  Talmud-Torah,  who  had  no  money.  The  second  victim 
was  Feiga  Zhukialianskaia,  an  old  woman  of  72;  she  begged  to 
take  the  place  of  the  young  people.  They  then  collected  1,300 
rubles  from  the  witness,  and  afterwards  left  the  house.  As  soon 
as  the  armed  bandits  left  the  dwelling,  a  crowd  of  peasant  men 


3o6    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

and  women  with  sacks  and  baskets  broke  in  and  divided  every- 
thing they  found  in  the  house  among  themselves. 

Those  who  remained  thought  that  the  presence  of  the  corpses 
would  frighten  off  the  peasants  and  save  them  from  further  tor- 
ments. In  reality  it  was  still  worse.  Every  new  band,  on  seeing 
the  corpses,  became  convinced  that  here  the  Jews  had  defended 
themselves  with  weapons  in  their  hands,  and  demanded  of  the 
living  that  they  give  up  their  weapons,  and  stood  them  up 
against  the  wall  with  the  vilest  abuse.  All  day  long  we  kept 
ransoming  ourselves  with  money. 

(Signature) 

ALEXANDROVKA-FUNDUKEIEVKA    (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Pogrom  of  May  18-20,  1919 

Report  on  the  Pogrom  and  Bloody  Massacre  Which  Took  Place 

in   the   Town   of  Alexandrovka,   Government   of  Kiev 

(Station  of  Fundukeievka) 

The  pogrom  and  the  murders  began  May  18.  A  squadron  of 
Ataman  Grigoriev's  detachment  stopped  at  the  station  of  Fun- 
dukeievka.  A  group  of  fifteen  or  twenty  armed  men  went  to 
the  town  "to  look  for  communists."  The  bold  procedure  of 
Comrade  Vnikhrist  at  the  station,  and  of  Comrade  K.  Zhadon, 
who  met  them  on  the  bridge  with  a  white  flag  in  his  hand,  so 
as  to  avert  a  disaster,  were  of  no  avail;  both  nearly  paid  with 
their  lives.  According  to  the  words  of  several  eyewitnesses,  the 
Grigorievists  were  guided  by  one  of  the  local  intellectuals.  Com- 
rade Zhadon  can  confirm  this  statement. 

They  began  the  devastation  with  the  first  houses,  in  regular 
order.  Immediately  behind  them  trailed  bands  of  local  pil- 
lagers. Almost  nothing  was  left  in  the  dwellings.  With  the 
first  shots  all  the  population  of  the  outskirts  rushed  in  a  panic 
into  the  center  of  town.  From  some  dwellings  they  did  not 
have  time  to  flee,  and  fell  victims  of  the  bandits  in  their  own 
homes,  five  in  one  family,  two  in  another ;  two  were  killed  on  the 
street.  The  dead  proved  to  be  exclusively  people  who  had  been 
sick.  With  that  day  began  a  continuous  series  of  looting,  devas- 
tation, and  barbarous  murders.  The  authorities  did  nothing. 
On  the  night  of  the  15th  they  plundered  several  homes  and 
killed  one  man;  he  recognized  the  robbers  and  called  one  by 
name.  Heartrending  cries  for  help  were  heard,  but  there  was 
no  source  from  which  help  could  be  expected.  The  population 
was  terror-stricken;  most  of  them  had  given  up  living  in  their 
homes,  abandoning  everything  to  fate. 


ALEXANDROVKA— FUNDUKEIEVKA      307 

The  fatal  days  for  the  Jewish  population  of  the  town  were 
the  19th  and  20th  of  May.  On  May  18  one  of  the  assistants 
of  Grigoriev  by  telephone  from  Tzybuliev  warned  the  com- 
mander of  the  local  detachment,  Comrade  Shostnik,  that  he  was 
sending  a  cavalry  detachment  with  the  object  of  rooting  out  the 
communists.  Though  Comrade  Shostnik  says  he  assured  him 
that  there  were  no  communists  in  the  town,  it  had  no  effect  on 
"the  protector  of  the  Soviet  power  without  communes."  At 
eleven  o'clock  on  the  19th,  after  a  short  bombardment  with  can- 
non and  machine  guns,  the  first  horsemen  appeared  and  began 
to  fire  at  close  range,  "to  take  them  at  sight,"  as  they  expressed 
it.  There  were  heard  cries,  shrieks,  groans  of  the  wounded  and 
dying,  mingled  with  fierce  commands  of  "Give  us  money,"  the 
sound  of  broken  glass,  and  the  crash  of  shattered  doors  and 
shutters.  They  robbed  and  murdered  without  mercy.  The  num- 
ber of  the  murderers  increased  all  the  time;  other  local  robbers 
appeared  again,  at  whose  hands  more  fell  than  at  the  Grig- 
orievists'. 

They  hunted  the  people  out  and  killed  them  in  orchards,  gar- 
dens, houses,  garrets,  cellars,  rubbish-pits;  they  killed  old  men, 
middle-aged,  and  young  women,  and  babes  at  the  breast.  No 
mercy  was  shown  anywhere  to  anyone.  The  Russian  intellec- 
tuals were  passive  at  the  very  best,  allowing  no  one  to  hide  in 
their  houses,  with  very  rare  exceptions.  There  appeared  a  band 
of  bag-carriers,  mostly  of  the  town  and  the  neighboring  villages, 
who  cleaned  out  the  dwellings,  not  disdaining  anything,  even 
little  pots. 

On  the  night  of  the  20th,  exclusively  local  thieves  plundered 
and  killed— in  one  home  eight  people,  next  door  to  the  building 
of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  volost  (district)  ;  in  another, 
in  the  outskirts,  thirteen  or  fourteen  people.  Life  in  the  town 
stopped ;  living  corpses  moved  about ;  all  the  houses  were  broken 
open,  with  smashed  doors,  and  shutters  torn  off,  and  windows 
broken.  Inside  the  homes  was  the  most  frightful  chaos.  Fur- 
niture was  everywhere  upset,  and  broken  up,  all  papers  were 
strewn  about  on  the  floor.  In  some  places,  where  the  pillows 
and  feather-beds  had  not  been  stolen,  the  pillow-slips  had  been 
taken  off  and  the  feathers  scattered  about;  and  on  the  following 
days  even  these  wretched  relics  were  carried  off  in  bags.  Ex- 
actly the  same  scene  of  murder  and  destruction  was  repeated 
on  May  31,  again  by  the  Grigorievists  with  the  energetic  par- 
ticipation of  local  people.  In  these  two  days  alone  there  were 
more  than  160  victims.  After  the  21st  murders  stopped,  since 
Soviet  forces  arrived;  but  the  visiting  of  houses  continued,  for 


308    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

even  some  of  the  troops  who  had  arrived  did  not  restrain  them- 
selves from  that  sin.  Complete  quiet  had  not  even  yet  been 
restored.  The  town  presents  a  painful  picture.  The  windows 
and  doors  of  most  of  the  houses  are  boarded  up,  the  inhabitants 
are  taking  refuge  several  families  in  one  dwelling ;  want  is  acute ; 
there  are  no  clothes,  under  or  outer,  shoes,  glass,  or  many  other 
of  the  most  necessary  things.  Many  have  fled,  destined  for  hun- 
ger and  privation  in  strange  parts. 

The  third  attack  of  the  Grigorievists  took  place  in  June. 
They  took  advantage  of  a  temporary  departure  of  the  Soviet 
forces.  As  after  May  21,  all  the  Jewish  population  was  herded 
together  in  the  yard  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  volost, 
and  there  robbed  man  by  man.  From  some  they  even  took  off 
their  last  jackets,  cloaks,  boots  and  shoes.  Besides  all  this  they 
imposed  a  contribution  of  75,000  rubles.  The  tortured  and  ter- 
rorized population  for  lack  of  means  had  to  borrow  several 
thousand  rubles  from  the  Russian  credit  association  to  save 
their  lives.  On  the  outside  of  the  walls  and  doors  of  the  Jew- 
ish inhabitants  crosses  were  depicted  with  chalk,  and  saints' 
images  were  set  up  in  the  windows.  Thus  were  the  bloody 
massacres  and  pogroms  prepared  and  carried  out  in  Alexan- 
drovka  and  neighboring  places.  We  are  informed  that  in  the 
town  of  Medvedovka  the  surrounding  peasants  went  even 
farther;  they  took  apart  and  carried  away  the  houses  and  other 
buildings  belonging  to  the  Jews,  and  none  of  the  fleeing  popula- 
tion dares  to  return  and  interfere  with  the  destruction  of  the 
dwellings  built  by  bitter  toil.  More  than  500  dwellings  have 
been  destroyed,  with  a  population  of  3,200  to  3,300  people. 

SHPOLA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Pogrom  of  May  27,  1919 
Testimony  of  Krasniansky,  Taken  Down  by  Maizlish,  August  8 

The  town  of  Shpola  is  a  railroad  station  in  the  Zvenigorod 
canton. 

The  pogrom  was  perpetrated  by  bands  of  neighboring  peasants 
(from  Lebedin  and  Listopadovo),  going  under  the  flag  of  Grig- 
oriev.  A  band  of  about  150  to  200  men  appeared  on  Monday 
evening,  May  26,  and  went  around  to  the  synagogues,  and  com- 
manded all  the  men  to  go  to  the  station.  Close  to  1,000  Jews 
obeyed  without  question  and  collected  at  the  station.  There  they 
separated  out  the  old  men  and  declared  that  they  were  going  to 
shoot  them.  When  cries  and  entreaties  arose,  the  bandits  stated 


GRIGORIEV'S  GANGS  309 

that  they  would  let  them  live  if  they  would  get  them  a  certain 
quantity  of  provisions  and  money  (sugar,  tea,  flour,  etc.).  Two 
hours  time-limit  was  set.  A  commission  was  chosen  which 
started  to  collect  the  provisions.  But  firing  began  at  the  station 
of  Tzvetkovo  (12  versts  from  Shpola),  and  the  gang  got  fright- 
ened and  left. 

On  the  next  morning  (Tuesday,  May  27),  a  reconnoitring 
party  came,  and,  finding  that  there  was  no  one  in  the  town, 
informed  the  gang  of  the  fact.  They  immediately  appeared  and 
began  to  loot.  The  population,  in  a  panic,  scattered  and  hid. 
All  the  Jewish  dwellings  and  some  shops  were  plundered  (at 
the  beginning  of  the  year  there  had  been  a  great  fire  in  Shpola 
and  almost  all  the  stores  were  burned).  They  took  away  goods, 
clothing,  and  underclothes,  and  spoiled  and  destroyed  what  was 
left.  On  the  same  day  fourteen  were  killed,  mostly  by  fire- 
arms, some  accidentally,  by  stray  bullets.  The  local  peas- 
ants at  first  hid  the  Jews,  but  then  began  to  say  that  they  were 
afraid  themselves.  They  took  no  part  in  the  pillaging.  Crosses 
were  placed  on  the  doors  of  non-Jewish  dwellings.  In  the  even- 
ing Soviet  forces  arrived  and  forced  out  the  bandits. 

Three  weeks  after  the  first  pogrom  a  detachment  of  Grigorie- 
vists  with  yellow  flags  passed  by  Shpola,  and  about  twelve 
men  entered  the  town,  looted  (valuables,  watches,  and  money; 
they  didn't  stay  long  enough  to  get  much)  for  several 
hours,  and  barbarously  killed  three.  One  fourteen-year-old  girl 
was  violated.  She  was  operated  on  in  the  hospital,  but  died. 
Later  it  was  said  that  these  bandits  who  entered  the  town  were 
disarmed  by  their  own  commanders. 

KREMENCHUG  AND  KRIUKOV  (GOVERNMENT  OF  POLTAVA) 

Pogrom  of  May  12-14,  1919 
From  [the  newspaper}  "Kom.  Fon"  No.  1 

The  pogrom  was  organized  by  Grigorievists  and  began  on 
Monday,  May  12.  First  the  Grigorievists  occupied  Kriukov  (a 
suburb  of  Kremenchug),  and  made  it  their  first  business  to  plun- 
der the  Jews  of  that  place.  On  the  night  of  May  12  began  their 
entry  into  Kremenchug.  As  soon  as  they  broke  into  the  town 
they  surrounded  Jewish  houses  under  pretext  of  making 
searches  and  taking  everything  that  came  to  their  hands.  On 
this  day,  May  13,  there  were  also  cases  of  murders.  The  prin- 
cipal bacchanalia  began  on  May  14.  By  this  time  a  Committee 


310    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  Community  Safety  had  had  time  to  organize.  On  the  15th 
the  Committee  formed  a  guard  of  Russian  workmen,  which  suc- 
ceeded in  stopping  the  pogrom.  On  Monday,  May  21,  a  bolshevist 
detachment  entered  Kremenchug.  During  the  time  of  the  po- 
grom in  the  city  there  were  21  people  killed.  Besides  this,  the 
Grigorievist  gang  at  the  time  of  their  departure  massacred  an 
entire  Jewish  family  of  five  persons  in  Kriukov.  While  they 
were  withdrawing  towards  the  station  the  Kobeliak  Grigorievists 
killed  all  the  Jews  they  met. 

KAMENKA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 

Kamenka  is  a  town  in  the  canton  of  Chigirin.  It  has  about 
six  thousand  inhabitants;  about  540  Jewish  families.  The  po- 
grom was  perpetrated  by  the  Grigorievists  in  the  middle  of 
May,  approximately  May  14-20.  There  were  76  Jews  killed  (62 
men  and  14  women). 

DISTRICT  OF  UMAN 
(UMAN,  DUBOVO,  LADYZHENKA,  GOLOVANEVSK) 

From  Report  of  Authorised  Investigator  I.  S.  Braudo,  of 
July  10,  1919 

I  think  that  the  conditions  in  Uman  and  its  canton  are  suf- 
ficiently explained  in  my  preceding  letters  and  telegrams.  I  will 
add  only  that  I  returned  to-day — I  slipped  away  from  a  trip 
through  the  canton.  I  was  in  the  small  town  of  Dubovo,  twenty 
versts  from  Uman.  The  pogrom  and  massacre  which  have  lasted 
there  more  than  a  month  and  a  half  have  been  so  exceptional  in 
their  character  and  degree  of  ferocity,  so  rich  in  "pogrom-crea- 
tiveness"  and  initiative,  that  one  is  inclined  to  believe  that  Dubovo 
is  an  unhappy  exception  in  the  records  of  pogroms  in  recent 
days.  In  a  few  days  I  shall  communicate  the  chronological 
course  of  events  and  details,  together  with  lists  of  the  tortured 
and  wounded.  In  Dubovo  I  succeeded  in  opening  a  feeding 
station  for  furnishing  food  (flour,  potatoes,  millet,  and  meat)  to 
280  people,  among  them  134  children.  Under  the  present  mon- 
strous conditions  there,  it  is  impossible  to  furnish  any  other 
help.  And  at  the  present  moment  it  is  not  certain  what  is  hap- 
pening to  the  Jewish  population  of  Dubovo.  I  left  the  place  has- 
tily, since  eight  versts  away  in  the  direction  of  Golovanevsk 
some  gang  or  other  had  again  appeared  and  gone  on  the  rampage. 


DISTRICT   OF  UMAN  311 

Peasant  cabmen  returning  to  Dubovo  report  that  they  were 
stopped  on  the  road  to  Golovanevsk  by  bandits,  who  took  out 
the  Jewish  passengers  and  bade  the  peasants  turn  back  and  drive 
the  horses  fast,  not  looking  around.  A  Christian  inhabitant  of 
the  town,  a  man  with  an  excellent  past  record,  has  been  taken 
into  the  service  as  manager  of  the  feeding  station  in  Dubovo, 
and  the  Jews  have  entire  confidence  in  him  as  to  the  work  of 
assistance.  The  local  Jews  are  so  frightened  and  exhausted  that 
not  one  of  them  would  consent  to  manage  the  station,  in  spite 
of  the  dire  need.  There  is  no  governmental  victualling  organ 
there.  The  provisions  must  be  bought  at  market  prices,  which 
are  arbitrary  and  capricious  and  change  almost  from  hour  to 
hour. 

From  Dubovo  I  intended  to  go  to  Golovanevsk,  which  is  25 
versts  from  there.  Golovanevsk,  thanks  to  its  exemplarily  or- 
ganized, self-denying,  and  excellently  armed  Jewish  self-defense, 
has  become  the  center  in  which  the  refugees  of  the  whole  district 
take  refuge.  There  are  more  than  3,000  refugees  there.  The 
want  is  terrible.  When  I  was  in  Dubovo,  Golovanevsk  was  sur- 
rounded by  rebels.  Willy-nilly,  I  had  to  postpone  my  visit  until 
the  next  "breathing-spell."  In  general,  moving  from  place  to 
place  in  the  district  involves  great  danger.  Around  the  cities 
and  towns  are  gangs,  rebel  bands,  groups,  crowds,  mere  peasant- 
agriculturists  with  pitchforks  and  scythes,  with  various  watch- 
words, with  all  sorts  of  demands,  or  without  these  flimsy  ex- 
cuses ;  all  of  them  beat,  torture  and  mutilate  Jews.  They  count 
many  village  policemen  their  ringleaders.  Almost  all  of  these 
bear  nicknames  taken  from  popular  stories  or  from  criminal 
novels. 

TALNOIE  must  also  not  be  passed  by  without  assistance.  It 
is  only  45  versts  thither  by  cart ;  but  the  trip  is  dangerous.  You 
have  to  go  by  train,  and  I  am  informed  that  the  road  has  now 
been  mended.  I  expect  to  go  to-morrow  or  the  next  day.  I 
fear,  and  I  think  not  without  reason,  that  the  occurrences  in 
Talnoie  caused  "spatters"  [similar  occurrences  in  the  neighbor- 
hood] and  that  this  locality  has  its  Dubovo,  Ladyzhenka,  Kristi- 
novka  and  the  like. 

In  UMAN  quiet  has  been  established;  the  8th  and  1st  Soviet 
regiments  have  left  town.  When  I  returned  from  Dubovo  I 
did  not  know  the  place.  The  shutters,  doors,  and  some  shops 
were  open;  no  firing  was  audible,  and  you  saw  no  murdered 
gray-haired,  long-skirted  "communist"- Jews.  In  the  city  there  is 
an  international  regiment,  under  revolutionary  discipline.  You 
can  move  freely  through  the  town  up  to  ten  o'clock  at  night.  It 


312    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

is  only  during  the  last  two  days  that  it  has  been  possible  to  work 
calmly,  reflectively. 

The  remainder  of  the  report  is  devoted  to  the  practical  work 
in  Uman  and  its  district. 


UMAN 
Pogrom  of  May  12-14,  1919 

I.     Testimony  of  the  Student  B.  Z.  Rabinovich,  Taken  Down 
by  S.  Y.  Maizlish 

In  the  region  of  Uman  and  its  canton  the  rebel  detachments 
of  Klimenko,  Tiutiunik,  and  Popov  were  operating.  The  pogrom, 
which  took  place  May  12-14,  1919,  was  perpetrated  by  Klimenko's 
bands,  which  were  joined  by  a  part  of  the  city  bourgeoisie  and 
various  criminal  elements.  The  rebels  with  Klimenko  at  their 
head  occupied  Uman  on  Monday,  May  12,  on  which  day  and  on 
the  following  days,  Tuesday  and  Wednesday,  they  perpetrated 
looting  and  murders  in  colossal  proportions.  They  stayed  about 
ten  days,  and  on  May  22,  under  pressure  from  Soviet  forces, 
left  Uman.  The  course  of  events  before  and  during  the  pogrom 
appears  in  the  following  aspect. 

The  Soviet  regime  was  established  in  Uman  March  11.  The 
young  Jews  of  Uman  took  an  active  part  in  the  communistic 
movement  in  general  and  in  the  organization  of  the  organs  of 
the  Soviet  regime  in  particular.  At  the  head  of  the  Executive 
organs  was  the  Jew  Buhl;  a  decided  majority  of  the  commis- 
sariats and  other  higher  offices  was  occupied  by  Jews.  The 
Jewish  element  in  considerable  proportions  was  installed  in  all 
possible  institutions  and  offices.  From  the  very  beginning  of  the 
establishment  of  the  Soviet  regime  in  Uman  the  preponderance 
of  Jews  everywhere  struck  one  forcibly.  And  from  various  quar- 
ters there  began  to  spread  criticism  and  expressions  of  extreme 
disapproval  regarding  the  "Jewish  oppression."  Anti-Semitic 
attitudes  arose,  and  flate-ups,  which  later  led  to  active  operations, 
in  connection  with  measures  adopted  by  the  Soviet  regime  re- 
garding provisions  and  other  matters  which  touched  the  inter- 
ests of  the  peasants. 

The  surrounding  peasants  became  violently  dissatisfied  and 
antagonists  of  the  Soviet  rule.  This  secret  dissatisfaction  soon 
began  to  appear  on  the  surface,  and  they  gradually  poured  into 
the  organization  of  the  rebel  detachments  with  the  object  of 
moving  on  Uman  and  overthrowing  the  bolshevist  regime. 


UMAN:    KLIMENKO'S   GANGS  313 

The  first  swallow  on  the  rebel  horizon  was  the  Ukrainian  left 
social-revolutionary,  S.  Shtogrin.  Himself  a  native  of  Uman, 
having  studied  in  the  Uman  horticultural  school,  Shtogrin  was 
a  prominent  political  worker  and  was  popular  as  a  protector  of 
the  interests  of  the  peasants.  Shtogrin  demanded  that  the  Left 
Ukrainian  Social-revolutionaries  be  allowed  places  in  the  Execu- 
tive Committee,  and  that  the  Soviet  and  the  Executive  Commit- 
tee be  reorganized  generally  in  such  a  way  that  the  peasant 
element  should  be  put  in  a  majority.  Having  accomplished 
nothing,  Shtogrin  made  himself  the  leader  of  the  rebels  and 
began  to  agitate  against  the  Soviet  regime  and  to  prepare  for 
an  open  uprising.  But  this  agitation  was  not  only  anti-Soviet, 
but  also  anti-Jewish.  The  government  began  to  oppose  Shtogrin, 
arrested  him  and  shot  him.  When  he  was  examined  in  the 
Extraordinary  Committee,  accusations  were  also  brought  against 
him  that  he  was  carrying  on  an  anti-Semitic  agitation,  and  he 
was  asked  if  he  didn't  understand  that  this  might  lead  to  a 
Jewish  pogrom.  Shtogrin  declared  that  it  was  true  that  he  was 
urging  the  peasants  to  a  pogrom,  "for,"  said  he,  "it  was  impos- 
sible to  rouse  the  peasants  in  any  other  way." 

After  the  shooting  of  Shtogrin  the  wave  of  rebellion  grew 
more  violent.  The  peasants  of  nearly  all  the  surrounding  vil- 
lages arose  and  under  Klimenko's  leadership  approached  the 
city.  It  was  known  all  the  time  that  the  rebels  were  all  about 
the  city,  but  it  was  not  expected  that  they  would  attack  the  city 
itself.  Meanwhile  the  Soviet  regime  called  an  assembly  of  peas- 
ants, which  from  its  very  first  steps  took  up  opposition  to  the 
existing  government  and  carried  a  resolution  demanding  a  re- 
organization of  the  Soviet  and  the  Executive  Committee  and  a 
change  of  all  previous  policies.  The  government  replied  to  this 
by  dispersing  the  assembly.  This  occurred  on  Sunday,  May  11. 
The  dispersal  of  the  assembly  served  as  the  spark  which  lighted 
all  the  inflammable  material  that  had  been  heaped  up.  On  Mon- 
day, May  12,  in  the  morning,  the  rebels  entered  the  city,  and  on 
the  same  day  the  pogrom  began.  The  city  was  abandoned  by 
the  bolsheviki  without  resistance,  although  the  numbers  of  the 
rebels  were  considerably  less  than  the  numbers  of  the  effective 
Soviet  detachment  in  Uman.  The  pogrom,  as  was  said,  lasted 
through  the  12th,  13th,  and  14th  of  May.  The  looting  was  not 
of  an  intensive  nature;  few  things  were  stolen,  and  furniture 
was  not  destroyed.  They  took  away  mainly  money  and  valu- 
ables, and  searched  everywhere  for  weapons.  The  material 
losses,  according  to  the  inhabitants,  were  relatively  small,  per- 
haps a  million  in  all,  whereas,  as  the  people  of  Uman  say,  the 


3i4    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

8th  Soviet  regiment  (which  arrived  afterwards)  stole  incom- 
parably more— up  in  the  tens  of  millions. 

Separate  groups  and  whole  bands  of  rebels  went  around  from 
house  to  house  making  searches,  hunting  for  weapons,  with  the 
watchword:  "Give  us  the  Jew-Communists,"  and  at  the  same 
lime  looted  and  killed.  It  must  be  said  that  among  the  peasant 
rebels,  there  were  very  many  quiet  and  well-behaved  persons, 
who,  when  they  searched,  did  not  harm  anyone,  and  even  reas- 
sured the  people.  Much  greater  zeal  was  shown  in  the  pogrom 
by  local  bourgeois,  and  other  elements  which  adhered  to  the 
rebels  for  the  sake  of  pillaging  and  making  money.  The  killings 
in  the  overwhelming  majority  of  cases  were  of  the  character  of 
shootings.  In  rare  instances  disfigurements  took  place,  and  mur- 
ders that  were  more  outspoken  in  barbarity. 

Although  .they  were  searching  for  communists,  Christian  com- 
munists were  not  touched.  For  instance,  bandits  came  into  a 
certain  yard  searching  for  one  Kutzin,  who  had  once  had  a 
work-shop  and  was  now  serving  in  the  department  of  manu- 
factures of  the  Soviet  People's  Economy,  but  who  had  nothing 
in  common  with  the  communists.  They  were  looking  for  him 
because  a  Russian  neighbor  had  indicated  him  as  a  communist. 
But  he  was  not  found.  Hereupon  someone  said  that  the  treas- 
urer of  the  Extraordinary  Committee,  named  Pavlov,  lived  there. 
"Is  he  a  Jew?"  immediately  asked  the  bandits.  When  they  re- 
ceived the  answer,  "No,  he's  a  Russian,"  they  waved  their  hands 
and  said:  "Then  we  don't  want  him." 

During  the  pogrom  there  were  scenes  and  episodes  not  devoid 
of  interest.  The  student  R.  was  being  dragged  off  to  be  shot; 
they  demanded  of  him:  "Give  us  two  revolvers,"  and  no  argu- 
ments or  entreaties  of  his  parents  availed.  Along  with  him 
they  seized  two  other  young  men,  neighbors,  and  took  them 
away.  Suddenly  one  of  the  latter  fell  in  a  swoon,  and  there 
was  a  pause  in  the  procession;  the  bandits  left  them  in  peace 
and  were  on  the  point  of  going  away.  But  in  a  short  time 
they  came  back  after  the  student  R.  Finding  that  he  had  not 
fled  during  the  interruption,  and  that  he  was  ready  to  go  with 
them,  they  said  in  astonishment:  "Why,  he  didn't  run  away!" 
and  left  him  in  peace. 

Women  in  general  were  spared,  and  if  among  the  slain  there 
were  about  twenty  per  cent  of  the  female  sex,  this  is  explained 
by  the  fact  that  they  killed  such  women  as  tried  to  save  their 
husbands,  brothers,  etc.,  and  clung  to  the  bandits  with  entreaties 
and  cries. 

In  the  courtyard  of  Kahan's  house  were  shot  nine  men  and 


UMAN:    KLIMENKO'S   GANGS  315 

one  pregnant  young  woman  (Zhuravskaia-Kushnir),  who  was 
fired  upon  in  the  abdomen.  This  woman  rushed  to  save  her 
husband,  and  fell,  struck  down  by  the  bullet.  The  slayers  im- 
mediately began  to  express  regret  that  they  had  fired  upon  this 
beautiful  young  woman,  and  even  tried  to  save  her;  they  pro- 
posed to  her  mother  to  take  her  to  the  hospital  and  have  her 
treated.  One  in  particular  was  overwhelmed  by  the  voluntary 
and  heroic  death  of  this  woman.  In  many  houses  which  he 
entered  in  the  further  attacks,  he  gloomily  and  regretfully  said 
(in  Ukrainian)  :  "Ah,  we  killed  a  Jewess  in  the  Kahan  house; 
how  she  looked  at  me  before  she  died— I  shall  never,  never  for- 
get the  eyes  of  that  Jewess." 

It  is  hard  to  determine  the  exact  number  of  the  slain,  for  the 
dead  were  collected  by  non-Jews  and  buried  in  one  common 
grave.  Interesting  was  the  superstitious  fear  of  their  victims 
manifested  by  the  pogromists.  They  began  to  bury  the  dead  on 
Wednesday,  May  14.  The  Jews  were  not  yet  venturing  to  go 
out  of  the  houses ;  murders  were  still  going  on  in  the  city.  The 
authorities  took  the  initiative  in  the  matter  of  removing  the 
corpses.  Several  days  later,  when  the  Jews  were  allowed  to 
appear  on  the  streets,  the  relatives  of  the  dead  went  to  the 
cemetery  to  open  the  common  grave  and  transfer  the  bodies  to 
separate  graves.  But  a  throng  of  bourgeois  (mostly  participants 
in  the  pogrom)  blocked  the  way  and  declared  that  they  would 
not  let  them  go  to  the  cemetery  and  disturb  the  corpses.  They 
openly  explained  their  conduct  by  fear  of  their  victims.  "You 
can't  disturb  them,  or  they  will  be  angry  and  avenge  themselves 
on  us,"  they  said.  The  Jews  had  to  return  to  the  city  without 
accomplishing  anything;  and  the  grave  remained  unopened.  It 
is  believed  that  the  number  of  the  killed  was  three  to  four 
hundred. 

There  were  many  cases  of  Jews  whom  Christians  concealed  in 
their  homes.  For  instance  a  priest  named  Nikolsky,  well-known 
as  a  black-hundreder,  also  concealed  Jews  and  helped  them. 
But  in  general  the  average  Russian  intellectuals  were  hostile  in 
their  attitude  and  refused  refuge.  Many  were  very  content  with 
the  pogrom  and  among  some  parts  of  the  population  there  was 
even  exultation.  This  cannot  at  all  be  said  regarding  the  Ukrain- 
ians, that  is  the  nationalistically  inclined  Ukrainian  population 
of  Uman,  who  behaved  themselves  very  well  and  sympathetic- 
ally to  the  Jews.  As  one  native  of  Uman  said,  "The  Ukrainians 
of  Umari  are  in  this  respect  above  all  praise." 

Some  days  after  the  pogrom  some  one  circulated  the  rumor 


316    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

that  the  Jews  had  poisoned  the  water  at  the  tank-house,  and 
that  they  were  giving  out  poisoned  water.  Even  such  persons 
as  Nagorny,  the  director  of  the  female  gymnasium,  circulated 
this  rumor.  It  was  necessary  to  name  a  commission  of  physi- 
cians, which  published  a  proclamation  to  the  inhabitants  saying 
that  the  water  was  drinkable. 

On  Friday,  May  16,  the  teachers  of  religion  in  the  educational 
institutions  published  an  address  to  the  Christian  population, 
adjuring  them  not  to  shed  any  more  Jewish  blood  and  to  stop 
the  pogrom. 

Two  cases  are  known  of  the  killing  of  Christians.  The 
sailor  Straigorodsky  was  killed.  He  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
traveling  around  at  the  head  of  a  detachment  through  the  vil- 
lages, establishing  "Kombeds"  (Committees  of  the  Poor),  quell- 
ing the  peasants,  levying  requisitions,  and  in  general  strengthen- 
ing the  Soviet  rule.  There  was  personal  animosity  against  him. 
Davidenko  (pseudonym  Chalai)  was  also  killed. 

The  rebels  remained  about  ten  days  in  Uman.  They  organized 
a  government  in  the  city,  issued  a  newspaper  and  published  proc- 
lamations. Under  pressure  from  Soviet  forces  the  rebels  left 
Uman  and  scattered  about  the  surrounding  country.  Now  the 
Soviet  regime  in  Uman  is  organized  on  different  principles.  The 
majority  of  the  places  in  the  Executive  Committee  are  left  to 
the  peasants;  many  of  the  demands  previously  presented  by  the 
representatives  of  the  rebels  have  been  satisfied.  The  number 
of  Jews  in  responsible  positions  is  now  notably  less. 

II.    Report  of  an  Assembly  of  Party  Workers  and  People  in, 

Public  Life  in  the  City  of  Uman,  called  by   the  Regional 

Director  of  the  Head  Mission  of  the  Russian  Society  of 

the  Red  Cross,  on  the  Question  of  the  Course  and 

Proportions  of  Local  Pogroms 

At  the  assembly  Comrade  Kh.  D.  Proskurovsky  read  the  fol- 
lowing statement: 

UMAN  is  a  cantonal  capital  in  the  government  of  Kiev,  with 
a  population  of  approximately  sixty  to  sixty-five  thousand.  Of 
these,  in  approximate  figures,  thirty-five  to  forty  thousand  are 
Jews,  twenty  to  twenty-two  thousand  Ukrainians  and  Russians, 
and  about  three  thousand  Poles.  The  Jews  constitute  an  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  population,  occupying  the  central 
streets  and  having  entirely  surrounded  the  central  district,  ex- 
cept for  some  small  streets  where  live  the  well-to-do  Polish 
inhabitants,  the  Ukrainian-Russian  officialdom,  and  in  general 


UMAN  317 

the  local  so-called  Christian  aristocracy.  The  suburbs  are  settled 
in  an  overwhelming  majority  by  petty  bourgeois.  The  Jewish 
population  of  Uman  lived  principally  by  small  handicrafts  and 
trade.  The  percentage  of  the  liberal  professions  was  rather 
large:  physicians,  lawyers,  midwives,  surgeons,  etc.;  middlemen 
in  various  commercial  operations,  so-called  brokers,  especially 
numerous  those  dealing  in  grain  and  various  food-products ;  but 
there  was  also  a  considerable  percentage  of  people  living  by 
harder  labor;  draymen,  porters,  water-carriers,  sawyers,  common 
laborers,  etc.  The  larger  part  of  the  Jewish  population  lived 
in  poverty  and  want.  Exceptional  were  some  tens  of  wealthy 
men,  hundreds  of  men  of  means,  a  thousand  or  two  of  people 
in  moderate  circumstances,  who  had  more  or  less  constant  earn- 
ings. The  Ukrainians  and  Russians  supplied  the  officials  and 
employees  in  all  state  institutions ;  they  were  the  ruling,  govern- 
ing class.  The  mass  of  Christians  lived  in  the  suburbs;  their 
occupations  were  largely  (1)  traffic  in  food  products  and  pro- 
visions, (2)  production  and  sale  of  leather  wares,  (3)  service 
(house-porters,  domestic  servants,  firemen,  policemen,  wardens, 
etc.),  work  in  the  factories  and  workshops,  and  in  the  building 
trades,  as  pavers,  plasterers,  etc.  The  most  of  them  owned 
property  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city:  small  houses,  barns,  small 
gardens,  etc.  The  Polish  population  was  the  best  provided  for 
in  the  city,  and  consisted  of  landowners,  professors,  managers  of 
estates,  directors  of  sugar  factories,  the  higher  and  lower  per- 
sonnel of  agricultural-economic  undertakings  and  factories,  law- 
yers, physicians,  officials,  employees  of  the  Polish  unions  and 
institutions,  and  some  working  at  lower  forms  of  service.  Dur- 
ing the  war  years  the  population  greatly  increased,  as  a  result  of 
the  influx  of  refugees,  migration  from  the  villages  to  the  city, 
and  the  natural  increase  of  population.  Mutual  interrelations 
had  really  never  been  good,  especially  since  1902-03,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  persecution  of  the  Jews  for  their  "revolutionary 
ideas,"  and  the  events  of  October,  1905,  when  a  mob  in  Uman, 
with  the  sympathy  of  the  Christian  officialdom  and  clergy,  per- 
petrated a  Jewish  pogrom,  in  which  three  Jews  fell  victims,  and 
the  property  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants  was  partly  plundered. 
The  years  from  1905  to  1917  were  years  of  "bad  peace"  and 
ill-concealed  antagonism  in  the  Christian  population  against  the 
Jews.  The  war  of  1914  redoubled  this  antagonism,  and  the 
Jewish  population  felt  that  in  the  completion  of  the  war  and  in 
the  demobilization  great  misfortunes  would  appear  for  it.  The 
revolution  of  1917  at  first  tended  to  better  relations,  but  later 
the  general  aggravation  of  the  economic  situation,  the  struggle 


3i8    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

for  power,  the  international  conflict,  the  separation  of  Ukraine 
from  Russia,  etc.,  gradually  made  worse  and  more  difficult  the 
position  of  the  Jewish  population,  which  invariably  suffered  se- 
verely, without  regard  to  which  elements  conquered  or  met  de- 
feat. '  (See  Appendix  1.)  The  transfer  of  power  from  the 
Hetman  to  the  Directory  had  no  good  effects  in  Uman.  The 
Jewish  masses  sympathized  with  the  change,  but  they  began  to 
observe,  in  the  course  of  time,  a  suspicious  attitude  towards 
themselves,  and  instances  of  malevolence,  oppression,  persecu- 
tion, and  at  last  downright  baiting.  The  authorities  explained 
this  (if  they  explained  it  at  all)  by  saying  that  among  the  bolshe- 
viks— if  not  the  local  ones,  then  the  ones  at  a  distance — the  ma- 
jority were  Jews.  The  attitude  towards  the  Jews  on  the  part 
of  all  the  authorities  in  the  last  days  of  the  Directory  was  full 
of  hate,  desire  to  "avenge,"  to  oppress,  etc.  (See  Appendix  2.) 
The  Gaidamaks  tormented  the  Jews  on  the  streets,  beat  them, 
plundered  them  with  the  most  complete  impunity.  There  were 
isolated  cases  of  murders  in  the  city  and  massacres  in  the  sur- 
rounding places  (e.g.  in  Kristinovka,  where  about  five  Jews 
were  cut  down  and  thrown  in  the  way  of  a  train).  One  Jew 
the  Gaidamaks  arrested  on  the  street  on  some  invented  pretext, 
and  took  him  to  the  barracks,  where  they  tortured  him  to  death, 
breaking  his  arms  and  legs,  and  threw  him  naked  into  the  sewer. 
In  general,  during  the  last  days,  the  Jewish  population  was  in 
a  constant  nightmare  of  baiting  and  in  fear  of  an  open  attack 
and  massacre  on  the  part  of  the  Gaidamaks.  But  through  the 
efforts  of  local  men  in  public  life  and  agents  of  the  Council, 
among  whom  were  many  Christians,  and  by  the  payment  of  a 
contribution  (out  of  three  millions  imposed  more  than  a  million 
and  a  half  was  paid),  they  succeeded  in  averting  a  pogrom  and 
massacre. 

On  March  11,  by  night,  under  pressure  of  the  approaching 
Soviet  guerrilla  detachments,  the  forces  of  the  Directory  evacu- 
ated Uman,  departing  for  Kristinovka,  the  nearest  junction- 
station  on  the  railroad.  A  military  organization  consisting 
principally  of  young  Jews  immediately  took  upon  itself  the  guard- 
ing of  the  town.  It  had  organized  illegally  during  the  last  month 
of  the  regime  of  the  Directory.  On  the  morning  of  March  12 
the  Soviet  guerrilla  detachments  entered  the  town,  putting  an 
end  to  the  nightmare-like  situation  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants, 
who  had  been  fearing  a  massacre.  However,  immediately  upon 
the  entrance  into  the  city  of  the  guerrilla  forces,  there  began 
pillaging  of  the  population  (mostly  Jews),  in  which  both  the 
prisoners  whom  the  guerrilla  forces  had  released  from  prison, 


UMAN  319 

and  these  forces  themselves  participated.  The  robberies  continued 
for  two  or  three  days  and  then  quieted  down,  with  the  depart- 
ure of  that  detachment  and  its  replacement  by  another  more 
disciplined  one,  parts  of  which  kept  guard  along  with  the  city 
formation.  On  March  17  the  Soviet  detachment  and  the  Soviet 
organs  fled  from  Uman  under  pressure  from  the  Gaidamaks, 
who  had  broken  through  the  front  and  who  entered  Uman  to 
the  number  of  100.  The  Jewish  population  had  a  terrible  panic, 
expecting  inevitable  ruin  (see  Appendix  3).  However,  the  Coun- 
cilmen,  mostly  Ukrainians,  succeeded  in  dissuading  the  com- 
mander of  the  Gaidamak  detachment,  Diachenko,  from  his  in- 
tention. Besides,  the  situation  was  saved  by  the  contribution  of 
a  large  number  of  boots,  clothing,  and  some  other  valuables. 

On  March  22  the  Soviet  guerrilla  detachment,  which  had  taken 
Uman  in  the  first  place,  again  entered  the  city.  Again,  and  in 
still  larger  measure,  pillaging  of  the  inhabitants  was  resumed, 
mostly  of  the  Jews, — performed  by  the  guerrilla  soldiers,  among 
whom  were  many  professional  thieves,  robbers,  and  other  crimi- 
nals well  known  in  Uman,  who  had  got  out  of  prison  and 
entered  this  regiment  (the  8th  Ukrainian  Soviet  regiment). 
However,  there  was  no  personal  violence.  Upon  this  followed  a 
period  of  comparative  quiet,  when  the  plundering  detachments 
departed  and  the  city  remained  under  the  protection  of  the  local 
guards.  The  lives  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants  were  out  of  danger 
for  a  period  of  a  month  or  a  month  and  a  half.  The  Soviet 
regime  imposed  upon  the  city  a  contribution  of  fifteen  millions 
and  a  requisition  of  clothing,  and  a  number  of  very  considerable 
other  requisitions,  which  were  mostly  not  paid.  Some  of  the 
rich  and  thrifty  Jewish  inhabitants  were  arrested,  some  were  set 
at  various  public  works  (sweeping  the  streets,  etc.).  This  time 
marked  the  beginning  of  pronounced  anti-Soviet  agitation, 
carried  on  by  its  foes  among  the  Christian  population,  mostly 
the  Ukrainian-Russian  officialdom,  the  clergy  and  bourgeoisie 
of  the  suburbs.  The  chief  motives  of  this  agitation  were  anti- 
Semitic.  Thus,  for  example,  among  the  backward  and  ignorant 
masses  rumors  were  spread  to  the  effect  that  all  the  power  be- 
longed to  the  Jews,  that  they  had  closed  orthodox  churches  and 
turned  them  into  stables,  that  the  bolsheviki  were  almost  or  quite 
exclusively  Jews,  that  they  were  robbing  the  petty  bourgeois  of 
their  property,  and  a  series  of  provocatory  and  deceitful  reports, 
rumors  and  inventions.  At  the  same  time  the  city  witnessed  an 
increase  in  the  cost  of  living  and  unemployment,  and  the  gen- 
eral economic  crisis  grew  worse.  The  actions  of  the  bolsheviki, 
among  whom  were  many  narrow  and  ignorant  people,  the  work 


320    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  the  Extraordinary  Committee,  the  confiscations,  requisitions, 
and  a  number  of  over-harsh  measures  affecting  various  depart- 
ments of  life,  all  these  disconcerted  and  angered  the  ignorant 
mass  of  the  suburban  bourgeoisie,  which  had  always  been  a 
willing  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  local  clergy,  the  official- 
dom, and  the  military  and  commercial  elements.  Such  was  the 
situation  in  the  city.  In  the  country  there  was  going  on  an 
organization  of  an  uprising  against  the  Soviet  regime,  carried 
on  by  the  agents  of  the  Directory  and  by  peasants  and  country 
intellectuals  in  general,  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  were 
discontented  with  the  Soviet  government.  At  the  same  time  in 
the  ranks  of  the  Uman  garrison  and  the  Extraordinary  Commit- 
tee's detachment  an  agitation  was  carried  on  by  Ukrainian  Left 
Social  Revolutionaries,  using  anti-Semitism  as  their  chief  motive. 
The  heads  of  this  agitation  were  the  Ukrainian  Left  Social  Revo- 
lutionaries Shtogrin  and  Klimenko.  In  the  middle  of  April  they 
raised  an  armed  revolt  of  the  garrison,  arrested  the  Executive 
Committee,  replaced  the  Jews,  forced  out  the  military  commis- 
sar of  the  government  (gubernia),  a  Jew,  and  the  military  com- 
mandant, and  disarmed  a  company  of  (military)  instructors 
which  was  loyal  to  the  Soviet.  However,  disorganization  began 
within  their  own  ranks.  A  punitive  detachment  came  from  Vin- 
nitza  and  disarmed  the  entire  garrison,  and  re-established  order. 
Shtogrin  was  arrested,  but  escaped,  and  fled  with  Klimenko  into 
the  country,  where  by  their  agitation  they  soon  set  all  the 
country  districts  of  the  region  of  Uman  against  the  Soviet 
regime.  The  principal  card  of  this  agitation  was  invariably  the 
argument  that  the  power  over  the  people  had  been  seized  by 
"strangers,"  "newcomers,"  and  more  precisely,  Jews.  The  Soviet 
detachments  began  to  go  out  into  the  villages  to  "pacify"  them, 
which  exasperated  the  peasants  against  them  still  more.  Early 
in  May  one  of  the  punitive  Soviet  detachment?  captured  Shtogrin, 
the  leader  of  the  rebels,  in  a  fight.  He  was  shot  along  with 
others  at  Uman.  This  infuriated  the  peasants,  since  Shtogrin 
and  all  those  who  were  executed  were  very  well  known  to  all. 
The  rebellions  became  constant  in  the  district,  and  it  began  to 
be  evident  that  the  weak  Soviet  detachment  would  not  be  able 
to  cope  with  the  numerous  armed  rebels.  The  local  organs  of 
government  applied  to  their  superiors  for  help,  but  the  latter 
were  not  in  a  position  to  help  with  the  considerable  military 
forces  that  were  needed.  Around  the  tenth  of  May  Grigoriev's 
uprising  began,  and  the  rebels  of  the  Uman  district  immediately 
adhered  to  it,  when  they  received  the  well-known  anti-Semitic 
manifesto  ("Universal")  of  Grigoriev.  At  this  time  the  rebel- 


UMAN  321 

lious  and  anti-Soviet,  and  likewise  anti-Semitic,  feelings  in  the 
villages  and  the  city  reached  tremendous  proportions.  (Appen- 
dix 4.)  .  The  local  Soviet  detachments,  few  in  numbers  and 
partly  disorganized,  proved  unable  to  withstand  the  attack  of 
the  rebels,  who  surrounded  Uman  in  a  ring.  After  some  fight- 
ing they  abandoned  the  town,  taking  with  them  the  Soviet  insti- 
tutions and  almost  all  the  Soviet  workers.  The  train  left  on  the 
morning  of  May  12,  before  the  eyes  of  the  rebels  who  had  taken 
their  positions  there,  and  who  fired  on  the  train  as  it  left  from 
a  distance  of  some  paces.  Immediately  upon  the  departure  of 
the  train  with  the  Soviet  garrison,  the  rebels  rushed  into  the 
defenseless  town  from  all  roads  leading  to  it.  (Appendix  5.) 
The  principal  crowd  of  them  entered  from  the  direction  of  the 
station  about  11  A.M.,  May  12.  The  rebels,  mostly  on  horse- 
back, and  firing  uninterruptedly,  rushed  to  the  locations  of  the 
Soviet  military  institutions,  the  Executive  Committee,  etc.,  where 
they  cut  the  telephone  lines,  and  seized  weapons,  if  any  were 
found.  The  Jewish  population  in  a  panic  hid  in  their  houses, 
garrets,  and  cellars.  Many  found  refuge  with  acquaintances 
among  the  Christian  intellectuals,  thanks  to  which  they  escaped 
being  robbed,  beaten  or  murdered.  As  many  as  twenty  or  thirty 
cases  are  known  of  Christians  who  concealed  Jews  and  actively 
or  passively  took  their  part.  There  were  about  five  cases  in 
which  Christians,  with  danger  to  themselves,  took  the  part  of 
Jews  and  saved  them  from  ruin  or  death.  Finding  no  "com- 
munists" in  the  public  institutions  where  they  looked  for  them, 
the  peasants  who  entered  first  began  to  rush  into  private  dwell- 
ings, mainly  of  Jews,  asking  for  "communists."  The  most  of 
the  eyewitnesses  declare  that  in  these  dwellings  where  the  vil- 
lage peasants  a'ppeared  they  only  hunted  for  arms  and  "com- 
munists," not  pillaging  or  killing  anyone.  This  was,  however, 
only  up  to  four  or  five  o'clock  on  May  12.  By  that  time  the 
local  petty  bourgeois  from  the  suburbs  had  had  time  to  arm 
themselves,  with  arms  which  had  partly  been  previously  hidden, 
partly  just  procured.  They  joined  the  rebels;  and  also  thieves, 
robbers,  and  murderers,  who  had  taken  the  opportunity  to  escape 
from  prison  and  were  enjoying  freedom.  These  elements  had 
always  been  anti-Semitic  and  quite  inclined  to  plunder  Jewish 
property.  By  their  participation  in  the  uprising  they  immediately 
changed  the  whole  aspect  of  what  had  happened  before  their 
interference,  that  is  before  5  o'clock.  The  Christian  officials, 
clergy,  former  officers,  and  all  the  enemies  of  the  Jews  were  not 
slow  in  carrying  on  a  violent  anti-Semitic  agitation  amiong  the 
peasants,  bourgeoisie,  and  criminals;  and  under  this  influence 


322    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  behavior  of  the  crowds  which  had  entered  the  city,  towards 
the  Jews,  changed  sharply  for  the  worse.  Nevertheless  the  gen- 
uine village  peasantry  spilled  less  blood  than  the  others,  and 
among  them  there  were  occasionally  found  protectors  of  the 
innocent.  Finally,  many  Jews  bought  their  lives  from  the  peas- 
ants with  money.  The  cutting  down  and  shooting  was  mostly 
done  by  gypsies,  who  had  come  in  with  the  rebels,  by  petty 
bourgeois  of  the  city,  living  in  the  suburbs,  and  by  criminals; 
also  by  peasants  from  the  village  of  Starye  Babany,  of  which 
Shtogrin  was  a  native — Shtogrin  who  had  been  shot  for  organ- 
izing military  and  peasant  uprisings  against  the  Soviet  regime. 
The  usual  picture  of  pillaging  and  killing  was  as  follows.  Sepa- 
rate bands  scattered  over  the  city  and  visited  dwellings  in 
bunches,  searching  and  inspecting  people  and  documents,  looking 
for  weapons  and  communists.  Except  for  the  cases  in  which 
the  searches  were  conducted  by  rebels  with  principles,  or  by 
direction  of  the  rebel  authorities,  the  searches  invariably  ended 
in  open  looting  and  carrying  off  of  the  Jews'  property  and  vari- 
ous goods,  with  beatings  and  murders.  In  some  cases  the  havoc 
began  with  the  declaration  that  they  had  come  to  look  for  "com- 
munists" and  weapons ;  in  others,  with  the  accusation  that  com- 
munists and  others  were  hidden  on  the  premises.  In  the  majority 
of  cases  the  bandits  rushed  in,  demanding  money,  and  torturing 
and  killing  before  or  after  getting  the  money.  In  some  instances 
the  bandits,  guided  by  local  criminals,  went  directly  to  the 
homes  (well  known  to  the  latter)  of  rich  and  well-to-do  Jews, 
where  without  any  pretext  or  with  a  provocatory  pretext  they 
plundered  and  murdered.  In  many  places  the  bandits  "planted" 
weapons,  which  resulted  in  the  payment  to  them  of  large  money 
ransoms,  or  caused  the  shooting  of  all  who  were  found  in  the 
dwelling  (see  Appendix  6).  On  the  first  day  the  number  of 
Jews  killed  amounted  to  between  30  and  60  people.  In  the 
evening  the  pogrom  and  the  murders  quieted  down.  The  Jewish 
men  arrested  in  their  homes,  numbering  close  to  a  hundred,  were 
taken  away  to  the  quarters  of  the  Extraordinary  Committee, 
which  the  rebels  had  seized;  some  to  headquarters  or  to  prison. 
On  the  morning  of  the  next  day  (the  13th)  Proclamation  No.  1 
was  issued  in  the  city,  signed  by  Klimenko  as  "Chief  in 
Command  of  the  Insurgent  Troops  of  the  region  of  Uman."  In 
this  it  was  declared  that  the  Jewish  power  was  overthrown,  and 
the  insurgents  were  called  upon  not  to  serve  "Jewish  agents  and 
provocators."  In  the  morning  the  pogrom  flared  up  again 
with  renewed  force,  with  arrests  of  Jewish  men,  and  shooting 
of  them  with  orders  and  without  orders,  in  solitude  in  their 


UMAN:    KLIMENKO'S   GANGS  323 

homes,  or  in  groups  outside  the  city.  All  day  long  were  heard 
the  sounds  of  isolated  shots  and  volleys,  killing  Jews,  and  the 
sound  of  church-bells  in  the  city  and  the  suburbs.  On  the  third 
day  of  the  massacre,  under  the  leadership  of  the  orthodox  clergy 
of  the  city,  there  took  place  a  procession  with  banners,  in  which 
the  worshippers  passed  by  bodies  of  Jews  freshly  shot  or  slain 
with  the  sword.  The  pogrom  and  massacre  continued  all  day. 
and  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  Jews  were  killed.  At 
this  time  the  insurgent  government  was  being  formed,  with  a 
military  staff  and  headquarters,  and  a  series  of  proclamations 
and  appeals  to  the  population  were  issued.  In  the  second  proc- 
lamation it  was  again  stated  that  "the  Jewish  power  is  over- 
thrown." In  the  evening  the  pogrom  and  massacre  quieted 
down ;  the  bodies  of  the  tortured  victims  remained  lying  where 
death  had  overtaken  them.  All  the  Jewish  inhabitants  that  could 
do  so  hid  and  spent  the  night  in  cellars,  garrets,  barns  and  pits, 
or  in  Christian  homes,  wherever  the  owner  admitted  them.  The 
pogrom  and  massacre  began  again  on  the  morning  of  May  14, 
and  the  system  of  plundering  and  shooting  continued  to  be 
practised  as  on  the  preceding  days.  On  this  day  another  150 
people  or  thereabouts  were  killed.  In  the  evening  of  the  same 
day  the  massacre  stopped  and  was  not  again  renewed  during  the 
stay  of  the  rebels  in  the  city.  (Appendix  7.)  The  pogrom  also 
stopped  as  a  mass  manifestation  but  numerous  individual  cases 
of  looting  continued  throughout  the  entire  time  of  their  stay. 
On  the  third  and  fourth  days  Klimenko,  ataman  of  the  rebels, 
granted  permission  to  the  Jews  to  bury  the  dead.  At  the  same 
time,  by  his  orders,  the  rebels  began  to  drive  the  Jews  to 
collect  the  corpses  of  the  slain,  in  the  houses  and  on  the  streets. 
The  bodies  were  thrown  into  carts  and  carried  to  the  Jewish 
cemetery,  where  they  were  buried  in  three  great  common  ditches. 
The  Jews  were  not  allowed  to  dig  individual  graves;  they  were 
ordered  to  lay  them  away  quickly  in  the  common  ditches.  When 
the  herded  Jews,  among  whom  were  many  fathers,  mothers, 
wives,  brothers,  sisters,  and  children  of  the  dead,  were  digging 
the  graves,  weeping,  the  rebels  laughed  at  them  and  made  fun  of 
them  in  every  way,  taunted  them,  would  not  allow  the  women 
to  cry,  and  threatened  them  with  their  weapons.  Groups  of 
rebels,  passing  by  the  cemetery,  and  seeing  the  burial,  started 
singing  merry  songs.  However,  some  Christians,  especially 
women,  wept  at  the  sight  of  the  enormous  pile  of  corpses.  The 
total  number  of  Jews  slain  amounted  to  approximately  300  to 
400  people,  including  men  from  the  age  of  18  to  95,  and  women, 
and  children  under  18.  Special  attention  is  called  to  the  numer- 


324    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

ous  cases  of  the  killing  of  entire  families,  for  example,  of  the 
four  members  of  the  Tkachuk  family  (Zagorodnaya  St.)  ;  two 
sons  and  son-in-law  Ruthauser;  father,  two  sons,  and  son-in-law 
Dergun;  husband  and  wife  Vygodman;  father  and  two  sons 
Golikhov;  son,  nephew,  and  two  grandsons  Faitelson,  and  many 
others.  There  was  the  case  of  the  murder  of  the  entire  family 
of  Nukhim  Bogdanis,  in  which  were  an  old  man  of  95,  his  son- 
in-law,  daughter,  grandson,  and  great-grandson.  There  were 
cases  of  deliberate  torture  and  barbarous  maltreatment,  as,  e.g., 
the  cutting  off  of  hands,  feet,  ears,  nose,  breasts  of  women,  etc. 
(Appendix  7a.) 

All  the  bodies  were  found  naked  or  half  naked.  On  Great 
Fountain  Street  in  the  Poliak  house  there  was  a  case  where  the 
bandits  killed  the  husband  and  father  of  a  woman  who  tried 
to  shield  them  with  her  own  body.  She  herself  was  thereby 
wounded  in  the  breast  with  a  bullet.  This  woman  was  pregnant 
and  on  the  next  day  brought  forth  a  child,  while  on  the  floor 
of  the  dwelling  lay  the  bodies  of  three  slain,  including  her  hus- 
band and  father.  A  certain  number  of  cases  of  violations  of 
women  were  recorded,  of  which  exact  information  cannot 
be  given.  A  large  number  of  cases  are  reported  where  in  one 
half  of  a  house,  inhabited  by  Jews,  havoc  and  murder  reigned, 
while  the  inhabitants  of  the  other  half,  Christians,  continued  to 
live  peacefully,  after  hanging  crosses  on  their  walls  and  placing 
saints'  images  in  the  windows.  (Appendix  8.)  At  the  same 
time,  in  the  opinion  of  most  of  the  victimized  Jews,  it  was 
sometimes  enough  that  a  Christian  should  merely  give  assurance 
that  he  knew  the  Jews  in  question  to  be  decent  and  honorable 
people,  and  the  bandits  would  not  harm  anyone.  A  number  of 
cases  are  recorded  in  which  conscientious  Christians  concealed 
Jews  in  their  homes  or  interceded  for  them,  and  thereby  saved 
them  from  ruin  and  death.  On  the  Torgovaya  Street  a  Christian 
Fofitzer,  saved  a  whole  street  by  his  interference ;  while  in  other 
cases  officials  and  "intellectuals"  looked  with  perfect  unconcern 
upon  scenes  of  destruction  and  murder  of  Jews  living  next  door 
to  them,  and  made  no  attempts  whatever  to  intervene  or  speak 
so  much  as  a  word  in  defense.  On  the  contrary,  in  some  cases 
there  were  exhibitions  of  malicious  joy,  of  closing  the  doors  upon 
people  entreating  protection  (Appendix  10)  or  of  direct  incite- 
ment against  their  Jewish  neighbors  (Appendix  11).  Out  of  a 
number  of  cases  of  complete  moral  depravity  it  is  worth  while 
to  quote  the  following,  which  are  completely  verified : 

Beyond  Krasny  Krest,  in  the  fields,  five  Jews  were  shot,  one  of 
whom,  an  old  man  with  white  beard,  was  not  killed  at  once,  but 


UMAN:    THE    MASSACRE  325 

lay  a  long  time  in  acute  agony.  This  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  Christian  children  of  the  neighborhood,  who  collected  and 
began  to  stone  him  to  death. — Not  far  from  there  the  bandits 
also  shot  a  certain  Jew,  who  fell  dead.  They  nevertheless  picked 
him  up  and  fastened  his  body  to  the  fence,  with  cords,  and  then 
for  a  long  time  amused  themselves  with  firing  at  this  human 
target. — The  bodies  of  many  Jews  slain  have  not  even  yet  been 
brought  to  light,  since  many  were  buried  by  the  bandits  in  the 
places  where  they  were  shot — outside  the  town,  in  ravines,  fields, 
pits,  etc.  A  week  after  the  pogrom,  twenty-eight  bodies  which 
had  been  insufficiently  interred  somewhere  not  far  from  Uman 
were  uncovered;  they  lay  near  the  road,  and  dogs  began  to 
attack  them.  Some  of  the  bourgeoisie,  fearing  infection,  sta- 
tioned guards  there,  who  drove  the  dogs  away  from  the  Jewish 
corpses  with  sticks.  (Appendix  12.)  The  massacre  was  sus- 
pended towards  evening  on  May  14,  and  the  next  day  the  in- 
surgent newspaper  printed  appeals  to  the  population,  say- 
ing that  the  perpetration  of  pogroms  was  inadmissible, 
that  it  was  a  disgrace  to  the  cause  of  freedom,  etc.  Proc- 
lamations were  also  printed  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Cyril  and 
Methodius,  and  likewise  orders  from  Klimenko,  threatening  to 
shoot  those  who  incited  to  further  pogroms.  The  agitation 
against  pogroms  and  their  inciter,  whom  the  rebel  newspaper 
identified  as  a  certain  local  priest  (Nikolsky)  and  the  local 
tsarist  officials,  was  carried  on  by  it  very  zealously.  The  same 
newspaper  was  eager  to  show  that  those  responsible  for  the 
pogrom  were  only  the  petty  bourgeois  of  the  city,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  suburb  Lysaia  Gora,  and  the  offscourings  of  the 
town,  but  not  the  insurgent  peasants.  (Appendix  13.) 

With  the  end  of  the  massacre  and  of  pillaging  en  masse,  the 
situation  of  the  Jewish  population  improved  only  relatively. 
Hounding  and  persecution  of  them  in  very  many  ways  did  not 
cease  all  the  time  that  the  rebels  were  on  the  ground.  The  most 
oppressive  persecution  of  all  was  the  refusal  of  the  peasants 
and  the  town  merchants  to  sell  anything  whatsoever,  and  espe- 
cially foodstuffs.  Bread  immediately  rose  from  three  rubles  to 
twelve  or  fifteen  rubles  per  pound.  The  rebel  peasants  said 
that  they  would  starve  the  Jews  to  death.  The  suburbanites  and 
the  bourgeois  living  near  the  city  kept  urging  the  peasants  not 
to  sell  the  Jews  anything;  they  themselves  bought  the  peasants' 
products  for  a  song  and  sold  them  at  profiteers'  prices.  They 
also  spread  rumors  that  the  Jews  had  poisoned  wells,  etc.,  and 
so  made  the  peasants  afraid  to  go  to  markets  and  bring  their 
products  there.  The  malice  against  the  Jews  expressed  itself 


326    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

in  this  way,  that  the  breadstuffs  which  they  occasionally  bought 
from  good  peasants  were  taken  away  from  them,  and  they  were 
at  the  same  time  beaten  and  arrested.  Very  many  such  cases 
are  recorded.  There  were  cases  where  people  refused  to  sell 
bread  at  the  markets  to  Christian  women  who  looked  like  Jews. 

At  the  same  time  some  of  Klimenko's  staff  and  of  the  rebels 
were  angry  at  him  because  he  forbade  further  pogroms  and 
massacre  of  the  Jews,  and  openly  accused  him  of  having  "sold 
out  to  the  Jews."  At  the  assembly  of  villages  which  was  called 
by  the  rebels  the  control  passed  into  the  hands  not  of  the  Left 
Social  Revolutionaries,  to  which  Klimenko  was  reckoned,  but 
of  the  partizans  of  the  Directory,  such  as  Doroshenko,  Novak 
and  others.  At  the  assembly  many  Ukrainians  delivered  speeches 
against  the  pogrom  and  in  defense  of  the  Jews,  and  the  assem- 
bly received  and  listened  to  a  Jewish  delegation  which  pre- 
sented itself.  Under  the  influence  of  these  speeches,  the 
assembly  took  a  stand  against  the  pogrom  and  in  opposition  to 
the  town  bourgeoisie,  clergy,  and  officialdom,  which  classes  were 
represented  by  the  speakers  at  the  assembly  as  the  sole  inciters 
to  the  pogrom.  In  the  opinion  of  the  speakers,  the  peasantry 
had  taken  no  part  whatever  in  the  pogrom  and  the  massacre, 
exception  being  made  of  individual  cases  of  provocatory  agita- 
tion by  town  black-hundreders,  who  had  nothing  in  common  with 
the  objects  of  the  peasant  uprising.  Out  of  the  considerable 
number  of  Jews  killed  there  has  not  been  shown  to  be  a  single 
communist.  Two  communists  were  killed  without  trial  or  order, 
but  both  of  them  were  Ukrainian  Christians— Makar  David- 
enko  and  Anani  Straigorodsky.  At  the  same  time  it  was 
reliably  known  that  the  communist  Krasny,  an  Ukrainian,  presi- 
dent of  the  Uman  Executive  Committee,  who  was  sick  abed, 
was  visited  several  times  by  the  leaders  of  the  uprising  (the 
commander  in  chief  Klimenko,  the  former  cantonal  commissar 
of  the  Directory,  Novak,  and  others),  who  talked  with  him 
peacefully  and  protected  him  from  the  possibility  of  attacks  on 
his  life,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Krasny  had  not  abandoned  his 
communistic  views.  On  the  other  hand  there  were  cases  of 
renegades,  cases  in  which  well-known  Soviet  officials  and  a 
certain  number  of  private  workmen  who  had  gone  with  the 
Soviet  regime  went  over  to  the  side  of  the  rebels,  the  Extraor- 
dinary Committee,  and  the  Directory.  To  do  this  all  that  was 
needed  was,  as  they  put  it  in  Uman,  to  "turn  the  visor";  the 
rebels  entered  Uman  with  the  visors  of  their  caps  turned  back- 
ward, wearing  them  thus  as  a  rebel  mark. 

The  rebels  remained  in  Uman  from  May  12  to  May  21  inclus- 


UMAN:     THE    MASSACRE  327 

ive.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  this  regime  in  its  latter  days 
promised  order,  guaranteeing  that  more  violence  against  the 
Jewish  population  would  not  be  tolerated,  nevertheless  the  Jews, 
crushed  and  overwhelmed  by  what  they  had  experienced,  re- 
mained in  their  homes  and  did  not  venture  on  the  streets.  All 
orders  and  demands  of  the  authorities  to  open  the  stores  and 
take  up  regular  life  again  had  no  effect  at  all,  and  the  city  had 
a  painful,  benumbed  aspect.  The  streets  were  depopulated ;  even 
the  Christians  did  not  go  abroad. 

The  rebel  staff  organized  troops,  which  it  sent  partly  in  the 
direction  of  the  railroad  junctions  of  Vapniarka,  Tzvetkovo  and 
Kasatin,  where  the  rebels  seized  a  series  of  stations.  The  rebel 
newspaper  Visti  ("News")  every  day  reported  victories,  includ- 
ing the  taking  of  Kiev,  Kharkov,  Yekaterinoslav,  Poltava,  and 
other  points  in  Ukraine.  Nevertheless,  the  warlike  frame  of 
mind  of  the  rebels  in  Uman  subsided,  and  many  peasants  of  the 
canton  scattered  to  their  homes,  taking  their  arms  with  them, 
and  also  removing  to  the  country  in  their  carts  goods  stolen  dur- 
ing the  pogrom  from  Jewish  homes  and  wares  stolen  from  the 
stores.  Some  of  the  peasants  considered  their  task  completed 
after  the  three-days'  Jewish  pogrom,  and  were  unwilling  to 
fight  beyond  the  borders  of  their  own  canton.  A  number  were 
horrified  that  so  much  innocent  blood  had  been  shed,  which 
even  their  leaders  spoke  about  after  the  pogrom,  and  went 
home  because  they  expected  no  good  results  from  such  actions. 
Uncertainty  and  alarm  seized  the  rebels,  especially  in  the 
last  days,  when  Soviet  detachments  took  the  offensive  along  all 
the  lines  of  the  railroad  to  recover  the  points  seized  by  the 
rebels,  and  began  to  press  on  them.  The  Jewish  population 
again  lived  through  days  of  panic,  fearing  that  the  rebels,  com- 
pelled to  abandon  Uman,  would  signalize  their  departure  by 
repeating  the  bloody  occurrences  which  had  taken  place. 

Along  with  this,  the  sad  reminiscences  of  the  Jewish  inhabi- 
tants were  refreshed  by  the  news-reports  which  daily  reached 
them  of  the  pogroms  and  massacres  of  the  Jewish  populations  of 
the  villages  and  towns  of  the  whole  canton  of  Uman.  In  truth, 
simultaneously  with  the  massacre  and  pogrom  in  Uman,  the 
pogroms  were  occurring  throughout  the  region.  Everywhere 
where  Jews  lived  they  were  plundered  and  killed;  and  the  per- 
centage of  Jews  killed  and  ruined  in  the  villages -and  towns  was 
invariably  higher  than  the  percentage  of  Jewish  victims  in  the 
city.  The  picture  of  the  pogroms  and  massacres  was  of  the 
same  sort  almost  everywhere:  looting,  beating,  killing  on  an 
enormous  scale,  violation  of  women,  etc.  So  it  happened  in  the 


328    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

villages  of  Ladyzhenka,  Dubovo,  Ivanka,  Buk,  Talnoie,  and 
everywhere  where  any  Jews  lived.  The  principal  part  in  the 
pogroms  and  massacres  was  played  by  rebel  bands  which  roamed 
about  the  canton.  However,  in  many  places,  along  with  peas- 
ants of  other  villages,  a  part  was  played  in  the  pogroms  and 
massacres  by  peasants  living  in  the  same  villages,  often 
neighbors  who  had  known  them  for  decades  and  observed  the 
life  of  these  industrious  Jews,  almost  every  one  of  whom  had 
always  lived  in  poverty  and  want.  The  Jews  who  remained 
alive  fled  from  their  settled  habitations  wherever  their  feet  car- 
ried them,  over  roads  blocked  by  rebels,  whereby  many  perished 
on  the  way,  and  their  bodies  are  not  yet  recovered.  Some  fled 
to  Uman,  where  they  sought  refuge  among  the  poor  folk  of 
the  city,  in  synagogues,  under  the  open  sky,  etc.  In  many  vil- 
lages and  towns  the  pogroms  and  massacres  were  repeated 
more  than  once,  each  time  the  rebels  passed  through. 

On  the  evening  of  May  21  artillery  fire  was  heard  from  the 
direction  of  the  line  of  the  railroad,  and  bombs  began  to  fall 
not  far  from  the  city.  As  was  afterwards  learned,  this  firing 
came  from  the  guns  of  the  armored  train  of  the  Soviet  detach- 
ment which  was  attacking  Uman.  All  night  long  the  battle  con- 
tinued between  the  Soviet  detachment  and  the  rebels  in  the  region 
near  Uman.  It  ended  with  the  defeat,  surrender  and  flight  of 
the  rebels.  On  the  morning  of  May  22  the  Soviet  detachment, 
consisting  principally  of  the  7th  Soviet  Infantry,  entered  Uman. 
With  it  the  members  of  the  Executive  Committee  returned  to 
town,  and  the  majority  of  the  Soviet  workmen.  The  guns  of 
the  armored  train  fired  on  some  of  the  nearby  environs  of 
Uman,  where  it  was  suspected  t>iat  bands  of  rebels  were  col- 
lecting. The  Soviet  transport  automobiles,  loaded  with  Red 
soldiers,  went  around  town,  establishing  order  and  quieting  the 
frightened  population,  which  was  afraid  to  go  out  of  the 
houses. 

However,  with  the  arrival  of  the  Soviet  troops  in  Uman  the 
disorganized  life  of  the  city  was  not  restored.  Even  on  the  first 
day  of  their  arrival  several  cases  were  recorded  in  which 
armed  men  broke  into  private  houses  and  apartments,  mostly 
of  Jews,  and  stole  property.  However,  measures  were  taken 
against  this  at  once,  which  reduced  the  number  of  cases  of  loot- 
ing in  the  succeeding  days.  But  after  several  days  the  7th  Soviet 
regiment  was  called  away  from  Uman  and  in  its  place  the  8th 
Soviet  Ukrainian  regiment  arrived,  which  had  been  in  Uman 
twice  before,  in  the  month  of  March.  Immediately,  from 
the  very  first  day  of  this  regiment's  arrival,  endless  pillag- 


UMAN:    THE    MASSACRE  329 

ing  of  the  population  began  in  the  city,  carried  on  en  masse, 
mainly  among  the  Jews.     In  some  places  and  on  some  days  it 
assumed   the   character   of   an   outright  pogrom.     Armed   men 
with  red  ribbons,  and  red  scarfs  and  belts,  mounted  on  horses 
decked  in  red  ribbons,  with  whips,  revolvers,  sabres,  rifles,  and 
in  many  instances  even  with  machine  guns,  rushed  into  homes, 
and,    starting   with   or   without   a   pretext,   sacked   and   robbed 
the    whole    of    the    property,    demanding    money    and    taking 
away  all  valuables.     (Appendix  14.)     The  whole  population  of 
the  city  declares  that  among  the  looters  were  professional  thieves 
and  criminals,  who  had  mostly  served  sentences  in  prison,  in 
chain-gangs,   and  at  hard  labor,   and  who  enrolled  in  the  8th 
Soviet  regiment  as  volunteers.    The  robbery  and  plunder  of  the 
people's  property,  accompanied  in  many  cases  by  beatings,  mal- 
treatment, and  even  torture,  and  in  four  or  five  cases  by  murder, 
did  not  stop  up  to  the  last  day  of  the  presence  of  the  8th  regi- 
ment in  Uman,  July  3.     (Appendix  15.)     In  the  course  of  more 
than  six  weeks  the  entire  population  of  Uman,   especially  the 
Jewish,  was  in  the  power  of  organized  and  well-armed  detach- 
ments of  bandits  and  pogromists,  with  whom  the  higher  military 
authorities  could  not  cope.     Many  homes  of  both  Jewish  and 
Christian  inhabitants  were  plundered  several  times,  and  literally 
everything  that  was  in  them  was  taken  out,  including  pillows, 
bed-covers,  and  even  dirty  linen.     No  protection,  with  very  in- 
significant exceptions,   was  afforded  the  inhabitants  by  anyone. 
There  were,  to  be  sure,  some  ten  cases  of  shooting  of  bandits, 
but  they  were  mostly  bandits  of  the  second  order  of  dangerous- 
ness,  not  belonging  to  the  membership  of  the  8th  regiment.    The 
chief  organizers  of  pogroms  remained  quite  unpunished,  though 
very  well  known  to  the  higher  powers,  who  were  powerless  to 
take  any  measures  against  them  through  fear  of  arousing  oppo- 
sition and  resentment  among  the  large  armed  groups  of  their 
fellows.     Moreover  the   frame  of  mind  of  very  many  of  the 
soldiers    of    the   8th   regiment   was   distinctly   anti-Semitic,    and 
cases  of  furnishing  protection  to  Jews  aroused  in  them  resent- 
ment and  anger  at  both  the  protectors  and  the  protected.     (Ap- 
pendix 17.)     Therefore  the  struggle  with  banditry,  in  so  far  as 
it  was  carried  on  at  all,  was  limited  to  the  repeated  issuance  of 
printed  orders  in  which  bandits  were  threatened  with  shooting 
on  the  spot,  and  to  occasional  repressive  measures  against  ban- 
dits of  minor  importance.    Evidently  conscious  of  their  security 
from  punishment,  the  bandits  performed  tens  and  hundreds  of 
acts  of  violence,  which,  in  their  way,  surpassed  the  horrors  of 
the  pogrom.     Thus,  for  instance,  cases  are  recorded  in  which 


330    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  bandits,  in  broad  daylight,  on  the  street,  in  the  presence  of 
many  armed  men,  stripped  private  persons  naked,  both  men  and 
women,  violating  the  latter  almost  on  the  street,  in  the  sight  of 
passers-by,  who  were  powerless  to  do  anything.  (Appendix  16.) 
Beatings,  lootings,  drunken  scandals,  maltreatments,  and  shoot- 
ings became  the  most  ordinary  events,  at  which  no  one  even 
lodged  complaints.  Armed  men,  decorated  with  huge  red  scarfs 
and  ribbons,  would  stop  the  Jews  who  at  rare  intervals  went 
through  the  streets,  with  the  question,  "Are  you  a  Jew?"  and 
when  convinced  of  the  fact  either  from  the  reply  or  from  their 
own  impressions,  would  beat  them  half  to  death  with  whips. 
Hostility  to  Jews  and  anti-Semitism  was  the  most  marked  char- 
acteristic of  the  majority  of  the  armed  men  in  red  scarfs  and  rib- 
bons. They  constantly  threatened  to  "cut  the  throats  of  all  the 
Jews"  and  became  enraged  at  contact  with  anyone  who  had  any 
dealings  with  Jews.  Thus  cases  are  on  record  of  armed  men 
in  red  ribbons  who  refused  to  buy  seeds  of  poor  Christian 
women  whom  they  suspected  of  being  Jewesses,  and  who  re- 
fused to  give  alms  to  a  beggar-boy  suspected  of  being  a  Jew. 
At  the  same  time  a  rather  large  number  of  Jewish  volunteers 
was  in  the  8th  regiment,  part  of  whom  consisted  of  local 
criminals,  Jewish  thieves,  who,  if  they  did  not  themselves 
plunder,  directed  attention  to  the  rich  booty  of  the  dwellings 
of  the  well-to-do  inhabitants  of  Uman,  which  they  knew  very 
well.  (Appendix  18.)  The  above-mentioned  facts  indicate  that 
all  commercial  and  productive  life,  and  any  other  life  in  the 
city,  was  completely  paralyzed  in  the  town  and  the  canton. 
Foodstuffs  rose  in  price  incredibly,  because  the  peasants  did  not 
bring  any  in,  since  they  risked  violence  from  two  directions — 
on  the  part  of  the  rebels  in  the  country,  and  on  the  part  of  the 
bandits  who  robbed  the  peasants  in  the  city. 

The  stores  and  workshops,  in  spite  of  all  orders,  remained 
closed  for  two  months,  and  the  streets  even  by  day  were  pain- 
fully vacant.  By  5  P.M.  only  armed  men  were  visible  on  the 
streets,  mostly  drunk,  riding  over  the  sidewalks,  making  the 
air  resound  with  drunken  songs,  obscenities,  and  shots  in  the 
air.  All  this  took  place,  for  that  matter,  all  day  long. 

The  Jewish  population  of  the  city,  beggared  and  deprived  of 
the  little  property  that  remained  after  the  pogrom  of  the  rebels, 
frequently  left  without  breadwinners  (killed  in-  the  pogrom)  and 
without  any  means  of  subsistence,  terrorized  by  the  anti-Semitic- 
ally-inclined  gangs  in  red  ribbons,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
unceasing  danger  of  a  new  attack  of  the  rebels  on  the  other, 
lived  through  indescribably  fearful  days  of  nightmare.  In  the 


UMAN  331 

eyes  of  many  life  became  something  of  no  great  importance. 
They  longed  only  for  any  sort  of  relief  from  the  bandits  who 
tormented  them — whether  rebels,  unionists,  or  any  others.  The 
passionate  longing  for  relief  produced  a  number  of  fantastic, 
imaginary  facts,  such  as  a  treaty  between  the  Entente  and 
Germany  regarding  the  protection  of  the  remaining  Jews  in 
Ukraine,  and  also  the  report  that  some  sort  of  Jewish- American 
detachment  was  moving  to  the  aid  of  the  perishing  Jews  of 
Ukraine,  and  was  to  arrive  in  Uman  on  a  definitely  named  date. 
The  awful  longing  for  relief  from  this  insufferable  position,  at 
any  price  whatever,  became  universal.  But  relief,  in  the  shape 
of  the  arrival  of  another  Soviet  detachment,  did  not  come  until 
the  first  days  of  July,  in  spite  of  repeated  entreaties  and  cate- 
gorical demands  from  the  representatives  of  the  Uman  govern- 
ment, presented  by  letter  and  verbally  by  delegates  to  Kiev. 
The  change  could  not  take  place  on  account  of  the  critical  situ- 
ation on  the  front  both  within  and  without  Ukraine,  and  also 
because,  for  the  war  against  the  rebels  of  Uman,  the  military 
authorities  had  deliberately  reserved  the  8th  regiment,  which 
was  considered  a  strong  fighting  unit.  And  it  is  indeed  true 
that  in  defending  the  city  from  the  rebels,  who  all  this  time 
kept  forming  groups  in  the  canton  and  repeatedly  tried  to  take 
Uman  again,  the  8th  regiment  showed  itself  a  fighting  force 
dangerous  to  the  rebels.  In  several  fights  it  completely  destroyed 
the  detachments  of  the  atamans  Tiutiunik,  Popov,  and  Klimenko, 
and  seized  all  their  arms  and  articles  of  outfit  and  equipment. 
A  second  occupation  of  Uman  by  the  rebels,  which  might  have 
been  possible  under  other  circumstances,  and  might  have  been 
accompanied  by  a  repetition  of  the  first  pogrom,  was  excluded 
by  the  presence  of  the  8th  regiment. 

In  the  first  days  of  July  there  arrived  in  Uman  the  first 
Ukrainian  Soviet  regiment,  a  cavalry  regiment  under  the  com- 
mand of  Gribenko,  which  remained  in  Uman  five  days.  Two 
days  after  the  arrival  of  the  first  regiment,  the  8th  regiment 
left  Uman  for  Nikolaiev.  Immediately  the  looting  and  violence 
ceased  almost  completely.  As  regards  the  attitude  of  the  first 
cavalry  regiment  to  the  Jewish  population,  it  is  proper  to  say 
that  while  it  was  in  general  very  much  better  than  that  of  the 
8th  regiment,  it  was  also  in  some  instances  malevolent.  Thus, 
for  instance,  on  Stolypinskaya,  Zagorodnaya,  and  other  neigh- 
boring streets,  which  adjoined  the  soldiers'  quarters,  armed  men 
on  horseback  would  plunder  the  apartments  and  beat  up  passers- 
by,  declaring  at  the  same  time  that  they  were  against  "Jews 
and  communists."  According  to  the  testimony  of  Talabaniuk, 


332    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

a  member  of  the  Executive  Committee  who  was  sent  as  organ- 
izer and  agitator  to  the  villages  of  Verkhniachka  and  Dobrov,  a 
detachment  of  cavalrymen  of  the  first  regiment  rode  into  those 
villages  for  some  reason  or  other  and  committed  a  number  of 
disorderly  acts  against  the  peasants,  demanding,  among  other 
things,  that  they  surrender  "Jews  and  communists."  In  one  of 
the  villages  they  almost  killed  a  Jewish  girl  because  in  their 
opinion  she  "upset  the  men"  by  her  beauty.  In  general,  how- 
ever, the  first  cavalry  regiment,  consisting  as  it  did  mainly  of 
Ukrainian  guerrilla  fighters,  and  though  undoubtedly  inclined, 
like  the  8th  Soviet  regiment,  to  be  very  hostile  to  the  Jewish 
population,  showed  itself  in  no  way  especially  aggressive  during 
the  time  of  its  short  stay  in  Uman,  except  for  the  series  of 
cases  noted. 

The  regiment  departed  from  Uman  for  Poltava  on  July  5. 
It  was  replaced  by  the  4th  Soviet  international  regiment,  con- 
sisting of  Hungarians,  Chinese,  Germans,  Jews,  and  Great  Rus- 
sians. In  the  person  of  this  regiment  the  population  of  Uman 
for  the  first  time  beheld  a  disciplined  Soviet  military  force, 
which  neither  robbed  nor  murdered  anyone  for  national  or  class 
reasons.  The  whole  population  of  the  city  seemed  to  come  to 
life  after  two  months  of  incessant  horrors.  The  stores  im- 
mediately opened,  people  began  to  appear  on  the  streets,  mal- 
treatment because  of  Jewish  extraction  was  ended,  drunken 
riding  over  the  sidewalks  and  shooting  in  the  air  and  at  people 
was  seen  no  more.  The  life  of  the  city,  which  had  been  para- 
lyzed for  two  months,  began  to  right  itself,  finding  expression 
in  efforts  gradually  to  start  some  sprouts  of  commercial,  manu- 
factural,  and  other  activities,  such  as  were  permitted  by  the 
conditions  of  the  times.  In  any  case  it  is  proper  to  make  clear 
that  with  the  arrival  of  the  4th  Soviet  international  regiment, 
the  general  position  of  the  Jewish  population  markedly  improved, 
especially  in  the  sense  that  it  was  possible  to  go  out  into  the 
streets  without  fear  and  attend  to  one's  work,  when  there  was 
any.  Now  the  Jewish  and  laboring  population  of  Uman  is  freed 
from  the  constant  attacks  on  life,  honor,  and  property,  which 
lasted  two  months;  but  it  needs  much  effort  and  aid  on  a  wide 
scale  to  heal  the  grievous  wounds  inflicted  upon  it  in  economic 
respects  by  the  pogrom,  through  the  killings  of  hundreds  of 
breadwinners  and  through  incessant  pillaging  for  two  months. 

After  listening  to  the  report,  the  assembly  unanimously  in- 
dorsed what  Comrade  Proskurovsky  had  set  forth,  but  after  an 
exchange  of  opinions  found  it  necessary  to  add  the  following 
appendices : 


UMAN  333 

APPENDICES 

1.  The  first  wave  of  anti-Semitism  began  to  be  felt  afresh 
during  the  time  of  the   formation  and  existence  of  the  First 
Central  Rada.    Attacks  on  the  Jews  were  then  a  constant  ele- 
ment in  the  procedure  of  the  Ukrainian  intellectuals,  the  leaders 
of  the  whole  Ukrainian  national  movement.    This  was  the  con- 
dition  also    in   Uman.     Afterwards   the   local   priest    Nikolsky 
played   a   role   in   arousing   and   increasing   hatred   and   malice 
against  the  Jewish  population.     He  had  a  great  influence  upon 
the  orthodox  population,  the  bourgeoisie  of  the   surroundings, 
and  the  officialdom  of  the  city.     During  Kerensky's  regime  he 
conducted  a  violent  monarchical  and  anti-Semitic  campaign,  for 
which  he  was  banished  from  Uman  to  Kiev.     This  circumstance 
very  nearly  caused  a  pogrom  in  the  city,  since  the  bourgeoisie 
conceived   the   design   of   preventing  the   priest   Nikolsky   from 
leaving  town  by  force ;  and  in  a  short  time  he  was  brought  back 
to  Uman  at  the  request  of  the  representatives  of  the  Jewish 
population.     An  undercurrent  of  resentment  and  hatred  against 
the  Jews  continued  to  exist  in  the  Christian  population. 

2.  The  garrison  commandant  in  Uman,  under  the  Directory, 
was  a  former  Austrian  prisoner  of   war  and  Galician   emigre, 
Col.  Dobriansky,  a  bitter  Ukrainian  nationalist,  who  never  ceased 
to  persecute  the  Jews  in  every  way  he  could.     He  appointed  a 
separate  mobilization   for  Jews,   Poles,   and   Russians,   and  the 
Jews  were  exposed  to  particularly  and  unendurably  humiliating 
conditions.     Later  he  organized  man-hunts  of  the  male  popula- 
tion,  principally  Jewish.     When   the   Council   protested   against 
such  actions,  Dobriansky  replied  with  abuse  and  threats  that  he 
would   settle   with  the  protesters  and  the  Jews   both   together. 
Approximately  similar   was   the   attitude   towards   the   Jews    of 
the  military  commissar,  the  local  Ukrainian  Col.  Dereschuk,  who 
imposed   on  the  city  a  contribution  of  three  millions,    for  the 
needs  of  the  Ukrainian  army.     The  collection  of  this  was  ac- 
companied  by  a  series   of   anti-Semitic   manifestations    on   the 
part  of  Dereschuk  and  the  Ukrainian  garrison,  inflamed  by  him, 
with  whose  anger  and  punishment  he  constantly  threatened  the 
Jewish  population. 

3.  Two   days   after  the  departure  of  the   Soviet   forces,   on 
March  20,  about  a  hundred  Gaidamaks  entered  the  city  under 
command  of  Captain  Diachenko,  who  had  distinguished  himself 
by  leading  a  massacre  of  Jews  in  the"  town  of  Teplik,  where 
about  three  hundred  Jews  were  massacred.     When  he  entered 
Uman,  Diachenko  declared  that  he  would  show  no  mercy  to  the 


334    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Jewish  population  and  cynically  bragged  of  his  participation  in 
the  massacre  of  Teplik.  The  city  escaped  from  a  pogrom  and 
possible  atrocities  by  the  payment  of  a  contribution  in  kind- 
shoes,  garments,  etc.,  and  also  money. 

4.  The  convention  of  the  villages  of  the  Uman  district,  sum- 
moned by  the   Executive   Committee  of  Uman,   which   opened 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  rebel  movement,  on   March   11,  clearly 
reflected   these    fundamental   inclinations,    stubbornly   and    half- 
concealedly  refusing  to  enter   into   the  necessary  contact   with 
the  Soviet  authorities.     On   its  part  the  Executive   Committee 
also  assumed  a  no  less  sharp  tone  in  dealing  with  the  assembly. 
After  the  attempts  of  some  communist  speakers,  among  them 
some  Jews,  to  incline  the  assembly  to  their  side,  had  ended  in 
failure,  the  Executive  Committee  declared  the  assembly  closed. 
This  was  considered  by  the  villagers  as  a  challenge  and  only 
increased  the  anti-Semitic  and  anti-Soviet  rebellious  feelings. 

5.  The  first  wave  of  the  rebels  consisted  of  village  peasants 
of  very  different  ages,  beginning  with  striplings  and  ending  with 
bearded  old  men.    Many  were  armed  with  scythes,  rakes,  or  sim- 
ply long  white  staves.    The  larger  part  were  armed  with  rifles, 
revolvers  of  the  most  varied  sorts,  swords,  sabres,  etc.     On  the 
whole  the  first  movement  of  the  mob  into  the  city  gave  the  im- 
pression of   a  triumphant   movement   of  village   peasants   who 
had  conquered  the  city. 

6.  In  many  cases  the  plundering,  beating  and  killing  were 
motivated  as  revenge  for  the  "pacification"  of  uprisings  by  the 
Jews  and  for  the  general  seizure  of  power  of  which  they  were 
accused.     When  looting,  torturing  and  shooting,  the  black-hun- 
dred and  pogromist  portion  of  the  rebels  constantly  declared, 
"All  that  is  to  make  up  for  Buhl"   (the  name  of  the  Jewish 
military  commissar),  or  "Fisch"  (the  commander  of  a  separate 
detachment— a  Jew),   or   "Kulik"    (a  well-known   Jewish  com- 
munist of  local  extraction). 

7.  The  end  of  the  pogrom  and  massacre  upon  the  expiration 
of  the  period  of  three  days  is  explained  by  many  in  different 
ways;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  limit  was  put  upon  the 
pogrom  and  massacre  partly  under  the  influence  of  the  requests 
and   arguments  of  various   Ukrainian   and   Jewish   delegations, 
which  waited  upon  the  leaders  of  the  rebels. 

7a.  It  should  be  recorded  that  the  pogromists  committed  spe- 
cial atrocities  when  they  were  drunk— when  they  became  absolute 
beasts,  and  paid  no  attention  to  arguments  or  entreaties  or 
anything. 

8.  One  case  (unique,  to  be  sure)  is  known  in  which  a  Jew 


UMAN  335 

placed  a  saint's  image  in  the  window  of  his  dwelling,  having 
borrowed  it  from  a  Christian  neighbor.  The  home  of  this  Jew 
was  not  touched  by  the  rebels,  whereas  they  entered  the  other 
apartments  in  the  same  courtyard  and  behaved  quite  as  usual. 

9.  Of  which  the  following  may  be  noted:  I.  Vrachinsky,  L. 
Zbanovsky,  Alexeiev,  Khokhol,  Slobodianik,  Dr.  Kramarenko. 

10.  Peikhel. 

11.  Mention  should  also  be  made  of  the  attitude  of  the  Polish 
population  to  everything  that  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Jews  during 
these  months.    Behaving  externally  correctly  and  constantly  em- 
phasizing their  "neutrality,"  the  Poles  for  the  most  part  refused 
to  give  the  slightest  help  to  the  perishing  Jewish  population.  With 
very  rare  individual  exceptions,   the   Poles   did   not   admit  the 
Jews  to  their  homes,  hid  no  one,  and,  on  the  contrary,  in  many 
cases  expressed  malicious  joy  at  what  was  taking  place.     Al- 
though there  are  no  evidences  of  physical  participation  in  the 
pogrom  and  massacre  on  the  part  of  individual  Poles,  it  must 
nevertheless  be  said  that  in  general  the  attitude  of  the  Poles  to 
the  Jewish  population  during  this  period  was  clearly  malevolent, 
though  this  was  poorly  concealed  under  a  mask  of  "neutrality." 

12.  The  corpses  of  two  Jewish  brothers  were  found  thrown 
out  in  some  garden  or  other  in  one  of  the  environs  of  the  city. 
It  is  known  that  they  were  killed  by  a  petty  bourgeois  or  peas- 
ant, who  promised  to  hide  them  from  the  pogromists,  but  after- 
wards  fell  on  them  unawares  in  their  sleep,   and   robbed   and 
murdered   both,    throwing   their    bodies    into    some    one    else's 
garden. 

13.  At  the  same  time,  however,  the  rebel  authorities  lost  no 
chance  to  annoy  the  Jewish  population  in  an  organized  way. 
Thus,  for  instance,  the  Jews  were  ordered  to  "surrender  their 
weapons"  in  the  course  of   four   hours   from  the   moment  of 
publication  of  the  order;  and  if  they  failed  to  obey  the  order 
they  were  threatened  with  popular  anger,  etc. 

14.  Especially  characteristic  is  the  proclamation  of  the  garri- 
son commander  of  the  8th  Soviet  regiment,  Col.  Iliesh,  to  the 
effect  that  all  inhabitants  of  the  city  should  keep  the  doors  of 
their  dwellings  open  and  should  not  fear  the  entry  of  Red  sol- 
diers,  whereas   in  the  same  proclamation  he  advised   the   Red 
soldiers  not  to  enter  dwellings  or  visit  each  other  later  than 
9  P.M. 

15.  Of  cases  of  murder,  especially  ghastly  is  the  murder  of 
the  wife  of  the  watchmaker  Lirmann  in  the  attack  on  his  dwell- 
ing.   When  his  wife  raised  a  cry  for  help,  she  was  shot  on  the 
spot  by  Red  soldiers. 


336    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

16.  A  naked  Red  soldier,  in  broad  daylight,  on  Nizhe-Niko- 
laievskaya  Street,  after  bathing  in  a  bath-house,  attacked  a  55- 
year-old  woman  who  was  passing  and  violated  her. 

17.  The  clear  fact  of  anti-Semitism  on  the  part  of  the  8th 
Soviet  regiment  is  proved  by  the  complete  demobilization  of  the 
detachment  of  Urbailis  and  Piontkovsky,  into  which  many  local 
Jewish  workmen  had  entered.     Almost  the  whole  detachment, 
together  with  its  commanders,  was  compelled  to  flee  to  Kiev  for 
safety.    While  the  1st  cavalry  regiment  was  in  Uman,  there  was 
an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  cavalrymen  to  disarm  by  night 
some  Jewish  soldiers  of  a  Skvira  regiment,  quartered  in  Uman. 

18.  It  is  quite  comprehensible  that  under  such  conditions  it 
was  wholly  out  of  the  question  to  organize  any  regular  plan  of 
punishment  of  that  part  of  the  pogromists  which  remained  as 
before  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  or 
to  search  out  the  goods  they  had  stolen  and  hidden  and  return 
them  to  the  suffering  poor  folk.     Some  steps  in  that  direction 
taken  during  the  first  days  of  the  return  of  the  Soviet  regime 
were  soon  completely  abandoned.    Thus  many  instigators  of  the 
pogrom  and  massacre,  and  direct  participants  therein,  who  them- 
selves were  prepared  for  repressive  measures,  found  it  possible 
to  cover  their  tracks  and  hide  the  stolen  property  in  good  shape, 
while  remaining  entirely  unpunished. 

What  is  set  forth  in  this  report  and  its  appendices  is  con- 
firmed by  the  signatures: 

(Signatures.) 

III.    Testimony  of  Mania  Benievna  Zhuravskaia,  Student, 
Aged  22 

When  the  rebels  entered  the  city  on  May  12,  on  the  first  day 
at  5  P.M.  they  surrounded  the  Kahan  house  on  Kievskaya  St., 
in  which  our  apartment  is  located.  When  the  first  shots  re- 
sounded, the  frightened  inhabitants  of  the  house  gathered  in  our 
apartment,  and  thus  many  people  came  together  with  us— men, 
women,  and  children.  We  all  hid  in  the  back  room.  After 
firing  on  the  house  they  knocked  at  the  door  of  our  apartment. 
We  immediately  opened  the  door,  and  many  rebels  entered  with 
rifles  in  their  hands,  the  visors  of  their  caps  turned  back. 

Their  first  question  was:  "Are  there  any  bolsheviki  here?" 
Then  they  asked  if  we  had  any  weapons.  When  we  answered 
both  questions  in  the  negative,  they  let  out  a  volley  of  market- 
place invective  on  us,  in  which  the  following  expressions  pre- 
dominated :  "It's  impossible  that  Jews  should  not  have  weapons, 


UMAN  337 

we  know  you  Jews,  we  know  your  Jewish  machinations."  They 
turned  their  first  attention  to  a  man  who  lived  in  our  house, 
Berkovetz,  an  employee  of  a  bank,  and  began  to  insist  that  he 
was  a  commissar.  They  took  him  into  a  separate  room  and 
began  to  beat  him  unmercifully.  They  made  the  same  accusa- 
tion against  almost  every  man  in  our  apartment,  calling  him 
either  a  commissar  or  a  communist,  and  adding:  "We  will 
show  you  a  commune."  Then  they  demanded  that  all  of  us — 
men,  women  and  children — should  vacate  the  apartment  and  go 
down  into  the  yard.  On  the  way  many  of  us  were  beaten,  no 
distinction  being  made  between  men  and  women,  adults  and 
children.  In  the  courtyard  they  ordered  us  all  to  stand  "against 
the  wall,"  but  then  changed  the  order  and  ordered  the  women 
and  children  to  go  apart,  while  the  men  had  to  remain  "against 
the  wall."  When  we,  feeling  something  evil  was  coming,  began 
to  entreat  them  to  take  from  us  everything  they  liked,  to  take 
our  money,  the  rebels,  refusing  all  our  entreaties,  gave  the  com- 
mand: "One,  two,  three,"  and  fired  a  volley,  killing  our  rela- 
tives and  acquaintances  almost  before  our  eyes.  The  slain  in- 
cluded my  brother  Misha,  aged  18 ;  Berkovetz,  aged  35 ;  Litvak, 
aged  68;  Handelsmann,  aged  60;  a  physician,  aged  52;  Handels- 
mann's  son,  a  gymnasium  student,  aged  17,  and  an  old  man  of 
70.  My  father  was  also  made  to  stand  against  the  wall,  but 
was  only  wounded  by  a  bullet,  and  escaped  to  the  barn  without 
the  notice  of  the  rebels,  where  he  spent  some  time  in  conceal- 
ment. When  the  rebels  found  him  there,  he  succeeded  in  per- 
suading them  to  spare  him,  having  convinced  them  that  he  was 
not  a  communist.  My  brother-in-law  Kushnir,  my  sister's  hus- 
band, was  also  placed  against  the  wall,  and  escaped  accidentally 
only  because  in  the  group  of  the  corpses  he  also  was  thought  to 
be  dead.  After  shooting  all  the  men  in  our  house,  the  rebels 
commanded  all  of  us  women  to  go  to  the  cellar  to  sleep,  beating 
us  with  gun-butts  the  while.  As  I  learned  afterwards,  this  same 
gang  went  to  our  neighbors,  Russians,  and,  after  finding  that 
they  were  Russians,  began  to  boast  of  their  murders.  One  of 
them  said:  "I  have  avenged  to  some  extent  the  death  of  my 
brother  Shtogrin;  I  killed  a  lot  of  people  in  the  Kahan  house." 
All  night  long  in  our  apartment  upstairs  the  pillaging  of  our 
property  continued.  At  eleven  at  night  my  father,  who  we  sup- 
posed was  killed,  came  to  us.  He  told  us  how  he  had  been  found 
in  the  barn,  how  he  had  been  led  through  the  apartment  and 
forced  to  open  up  all  chests  and  boxes,  and  how  the  plundering 
of  the  apartment  and  the  destruction  of  our  goods  were  going 
on.  Early  in  the  morning,  on  May  13,  we  began  to  wonder 


338    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

how  we  could  get  our  wounded,  my  sister  and  brother-in-law, 
to  the  hospital.  Someone  reported  it  in  the  city,  and  thence 
came  two  Christian  workmen  from  Kushmir's  factory,  who 
brought  hospital  people.  On  the  road  cries  were  heard:  "We 
won't  let  Jews  be  saved!"  and  with  great  difficulty  we  got  to 
the  hospital,  abandoning  our  apartment  to  the  will  of  fate.  As 
was  afterwards  discovered,  the  rebels  threw  two  bombs  into 
Vitis's  apartment,  causing  a  fire  in  that  apartment.  We  heard 
that  the  rebels  accused  us,  the  inhabitants  of  that  house,  of 
having  hidden  dynamite  there.  For  two  weeks  we  did  not  return 
home.  Among  the  wounded  who  died  was  Sura  Handelsmann, 
wife  of  Handelsmann  who  was  shot,  and  whose  family  was  thus 
totally  destroyed. 

M.  ZHURAVSKAIA. 
July  21,  1919. 

IV.    Testimony  of  Joseph  Isaakovich  Polonsky,  Mechanical 
Engineer,  Aged  29 

On  May  12,  when  the  rebels  entered  the  city,  I  was  in  the 
apartment  of  the  dentist  Schultz,  in  Dr.  Bravermann's  house  on 
Sadovaya  Street.  During  the  course  of  the  entire  day  rebels 
kept  coming  into  our  apartment  on  the  pretext  of  looking  for 
weapons.  Among  the  searchers  it  was  often  noticeable  that 
intellectuals  participated,  such  as  teachers,  etc.  Many  of  them, 
who  knew  Schultz  personally,  told  the  rebels  that  in  this  apart- 
ment there  certainly  were  no  weapons,  and  they  went  away. 
Thus  May  12  passed  for  us  without  any  complications.  Towards 
evening  we,  with  Dr.  Bravermann,  began  to  consider  how  we 
should  spend  the  night,  in  view  of  the  persistent  rumors  in 
town  that  during  the  night  of  the  12th  of  May  a  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's eve  would  be  perpetrated.  On  Dr.  Bravermann's  sug- 
gestion we  decided  to  spend  the  night  in  the  garret  At  mid- 
night I,  Dr.  Bravermann's  family,  the  family  of  the  dentist 
Schultz,  and  the  family  of  the  shoemaker  Schumann,  who  lived 
in  the  same  house,  went  up  into  the  garret,  taking  up  after  us 
the  ladder  by  which  we  had  climbed  up.  We  spent  the  night 
quietly.  On  the  next  day  at  6  A.M.,  May  13,  Dr.  Bravermann 
got  down  from  the  garret  to  see  what  was  happening  in  his 
apartment.  He  did  not  return  to  us  again.  As  was  discovered 
afterwards,  Dr.  Bravermann  was  shot  by  rebels  who  were  in 
his  apartment,  and  who  evidently  had  been  waiting  since  the 
night  for  the  owners  of  the  apartment.  Half  an  hour  after 
DJT,  £ravermanj?  left  us,  by  the  same  ladder  by  which  the  doctor 


UMAN  339 

had  gone  down,  there  came  up  to  us  in  the  garret  a  number  of 
rebels,  clothed  in  soldiers'  garments,  in  caps  with  the  visors 
turned  back  (a  distinguishing  mark  of  the  rebels).  Two  of 
them  loaded  guns  and  commanded  the  women  and  children  to 
go  down  from  the  garret,  while  the  men  were  to  stay.  We 
men,  who  were  left,  namely  myself,  the  shoemaker  Schumann, 
the  dentist  Schultz  and  his  son,  a  student,  Mikhail,  decided  that 
the  shoemaker  Schumann  and  I  should  go  forward  and  have 
an  explanation  with  the  rebels.  When  we  came  out  of  the 
corner  and  began  to  say  that  we  would  furnish  documents,  two 
of  the  rebels  pointed  the  barrels  of  their  guns  at  us.  At  this 
time  the  dentist  Schultz  and  his  son  cried:  "We  surrender." 
Then,  without  warning,  came  the  shots.  The  shoemaker  and 
I  were  wounded  in  the  legs.  I  fell  covered  with  blood.  Then 
the  group  of  rebels  left  the  garret.  I  did  not  lose  consciousness, 
and  I  began  to  argue  with  Schultz  and  his  son  that  they  should 
go  down  from  the  garret,  to  avoid  a  second  coming  of  the 
rebels.  They  obeyed  me  and  went  down.  Not  until  three  or 
four  hours  after  we  were  wounded  did  there  come  a  rebel  officer, 
with  several  men,  to  us  in  the  garret,  and  at  his  direction  the 
shoemaker  and  I  were  let  down  by  ropes.  Towards  evening  I 
was  carried  to  the  Red  Cross  Hospital  on  a  stretcher.  On  the 
way  we  were  often  stopped  and  the  sanitaries  were  asked  whom 
they  were  carrying.  They  replied,  a  wounded  Pole.  Almost  at 
the  very  entrance  to  the  Red  Cross  Hospital  some  rebel  stopped 
our  bearers  and  in  a  threatening  tone  demanded  whom  the 
sanitaries  were  carrying;  and  his  finger  rested  on  the  trigger 
of  his  revolver.  The  sanitaries,  realizing  that  my  life  depended 
literally  on  their  answer,  kept  their  heads  and  replied  that  they 
were  carrying  a  man  sick  of  a  dangerous,  contagious  disease, 
and  that  if  the  questioner  approached  nearer  to  the  stretcher, 
he,  too,  would  catch  it.  This  answer  had  its  effect  and  the 
rebel  went  away.  As  it  turned  out,  I  was  wounded  by  a  tearing 
bullet.  My  right  leg  was  amputated.  At  present  I  must  still 
remain  three  weeks  in  the  hospital;  I  am  beginning  to  learn  to 
use  crutches.  The  shoemaker  Schumann  who  was  also  taken  to 
the  hospital,  died  there  after  an  operation  for  amputation  of  a 
leg. 

J.    POLONSKY. 

July  20,  1919. 

V.     Testimony  of  Fenia  Polischuk,  Student,  23  Years 

On  May  12,  when  the  rebels  entered  the  city,  we  were  in  our 
own  apartment  in  the  Kahan  house  on  Kievskaya  Street.  Through 


340    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

a  window  opening  on  the  street  I  saw  that  at  about  noon 
groups  of  rebels  began  to  appear  on  the  street,  pursuing  pas- 
sers-by, principally  Jews.  One  of  the  rebels,  a  young  fellow, 
catching  sight  of  a  young  Jewish  girl  going  along  the  street,  ran 
after  her,  holding  an  open  knife  in  his  hands.  Having  caught 
up  with  her,  he  struck  her  with  the  knife  in  the  face,  and  then 
waited  for  a  good  chance  to  get  her  in  the  side.  The  girl  fell. 
What  happened  to  her  afterwards  I  do  not  know,  because  I  was 
unable  to  endure  the  sight  and  left  the  window.  I  saw  that  the 
composition  of  the  rebels  was  very  different,  beginning  with 
striplings  and  ending  with  gray-bearded  peasants.  I  saw  hardly 
any  intelligent  faces.  Until  5  P.M.  no  one  '  came  into  our 
apartment.  But  at  that  time  our  house  was  surrounded  by 
rebels  on  all  sides  and  exposed  to  a  furious  fire  from  rifles. 
Not  knowing  the  reason  for  the  shooting,  I  rushed  to  the  tele- 
phone and  asked  the  commandant  for  help,  to  which  I  received 
the  answer :  "So  long  as  it  is  insurgents  firing,  there  is  no  reason 
for  alarm."  And  the  further  answer  was  made:  "Bolsheviks 
have  settled  in  your  house,"  and  then,  "Ring  up  the  commander 
of  the  eight  villages."  As  was  found  out  afterwards,  the  firing 
on  the  house  was  due  to  the  fact  that  in  one  of  its  wings  the 
bolshevist  department  of  dwelling-requisitions  had  been  located. 
Not  long  after  I  received  these  unsatisfactory  replies,  I  and  all 
my  household  heard  heart-rending  shrieks  and  groans  of  both 
men  and  women  from  our  courtyard.  Then  we  heard  some 
street-corner  cursing,  the  sound  of  blows,  and  loud  and  at  the 
same  time  nervous  cries  of  one  of  the  dwellers  in  our  house,  an 
employee  of  the  Russian  Commercial  Products  Bank,  Ber- 
khovetz,  who  was  afterwards  found  to  have  been  killed.  He 
kept  crying:  "Take  me  to  the  director  of  the  bank,  I  am  a 
Russian,  he  will  tell  you  that  I  am  no  commissar,  that  I  had 
no  part  .  .  ."  At  that  moment  rang  out  the  command:  "One, 
two,  three!"  mingled  with  sounds  of  the  song  "Little 
Apple."  In  fact  the  command  itself  was  spoken  to  the  tune  of 
the  "Little  Apple."  A  volley  resounded,  and  the  cries  of  people 
were  heard.  I  again  rushed  to  the  telephone  and  began  to  beg 
for  help  from  the  commandant,  telling  as  well  as  I  could  all 
we  had  heard,  and  all  that  was  going  on  in  our  courtyard.  The 
commandant  replied:  "I  will  come  in  person."  But  till  9  P.M. 
no  one  came.  The  cries  and  shots  continued  all  the  time. 
Only  at  9  P.M.  someone  knocked  at  our  door.  I  immediately 
opened  and  saw  the  staircase  full  of  rebels.  I  invited  them  into 
the  room,  saying:  "Come  in,  all."  But  one  of  them,  apparently 
a  superior,  asked  me  if  we  had  not  rung  up  the  commandant, 


BANDIT  GANGS  341 

and  receiving  an  affirmative  answer,  ordered  the  rebels  not  to 
come  in,  but  choosing  two  of  them,  entered  our  apartment.  I 
remember  clearly  that  the  hands  of  the  two  soldiers  who  entered 
with  the  superior  were  bloody.  They  were  both  far  from 
sober.  Then  they  searched  the  apartment,  looking  for  any 
weapons  we  might  have  hidden.  After  a  fruitless  search,  they 
said  to  us:  "Well,  now  you  can  sleep  in  peace."  And  the  su- 
perior added:  "This  apartment  is  mine,"  and  they  let  no  one 
else  into  our  apartment  the  whole  night,  whereas  people  kept 
constantly  coming,  pillaging  and  killing  in  all  the  other  apart- 
ments. When  the  searchers  left  they  said,  indicating  the  other 
apartments :  "There  are  the  bolsheviki,  there  we  have  business." 
What  this  "business"  consisted  of  was  made  clear  the  next  day, 
when  it  turned  out  that  seven  Jewish  men  had  been  shot  in 
Zhuravsky's  apartment. 

F.    POLISCHUK. 

July  21,  1919. 

TOWN  OF  DUBOVO  (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Pogrom  of  May  13,  1919 

I.  Report  of  An  Assembly  of  Party  Workers  and  Persons  in 
Public  Life  in  the  Town  of  Dubovo,  called  by  the  Regional 
Director  of  the  Head  Mission  of  the  Russian  Society  of  the 
Red  Cross,  on  the  question  of  the  occurrences  of  the  Po- 
grom which  took  place  in  the  Town  of  Dubovo.  After  an 
exchange  of  opinions  the  following  was  established: 

The  town  of  Dubovo  is  located  eighteen  versts  from  Uman. 
Communication  with  the  city  is  carried  on  by  horses,  with  the 
help  of  balagulas  (country  carriages).  The  composition  of  the 
population  is  as  follows:  Jews,  more  than  300  families  (some- 
what over  1,000  people)  ;  Christians,  three  times  this  number. 
Most  of  the  peasants  are  possesed  of  land.  The  occupations  of 
the  peasants,  in  addition  to  agriculture,  were  limited  to  swine- 
raising,  and  only  in  recent  times,  when  the  food  crisis  became 
acute  in  the  city,  did  the  peasants  begin  to  act  as  "sackers." 
The  Jews  were  divided  as  to  occupational  groups  between  arti- 
sans (ten  per  cent)  and  dealers  in  grain  products  and  pro- 
prietors of  peasant-ware  supply  shops  (ninety  per  cent). 

The  mutual  relations  between  the  Jewish  and  Christian  inhabi- 
tants had  been  of  the  most  friendly  character.  Thus,  the  year 
1905,  which  was  a  year  of  pogroms  in  that  region,  passed  for 


342    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  town  of  Dubovo  without  any  excesses  at  all.  Likewise  ex- 
cellent was  the  attitude  of  the  local  intellectuals — the  town 
priest,  the  school  teachers,  the  postmaster,  etc.  The  drafts  dur- 
ing the  years  of  war  also  passed  off  successfully  for  the  town. 
The  great  change  of  Feb.  27,  1917,  strengthened  still  more  the 
friendly  relations  between  the  Jewish  and  Christian  inhabitants. 
The  period  of  the  regime  of  the  Central  Rada  was  not  distin- 
guished by  any  incidents  which  indicated  national  antagonisms. 
It  was  only  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Rada  by  the  Germans  and 
the  establishment  of  the  "hetmanhood,"  attended  by  the  German 
punitive  detachments  for  extracting  grain  from  the  villages, 
that  a  sort  of  dull  resentment  towards  the  Jews  began  to  be 
observed.  The  village  gossips  talked  about  some  kind  of 
specially  close  relations  between  the  Jews  and  the  Germans. 
But  even  these  rumors  did  not  assume  an  ominous  char- 
acter for  the  Jewish  population,  because  the  peasants  blamed 
most  of  all  the  local  Christian  mill-renters  for  the  calling  in  of 
the  Germans.  The  withdrawal  of  the  Germans  from  the  bound- 
aries of  Ukraine  and  the  firm  establishment  of  Petlura's  regime 
were  signalized  in  the  town  by  the  passage  of  the  government 
into  the  hands  of  the  Ukrainian  republican  authorities.  And 
although  during  this  period  certain  occurrences  of  an  anti- 
Semitic  character  were  observed,  in  the  way  of  accusations 
that  the  Jews  had  indirectly  participated  in  the  Hetman's  punitive 
expeditions,  they  were  not  of  a  sharp  and  definite  character. 

The  peasants  of  the  neighborhood  mostly  entered  the  ranks 
of  Petlura's  army.  The  withdrawal  of  the  Petlurists  and  the 
beginning  of  the  bolshevist  power  expressed  itself  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  committee  in  the  town.  At  the  start  of  this  regime, 
a  "Kombed"  (Committee  of  the  Poor)  was  formed;  after- 
wards, with  the  participation  of  the  sailor  Zarachinsky  (an 
old  acquaintance  to  the  town  of  Dubovo,  who,  during  the  Het- 
man's regime,  had  been  hiding  in  Odessa),  steps  were  taken  to 
organize  an  Executive  Committee.  Five  Jews  entered  this  Com- 
mittee, one  a  workman,  four  proprietors  in  the  town.  The  tasks 
of  the  Executive  Committee  at  first  were  centered  on  the  or- 
ganization of  a  Tribunal.  At  the  same  time  a  convention  of  Red 
soldiers,  workmen,  and  village  delegates  was  called  by  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  for  the  10th  of  May  in  the  city  of  Uman.  The 
Executive  Committee  of  Dubovo  was  dissolved  on  this  same 
day,  May  10.  One  of  the  delegates  to  Uman  returned  to  Du- 
bovo on  May  11  and  reported  the  closing  of  the  convention. 
The  atmosphere  began  to  become  decidedly  tense. 

Against  the  background  of  the  life  of  Dubovo  and  the  sue- 


DUBOVO:     BANDIT    GANGS  343 

ceedingxevents  there  began  to  stand  out  sharply  a  modest  figure, 
not  noticed  up  to  that  time — a  young  man  of  twenty-two,  Mar- 
kel  Okhrimovich  Brishka,  a  teacher  of  elementary  branches, 
who  had  entry  into  many  Jewish  homes  in  his  capacity  as 
teacher.  In  his  convictions  Brishka  was  a  violent  advocate 
of  Ukrainian  independence.  Having  been  a  prisoner  in  Aus- 
tria, he  brought  back  from  captivity  and  cherished  his 
Ukrainian  chauvinistic  sympathies.  Whenever  and  wher- 
ever he  could  he  talked  about  Ukrainian  independence,  but 
under  the  bolsheviki  limited  himself  to  the  modest  role  of 
arranging  Ukrainian  pageants.  Among  the  Jews  he  had 
acquaintances  and  some  friends.  Learning  that  after  the 
closing  of  the  convention  events  of  some  sort  were  pending, 
he  went  to  Uman  on  Monday,  May  12,  and  on  the  morning  of 
May  13  returned  to  Dubovo.  From  this  day  really  begins  the 
unhappy  time  for  the  Jewish  population  of  the  town.  Upon  his 
return  from  Uman  Brishka  called  a  meeting  of  the  Executive 
Committee  of  Dubovo,  invited  all  the  Jewish  members  of  the 
Committee  to  leave  their  places,  and  locked  himself  up  with 
the  president  and  vice-president  of  the  Committee  (Christians), 
with  whom  he  had  a  long  secret  conversation.  In  personal  con- 
versation with  a  member  of  the  Committee  with  whom  he  was 
acquainted,  Moisei  Schwarzmann,  Brishka  stated  that  he  had 
returned  from  Uman  with  instructions  that  the  Jews  should  be 
removed  from  power.  At  the  same  time  he  communicated  some 
rumors  of  the  most  provocatory  character,  to  the  effect  that  the 
Commissar  of  Education,  in  fixing  the  duties  in  the  educational 
department,  positively  demanded  a  knowledge  of  the  Jewish  lan- 
guage, even  of  Christians,  without  which  no  positions  could  be 
secured.  Then  he  summoned  the  members  of  the  Executive 
Committee  and  announced  to  them  that  henceforth  the  Commit- 
tee's title  was  changed  to  the  Village  Rada  (Council).  Brishka 
also  proposed  that  a  man  be  sent  to  Uman  for  proof  of  his 
authority.  Meanwhile  during  the  whole  day,  May  13,  cartridges 
were  constantly  being  brought  from  Uman  to  Dubovo;  and  to- 
wards evening  events  took  a  really  threatening  turn.  The  popu- 
lation of  the  town,  frightened  by  the  sound  of  the  first  shots,  hid 
in  cellars,  garrets,  and  other  hiding-places.  The  rebel  peasants 
of  the  surrounding  villages  of  Korzhevoie,  Oksanina,  etc.,  armed 
with  rifles,  clubs,  and  some  with  axes,  scattered  over  the  place 
visiting  the  Jewish  dwellings.  In  that  fearful  night  no  one  was 
spared.  Money-ransom  did  not  help.  Th'e  criminal  element  of 
the  rebels  was  especially  rampant,  the  former  convicts;  Kiril 
Cherniuk,  a  peasant  of  the  village  of  Korzhevoie,  Martin  Zba- 


344    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

zhevsky,  a  dangerous  burglar,  and  Vasily  Bobyl,  a  pea'sant  of  the 
village  of  Korzhevoie.  These  persons,  with  only  axes  in  their 
hands,  made  way  with  the  victims.  In  this  night  eleven  persons 
were  killed,  among  them  two  women  and  several  children. 

In  all  the  houses  the  rebels  looked  for  "communists" 
and  demanded  money.  On  the  morning  of  May  14  the  peasants 
of  the  village  of  Korzhevoie  began  to  disperse  to  their  homes, 
and  happening  to  come  upon  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  town 
on  the  way,  started  pursuing  and  killing  them.  Seventeen  fell 
dead  in  the  fields,  which  with  those  previously  killed  makes  28 
persons.  Six  of  the  wounded  died.  Thus  the  number  of  victims 
of  the  first  "May"  uprising  was  exactly  34  persons.  On  the 
same  day,  May  14,  local  Jewish  inhabitants  asked  Brishka  to  call 
an  assembly  and  explain  to  the  rebels  that  they  ought  not  to  kill. 
Brishka  consented,  saying  that  he  himself  had  not  gone 
out  killing,  that  it  had  happened  "of  itself."  Meanwhile, 
however,  the  above-mentioned  bandits,  Kiril  Cherniuk,  Zbazhev- 
sky,  and  Bobyl,  kept  becoming  more  and  more  insolent.  They 
refused  to  obey  Brishka  and  demanded  on  their  own  account  a 
contribution  of  10,000  rubles  from  the  population.  An  especially 
tragic  impression  is  made  by  Cherniuk's  murder  of  a  girl  Sonia, 
whom  he  cut  in  pieces  with  an  ax.  Brishka,  moved  on  the  one 
hand  by  the  entreaties  of  the  population,  and  on  the  other  hand 
disheartened  by  the  disobedience  of  the  bandits,  declared  that 
he  would  make  way  with  them.  And  in  fact  he  postponed  mar- 
ket-day, which  was  to  take  place  on  May  16,  and  made  every 
effort  to  apprehend  the  bandits.  Cherniuk  and  Zbazhevsky  were 
caught  by  him  and  shot  in  the  center  of  the  town.  This  punish- 
ment stopped  the  spreading  terrors.  After  this,  comparative 
quiet  reigned.  Brishka  declared  himself  commander  of  the 
detachment.  The  power  remained  in  -his  hands  for  about  two 
weeks.  Then  on  May  31  the  power  of  the  rebels  in  Uman 
passed  over  to  the  bolsheviki.  Ataman  Klimenko,  forced  out 
of  Uman,  approached  the  town  of  Dubovo  with  his  detachment 
on  May  31.  On  this  day  the  detachment  of  Shevchenko,  Kli- 
menko's  subordinate,  occupied  the  village  of  Korzhevoie.  It 
numbered  a  hundred  men,  well  armed,  with  one  cannon.  On 
June  1  Klimenko  with  ten  or  fifteen  rebels  entered  the  town. 
The  rebels  scattered  to  the  houses  of  Jews  and  under  pretext 
of  searching  for  arms  forced  payments  of  money.  Klimenko 
himself  summoned  a  delegation  of  Jews,  consisting  of  five  men. 
According  to  what  the  delegate  Schwarzmann  reports,  Klimenko 
declared:  "I  am  a  bolshevik,  but  I  am  against  a  commune.  All 
looters  will  be  shot  by  me."  The  conversation  took  place  in 


DUBOVO:     BANDIT    GANGS  345 

the  presence  of  many  peasants.  Many  of  them  expressed  them- 
selves as  having  nothing  against  the  Jews.  Klimenko  produced 
a  very  good  impression  on  the  delegation  by  his  appearance. 
Thus,  especially  significant  were  his  words:  "The  Jews  are  at 
one  with  us;  there  must  be  no  killing."  While  Klimenko  was 
himself  expressing  these  "liberal"  ideas,  his  detachment,  though 
small  in  numbers,  continued  to  cause  considerable  devastation 
in  the  dwellings,  looting  many  of  them.  On  the  evening  of  the 
same  day,  June  1,  Klimenko  departed  with  his  detachment  to 
the  village  of  Babanka,  eight  versts  from  Dubovo.  Two  days 
later,  on  the  3rd,  a  telephone  message  from  Klimenko,  in  Bab- 
anka, came  to  the  local  committee  to  the  effect  that  a  detach- 
ment was  marching  on  Dubovo  and  that  it  was  necessary  to 
meet  it  and  offer  resistance.  The  meeting  replied  that  they 
nad  not  the  strength  to  do  so.  And  in  fact  towards  evening 
there  arrived  a  scouting  party  of  a  new  champion,  of  an  unhappy 
sort  for  Dubovo,  a  certain  Koziakov.  As  described  by  those 
who  saw  him,  Koziakov  was  a  man  of  about  30,  of  intelligent 
appearance,  wearing  sometimes  velvet  and  sometimes  a  sailor's 
costume,  with  a  red  star.  According  to  some  reports  he  came 
from  Odessa  with  a  detachment  split  off  from  Grigoriev.  He 
spoke  only  Russian.  According  to  testimony  he  was  born  in 
the  village  of  Mankovka.  Koziakov's  detachment  was  decorated 
with  red  ribbons.  Koziakov  also  summoned  to  himself  a  dele- 
gation of  Jews.  His  appearance  produced  a  terrible  panic  in 
the  population.  Since  his  summons  of  a  delegation  was  extremely 
insistent,  a  delegation  was  constituted  with  great  difficulty, 
of  two  men — Schwarzmann  and  Deichmann.  Before  the  dele- 
gation stood  the  detachment  of  a  hundred  men,  wearing  sailor 
caps,  with  red  ribbons  around  them.  The  detachment  had  a 
machine  gun.  Some  of  them  were  mounted.  Koziakov  pre- 
sented a  demand  for  a  contribution  of  25,000  rubles,  a  pood  and 
a  half  of  sturgeon,  and  oats  tor  the  horses.  The  contribution 
was  gathered  by  the  above-named  delegation  and  paid  in  full. 
Not  devoid  of  interest  is  the  following  characteristic  incident, 
which  occurred  when  the  money  was  paid.  One  of  the  dele- 
gates before  paying  the  money  wanted  to  bargain  a  little  and 
perhaps  get  a  little  back.  Koziakov  was  furious  and  in  reply 
presented  an  ultimatum,  that  the  Jews  should  leave  town  in  the 
course  of  an  hour.  After  that  the  delegates  succeeded  only 
with  great  difficulty  in  inducing  Koziakov  to  accept  the  levy. 
He  counted  the  money  carefully,  and  when  it  was  found  that 
there  were  24.550  rubles,  he  demanded  that  the  remaining  450 
rubles  should  be  furnished  without  fail.  When  the  contribution 


346    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

was  forthcoming,  the  detachment  was  ordered  "not  to  touch  the 
people."  The  people,  however,  were  informed  in  a  proclama- 
tion that  Dubovo  was  under  martial  law.  The  proclamation  was 
signed  by  Koziakov,  the  commander  of  the  detachment.  It  is 
worth  noting  that  on  the  black  bands  of  the  Koziakov  detach- 
ment were  stamped  in  gold  the  words:  "Peace  to  huts,  war  to 
palaces."  On  the  morning  of  June  4  Koziakov's  detachment  left 
Dubovo.  Some  time  later  there  resounded  from  the  direction 
of  Babanka,  Klimenko's  headquarters,  an  artillery  bombardment 
of  the  town  of  Dubovo,  with  the  object  of  catching  Koziakov's 
gang.  Brishka  appeared  unexpectedly,  and  succeeded  in  dis- 
arming the  Koziakovists.  Koziakov  himself  was  taken  prisoner, 
but,  as  we  shall  see  later,  succeeded  in  escaping  from  captivity 
and  continued  to  organize  bands. 

Some  days  later  a  bold  attack  was  made  on  Dubovo  by  the 
former  Hetman's  spy  Bezhelitzsky,  who  collected  15,000  rubles 
from  several  people.  After  Bezhelitzsky's  departure  Koziakov 
unexpectedly  appeared  again,  but  was  opposed  by  Brishka. 
Finally  Koziakov  went  away.  On  June  7th  the  town  of  Dubovo 
was  exposed  to  a  half-farcical  attack  of  an  alleged  4th  Soviet 
regiment.  The  farcical  character  is  inferable  from  the  fact  that 
the  detachment  brought  Brishka  with  it,  claiming  to  have  dis- 
armed him.  A  contribution  of  20,000  rubles,  said  by  the  com- 
mander to  be  for  the  purpose  of  "fighting  the  bandits,"  was 
demanded  of  the  population.  In  provocatory  style,  only 
"Jew-communists"  were  called  upon  to  pay.  In  the  end  a  con- 
tribution of  8,000  rubles  was  taken  (the  original  written  receipt 
for  this  money  is  herewith  attached),  and  Brishka,  fully  armed, 
rode  away  with  the  detachment.  It  was  only  too  clear  that  the 
trick  was  Brishka's  work. 

Until  June  17  comparative  quiet  ensued.  But  fate  was  pre- 
paring a  most  cruel  blow,  though  short  in  duration,  for  the 
already  sufficiently  tormented,  nerve-racked,  worn-out  Jewish 
population ;  a  blow  from  the  united  bands  of  the  experienced 
masters  of  pogroms,  Koziakov,  Smirnov,  Shevchenko,  and 
Popov.  The  visitation  lasted  only  two  hours,  but  two  hours 
of  torment  and  affliction  which  made  all  the  previous  experi- 
ences of  Dubovo's  inhabitants  seem  pale.  Yet  if  anyone  had 
stood  at  the  gates  of  the  town  during  this  time,  it  would  have 
seemed  to  him  that  the  town  was  enjoying  a  marvelous  peace. 
Secretly,  quietly,  and  at  the  same  time  expeditiously,  the  young 
braves  of  Popov  did  their  work.  They  cut  to  pieces  five  human 
bodies  exclusively  with  sabres.  A  stern  sentence  was  imposed 
upon  the  one  soldier  who  fired  a  gun.  Secretly,  quietly,  and 


DUBOVO:     BANDIT    GANGS  347 

inaudibly  those  unspeakable  crimes  were  performed  in  the  cellar 
floor  of  the  local  Jew  Feldman's  house. 

The  detachment  of  Koziakov  and  Popov  consisted  of  a  cav- 
alry squadron  of  a  hundred  men  and  400  infantry.  It  had 
machine  guns  and  nearly  200  empty  wagons,  destined  for 
carrying  off  Jewish  goods  and  chattels.  And  we  must 
do  justice  to  these  choice  heroes  of  Popov;  they  cleaned 
up  the  'houses  completely.  They  kept  to  the  regulations 
laid  upon  them,  not  to  kill  women,  and  to  kill  men  at 
the  word  of  command.  They  killed  old-men  "commu- 
nists," standing  with  one  foot  in  the  grave,  and  fresh  youths, 
almost  children.  At  the  doors  of  the  cellar-floor  of  the  house 
of  D.  Feldman,  which  they  called  headquarters,  stood  two  exe- 
cutioners, a  Moldavian  and  a  Russian,  with  sabres  in  their  hands, 
right  at  the  entrance.  When  a  victim  (a  Jewish  "communist") 
was  brought  up,  he  was  stood  with  his  face  to  the  entrance  and 
invited  to  go  down  to  the  lower  story.  But  hardly  had  the 
victim  set  foot  on  the  first  step  when  the  executioners  stand- 
ing behind  set  their  arms  in  motion,  and  the  curved  sabres, 
stained  purple  with  the  blood  of  preceding  victims,  mutilated  the 
living  body,  and  not  infrequently  cut  the  head  off  entirely. 
The  victim  then  fell  below  to  the  ground,  covered  with  blood, 
on  top  of  the  bloody  human  bodies  strewn  all  around  and  the 
fragments  of  dismembered  bodies. 

In  the  two  hours  of  the  massacre  fifteen  people  were  killed, 
an  uncounted  number  mutilated,  and  eight  seriously  wounded. 
At  2  P.M.  a  trumpet  sounded  to  call  the  troops  together,  and 
with  songs  the  detachments  of  Popov  and  Koziakov,  accompanied 
by  peasants  from  the  village  of  Nebelievka,  by  the  detachment  of 
Podvysoky,  consisting  of  Moldavians,  and  by  many  persons  of 
intellectual  appearance,  left  the  town,  leaving  new  widows  and 
orphans,  having  performed  new  exploits  of  torture  upon  the 
innocent,  and  having  violated  many,  many  Jewish  girls.  June 
17  is  the  last  terrible  pogrom  in  the  review  of  occurrences  down 
to  July  9,  1919. 

The  facts  set  forth  in  this  report  are  confirmed  by  the  sig- 
natures : 

(Signatures) 

II.    Testimony  of  Haskell  Duvidovich  Filverk,  Aged  33,  Dealer 
in  Manufactures 

On  June  17,  when  Popov's  gang  entered  our  town,  my  brother- 
in-law  and  I  were  at  home.  Through  the  window  we  saw  that 
two  soldiers  were  approaching  us.  My  brother-in-law  ran  to 


348    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

lock  the  door,  while  I  jumped  out  of  the  window  to  flee  across 
the  yard.  I  had  time  to  see  that  one  soldier  rushed  into  the 
room.  When  I  crawled  through  the  window  the  other  soldier 
very  soon  caught  me.  He  had  a  knife  in  one  hand  and  a  bare 
sabre  in  the  other.  He  began  to  curse,  and  then  added :  "There, 
you  communists,  there,  Buhl,  there,  Kulik!"  As  he  said  this  he 
kept  striking  me  blows  with  the  knife.  He  demanded  that  I  go 
to  the  "field  headquarters,"  and  took  me  there.  The  head- 
quarters was  located  in  Feldman's  house.  Many  soldiers  were 
standing  there.  When  I  was  brought  in  I  saw  no  other 
Jews.  The  soldiers  when  they  saw  me  began  to  beat  me.  At 
this  time  a  gentleman  dressed  as  an  officer  arrived;  he  was  of 
middle  stature,  well  built,  red-cheeked,  apparently  35  or  3<J 
years  of  age.  He  began  to  give  orders  and  commands.  All 
commands  he  gave  in  the  Russian  language.  As  far  as  I  could 
make  out  from  what  the  soldiers  said,  this  officer  was  Popov 
himself.  In  my  presence  he  named  two  soldiers  as  executioners. 
One  of  these  soldiers  was  a  Moldavian,  the  other  a  Russian. 
In  my  presence,  too,  he  explained  to  the  soldiers:  "Don't  touch 
women,  but  cut  down  men."  And  he  explained  how  they  were 
to  cut  them  down  at  the  word  of  command :  "One — raise  sabres ; 
two — lean  over;  three — strike."  Then  I  was  led  into  the  cellar. 
When  I  went  down  with  the  executioners,  I  saw  the  first  three 
bodies,  which  lay  there.  As  was  afterwards  discovered,  they 
were  inhabitants  of  our  town — Getzel  Partigul,  aged  70; 
Shaia  Deigman,  aged  35,  and  his  son,  aged  16.  Near  Getzel 
Partigul  lay  his  hand,  which  had  been  cut  off.  The  executioners 
picked  up  the  hand  and  showed  it  to  me,  saying:  "You  see?" 
When  I  saw,  and  when  I  heard  the  command,  I  realized  that  a 
like  fate  was  in  store  for  me.  I  began  to  beg  the  executioners 
to  shoot  me,  to  which  I  received  the  reply:  "Bullets  are  expen- 
sive." Then  they  ordered  me  to  stand  with  face  to  the  cellar, 
and  at  the  word  of  command  struck  me  on  the  head  with  a 
sabre.  I  lost  consciousness  and  fell  down  below.  I  do  not 
remember  how  I  was  carried  out  from  the  cellar.  Now  I  am 
in  the  Jewish  hospital  at  Uman. 

HASKELL  FILVERK. 
July  10,  1919. 

III.     Testimony  of  Hai-Sura  Israelevna  Rabinovich,  Aged   40, 
Wife  of  a  Smith,  Illiterate 

By   a   strange   chance,    our   house    for    a   long   time    did   not 
attract  the  attention  of  the  robber  bands  which  raged  and  con- 


DUBOVO  349 

stantly  kept  killing  and  looting  in  our  town.  I  went  through 
almost  a  month  of  seclusion  at  home,  with  tightly  closed  shut- 
ters, listening  sharply  for  every  sound.  After  June  10  com- 
parative quiet  began  to  reign  in  the  town.  On  June  17  two 
soldiers  came  into  my  house,  who  looked  over  my  rooms  and 
said  that  I  should  not  go  out  anywhere  but  stay  quietly  at  home. 
With  these  words  they  left.  After  some  time,  at  about  12 
noon,  two  other  soldiers  came,  and  two  empty  carts  followed 
them.  They  at  once  began  to  make  themselves  at  home.  They 
began  to  gather  in  everything  they  saw,  whether  it  was  locked 
up  or  not  All  the  things  were  loaded  quietly  and  in  a  business- 
like way  on  the  carts  which  had  come  with  them.  Thus  were 
stolen,  among  other  things,  all  my  table  service,  knives  and  forks, 
pillow-covers,  even  my  old  and  half-worn-out  market-basket. 
The  earrings  were  taken  out  of  my  girl's  ears,  the  rings  torn 
off  my  fingers.  When  there  was  no  longer  anything  left  to 
steal  in  the  room,  the  soldiers  demanded  matches  and  candles 
of  me.  Lighting  candles,  they  went  with  me  to  the  garret.  All 
the  things  that  I  had  hidden  there  they  also  took.  I  cannot  omit 
to  mention  the  following.  There  was  in  my  house  along  with 
the  soldiers,  and  afterwards  many  people  in  town  saw  her,  a 
young  woman,  who  spoke  Jewish  fluently.  She  kept  talking  in 
Jewish  with  me  all  the  time  they  were  searching  in  the  garret, 
telling  me  not  to  be  afraid,  that  they  would  not  kill  me.  The 
soldiers  obeyed  her  without  question  and  did  as  she  told  them. 
In  the  garret  she  also  said  to  me  in  Jewish:  "You  had  better 
give  them  everything,  or  else  what  happened  to  me  will  happen 
to  you,  too.  I  was  taken  away  by  force."  Whether  she  spoke 
the  truth,  whether  she  really  was  a  Jewess,  or  some  servant-girl 
who  had  learned  Jewish  from  serving  in  Jewish  families,  I  do 
not  know.  I  have  nothing  more  to  add. 

(Signature) 
July  9,  1919. 

IV.     Testimony  of  losel  Ekhil  Solodovnik,  Aged  50,  Proprietor 
of  a  Drugstore,  Literate 

When  the  detachment  of  Popov  and  Koziakov  came  into  our 
town  on  June  17,  at  12  noon,  one  of  the  detachments  entered 
my  store  and  demanded  the  surrender  of  various  goods,  eau 
de  cologne  and  other  things.  Another  one  joined  him,  and  a  boy 
of  about  14  from  the  detachment.  When  I  handed  over  the 
wares,  they  began  to  demand  money.  When  I  satisfied  them 
with  that  also,  they  demanded  that  I,  my  son  Ikhil,  aged  30, 


350    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

my  son  Gershel,  aged  22,  and  my  wife  should  go  with  them  to 
headquarters.  In  spite  of  all  my  entreaties,  and  my  offers  of 
money,  we  were  taken  off  towards  the  headquarters.  A  violent 
rainstorm  came  up,  and  at  the  suggestion  of  our  convoy  we 
went  back  to  my  store.  Then  new  pressure  began  and  demands 
for  money,  and  finally  one  of  them,  pointing  with  his  finger  at 
my  elder  son  Ikhil-Idel,  declared:  'I  will  kill  that  communist." 
Anticipating  disaster,  I  cried:  "Kill  me!"  to  which  I  received 
the  answer:  "First  I  will  kill  him,  and  then  you."  And  I  had 
no  chance  to  think  before  he  struck  my  son  a  blow  on  the  head 
with  his  bare  sabre. 


UMAN 

Pogrom  of  July  29,  1919 
From  the   (newspaper)   "Kom.  Fon."  No.  56,  of  August  6 

On  Sunday,  July  27,  it  became  known  that  a  part  of  the 
Petlurist  regular  army,  under  the  command  of  Pavlovsky,  had 
united  with  the  bandits  of  Volyntz-Kazakov  and  Sokolovsky, 
and  that  both  together  were  advancing  on  the  station  Kristi- 
novka.  On  Monday,  July  28,  a  band  under  the  leadership  of 
Volyntz  began  to  shell  the  station.  More  than  four  hundred 
bombs  fell.  However,  thanks  to  the  disciplined  part  of  the 
small  Soviet  force,  the  attack  was  stopped.  The  band  retreated 
ten  versts  from  Kristinovka  to  the  station  Sevastianovka,  cut- 
ting the  railroad  line  Kristinovka-Kasatin.  But  on  the  same 
day  a  part  of  the  band  broke  into  Uman.  On  Tuesday,  July 
29,  the  band  encircled  the  city.  In  the  city  there  was  a  small 
group  of  poorly  armed  and  hastily  mobilized  local  workmen, 
who  tried  to  stop  the  attack  of  the  bandits,  but  without  suc- 
cess. The  command  lost  its  head  and  by  its  actions  increased 
the  panic  of  the  population.  The  group  was  compelled  to 
leave  the  city  and  retreat  to  Kristinovka  because  a  band  of 
thirty  Gaidamaks  under  the  command  of  Sokolovsky  and  Koza- 
kov  burst  into  the  city  and  immediately  started  massacring 
Jews.  A  delegation  from  the  former  Council  went  to 
the  Ataman  Sokolovsky  and  asked  him  to  stop  the  massacre. 
Sokolovsky  announced  to  the  delegation  that  they  had  de- 
clared a  red  terror  against  all  Jews,  and  that  they  must  put 
it  into  execution.  The  band  was  joined  by  all  sorts  of 
scum  from  the  suburbs  of  the  city,  and  a  most  frightful  bac- 
chanalia  began.  They  went  from  one  Jewish  house  to  another. 


SOKOLOVSKY'S    GANGS  351 

stole  the  last  remnants  of  property,  violated  women,  and  slaugh- 
tered men,  women  and  children.  Thus  they  carried  on  for 
four  hours.  One  hundred  and  fifty-four  people  were  massacred. 
Soon  80  regular  Red  soldiers  and  an  armored  train  arrived 
from  Kristinovka  and  drove  out  the  bandits.  On  the  same 
evening  a  Revolutionary  Committee  was  organized,  which  took 
steps  for  hunting  out  bandits  in  the  suburbs.  Extensive  inves- 
tigations were  carried  out,  resulting  in  the  discovery  of  a  large 
group  of  traitors,  among  them  three  Jews,  who  were  in  relations 
with  the  attacking  band.  It  should  be  noted  that  the  peasants 
of  the  surrounding  villages  did  not  support  the  bandits. 

STATION  OF  POTOSHI   (NEAR  UMAN) 
(From  the  Same  Correspondence} 

On  July  31  Sokolovsky's  band  arrived  at  the  station  of  Potoshi, 
on  the  line  Kristinovka-Tzvetkovo,  and  stopped  a  passenger 
train,  separated  the  men  from  the  women,  shot  all  Jews  and 
Soviet  employees,  and  violated  the  women.  Then  some  cavalry 
arrived,  who  tortured  the  survivors  for  four  hours.  They 
took  away  in  carts  everything  that  was  on  the  train.  Only  on 
the  arrival  of  the  Soviet  armored  train  did  the  execution  stop, 
and  the  band  dispersed. 

REGION  OF  UMAN.     TOWN  OF  TALNOIE   (GOVERNMENT  OF  KIEV) 
Pogrom  of  May  13,  1919 

Testimony  of  the  Student  Avrum  Schwarzmann,  Taken  Down 
by  Maizlish 

Talnoie  is  a  town  in  the  canton  of  Uman,  on  the  railroad 
line  Tzvetkovo-Kristinovka,  four  versts  from  Uman.  Its  in- 
habitants number  15,000;  about  8,000  Jews.  Early  in  February 
the  withdrawal  of  the  Petlurist  forces  began  to  the  line  Zna- 
menka-Tzvetkovo-Kristinovka.  Under  the  Directory,  with  the 
permission  of  the  authorities,  a  Jewish  Night  Watch,  with  15 
or  20  rifles,  had  been  formed.  On  February  8  an  attack  oc- 
curred on  the  Jewish  post,  which  was  disarmed,  robbed  and 
beaten.  Two  days  later  four  squadrons  arrived  in  Talnoie. 
The  soldiers  went  into  the  town  and  'before  the  eyes  of  the 
whole  population  entered  the  houses  of  Jews  and  carried  out  all 
the  property  and  took  it  to  the  station.  After  this  there  were 


352    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

incessant  attacks  and  looting.  The  militia  was  powerless. 
A  company  of  guards  came  to  keep  order,  and  the  Jewish 
population  assumed  the  responsibility  of  feeding  and  clothing  it. 
But  the  guard  itself  took  part  in  the  looting.  The  town  suf- 
fered especially  from  the  third  Gaidamak  cavalry  regiment,  which 
incessantly  terrorized  the  Jewish  population.  Owing  to  the  ar- 
rival of  the  Zvenigorod  regiment  under  the  command  of  Pav- 
lovsky,  there  were  no  human  lives  lost  in  the  town;  there  were 
only  beatings  and  robberies. 

Early  in  March  the  bolsheviki  took  Zvenigorod,  but  Talnoie 
at  this  time  still  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Petlurists.  The 
situation  on  the  front  was  shifting  for  about  two  weeks.  Ap- 
proximately on  March  19  Talnoie  was  taken  by  the  8th  Soviet 
regiment,  which  also  started  looting.  Two  weeks  later  (after 
another  capture  by  the  Petlurists  of  Teplik)  the  withdrawal 
of  the  Soviet  forces  from  Uman  and  Kristinovka  began  in 
the  direction  of  Talnoie.  On  the  way  many  bandits  joined  the 
Soviet  forces,  and  for  three  days  plundering  in  Talnoie  did  not 
cease.  A  part  of  the  Chigirin  regiment  was  stationed  here.  At 
the  same  time  the  local  Revolutionary  Committee,  in  which  four 
out  of  twelve  members  were  Jews,  imposed  a  contribution  of 
three  million  rubles  on  the  local  bourgeoisie.  Requisitions  of 
goods  and  wares  which  had  escaped  the  looting  were  made  upon 
the  Jewish  population.  For  non-payment  of  the  contribution 
the  bourgeois  were  arrested;  of  these  90  per  cent  were  Jews. 

After  some  time  the  Chigirin  detachment  disarmed  the  Revo- 
lutionary Committee  and  the  detachment  of  the  Extraordinary 
Committee,  with  cries  of  "Away  with  the  Jewish  regime !"  Soon 
the  weapons  were  returned  to  the  Russian  members  of  the  de- 
tachment and  the  Revolutionary  Committee  was  re-established, 
but  Jews  no  longer  occupied  prominent  places. 

On  May  7th  a  peasants'  assembly  was  held,  at  which  the  local 
officers,  dissatisfied  with  the  registration  of  officers  and  also 
with  the  actions  of  the  Revolutionary  Committee,  with  cries  of 
"Away  with  the  Soviet  regime,  away  with  the  Jews,  away  with 
Trotzky,"  demanded  an  explanation  of  the  president  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary Committee  concerning  the  registration  that  had  been 
ordered  and  concerning  the  lack  of  articles  of  prime  necessity. 
On  the  next  day  the  president  of  the  Extraordinary  Committee, 
Gross,  appeared  with  a  detachment  to  give  the  explanations,  and 
the  assembly  asked  him  to  hand  over  all  weapons  to  a  new 
militia,  which  was  chosen  on  the  spot.  Former  officers  were 
placed  at  the  head  of  it,  who  took  a  number  of  rifles  away 
from  the  detachment.  An  irregular  firing  began.  The  peasants 


TALNOIE  353 

of  the  assembly  dispersed.  The  ringleaders  (Polischuk,  Zakhary 
Oleinik,  and  others)  in  the  same  night  rode  into  the  surrounding 
villages,  collected  the  peasants  by  the  ringing  of  bells,  and  told 
them  fabulous  inventions  of  this  sort,  that  the  Jews  in  Talnoie 
were  plundering  the  church,  killing  Christians,  etc.,  and  that 
they  had  had  difficulty  in  escaping  from  there.  This  served  as 
the  start  for  a  pogrom.  On  May  13  the  rebels  began  to  approach 
Talnoie  under  the  leadership  of  former  officers  and  thugs  of 
Talnoie.  The  Soviet  detachment  fled.  A  proclamation  was 
posted  that  all  Jews  must  hand  in  their  weapons  within  24  hours. 
There  was  another  proclamation  that  all  militiamen  should  re- 
main in  their  places,  except  Jews.  A  former  associate  of  the 
Central  Rada,  Arseni  Melnichenko,  was  named  as  commandant  of 
the  town.  No  small  part  in  the  rebel  movement  was  played  by 
the  Ukrainian  Left  Social  Revolutionaries,  at  the  head  of  whom 
was  Karpov,  inspector  of  the  fourth  class  of  the  city  schools. 
On  May  14  the  commandant  called  an  assembly  of  Jews,  at 
which  there  appeared  and  spoke  a  delegate  from  the  Petlurist 
army,  a  representative  of  the  "Greens,"  and  a  representative 
of  the  local  command,  Vasili  Krivenky.  The  substance  of  their 
speeches  was  that  all  communists  were  Jews,  that  a  commune 
was  injurious  to  the  peasants,  and  that  the  Jews  must  be  ordered 
to  give  up  three  machine  guns  and  one  mine-thrower.  Dr. 
Vilenkis,  Volynetz  and  Schwarzmann  answered  them,  that  all 
weapons  had  long  since  been  collected  by  the  preceding  regimes. 
But  this  did  not  convince  them.  A  commission  of  ten  Jews 
was  chosen  to  take  part  in  searches  of  the  Jewish  population. 
After  the  searches  the  Jews  were  driven  out  on  the  "Konnaia 
Torgovitza"  (Horse-market  Square),  and  immediately  allowed 
to  return  home.  Next  day  the  same  thing  was  repeated ;  they 
rounded  up  the  Jews  and  demanded  the  surrender  of  weapons 
and  of  all  communists.  A  list  of  communists  was  presented. 
At  the  same  time  the  rebels  surrounded  Jewish  dwellings  and 
looted  and  killed.  There  were  15  people  killed,  and  about  50 
wounded. 

The  rebels  held  out  until  the  month  of  July.  An  order  for 
mobilization  was  issued,  in  which  nothing  was  said  of  Jews. 
All  the  stores  of  grain  which  the  preceding  regime  had  col- 
lected, and  all  food  products,  were  divided  exclusively  among 
Christians.  An  agitation  was  carried  on  that  the  peasants  should 
sell  nothing  to  the  Jews.  A  convention  of  peasants  was  held, 
at  which  an  Executive  Committee  was  elected. 

In  the  first  half  of  July  a  scouting  party  of  Klimenko  arrived, 
which  killed  one  Jew  and  wounded  one.  At  an  assembly  of 


354    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Jews  Klimenko  demanded  400  suits  of  underclothing,  several 
score  of  shoes,  15,000  cigarettes  a  day,  etc.  The  Jews  furnished 
the  latter.  Eight  days  later  Tiutiunik's  detachment  arrived  in 
Talnoie.  There  were  attempts  at  looting,  but  the  soldiers  of 
Klimenko  stopped  them,  saying:  "The  Jews  have  given  us  so 
much  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  kill  them."  Then  the  bands 
departed,  and  a  period  without  a  government  ensued  in  Talnoie. 

TOWN  OF  EMILCHINO   (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 

Pogrom  of  April  10,  1919 
Testimony  of  Vera  Borisovna  Rosenstein 

The  town  of  Emilchino,  canton  of  Novograd-Volynsk,  is  15 
versts  from  the  station  of  Yablontzy,  Korosten-Shepetovsky 
branch  of  the  Podolia  railroad.  Population,  four  or  five  thou- 
sand; 2,000  or  2,500  Jews.  Before  the  war  a  large  number  of 
German  colonists  lived  in  the  town  itself  and  round  about  it; 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  they  were  transported  to  eastern 
governments.  An  insignificant  number  of  the  colonists  returned 
in  the  year  1918  and  settled  in  their  former  places.  The  rela- 
tions between  Jews  and  Christians  had  long  been  good,  free 
from  any  tension.  The  Jewish  population,  economically  very 
backward,  in  political  respects  was,  especially  the  younger  gen- 
eration, strongly  imbued  with  Zionistic  and  Hebraistic  spirit. 
The  Christian  population  was  rather  well-to-do,  and  lived  always 
in  great  friendliness  with  the  Jews.  The  same  attitude,  which 
stood  out  in  specially  sharp  relief  at  the  time  of  the  pogrom, 
was  observed  also  on  the  part  of  the  local  Christian  intellectuals 
—the  priest  and  the  teachers  in  the  local  schools. 

On  April  9  at  12  midnight  there  appeared  in  the  town  a 
detachment  of  five  or  six  hundred  Petlurist  cavalry,  going,  as 
was  afterwards  learned,  from  Olevsk  to  Novograd-Volynsk. 
First  of  all  they  broke  up  the  Jewish  "Night  Patrol."  A  Jew- 
ish "patrol"  is  a  regular  phenomenon  in  this  part  of  Ukraine. 
It  was  first  organized  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Hetman,  and 
consisted  of  30  Jews.  The  absence  of  a  strong  and  definite 
government  and  the  appearance  ever  since  then  of  internal  dis- 
sensions caused  the  Jewish  population  to  see  the  necessity  of 
providing  for  their  own  defense,  or  at  least  the  appearance  of 
it.  This  guard  from  its  very  beginning  had  no  weapons,  by 
the  wish  of  the  Jewish  population  itself,  and  remained  in  this 
condition  during  the  whole  period  of  its  existence.  Besides  this 
Jewish  bourgeois  patrol,  there  was  an  armed  guard  of  ten  "hire- 


EMILCHINO:    PETLURIST   SOLDIERS    355 

lings,"  as  they  were  called  in  the  town,  exclusively  Russians,  and 
also  a  militia  of  15  members.  In  a  moment  all  the  Jewish  inhabi- 
tants of  the  little  town  learned  of  the  arrival  of  the  detachment 
and  became  alarmed.  In  spite  of  the  time  of  night,  they  poured 
forth  into  the  streets,  and  decided  to  send  to  the  detachment  a 
delegation  of  the  most  prominent  representatives  of  the  Jewish 
population,  with  the  president  of  the  Jewish  Community  at  the 
head  (Schneidermann,  owner  of  a  ready-made  clothing  store). 
When  the  delegation  asked  who  they  were,  whence  they  came 
and  whither  they  were  going,  the  commander  of  the  detachment 
answered  that  he  was  going  with  his  detachment  from  Olevsk 
to  Novograd-Volynsk,  and  that  they  would  proceed  on  their 
way  the  next  day.  He  also  asked  that  quarters  for  the  night 
and  provisions  be  furnished  for  his  detachment.  With  this 
reassuring  reply  the  delegation  returned  to  the  groups  of  Jews, 
who  were  waiting  right  there  in  the  street,  and  immediately 
started  to  collect  bread  for  the  detachment.  But  suddenly,  at 
1  A.M.,  several  soldiers  of  the  detachment  went  past  the  Jews 
who  had  not  yet  dispersed  and  cried  out:  "Oh,  you  Jews,  to 
your  houses,  or  we  will  fire."  This  threatening  warning,  and  a 
whole  series  of  others  which  followed  it,  and  which  were  not 
less  threatening,  convinced  the  Jews  that  all  manner  of  un- 
pleasantness was  to  be  expected  from  the  detachment.  They 
at  once  began  to  hide,  sending  the  young  women  to  the  elemen- 
tary school,  under  the  protection  of  the  teachers,  and  to  the 
local  justice  of  the  peace.  The  rest  fled  to  hide  with  peasants, 
but  some  did  not  succeed  in  doing  this  and  remained  at  home. 
In  the  house  where  the  Rosenstein  family  rented  an  apartment 
two  of  the  detachment  were  quartered,  who  called  themselves 
"commandants."  At  first  it  was  thought  that  there  was  no 
danger,  because  the  "commandants"  would  not  allow  the  house 
to  be  touched,  and  the  Rosenstein  family  therefore  decided  to 
remain.  But  suddenly  the  son  of  the  owner  of  the  house  ran 
in  to  say  that  the  "commandants"  staying  with  them  were  boast- 
ing of  having  participated  in  a  Jewish  pogrom.  There  was  no 
time  to  make  any  decision  before  shots  and  cries  were  suddenly 
heard.  Towards  morning  it  was  discovered  that  the  soldiers 
were  firing  in  the  air,  entering  houses  and  demanding  money. 
Though  they  were  not  natives  and  knew  no  one  in  the  town,  they 
addressed  the  Jews  marked  out  to  be  plundered,  calling  them 
by  name.  This  finally  decided  the  Rosenstein  family  to  go  and 
hide  somewhere.  So  they  ran  to  a  neighbor,  a  German  sausage- 
dealer.  He  took  them  to  the  dwelling  of  a  Polish  locksmith, 
which  was  more  like  a  barn  than  a  house  and  was  situated  in 


356    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  depths  of  his  own  courtyard.  Miss  Rosenstein  herself  fled 
to  her  aunt's,  but  when  towards  morning  it  was  learned  that 
the  soldiers  were  especially  interested  in  young  girls,  she  fled 
back  and  joined  her  sister  at  the  home  of  the  Polish  locksmith. 
But  it  was  overcrowded  there,  and  therefore  the  Pole  took  her 
over  to  the  dwelling  of  the  German  sausage-man.  In  the  morn- 
ing, with  a  great  crowd  of  peasants  from  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages, especially  "katzaps"  (Ukrainians)  from  the  village  of 
Nitia  (eight  versts  from  Emilchino),  the  soldiers  began  to 
break  into  stores  and  together  with  the  peasants  to  carry  out 
everything  that  was  in  them.  This  continued  till  two  o'clock. 
At  this  time  one  Jew  was  killed,  the  first  victim  of  the 
Emilchino  pogrom,  Khaikel  Brausmann,  aged  50,  who  ran  out 
of  his  home  to  save  his  iron-shop.  By  two  o'clock,  out  of  a 
hundred  shops,  more  than  half  were  looted.  About  this  time  the 
soldiers  began  to  visit  houses,  accompanied  by  groups  of  peas- 
ants who  by  this  time  had  been  greatly  excited  by  the  soldiers' 
propaganda.  Peasants  of  the  locality  took  part  in  the  looting 
only  to  a  very  insignificant  extent.  So  it  went  on  all  day  long. 
Towards  night  the  agitation  became  especially  great.  Reports 
were  heard  from  some  source  or  other  that  the  soldiers  were 
promising  to  massacre  the  whole  population  at  night.  The  night 
passed,  however,  all  right.  Towards  morning  on  April  11  the 
detachment  left  in  the  direction  of  Novograd-Volynsk.  The 
Jews  thought  it  was  all  over  and  started  to  return  to  their 
abandoned  homes.  But  suddenly  the  detachment  appeared  again. 
Afterwards  it  was  explained  that  during  the  night,  after  drink- 
ing heavily,  the  soldiers  got  to  quarreling,  and  one  of  their 
number  was  wounded.  The  soldiers  decided  to  make  use  of 
this  incident  and  give  it  the  proper  application.  And  so,  when 
they  had  already  gone  eight  versts  and  reached  the  village  of 
Sereb,  the  detachment  turned  back  and  burst  into  the  town  to 
complete  the  devastation.  The  peasants  accompanied  them  on 
this  day.  The  shops  that  had  escaped  the  day  before  were  opened, 
and  to  finish  them  off  were  set  on  fire.  The  soldiers  set  machine 
guns  before  the  shops  and  threatened  to  shoot  anyone  who 
should  go  up  to  put  out  the  fires.  Since  the  burning  shops 
were  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  church,  and  the  conflagration 
threatened  to  reach  it,  the  priest  came  out  to  the  crowd 
with  the  cross  in  his  hands  and  addressed  them  with  the  follow- 
ing words:  "I  do  not  protect  Jews  and  their  property,  but  you 
have  shed  enough  blood  already,  and  plundered  enough,  and 
besides,  remember  that  now  even  the  orthodox  church  may 
suffer."  This  had  its  effect,  and  they  did  not  start  any  more 


COSSACKS  357 

fires,  continuing,  however,  to  plunder  the  houses.  Towards 
morning  the  detachment  left  the  town  for  good,  leaving  it 
completely  desolate  and  ruined.  In  the  two  days  of  the  pogrom 
11  people  were  killed,  18  shops  burned,  more  than  300,000  rubles 
in  money  stolen,  and  the  value  of  21  to  23  millions  in  wares 
and  private  property  (at  valuations  far  from  market  prices). 

CHERNIAKHOV  (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLYHNIA) 
Pogroms:    January,  March,  July 
Testimony  of  Z.  Kh.   Verkhovsky 

The  town  of  Cherniakhov  is  in  the  canton  of  Zhitomir,  twenty 
versts  from  Zhitomir.  It  has  five  hundred  Jewish  families. 

On  Thursday,  January  10,  two  days  before  the  Zhitomir  po- 
grom, a  cavalry  detachment  appeared  at  night  and  arrested 
the  "patrol."  On  Friday  they,  together  with  the  mounted  militia, 
would  not  let  people  go  out  of  their  houses,  and  arrested  them 
on  the  streets.  On  the  next  day,  January  11,  in  the  evening, 
shooting  began;  the  peasants  of  the  neighboring  villages  gath- 
ered ;  they  plundered  all  the  shops  and  some  dwellings.  The 
government  of  the  town  disappeared.  On  Saturday,  during  the 
day,  a  telegram  was  received  from  Kiev  from  the  Jewish  Na- 
tional Secretariat  that  measures  were  being  adopted  against 
disorders,  the  responsibility  for  which  rested  on  all  the  popula- 
tion. They  went  with  this  telegram  to  the  government  of  the 
district  (volost).  Then  a  detachment  was  secretly  organized, 
which  arranged  an  ambush  and  killed  the  ringleader  of  the 
looters,  Bezdetko,  a  well-known  thief  and  burglar,  going  by  the 
nickname  of  "Pup."  In  this  detachment  the  son  of  Stefanchuk, 
former  commander  of  militia,  who  had  been  killed  by  this  same 
bandit,  took  part. 

On  March  15,  when  the  bolsheviki  began  to  retreat  from 
Zhitomir,  a  rebel  movement  began  in  the  surrounding 
region,  and  a  Cossack  tribe  from  beyond  the  rapids  arrived  at 
Cherniakhov,  arrested  the  bourgeois  starosta  (head  man),  and 
the  president  of  the  (Jewish)  Community,  and  demanded  a 
contribution  of  five  thousand  rubles  and  also  a  great  deal  of 
produce.  The  ataman's  assistant,  Starozhuk,  came  to  the 
synagogue,  where  many  Jews  were  huddled  together,  and  de- 
manded that  a  woman  be  furnished  him.  After  long  and  pain- 
ful discussion  it  was  decided  to  refuse  this,  and  they  presented 
him  personally  with  5,000  rubles.  In  the  evening  the  tribe  did 
some  looting  and  killed  one  Jewish  woman  because  she  would 


358    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

not  consent  to  the  violation  of  her  daughters.  On  the  next  day 
the  tribe  departed.  Many  women  had  been  violated.  From 
this  day  until  Easter,  when  the  Soviet  forces  arrived,  attacks 
of  various  bands  constantly  occurred,  from  each  of  which  the 
Jewish  population  always  suffered.  They  got  through,  how- 
ever, without  the  loss  of  lives,  for  they  always  "adopted 
measures,"  that  is,  gave  large  sums  of  money. 

A  week  before  Easter  the  Chertomitzky  regiment  arrived, 
which  engaged  in  beating  and  looting,  and  exposed  the  Jews  to 
maltreatment,  forcing,  for  instance,  whole  groups  to  sing  and 
dance.  Several  days  later  it  appeared  again  and  prepared  to 
perpetrate  a  massacre  (all,  including  the  ataman,  were  drunk), 
shouting  that  the  Jews  were  supplying  the  bolsheviki  with  cart- 
ridges (on  the  way  they  had  met  a  certain  Jewish  youth  who 
was  carrying  cartridges  to  sell  to  Czechs  in  a  neighboring  vil- 
lage; the  boy  was  killed  on  the  spot).  The  ataman  of  the 
tribe  demanded  that  a  large  quantity  of  products  be  supplied 
to  him.  At  this  time  there  arrived  from  Zhitomir  a  small  de- 
tachment commanded  by  Sokolovsky  (the  well-known  Soko- 
lovsky  from  the  village  of  Gorbulevo)  and  Col.  Yanitzky.  Under 
the  influence  of  Yanitzky,  Sokolovsky  interfered  and  would  not 
permit  the  pogrom  to  be  carried  out,  and  even  arrested  the 
ataman.  Sokolovsky  spent  about  a  week  here  and  all  was 
quiet. 

Just  before  the  Jewish  Passover  (April  15)  there  occurred 
an  attack  of  Petlurists  from  Zhitomir  passing  through  Chernia- 
khov  with  Vozny  at  their  head.  They  took  up  quarters  in  the 
town  over  night,  and  some  looting  occurred.  Yanitzky  was 
equal  to  the  occasion ;  four  looters  were  killed,  and  quiet  ensued. 
Two  days  later  they  left.  The  Soviet  forces  arrived— the  9th 
regiment  (April  18).  Looting  took  place  extensively  (peasants 
were  also  victims  of  it).  The  soldiers  defended  it  by  saying 
that  the  Jews  were  supporting  Petlura,  etc.  After  some  days 
the  regiment  departed. 

After  the  last  pogrom  at  Radomysl,  rumors  began  to  spread 
that  Sokolovsky  was  coming  to  Cherniakhov.  The  symptoms 
appeared :  the  peasants  began  to  gather,  threats  to  the  Jews  were 
heard,  and  on  June  19  the  peasants  came  to  the  Jewish  artisans 
and  took  away  from  them  all  the  materials  that  had  been  fur- 
nished them  for  work  ordered.  The  Jews  were  frightened  and 
applied  to  the  Revolutionary  Committee  to  take  measures.  But 
Davidenko,  the  President  of  the  Committee,  and  himself  the 
military  commissar,  took  no  action.  Afterwards  the  suspicion 
was  confirmed  that  he  was  in  league  with  Sokolovsky.  On  the 


PETLURIST   SOLDIERS  359 

next  day,  June  20,  the  band  broke  in  and  began  to  loot  and  kill 
In  the  course  of  something  like  an  hour  14  Jews  were  killed; 
about  10  were  wounded.  The  local  Christians,  especially  the 
school  teachers,  came  forward  in  defense  of  the  Jews,  and 
stopped  the  pogrom.  In  general  the  Christians  of  Cherniakhov 
varied  in  their  attitude;  sometimes  they  baited  the  Jews,  some- 
times they  defended  them;  they  changed  back  and  forth. 

The  leader  of  the  band  called  an  assembly,  at  which  Jews 
were  also  present  (several  times  they  were  invited  and  then 
driven  out).  Prominent  Christians  advised  the  Jews  to  draw 
up  a  formal  statement  to  the  effect  that  they  were  not  inter- 
fering in  politics  in  any  way,  that  they  welcomed  Sokolovsky, 
etc.  The  Jewish  inhabitants  were  inclined  to  agree  to  this,  but 
the  young  people,  especially  the  members  of  the  Bund  and  the 
Zionists,  opposed  it.  The  statement  was  not  drawn  up.  Sev- 
eral hours  later  a  Soviet  armored  train  suddenly  appeared,  the 
band  fled,  and  the  Soviet  forces  occupied  the  town.  They 
stayed  two  or  three  days,  left  some  red  soldiers,  and  departed. 
Things  became  disturbed  again;  many  departed  for  Zhitomir 
(on  the  way  to  Zhitomir  the  Feldblum  family,  of  five  persons, 
was  murdered).  On  Tuesday,  June  24,  some  gangs  again  fired 
on  the  town;  on  that  day  and  the  next  14  more  people  were 
killed,  and  several  days  later,  June  28,  two  more. 

YANUSHPOL   (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 

Pogrom  of  March  25-29,  1919 

Testimony  of  S.  L.  Gorenstein 

The  town  of  Yanushpol,  government  of  Volhynia,  canton  of 
Zhitomir,  is  25  versts  from  Berdichev  and  26  versts  from  the 
station  of  Demchin,  Southwestern  Railroad.  It  has  seven  or 
eight  thousand  population,  with  fifteen  or  eighteen  hundred 
Jews.  There  is  a  sugar  factory  (granulated  and  refined)  in  the 
town.  It  is  one  of  the  largest  in  Volhynia,  and  belongs  to  Z.  N. 
Gorenstein.  The  employees  of  the  factory  are  mostly  Jews. 

The  change  from  the  Hetman's  government  to  that  of  Petlura 
took  place  almost  without  trouble  and  without  notice.  After 
the  disorders  carried  on  by  the  secheviki  (a  kind  of  soldiers) 
there  was  some  alarm  in  Berdichev  and  Yanushpol.  Various 
rumors  were  afloat.  The  Jews  organized  night  patrols  for  sev- 
eral nights.  However,  the  alarm  proved  unnecessary.  In  gen- 
eral quiet  reigned  during  the  whole  period  of  the  Petlura  regime. 
In  the  middle  of  February  there  appeared  several  communists, 


360    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

who  came  to  Yanushpol  to  form  a  rebel  detachment  among  the 
local  peasants.  The  peasant  youths  willingly  joined  the  de- 
tachment. A  mobilization  of  peasants  covering  several  years 
(of  age)  was  declared.  When  they  heard  in  Berdichev  of  what 
was  going  on  in  Yanushpol,  a  punitive  detachment  was  dispatched 
thither,  but  it  turned  about  midway  on  the  road,  because  Soviet 
forces  from  the  direction  of  Kasatin  were  approaching  Berdi- 
chev. On  the  whole  of  the  trip  the  secheviki  chastised  the  Jews 
whom  they  met  in  the  villages.  Thus  in  the  village  of  Karpovtzo 
all  the  property  of  several  Jewish  families  was  looted.  Even  a 
little  synagogue  was  not  spared;  the  sacred  furnishings  were 
destroyed,  according  to  report.  When  Berdichev  was  taken  by 
the  bolsheviki,  the  insurgents  from  Yanushpol  went  to  join 
them,  together  with  the  local  guard. 

On  March  25,  fair  day,  at  5  P.M.,  a  cavalry  detachment  of 
Petlurists,  commanded  by  Ataman  Borisov,  entered  the  town. 
They  at  once  burst  into  several  rather  well-to-do  Jewish  homes 
and  began  to  loot.  In  one  house  the  telephone  bell  rang  at 
this  time.  They  permitted  the  owner  to  go  to  the  telephone,  but 
and  beat  him  and  accused  him  of  giving  secret  information 
over  the  telephone.  They  hauled  him  to  the  ataman,  maltreating 
him  frightfully  on  the  way.  Others  brought  along  his  wife 
and  other  persons  who  happened  to  be  in  the  house  at  the  time. 
The  ataman,  however,  understood  how  ridiculous  the  accusation 
was  and  let  them  go. 

In  the  detachment  there  was  a  considerable  percentage  of 
Galicians  and  Poles.  Many  of  them  were  richly  dressed  and 
had  large  sums  of  money  with  them.  In  general  this  detach- 
ment stood  in  cultural  respects  higher  than  the  other  detach- 
ments which  arrived  later.  Among  other  things  they  said  that 
Yanushpol  was  the  only  place  where  they  had  not  been  allowed 
to  have  a  pogrom  so  far.  They  had  acquitted  themselves  espe- 
cially well,  they  said,  in  Novo-Chartoria.  "After  us,"  they  said, 
"a  baggage  train  is  coming,  and  infant^,  and  you  had  better 
be  afraid  of  them."  On  the  next  day,  March  26,  the  secheviki 
opened  the  Jewish  shops  and  gave  permission  to  peasants,  who 
rushed  together  from  the  surrounding  villages,  to  take  whatever 
they  wanted.  One  soldier  threw  into  the  crowd  a  fifty-ruble 
note,  saying  as  he  did  so  that  he  had  taken  this  from  the  Jews 
not  for  himself  personally,  but  for  the  whole  mass  of  the  poor 
people.  On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  there  began  a  visitation 
of  the  well-to-do  houses.  Wherever  the  secheviki  found  nothing 
to  take,  they  cruelly  beat  everyone,  large  and  small,  with  whips 
and  gun-butts,  etc.  "You  think  I  want  your  money,"  said  one 


YANUSHPOL  361 

soldier;  "I  want  to  destroy  your  Jewish  life."  On  the  next 
day,  March  27,  the  looting  increased,  and  the  bandits  went 
around  accompanied  by  peasant  lads,  who  indicated  where  it 
was  worth  while  to  go  in. 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  the  detachment's  baggage- 
train  arrived.  The  alarm  among  the  Jews  increased.  Some 
of  them,  employees  of  the  factory,  ran  to  the  factory  grounds 
and  hid  in  various  of  the  factory  barns.  The  night,  however, 
went  off  quietly.  On  the  next  day  a  rumor  spread  that  the 
baggage-train  was  departing.  The  employees  were  on  the  point 
of  dispersing  to  their  homes,  when  people  came  from  the  town 
with  the  terrible  news  that  the  pogrom  had  started.  Soon  the 
news  of  the  first  murders  arrived.  A  terrible  panic  broke  out 
at  the  factory  among  the  Jewish  employees.  The  Christian 
workmen,  employees,  skilled  artisans,  and  guards,  were  quite 
indifferent  to  all  that  was  taking  place.  They  did  not  respond 
to  the  proposal  of  the  Jewish  employees  to  organize  a  guard 
for  the  factory.  One  employee  proposed  to  send  to  the  secheviki 
a  delegation  from  the  factory  committee,  the  local  Russian  in- 
tellectuals, the  officialdom,  and  the  orthodox  and  catholic  clergy; 
to  which  the  president  of  the  committee  replied  that  "this  would 
be  not  at  all  suitable,  that  it  did  not  come  within  their  com- 
petence, and  that  in  general  the  Christian  religion  did  not  permit 
the  defense  of  people  of  other  faiths." 

In  the  town  itself  there  were  left  only  few  Jews  who  had 
not  gone  out  to  the  factory.  In  the  course  of  the  day  the 
secheviki  visited  all  the  houses  and  beat  half  to  death  whom- 
ever they  caught  in  them.  This  went  on  all  day  Friday  and  Sat- 
urday. The  secheviki  took  only  money,  watches,  and  the  most 
valuable  articles.  After  them  hundreds  of  peasants  followed, 
men  and  women,  who  literally  took  everything  out  of  the  houses. 

On  Friday  two  soldiers  of  the  mounted  detachment  came  to 
the  factory  grounds.  This  time  they  did  no  more  than  take 
several  sacks  of  sugar  from  the  storehouse  on  the  orders  of 
their  leader.  Some  Christian  workmen  and  employees  at  last  con- 
sented to  form  a  guard  from  their  own  midst,  in  the  house  of 
the  manager  of  the  factory,  where  many  Jewish  employees  were 
concealed.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  the  only  employee  of  the 
factory  who  showed  himself  very  active  in  the  defense  of  it 
was  D.,  a  former  member  of  the  Union  of  the  Russian  People 
(the  reactionary  Nationalist  Party,  the  organizer  of  the  "Black 
Hundreds"). 

On  Saturday,  March  29,  the  secheviki  came  to  the  above- 
mentioned  home  of  the  manager  of  the  factory.  The  presence 


362    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

of  the  Christian  workmen,  and  the  external  quiet  and  calm  with 
which  they  were  met  by  the  owners,  somewhat  confused  the 
bandits,  and  they  only  asked  to  be  permitted  to  wash  and  have 
something  to  eat.  Having  washed  and  eaten,  they  started  to 
look  for  weapons.  The  head  of  the  gang  said  to  a  student,  the 
son  of  the  owner  of  the  house:  "Don't  look  on  me  as  a  man, 
I  am  a  wolf,  because  I  am  a  sechevik."  These  words  they  re- 
peated frequently.  They  visited  the  factory  nearly  twenty  times ; 
each  time  they  were  bought  off  with  money.  On  Monday, 
March  31,  the  pogrom  quieted  down  somewhat.  On  Friday, 
April  4,  the  secheviki  broke  loose  again  for  several  hours,  after 
which,  under  pressure  of  the  Soviet  forces,  they  left  the  town. 

TOWN  OF  ANNOPOL  (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 
To  the  Central  Section  for  the  Relief  of  Victims  of  Pogroms 

From  Krupnik,  a  Citizen  of  the  Town  of  Annopol 
W'' .:.,•'.:•• 

From  the  very  first  day  of  the  occupation  of  Ukraine  by  the 
Petlurist  forces,  small  detachments  of  Petlurists  began  to  arrive 
in  the  town  of  Annopol,  who  unmercifully  looted  the  Jewish 
population,  but  did  no  killing.  After  one  occurrence,  when  a 
Petlurist  robbed  a  soldier  who  had  just  returned  from  captivity 
in  Germany  and  who  offered  resistance,  the  Petlurists  began 
beating  people  up,  and  in  one  day  eight  were  killed  and  about 
sixty  wounded.  The  wounded,  afraid  of  being  shot,  did  not 
show  themselves  on  the  street,  and  died  for  lack  of  treatment. 

For  about  two  months  the  Jews  lay  in  cellars  and  bath- 
houses. They  did  not  hide  in  synagogues,  because  there  had 
been  a  case  in  which  the  Petlurists  had  plundered  Jews  who 
were  hiding  in  a  synagogue.  The  Jewish  Community  was 
functioning  officially,  but  was  not  active,  because  on  the  first 
day  of  the  arrivaj  of  the  Petlurists  its  president,  Holtzmann, 
was  arrested  and  shot.  Small  bands  of  five  or  ten  men  rode 
into  the  town,  and,  not  finding  the  inhabitants,  would  look  in 
cellars  and  in  the  cemetery  and  other  places,  and  if  they  found 
inhabitants  would  take  them  home  and  demand  that  they  show 
them  the  places  where  their  property  and  money  were  hidden. 
If  they  were  not  shown  and  were  not  given  money,  they  would 
kill  them.  Contributions  were  imposed  almost  every  day.  At 
first  they  would  impose  levies  of  a  hundred  or  fifty  thousand; 
but  later,  when  the  resources  of  the  place  ran  out  and  many 
of  the  inhabitants  had  been  killed,  they  took  three  thousand  or 
even  only  one  thousand  each  time.  Besides  money  they  took 
clothing,  pillows,  samovars.  In  a  word,  they  robbed  the  town 


ANNOPOL:    PETLURIST  SOLDIERS      363 

of  a  sum  amounting  to  three  or  four  millions.  The  dead 
amount  to  fifteen,  among  them  a  girl  of  sixteen,  shot  on  the 
street  without  any  reason.  The  Petlurists  ran  around  the 
streets  shouting,  "Kill  the  Jews,  even  the  Jewish  children."  At 
a  meeting  which  took  place  in  the  town  the  Petlurist  officers 
appeared  and  cried  shame  on  each  other  because  the  Jews  had 
driven  them  out  of  Berdichev.  The  Christian  population  did 
not  move  a  finger  to  help  the  Jews.  They  took  from  the  Jews 
not  only  money,  but  even  fodder  for  the  horses,  and  the  Jews 
had  to  buy  of  the  Christian  population  everything  that  the  Pet- 
lurists needed,  even  tallow.  After  the  Petlurists  left,  the  popu- 
lation looked  to  the  bolsheviki  as  saviors,  but  were  disappointed 
in  their  expectations,  since  the  bolsheviki  also  made  themselves 
felt.  The  units  which  came  looted  the  population,  and  what  the 
Petlurists  didn't  take  the  bolshevik  units  took.  The  actions  of 
the  Taraschan  regiment  may  serve  as  an  example.  When  the 
Taraschan  regiment  was  transported  to  Rovno,  they  stopped 
for  the  night  in  Annopol,  and  all  night  long  plundered  the  place, 
so  that  on  the  next  day  they  carried  away  the  loot  in  carts. 
But  more  than  that,  fifteen  men  of  this  same  regiment  remained 
as  garrison.  They  opened  the  shops  and  scattered  abroad  the 
goods  which  the  Petlurists  had  left.  There  was  a  case  in  which 
the  head  of  the  detachment  imposed  a  levy  of  15,000  rubles,  of 
which  11,000  was  paid.  But  in  spite  of  the  levies  and  improper 
requisitions  without  the  issuance  of  revolutionary  orders,  never- 
theless the  population  remained  content  with  the  bolshevist  regi- 
ments, because  at  least  they  did  not  kill.  The  "Kombed"  (Com- 
mittee of  the  Poor),  which  was  organized  after  the  departure  of 
the  Petlurists,  made  every  effort  to  aid  the  hundred  and  fifty 
families  who  had  lost  all.  For  this  purpose  it  started  a  mill 
going,  which  belonged  to  a  land-owner  Ivkov,  and  it  is  distrib- 
uting among  the  poorest  population  what  is  received  for  the 
grinding  of  flour.  But  this  is  a  drop  in  the  bucket.  There  is 
no  clothing,  and  very  little  medical  aid  (there  is  a  hospital), 
while  in  the  town  and  the  surrounding  district  typhus  is  raging, 
so  that  the  situation  is  desperate.  The  Committee  of  the  Poor 
also  distributes  salt  to  the  population,  but  in  very  small  quan- 
tities; a  pound  of  salt  costs  30  to  35  rubles  and  there  is  none 
to  be  had  in  town.  Medicines  are  distributed  free,  but  many 
drugs  are  not  to  be  had  in  town.  There  are  no  longer  either 
rich  or  poor,  so  that  there  are  no  means  -for  furnishing  medi- 
cines. The  population  is  reckoned  at  6,0(50,  and  of  these  150 
families  are  entirely  without  means,  while  the  remaining  six 
or  seven  hundred  families  are  living  from  hand  to  mouth. 


364    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

In  attaching  hereto  the  certificate  issued  by  the  Annopol 
Committee  of  the  Poor,  I  beg  you  to  grant  aid  in  money  to  the 
extent  of  500  rubles  for  each  Jewish  family,  so  that  thereby  at 
least  for  the  time  being  the  population  may  be  relieved,  until 
the  formation  in  the  canton  of  a  Committee  of  Relief,  and  until 
the  Committee  of  the  Poor  may  be  able  to  give  more  help.  The 
prices  in  Annopol  are  frightful.  A  pound  of  bread  costs  seven 
or  eight  rubles,  whereas  two  weeks  ago  it  cost  four  rubles. 
Work  of  every  sort  is  at  a  standstill,  the  shops  are  closed,  so 
that  even  at  seven  rubles  there  is  no  bread.  Therefore  I,  the 
emissary  of  the  Committee  of  the  Poor,  beg  you  to  supply  aid 
for  the  physically  and  morally  crushed  population.  For  five 
years  now,  that  is,  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  Annopol  has 
been  living  on  the  basis  of  military  activities,  and  at  every 
change  of  government  Annopol  has  borne  on  its  shoulders  all 
the  weight  of  violence  and  destruction.  Hence  I  beg  you  to 
hear  the  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness  and  send  financial  aid 
to  the  extent  of  500  rubles  for  each  family.  The  local  Com- 
mittee of  the  Poor  will  take  upon  itself  the  handling  of  the 
money  and  the  furnishing  of  relief;  it  is  acquainted  with  local 
conditions.  If  the  section  decides  to  grant  money,  I  beg  you 
to  hand  it  over  to  me,  personally,  since  money  sent  through 
various  institutions  is  a  long  time  in  arriving. 

(Signature) 

Supplementary  Report 

The  population  was  principally  employed  in  the  grain  and 
lumber  business.  There  are  tanneries,  and  many  workmen;  it 
was  a  very  wealthy  town.  It  is  proposed  to  use  the  money  for 
the  establishment  of  a  dining-hall  and  hospital.  The  150  fami- 
lies in  want,  mostly  artisans,  even  if  the  instruments  of  produc- 
tion could  be  furnished  them,  would  have  no  work  to  do  and  no 
orders.  The  amount  requested  is  for  first  aid.  Typhus  is  rag- 
ing; there  is  a  hospital,  with  inventory  and  list;  but  there  are 
no  supplies  and  hence  it  is  not  functioning. 

VOLOCHISK   (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 

To   the   Volochisk  Revolutionary   Committee,  from   the   Under- 
signed Citizens  of  the  Town  of  Volochisk: 

PETITION 

It  is  now  more  than  six  weeks  that  the  present  condition  of 
our  town  and  district  has  lasted— like  one  long  nightmare.  It 


VOLOCHISK  365 

is  not  the  bombs  that  burst  over  our  heads  almost  every  day  and 
in  great  numbers,  nor  the  incessant  fire  from  machine  guns 
and  rifles  that  frightens  us.  From  the  bombs  the  popula- 
tion can  hide  in  cellars.  But  for  three  weeks  now  the 
violent  and  arbitrary  actions  of  certain  Red  soldiers  in 
our  town  have  never  ceased.  Our  hundreds  of  depositions 
have  no  results,  since  the  militia  is.  powerless  to  do  anything 
against  the  Red  soldiers.  But  in  the  meantime  in  broad  day- 
light homes  are  broken  open,  and,  under  fear  of  death  by 
shooting,  the  property  of  people  who  are  not  rich  (for  the  rich 
have  left  town),  but  poor  petty  traders  and  principally  workmen, 
is  carried  off.  The  losses  already  amount  to  about  five  millions. 
There  have  been  cases  of  beating  in  cellars,  while  the  hiding 
population  was  being  fired  upon.  Old  men  and  women  have 
been  beaten.  Locks  of  stores  are  broken  open  at  night,  and 
what  goods  are  left  there  are  carried  off.  A  violent  anti-Semitic 
agitation  is  going  on. 

In  view  of  all  the  above-mentioned  facts,  we  apply  to  you 
with  the  request  that  you  adopt  measures  to  put  a  stop  to 
occurrences  of  this  sort,  and  appropriate  a  sum  for  the  support 
of  the  existence  of  the  plundered  poor  population. 

DISTRICT  OF  KOROSTEN 

To  the  Head  Mission  of  the  Russian  Society  of  the  Red  Cross 

for  Ukraine  and  Crimea,  Division  of  Relief  for  Victims  of 

Pogroms:  From  S.  S.  Kahan,  in  Charge  of  Relief  Work 

in  the  District  of  Korosten 

August  10,  1919 
KOROSTEN  * 

The  Korosten  region  of  relief  work  includes  Korosten,  Usho- 
mir,  Luginy,  Olevsk,  Vaskovichi,  and  Ovruch.f  The  center  of 
this  region,  because  of  its  geographical  position,  is  the  town  of 
Iskorost  (railroad  station  of  Korosten,  Southwest  Railroad). 
The  pogrom  outbreaks,  all  characteristic  manifestations  of  the 
first  wave  of  pogroms  in  Ukraine,  took  place  here  comparatively 
long  ago,  in  the  winter  (January)  and  in  the  early  spring 
(March  and  April).  This  district  has  already  been  investigated, 
in  part  twice,  by  agents  of  the  Central  Jewish  Committee  (Ov- 

*  Cf .  infra,  pp.  200  ff. 
t  Cf .  infra,  pp.  185  ff. 


366    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

ruch,  by  A.  I.  Hillerson  and  myself;  the  other  places  of  the 
district,  by  I.  G.  Tzifrinovich).  In  the  time  following  the  visits 
of  the  agents  to  these  places,  there  have  been  no  new  occur- 
rences of  pogroms  here.  The  bloody  stream  of  banditry  and 
insurrection,  which  inundated  almost  the  whole  of  the  govern- 
ments of  Kiev  and  Podolia,  touched  the  edges  of  this  district, 
but  until  the  last  days  did  not  break  loose  within  its  borders. 
The  population  of  these  places,  in  particular  of  Korosten,  found 
it  hard,  of  course,  to  forget  the  occurrences  of  the  past  po- 
groms. But  the  sharpness  of  the  moment,  the  bitter  want  of 
the  first  days  after  the  pogrom,  the  uncooled  blood  of  the  vic- 
tims— all  this  has  had  time  to  heal  somewhat,  and  had  it  not  been 
for  general  political  and  economic  conditions,  the  wounds  in- 
flicted on  the  life  of  the  people  might  have  been  healed.  But 
the  trouble  is  that  it  is  characteristic  of  Korosten  that  this  place 
is  a  central  point  strategically  speaking — a  favorite  tid-bit  for 
the  various  contending  sides  in  the  civil  war.  For  half  a  year 
Korosten  has  remained  a  theater  of  military  activities  on  the 
front.  The  military  side  holds  the  center  of  attention  here. 
Here  there  is  always  an  armed  camp.  Not  far  away  are  the 
"positions,"  now  of  the  Poles  and  Petlurists,  now  of  what  is 
called  in  recent  times  the  "internal  front."  The  civil  side,  the 
departments  of  government  and  industry,  are  all  the  time  in 
a  state  of  suppression  here.  All  the  actual  power  belongs  to  the 
military  departments,  which  are,  of  course,  "good"  or  "bad," 
and  to  whose  whims  the  population  of  this  strip  along  the 
front  is  exposed.  The  general  political  conditions,  the  nearness 
of  the  "positions"  (of  the  armies),  the  instability  of  the  front — 
all  create  a  feeling  of  uncertainty  about  the  morrow,  a  state  of 
unemployment,  and  economic  depression.  And  the  "co-opera- 
tives" and  "sackers"  have  not  been  able  to  improve  the  economic 
position  of  the  majority  of  the  Jewish  population. 

In  Korosten  it  is  hard  to  define  exactly  the  moment  of  the 
"present"  authentic  Jewish  pogrom.  Here,  as  is  shown  by  the 
reports  of  my  predecessors,  the  pogrom  outbreaks  happened  re- 
peatedly. Moreover  this  town  has  the  distinction  of  being  the 
first  scene  of  pogroms  in  Ukraine.  The  devastation  which  is 
caused  by  a  pogrom  in  the  specific  sense  of  the  word,  was  caused 
here  in  Korosten  not  only  by  pogroms  but  also  by  the  presence 
and  the  rule  of  military  units  of  all  colors,  of  all  political  orien- 
tations. The  neighboring  towns  say  of  Korosten  that  in  Koro- 
sten there  "really  never  was  any  genuine  pogrom,"  and  this  town 
has  been  considered  fortunate  in  the  matter  of  pogroms,  up  to 
very  recent  days. 


KOROSTEN  PEASANTS 

The  moment  of  my  arrival  in  Korosten  happened  to  coincide 
with  a  new  wave.,  with  a  new  stage  in  the  civil  war  here  in  this 
region.  Under  the  influence  of  reverses  on  the  front,  and  on 
account  of  the  drafting,  outbreaks  against  the  "commune"  and 
the  "Jews"  began  in  many  villages  and  hamlets.  Unexpectedly 
for  the  small  groups  of  Jewish  families  living  in  the  surrounding 
villages  and  hamlets  (three,  four,  or  five  families  in  a  place), 
armed  peasants  began  to  appear,  assemblies  were  called,  upris- 
ings were  organized  against  the  Soviet  regime;  and,  as  a  neces- 
sary ritual  of  such  uprisings,  plundering  and  murder  of  individ- 
ual Jews.  The  inhabitants  of  these  scattered  localities,,  which 
none  of  us  knew  anything  about,  fled 'to  their  capital  of  Koro- 
sten, leaving  their  property  exposed  to  plunder  at  the  hands  of 
the  local  peasants;  or  they  even  abandoned  their  families  and 
fled  pellmell  wherever  they  happened  to  be  able  to  go.  All  these 
tiny  places,  such  as  Shershni,  Tulchinki,  Dobrini,  etc.,  with  their 
two  or  three  [Jewish]  families  (see  pages  1-6  the  report),  ex- 
perienced the  same  things  as  were  experienced  in  Zhitomir, 
Ovruch,  and  Proskurov,  where  we  know  and  all  the  world  knows 
what  happened.  The  whole  horror  of  their  position  consisted 
in  the  doomed  situation  in  which  they  found  themselves.  Ban- 
dits hunted  them  down,  "for  their  lives,"  as  Matiashko,  the  head 
of  the  bands  operating  hereabouts,  said.  The  victims  of  these 
outbreaks  were  people  who  were  not  in  the  least  to  blame  for 
anything— old-time  and  aged  inhabitants  of  the  villages,  who 
hated  the  "commune"  as  much  as  those  who  killed  them  in  the 
name  of  the  struggle  against  this  "commune."  Into  these  locali- 
ties an  investigating  agent  will  never  penetrate;  they  will  never 
be  recorded  in  the  pages  of  a  report.  All  these  uprisings  against 
the  regime  and  the  Jews  occurred  under  the  banner  of  Soko- 
lovsky,  whose  detachments  operated  in  the  region  near  Zhitomir. 
In  many  places  there  was  no  direct  connection  with  Sokolovsky*s 
detachments,  but  the  peasants,  thinking  that  at  present  they  had 
to  give  themselves  some  name  or  other,  decided  to  call  them- 
selves his  followers.  There  were  places  where  the  peasants, 
although  they  rose  against  the  Soviet  regime,  nevertheless  distin- 
guished themselves  from  Sokolovsky;  in  such  places  there  were 
neither  murders  of  Jews,  nor  even  robberies.  In  certain  places 
a  new  trait  may  be  noted  in  the  relations  of  the  insurgent  peas- 
ants to  the  Jews.  Thus,  in  the  town  of  Ushomir  (about  which 
see  below),  near  Korosten,  the  rebel  peasants  did  not  touch  any 
of  the  Jews.  Fifteen  of  the  rebels  appeared  in  the  town  early 
one  morning,  summoned  all  the  Jews  into  the  synagogue,  and 
there  announced  to  them,  that  they  had  come  not  to  destroy  the 


368    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

Jews  but  to  fight  the  commune,  and  that  if  the  Jews  would  co- 
operate with  them  in  this  fight,  all  would  be  well.  At  the  same 
time  the  rebels  warned  the  Jews  not  to  assemble  for  the  im- 
pending mobilization  declared  by  the  bolsheviki.  The  same  thing 
happened  in  several  other  places,  where  the  Jews  even  announced 
to  the  government  that  they  could  go  to  the  rallying-point  (for 
military  service)  only  in  case  the  peasants  went,  too.  But  if 
such  idylls  of  the  civil  war  did  take  place,  they  took  place  only 
in  a  few  towns  and  villages,  where  the  insurgents  were  local 
peasants  who  saw  before  them  only  "their  own"  Jews,  in  whom 
they  did  not  suspect  "communism"  in  the  least. 

But  the  capital  of  the  district,  Iskorost,  was  apparently  con- 
sidered by  the  peasants  a  citadel  of  communism,  and  the  peas- 
ants watched  everything  that  went  on  there  very  closely.  And 
when  I  arrived  in  Korosten  and  started  to  organize  a  dining- 
hall  and  to  arrange  a  kettle,  that  same  awful  "common  kettle" 
with  which  the  agitators  frighten  the  peasants,  that  authentic 
symbol  of  a  "commune";  and  when  the  report  of  this  "kettle" 
came  to  another  town,  Ushomir,  they  began  to  say  that  in  Koro- 
sten "the  Jews  are  already  establishing  a  commune,  the  kettle 
has  already  been  seen"  ...  In  Ushomir  the  peasants  said  to 
the  Jews:  "Go  to  Korosten,  there  the  kettle  is  all  ready!"  The 
Jews  of  Ushomir  were  frightened,  fearing  that  they  would  be 
accused  of  founding  a  "commune,"  and  begged  me  not  to  start 
a  dining-hall  in  Ushomir  like  that  in  Korosten,  lest  it  bring 
upon  them  the  charge  of— communism !  Thus  amid  tragic  and 
tragi-comic  incidents  and  occurrences  passed  the  first  days  of 
work  in  the  district,  from  June  24  to  July  5.  This  was  the  first 
period  of  the  insurrection;  a  period  of  attempts  at  rebellion, 
cautious  and  timid  as  yet,  and  scattered  outbreaks  among  the 
peasants. 

TOWN  OF  SLOVECHNO  (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 
Pogrom  of  July  16-19,  1919 

I.     Testimony  of  Isaac  Goldberg,  Aged  23,  Teacher  and  Man 
of  Letters 

Until  the  recent  nightmare-experiences  there  was  no  danger 
in  Slovechno  for  the  Jewish  population. 

The  Jewish  population  of  Slovechno  consists  of  forty  per 
cent  laboring  element,  workmen;  the  rest  of  the  Jewish  popula- 
tion consists  of  petty  merchants,  an  insignificant  number  being 


SLOVECHNO  369 

large  merchants  and  tanners.  The  peasants  live  intermingled 
wth  the  Jews— first  a  peasant's  hut,  then  a  Jew's.  Only  the 
center  of  the  town  is  inhabited  mainly  by  Jews.  The  Russian 
population  of  the  town  is  mostly  poor;  they  have  little  land  and 
are  mainly  hired  laborers.  In  recent  times  the  peasants  have 
been  working  for  Jews  and  thus  had  dealings  with  them.  Often 
the  peasants  furnished  hides  to  Jewish  tanners  to  be  worked 
over.  Destitution  is  great  among  the  peasants  of  Slovechno ; 
many  have  no  bread.  The  relations  between  the  peasants  and 
the  Jews  have  been  those  of  good  neighbors  until  the  most 
recent  times.  The  Jews  in  their  economic  position  were  not 
sharply  distinguished  from  the  peasants;  there  was  no  striking 
differentiation  as  to  wealth.  The  Jews  worked  just  like  the 
peasants;  they  walked  bent  over,  and  were  tattered  and  op- 
pressed. When  there  were  attacks  of  bandits  in  other  places,  the 
Jews  of  the  town  (the  well-to-do  ones,  of  course)  bought  them- 
selves off  by  paying  money  to  certain  well-known  and  noisy, 
murderous  leaders. 

From  the  time  when  exportation  of  wares  from  the  town 
ceased  (by  regulation  of  the  government),  speculation  also 
ceased  and  many  of  the  peasants  were  deprived  of  their  earnings, 
and  began  to  hunt  for  something  to  earn  so  as  to  make  a  living. 
This  was  of  significance  in  the  further  development  of  bandit 
tendencies.  Last  winter  a  "Union  of  Workmen"  was  formed  in 
the  town.  When  this  Union  got  hold  of  the  power,  it  be- 
gan to  be  avenged  for  its  previous  position.  The  laboring  Jews 
are  the  most  downtrodden  element  among  the  Jews.  And  when 
it  came  about  that  these  people  got  the  chance  themselves  to  run 
factory  and  government,  they  revenged  themselves  by  imposing 
a  contribution  on  the  town.  The  workmen  were  Jews  and  the 
contribution  was  imposed  also  on  Jews  (tanners).  Of  course  it 
was  Jews  who  disliked  the  activities  of  the  Union  of  Workmen ; 
and  yet  afterwards,  when  the  Petlurists  came  to  the  town,  the 
peasants  reproached  the  Jews  for  not  surrendering  "their  own 
people"  who  were  responsible  for  disorders.  Thus  quarrels  of 
a  political  nature  were  started.  At  first,  however,  this  bore  no 
consequences  for  the  Jewish  population.  All  the  time  that  po- 
groms were  going  on  in  the  surrounding  towns,  Slovechno  ex- 
perienced no  alarm,  and  the  Jews  of  Ovruch  in  their  time  even 
found  a  safe  refuge  there. 

The  Russian  intellectuals  of  Slovechno  were  of  peasant  stock, 
and  Petlurist  in  their  views.  They  included  a  surgeon,  a  teacher, 
the  postmaster,  the  members  of  the  Executive  Committee,  the 
priest,  and  his  son.  Accustomed  to  work  for  their  own  race  and 


370    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

on  their  own  responsibility,  receiving  no  directions  from  above, 
they  now  fell  under  the  pressure  of  the  Soviet  regime,  with 
which  they  had  no  sympathy.  At  the  same  time  they  clashed 
with  the  Jews  as  representatives  of  the  Soviet  regime,  and  this 
created  in  them  a  hostile  attitude  towards  the  Jews.  A  month 
ago  a  commander  of  militia  who  was  a  Polish  noble  arrived  in 
the  town.  With  his  appearance  rumors  began  to  spread  that  he 
was  an  instigator  of  pogroms.  The  commander  himself  tried 
not  to  give  himself  away  and  to  behave  very  carefully. 

On  Tuesday  evening  alarming  rumors  began  to  spread  in  the 
town,  that  an  uprising  against  the  Jews  was  being  prepared.  The 
Jews  were  greatly  perturbed.  Groups  of  excited  people  gathered 
on  the  streets;  numbers  of  Jews  stood  outside  the  houses,  dis- 
cussing the  situation  in  alarm.  About  nine  or  ten  o'clock  in  the 
evening  representatives  of  the  Jews  applied  to  the  commander  of 
militia  asking  him  to  organize  a  guard,  and  offering  him  the  ser- 
vices of  Jewish  guardsmen.  The  commander  reassured  them,  and 
declared  that  he  would  be  able  to  cope  with  any  outbreak.  The 
Jewish  militiamen  went  out  to  keep  watch,  but  without  any  arms. 
About  midnight  the  commander  of  militia  with  the  militiamen 
came  forth.  The  Jews  at  first  were  reassured,  on  seeing  the 
armed  men  coming  out  to  keep  guard.  But  the  militiamen  paid 
no  attention  to  the  Jewish  militiamen  and  started  out  of  town, 
with  the  commander  of  the  town  militia.  As  they  left  the  town 
the  militiamen  fired  two  volleys.  About  ten  minutes  after  this 
there  appeared,  as  if  at  the  word  of  command,  about  thirty  or 
forty  bandits  with  ten  rifles.  They  came  with  cries  of  "Hur- 
rah, kill  the  Jews !"  and  began  to  break  windows.  Looting  be- 
gan and  continued  all  night.  Towards  morning  the  looting 
ceased.  The  Jews  came  out  of  their  holes  and  again  discussed 
the  situation,  and  decided  to  win  the  favor  of  the  commander 
of  militia  so  that  he  should  guard  the  town.  The  sum  of  15,000 
rubles  was  collected,  and  receiving  it,  the  commander  promised 
to  furnish  protection. 

But  Wednesday  evening  looting  began  again,  and  also  cruel 
murders.  Not  all  the  peasants  took  an  active  and  conscious 
part.  Many  peasants  took  things  which  they  most  needed,  say- 
ing that  just  now  you  could  take,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to 
hurry,  or  next  day  it  might  be  forbidden.  On  Wednesday  the 
Jews  began  to  flee  from  Slovechno ;  still  more  left  on  Thursday, 
mostly  on  foot ;  it  was  impossible  to  get  carts  anywhere.  The 
Jews  walked  along  with  their  wretched  parcels  of  whatever 
things  they  happened  to  pick  up,  the  women  leading  the  children 
by  hand.  On  the  way  the  malicious  joy  of  the  peasants  over 


SLOVECHNO:    LOCAL  POGROMISTS     371 

the  unhappy  fugitives  was  striking.  Only  in  a  few  places  peas- 
ant women  shook  their  heads  mournfully  and  murmured  some- 
thing sympathetic. 

Thus  Thursday  passed.  The  most  terrible  thing  of  all  in  our 
town  took  place  on  Friday.  Other  witnesses  have  already  re- 
ported this  to  you.  In  my  opinion  young  peasants  took  the 
most  active  part  in  the  pogrom.  The  old  men  were  in- 
different to  what  happened.  On  Friday  I  was  no  longer  in 
Slovechno,  but  on  Friday  evening  I  started  back  as  a  volunteer 
with  the  first  detachment  which  came  to  the  town.  After  spend- 
ing the  night  in  Pokalevo  we  arrived  in  Slovechno  towards 
morning  on  Saturday.  We  could  get  no  carts  from  peasants  on 
the  way,  and  the  men  of  our  detachment  were  terribly  tired. 
I  think  that  the  weak  action  of  the  commander  of  our  detach- 
ment was  responsible  for  this.  He  was  a  sailor,  who  apparently 
had  no  intention  of  taking  energetic  action  with  reference  to 
the  peasants.  Before  we  came  nearer  than  two  versts  to  Slo- 
vechno our  detachment  spread  out  in  a  chain  and  surrounded 
the  town  with  its  flanks.  In  the  town  we  perceived  a  rather 
large  crowd  which  began  to  disperse  upon  our  appearance;  only 
a  few  of  the  crowd  were  caught  in  our  chain ;  some  of  them  we 
shot.  The  head  bandits,  whom  I  know  very  well,  escaped.  One 
we  caught  with  a  rifle  and  afterwards  took  to  Ovruch.  In  the 
town  we  found  a  spectacle  which  it  is  hard  to  describe.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  that  this  was  reality  and  not  a  nightmare.  Not 
a  living  soul  on  the  streets.  A  herd  of  cows  was  wandering 
about  the  town;  the  peasants  had  turned  them  loose  when  they 
heard  that  the  bolsheviki  were  approaching;  the  cows  belonged 
to  Jews.  On  the  street  broken  articles  were  scattered  about, 
corpses  were  lying,  traces  of  blood  were  everywhere.  The 
houses  showed  external  signs  of  devastation  (broken  windows 
and  doors);  in  the  yards  everything  was  in  confusion;  in  the 
houses  into  which  we  looked  lay  corpses,  including  the  bodies  of 
children.  In  the  town  I  noticed  the  priest  coming  out  of  his 
house  with  his  daughter.  After  him  I  noticed  a  girl,  whom  I 
knew,  coming  out,  with  a  crazed  appearance ;  at  first  I  hardly 
recognized  her.  The  priest  had  a  calm  and  majestic  appearance, 
and  walked  triumphantly  along  the  street  with  the  aspect  of 
beneficence  (of  his  role  in  the  occurrences  you  probably  know 
from  other  testimony). 

We  did  not  venture  to  remain  long  in  the  town,  since  we 
could  not  rely  on  our  forces,  and  we  abandoned  the  place.  As 
we  were  leaving  we  saw  peasants  hiding  things  which  they  evi- 
dently had  stolen.  When  we  tried  to  stop  these  peasants,  the 


372    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

commander  of  our  detachment  prevented  us  from  doing  so.  He 
even  said  that  in  the  detachment  "Jewish  national  feeling  was 
too  much  aroused,"  and  that  this  was  "not  appropriate."  We 
could,  I  think,  have  soon  established  order  in  the  town,  if  we 
had  only  met  at  least  a  few  living  people,  from  among  our 
friends,  seeking  our  aid.  We  saw  no  one  in  the  town.  A  wilder- 
ness received  us.  We  saw  only  bandits,  and  lost  heart  from 
this.  The  attitude  to  us  of  our  commander  and  of  certain  ele- 
ments in  our  detachment  still  more  disturbed  us  and  deprived  us 
of  the  necessary  courage  and  energy. 

To  all  that  I  am  communicating  to  you  I  should  like  to  add 
a  few  words  about  our  Slovechno  Rabbi,  who  was  killed  in 
Ratner's  house  during  the  pogrom.  This  Rabbi  was,  in  the  literal 
sense  of  the  words,  an  ornament  and  a  pride  of  our  town.  Abso- 
lutely every  one  loved  and  respected  him.  Himself  orthodox, 
he  enjoyed  the  sympathy  of  all  free-thinking  people.  He  was 
not  in  sympathy  with  any  pressure  upon  the  conscience  and 
opinions  of  others.  He  was  a  man  of  broad  views,  who  allowed 
complete  freedom  even  to  his  own  family,  and  among  the  ortho- 
dox population  of  the  town  his  family  was  the  most  liberal. 
This  man  had  an  enormous  influence,  not  only  among  the  Jews ; 
even  the  peasants  applied  to  him  to  decide  their  quarrels.  He 
was  about  fifty  years  old. 

GOLDBERG. 


II.     Testimony  of  Y.  M.  Melamed.    Relation  of  the  Peasants  to 
Us  before  the  Pogrom 

At  the  time  when  pogroms  were  widespread  throughout  all 
Ukraine,  our  peasants  took  a  quite  kindly  attitude  towards  us. 
They  even  promised  to  protect  the  town  from  the  attacks  of 
pogromists  of  other  villages.  After  the  occupation  by  the  bol- 
sheviks of  Ovruch  and  its  canton,  they  changed  somewhat,  to  be 
sure,  saying  that  this  was  a  "Jewish  regime,"  but  still  they  didn't 
touch  the  Jews.  The  first  anti-Semitic  movement  began  in  the 
village  of  Tkhorin,  where  under  the  watchword  "away  with 
communist  speculators"  they  would  not  admit  into  the  village 
Jewish  widows,  who  were  coming  there  with  pots  to  exchange 
them  for  a  piece  of  bread  or  potatoes.  The  matter  went  so 
far  that  during  the  last  two  weeks  before  the  pogrom,  there 
and  on  the  road  to  the  village  of  Begun  (four  versts  from 
Slovechno),  Jews  were  beaten  and  robbed  of  their  last  piece 
of  bread  and  their  last  potatoes,  which  they  were  bringing  home 


SLOVECHNO  373 

to   their   unhappy  children.      The   Executive   Committee   of   the 
district  took  no  measures  to  stop  these  unjust  actions. 

On  Saturday,  June  29,  on  the  festival  of  Sts.  Peter  and  Paul, 
there  was  a  district  convention  of  all  the  villages  surrounding 
the  town,  where  there  was  a  discussion  of  the  decree  received 
from  Ovruch  to  the  effect  that  the  registration  of  weights  and 
measures  should  be  transferred  from  the  priest  to  a  department 
of  the  district  Executive  Committee's  government.  The  point 
of  view  of  the  convention  was  terribly  counter-revolutionary  and 
anti-Semitic.  All  the  peasants  shouted  ^rith  one  voice  that  "this 
is  all  on  account  of  the  Jews,"  "they  want  to  close  the  church 
and  remove  the  priest."  Of  course  there  was  no  idea  of  admit- 
ting Jews  to  the  convention;  they  even  drove  away  a  Jewish 
member  of  the  Committee  of  the  Poor,  saying  "we  don't  need 
any  Jews."  The  Executive  Committee  even  then  took  no  meas- 
ures to  pacify  the  people  and  explain  to  them  the  object  of  the 
decree  and  its  real  meaning ;  on  the  contrary,  it  hinted  at  pro- 
testing and  not  accepting  the  decree.  Almost  all  the  peasants 
left  the  convention  saying,  as  it  were  addressing  the  Jews, 
"Enough  of  your  commune,  enough  of  your  closing  churches." 
On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  two  Jews  (the  local  druggist 
and  I  myself)  were  delegated  to  go  to  the  priest  and  find  out 
what  the  peasants  were  concocting.  The  delegates  pointed  out  to 
him  that  the  Jews  were,  so  to  speak,  between  the  devil  and  the 
deep  sea,  that  is,  on  the  one  hand  we  were  accused  of  being 
spies  and  counter-revolutionaries  (see  an  article  "Struggle  with 
the  Jewish  counter-revolution,"  in  the  communist  paper  for 
July  8),  and  on  the  other  hand  we  were  accused  of  closing 
churches  and  of  wishing  as  communists  to  "eat  free."  The 
delegates  asked  him  to  explain  to  the  peasants  on  Sunday  after 
service,  that  the  Jews  here  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  that 
the  Christians  like  ourselves  should  submit  to  the  government. 
The  priest  replied  that  there  was  no  reason  to  be  afraid  of  his 
parishioners  and  that  he  would  explain  all  this  to  them  on  the 
next  day,  that  is,  Sunday.  This  rather  satisfactory  answer  re- 
assured us  a  little.  Sunday  and  Monday  passed  as  usual  and 
very  well.  But  Tuesday  morning  a  rumor  spread  through  the 
town  that  there  would  be  a  pogrom  at  night.  However,  there 
were  no  actual  facts  at  hand,  and  we  did  not  take  the  matter 
seriously.  It  was  not  until  evening  that  suspicious  persons  were 
observed  on  the  streets — young  peasants  placed  on  guard  with 
the  militiamen.  Besides  these  about  thirty  Jews  were  on  watch 
until  one  o'clock.  At  that  time  the  commander  of  militia  began 
to  disperse  the  Jewish  guard,  saying  he  would  get  along  without 


374    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

us.  The  Jewish  guardsmen  tried  to  beg  him  to  allow  them  to 
stay.  Instead  of  reply  he  gave  what  were  evidently  signal  shots 
in  all  directions  from  the  town;  and  shots  were  fired  also  at 
the  guardsmen.  The  Jews  fled  through  the  outskirts,  and  as  they 
left  they  saw  from  a  distance  bandits  coming  from  all  sides  and 
pogromists  with  rifles,  pitchforks,  and  crowbars.  And  soon  we 
heard  "Hurrah,  kill  the  Jews  and  communists,"  and  the  sounds 
of  broken  windows  and  doors.  Indescribable  were  the  cries  of 
women  and  children,  just  roused  from  sleep  by  the  inhuman 
cries  of  the  bandits  and  by  volleys  of  shots.  From  all  sides 
a  crowd  of  peasants  poured  in,  men  and  women,  with  sacks,  and 
began  to  break  in  doors  and  loot.  Women  and  children  tried  to 
flee  through  windows  and  were  immediately  met  by  blows  and 
shots.  With  every  minute  the  horror  increased.  Here  women 
rushed  about  with  cries  of  "Where  are  my  children?"  here 
with  laughter  the  "conquerors"  carried  off  trophies;  here  a 
woman  flogged,  there  a  wounded  man;  thus  it  continued  till 
morning.  The  crowd  of  looters — peasants  from  the  villages  of 
Mozhari,  Verpa,  Boknevschina,  Tkhorin,  Begun,  Antonovichi, 
Gorodetz,  Petrischi,  Listvin — scattered,  leaving  behind  them 
fragments  of  window-glass,  broken  doors,  and  empty  homes 
with  beaten  old  men  who  had  not  been  able  to  escape.  The 
Jews  who  had  fled  returned  with  lamentations  to  their  homes. 
The  local  peasants  ridiculed  them  and  said,  "We  didn't  touch 
you,  but  others  showed  you  how  to  be  bolsheviks."  The  Jews 
when  they  came  together  began  to  search  for  their  scattered 
relations.  There  were  found  in  the  town  one  seriously  wounded 
man,  who  died  on  the  way  to  the  hospital,  and  one  wounded  in 
the  mouth  and  head ;  half  an  hour  later  four  others  were  found 
dead.  It  is  hard  to  describe  the  grief  which  the  Jews  felt  as 
they  buried  their  victims,  who  were  not  responsible  for  any- 
thing, and  as  they  saw  at  the  same  time  how  some  of  the  looters 
who  still  remained,  continued,  amid  the  lamentations  of  the 
wretched  people,  to  "clean  up"  the  remnants  of  their  belongings. 
After  the  burial  almost  all  decided  to  leave  this  unhappy  town 
and  flee  to  Ovruch.  But  then  provocatory  rumors  were  spread 
abroad  that  the  same  thing  was  being  repeated  in  Ovruch  and 
that  the  bolsheviki  had  abandoned  the  canton.  The  day  of 
Thursday,  July  16,  passed  with  the  departure  of  several  families, 
taking  the  remains  of  their  possessions,  to  seek  refuge  with 
peasants  whom  they  knew  in  the  villages,  and  to  hide  in  their 
barns.  Still  the  town  watched  passively  while  the  people's 
property  was  being  carried  off,  while  the  militia  was  drunk  all 
day  long.  All  the  unfortunates  could  do  was  to  wonder  what 


SLOVECHNO  375 

to  do  and  whither  to  flee  the  next  night  The  whole  day  long 
peasants  continued  to  alarm  them  with  "advice"  to  flee,  or  else 
all  would  be  killed.  The  day  finished  with  all  in  hiding,  some 
in  the  villages,  some  in  thickets,  some  with  peasant  "acquaint- 
ances." On  Thursday  night  they  again  gave  the  commander  of 
militia  17,000  rubles  to  guard  the  town  from  further  attacks. 
But  in  spite  of  this  the  night  was  still  more  terrible  than  the 
preceding  one.  Almost  all  Jews  who  were  in  the  villages  were 
killed.  The  remnants  of  their  possessions  which  they  had  taken 
with  them  were  stolen.  Precisely  speaking,  from  the  village  of 
Begun  eight  slain  were  brought  in,  two  women,  three  children, 
and  three  men;  from  Verpa,  two  slain,  and  one  wounded.  The 
militia  disappeared.  In  the  town  even  stoves  and  furniture  were 
smashed,  and  they  didn't  spare  so  much  as  an  earthenware  pot. 
On  Thursday  morning  at  the  time  of  the  burial  of  the  above- 
mentioned  victims  brought  from  the  villages,  the  cries  of  the 
women  and  the  despair  of  the  men  reached  horrible  proportions. 
The  Jews  decided  that  all,  with  the  Rabbi  at  their  head, 
should  gather  in  the  public  square  and  entreat  the  bandits  not 
to  continue  tormenting  the  town.  Some  went  to  the  priest  to 
beg  him  also  to  take  part  in  the  meeting.  When  all  the  Jews 
collected  they  met  the  bandits  with  "bread  and  salt"  and  the 
Rabbi  addressed  them,  asking  them  either  to  let  us  all  go  alive 
or  else  kill  us  all  on  the  spot,  and  not  torture  us  one  by  one. 
In  reply  to  the  Rabbi's  speech  all  the  bandits  cried  with  one 
voice:  "This  is  your  commune,  this  is  your  Jewish  government." 
The  Rabbi  again  began  to  weep  before  them,  but  got  no  sym- 
pathy. Then  the  priest  made  a  speech.  This  speech  had  a 
clearly  counter-revolutionary  and  anti-Semitic  character.  "Al- 
though the  Jews  have  deserved  all  this,"  he  said,  "they  have 
issued  decrees  separating  church  and  state,  etc.,  nevertheless, 
according  to  the  Gospel,  it  is  wrong  to  kill  even  guilty  people. 
However,  do  as  you  like."  His  words  stirred  up  the  ignorant 
masses  still  more,  and  all  day  Thursday  they  did  not  cease  to 
plunder  what  property  was  left,  and  they  beat  up  all  the  Jews 
they  met  on  the  streets.  The  Jews  wandered  like  madmen  about 
the  town,  not  knowing  where  to  hide  at  night.  They  were  afraid 
to  flee  to  the  villages,  since  they  had  already  seen  the  conse- 
quences of  that,  in  the  morning,  when  the  slain  were  brought  in 
from  everywhere.  Only  towards  evening  they  began  to  quiet 
down  a  little,  since  the  local  postmaster  with  some  peasants 
called  another  meeting  at  which  a  resolution  was  passed  not  to 
permit  further  looting  and  murders,  and  ordered  the  Jews  to 
remain  at  home,  since  there  would  be  no  more  looting  and 


376    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

killing.  In  spite  of  this  the  Jews  decided  to  spend  the  night 
all  in  one  place,  in  the  second  story  of  the  house  of  a  certain 
Ratner.  Until  three  o'clock  it  was  in  fact  peaceful.  It  seemed 
that  peace  had  been  re-established.  The  postmaster  with  some 
peasants  kept  watch  in  the  town  and  disbanded  some  ruffians. 
Only  after  three  o'clock  began  that  massacre  which  will  always 
remain  in  the  memories  of  those  who  spent  the  night  in  the 
place.  Bandits  armed  with  axes  and  rifles  again  approached  the 
town,  with  their  chief  Kosenko  at  their  head,  and  at  once  burst 
into  the  Ratner  house,  where  almost  all  the  Jews  were.  At  once 
they  killed  five  people  outright,  seriously  wounding  the  Rabbi. 
The  rest  fled.  Those  who  spent  the  night  in  gardens,  hearing 
the  cries  and  laments  of  those  who  were  running  through  the 
town,  began  also  to  run  about  the  streets  in  a  panic,  and  were 
met  there  by  a  hail  of  bullets,  which  killed  and  wounded  many 
(25).  So  it  went  on  till  5  A.M.  The  murderers  scattered  again, 
evidently  after  bullets,  but  good-hearted  peasants  said  they  were 
going  to  return  again  soon,  to  finish  up  everything.  In  the  mean- 
time the  Jews  began  to  rescue  the  seriously  wounded.  Especially 
they  undertook  to  save  the  Rabbi,  for  he  was  very  grievously 
wounded  in  the  chest.  But  at  this  point  shots  were  heard  again. 
The  murderers  returned.  Most  of  the  Jews,  seeing  this,  fled  to 
Ovruch.  About  thirty  or  forty  people,  remained  with  the 
wounded,  besides  those  who  were  hiding  in  gardens,  fearing  to 
fly  to  Ovruch,  because  of  the  provocatory  rumors  spread  to  the 
effect  that  the  bolsheviki  had  abandoned  Ovruch.  On  the  way  to 
the  hospital  the  bandits  finished  the  Rabbi  with  a  thrust  of  a 
bayonet,  and  did  the  same  to  other  wounded,  whomever  they  met, 
including  women  and  children.  The  ruffians  met  one  woman 
(Kipnis)  and  raised  her  four-year-old  child  in  the  air  on  the 
point  of  a  bayonet,  and  thrust  it  through.  The  unhappy  mother 
got  away. 

The  result  of  this  horror  was  62  dead,  about  45  wounded,  and 
many  who  have  disappeared  without  trace  so  far.  Among  the 
dead  were  the  Rabbi  and  a  certain  Kiev  student  Naidich.  I  wish 
here  to  give  brief  statements  by  way  of  characterizing  these  two 
persons.  Our  Rabbi,  Reb  Boruch,  was  considered  the  ornament 
of  Hebrew  orthodoxy  throughout  the  entire  canton  of  Ovruch ; 
besides  his  religious  training  he  was  very  cultivated  in  secular 
respects.  All  respected  him  not  only  as  a  religious  pastor,  but 
also  as  an  intelligent  man  of  the  world,  and  all  Jewish  society 
worked  in  co-operation  with  him.  Naidich  was  a  student  of  the 
Commercial  Institute,  who  was  spending  his  vacation  in  Slo- 
vechno,  and  was  co-operating,  as  an  educated  young  man  of  the 


SLOVECHNO  377 

world,  to  a  large  extent  in  the  development  and  extension  of 
enlightenment  among  the  young  people  of  Slovechno.  He  served 
as  an  example  to  all  by  the  nobility  of  his  soul,  his  pure  morality, 
and  his  courteous  manners  with  people.  These  two  victims  will 
remain  forever  in  the  memory  of  all  the  people  of  Slovechno, 
and  tears  will  long  be  shed  over  their  destruction. 
The  witness  of  these  horrors, 

Y.  M.  MELAMED. 

III.     Testimony  of  Hannah  Avrum-Berovna  Gozmann,  Aged  45 

On  the  15th  there  were  rumors  all  day  long  throughout  the 
city  about  threatening  events  impending,  but  most  of  the  citi- 
zens treated  them  lightly  and  with  disbelief.  My  children  and  I 
therefore  went  to  bed  calmly  (my  husband  was  not  at  home, 
he  had  gone  to  Turob  on  business,  and  has  not  yet  returned). 
In  the  town  the  local  militia  and  a  hired  guard  of  honest  peas- 
ants were  on  watch.  In  the  night  we  were  awakened  by  rifle 
shots.  We  were  not  frightened  by  them,  thinking  that  they  were 
fired  by  the  local  guard,  which  as  usual  in  such  cases  was 
frightening  the  bandits  by  shots.  But  hearing  wild  cries  and 
the  sound  of  broken  glass,  I  at  once  understood  what  was  up. 
Wakening  all  the  children,  I  hastened  to  get  them  into  the 
store-room,  because  there  is  no  glass  there  and  it  is  safer  from 
bullets.  At  this  time  all  the  windows  of  my  house  were  smashed 
by  stones  thrown  by  the  bandits.  No  one  came  into  our  house 
and  until  morning  we  remained  in  the  storeroom.  Going  out  on 
the  street,  I  saw  many  peasant-compatriots.  I  applied  to  some  of 
them  asking  them  to  grant  refuge  to  me  and  my  children.  But  all 
of  them,  though  they  were  good  acquaintances  and  friends,  for 
some  reason  refused.  By  this  time  reports  were  coming  in,  one 
more  terrible  than  another,  about  the  killing  of  some  Jews,  and 
about  what  they  were  getting  ready  to  do.  I  was  afraid  to  stay 
over  night  with  the  children  in  my  house,  and  went  to  my  ac- 
quaintance Adam  Sich  (who  was  afterwards  shot  by  the  bol- 
sheviki).  I  did  not  find  him  at  home.  I  urgently  begged  his 
wife  to  let  us  in.  Approximately  at  midnight  the  owner  of  the 
house,  Adam  Sich,  returned,  but  soon  went  away  again  and 
until  morning  kept  going  out  and  coming  in  again.  I  did  not 
close  my  eyes  all  night  long;  I  could  not  sleep.  In  the  morning 
I  went  out  into  the  town;  all  the  frightened  people  were  ex- 
changing experiences  about  the  night  with  horror,  and  were 
talking  with  fear  about  the  next  night.  Some  reassurance  was 
caused  by  the  collection  of  money  among  the  population  for  the 
ringleaders,  especially  when  a  considerable  sum  was  handed  over 


378    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

to  them  and  they  advised  all  to  assemble  in  Ratner's  house. 
With  many  others  I  hastened  to  hide  in  Ratner's  house;  but  his 
daughter-in-law,  Yekheved,  meeting  me  at  the  threshold,  said 
that  she  herself  would  not  spend  the  night  at  home  (the  next 
day  she  was  killed  in  that  very  house).  Therefore  I  turned 
back  and  again  succeeded  in  entreating  the  wife  of  Adam  Sich 
to  allow  us  to  spend  the  night  in  her  house.  Adam  did  not 
spend  the  night  at  home;  I  was  told  that  "he  had  taken  the 
horses  to  the  field."  The  next  day  I  learned  that  the  horses  had 
not  been  taken  to  the  field. 

On  Friday  morning  I  sent  my  son,  aged  18,  into  town  to 
find  out  what  the  situation  was.  He  'soon  returned  and  with 
horror  told  me  of  the  death  of  Grenader  and  others.  (Grenader 
lay  in  the  arms  of  the  student  Naidich,  both  killed  on  the  square.) 
We  had  no  time  to  look  around  when  my  Tzalik  was  already 
gone;  with  lamentations  he  rushed  back  to  find  my  other  chil- 
dren, my  daughter  Esther,  and  her  husband  Motl.  After  a  short 
time  Tzalik  came  bringing  a  cart  laden  with  the  remnants  of 
our  goods.  Putting  the  children  on  the  load,  we  started  to  flee 
towards  Ovruch.  As  we  drove  out  of  the  town,  we  met  S.  B. 
Burger  with  many  Jews.  They  shouted  to  us  that  no  one  was 
allowed  to  leave  the  town  and  that  they  had  been  turned  back; 
we  also  turned  back  (at  that  time  the  cart  upset,  and  everything 
was  scattered).  I  took  the  little  children  by  the  hand,  and  leav- 
ing everything,  taking  only  the  valuables  (silver  spoons,  forks, 
cups,  etc.),  all  of  which  I  threw  into  the  nearest  garden,  I  ran, 
driven  from  behind  by  bandits,  into  the  town  to  find  my  other 
children  (Esther  and  Motl).  On  the  way  I  met  Avrum-Ber 
Portny,  much  agitated,  who  told  me  how  all  exits  from  the  town 
were  closed,  and  ran  off,  observing  that  many  were  running  to 
his  (Avrum-Ber's)  house.  With  the  children  I  hastened  there, 
too.  It  is  hard  for  me  to  describe  what  we  experienced  in  that 
earthly  hell.  .  .  .  Yes,  yes,  all  the  rooms  packed  full  of 
the  Jews  of  Slovechno,  old  men,  women,  children;  many 
had  hidden  under  beds,  tables,  couches,  etc.  When  the  first 
shot  from  the  street  resounded  in  the  house,  all,  as  if  at  the 
word  of  command,  lay  down  on  the  floor;  after  the  shot  fol- 
lowed a  violent  knock  at  the  closed  doors.  They  were  at  once 
opened.  Kosenko  with  a  group  of  bandits  appeared.  All  began 
to  entreat  him  not  to  touch  them,  and  offered  money.  He  at 
first  refused,  but  finally  accepted  it.  Having  received  the  money 
(more  than  40,000)  he  turned  to  the  assembled  Jews  with  these 
words:  "I  gave  you  a  period  of  two  days  to  get  out  of  here; 
you  didn't  go;  now  I  will  settle  with  you."  And  he  ordered 


SLOVECHNO  379 

them  out  of  the  room.  First  went  my  son-in-law  Motl,  then  my 
daughter  Esther ;  the  third  was  I  with  the  baby  in  my  arms.  At 
the  exit  a  cordon  of  bandits  was  drawn  up,  who  beat  us  and 
thrust  at  us,  hit  us  with  sabres,  bayonets  and  gun-butts.  My 
children  Esther  and  Motl  received  severe  wounds ;  I  got  off  with 
one  blow  with  a  gun-butt  on  my  shoulder.  Before  me  were  my 
children,  all  bloody  and  half  dead;  behind  me,  the  cries  of  hun- 
dreds of  my  compatriots,  whom  the  bandits  were  destroying  in 
Avrum-Ber's  house.  From  all  sides  they  were  driving  the  Jews 
in  dozens  to  the  square.  On  all  the  streets  the  bodies  of  our 
innocent  brothers  and  sisters  were  lying  strewn  about.  I  saw 
a  picture  which  reduced  me  to  stupefaction.  I  shall  never 
forget  it.  Among  the  slain  lay  the  wife  of  the  shames  Irka, 
wounded,  and  a  peasant  was  kicking  her  in  the  head.  Oh,  my 
God,  can  it  be  that  Thou  dost  not  see  this?  Why  is  it?  Such 
pictures  were  repeated  many  times  on  that  day.  We  were  all 
collected  in  one  group,  the  shoes  were  taken  off  the  feet  of  all 
the  men,  shouts  resounded  in  Russian.  At  one  side  two  bandits, 
one  from  the  village  of  Tkhorin,  the  other  from  Usovo,  threat- 
ened us  with  chastisement.  (Maxim  Liukhtan  with  a  gun  in 
his  hands  stood  near  us.)  I  began  to  beg  them  not  to  harm 
us,  and  promised  to  give  them  all  our  valuables  which  I  had 
thrown  into  a  garden.  They  agreed,  and  we  started  out  (at 
this  time  I  thought — what  will  happen  if  someone  has  stolen 
them  from  the  garden?).  Thank  God,  everything  was  still  there 
in  the  garden.  I  gave  them  all  the  valuables  and  begged  them 
not  to  hurt  us.  One  of  them  gave  me  three  spoons,  and  said: 
"Well,  take  these,  perhaps  you  will  remain  alive,  and  you  will 
have  something  to  eat  with."  But  the  other  instantly  tore  them 
from  his  hand,  took  everything,  and  they  went  away,  letting  us 
go  free.  Happy  in  our  freedom,  we  started  on  the  way  to  leave 
that  accursed  place.  My  daughter  Esther  took  off  her  smock, 
all  bloody,  and  threw  it  on  me,  saying:  "Mama,  there  is  no 
blood  to  be  seen  on  you,  keep  that  on  you,  perhaps  it  will  save 
you  on  the  way."  I  did  not  resist,  and  we  went  on.  I  had  my 
baby  in  my  arms,  and  my  children,  dripping  blood  (they  were 
wounded). 

At  the  second  verst  in  the  direction  of  the  village  of  Petrushi 
we  were  overtaken  by  two  men  who  had  taken  our  valuables, 
with  a  peasant  lad  of  twelve  or  thirteen,  the  boy  armed  with  a 
gun ;  and  they  demanded  that  we  give  them  all  that  we  had  left. 
My  son-in-law  still  had  a  silver  watch;  he  gave  it  to  them,  plus 
some  tens  of  rubles  which  we  had  with  us.  We  managed  some- 
how to  drag  ourselves  to  the  village  of  Petrushi.  The  peas- 


38o    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

ants  refused  us  shelter,  would  not  give  us  a  cart  under  any  con- 
ditions, or  take  us  to  the  next  village,  and  we,  hungry,  dishev- 
elled, worn  out,  as  if  accursed  of  God,  struggled  on  farther. 
Before  we  had  gone  one  verst  to  the  village  of  Frankovka,  a 
peasant  boy  took  off  my  son-in-law's  jacket,  saying:  "Too  bad 
about  the  jacket,  Jews,  it  is  stained  with  blood;"  and,  with 
various  yells,  taunts  and  ridicule,  he  stole  it  and  ran  off.  (In 
the  course  of  our  journey  many  peasants  accused  us  of  respon- 
sibility for  a  commune,  calling  us  communists  and  bolsheviks.) 
With  difficulty  we  got  to  the  hovel  of  a  peasant,  who  lived  in  the 
woods  five  versts  from  the  village  of  Petrushi.  It  seemed  to 
us  that  we  were  seeing  it  all  in  a  dream:  the  peasant  invited  us 
to  come  into  his  hut  and  have  a  meal  of  soup.  We  were  so 
thankful  to  him  that  we  were  ready  to  kiss  him  for  his  kind 
words  (excuse  me,  I  forgot  to  say,  when  we,  after  giving  up 
our  valuables,  went  past  the  house  of  Kosenko,  his  mother 
washed  my  daughter's  wounds  with  water,  saying:  "Get  away 
quick,  or  everything  will  be  lost.")  When  we  had  fed  on  the 
soup  and  rested  a  bit  we  wanted  to  go  away,  but  night  was 
coming  on,  and  we  spent  the  night  with  the  peasant.  In  the 
morning  he  hitched  his  horse  and  took  us  deep  down  into  the 
woods,  where  there  were  already  many  Jews  (this  was  on  Sat- 
urday). We  asked  the  Jews  to  lend  us  a  few  rubles  to  reward 
the  peasant,  but  the  latter  categorically  refused.  We  thanked 
him  from  our  souls,  and  he  left  us.  Among  the  Jews  were 
some  who  were  afraid  there  were  too  many  of  us.  They  pro- 
posed to  scatter  out  more,  and  we  with  some  of  them  started 
on  the  way  to  the  town  of  Luginy.  On  the  way  we  met  peasants 
who  warned  us  that  we  might  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  gangs 
of  Sokolovsky,  who  were  operating  in  the  region  of  Luginy. 
Some  paid  no  attention  and  went  on,  but  we,  fearing  that  the 
wounds  would  fester  and  wanting  to  get  as  soon  as  possible  to 
some  sort  of  hospital,  turned  off  towards  the  town  of  Valed- 
niki.  We  spent  the  night  in  the  fields.  On  the  morning  of 
July  7  Ratner's  cart  picked  us  up  and  took  us  to  Valedniki. 
There  I  found  my  son  Tzalik,  wounded.  Having  rested  for  a 
time,  we  went  by  way  of  the  town  of  Norinsk  to  Ovruch,  where 
my  children  got  their  first  medical  attention.  The  children  are 
in  the  local  hospital,  while  I  am  in  Borman's  house. 

HANNAH  GOZMANN. 

IV.     Testimony  of  Srul  Ber  Burger,  Aged  53 
On  Tuesday  morning  and  through  the  day  rumors  began  to 
spread  in  Slovechno  that  something  wrong  was  in  the  air,  that 


SLOVECHNO  381 

danger  was  threatening  us  Jews.  With  my  whole  family,  my 
wife  and  children,  I  went  to  the  border  of  the  town,  where  the 
Jewish  poor  folk  live;  there  also  live  the  Jews  who  live  to- 
gether with  peasants.  There  we  spent  Tuesday  night.  When 
peasants  came  into  the  house  where  we  were  hiding,  the  owner, 
a  barefoot,  disheveled,  tattered  Jew,  went  out  to  see  them; 
and  this  took  away  the  peasants'  inclination  to  plunder  and  kill. 
Wednesday  all  day  and  night  my  family  and  I  spent  in  this 
place.  I  went  out  to  reconnoiter,  and  learned  of  what  was  hap- 
pening in  the  town.  My  wife,  hearing  of  the  alarming  situa- 
tion, didn't  want  to  stay  any  longer  in  that  house  and  wanted 
to  move  to  another  place,  that  we  might  not  all  be  together, 
but  we  nevertheless  remained.  We  hid  in  a  closet,  and  just  sat 
still,  holding  our  breath.  From  the  city  rumors  of  the  murders 
arrived.  So  passed  the  day  and  night  of  Wednesday.  On  Thurs- 
day a  meeting  was  held  in  the  synagogue  and  money  was  col- 
lected to  move  the  hearts  of  the  peasants.  They  collected  50,000 
rubles,  and  then  invited  the  young  fellows  who  led  the  bands  to 
Ratner's  house,  gave  them  tea,  and  divided  the  money  among 
them.  Thursday  night  we  again  spent  in  the  house  of  the  Jew 
on  the  edge  of  the  town.  On  Friday  morning  we  came  out  of 
our  retreat  and  began  to  see  what  we  could  learn.  Alarm  and 
confusion  were  abroad  in  the  town.  Apparently  it  was  impos- 
sible to  stay.  We  decided  to  leave  the  town.  I  set  off  in  the 
direction  of  Ovruch  with  my  wife  and  children  (ten  souls).  We 
decided  to  let  come  what  would.  All  the  time  rumors  were 
being  spread  that  the  bolsheviki  were  no  longer  in  Ovruch. 
That  was  why  all  the  time  until  Friday  we  had  not  ventured  to 
leave  the  town  in  the  direction  of  Ovruch.  Friday  morning,  as 
I  said,  we  set  out  thither.  But  we  were  met  by  peasants  with 
a  volley,  and  started  to  run  back  (there  were  about  eighty  of 
us).  We  were  driven  into  the  house  of  Avrum-Ber,  and  there 
some  of  us  were  shut  up  in  a  bedroom,  the  rest  stayed  in  the 
front  room.  The  door  into  the  house  was  closed.  Immediately 
a  company  of  peasants  came  and  began  to  break  windows  and 
fire  through  the  windows.  We  lay  down  on  the  floor,  one  on 
top  of  another,  ten  or  fifteen  people  in  a  heap.  A  number  of 
peasants  entered  the  house  with  the  peasant  Kosenko  at  their 
head.  Kosenko  announced  that  he  was  going  to  kill  all  of  us. 
Our  money  was  taken  away,  and  then  the  bandits  began  to  cut 
down  literally  all,  and  to  strike  us  with  axes  and  sabres.  Those 
who  lay  on  top  perished;  those  who  lay  underneath  escaped. 
Blood  flowed  over  the  floor;  groans  and  cries  arose.  I  pre- 
tended to  be  dead,  held  my  breath,  and  didn't  move.  At  this 


382    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

time  those  who  were  in  the  other  room,  the  bedroom,  started  to 
escape  through  the  windows.  I  didn't  know  what  happened  to 
my  wife  and  children.  When  the  massacre  ended  I  continued 
to  lie  there  as  if  dead.  Bandits  came  and  investigated  me  to 
see  if  I  was  alive,  and  robbed  me  as  dead.  It  was  not  until  I 
heard  Jewish  words  that  I  raised  my  head;  it  was  Jews  who 
had  come  to  take  away  the  corpses.  I  asked  if  I  could  get  up. 
They  told  me  to  roll  up  my  sleeves  so  that  I  could  help  in 
gathering  the  corpses.  Blood  everywhere,  and  all  around  the 
groans  of  the  wounded.  I  went  out  with  the  corpses  and  laid 
them  in  the  cart.  I  laid  the  body  of  my  sister  in  the  cart.  As  I 
did  so,  I  saw  with  horror  a  dress  I  knew  too  well.  I  looked 
close,  it  was  my  wife's  body.  It  turned  out  that  she  and  my 
children  had  fled  through  a  window,  when  they  began  to  beat 
them,  and  at  that  moment  a  young  fellow  struck  her  in  the  side 
with  a  bayonet  (so  my  six-year-old  boy  told  me).  My  wife  fell 
to  the  ground  bathed  in  blood.  The  children  sat  beside  her, 
the  very  smallest.  My  wife  was  still  alive,  and  worrying  for 
the  fate  of  the  children;  she  told  them  to  go  away,  because 
they  were  killing  even  children.  The  children  were  frightened 
and  started  to  run  away,  after  first  giving  their  mother  a  drink 
and  laving  her  with  cold  water.  She  died  from  the  severe  wound, 
while  the  children  ran  along  the  road  out  of  town.  Jews  fleeing 
from  the  town  recognized  my  children  and  took  them  along. 
For  a  long  time  I  did  not  know  about  the  fate  of  my  children, 
and  only  here  in  Ovruch  were  they  brought  to  me  by  refugees 
from  Slovechno.  It  was,  as  I  just  told  you,  my  little  son  who 
told  me  how  my  wife  suffered  before  her  death,  and  how  they 
gave  her  a  drink  and  laved  her  with  water. 

In  all  the  crimes  in  Slovechno  a  small  group  of  peasants  from 
nearby  villages  took  part,  with  Kosenko  at  their  head.  They 
were  poorly  armed  and  it  would  have  been  very  easy  to  disarm 
them.  At  the  head  of  the  pogrom-outbreak  was  the  commander 
of  militia,  who  first  took  money  from  us,  as  if  to  protect  us,  but 
afterwards  summoned  the  bandits  by  signal  and  began  the  po- 
grom, handing  over  to  the  pogromists  the  weapons  which  were 
entrusted  to  him. 

(Signature) 

V.    Testimony  of  Moishe  Feldman,  Aged  19,  from  Slovechno; 
Employee  of  the  Forest  Department 

The  pogrom  began  with  us  Tuesday  night.  The  first  looting 
took  place  then.  On  the  next  morning  we  learned  that  six  were 


SLOVECHNO  383 

slain.  The  whole  day  of  Wednesday  robberies  continued  in  the 
town.  On  Thursday  again  five  or  six  people  were  killed,  but 
the  most  terrible  day  for  our  town  was  Friday,  when  the  most 
fiendish  murders  and  atrocities  took  place.  On  Friday  morning 
we  came  out  of  our  house  and  fled  wherever  our  legs  took  us. 
Wherever  we  went  we  were  met  with  shots.  The  peasants  en- 
compassed the  town  with  firing  and  drove  the  fleeing  Jews  into 
one  place.  Several  hundred  of  us  found  ourselves  in  the  house 
of  Avrum-Ber  Portny,  and  there  we  were  all  piled  and  heaped 
up  on  one  another.  It  was  close  in  the  house,  and  terror  and 
anguish  reigned  among  us.  When  a  certain  peasant  (Kosenko, 
from  Slovechno)  appeared  and  declared  that  he  was  the  head 
•f  the  insurgent  forces,  we  began  to  entreat  him  and  offered 
lim  money.  He  answered,  that  since  we  had  disobeyed  his 
>rders  to  leave  the  town,  he  had  decided  to  kill  us  all.  Im- 
nediately  the  firing  began  through  the  windows  of  the  place 
where  we  were  gathered.  Then  the  peasants  began  to  beat  us 
ip;  they  beat  us  with  whatever  came  handy,  trampled  on  us 
with  their  feet,  and  threw  bombs.  How  many  were  killed,  it  is 
lard  to  be  sure  at  present,  but  very  many.  Apparently  they 
yould  have  killed  all,  but  deadly  weapons  failed  the  bandits. 
i  myself  pretended  to  be  dead  and  lay  thus  four  or  five  hours. 
The  bandits  investigated  me  to  see  if  I  was  alive,  and  struck 
me  on  the  leg  (my  leg  swelled  up  from  that)  ;  then  the  mur- 
ierer  began  to  draw  off  my  shoes  as  from  a  dead  man. 
The  beasts  occupied  themselves  with  me  and  examined  me 
for  a  whole  hour.  Feeling  the  breathing  of  these  people  on 
ne,  I  pretended  to  be  quite  dead.  I  lay  there  until  people  came 
ifter  the  bodies  of  the  slain.  Under  me  flowed  a  stream  of 
Jewish  blood;  my  leg  ached.  I  got  up  and  went  with  someone 
else  to  another  house;  they  pursued  us  thither  and  wanted  to 
kill  us.  Then  I  went  to  the  cemetery,  where  they  were  burying 
six  dead.  On  the  way  peasants  met  us  and  demanded  that  we 
should  bury  all  the  slain,  "and  then  we  will  kill  you  and  will 
bury  you  ourselves;  we've  had  plenty  enough  work  with  you." 
"But  if  you  want  to  live,  then  go  to  the  priest  and  ask  him  to 
baptize  all  your  sins  out  of  you."  Until  evening  we  were  busy 
at  the  cemetery.  We  didn't  bury  all.  Many  corpses  remained 
at  home  and  in  the  streets.  The  summer  heat  caused  a  stench 
of  putrefaction  from  the  bodies.  Everywhere  were  pools  of 
human  blood.  At  evening  we  hid  again,  since  looting  and  killing 
were  still  going  on.  All  the  Jews  hid,  and  cowering  each  in  his 
hole  in  a  cellar  or  garret  or  in  the  bushes,  expected  death.  The 
town  presented  a  picture  of  desolation.  The  pogrom  was  char- 


384    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

acterized  not  only  by  looting  but  particularly  by  destruction  of 
property.  In  the  houses  they  smashed  everything:  windows, 
doors,  furniture,  table  service;  sometimes  they  destroyed  the 
walls.  Now  there  is  not  a  house  where  the  windows  and  doors 
are  uninjured ;  they  opened  up  the  ceilings  and  floors ;  they  car- 
ried off  the  domestic  animals,  all  the  goods  of  the  Jews.  The 
night  of  Friday  I  spent  hidden  in  the  grass  near  a  storehouse, 
and  on  Saturday  morning  I  left  the  town. 

(Signature) 


VILLAGE  OF  SHERSHNI  (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 

/ 
Pogrom  of  June  23,  1919 

I.     Testimony  of  Jos.  Gines,  Former  Merchant  of  the  Village 
of  Shershni 

I  am  an  inhabitant  of  the  village  of  Shershni.  My  family  has 
lived  there  a  long  time — my  father  and  grandfather.  I  was  en- 
gaged in  trade;  had  a  shop  in  the  village.  There  were  five 
Jewish  families  altogether  in  the  village,  all  inhabitants  of  the 
place  for  a  long  time,  so  to  speak,  well-rooted  inhabitants.  The 
pogrom,  or  rather  devastation,  took  place  with  us  before  Easter. 
It  was  Petlurists  who  perpetrated  it — bands  who  came  to  us  and 
looted.  Up  to  the  latest  time  there  were  no  murders.  The 
Jews  in  our  place  were  of  moderate  means.  In  former  times 
there  were  never  any  special  clashes  with  the  peasants.  Only 
lately,  in  connection  with  the  resentment  of  the  peasants  against 
the  "commune,"  the  peasants  began  to  talk  about  the  followers 
of  Sokolovsky  and  to  say  that  if  they  appeared  everybody  ought 
to  join  them. 

On  Tuesday,  June  23,  quite  unexpectedly  about  ten  armed 
peasants  appeared  in  my  house,  and  with  the  words  "Soko- 
lovsky's  men  have  not  been  here,"  took  me  into  the  dining-room 
and  demanded  money  and  other  things  of  me.  Two  peasants 
began  to  search  me,  and  took  away  my  money,  while  the  others 
looted  in  the  living-room  and  in  the  next  room.  They  stole  a  lot 
of  things,  and  demanded  the  key  of  the  chest  where  clothing 
was  kept.  I  said  I  didn't  have  the  keys  with  me,  but  would  go 
for  them  in  the  next  room.  As  I  passed  through  the  hall, 
I  noticed  that  there  was  no  watch,  and  making  up  my 
mind  that  death  was  unavoidable  in  the  house  in  any  case,  I 
went  out  through  the  hall  into  the  courtyard,  and  then  ran 


SHERSHNI:  PETLURISTS  3^5 

through  the  village  and  came  to  the  village  of  Sobolevka,  where 
my  family  lives  (did  live).  When  I  went  past  the  church  in 
our  village  there  stood  the  local  commissar,  Naum  Scheling,  an 
inhabitant  of  the  place.  I  asked  him  for  help.  "I  am  afraid 
myself,"  was  the  commissar's  reply.  I  took  my  wife  and  three 
children  to  Iskorost.  In  my  house  in  Shershni  I  left  my  old 
father,  aged  65,  and  my  aunt.  All  the  way  I  did  not  know 
what  had  happened  to  them,  and  only  when  I  arrived  here  I 
learned  that  my  father,  Yukel  Gines,  had  been  killed  by  the 
highwaymen.  I  do  not  know  under  what  circumstances. 

JOSEPH  GINES. 

II.     Testimony  of  Shaia  Vaks,  Aged  53,  Petty  Trader 

I  live  with  my  family  in  the  village  of  Shershni.  My  family 
consists  of  nine  souls,  together  with  the  family  of  my  eldest 
son,  who  lives  with  me.  I  am  an  old  inhabitant  of  that  village. 
We  have  been  living  there  for  forty  years.  I  have  my  own 
house. 

On  Tuesday,  June  23,  about  5  P.M.,  I  went  out  of  my  house 
to  go  to  see  the  local  commissar,  Scheling.  The  trouble  was 
that  local  youths  had  locked  the  door  of  our  house  from  the 
outside  the  day  before.  This  prank  disturbed  my  wife  and  she 
insisted  that  I  should  go  and  tell  the  commissar  about  it.  When 
I  was  at  the  house  of  the  chief  militiaman  my  wife  rushed  in 
to  me  in  great  alarm  and  said  that  armed  men  had  come  into 
our  house  and  wanted  to  kill  her,  and  demanded  money.  She 
told  how  these  men,  who  called  themselves  Sokolovsky's  men, 
had  demanded  money,  and  when  she  said  she  had  no  money, 
they  began  to  shout  at  her,  saying:  "You  are  all  communists." 
My  wife  and  daughter  declared  that  they  were  not  communists. 
Then  the  armed  peasants  demanded  that  everyone  in  the  house 
should  sign  a  written  statement  that  they  were  not  communists. 
"You  Jews  and  communists  burn  up  our  villages,"  said  these 
people.  The  peasants  took  all  who  were  in  the  house,  including 
children,  and  took  them  all  to  the  "commander"  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river.  They  were  all  taken  to  the  house  of  Naivelzh 
(who  was  afterwards  killed).  Other  Jews  from  other  houses 
were  also  brought  there.  There  were  eighteen  in  all.  There  all 
of  them  were  made  to  stand  in  line,  and  one  of  the  peasants 
gave  orders  to  load  rifles;  "and  do  a  good  job,"  he  said,  "so 
that  we  can  shoot  down  eight  people  at  a  shot."  Then  my  daugh- 
ter and  daughter-in-law  began  to  beg  for  mercy,  promising  to 
give  them  in  return  the  gold  hidden  in  the  yard.  After  this 


386    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

statement  the  bandits  showed  lively  interest,  and  took  my  daugh- 
ter and  daughter-in-law  to  my  courtyard,  where  the  gold  and 
money  were  given  to  them.  The  peasants  went  away.  Before 
these  peasants  came  back  with  our  people,  other  bandits  had 
entered  the  house  and  wrecked  it  completely,  not  leaving  any- 
thing whole,  breaking  the  windows  and  smashing  the  doors. 

SHAIA  VAKS. 

III.    Mikhel  Naivat,  Aged  43,  Married,  Four  Children; 

Merchant 

My  permanent  home  is  in  the  village  of  Shershni.  On  Mon- 
day, June  22,  I  left  Shershni  for  the  fair  at  Chenovichi.  At 
Chenovichi  I  met  my  father,  who  had  come  there  from  Shershni 
previously.  On  Tuesday  my  father  went  from  Chenovichi  back 
to  Shershni.  On  the  way  he  met  a  Jew  who  was  going  from 
Shershni  to  Melen  and  who  told  him  that  things  were  in  a  bad 
way  in  Shershni,  and  advised  him  not  to  go  there.  My  father 
thought  it  over  and  went  on  to  Shershni  in  spite  of  this.  When 
he  entered  the  village  armed  men  attacked  him  and  led  him  to 
our  house.  The  daughter  and  daughter-in-law  of  Vaks  saw  this. 
The  bandits  beat  my  father,  then  led  him  to  the  place  where  all 
the  other  Jews  of  the  village  were  assembled,  and  there  shot 
him. 

My  whole  family,  my  wife  and  little  children,  remained  in 
the  village  of  Shershni.  I  do  not  yet  know  what  happened  to 
them,  and  cannot  get  any  news  of  them.  It  is  said  that  "Soko- 
lovsky's  men"  are  still  in  "our  village.  I  should  like  to  go  there 
and  get  my  family  and  go  away.  My  father  was  65  years  old. 

MIKHEL  NAIVAT. 

VILLAGE  OF  DOBRIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 

Pogrom  of  June  27,  1919 
Testimony  of  Etia  Kipms,  Aged  74,  Merchant 

Three  weeks  ago  bands  of  armed  men  came  to  our  village. 
I  was  in  my  own  house  in  the  village  of  Dobrin,  and  my  son 
Srul  had  gone  to  a  mill  nine  versts  from  the  village.  Just  while 
my  son  was  at  the  mill,  a  group  of  bandits  went  past  and  asked 
those  who  were  standing  around  the  mill  whether  there  were 
any  Jews  there.  The  peasants  replied  that  there  was  one  Jew, 
and  indicated  my  son.  The  armed  men  went  up  to  my  son  and 
killed  him  on  the  spot.  The  owner  of  the  mill,  a  Russian, 


GORSCHIK:   SOKOLOVSKY'S  GANGS     387 

when  the  bandits  left,  buried  my  son  right  there  beside  the  mill. 
We  heard  of  my  son's  death  on  the  same  day.  My  other  son 
on  this  day  had  gone  to  find  the  body  of  a  certain  young  Jew 
who  had  been  killed  by  the  roadside.  Peasants  who  met  him 
told  him  he  need  not  go  after  the  body  of  a  stranger,  since  his 
own  brother  was  killed  and  buried  beside  the  mill.  In  Dobrin 
two  young  men,  including  my  son,  were  killed.  In  the  neigh- 
boring village  of  Buki  they  killed  two  elderly  Jews  at  the  same 
time.  In  the  village  of  Sany  there  was  also  killed  a  young 
man,  Putinsky,  25  years  old.  The  names  of  the  Jews  killed  in 
Buki  were  Avrum  Steinberg  and  Nukhim  Margulis.  After  the 
murder  of  Nukhim  Margulis,  bandits  came  to  the  house  the  sec- 
ond time  and  wanted  to  kill  his  wife  and  children.  When  the 
bandits  had  already  raised  a  revolver,  a  peasant  who  happened 
by  ran  up  to  them  and  said:  "What  are  you  doing?  Kill  the 
children  first,  don't  leave  them  orphans."  With  these  words 
the  peasant  seized  the  gun  out  of  the  bandit's  hand  and  saved 
that  family.  At  present  all  the  Jews  have  fled  from  all  these 
villages,  and  the  local  peasants  are  doing  as  they  please;  acting 
on  the  precept  and  example  of  the  bandits,  they  have  plundered 
the  property  of  the  Jews. 

The  bandits  who  visited  us  call  themselves  "Sokolovsky's  men" 
and  operate  under  the  command  of  a  certain  Matiashko,  a  young 
peasant,  less  than  thirty  years  old,  a  former  stone-cutter,  from 
the  village  of  Ganopal.  He  himself  has  taken  part  in  the  murder 
of  Jews.  He  often  goes  into  the  villages  and  issues  orders  not 
to  let  the  Jews  get  away  nor  to  conceal  them,  under  pain  of 
death.  This  Matiashko  goes  into  the  villages,  calls  the  peasants 
together,  makes  speeches,  and  agitates  against  the  Jewish  "com- 
munists." Our  village  did  not  adhere  to  Matiashko  while  I  was 
there ;  what  is  happening  there  now  I  do  not  know.  There  is  in 
actual  fact  no  government  in  the  village  at  all. 

ELTA  KIPNIS. 

GORSCHIK    (GOVERNMENT  OF  VOLHYNIA) 
Pogrom  of  July  16,  1919 

Yentel  Gorstein,  of  Ushomir,  Aged  50 

Gorschik  is  twelve  versts  from  Ushomir.  Last  week  two  boys 
came  to  Ushomir  and  said  that  eight  Jews  had  been  killed  in 
Gorschik,  among  them  Benjamin  Friedlau,  an  old  man,  and  his 
son-in-law,  Avrez  Avrum  (his  last  name  we  do  not  know),  an 


388    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

old  man,  and  his  son,  the  two  sons  of  a  certain  Israel-Ber  (his 
last  name  we  do  not  know),  and  Idel  Glozmann  and  his  son. 
The  boys  did  not  tell  us  the  circumstances  of  the  murder  of 
these  Jews.  We  knew  five  of  the  slain.  The  relatives  of  the 
slain  sent  a  cart  from  Ushomir  to  Gorschik  after  the  bodies. 
For  a  long  time  no  one  ventured  to  go.  A  Russian  consented 
to  go  for  the  bodies  and  took  3,000  rubles  for  it.  The  cart  re- 
turned without  the  bodies  and  the  driver  said  that  the  peasants 
would  not  surrender  the  bodies  and  had  buried  them  in^Gors- 
chik  It  was  said  that  "Sokolovsky's  men"  had  killed  theTjews. 

Besides  this,  in  the  Moshkosky  glass  factory,  six  or  eight 
versts  from  Ushomir,  a  man  and  his  wife  named  Faiermann 
were  killed  at  this  time.  The  dead  couple  left  nine  chil- 
dren, three  grown  and  six  little  ones.  Yesterday  the  bodies  of 
the  slain  were  brought  to  Ushomir  by  a  German  of  the  town, 
and  yesterday  they  were  buried  by  a  large  company  of  Jews.  It 
is  said  that  they  were  killed  by  "Sokolovsky's  men."  The  chil- 
dren tell  about  the  frightful  story  as  follows :  The  children  were 
mowing  hay  near  the  forest,  when  suddenly  they  noticed  some 
mounted  armed  men.  The  children  cried:  "Save  yourselves,  it 
is  the  men  of  Sokolovsky!"  The  riders  rushed  out  of  the 
woods;  the  family  of  Faiermann  hid.  The  riders  attacked  the 
husband  and  wife  and  killed  them. 

All  these  murders  alarmed  the  inhabitants  of  Ushomir.  Even 
now  reports  of  the  murder  of  Jews  are  coming  from  various 
places.  On  Friday  evening  of  last  week,  and  on  Saturday,  the 
peasants  of  all  the  surrounding  villages  collected  in  Ushomir, 
all  armed.  There  were  so  many  peasants  that  the  whole  town 
and  village  was  filled  with  them.  They  came  from  all  direc- 
tions. The  peasants  marched  through  all  the  streets.  The  Jews 
hid  in  their  houses  in  alarm,  but  the  peasants  reassured  them, 
saying  they  had  nothing  against  them,  that  they  were  aiming 
only  at  Iskorost,  where  the  "commune"  was  established,  and 
that  they  had  determined  to  have  a  reckoning  only  with  them 
(the  Jews  of  Korosten)  ;  they  asked  the  Jews  of  Ushomir  to 
join  them,  enrolled  their  names,  and  issued  to  them  some  sort 
of  "certificate"  with  a  seal,  in  exchange  for  ten  rubles.  In  this 
way,  they,  as  it  were,  attached  the  Jews  of  Ushomir  to  their  move- 
ment. We  know  very  well  many  of  the  peasants  who  came  in  ; 
many  old  men  did  it  very  unwillingly  and  told  us  that  they  were 
under  compulsion.  The  peasants  not  only  did  no  harm  to  the 
Jews,  but  did  not  even  take  anything  from  anyone,  or  if  they 
did  they  paid  for  it.  On  Monday  all  the  peasants  went  to  Koro- 
sten. ...  On  the  same  day  the  peasants  in  withdrawing  passed 


LITIN:    SHEPEL'S  GANG  389 

through  Ushomir,  but  this  time  they  ran  through  side  streets; 
many  were  killed,  and  we  saw  no  more  of  the  peasants.  I  must 
observe  that  when  the  peasants  were  in  Ushomir  they  issued 
the  above-mentioned  "certificates"  to  all  Jews  between  the  ages 
of  sixteen  and  forty,  threatening  that  if  anyone  refused  to 
accept  the  certificate  he  would  be  killed.  Thus  nobly  did  the 
peasants  deal  with  us  in  Ushomir.  Among  the  rebel  peasants 
were  some  of  Sokolovsky's  men  as  instructors,  with  white  bands 
on  their  arms. 

On  Monday  the  peasants  left  Ushomir.  On  Tuesday  appeared 
a  group  of  five  armed  men  on  horseback,  who  went  to  the  mar- 
ket and  began  to  beat  up  whatever  Jews  they  met.  These  horse- 
men at  once  attracted  attention  by  their  inhuman  appearance, 
which  sharply  distinguished  them  from  the  peaceful  aspect  of 
the  rebel  peasants  who  had  been  there  before.  When  the  tumult 
started  in  the  market,  peasants  of  the  town  appeared  in  the 
market  and  defended  the  Jews,  asking  the  "men  of  Sokolovsky" 
why  they  had  come  thither.  The  horsemen  replied  that  they 
had  come  to  punish  the  Jews.  The  peasants  then  told  the  horse- 
men that  they  should  not  dare  to  touch  a  single  Jew,  since  the 
Ushomir  Jews  were  all  going  along  with  the  peasants,  and  that 
if  a  single  Jew  should  be  hurt,  the  peasants  would  hold  the 
horsemen  to  account  for  it.  The  horsemen  began  to  make  ex- 
cuses, saying  they  had  come  not  to  kill  Jews  but  to  get  out  the 
bombs  which  the  Petlurists  had  thrown  into  the  river.  Soon 
they  disappeared.  Confusion  and  alarm  among  the  Jews  in  the 
town  lasted  for  some  time  after  these  people  left.  These  horse- 
men went  from  Ushomir  in  the  direction  of  Gorschik,  and  there 
perpetrated  the  murders  which  I  told  about. 

(Illiterate) 

LITIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

I.    From  Report   of  Authorised   Investigator   V.   A.   Guminer, 
June  24,  1919 

I  have  returned  from  Litin,  where  I  learned  the  situation  of 
the  devastated  city.  Litin  is  a  small  cantonal  capital,  thirty 
versts  from  the  station  of  Vinnitza,  with  which  it  is  connected 
by  a  paved  highway.  Out  of  a  population  of  12,000  the  Jews 
comprise  4,000,  the  Ukrainians  5,000,  the  Great  Russians  2,000, 
and  the  rest  (Poles  and  others)  1,000.  Relations  between  the 
Jewish  and  non-Jewish  inhabitants  were  excellent. 

The  pogrom   was   wholly  unexpected   to  the  Jews   of   Litin. 


390    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

There  were  cases,  as  everywhere,  but  no  general  appeals 
(to  pogroms),  and  no  signs  that  the  Jewish  population  was 
threatened  by  any  serious  danger.  On  the  night  before  May 
14  a  band  under  the  leadership  of  Shepel  burst  into  the  city. 
The  band  was  a  small  one,  of  25  to  50  men.  The  local  garrison 
resisted,  but  a  certain  section  of  it  was  treacherous.  Towards 
morning  the  Jewish  pogrom  began.  Local  inhabitants  and  also 
peasants  from  the  surrounding  villages  joined  the  band.  Vodka 
was  gotten  from  somewhere  or  other,  and  drunkenness,  looting, 
and  murders  began.  In  all  a  hundred  people  were  killed. 

The  pogrom  was  terminated  only  by  the  entrance  of  the  de- 
tachment of  the  Vinnitza  Extraordinary  Committee,  which  fired 
on  the  villages  with  artillery,  but  soon  departed.  The  rebels 
again  entered  Litin,  but  there  was  no  more  looting.  One  Jew 
was  killed;  he  happened  to  appear  in  the  streets  as  the  rebels 
were  entering  the  town.  After  this  the  rebels  attacked  Vin- 
nitza unsuccessfully;  and  Litin  was  cleared  of  rebels  by  the 
International  Regiment  and  the  cursants  (Soviet  military  cadets). 

After  the  departure  of  the  latter  a  detachment  of  Soviet 
forces  entered  the  town  and  put  a  complete  end  to  the  looting  of 
the  Jewish  population.  The  latter  was  terrorized  after  the  expe- 
riences of  the  pogrom.  Now  it  is  comparatively  peaceful  there. 
The  commandant  was  removed,  but  fled,  and  is  now  being 
sought. 

Litin  now  looks  like  a  dead  city.  The  stores  are  all  closed. 
Economic  life  is  completely  at  a  standstill.  The  peasants  have 
stopped  bringing  food  into  the  city.  Thus  it  is  hard  to  get 
bread  or  anything  to  eat  even  for  money.  In  the  last  few  days 
some  improvement  is  noticeable.  A  few  food  products  are  ap- 
pearing. But  the  peasants  demand  not  money,  but  produce  (salt, 
manufactured  articles,  etc.). 

On  the  advice  of  local  people  in  public  life,  I  applied  to  a  well- 
known  woman,  a  Mrs.  Merezel  (a  Christian).  She  emphasized 
that  there  was  a  special  need  for  food  products  and  for  cloth- 
ing, especially  linen.  When  I  found  what  the  situation  was 
and  realized  that  the  children  were  especially  in  want,  I  decided 
in  the  first  days  to  open  a  food  depot  for  a  hundred  children, 
in  the  style  of  a  kindergarten. 

II.    Testimony  of  G.  Zeidis,  Gymnasium  Student,  Aged  18, 
Taken  Down  by  S.  Y.  Maizlish,  July  29,  1919 

Some  circles  of  the  Jewish  population  of  Litin  took  an  active 
part  in  the  communist  movement.  There  were  many  Jews  in 
responsible  positions  under  the  Soviet.  In  the  region  of  Litin 


YANOV:    SHEPEL'S  GANG  391 

were  operating  the  bands  of  Shepel,  Saranchi,  and  Karpach, 
who  came  out  against  the  Soviet  regime  and  spread  anti-Semitic 
watchwords,  like  "Kill  the  Jews,  save  Ukraine,"  etc. 

The  first  pogrom  was  perpetrated  May  14.  Looting  was  epi- 
demic ;  there  were  120  killed,  about  20  wounded,  about  10  women 
violated.  After  this  repeated  attacks  of  the  bands  occurred, 
almost  every  week.  On  July  18  the  workers  of  Yastrev's  shoe 
factory  from  Vinnitza  came  to  the  village  of  Voniaga  (three 
versts  from  Litin)  for  grain  and  provisions.  The  peasants  of 
the  village  offered  resistance,  drove  them  out,  and  burst  into 
Litin  and  killed  seven  Jews. 

YANOV  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

Pogrom  of  July  11-15,  1919 
Testimony  of  B.  Raber,  Taken  Down  by  S.  Y.  Maizlish,  July  29 

The  town  of  Yanov,  canton  of  Vinnitza,  is  twelve  versts  from 
the  station  of  Kalinovka.  Six  or  seven  hundred  Jewish  families 
lived  in  the  place. 

On  Thursday,  July  10,  persistent  rumors  began  to  spread  that 
a  large  band  of  pogromists  was  moving  on  Yanov.  In  the  town 
was  a  local  armed  guard,  of  young  men,  which  had  38  rifles. 
The  local  peasants  proposed  that  arms  be  issued  to  them,  and 
they  would  resist  the  insurgents.  The  weapons  were  deposited 
at  the  headquarters  of  the  "Union,"  and  at  once  there  appeared 
about  twenty  men  who  seized  the  rifles,  joined  the  local  peasants, 
and  began  to  fire  irregularly  through  the  town.  One  non-Jew 
was  accidentally  killed.  The  bandits  dragged  the  body  of  the 
dead  man  into  a  certain  Jew's  hut,  placed  it  on  the  bed,  and 
spread  the  report  that  the  Jews  had  killed  him.  Meantime  a 
numerous  band  (Shepel's)  arrived  in  the  town,  and  began  to 
plunder  and  kill. 

On  Friday,  July  11,  four  people  were  killed.  The  Jewish  popu- 
lation fled  to  the  fields  and  woods.  The  looting  and  killing 
continued  until  Tuesday.  They  killed  mercilessly  whomever 
they  met.  On  Tuesday  they  rounded  up  the  surviving  Jews, 
about  300  people,  into  the  synagogue,  and  as  usual  demanded  a 
contribution.  They  were  given  200,000  rubles.  After  this  the 
band  began  to  discuss  what  was  to  be  done  with  the  assembled 
Jews.  A  certain  Komarenko  (a  former  Soviet  commissar)  pro- 
posed to  kill  all  Jews  between  the  ages  of  13  and  40.  The  teacher 
Gorchina  opposed  this  suggestion.  The  former  commissar  Beba 
proposed  to  let  it  go  with  throwing  a  few  bombs  into  the  syna- 


392    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

gogue.  But  this  proposal  was  also  rejected.  They  were  on 
the  point  of  deciding  to  burn  the  synagogue^  so  that  all  the 
Jews  should  perish  in  the  flames.  But  at  that  time  an  aeroplane 
appeared  above  the  town  and  threw  down  two  bombs.  Panic 
arose  among  the  rebels,  and  they  started  to  leave  the  place.  The 
assembled  Jews  were  saved  in  this  manner.  In  all  300  were 
killed,  including  about  30  from  Berdechev  and  about  30  from 
Pikov. 

OBODIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 
Pogrom  of  July  10,  1919 
Testimony  of  Sh.  Gronfain 

The  village  of  Obodin  is  in  the  canton  of  Bratzlav  ten  versts 
from  Voronovitzy.  There  were  only  three  families  of  Jews 
living  in  the  town.  One  family,  consisting  of  four  people,  did 
not  succeed  in  fleeing  and  was  entirely  massacred.  The  wife 
was  found  with  her  breasts  cut  off;  a  baby  of  six  months  had 
its  throat  cut;  and  a  child  of  six  also  was  slashed  to  death. 

As  a  general  proposition  the  pogromists  operated  with  "cold 
weapons"  (not  firearms).  This  is  explained  simply  by  the  lack  of 
cartridges.  Cartridges  cost  fifty  rubles. 

VORONOVITZY   (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 
Pogrom  of  July  10,  1919 

Testimony  of  Sh.  Gronfain*  Aged  24,  a  Refugee  from  Vorono- 
vitzy; Taken  Down  by  S.  Y.  Maizlish,  July  28 

The  town  of  Voronovitzy  is  in  the  canton  of  Bratzlav,  gov- 
ernment of  Podolia,  and  is  on  the  railroad  (narrow-gauge  line) 
Vinnitza-Gaisin,  forty  versts  from  Bratzlav.  There  are  about 
300  Jewish  families  in  the  town. 

The  rebel  movement  in  the  region  of  Voronovitzy  began  in 
May,  and  the  leaders  of  the  rebels  were  former  Petlurist  offi- 
cers, such  as  Bilinchuk  (a  native  of  Voronovitzy,  a  gymnasium 
student  of  the  8th  class),  Sibranchuk  (was  a  commandant,  with 
the  rank  of  colonel,  under  the  Directory),  Gorban,  father  and 
son,  Ponomarchuk,  and  others.  The  persons  enumerated  agi- 
tated among  the  local  peasants  against  the  Soviet  regime,  using 
the  watchwords  of  the  Ukrainian  nationalists.  Bilinchuk  after- 
wards went  to  Bratzlav,  where  an  agent  of  the  Extraordinary 
Committee  recognized  him  and  arrested  him.  He  was  shot. 


TROSTIANETZ:   LOCAL  POGROMISTS    393 

On  May  9  a  band  of  rebels  came  to  Voronovitzy  and  at  once 
began  looting.  This  lasted  two  or  three  days.  One  Jew  was 
killed.  On  the  following  day  they  were  about  to  start  a  massa- 
cre of  the  whole  Jewish  population,  but  thanks  to  the  inter- 
vention of  a  certain  Kudren  (a  former  Petlurist)  and  the  ap- 
proach of  Soviet  forces  from  Vinnitza,  it  was  not  carried  out. 
The  band  withdrew,  and  the  8th  Soviet  regiment  entered  the 
town.  This  regiment  did  considerable  looting  on  May  13. 

The  pogrom  which  occurred  on  July  10  may  be  described  as 
follows.  A  band  started  to  approach  Voronovitzy  along  the 
railroad.  It  proved  impossible  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  the  nature 
of  this  band.  According  to  some  they  were  "Grigorievists" ; 
others  said  they  were  going  to  the  Rumanian  front,  to  join  the 
Allies.  On  Wednesday,  July  9,  the  band  arrived  at  the  station 
of  Gumennoie,  eight  versts  from  Voronovitzy.  Here  three 
bandits  stopped  a  train,  drove  all  Jews  out  of  the  cars,  robbed 
.  some  of  them,  beat  some  with  rods,  and  killed  two  (one  of  them 
a  Jew).  Some  of  the  passengers  were  released,  receiving  from 
the  bandits  some  sort  of  documents;  others  fled;  while  some 
the  rebels  took  along  with  them,  and  what  happened  to  them  is 
unknown.  Among  those  who  were  detained  were  many  women. 
Some  women  were  violated  on  the  spot.  On  the  way  to  Voro- 
novitzy the  gang  killed  many  Jews  whom  they  met,  and  many  of 
the  bodies  were  afterwards  discovered.  On  Thursday,  July  10, 
five  members  of  the  gang  (the  rest  remained  outside  of  the 
city)  entered  the  town  and  in  the  course  of  something  like  two 
hours  killed  twelve  people  (six  in  the  town  itself,  six  outside), 
and  did  some  looting.  Among  the  Jews,  of  course,  a  panic  arose, 
and  they  all  hid.  But  at  this  time  Soviet  forces,  attacking  from 
the  direction  of  Vinnitza,  began  to  fire  on  the  town,  and  the  band 
withdrew. 

TOWN  OF  TROSTIANETZ    (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 
I.     Testimony  of  Bogdansky,  July  25,  1919 

Trostianetz  is  a  town  in  the  government  of  Podolia,  on  the 
railroad,  about  50  versts  to  the  southwest  of  Gaisin.  The 
Jewish  population  is  about  500  families.  There  are  almost  no 
Christians ;  they  live  in  the  country  outside.  The  pogrom  move- 
ment began  on  May  1  and  lasted  until  the  17th.  The  principal 
butchery  was  on  May  10.  The  pogrom  was  perpetrated  by  local 
peasants  with  the  watchword  "Kill  the  Jews,  away  with  the 
commune."  The  organizers  of  the  pogrom  were  persons  known 
as  sympathizers  with  the  Ukrainian  nationalist  movement:  the 


394    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

student  Gonzenko  and  the  former  Petlurist  officer  Drevinsky. 
They  rang  the  signal  bell,  the  peasants  collected  and  the  pil- 
laging began.  In  the  commissariat's  quarters  about  four  hun- 
dred Jews  were  herded  together— all  of  the  male  sex,  beginning 
with  boys  of  ten  and  ending  with  decrepit  old  men.  Drevinsky 
energetically  spread  the  rumor  that  Jews  from  surrounding 
towns  were  approaching  in  armored  automobiles,  and  that  in 
one  village  they  had  already  massacred  all  the  Christians.  "If 
we  simply  keep  still,  they  will  massacre  all  of  us,  too."  Then 
the  peasants  rushed  to  the  quarters  of  the  commissariat  and 
began  to  throw  bombs  through  the  windows  and  to  fire  from 
rifles.  Since  the  Jews  who  were  there  threw  themselves  flat 
on  the  floor,  the  peasants  then  rushed  in  and  massacred  them 
all.  This  butchery  was  perpetrated  on  Saturday,  May  10,  at 
6  P.M. ;  but  on  the  night  before  an  enormous  grave  had  already 
been  dug  outside  the  city.  All  the  bodies  were  carried  there  in 
carts  and  dumped  into  the  pit.  About  eighty  corpses  were  car- 
ried out  from  the  dwellings.  The  total  number  of  the  dead 
was  as  many  as  400,  among  them  13  women.  The  murders 
continued  until  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning;  but  on  the  next  day 
only  pillaging  and  general  devastation  took  place. 

II.  Note  of  Report,  and  Certain  Materials  Regarding  the  Hor- 
rors of  the  Atrocious  Massacre  in  the  Town  of  Tros- 
tianetz, Government  of  Podolia,  Canton  of  Bratzlav, 
Perpetrated  upon  the  Associates  of  the  Trostianetz  Revo- 
lutionary Committee,  on  May  9  and  10,  1919.  By  the 
Secretary,  D.  Monastyrsky;  the  Director  of  the  Department 
of  Labor,  I.  Safro;  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Department  of 
Manufactures,  G.  Monastyrsky. 

The  Period  of  the  Soviet  Rule  in  the  Town  of  Trostianetz;  the 
Make-up  of  the  Revolutionary  Committee  and  Its  Activities 

(a)  Towards  the  end  of  March  of  this  year,  when  the  region 
of  Trostianetz  had  been  cleared  of  Petlurists,  there  arrived  two 
instructors  in  the  method  of  organization  of  local  governments, 
comrades  Izarov  and  Mogilevsky.     Finding  no  party  organiza- 
tion,  the  instructors  upon  their   arrival   called   a  meeting  and 
named  five  men  to  constitute  the   Military   and   Revolutionary 
Committee  of  the  district   (volost}   of  Trostianetz:— 

(b)  Yegorov,  President  (assistant  to  a  distiller),  and  Saulov 
(instructor  of  the  co-operative  union),  Russians;  Domalchinsky 
(assistant  mechanician  in  a  mill)    and  Ditkovsky    (commercial 
agent  of  the  co-operative  union,  afterwards  arrested  for  specula- 
tion), Poles;  and  D.  Monastyrsky,  Secretary  (a  Jew  who  had 


TROSTIANETZ  395 

recently  returned  from  America).  The  same  instructors  also 
named  as  commandant  Kolesnikov,  who  had  by  chance  just  come 
from  the  military  commissariat  after  grain ;  after  some  time  the 
military  committee  of  the  canton  named  him  cantonal  military 
commissar  and  commandant  of  the  district  (volost)  ;  finally  he 
was  arrested  in  Vinnitza  by  the  military  commission  of  the 
government  of  Podolia,  charged  with  being  drunk  and  disor- 
derly. They  also  named  as  adjutant  Orlov  (a  former  Petlurist 
officer,  afterwards  political  commissar  of  the  district),  and  as 
assistant  to  the  commissar  of  the  district  V.  Marinevich  (a 
drunkard  without  any  political  past). 

(c)  The  activity  of  the  Revolutionary  Committee  of  Tros- 
tianetz  throughout  the  entire  period  of  its  existence,  from  April 
3  to  May  9,  was  limited  to  the  organization  of  a  commandant's 
company  (of  soldiers),  and  of  Committees  of  the  Poor,  and  to 
the  collection  of  contributions  and  requisitions  of  products  from 
the  Jewish  population  exclusively;  even  to  this  day  they  have 
not  received  a  penny  in  return.  Both  the  contributions  and 
requisitions  of  produce,  and  purchases  at  arbitrarily  fixed  prices, 
were  practised  only  on  the  Jewish  population.  In  spite  of  the 
existence  of  a  Department  of  Labor  under  the  Revolutionary 
Committee,  there  were  taken  into  public  posts  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  Department  of  Labor  people  of  counter-revo- 
lutionary tendencies,  who  afterwards  took  part  in  the  uprising 
and  the  massacre. 

Relations  to  the  Soviet  Rule  of  the  Workmen  of  the  Local  Sugar 
Factory  of  Trostianetz  and  Their  Workmen's  Committees 
The  workmen  of  the  sugar  factory  were  mostly  counter-revo- 
lutionaries. They  were  guided  by  members  of  the  old  adminis- 
tration of  the  factory,  who  got  into  the  factory  committee.  All 
the  time  they  kept  apart  and  expressed  complete  indifference  and 
even  antagonism  to  the  Soviet  regime.  Many  of  them  took 
direct  or  indirect  part  in  the  uprising  and  the  pogroms.  When 
a  protest  meeting  was  held  once,  not  a  single  one  of  these  work- 
men participated. 

The  Rebel  Movement  in  Our  Region,  May  1-17,  and  the  Fall  of 

the  Soviet  Regime  in  Our  District  (Volost),  May  9 
When  the  authorities  of  the  canton  of  Bratzlav  went  with 
their  military  forces  to  put  down  the  rebel  uprising  in  the 
neighboring  canton  of  Gaisin,  the  rebels  of  the  canton  of  Bratz- 
lav took  Bratzlav  and  perpetrated  a  massacre.  After  Bratzlav 
Tulchin  also  fell.  Being  cut  off  from  every  center  and  not 
having  any  forces  that  could  be  relied  upon,  since  the  Red-army 


396    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

cavalry  detachment  was  formed  of  former  Petlurist  and  Het- 
manist  militia,  and  learning  that  a  rebellion  was  already  being 
prepared  throughout  the  district,  the  military  commissar  Koles- 
nikov,  together  with  the  members  of  the  Revolutionary  Com- 
mittee, decided  on  the  night  of  May  8  to  evacuate  the  town,  and 
left  in  the  direction  of  Ladyzhin  to  join  the  forces  of  the  canton 
of  Bratzlav  which  were  reported  to  be  near  Gaisin.  When  they 
departed,  the  Red-army  cavalry  detachment  refused  to  go  along, 
and  broke  up.  When  they  had  gone  several  versts  in  the  direc- 
tion named,  the  Trostianetz  military  forces  for  some  reason  or 
other  decided  to  turn  back  (Marinevich  especially  insisted  on 
this),  and,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  some  of  their  associates, 
this  was  done.  When  they  got  back  and  found  that  the  rebels 
were  already  at  hand,  Commissar  Kolesnikov  summoned  by  ex- 
traordinary summons  from  the  station  of  Voprianka  a  locomo- 
tive with  six  cars,  to  leave  the  place. 

By  11  A.M.  all  the  members  of  the  Revolutionary  Committee 
had  disappeared  somewhere  or  other.  The  military  and  political 
commissars  also  disappeared,  without  waiting  for  the  arrival 
of  the  train.  At  12  noon  Marinevich,  the  assistant  commissar  of 
the  district,  rushed  into  the  commissariat  and  insisted  that  his 
salary  should  be  paid.  When  he  received  the  money  he  ran  out, 
crying :  "It's  all  up,  save  yourselves,"  and  started  for  the  station. 
Running  out  on  the  streets  we  were  overwhelmed  by  the  sound 
of  the  signal  bells  of  the  surrounding  churches,  and  we  saw 
the  armed  rebels  approaching.  Being  left  without  a  government 
and  without  command,  the  Red  soldiers  also  fled  by  various 
routes  to  the  station,  where  under  the  fire  of  the  rebels,  who 
were  hurrying  up,  fifty  Red  soldiers  and  three  associates  of  the 
Revolutionary  Committee  got  into  a  car  and  left  for  Voprianka. 
On  the  way,  before  we  got  to  the  station  of  Kirnasovka,  we 
were  fired  upon  at  two  places,  and  three  of  our  comrades  were 
wounded.  At  the  station  of  Voprianka  we  found  the  military 
and  political  commissars,  Kolesnikov  and  Orlov,  and  at  their 
direction  we  all  went  to  Vinnitza. 

The  Massacre  and  Pogrom.  From  Report  of  two  Eye-witnesses 
of  the  Massacre,  who  went  to  Kiev  as  Representatives  of 
more  than  900  Widows  and  Orphans:  former  Lieutenant 
Sandier  and  Comrade  Bogdansky. 

After  the  train  left  with  the  Red  soldiers,  the  usual  pogrom 
scene  was  enacted  in  the  city.  Under  the  deafening  noise  of 
the  signal  bells,  bands  of  peasants  and  rebels  with  weapons  of 


TROSTIANETZ  397 

all  sorts  ran  in  from  all  sides,  making  the  air  ring  with  cries  of 
"Kill  the  Jews,  destroy  the  commune."     They  maltreated  and 
beat  up  every  Jew  they  met.     After  a  little  time  they  began  to 
drag  all  the  men  and  boy-children  out  of  the  houses,  and,  beat- 
ing them  unmercifully,  took  them  off,  either,  as  some  said,  to  be 
registered,   or,   as    others    said,   to   be   arrested   and   shot.     By 
evening  all  the  men  had  been  caught  and  locked  up  in  a  two- 
story   building   of   the    former   Commissariat,   under   guard   of 
armed  bandits.    A  fearful  night  ensued  for  the  town,  left  with- 
out men.     The  bandits  carried  on  terribly,  looting,  killing,  and 
violating  women.     In  this  night  eighteen  people  were  killed,  in- 
cluding two   women.     The   bacchanalia   did   not  stop  the   next 
morning,  May  10.     On  the  contrary,  the  looting  activities  of  the 
bandits  in  the  place  increased.     It  is  hardly  possible  to  describe 
what  the  women  experienced,  when  they  found  out  at  this  same 
time  that  outside  the  town,  by  a  reservoir  where  the  refuse  of 
the  factory  was  thrown  out,  the  bandits  for  some  reason  had 
already  dug  a  great  trench  of  military  style,  thirty-five  arshins 
long.    No  one  was  any  longer  permitted  on  the  street  leading  to 
the  station,  and  none  of  the  women  had  the  slightest  informa- 
tion as  to  what  was  going  on  at  the   Commissariat  with   the 
whole  mass  of  Jews  herded  in  there.     Although  the  grave  dug 
in  advance  bore  clear  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the  fate  of  the 
martyrs    had    been    decided    in    the    morning,    nevertheless    the 
monarchists  and  counter-revolutionaries -of  all  styles  summoned 
an  assembly  at  two  o'clock  in  the  town  hall  under  the  presidency 
of  Belousov.     The  question  "what  to  do  with  the  Jews"  was 
brought  up.     The  opinions  were  various.     The  majority  of  the 
assembly  was  against  the  mass  execution  of  all  the  Jews.     Sud- 
denly there  rushed  up  on  horseback  a  hangman  who  played  the 
deciding   role   in   this   tragedy — a   certain    Drevinsky,    who    had 
then  been  declared  commandant  of  the  rebels,  a  former  Petlurist 
officer.     He  shouted:  "Brothers,  to  the  harness,  quickly!     The 
Jews  from  Obodovka  and  Verkhovka  are  coming  up  behind  us 
in  armored  automobiles.     Run  and  finish  up  the  Jews  once  for 
all."     With  wild  cries  of  "Brothers,  kill  the  Jews,"  the  savage 
mob  rushed  headlong  to  the  building  of  the  Commissariat,  sur- 
rounded it,  and  began  firing  through  the  windows,  and  throwing 
in  bombs  and  hand  grenades.    Frantic  cries  and  groans  rent  the 
air.     The  grenades  flew,  and  with  them  were  torn  and  mangled 
the  bodies   of  over  400  men  and  boys,  mad  with  horror  and 
anguish.    Someone  shouted  the  bloody  watchword,  "Don't  leave 
them  alive,  blot  them  out"— being  sure  that  such  a  crowd  could 
not  so  easily  and  quickly  be  done  to  death.    So  they  broke  into 


398    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  building  of  the  Commissariat  and  with  knives,  bayonets,  axes, 
and  other  weapons  completed  their  vile  work.  Long  continued 
the  wild,  bloody  dance  of  death.  Here  were  torments  and  tor- 
tures such  as  the  world  had  never  seen.  The  victims  swam  in 
rivers  of  their  own  blood.  Here  in  inconceivable  anguish  fathers 
with  their  only  sons  or  with  three  or  five  sons  breathed  their 
last.  Here  fresh  youths  perished  in  their  fathers'  arms.  Thus 
from  5  till  10  P.M.  on  May  11  the  unhappy  wretches  were 
totally  destroyed.  The  fragments  of  the  four  hundred  bodies 
were  gathered  up  and  thrown  into  the  ditch  which  had  been 
prepared  before.  Next  morning  the  hooligans  quickly  formed 
a  detachment  out  of  their  own  midst,  which  would  not  allow 
any  of  the  women  to  leave  the  houses.  Cries,  wails,  and  hysteri- 
cal laments  shook  the  air  day  and  night  for  a  whole  week,  until 
the  following  Saturday,  May  17.  Under  the  organized  guard  of 
bandits,  peasant  women  carried  off  the  remnants  of  the  Jews' 
property  and  provisions,  to  the  sound  of  the  tocsin  bells,  which 
did  not  cease  all  the  week.  At  the  end  of  the  week,  when  a  Red 
army  detachment  arrived,  the  bandits  of  the  district  of  Tros- 
tianetz  had  already  succeeded  in  settling  with  the  other  neigh- 
boring towns  of  Obodovka,  Verkhovka,  and  Voprianka,  and 
exhibited  in  battle  array  a  force  armed  with  rifles,  machine 
guns,  etc. 

At  the  present  time  the  widows  and  orphans,  amounting  to 
almost  900  souls,  naked,  hungry,  penniless,  defenseless,  and  dis- 
honored, are  cowering  in  their  terrible  anguish  and  sending  their 
curses  at  the  whole  world.  The  bandits  have  not  even  yet  been 
caught  or  disarmed ;  they  strut  about  the  town  and  express  their 
hostility  to  the  widows  and  orphans  who  remain  alive. 

Result  of  Our  Application  for  Help  to  the  Soviet  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Podolia,  and  to  the  Military  and  Party  Institu- 
tions of  the  city  of  Vinnitsa* 

When  we  arrived  at  Vinnitza  and  made  known  all  the  above- 
described  facts  to  all  the  public  institutions,  the  best  answer  we 
could  get  was  always:  "At  present  we  are  powerless  to  do  any- 
thing, we  have  no  genuine  power;  wait,  wait"  When  the 
cantonal  capital  Bratzlav  was  again  taken  by  a  Soviet  detach- 
ment, Red  soldiers  from  Bratzlav,  Tulchin,  and  Trostianetz  went 
thither  to  do  guard  duty.  Some  time  later  our  military  com- 
missar, Kolesnikov,  again  arrived  in  Vinnitza  with  an  urgent 
request  for  machine  guns  and  troops.  But  there  he  was  arrested 
by  the  military  committee  of  the  government,  charged  with 


TROSTIANETZ  399 

being  drunk  and  disorderly.  In  spite  of  our  demands  that  he  be 
immediately  replaced  with  another,  since  the  lack  of  a  com- 
manding officer  would  threaten  to  wipe  off  the  face  of  the  earth 
the  widows  and  orphans  who  still  remained  alive,  the  military 
committee  of  the  government  has  as  yet  taken  no  steps.  This  i« 
why  we  have  come  to  Kiev  and  have  presented  this  report  to 
the  proper  authorities,  with  the  request  and  demand,  in  the  name 
of  the  still  living  widows  and  orphans: 

(1)  That  there  be  immediately  dispatched  to  the  town  of 
Trostianetz  a  Commission  of  Investigation,  into  the  composition 
of  which  should  enter  representatives  of  the  military  authorities, 
the  revolutionary  tribunal,  and  the  communist  parties;  and 
which  shall  discover  and  punish  the  counter-revolutionaries  and 
participants  in  the  rebellion  and  massacre  who  are  even  yet  en- 
joying complete  liberty.  This  is  possible  only  if  there  is  sent 
into  the  district  of  Trostianetz  a  reliable  Red-army  detachment, 
with  about  16  machine  guns,  and  other  firearms,  to  disarm  the 
peasants  and  bandits  that  are  still  in  arms.  (2)  That  extraor- 
dinary measures  be  immediately  adopted  leading  to  the  social 
welfare  of  the  widows  and  orphans,  more  than  nine  hundred  of 
whom  have  already  been  registered.  They  are  stripped  bare, 
plundered,  left  literally  without  a  piece  of  bread.  They  must 
be  furnished  with  provisions,  clothing,  medicines,  and  financial 
means.  (3)  That  a  responsible  government  be  immediately  or- 
ganized in  the  canton  and  district. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Trostianetz  Military  Revolutionary  Com- 
mittee. 

The  Director  of  the  Department  of  Labor, 

I.  SAFRO. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Department  of  Manufactures, 

G.  MONASTYRSKY. 

The  President  of  the  temporary  Soviet  of  the  Town  of  Tros- 
tianetz, 

B.  SANDLER. 

The  Secretary,  M.  BOGDANSKY. 
Kiev,  May  30,  1919. 

III.    Report  of  S.  Kulikova 

I  submit  herewith  a  list  of  the  slain,  and  of  the  widows  and 
orphans  left  without  any  means  of  subsistence,  in  the  town  of 
Trostianetz,  to  which  I  was  sent  to  bring  first  aid  to  the  victims 
of  the  pogrom  and  the  counter-revolution. 

After  the  massacre  which  was  experienced,  and  which  cost 


400    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

the  town  of  Trostianetz  several  hundred  victims  and  all  its 
property  and  wealth,  there  appeared  even  more  horrible  factors, 
which  completed  the  job  of  devastation  and  destruction  of  the 
town  with  inexorable  consequence  and  swiftness. 

Famine  appeared  as  a  result  of  the  crisis  in  provisions,  which 
had  existed  before  the  massacre  and  was  now  made  much  more 
severe  by  the  fact  that  the  peasants,  after  the  horrible  slaughter, 
refused  to  send  bread  and  other  provisions  to  the  population. 
The  few  score  of  men  who  have  remained  alive  find  nothing 
to  do,  because  of  the  lack  of  any  work  and  the  present  stagnation 
of  trade.  Still  more  helpless  to  get  a  livelihood  for  themselves 
are  the  widowed  women,  left  with  various  numbers  of  small 
children,  many  having  three,  four,  five,  and  some  as  many  as 
ten  or  even  more. 

But  to  complete  the  horror  and  to  make  full  the  cup  of  bit- 
terness for  the  people  of  the  town,  diseases  have  appeared; 
abdominal  diseases,  famine  typhus,  and  others.  Medicines  and 
medical  aid  are  lacking,  and  a  local  apothecary  has  fled  from 
town  because  he  was  an  instigator  of  the  pogrom;  so  that  the 
town  is  threatened  with  the  most  extreme  miseries  and  with 
absolute  annihilation. 

From  all  that  I  have  seen,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
without  aid  of  the  broadest  character,  on  a  national  scale, 
nothing  can  be  accomplished.  The  life  of  the  town  must  be 
renewed,  or  the  place  is  fated  for  complete  ruin.  It  is  impera- 
tive that  there  be  sent  to  the  Committee  now  existing  in  the 
town  an  appropriation  of  money  and  material  aid  in  medicines, 
clothing,  and  shoes.  Help  must  be  given  now,  before  it  is  too 
late. 

I  report  that  I  arrived  in  Trostianetz,  government  of  Podolia, 
on  June  10,  and  found  organized  a  Jewish  Committee  of  aid  to 
victims  of  the  pogrom,  a  branch  of  the  Central  Committee  lo- 
cated in  Kiev,  a  private  organization.  They  have  received  from 
the  Kiev  Committee  during  the  entire  period  a  subsidy  of  10,000 
rubles  for  the  pogrom  victims.  When  I  learned  of  this  I  in- 
formed the  Committee  that  as  a  private  organization  this  Kiev 
Committee  had  just  been  terminated,  and  that  everything  had 
now  been  handed  over  to  the  management  of  the  People's  Com- 
missariat of  Social  Welfare.  I  therefore  proposed  that  the 
Committee  wait  for  our  instructions  and  that  it  should  no  longer 
be  guided  by  the  instructions  which  it  received  from  the  Kiev 
private  organization.  At  the  suggestion  of  the  representative 
of  the  People's  Commissariat  of  Internal  Affairs,  two  of  his 
associates,  Comrades  Dmitry  Serebriakov  and  Dudkin,  and  the 


TROSTIANETZ  401 

representative  of  the  V.  U.  Executive  Committee,  Peter  Krushev- 
sky,  decreed  that  20,000  rubles,  which  had  been  destined  for  the1 
relief  of  the  victims  of  the  pogrom,  should  be  mutually  requi- 
sitioned from  me  for  the  commandant  of  the  town  of  Trostianetz 
to  pay  the  salaries  of  Red  soldiers  and  to  pay  for  their  rationing. 
The  commandant  of  the  town  promised  on  the  requisition-docu- 
ment to  pay  the  amount  over  to  the  Committee  for  Relief  to  the 
Pogrom  Victims,  either  in  produce  or  in  cash.  On  the  insistence 
of  Comrade  Serebriakov,  who  threatened  me  with  arrest  and 
execution,  I  surrendered  20,000  rubles,  for  which  I  have  in  my 
possession  a  document  absolving  me  from  all  responsibility,  with 
the  signature  and  seal  of  the  commandant  of  the  town  of  Tros- 
tianetz, certifying  to  all  this.  The  requisition-document  I  gave 
to  the  committee  for  furnishing  relief  to  the  victims.  I  here- 
with attach  the  document  absolving  me  from  blame  for  sur- 
rendering this  money,  amounting  to  20,000  rubles,  appropriated 
for  the  town  of  Trostianetz.  I  surrendered  the  money  on  June 
17,  1919.  I  arrived  in  Kiev  on  June  20. 

I  beg  that  attention  be  paid  to  the  question  as  to  who  led  and 
instigated  the  pogrom  and  massacre  in  the  town  of  Trostianetz, 
canton  of  Bratzlav,  government  of  Podolia.  This  was  done  by 
certain  medical  personages.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  all 
the  world  recognizes  the  neutrality  of  medical  personages,  never- 
theless they  made  use  of  their  cloak  of  neutrality  to  perform 
miracles  and  start  a  "holy  war."  The  first  of  them  was  a 
provincial  doctor,  the  Pole  Scherbinsky;  the  second  a  pharma- 
cist, owner  of  a  drugstore,  the  Pole  Klinke,  and  his  wife,  also  a 
Polish  woman.  Also  a  surgeon,  whose  name  I  do  not  remember. 
The  military  leaders  were  Polish  officers,  Korshenitzky  and 
Paketinov.  I  hold  photographs  of  these  murderers.  The  initia- 
tors of  all  these  pogroms  and  massacres  were  Polish  catholic 
priests  and  orthodox  clergy.  Their  watchword  was  "Kill  the 
Jews,  save  the  church."  It  was  these  who  inspired  the  detach- 
ments of  Zeleny  and  the  rebel  peasants. 

I  beg  that  attention  be  paid  to  the  city  of  Bratzlav,  government 
of  Podolia,  which  does  very  little  to  look  after  its  canton.  Ele- 
ments that  are  not  friendly  to  us  are  located  there,  and  they 
simply  upset  the  work.  The  organization  is  bad.  Instructors 
and  organizers  are  necessary,  and  also  a  large  amount  of  litera- 
ture on  the  land  question;  medicines  are  also  necessary,  on  ac- 
count of  the  epidemic  of  typhus  and  other  diseases,  and  money. 

To  the  preceding  statement  I  may  add  that  the  money,  amount- 
ing to  20,000  rubles,  taken  from  me  by  mutual  requisition  by 
the  commandant  of  Trostianetz,  was  only  partly  returned  by  the 


402    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

commandant  in  the  course  of  two  weeks,  in  the  shape  of  produce 
worth  about  5,000  rubles   for  the   Committee   on  relief  to  the 
victims   of  the  pogrom   and   counter-revolution.     But  that,   of 
course,  is  only  a  drop  in  the  bucket.     Then,  the  commandant  of 
Trostianetz  promised  me  to   release   also   a  large  quantity  of 
sugar,  of  which  he  has  a  large  amount,  inasmuch  as  there  is  a 
sugar  factory  there.    The  commandant  requisitioned  that  sugar, 
but  did  not  share  it  with  the   Committee.     And  so  yesterday 
representatives  from  the  town  of  Trostianetz  again  arrived  and 
informed  me  that  sugar  was   not  being   furnished,  nor   other 
produce  either.     These  were  only  the  words   of  the  Comrade 
Commandant,  who  has  not  fulfilled  his   promises.     I  beg  that 
you  adopt  a  resolution  for  the  appropriation  of  medicines  for 
the  town  of  Trostianetz,  whose  population  has   suffered   from 
this  pogrom.     I  herewith  append  a  demand  for  medicines  with 
the  signature  and  seal  of  a  physician  of  the  town  of  Trostianetz. 
I  beg  that  attention  be  paid  to  the  town  of  Obodovka,  canton 
of  Bratzlav,  which  is  under  the  military  command  of  the  town 
of  Trostianetz.     Early  in  June  representatives  of  the  town  of 
Obodovka  came  to  me  and  asked  me  to  communicate  the  fol- 
lowing to  the  People's  Commissariat  of  Social  Security:  first, 
that  the  pogrom-wave  reached  them  also  when  it  spread  over 
the  whole  canton  of  Bratzlav,  and  that  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants 
270   families   were  completely  annihilated;   161   men   were   left 
alive.    The  members  of  these  families  entreat  immediate  relief, 
since  the  same  horrors  have  come  to  them  as  to  many  other 
unhappy  towns.     I  beg  that  you  adopt  a  resolution  regarding 
an  advance  of  money  to  the  town   of   Obodovka,    canton  of 
Bratzlav. 

S.  KULIKOVA. 

CITY  OF  BALTA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

I.  Report  to  the  United  Central  Commission  for  Relief  to  the 
Victims  of  the  Counter-Revolution  and  of  Jewish  Pogroms. 
From  Z.  Fitermann,  Member  of  the  City  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  Balta. 

The  city  of  Balta,  government  of  Podolia,  in  the  course  of 
two  months  and  more,  beginning  with  February  2  and  ending 
with  April  6,  suffered  an  unintermittent  pogrom  and  terror, 
perpetrated  by  Petlurist  detachments  (the  "Yanivsky  Zachil" 
under  the  leadership  of  Ataman  Koschuk,  and  others).  During 
this  time  engagements  between  the  bolshevist  guerrilla  detach- 


BALTA:   PETLURIST   SOLDIERS          403 

ment  of  Comrade  Diachishkin  and  Ukrainian  units  took  place 
in  the  city.  And  every  time,  when  the  Gaidamaks  con- 
quered, the  matter  ended  with  a  Jewish  pogrom.  There  were 
three  such  pogroms,  with  a  total  number  of  victims  of  about 
100,  exclusively  Jews;  about  35  houses  were  set  on  fire  with 
inflammatory  bombs,  about  120  women  were  violated  (among 
them  an  old  woman  of  70;  one  girl  died  on  the  next  day  from 
the  horrors  of  her  experience,  and  many  are  even  yet  suffering 
from  venereal  diseases).  Almost  all  the  Jewish  houses  and 
apartments  were  stripped  bare,  and  the  shops  destroyed,  every 
single  one.  Even  the  very  poorest  Jewish  districts  of  the  city 
were  not  spared  the  pogrom,  nor  the  very  smallest  shops.  The 
Gaidamaks  carried  away  from  the  city  the  whole  printing  shop 
of  Sh.  Dorf,  and  the  large  machine  shop  of  Kh.  Schatz  and  I. 
Usakovsky.  Most  of  all  to  suffer  were  the  laboring  and  poor- 
est part  of  the  Jewish  population,  as  is  usual.  Among  the  vic- 
tims there  were  only  three  or  four  representatives  of  the  Jewish 
bourgeoisie;  the  rest  are  representatives  of  the  intellectuals,  the 
poor,  and  the  laborers,  namely  the  elements  which  in  the  mo- 
ment of  danger  would  not  or  could  not  (for  material  reasons) 
leave  the  town. 

Z.   FlTERMANN. 

Kiev,  May  10,  1919. 

At  a  session  of  the  Central  Commission  for  aid  to  the  victims 
of  the  counter-revolution,  held  May  9,  1919,  this  report  was 
heard,  and  it  was  voted,  henceforth,  until  the  presentation  of  an 
estimate,  to  appropriate  1,000,000  rubles  for  the  Balta  Commis- 
sion for  aid  to  the  victims  of  the  counter-revolution. 

The  Secretary  (Signature). 

May  11,  1919. 

II.    From  the  (newspaper)  "Com.  Fon."  No.  62,  of  Aug. 
13,  1919 

The  city  experienced  two  pogroms.  The  first  was  organized 
by  Petlurist  bands,  which  systematically  kept  attacking  the  city 
in  the  course  of  eight  weeks.  The  second  pogrom  occurred  early 
in  April,  just  before  the  entrance  of  the  Soviet  forces.  In  the 
last  pogrom  120  people  were  killed.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the 
slain  belonged  to  the  Jewish  poor  classes.  The  city  was  en- 
tirely devastated.  Two  hundred  Jewish  families  suffered  se- 
verely from  the  pogrom. 


4o4    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 
BRAILOV    (GOVERNMENT  OF   PODOLIA) 

Testimony  of  I.  Hammermann,  Taken  Down  by  Maislish,  July  29 

The  town  of  Brailov  is  eight  versts  from  Zhmerinka.  About 
three  weeks  ago  the  Taraschan  regiment  entered  the  town. 
Twenty-five  people  were  killed.  After  a  few  days  the  town 
was  occupied  by  Petlurist  forces.  Twenty-eight  were  killed 
(mostly  young  men).  The  whole  place  was  devastated. 

KALINOVKA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 
Pogroms  of  March  9  and  July  14,  1919 

Testimony  of  B.  Barinstein,  Taken  Down  by  S.   Y.  Maizlish, 

July  28 

The  town  of  Kalinovka,  canton  of  Vinnitza,  counting  about 
500  Jewish  families,  is  on  the  railroad  line  Kasatin-Zhmerinka, 
20  versts  from  Vinnitza.  The  station  of  Kalinovka  is  a  transfer 
point  from  the  broad-guage  to  the  narrow-guage  railroad.  Con- 
sequently squadrons  of  troops,  operating  in  this  region  or  pass- 
ing through,  are  always  being  concentrated  at  the  station.  At 
each  concentration  the  men  "take  a  stroll"  through  the  town, 
which  is  three  versts  away,  and  always  leave  very  noticeable 
traces. 

The  Jewish  population  of  Kalinovka,  generally  speaking,  lived 
in  concord  with  the  rest  of  the  people  of  the  town  and  sur- 
rounding country.  But  when  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Soviet  regime  two  Jewish  members  entered  into  the  Revolution- 
ary Committee,  the  non-Jews  protested  and  would  not  work 
with  them  for  any  consideration.  The  admonitions  of  the  com- 
missar who  arrived  in  Kalinovka  did  no  good;  The  Jewish 
members  of  the  Revolutionary  Committee  had  to  withdraw. 
The  Jews  formed  a  separate  "Committee  of  the  Poor,"  in  which 
the  Jewish  poor  folk  exclusively  were  concentrated. 

The  first  pogrom  in  Kalinovka  was  perpetrated  March  9,  on 
the  departure  of  the  Directory  troops.  After  almost  all  the 
units  had  departed  from  the  station,  about  forty  or  fifty  Pet- 
lurists  burst  into  the  town,  plundered  all  the  stores  and  shops, 
and  set  on  fire  many  apartments  and  houses,  among  them  the 
house  of  the  local  Rabbi.  Ten  Jews  were  killed. 

The  first  days  after  the  entrance  of  the  Soviet  forces  were 
quiet.  But  later  the  9th  Soviet  regiment  arrived,  which  com- 


GAISIN :   BAND  OF  VOLYNETZ  405 

mitted  considerable  looting,  during  which  one  Jewish  militiaman 
was  killed.  After  this  repeated  onslaughts  occurred  of  passing 
squadrons  and  individual  soldiers,  who  seized  provisions  and 
valuable  articles. 

At  the  beginning  of  July  an  insurgent  movement  began  among 
the  peasants  of  this  region.  On  July  13  there  was  already  dis- 
quiet in  the  town.  On  this  day  some  Soviet  military  units 
arrived  to  fight  the  bands  of  rebels.  On  the  way  the  Soviet 
forces  plundered  some  of  the  Jewish  inhabitants. 

On  the  14th  some  bands  burst  into  the  place.  They  remained 
there  only  a  few  hours,  but  found  time  to  devastate  the  Jewish 
population  and  kill  seven  or  eight  people.  The  local  residents 
also  took  part  in  the  looting  of  Jewish  stores. 

GAISIN  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

Pogrom  of  May  12,  1919 
Testimony  of  Moisei  Spielberg 

Approximately  in  March  the  Petlurists  departed,  and  the  7th 
Soviet  regiment  came  in.  The  pogrom  was  perpetrated  by  the 
band  of  Volynetz.  He  himself  came  from  that  region,  from  the 
village  of  Karlovka.  He  was  a  young  peasant  aged  about  23; 
was  formerly  a  clerk  in  the  forestry  service.  His  band  con- 
sisted of  about  four  or  five  hundred  men;  it  was  accompanied 
by  a  great  crowd  of  peasants,  in  all  nearly  1,500  men.  The 
garrison  consisted  of  80  Christian  Red  soldiers  and  communists, 
and  about  200  Jewish  lads,  aged  from  18  to  20,  who  didn't  know 
anything  about  handling  a  gun.  They  could  not  hold  back  the 
attack;  many  of  them  were  killed.  The  band  burst  into  the 
town  and  from  6  A.M.  to  2  P.M.  kept  killing  all  Jews.  In  all 
340  people  were  killed.  They  stole  principally  money  and  articles 
of  value.  Very  few  household  goods  were  stolen,  so  that  the 
homes  did  not  suffer  much.  They  took  some  edibles,  but  very 
little  clothing. 

The  band  remained  in  Gaisin.  The  peasants  came  together 
from  the  villages,  and  elected  a  Revolutionary  Committee  for 
the  whole  canton,  of  73  men,  of  whom  13  came  from  Gaisin 
itself.  The  attitude  to  the  Soviet  regime  was  hostile.  After 
3  P.M.  the  Russian  intellectuals  sent  a  deputation  to  the  head- 
quarters to  ask  that  there  be  no  more  killing.  In  the  gymnasium 
building  almost  1,500  Jews  were  gathered;  they  wanted  to  shoot 
them  all,  but  thanks  to  the  insistence  of  the  intellectuals,  they 
were  released. 


406    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 

About  eight  days  later  the  8th  Soviet  regiment  arrived.  The 
band  departed  and  then  the  regiment  began  to  loot— almost  ex- 
clusively Jews;  but  they  did  not  kill  anyone,  except  Petlurists. 
They  remained  eight  or  nine  days,  and  Volynetz  appeared  again 
(at  this  time  his  capital  was  in  the  village  of  Monastyrische)  ; 
this  time  he  did  not  kill  Jews  (he  said  he  saw  by  this  time  that 
the  Jews  were  not  interfering  in  politics),  but  levied  a  contri- 
bution. There  was  some  looting  also.  The  1st  Soviet  regiment 
arrived,  and  Volynetz  again  departed  (early  in  June).  The  regi- 
ment remained  three  weeks;  all  the  time  drunkenness  and  loot- 
ing were  rife.  The  Jews  were  referred  to  only  as  "Zhidy" ;  and 
Christian  communists  were  killed.  The  commander  of  the  regi- 
ment was  a  student,  a  man  of  good  intentions,  but  could  not 
control  his  soldiers.  Once  he  himself  shot  a  soldier  who  was 
intending  to  violate  a  Jewish  girl.  The  soldiers  went  from 
house  to  house,  looting  and  destroying.  On  June  27  the  regi- 
ment departed,  and  on  the  next  day  Volynetz  came  in  again  (he 
was  waiting  in  Ternovka,  and  telephoned  to  the  commander: 
"You  leave,  and  I  will  arrive").  Some  of  the  people,  among 
them  the  narrator,  immediately  fled  from  the  town.  For  the 
most  part  those  who  were  slain  were  the  young  men,  but  also 
not  a  few  older  ones,  and  even  women,  were  killed. 

Gaisin  is  located  not  far  from  the  boundary  of  the  government 
of  Kiev,  about  60  versts  from  Uman.  It  has  about  24,000  in- 
habitants, of  whom  about  half  are  Jews. 

ZHMERINKA  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

Pogrom  of  July  3,  1919 
Testimony  of  I.  Hammermann,  Taken  Down  by  Maizlish,  July  29 

From  the  end  of  June  Zhmerinka  kept  passing  from  one  con- 
trol to  another.  The  first  time  when  it  was  taken  by  Petlurists, 
nothing  worse  than  looting  occurred.  The  second  time,  July  3, 
the  whole  town  was  devastated  and  eight  Jews  were  killed. 
Many  Jews  were  killed  in  the  neighboring  towns.  Also  28  rail- 
way workmen  were  shot. 

KHMELNIK  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

Pogrom  of  June,  1919 

Testimony  of  V.  Raber,  Taken  Down  July  28,  1919 
The  town  of  Khmelnik  is  in  the  canton  of  Litin.    On  Friday 


PODOLIA  407 

five  or  six  weeks  ago  Shepel's  band  was  operating  in  the  region 
of  Khmelnik.  They  levied  a  contribution  of  400,000  rubles,  and 
took  many  provisions  and  300  pairs  of  shoes.  There  were  eight 
killed. 

SHENDEROV   (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

Pogrom  of  July  10 
Testimony  of  Sh.  Gronfain 

In  the  village  of  Shenderov,  seven  versts  from  Voronovitzy, 
canton  of  Bratzlav,  in  which  live  three  Jewish  families  all  told, 
the  pogrom  was  perpetrated  by  the  same  band  which  was  in 
Voronovitzy.  About  20,000  rubles'  worth  was  stolen,  and  two 
women  were  cruelly  beaten  and  wounded. 

TEPLIK   (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 

Pogrom  of  July,  1919 
Testimony  of  B.  Z.  Rabinovich 

The  Jews  of  Teplik  knew  that  an  attack  on  the  town  was 
being  prepared  by  the  rebels,  and  applied  to  the  local  militia  for 
co-operation.  The  first  attack  of  the  rebels  was  repulsed  by  the 
militia,  which  killed  three  of  the  attacking  party.  The  rebels 
attacked  a  second  time  with  larger  forces,  and  killed  fifteen 
militiamen  and  six  Jews. 

KODYMA  (CANTON  OF  BALTA) 
From   (the  newspaper}   "Com.  Fon."  No.  62 

On  May  18  six  hundred  peasants  from  neighboring  villages 
burst  into  the  town  under  the  leadership  of  a  local  bully.  For 
thirteen  hours  the  bandits  continued  to  kill,  loot  and  destroy  in 
the  most  atrocious  fashion,  exclusively  in  the  quarters  where 
the  poorest  part  of  the  Jewish  population  lived.  After  the  po- 
grom some  inhabitants  of  the  town  fled  in  the  direction  of 
Odessa.  On  the  way,  at  the  station  Ivanovka,  they  were  met  by 
a  band  of  Grigorievists  and  all  of  them  were  killed.  In  all  120 
people  were  killed. 


408    SLAUGHTER  OF  JEWS  IN  THE  UKRAINE 
GOLOSKOV    (GOVERNMENT   OF   PODOLIA,   CANTON   OF   BALTA) 

("Com.  Fon."  No.  62) 

Early  in  June  a  band  burst  into  the  town  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Kozakov.  Ninety-five  people  were  killed.  Almost  the 
whole  town  was  plundered.  The  population  is  fleeing  in  all 
directions. 

KRIVOIE  OZERO  (GOVERNMENT  OF  PODOLIA) 
("Com.  Fon.,"  No.  62) 

The  pogrom  occurred  on  May  10.  It  was  organized  by  ban- 
dits who  came  from  Odessa  and  by  peasants  of  the  neighboring 
villages.  There  were  258  people  killed,  150  wounded,  and  400 
families  broken  up. 


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