Part 3

In addition to this restriction, many secondary schools (School of Military Medical Hygiene, School of Railroad Engineering, School of Electricity, etc.), are entirely closed to Jews. Even commercial schools, maintained by Merchants’ Guilds, admit Jews only in proportion to the Jewish membership of the Guilds.

=The Government also restricts the establishment of higher schools under Jewish auspices.= In 1884, it closed the Technical Institute of Zhitomir (founded in 1862), on the ground that, in the southwestern Pale provinces, the Jews contributed a majority of the artisans, and a special Jewish technical school would increase this disproportion. In 1885 it closed the Teachers’ Institute (a noted center of Jewish learning) because “there was no further need for it.”

As a consequence of these limitations and restrictions there has been a scramble among Jews to gain admission to these institutions. Parents have employed every expedient to have their children enrolled. Another consequence is that many Jewish young men emigrated to Switzerland, Germany and France, to obtain a higher education, and thereafter to return to Russia to enter professional life. A recent calculation shows that about 3,000 Jewish students from Russia annually exile themselves in order to attend foreign universities.

6. Military Service

The Jews constitute only 4.05 per cent. of the population of the Empire, but the proportion of Jews in the annual army contingent was estimated, at the outbreak of the Japanese war, at 5.7 per cent. This is due to the fact that a great many exemptions which the law provides for non-Jews are made inapplicable to Jews. =In the army the Jews can achieve no rank higher than that of corporal.= A penalty of 300 rubles ($150) is placed upon each Jewish defection, and the whole family, including parents and relatives by marriage of the person accused, is held responsible therefor.

The results of these repressions and persecutions are known. Politically outlawed, socially and economically degraded, the Jewish population imprisoned in the Pale has festered in misery. The merchants have been obliged to resort to fearful competition. Workingmen, overcrowding their industries, have been compelled to work for starvation wages. Most of the Jewish homes in Russia are miserable hovels, with little air or light. In the great cities, the proportion of paupers approximates a fifth of the Jewish population. In Odessa in 1900, of a population of 150,000 Jews no less than 48,500 were supported by charity; 63 per cent. of the dead had pauper burials, and a further 20 per cent. were buried at the lowest possible rate. In the Governments of Ekaterinoslav, Bessarabia, Pietrikov, Chernigov and Siedlets, the number of charity cases at the Passover festival increased from 41.9 per cent. to 46.8 per cent. in four years.

THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR

It was against this background of ever-spreading persecution and misery that the great war broke upon the Jews. They accepted it as loyal Russian citizens, and not without hope that it might lead to some improvement in their own conditions.

The Kehillas (communities) of Petrograd, Odessa and other cities officially sent large sums in gold for the reservists, established hospitals for the use of the wounded without distinction of race or creed, held great patriotic demonstrations in the synagogues, at which the Rabbis urged the Jewish youth to render their full share of military service, and in other ways, presented, as the Mayor of Odessa said, “an example of readiness to sacrifice everything for the army.”

The spirit of the Jews of Russia at the outbreak of the war is well expressed in the appeal which the Jewish community of Vilna, the oldest in Russia, at the very heart of the Pale, issued in connection with the establishment of a military hospital:

“Our beloved Fatherland—the great Russian Empire—has been provoked to bloody, terrible conflict. It is a struggle for the integrity and greatness of Russia. All true sons of Russia have risen as one man to shield their country, with their own breasts, against the onslaught of the enemy. Our brothers of the Jewish faith, all over the Russian Empire, have also responded to the call of duty ... and many have voluntarily joined the army which has gone forth to the field of battle. But circumstances now demand that those of us who have not been fortunate enough to be called forward to fight for our country with weapons in our hands should also make whatever sacrifices we can. We owe a sacred obligation to those who have left their families behind, those who are defending our country, and us, with their blood and their lives. It is our duty to assume all responsibility for the families of the reservists. It is our duty to take care of those who will fall wounded or ill in the war. No doubt this sacred duty will be assumed by the entire Jewish population of the Empire, by individuals no less than by entire communities. The history of all past wars, especially those of the nineteenth century, beginning with the war of 1812, shows that the Jews have honestly and sacredly fulfilled their duty as citizens and were ever ready to sacrifice upon the altar of their country their wealth, their blood and even their lives.... In like manner, at this great crisis in the life of our country, we, the representatives of the Jewish community of Vilna, the oldest in Russia and at the very heart of the present conflict, take the liberty of appealing to our co-religionists to begin at once the work of organizing relief for the wounded and for the families of the reservists. =We must care equally for all the soldiers of our glorious army, without distinction of race or creed, for all are brothers, sons in common of our great Fatherland....”=

The Jewish press also gave resonant voice to this spirit of loyalty and devotion. The “Novy Voskhod,”[14] one of the leading Jewish organs in Russia, issued this call:

=“We were born and brought up in Russia. Our ancestors are buried here. We Russian Jews are bound to Russia by ties which cannot be broken, and our brothers who have been driven beyond the ocean by cruel fate cherish their memories of Russia all through life. Custodians of the commandments of our forefathers, nucleus of the entire Jewish nation, we, the Jews of Russia, are nevertheless united inseparably with the country in which we have dwelt for hundreds of years, and from which neither persecution nor oppression can tear us away. At this historical moment, when our country is threatened by foreign invasion, when brute force has taken up arms against the great ideals of humanity, the Jews of Russia will bravely go forth to battle and will fulfil their sacred duty....”=

The Jewish contingent in the Russian army numbered from 350,000 (an estimate made by the Mayor of Petrograd before the Conference of Russian Mayors in August, 1914), to 400,000 (the estimate made by the Jewish Colonization Association, Petrograd). The thousands of Jewish students who have matriculated at foreign universities because the “percentage rule” had closed the Russian universities to them, returned to enroll under the colors, even though they knew that there was no hope of preferment for them.

On the field of battle the Jewish soldiers distinguished themselves for valor. Over one thousand received the Medal or Cross of St. George. From the many letters of appreciation and affection written by Russian officers to the relatives of Jewish soldiers under their command who had been disabled or killed, it was evident that the Jews had won the affection and respect of the fighting men in the field. But it was their eternal misfortune that the war, by the logic of military geography, had to be fought out, on the Eastern side, in Poland; for between the Poles and the Jews there had long been a state of open conflict—and the developments of the campaign in Poland foredoomed the Jews to disaster appalling and almost irretrievable.

POLES AND JEWS

The conflict between the Poles and Jews dates back to the earliest period of Jewish life in Poland.

In its early stages it was purely religious. The Church Synod of 1542 declared that: =“Whereas the Church tolerates the Jews for the sole purpose of reminding us of the torments of the Savior, their number must not increase under any circumstances.”=[15]

The Synod of 1733 reiterated this gospel of hate by declaring that the reason for the existence of the Jews is:

=“That they might remind us of the tortures of the Savior, and by their abject and miserable condition might serve as an example of the first chastisement of God inflicted upon the infidels.”=[16]

In its later stages the struggle was chiefly political and economic. When Russia acquired Poland, through the several partitions in the eighteenth century, it frankly adopted the old Roman principle of DIVIDE ET IMPERA. It persistently fomented hostilities between the Polish and Jewish population by crowding them together in a restricted area where neither could make a decent livelihood, by pitting them against each other in an economic struggle conducted on the lowest possible plane and on the most hopeless terms, by playing off religious and racial prejudices and by every other device possible to a government with unlimited power and an unprincipled policy. And the Poles, politically undeveloped, instead of combining with the other victims of Russia against the common oppressor, turned upon their fellows with a ferocity truly unparalleled in European history.

Several years before the war broke out this struggle came to a climax over the election of a deputy to the Duma. The Jews of Poland felt that they were entitled to at least one member to represent them in the Duma, particularly in the city of Warsaw, where they constitute nearly half of the population. It happened, however, that in the city of Lodz they unexpectedly elected one Jewish deputy, Bomash. The Jews, therefore, seeking to conciliate the Poles and not to wound their national pride by insisting upon the election of a Jewish deputy from Warsaw, the ancient Polish capital, offered to compromise, stipulating only that the Polish candidate be not an avowed anti-Semite. The Poles, however, insisted upon putting up a notorious anti-Semite. The Jews, equally unable to support such a candidate in self-respect or to elect one of their own, united on a Polish Socialist candidate, electing him to the Duma. This led to retaliation in the form of a boycott directed not only at Jewish tradesmen, but even at Jewish physicians, artisans and other workingmen, which soon spread destitution throughout Poland, affecting, as it did, Jews and Poles alike. So ugly and bitter a form did the boycott assume that at times even the Russian government was compelled to take the part of the Jews as against the Poles.

Anti-Semitism in Poland

A significant observation upon the economic character of the Polish-Jewish struggle was made by the well known Russian journalist, Madam A. E. Kuskova.

“I found red-hot anti-Semitism everywhere in Poland. We have anti-Semitism in Russia, but of a different kind.... Anti-Semitic papers like ‘Dva Grosha’ accused all Jews of all sorts of crimes, without protest from the Progressive press, and succeeded in arousing the Polish people. In Pyasechna, a ruined place near Warsaw, where ten-day battles took place, I spoke to many peasants who accused the Jews of many of their troubles, but could never explain what they really blamed them for. We Russians held a meeting to try to find the causes of this feeling.... =We came to the conclusion that ... the Polish-Jewish question is really a Russian-Polish-Jewish question, and touches us as much as the Poles. They have not room enough to live,= and more and more Jews are coming there. Even democratic organizations are compelled to take cognizance of this. One peasant organization expresses through its organ the idea that it is true that the Jews are a burden to Poland, but it warns the peasants against anti-Semitism nevertheless.”[17]

THE WAR IN POLAND

When the fighting armies overran Poland, the Poles saw their chance and seized it. The dream of a free Poland had never been absent from their minds. When the world catastrophe came the Poles saw in it not only an opportunity to regain their land, that had been dismembered more than a century before, but also an opportunity to avenge themselves on the hated Jews. Just as the Russians had always played the Poles against the Jews, so now the Poles hoped to play Russian, German, Austrian and Jew against each other. It was indeed to the interest of both Russia and Austria to court the sympathy of Poland. And the Poles seized the occasion to denounce the Jews, now to the Russians, now to the Germans, as spies and traitors.

The position of the Jews under this cross-fire became unbearable. Here are several cases, selected at random, showing its effect upon the Jewish population:

One of the first towns in Russian Poland captured by the Austrians was Zamosti, near the Hungarian frontier, taken by a detachment of Sokol troops in September, 1914. They were soon driven out by the Russians; and at once the Poles of the town denounced the Jews to the Russian commander, accusing the Jews of having given aid to the enemy during the Austrian occupation of the town. Twelve Jews were arrested. They denied their guilt but were sentenced to death. Five of them had already been hanged, when, in the midst of the execution, a Russian priest, carrying an image of the Virgin, appeared and with his hand on the image took oath that the Jews were innocent and that the accusation was merely a product of Polish vindictiveness. He proved that the Poles of the town themselves had supported the Austrians and that even a telephone connection with Lemberg could be found. The seven remaining Jews were then set free. But five had already been hanged.[18]

At Lemberg, in September, 1914, the Poles accused the Jews of firing on Russian troops; as a consequence a great many Jews were arrested, and nearly seventy were attacked and wounded; but an investigation proved them all innocent, and Drs. Rabner and Diamond, the Jews who had been taken as hostages, were released.[19]

At Kieltse and Radom the Poles plundered many Jewish shops and when the Russians returned after the German retreat the Poles denounced the Jews as German sympathizers. Here also those Jews who were arrested were found to be innocent and released after investigation.[20]

At Mariampol, near the East Prussia frontier, because of a similar accusation, the entire Jewish male population, with their Rabbi, Krovchinski, at their head, were compelled to work the roads for three days—September 22–24 (October 5–7), 1914 (the first two of these days falling on the Sukkoth holiday.)[21]

In this town, also, one Gershenovitz was sentenced to penal servitude for six years =because he acted as Mayor during the German occupation,= although the inquiry held by the Russians showed that =he had been forced by the Germans to accept the office.=[20]

At Jusefow the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells. Seventy-eight were killed outright, many Jewish women were violated and all the houses and shops plundered.[22]

In Drsukenihi a mill owner, Chekhofski, was accused of having given a signal for the German bombardment of the town by blowing his mill whistle. When the Russians reoccupied the town he was brought to trial before the Military Tribunal and the charge was proven to be groundless.[23]

These are only a few instances, taken at random, of Polish slanders. =In not a single known case were the charges justified; on the contrary, their gross absurdity was demonstrated on numerous occasions before military tribunals that could not possibly be charged with prejudice in favor of the Jewish side of the issue.= A perfect illustration of this is furnished by the story of the villages of Groitsi and Nove-Miasto, near Warsaw.

The Case of Nove-Miasto

The Germans, in their first advance on Warsaw, in September–October, 1914, occupied these villages for a few days. When the Russian troops recaptured the towns the Poles at once denounced the Jews as having welcomed the German troops and having aided them in every possible way—whereas the Poles, according to their own account, had accepted the German rule passively, doing only whatever they were forced to do by the military authorities. They pointed out seven persons, five Jews and two Germans, who had demonstrated such devotion to the invaders as to merit trial for treason and the death penalty. One Jew, Goldberg, it was charged, had revealed to the Germans the hiding place of ten Russian soldiers, resulting in their capture; another Jew had shown them where they might requisition horses and food, and had acted as guide.

The case was brought to trial before the military guard, and there, under strict examination, it assumed an entirely different aspect. A priest, Zemberzhusky, testified that Jews and Poles had acted precisely alike toward the Germans; that their reception of the Germans expressed no joy, that all alike had complained of the invaders’ requisition and pillage, and that it was only due to the tactful conduct of the citizens that the town of Nove-Miasto was not entirely demolished. It was shown that not a single Russian soldier had been captured by the Germans and that the Goldberg charge was entirely false. All the other charges were similarly disproved. It developed that they were based on two facts. In the preliminary investigation the trial officers, being ignorant of Polish, were compelled to employ interpreters. One of these interpreted the statement of a Polish witness to the effect that he had seen a certain Zilberberg walk the streets arm in arm with a German officer. The fact brought out in the new trial was that =the witness had actually seen the German officer seize Zilberberg by the neck!= In the second place, the story had been started in sheer malice by two notorious gangsters, whose evidence was unworthy of any consideration. All of the accused were therefore acquitted.[24]

The significance of this episode lies in the fact that the Colonel in command in this particular case happened to be a kindly man, who, being unwilling to see injustice done, went to the trouble to have the case carefully investigated. Hundreds of other cases based on equally groundless accusations came to court without the possibility of such a fair investigation.

Another case of this sort is reported from Suvalki. It was charged by the Poles that the Jews of Suvalki had met the Germans with bread and salt (the national Russian custom in welcoming guests). The facts were that practically the entire population of Suvalki had fled at the approach of the Germans. The Germans, however, had, with their usual thoroughness, made out in advance a list of the leading citizens of Suvalki who were to be appointed to the deputation that was “to welcome” the Germans. Only one Jew was on this list.

Not all the Poles were bitterly hostile to the Jews, as may be seen from the following story, reprinted from the Polish paper, “Novo Gazeta,” in “Rasviet,” February 8 (21), 1915, p. 36:

“An army officer, a Pole, reports this: Where our detachment was stationed, I found a group of soldiers surrounding a muzhik, who was telling them that the Jews had cut the telegraph wires. The soldiers were furious and ready to take revenge on the miserable Jews. I approached the group and said to the muzhik: ‘I am glad to see that your patriotic impulses urge you to expose these Jew traitors. You must take me to them at once. You say you know the guilty ones. Show us how we can capture them and dispose of them.’

“The muzhik became confused at once. He stammered: ‘I didn’t—say anything about them. I didn’t see them myself. I didn’t see anything myself. People say so. Everybody says so.’

“I assumed a severe attitude and said to him: ‘You know these people perfectly well, but you don’t want to expose them. You are trying to shelter these traitors. You must take me to them at once!’ After more evasions, the muzhik broke down completely. Thereupon the soldiers turned upon him, and wanted to beat him, but I took him under my protection. He confessed completely to me and I sent him off and told him to beg his priest to preach on the following Sunday on the text ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’

“Another instance was this. In a Warsaw street car filled with passengers, I saw a Polish woman physician looking out at a Jewish automobile ambulance. ‘Look here,’ she cried, ‘These Jews also have motor ambulances. I think they must be stolen.’ I took it upon myself to ask her for an explanation of this. She was decent enough to admit that she knew nothing at all about it and that she had said these words without thinking.

“In these two cases it happened that I came out as a Pole defending the honor of Poland, because I believe that Poland does not require such outrageous falsifications and slanders for its regeneration. If they were not so painful to relate, I could give you a whole series of such incidents.”

Even the Polish clergy, usually anti-Semitic, felt compelled to protest against the excesses of their followers. Thus in January, 1915, the priests of Plotsk, headed by Archbishop Kovalsky, interceded on behalf of the Jews with the Russian authorities who had made numerous arrests upon the denunciations of Polish agitators.

So outrageous was the attitude of the Poles that at a Conference of Progressive Deputies of the Duma held at Petrograd in January, 1915, resolutions were passed to extend no help whatever to the Polish Deputies in any of their nationalist projects in the Duma because of their attitude toward the Jews.

The Polish weekly, “Glos Polsky,” published in Petrograd, contains an interview with Professor Milyukov on the Polish question:

“Our point of view is that along the River Vistula live not only Poles, but that there also lives another people, the Jewish people, which has a right to be recognized....

“When the Polish question will be taken up in the legislative chambers, we shall demand that the fundamental act should guarantee the rights of the Jewish minority as well....”[25]

At several conferences of Russian, Polish and Jewish communal workers which took place in Petrograd and Moscow in January, 1915, =the majority of the Russians expressed their solidarity with the Jews in this matter.=[26]

Even the most reactionary Russians foresaw danger to Russia in the Polish campaign of vilification against the Jews. Thus the “True Russian” (anti-Semitic) leader, Orloff, after a visit to Poland, declared: “I have seen nothing bad on the part of the Jews, although the Poles made up all sorts of accusations against them. But in these Polish reports you feel prejudice, vindictiveness, hatred, nothing else.... =The Jews are loyal and brave, and it is most inadvisable to pursue a policy which might convert six million subjects into enemies.”=[27]

The Kuzhi Case

But the Russian military authorities, seeking a scapegoat for their own failures, eagerly seized upon the Polish stories, and gave them official standing and wide circulation. The notorious Kuzhi incident illustrates the methods used. The story, as first published in the military paper “Nash Viestnik,” the official organ of the northwestern army, on May 5 (18), 1915, in the official daily newspaper issued by the Russian government, the “Pravitelstvenny Viestnik,” May 6 (19), 1915, and elsewhere, ran as follows: