Part 5

=“The police and the gendarmes treat the Jewish refugees precisely like criminals. At one station, for instance, the Jewish Commission of Homel was not even allowed to approach the trains to render aid to the refugees or to give them food and water. In one case a train which was conveying the victims was completely sealed and when finally opened most of the inmates were found half dead, sixteen down with scarlet fever and one with typhus....=

=“In some places the Governors simply made sport of the innocent victims;= among those who particularly distinguished themselves were the governors of Poltava, Minsk, and Ekaterinoslav ... who illegally took away the passports of the victims and substituted provisional certificates instructing them to appear at given places in one of five provinces at a given date. When they presented themselves at these designated places they =were shuttled back and forth from point to point at the whim or caprice of local officials.=

=“In Poltava the Jewish Relief Committee was officially reprimanded by the governor for assuming the name ‘Committee for the Aid of Jewish Sufferers from the War,’ and ordered to rename itself ‘Committee to Aid the Expelled’ on the ground, as stated explicitly in the order, that the Jews had been expelled because they were politically unreliable—and, therefore, presumably, deserved no help.”=[38]

No distinction of age, sex or physical condition was made. As most of the able-bodied young men were at the front, those affected by the expulsions were the persons least able to bear up under the suffering and privation entailed—old men and women, children, the sick from the hospitals, the insane from the asylums, even wounded and crippled Jewish soldiers—all were driven out en masse, without the slightest regard for human comfort or decency. Women in labor were given no consideration and many births occurred along the route. Mothers were separated from their children, entire families were broken up and dispersed all over Russia. The Jewish and liberal Russian press is filled with long lists of victims seeking their lost relatives. Where transportation was provided, the exiles were packed in cattle-cars and forwarded to their destination on a way-bill, like so much freight. In many places thousands of them were forced for weeks at a time to stay in congested villages which were absolutely unable to afford them a roof and shelter, or to sleep in the freight cars or in the open fields. And tens of thousands were forced to tramp weary distances along the open road, or, in the fear of the soldiery, to take to the back roads, the woods and swamps, there to die of hunger and exposure.

The total number of Jews who have been expelled to date is unknown. Expulsions are still going on. At the beginning of June, 1915, at the deliberation of the Petrograd Central Committee for the Relief of Jewish War Sufferers, which was participated in by the most prominent provincial committees, it was calculated that the total number of homeless Jews ruined by the expulsion—in Poland and the northwestern district—is 600,000 at the least.[39] After the Kovno-Kurland expulsions there collected in the Vilna government alone some 200,000 exiles.[40] In Riga there gathered, by May 18 (31), some 9,600 families or 42,000 persons.[41] Up to August 6, 1915, there collected in the government of Volhynia upwards of 250,000 refugees.[42]

Hostages

There is evidence to indicate that the Russian government, overwhelmed by the consequences of the expulsion policy, has suggested to the military authorities the advisability of repatriating the exiles; but these authorities have refused to consider the suggestion except on condition that the Jews voluntarily give hostages from among their own ranks, these hostages to include the Rabbi and other leading Jews. This proposal has been universally rejected by the Jews through their representative in the Duma, Deputy Friedman, in a letter to the President of the Council of Ministers:

“As a deputy from the province of Kovno, from which I, together with all other Jews, have now been expelled, I consider it my duty to call the attention of your excellency to the following:—

“According to the latest decrees of the authorities the Jews who have been expelled from their homes are to be allowed to return on condition that they give hostages. =This monstrous condition, which the government aims to impose upon its own subjects, the Jewish people will never accept. They prefer to wander about homeless and to die of starvation rather than to submit to demands which insult their self-respect as citizens and Jews. They have honestly performed their duty toward their country and will continue to do so to the very end. No sacrifices frighten them and no persecutions will make them swerve from the path of honor. But neither will any persecutions force them to accept a lie, to give testimony, through base submission, that the monstrous accusations against them are true.= When the insolent enemy threw down the gauntlet to Russia the Jews arose to shield their country with their breasts, and I had the honor to appear at the historic session of the Duma as their spokesman in the expression of this spontaneous, inspiring enthusiasm. =The Jews gladly assumed all the sacrifices demanded of them by their country because of a feeling of duty to the land to which they are bound by century old, historic bonds, and also because of a sincere hope for a brighter future. And I may say with deep conviction that even now, after all that we have gone through, this sense of duty is as strong as ever.= But with the very same deep conviction I consider it my right and my duty to declare that =no privations will shake our firm conviction that as Russian subjects we cannot be made the victims of measures applicable only to enemies and traitors; that we consider ourselves and shall never cease to consider ourselves above all suspicion of treason to our duty and our vows.= If the authorities really desire to return the Jewish people to the places from which they were driven away by order of the authorities they must take cognizance of this feeling which I can testify under oath, on the basis of many conversations and observations, is universal among us. =This permission to return under shameful conditions is only a new and senseless insult. So the entire Jewish population feels, and this feeling is shared by me, their representative.”=

Misery of Refugees

This sudden uprooting of an entire people from the land in which it has dwelt for centuries has brought irretrievable disaster to the Jews of Poland and Russia. It has been estimated that nearly three of the six million Jews of Russia and Poland are now without means of support.

Overwhelming and incalculable as the economic loss may be, the moral losses far exceed them in intensity. Jewish communal life is disrupted. Many of the cities and towns from which the expulsions took place were centers of Jewish culture. Most of the Jewish colleges and schools have been closed and many of the buildings and synagogues have been destroyed. It is safe to say that these losses cannot be repaired for generations to come.

The demoralization and pauperization of the individual refugees is painfully noticeable everywhere. Beggary, which was practically unknown among the Jews, is now only too frequent.

The appalling misery of the refugees is fully described in the appended report of the Russian Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Sufferers (see p. 98). The Jews of the Empire living outside of the war zone, have assumed a system of self-taxation which, added to their normal—or rather normally excessive—burden of taxation is practically impoverishing them. The small Jewish community of Moscow alone gives about 85,000 roubles a month, ranging from an average of 200 roubles per month imposed upon 265 manufacturers down to the 10 roubles per month imposed upon their poorest clerks. Other cities are contributing in proportion but they cannot possibly keep pace with the ever-growing need.

Unfair Administration of Relief

And in the midst of this catastrophe the old struggle between the Poles and Jews has continued with unabated ferocity. The local relief committees refused to accept Jews as representatives, denied Jews any help whatsoever and even drove them away, by intimidation and force, from the relief stations supported by their own people. Of seventy-one relief committees operating in Poland, fifty-two contained no Jewish members, although the Jews constituted nearly one-half of the urban population and thirteen to fourteen per cent. of the rural population in these places. In the other nineteen committees the Jewish membership constituted scarcely ten per cent. of the total, although the Jewish population ran from thirty-five to sixty-eight per cent. of the total population in the cities and from ten to fifteen per cent. in the rural districts.[43] And =in most of these places the Jews had contributed the major part of the relief funds.= Even institutions supported solely by Jewish contributions were expropriated by the Poles.

Thus “the magnificently equipped Hospital for the Wounded, in Warsaw, created at the expense of the Jewish Kehillah, which had refitted the Roman Hotel for the purpose, has been running until now under the official name of the Warsaw Local Relief Committee. But this has turned out to be an anti-Semite organization without a single Jewish representative, its board being made up of rabid Judeophobes, who feel no scruples in the methods and means of their anti-Jewish policy. Private donations, the personal labor of Jews—all this has gone into Polish institutions, all this has disappeared in the Polish river-bed,” declares “Novy Voskhod,” Sept. 11 (24), 1914.

The present attitude of the Jews of Russia toward this problem is well reflected in a letter, published in a recent issue of “Evreyskaya Zhizn,”[44] from a Jew, the owner of a salt mine, who had been invited, among others, to contribute salt for the poorer people of Warsaw, without distinction of race or creed. He replied, in effect, that the proposal met with his deepest sympathy, but he took the liberty of inquiring as to who would have charge of the distribution of the salt. “Everybody knows,” he wrote, “the intolerant attitude of the Polish Relief Committee toward the Jews. This makes us doubt whether your high principle would be carried out conscientiously if administered by Polish hands. The Warsaw Committee is particularly distrusted, and it would be extremely unpleasant for me to feel that the necessaries that we contributed should be withheld from our own fellow Jews. On the other hand, we would welcome gladly every effort on the part of Russian organizations to undertake to cooperate with Poles and Jews in this matter to insure an equitable distribution.”

When the Central Citizens’ Committee of Warsaw was dissolved by the German governor of Poland, in September, 1915, its accounts showed that it had distributed over eleven million roubles ($5,500,000) since the outbreak of the war, =of which the Jews received scarcely 100,000, although they constitute one-sixth of the population and the funds had been gathered with the express understanding that the distribution be absolutely without discrimination between Poles and Jews.= The Liquidation Commission which disposed of the balance on hand at the time of the dissolution of the Central Committee—some 1,290,000 roubles—allotted it all to Polish institutions. =Although there are 300,000 Jews in Warsaw, the majority of them in dire need, not a rouble was offered for their relief.=

Finally it must be noted that the occupation of Poland by the German forces has afforded little relief to the Jews, as the scarcity of food in Germany precludes the shipment of any considerable quantities of provisions to ameliorate the distress of the starving Jews of Poland.

PROTESTS OF LIBERAL RUSSIA

The cruelty of the government’s policy toward the Jews has not received the support of the Russian people, as the numerous protests uttered in the Duma, in public assemblies and in the press clearly indicate. When it is remembered that those non-Jews who, in Russia, dare to utter a word in favor of the despised Jews, risk their position and prestige to a degree unparalleled in any other country, the following calendar of protests and manifestoes constitutes a body of evidence against the Russian government which must compel conviction.

These protests have been grouped, for convenience, into four classes:

THE VOICE OF THE DUMA

Early in the session of the Duma the Left groups proposed an interpellation of the Government with respect to its illegal acts against the Jews. After some debate the proposed questions were referred to the Committee on Interpellations, which reported them out, on August 30, 1915, in this form:

I. Do the president of the Council of Ministers and the Ministers of the Interior and Justice know of the illegal conduct of their administrative officers with respect to the following:

=1. That officers of the prison administration received persons taken by the military authorities as hostages from the local Jewish population of Riga, Prushkov ... etc.?=

=2. That the prosecuting attorneys took no steps to obtain the immediate release of these persons, accused of no crime and illegally imprisoned?=

=3. That the expelled were driven by agents of the police in Vilikomir, Zhagory and Shadov into freight cars inadequate for the accommodation of one-tenth of them, and that the remainder, including children, aged men and women, and invalids were compelled to follow afoot?=

=4. That the officers of the local governments took no steps to check the repeated robberies by the local population of the property left by the exiles?=

=5. That the officers of the Gendarmerie of Homel prohibited the supplying of food to the exiles, even though they were at the point of exhaustion from hunger and thirst?=

=6. That in Novozybkov individuals who sent telegrams appealing for help were arrested?=

=7. That the officers of the Gendarmerie, with armed threats, refused to admit to sealed cars persons who brought food to the expelled at the station of Bielitsa, on the Poliess railroad?=

=8. That the police officers locked the exiles in sealed cars for several days at a time?=

=9. That in the shipment of these exiles from Zolotonosh to Kovno and back some of them were kept in the cars ten days?=

=10. That the local government administration of the cities of Minsk, Samara and Rostov required the reprinting in the local paper of the story of Jewish treason in the village of Kuzhi, first published in “Nash Viestnik”?=

=11. That the local administration of Tashkent ordered prayer for the delivery of the army from the treachery of the Jews?=

II. If the illegal acts of the authorities are known to the indicated individuals what steps were taken by them towards the punishment of the guilty and the prevention of similar breaches of law in the future?

The significance of this interpellation cannot be overestimated, insofar as the facts implied in these questions are officially accepted by the great standing committee of the Duma as worthy of cognizance. Had the questions originally proposed by the Left groups been without foundation they would have been rejected without reference to the Committee on Interpellations; and had the Committee on Interpellations found, upon examination of the evidence underlying each question by both the Right and Left deputies on the Committee, that the evidence was defective or inadequate, the interpellation would never have been reported out in this form. =The fact that it was so reported indicates that the evidence was incontrovertible, and was so accepted by the Liberals and reactionaries alike.= The report of the Committee is dated August 30, 1915, but as the Duma was prorogued immediately afterwards, the Government’s answer to the interpellation is not known.

In the course of the debates on these and other questions affecting the Jews the expressed attitude of the representatives of the great bulk of the Russian population left no doubt of their absolute opposition to the Government on the Jewish question.[45]

Professor Milyukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, declared on July 19 (August 1), 1915:

“The strongest factor in the disruption of our national unity was the government’s policy toward our alien subjects. =The foul play upon the obscure racial prejudices of the masses, with the customary weapon of this kind of strife—anti-Semitism and the persecution of all dissenting nationalities or religions—has been exercised with unparalleled effrontery. Under the mask of military precaution, measures worse than credible are taken against crimes that are imaginary.... At a time when nations are struggling for the liberties and rights of small peoples, such terrible deeds embitter our friends and evoke joy among our enemies.”= (Loud applause from the left.)

=Deputy Kerensky.= “We are fighting this war in a territory occupied by non-Russian nationalities. But =did not our government, this very year, cause these peoples to doubt the wisdom of the path they took a year ago, when they linked their destiny with ours?”=

=Deputy Tchkheidze.= Aug. 3 (16), 1915: “It is well known to you that the Government régime has been based on Jewish oppression and that at all critical moments =it aimed its blows first of all at the Jews, because they were in the line of least resistance....=

“A year ago the war began and at once accusations of treachery against the Jews were started by the Government. To-day Russia and the whole world knows who is to blame for the condition in which Russia found herself. The guilty ones were not at all the Jews, as the whole country will confirm, but those who stuffed their pockets with the money which they made on Government orders for army supplies (shouts from the left: “That’s true!”) The guilty ones were those who, with the aid of men like Myasoyodyeff, Grotgus and other traitors, betrayed Russia....

“This is supposed to be a war for liberty, fraternity, and equality, but what justice is there in making a whole nation answer for the crimes of individuals, granting that there are any?

=“In the name of what truth is the Kuzhi slander being published in the ‘Pravitelstvenny Viestnik?’=

=“In the name of what truth are the various periodical publications ordered to reprint this communication under penalty of a fine?=

=“What justice demands that a Jewish volunteer who has several times been wounded be expelled within twenty-four hours when he tries to find a place in Russia to recover from his wounds?=

=“In the name of what humanity is it forbidden to hand food to starving Jewish refugees cooped up in freight trains? In the name of what brotherhood is one part of the army aroused against the Jewish soldiers who are in the trenches side by side with our own soldiers?=

=“We accuse the Germans of breaking the laws of warfare, of using poison gases and mutilating prisoners. Such acts can call forth only indignation and protest. Let these acts be a stain upon the ruling classes of Germany. But, gentlemen, in the name of what laws of humanity are orders issued to the Russian army to drive peaceful Jews ahead of the troops and to expose them to fire?=

=“In the name of what laws of humanity are Jewish-Russian subjects taken as hostages and put into prisons and tortured and shot?=

=“We denounced the Germans for having destroyed Louvain and the Cathedral of Rheims; but I ask you in the name of what ethical or esthetic principles is a Jewish woman who seeks refuge in the synagogue violated?”=

=Baron Rosen, former Russian Ambassador to the United States,= also protested outspokenly against the continuation of the anti-Jewish policy of the Government in a speech before the Council of the Empire, Aug. 22 (Sept. 4), 1915. (See Appendix, p. 117.)

RESOLUTIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY

The leading political party of Russia—the Constitutional Democratic Party—officially voiced its sentiments on the Jewish question at a national convention of the Party, held at Petrograd on June 19–21 (O. S. June 6–8), 1915, at which the Central Committee of the Party submitted a comprehensive report which was adopted unanimously, and which, summarized in the form of a resolution, was ordered published. This resolution, after citing the loyalty and patriotism of the Jews at the outbreak of the war, continues:

“This intense spirit of patriotism manifested by the Jews in the hour of Russia’s danger seemed for a time to have broken down the rooted prejudices of the Government and to have cleared the way for the recognition in Russia, of that civic equality which is accorded the Jews throughout the civilized world. But this would have deprived our reactionaries, those champions of an outlived past, of their old and well-tested weapon of black demagoguery—anti-Semitism. And so we see that under the direct influence of these notorious Jew-baiters measures were early adopted by the Government to set the army and the people against the Jews. Every advantage was taken of the exigencies of war. Isolated cases of espionage, likely to occur among the border populations of all nations, were seized upon as a basis for universal accusations and furnished the occasion for the invention of incredible myths and rumors circulated exclusively to the injury of the Jews.... The Jews have been held collectively responsible for the acts of individuals among them—a policy which outrages the most elementary sense of justice, a policy which is no longer sanctioned by the laws of any civilized land, a monstrous survival of the remote past.... Needless to mention the spread of discord and hatred, the growth of mutual suspicion and distrust among the races inhabitating Russia which must of necessity follow such a policy....

=“Not only in the name of brotherhood; not only in the name of that harmony so necessary where different nationalities are fated to live under the shelter of a common government; not only for the sake of keeping alive among the Jewish people, now being driven to despair, some hope of a brighter future, and some faith in that progress of which they have ever been the valiant champions, but also for the sake of the attainment of that ideal of the Russian people—the elevation of our beloved Fatherland to the status of a truly enlightened empire—must we offer united opposition against the forces of reaction.... Our adversaries hope to continue, even after the war, to use the poisoned weapon of primitive race hatred which they have used until now. It is our task to demonstrate to the masses of the people that they are again being duped, that their base passions are now being aroused in order to distract their attention from their own vital interests. We must continue, as before, to point out, firmly and persistently, that there is only one path to a brighter future for Russia, the same path along which the entire civilized world has traveled, and that along this road there is only one solution of the Jewish question—a solution demanded by the most elementary principles of civilized government—and that is to grant them, as individuals, full civic rights, and as a people, the right to free racial and cultural self-development.”=

A striking incident occurred during the debate upon this resolution. One of the leaders of the party, Maklakov, a brother of the former Minister of the Interior, advanced a plea in extenuation of the alleged Jewish treacheries.

“The Jews have suffered such cruel persecutions in Russia,” he remarked, “that they might well be excused even if these spy stories were found to be true.”