Part 6

=“We spurn this right to baseness,” cried out former deputy Vinaver, a Jew. “Our loyalty is not for sale. We are not newcomers here. Our ancestors have lived here for hundreds of years. We are patriots because we feel ourselves bound to Russia. We believe in Russia even more than you do.”=

PROTESTS OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS, CITIES, ETC.

Various municipalities outside the Pale have petitioned the government to give equal rights to the Jews.

The Municipal Council of Smolensk, at its session of December 19, 1914 (January 1, 1915), passed a resolution, with only two dissenting votes, petitioning the government “to abolish all measures which restrict the rights of Russian subjects of the Jewish faith, and, in particular, to abolish the Pale of Settlement.” At this session Councillor P. V. Mikhailoff said:

“We are referring not only to those families of Jewish soldiers at the front, to families fleeing from devastated Poland, but even to the soldiers themselves who are placed _hors de combat_ because of their wounds, after having valiantly served in our ranks. Thus, for example, a Jewish soldier wounded in the hand and in the breast, having parents in this city, obtained permission _only with the utmost difficulty_ to stay here three months. At the end of this period he must go back to the Pale and live there without means or medical attention, although he is threatened with tuberculosis.... This is merely one case in thousands which prove to us the horrors of the situation in which Jewish soldiers and their families are placed because of their deprivation of civic rights. Those families whose members have shed their blood for Russia are ruined by the invasion of the enemy. They arrive here to find a refuge from starvation and death, from ruin and violation. We must remember that nearly a half million Jews are fighting side by side with our brave warriors against the common enemy. As to the civilian Jews, they have no less patriotism or enthusiasm than the other inhabitants.... His Majesty, the Emperor, in passing through Lublin, Grodno, and Tiflis, has deigned to express his thanks to the Jews for their faithfulness to our common country. The conclusion from this is clear: =There is no serious reason to maintain any longer those measures of restriction so futile and so pernicious and so malevolent.... But the Jewish question is not merely a question of abstract justice. The economic and moral development of our city life is seriously retarded by the restrictions placed upon one part of the population....”=[46]

In August, 1914, a meeting of municipality, Zemstvo, Stock Exchange, and University officials and merchants, at Odessa, resolved that the country would benefit by the abolition of all repressive laws and the opening of educational institutions to all citizens.[47]

In August, 1914, the Moscow Conference of Mayors also forcibly condemned the expulsion policy of some governors and resolved to use its influence to ameliorate the position of the Jews.[48]

So also the Congress of Delegates from cities of Western Siberia petitioned for the abolition of all Jewish disabilities.[49]

Within the past few months the municipalities of Samara, Saratov, Ekaterinoslav and other important centers; the Siberian Municipal Conference, and the Conference of twenty Zemstvos held at Yaroslavl, all petitioned the government and the Duma to remove the disabilities affecting the Jews of Russia.

PROTESTS OF TRADE AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The Military-Industrial Committee, organized in May, 1915, to integrate the economic resources of the country on a war basis, met on August 25, 1915, and condemned the incompetence of the government openly. In his presidential address P. P. Riabushinski deplored the tardiness of the government in calling upon the social forces of the country. “This leadership of the country has been attempted by persons incapable of leadership, and it is now evident to everybody that a =new personnel is needed within the government....= We have observed the workings of the government departments from the very beginning of the war, and have come to the conclusion that these departments are unable to cope with the situation. The supply of war material is altogether unorganized, as the army well knows.... The government will from now on transfer to us more and more of its functions. =But the longer this is deferred the less benefit will result....= This work cannot be done through a poorly organized government.... The State is a huge business enterprise, whose parts must work harmoniously.... The war has now changed from a struggle of will and spirit into a struggle of machinery. =Therefore, the persons entrusted with the defense of the country must know the country....= It cannot be denied that Russia is at the present moment facing a great danger, and we fear that the time may come when our courage will sink.... (_censored_). Our army is suffering heroically.... (_censored_). We know that after a while, with the war continuing in the same poor fashion as at present, the government will be ready to meet us half-way, but we also know by experience =that it will then be too late and even the very best man called by the government will be unable to accomplish anything.”=

This address was met with thunderous applause. Another speaker, Prof. E. L. Zubashov, referring to the Jews, declared that: =“The sons of the Jewish nation are now fighting side by side with the Russians for their country. Unfortunately this country has until now been only a step-mother to them. Let us express the hope that it may now become a mother to them.”= He therefore proposed a resolution favoring the abolition of all restrictive laws against the Jews. His proposal was met with prolonged applause and was accepted by the convention.[50]

At a meeting of the Free Economic Society—the foremost economic organization of Russia—on January 16, 1915, the following resolution was adopted unanimously:

“The Commission ... has taken into account the exceptionally difficult position in which the Jewish population finds itself, in view of the residence restrictions to which they are subject.

“While they are suffering all the terrors of war together with the rest of the population, the Jewish population, being mainly urban, has suffered particularly from the general disorganization of economic relations not only within the immediate region of military activities, but far beyond.

“Under these conditions it would be a great relief to the suffering population if measures were adopted which would make it easier for them to move about in search of work. In view of the size of our country and the unlimited economic resources of its regions, especially those of the interior, have hardly been touched by the miseries of war. There are regions in the interior of Russia where economic conditions have even improved somewhat, since they have assumed many of the industries abandoned in Poland, and since the commissary department placed large orders here.

“At the same time the Jewish population is even at this exceptional time artificially confined to the cities of Poland and the western provinces by force of existing legal limitations which increases the hardships of war for them. =If in time of peace these restrictions,= which are economically harmful and morally degrading, =are recognized as a relic of barbarism that must be abolished, it is all the more difficult to reconcile ourselves with them at the present time, when hundreds and thousands of Jews serve under the Russian banners on the battlefield.=

“In view of these facts the Commission has decided to request the Council of the Free Economic Society to communicate with the government and members of the society who are members of the legislative bodies:—

=“To immediately stop the functioning of all restrictive laws relating to the Settlement rights of Jews,= and

=“To abolish them immediately and permanently by legislative enactment.”=[51]

Numerous commercial and technical associations have passed resolutions declaring that the main cause of Russia’s economic backwardness lay in the restrictions placed upon Jews, and that the sole means of combating German predominance over Russian industry and trade is through the abolition of these restrictions. Among these organizations are the national grain, lumber, fur and gold trades; the Chambers of Commerce of Moscow, Petrograd and the leading cities of Russia and Siberia, and the national Congress of Bourses; the Russo-American Chamber of Commerce, etc. Practically every national convention of every industry has petitioned the government to liberate the economic talents of the Jews by the removal of all legal restrictions.

PROTESTS OF RUSSIAN WRITERS AND PUBLICISTS

Just as the commercial and industrial elements of Russia demand equality for the Jews on economic grounds, so the intellectual elements of Russia demand it on broad human grounds.

The great manifesto issued at the beginning of the war by 225 of the leading publicists and writers of Russia, declares:

“Russia, in the present great war, is straining all her physical and intellectual forces to an extraordinary degree. All the peoples of Russia are taking part in the war, sharing equally in all the labors. We believe that the blood of the fighters is not being shed in vain. We believe that after having borne the horrors of the war, the population will return with increased energy to the work of building for a better and brighter future. This we believe, and we hope that the relations between the different peoples that inhabit Russia will be built up in the future on the eternal foundations of wisdom and justice.

“But at this moment, so important in history, we see with sorrow and consternation that to the sufferings of one of the nationalities inhabiting Russia new distress and new vexations are added. The limitation of the right of education is now felt with particular pain by the Jewish youth. As the Western frontiers are closed the usual exodus to the foreign schools is checked, while in Russia itself the percentage limitations against the Jews in the schools are maintained in force. The Jews of the destroyed towns have no right to leave the Pale of Settlement, a measure which often leads to a disintegration and a division of members of families, wives and children of wounded soldiers not being allowed to visit their husbands and fathers, and being at the same time exposed to all sorts of chicanery. =The sorely-tried Jewish nation which has given to the world such precious contributions in the domain of religion, of philosophy, of poetry; which has always shared the travails and trials of Russian life; which has been hurt so often by prejudice and insult; which more than once has proven its love for Russia, and its devotion to her cause, is now again exposed to unjust accusations and persecutions.=

“The Russian Jews, who are industriously working with us in all spheres of labor and activity that are accessible to them, have given so many convincing proofs of their sincere desire to be with us, to render service to our cause ... that the limitation of their right of citizenship is not only a crying injustice, but also reacts injuriously upon the very interests of the State. The Russian Empire can, and must, draw its strength from the complete union of all the nationalities inhabiting Russia, and only by the placing of all citizens upon an equal footing will the power of Russia become indestructible.

=“Russians, let us remember that the Russian Jew has no other country than Russia, and that nothing is dearer to a man than the soil on which he is born. Let us understand that the prosperity and power of Russia are inseparable from the well-being and the liberty of all the nationalities which constitute its vast Empire. Let us understand this truth, act according to our intelligence and our conscience, and we may be certain that the ultimate disappearance of persecutions against the Jews and their complete emancipation will form one of the conditions of a truly constructive imperial régime.”=

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

The total estimated Jewish population of Austria-Hungary is about 2,250,000, of which nearly one million were, at the beginning of the war, in the border province of Galicia, in the immediate area of hostilities.

Here, as elsewhere, the Jews manifested their keen loyalty by trooping to the colors even when they were normally exempt, as in the case of the students of the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary, many of whom volunteered, although not required to do so. The Government recognized this loyalty in many ways, particularly in the granting of special privileges with respect to the observances required by the Jewish religious ritual. Thus the Emperor, in his own name, sent 20,000 Tallithim (prayer shawls) for the soldiers in the field during the holidays. When, at Passover, it was discovered that the matzoths for the Jewish troops had been improperly prepared, the Government, at the instance of the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, authorized the wholesale distribution of potatoes to Orthodox Jews.

Hundreds of Jewish soldiers have been decorated on the field of battle, and many were given officers’ commissions.

GALICIA

It was the million Jews of Galicia who were made to feel the full burden of the war. Although their economic condition before the war was greatly inferior to that of the general population, their political condition was one of equality. But the Russian invasion of Galicia, in September, 1914, changed their status overnight. The Russian Governor-General, Count Bobrinski, a notorious anti-Semite, found the political status of the Jews in Galicia most abhorrent to him. He at once proceeded to degrade them to the status of the Russian Jews, and, if possible, still lower. He proposed to his home Government that all Jewish landed property in Galicia be confiscated and the Jews be forbidden to own, lease or rent land; and this, he added, was an immediately imperative step, to be carried out even before the formal annexation of Galicia was announced!

On February 13, 1915, the Grand Duke Nicholas issued an order declaring that “in view of the increase of spying on the part of the Jews, it is decreed that:

=1. No person of Jewish nationality may enter Galicia.=

=2. No persons of Jewish nationality may pass from one district of Galicia into another.=

=3. Infractions of this decree will be punished by a fine of three thousand roubles ($1,500) or by three months’ imprisonment.”=[52]

The spirit of these documents, communicated to the troops, produced a series of outrages against the Jewish population more horrible even than any perpetrated in Russia. As each town was invaded by the Russians the troops first sought the Jewish quarters, and here they let themselves loose in an orgy of pillage, sack and rapine.

In the town of Bohorodczany there appeared, in January, 1915, a detachment of Austro-Polish troops. They demanded food and quarters and were, of course, supplied. After a brief stay they departed. But the act of the Jews was reported to the Russian commander in Stanislau. He immediately sent a “punitive” expedition of four hundred Cossacks to the town. They set the town on fire, routed out the Jewish women and girls from their places of concealment, assembled them in the square and there held an orgy under the open sky. After their lusts were satisfied they drove the victims under the crack of the whip, half naked and starving, along the roads to Stanislau. One woman, who had risen from childbirth only a few days before, died on the way. One of the physicians of Stanislau, Dr. B., testifies that he alone treated ten cases of women and girls who had been violated.[53]

In Szczerzec, Galicia, the Russian soldiers caught one Jacob Mischel, a town councillor, poured oil over him and burned him alive.[54]

In Dembica, Cossacks raided a synagogue to which the Jews had fled for refuge and prayer, robbed and imprisoned the men, and outraged the women. Those who escaped through the windows were caught by the guards below and men and women were knouted to death. Then the troops set fire to the synagogue.[55]

These are typical cases of outrages perpetrated against the Jewish population of Galicia. Scarcely a town in the line of invasion escaped. The Jewish population fled before the invaders in vast numbers.

There are about 175,000 Jewish refugees in Vienna; 70,000 of these are destitute. There are about 70,000 living in barracks in Bohemia; 8,000 of these are in Prague. There were about 52,000 in Budapest. All fugitives who have settled in Hungary, however, have been removed to Austria proper. Dr. J. Bloch of Vienna, estimates that the total number of Jewish refugees from Galicia is about half a million. The situation of these refugees is somewhat better than that of the Jewish refugees in Russia, inasmuch as the Government has placed them in concentration camps, attends to their minimum wants and gives each one an allowance of 70 heller (14 cents) daily. With the rise in the prices of food, the daily allowance has risen to about 90 heller (18 cents) per capita. They are treated well by the population, and in many cases are provided with some work.

ROUMANIA

The future of Roumania is of interest to the Jews for two especial reasons: first, because the Jews of Roumania are deprived of their rights as citizens in contravention of a solemn promise made by Roumania to the Great Powers at the Berlin Congress in 1878; secondly, because it will no doubt be Roumania’s aim to win back from Austria-Hungary certain large territories, including Transylvania and Bukowina, in which the bulk of the population is of Roumanian descent, thus, if successful, incidentally, increasing the number of Jews under Roumanian rule from about 250,000 to more than one million.

During the present war Roumania has given evidence of its hostile attitude towards the Jews. Thousands of Jewish refugees who fled before the savagery of the Russian army which invaded Bukowina, sought refuge in Roumania. These were treated with great brutality by Roumanian officials in the border towns. At the beginning of July, 1915, the Government issued an order to the administrative authorities of all the districts bordering on Austria-Hungary to expel all the Jews from the localities near the frontier, and to send them to the interior of the country. The officials took advantage of this edict to expel not only the refugees, but also hundreds of Jewish citizens of Roumania who had been living in the border towns for generations. The order of expulsion was executed summarily, and the Jews were forced to leave within forty-eight and in some cases with all their goods in twenty-four hours. As a rule, they were not permitted to take their belongings with them, and even under the most favorable circumstances they had perforce to leave them behind because they knew neither their destination nor their fate.

This action of the Government caused a great deal of adverse comment in the press. “Vitorul” the official organ of the Liberal Party, now in power, met these attacks, in its issue of July 12, 1915, as follows:

“Some of the newspapers pretend that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has given orders that the native-born Jews established in the towns bordering upon the northern frontier of Moldavia be sent into the interior of the country. This news is inexact. The Minister of Internal Affairs was not aiming at the Jews established in the towns near the frontier or in any other place when he issued his order of expulsion. The order given by the Minister of Internal Affairs concerns only the alien subjects of a foreign country, and the native-born Jews who, though not living in frontier towns go there on business, acting as cereal brokers. And the purpose of the order is to prevent such people from committing acts dangerous to the interests of the population of the state. The peaceful Jewish population living near the frontier is not the object of any hounding, as the irresponsible newspapers would have it.”

The Bucharest “Adeverul” (Truth), an independent organ, and one of the two newspapers in Bucharest which sympathize with the Jews, replied:

“In answer to the attacks of the Government organ upon the ‘irresponsible’ newspapers, we are in a position to publish a list of the ‘peaceful Jewish population’ which has been the subject of the most terrible persecutions by the authorities. =We can give the names of the reserves, mobilized at the very moment, whose children have been driven from their homes.= It is possible that the Minister of Internal Affairs did not mean to ‘aim,’ as the official organ says, at the Jews. If the Minister is innocent of the charge, we would like to know what punishment to inflict upon his subordinates who wilfully misrepresented his order.

“But it is not we who are irresponsible. It is the Government that tries to mislead the public with ambiguous statements. It says that the order referred only to the brokers, who may commit dangerous acts. We know that the law punishes crimes and delinquencies which _have_ been committed, but does not anticipate crimes that _may_ be committed. Then again, the law provides strict punishment for each delinquency and not a general and preventive punishment, such as deportation. Why is it that those who have committed the infraction have not been arrested and peaceful people are being punished instead?

“Even the Government recognizes that this preventive punishment is applied to the alien and such Jews as are only doing business though not living in those places. It means that the suspicion rests equally upon the alien and the Roumanian Jew, because the Jew, although not an alien, is of another religion. The suspicion then falls upon all the native-born Jews. Thus we see, that even if the official organ’s public interpretation of the law be correct, it is still the Jews who will suffer. But we cannot accept the explanation. It is false.

“It is an absolute fact that not transient traders but people who are innocent, who are paying taxes in those localities have been expelled.”

It is idle to speculate as to what Roumania may do if she becomes involved in the war. But it is well to consider whether, if she does not become involved, it will be possible to bring to the attention of the belligerent powers at a future peace conference the question of the status of the Jews of Roumania. These are in the anomolous position of people virtually without a country. They are subjects of Roumania, pay taxes and support the Government. But even the native-born and those whose parents and grandparents were native-born subjects of Roumania, cannot become citizens, and are also discriminated against by the Government. In this respect, Roumania may be called “Little Russia.”

The situation of Roumania as a nation is exceptional. She was made an independent country by the European Powers, meeting at the Congress of Berlin, after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–8. In a treaty which was then signed by all the great Powers of Europe, the following articles were inserted:

XLIII. The High contracting parties recognize the independence of Roumania, subject to the conditions set forth in the two following articles.

XLIV. In Roumania the difference of religious creeds and confessions shall not be alleged against any person as a ground for exclusion or incapacity in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil and political rights, admission to public employments, functions and honors, or the exercise of the various professions and industries in any locality whatsoever.