Letter IV arrived in Kishineff. They were strangers and evil-looking.

They all took part in the riots, and the mutilations of a child and of two of the four Jews murdered at 13 Asia Street, Bender Rogatka district, were the work of these imported brigands. They were not imprisoned after the riot. They were expelled the city.

The various bands of rioters referred to above proceeded with absolute impunity, in presence of the police, to destroy Jewish homes and smash and loot Jewish shops, until darkness set in, on the Sunday night. In places where Christian citizens lived among Hebrews, a cross marked in black was found on the front of the house, or an ikon was displayed in a window. Not one of the dwellings thus indicated as non-Jewish was injured. I counted over a hundred such houses marked and protected in this manner during my stay in the city. At the junction of Podolian Street and Armenian Street, looking out upon an open space, with a police station forty paces away, and a military barracks some two or three hundred yards distant, the Feldstein premises were in possession of the looters for fully five hours, owing to the trouble they found in breaking open Mr. Feldstein’s safe, where they found fifteen thousand roubles. All this time police and soldiers were in the street, actually looking on at the “sport.” The looters were grateful for this official neutrality, and brought up out of the Feldstein cellars bottles of champagne which they shared freely with the officers of the peace and a few of the soldiers, one leader of the gang, mounting the roof of the saloon, and asking the crowd of spectators to drink with him “the health of Kroushevan, the Editor of the _Bessarabetz_, and terror of the Jews.”

Before this festive toast had been proposed the incident of the meat took place, which had such a fiendish influence upon the subsequent proceedings of these patronised ruffians.[7]

The attack on the Feldstein saloon and home occurred near the dinner hour, and some meat was being prepared for the family meal. The family fled, or rather was rescued by a humane gendarme, a neighbour, when the mob assailed the premises. The rioters found the meat alluded to in the kitchen, whereupon the leader of the band fixed it upon the end of his stick, mounted the house-top (a building of one story), and, holding up the meat to the gaze of the people and police below, shouted, “Behold the remains of a Christian child which we found in the home of the rich Jew, Feldstein!”

By eleven o’clock that night ten Jews had been murdered, and hundreds of homes and shops broken into and looted.

Over twenty thousand roubles’ worth of costly wines was destroyed in the Feldstein premises. After eleven at night dozens of vehicles were seen carting away goods and property from places visited by the mobs, and articles of furniture, which had been flung into the streets. The vehicles were owned and led, in every instance, by virtuous anti-Semites.

During all these hours General Von Raaben, the Governor, remained indoors. No orders of any kind were issued by him, or by the Vice-Governor, either to the police or military. The mobs were left in possession of the city, with not alone the indirect encouragement by the non-action of the authorities, in face of assassinations and looting, but with the knowledge that the head of the police of the city, Tchemzenkov, or “Baroda,” as he was popularly called, had been seen driving round the streets during the day, smoking, as if thoroughly enjoying the whole infernal saturnalia of sanguinary ruffianism.

Seeing that there was no protection offered them by the authorities, some Jews organised themselves during the night of Sunday, and on the “sport” being renewed at eight on Monday morning, they gathered, to the number of 150, at the New Bazaar, and easily drove away one or two of the gangs, one shot only having been fired, which inflicted a slight wound upon a rioter. Instantly the police and military were on the scene; the Jews were dispersed, and their leaders arrested and lodged in the prison.

The deeds of Sunday were more than surpassed, in character and in number, on the second day. Over thirty more men, women, and children were butchered; some of the unfortunate victims being mutilated in a manner more barbarous than anything recorded against the customs of African savages. Then, at the hour of seven on Monday evening, the city was declared in a state of siege, and the military cleared the centre of the town of the murderous bands in a few moments. But only to drive them to the Bender Rogatka, Skulanska Rogatka, and other districts and suburbs, where they sought out the women and girls who were concealed in lofts and in other hiding-places the previous day.

It is not possible to describe the outrages perpetrated during this night. Women and girls who went through it all told me their stories in the house of the Rabbi and elsewhere, and it was impossible to doubt the statements which, in depicting the infamies resorted to by “Christian” men, recorded their own sufferings and dishonour.

One statement must, however, be put on record. A number of women and girls, some twenty in all, were discovered concealed in a loft at No. 11 Nicolaievskai Street. For four hours the moral pupils of the _Bessarabetz_, and of the religious and other colleges of Kishineff, held their victims in this dark place; several of these being girls under seventeen. A married woman, who succeeded, after being violated by six ruffians, in breaking away from her captors, ran to the nearest police station, and implored an officer to rescue the women, including her daughter, Simme, aged sixteen. She was driven from the station and told that “the Jews are only getting what they deserve.” The woman’s name is Chane Zeytchik, and the gallant officer in question is one Maretzky.

There were many exceptions, however, among the police; the dictates of decent humanity asserting themselves where the connivance of their chief had outraged their sense of moral manhood. Among these was officer Sloutschevsky, of one of the Bender Rogatka streets, who with twelve men drove a mob of seventy out of his district. Several artillery officers off duty also helped to save families and women. These instances of Samaritan kindness were gratefully mentioned to me by both men and women who had witnessed such acts. Among the comparatively few Christians who were conspicuous in this humane service were the citizens Dorianov, Demtchenks, Dr. Doroschevsky, Dr. Wolsky, the pope Laschkov, and M. Georgior. Many Russian women also saved the girls of their Jewish neighbours by giving them shelter in their homes.

The mobs were composed mainly of Moldavian and Russian workingmen; the former being five-sevenths of the whole. The Albanian contingent has already been referred to. A few Macedonian refugees, and some Bulgarians, were also among the gangs. All the accounts given to me agreed in one particular--that the worst crimes were the work of the Moldavians. In the murders inside the carpenter’s shed in the Skulanska Rogatka suburb, all the assassins were Moldavians resident in the very district. The sister-in-law of little Feya Wouller[8] told me that the Moldavian father and son who led the mob in this work, and in the murder of her husband, who tried to save his little sister, were walking about free during my stay in Kishineff, having been released from prison after a few days’ detention.

A brace of other assassins, a car-driver and his son, who were concerned in no less than four murders, were pointed out to me in the streets!

One feature of the massacres is most significant, and is not mentioned by M. de Plehve in his official account, namely: All the Jews who were killed, with one exception, were workingmen, regular or casual; carpenters, masons, smiths, clerks, and a few very poor jobbing dealers. The exception was one Galantor, a cattle dealer, who was known to have fifteen thousand roubles in his possession. He was assassinated and robbed by the driver and his son alluded to above.

The women and girls who suffered were the wives and daughters of Jewish artisans. Those females who were killed were also, like the male victims, of the same class. A few young ladies of richer families suffered too, but their names, for obvious reasons, were not made known to their families. No rich Jews were killed or wounded.

The leaders of the gangs, in almost every instance, were Seminarists, disguised as workingmen. There were two students from Odessa, sons of wealthy Kishineff families, prominent among the captains of the mobs; but to the seminaries of the city belonged the shame and dishonour of having contributed mostly all the directors, guides, and active instigators of the two-days’ carnival of crime, lust, and looting. Employés of the post office and telegraph departments were along among the rioters, but chiefly for loot.

Among the organisers of the plot, but not in the actual execution of it, were a notary of the city, an engineer, a well-known wealthy citizen, two minor officers, two sons of a rich merchant, and members of the staff of the _Bessarabetz_.

None of these had been arrested when I left Kishineff, on the 30th of May last.

The question of official responsibility has been raised, and a circular alleged to have been issued by M. de Plehve has been published which would tend to connect the Minister of the Interior with an intimate knowledge of the intended outbreak. No one in Kishineff with whom I came in contact knew of any such circular. Charges of complicity were freely made against the Government by many leading Jews, but no proofs of any kind were adduced. These charges were entirely based upon the culpable inaction of Governor Von Raaben, and the all but active participation of the head of the City Police in the riots, along with the well-known anti-Semitic record and feeling of the Vice-Governor, Ostrogoff.

Official responsibility might be deduced from these facts, but I failed to discover any evidence, outside these circumstances, which could even indirectly bring home to the Government the charge of guilty connivance in the _Bessarabetz_ plot.

The Governor was, beyond all doubt, the person most to blame for the crimes which were allowed to disgrace the capital of his province and a civilised city during two whole days. And he was forewarned in time of what was coming.

Ten days before Easter he was waited upon by leading Jewish citizens and his attention called to the incendiary appeals of the _Bessarabetz_, in connection with the murder of the boy at Doubossar. General Von Raaben assured them that they need not dread any disturbance, as he would not hesitate to employ all the military force at his disposal in order to preserve law and order. He fulfilled this promise on Easter Sunday and Monday by refusing to leave his house during the forty-eight hours in which the slaughter of forty-five victims of the anti-Semitic crusade was carried out.

It has been alleged that the Governor, on realising the gravity of the first day’s events, wired to St. Petersburg for authority to declare a state of siege. This I believe to be untrue. M. de Plehve’s explicit statements, as given in his second communication to Mr. Arnold White, dispose of this allegation. In face of the clear language of the Criminal Code it would be an absurd and unnecessary proceeding on the part of the Governor.

Clause 340 of this Code, and Clauses 1 and 8 of the supplement to Section 316, of Vol. II., give, I am informed, the fullest powers to the administration of any province or city to take all necessary measures for quelling riots or disturbances which threaten to become a menace to life or property. There could, therefore, be no excuse or ambiguity in the language of the law necessitating such a message, as that alleged, to the central Government. What happened, in all probability, was this: Someone in lower authority, seeing the criminal neglect of the Governor in presence of such a situation as was developed on Monday morning, may have telegraphed to M. de Plehve an account of what was taking place. This would necessarily have to be verified, in reply to messages from the Minister, and in this way, as he relates in his despatch to Mr. Arnold White, he ordered martial law to be proclaimed on Monday evening; unfortunately after most of the murders and other outrages had been committed.

In an official sense only M. de Plehve is answerable for the conduct of his subordinates, as all Ministers are, under similar circumstances, even in constitutionally governed countries; but without evidence, which has not yet been forthcoming from any quarter, I refuse to credit accusations of direct cognisance of, or complicity in, the plot which owed its origin to the indications of a powerful local paper; its plan and purpose to local anti-Semites; and in the execution of which several minor officials of the local administration, some police officers, employés of public departments, students, Seminarists, and Moldavian and Russian artisans were notoriously engaged. In character it was a savage anti-Semitic outbreak, and in purpose a terrorising demonstration against the Jews as advocates of Socialism and suspected enemies of the Tsar’s Government.

M. de Plehve’s borrowed version of the origin and objects of the outbreak is the concoction of incriminated local officials, and members of the _Bessarabetz_ staff. It is therefore, and on that account, prejudiced and untrue.