THE JEWS IN THE
EASTERN WAR ZONE
4988C7
.to .
TUB AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE
NEW YORK
1916
THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE
Officers
Louis MARSHALL, President
JULIAN W. MACK
• ^ \
\ Vice-Presic
«>ER, J
ISAAC W. BERNHEIM, Treasurer
r . ^-Presidents
JACOB H. HOLLANDER,
Executive Committee
CYRUS ADLER, Chairman, • . PHILADELPHIA, PA.
ISAAC W. BERNHEIM, .... LOUISVILLE, KT.
HARRY CUTLER, - - PROVIDENCE, R. I.
SAMUEL DORF, - NEW YORK, N. Y.
JACOB H. HOLLANDER, - - - BALTIMORE, MD.
JULIAN W. MACK, ^ CHICAGO, ILL.
JUDAH L. MAGNES, .... NEW YORK, N. Y.
LOUIS MARSHALL,^ - - NEW YORK, N. Y.
JULIUS ROSENWALD,^- - - - CHICAGO, ILL.
JACOB H. SCHIFF, ^ - - NEW YORK, N. Y.
ISADOR SOBEL, - - - ERIE, PA.
OSCAR S. STRAUS, .... NEW YORK, N. Y.
/ CYRUS L. SULZBERGER, - - - NEW YORK, N. Y.
MAYER SULZBERGER, - - - PHILADELPHIA, PA.
A. LEO WEIL, PirrsBTOa, PA.
OFFICE:
356 Second Avenue, New York Citj
CONTENTS
PACT
INTRODUCTION 7
RUSSIA
JEWISH DISABILITIES IN NORMAL TIMES 19
THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT 20
Recent "abolition" act a half-way measure,
dictated by military necessity.
OTHER RESTRICTIONS 31
1. Residence restrictions.— 2. Occupational
restrictions. 3. Property restrictions.^— 4. Fiscal
burdens. — 5. Educational restrictions. — 6. Military
burdens.
THE WAR AND THE JEWS 36
OUTBREAK OP WAR 36
Manifestations of loyalty. Jewish patriotism.
THE WAR IN POLAND 41
Renaissance of Polish hopes. — Polish anti-Se-
mitism.— Spy stories instigated by Poles, accepted
and circulated by Russian military authorities.
MILITARY REPRESSIONS 66
• Extraordinary conduct of military censor. —
Stifling of Jewish press and speech. — Expulsions. —
Demand for hostages. — Widespread misery. — Un-
fair administration of relief.
THE PEOPLE vs. THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. . . 70
Anti-Jewish policy of the Government not ap-
proved by the people. — DUMA protests. — Resolu-
tions of CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY. —
Protests of MUNICIPALITIES, PUBLIC OFFICIALS, ETC.
— Protests of TRADE AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANI-
ZATIONS.— Protests of WRITERS and PUBLICISTS.
OTHER COUNTRIES
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 84
Russian atrocities in Galicia.
ROUMANIA -T. 89
PALESTINE 93
APPENDIX
1. Report of Russian Jewish Relief Committee. 98
2. Speech of Deputy Friedman in the Duma Ill
3. Speech of Baron Rosen in Imperial Council 117
THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
INTRODUCTION
Of all the people that have suffered deeply from the
present war, none have borne a greater burden than the
Jews — in physical and economic loss, in moral and spiritual
torment.
Jews are today fighting each other in all the armies
of Europe. Russia alone has over 350,000 Jewish soldiers;
Austria has over 50,000; altogether there are probably
one-half million Jews in the ranks of the fighting armies.
The Jews are bearing the brunt of the war's burdens,
not only on the field of battle, where they suffer with
the rest of the world, but also in their homes, where
they have been singled out, by their peculiar geographic,
political and economic position, for disaster surpassing
that of all others.
When the war broke out, one-half of the Jewish
population of the world was trapped in a corner of Eastern
Europe that is absolutely shut off from all neutral lands
and from the sea. Russian Poland, where over two
million Jews lived, is in a salient. South of it is Galicia,
the frontier province of Austria. Here lived another
million Jews. Behind Russian Poland are the fifteen
Russian provinces, which, together with Poland, con-
stitute the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Here lived another
four million Jews.
Thus seven million Jews — a population exceeding
that of Belgium by one million — have borne the. brunt
of the war. Behind them was Holy Russia, closed to
8 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
them by the May Laws of 1881. In front were hostile
Germany and Austria. To the south was unfriendly
Roumania. They were overwhelmed where they stood;
and over their bodies crossed and recrossed the German
armies from the west, the Russian armies from the east
and the Austrian armies from the south. True, all the
peoples of this area suffered ravage and pillage by the
war, but their sufferings were hi no degree comparable
to those of the Jews. The contending armies found it
politic, in a measure, to court the good will of the Poles,
Ruthenians and other races in this area. These sustained
only the necessary and unavoidable hardships of war.
But the Jews were friendless, their religion proscribed.
In this medieval region all the religious fanaticism
of the Russians, the chauvinism of the Poles, combined
with the blood lusts liberated in all men by the war —
all these fierce hatreds were sluiced into one torrent of
passion which overwhelmed the Jews.
Hundreds of thousands were forced from their homes
on a day's notice, the more fortunate being packed and
shipped as freight — the old, the sick and insane, men,
women and children, shuttled from one province to
another, side-tracked for days without food or help
of any kind — the less fortunate driven into the woods
and swamps to die of starvation. Jewish towns were
sacked and burned wantonly. Hundreds of Jews were
carried off as hostages into Germany, Austria and
Russia. Orgies of lust and torture took place in
public in the light of day. There are scores of villages
where not a single woman was left inviolate. Women,
old and young, were stripped and knouted in the public
squares. Jews were burned alive in synagogues where
they had fled for shelter. Thousands were executed on
the flimsiest pretext or from sheer purposeless cruelty.
INTRODUCTION 9
These Jews, unlike the Belgians, have no England to
fly to. The sympathy of the outside world is shut off
from them. They have not the consolation of knowing
that they are fighting for their own hearths, or even for
military glory or in the hope of a possible reward or in-
demnity. The only thought they cherish is that after
the struggle shall be over they may at last achieve those
elementary rights denied to no other people, the right
to live and move about freely in the land of their birth
or adoption, to educate their children, to earn a
livelihood, to worship God according to the dictates
of their conscience.
RUSSIA
Nearly half of the Jewish population of the world
lives in Russia, in the immediate area of active hostilities,
congested in cities, which are the first point of attack.
The dreadful position of the Jews of Russia in normal
times is well known. Forbidden to live outside of the en-
larged Ghetto, known as the Pale of Settlement; burdened
with special taxes; denied even the scant educational
privileges enjoyed by the rest of the population; harried
by a corrupt police, a hostile Government and an un-
friendly populace — in brief, economically degraded and
politically outlawed — their condition represented the
extreme of misery. It was the openly expressed policy
of the reactionaries who ruled Russia to solve the Jewish
question by ridding the country of its Jews. "One-third
will accept the Greek Church ; one-third will emigrate to
America; and one-third will die of starvation in Russia" —
so ran the cynical saying. Some did abjure their faith,
tens of thousands did starve in Russia and hundreds
of thousands did emigrate to America.
10 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Loyalty of Russian Jews
Then came the war. The Jews saw therein an oppor-
tunity to show the Christian population that in spite
of all the persecutions of the past they were ready to
forget their tragic history and to begin life anew in a
united and regenerated Russia. Thousands of Jewish
young men who had been forced to leave Russia to
secure the education which their own country denied
them returned voluntarily to the colors even though
they knew that all hope of preferment and promotion
was closed to them. On the field of battle the Jewish
soldiers displayed courage and intelligence which won
the respect of their fighting comrades and gained for
hundreds of them the much desired cross of St. George,
granted for distinguished valor in the face of the
enemy; while those who remained at home opened and
equipped hospitals for wounded soldiers without distinc-
tion of race or creed, contributed generously to all public
funds, and, in brief, gave themselves and their possessions
unsparingly to the Russian cause.
It appeared at first as though the long desired union
with the Russian people was about to be realized. But
it soon developed that the chains which bound the Jews
of Russia to their past could not be broken. Forces
which they could not possibly control doomed them
to the greatest tragedy in their history. The Pale in
which they lived was Polish in origin and population.
Poles and Jews were fellow victims of the Russian op-
pressor; but instead of being united by the common
bond of suffering, they were separated by religious and
racial differences and above all by dissension deliberately
fostered among them by the Russian rulers until it de-
veloped into uncontrollable hate.
INTRODUCTION 11
Russian Atrocities
Immediately before the war the struggle had assumed
its bitterest form — that of an unrelenting boycott waged
against the Jews. When the war broke out the political
status of the Poles changed overnight. Both the Russian
and the German armies found it politic to cultivate
the good will of the Polish population. Many Poles
seized the opportunity to gratify personal animosity,
religious bigotry or chauvinistic mania by denouncing
the Jews, now to the one invader and now to the other,
as spies and traitors. In Germany the animus of the
attacks was to some extent uncovered and the lies
refuted. But in Russia they found fertile soil. The
Russian military machine had met with defeat at the
hands of the Germans. To exonerate themselves in the
eyes of their own people the military camarilla eagerly
seized the pretext so readily furnished them by the
Poles and unloaded the burden of their ill-fortune
upon the helpless shoulders of the Jew. Men, women,
even children were executed without the shadow of
evidence or the formality of a trial. Circumstantial
stories of Jewish treachery, invented by the Poles, were
accepted as the truth and circulated freely through the
Russian press and on the local government bulletin
boards; but when official investigation proved these
stories false in every particular, the publication of the
refutation was discouraged by the censorship. The
authorities gave the troops a free hand to loot and
ravage, even encouraging them by the publication of
orders which officially denounced all Jews as spies and
traitors. The result was a series of outrages unprece-
dented even in Russia. A million Jews were driven from
their homes in a state of absolute destitution.
12 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Protest of Liberal Russia
All of the liberal elements of Russia protested against
this campaign of extermination, but were powerless in
the face of the military Government. Hundreds of
municipal bodies, trade and professional organisations,
writers, publicists and priests, petitioned the civil govern-
ment to admit the Jews to human equality or at least
to suspend its policy of persecution. These memorials,
together with the speeches delivered in the Duma, con-
stitute a body of evidence from non-Jewish sources,
which must condemn the Russian Government hi the
eyes of the world. (See pages 70-83; 117-120.)
GALICIA
During the ten months of the Russian occupation
of Galicia the Jews of that section suffered even' more
severely than did the Jews who dwelt in the Russian
Pale. For here the Jews were the subjects of the enemy
and no pretext was needed for their maltreatment. The
Ruthenians and Poles who occupied the land were friendly
to Russia, which promised them independence and power.
But Russia could expect nothing from the Jews of
Galicia, for they were already in the possession of rights
and liberties not enjoyed by the Jews of Russia, and
the weight of the Russian invasion fell upon them
mercilessly. Here thousands of Russian Jewish soldiers
were forced to give up their lives in an attempt to impose
upon the free Jews of Galicia the servitude from which
they themselves so ardently longed to escape in Russia.
They were forced to witness the desecration by their
Russian companions-in-arms of synagogues, the outrage
of Jewish women and the massacre of innocent and
helpless civilians of their own faith.
INTRODUCTION 13
ROUMANIA
Though Roumania is not yet a belligerent, some of
the Jews of that country have been vitally affected by
the war. In July of 1915, the Ministry of the Interior
issued a general order expelling the Jews of the towns
near the Austro-Hungarian frontier into the interior.
Though this order was later alleged to have been de-
signed to prevent the operations of Jewish grain specu-
lators from Bukowina, many Jews who had resided in the
border towns for generations were summarily expelled.
This action of the Government was bitterly criticized
by the liberal press and in a memorial addressed to the
King by the League of Native-born Jews, and the
order was finally revoked.
Whether the present Balkan situation may or may
not result in the entrance of Roumania among the bel-
ligerent nations there is no doubt that upon the ter-
mination of hostilities the question of Roumania's
treatment of the Jews should be reopened.
PALESTINE
At the outbreak of the war Palestine contained,
according to reliable estimates, about 100,000 Jews,
some of whom were economically independent ag-
riculturists, but the great majority of whom were
aged pilgrims dependent upon their relatives and
the good-will offerings of their pious co-religionists in
Europe. The war cut them off completely both from
the markets of Europe and from their relatives and
friends; nearly the entire Jewish population was thus
left destitute. Their position was further aggravated by
the severity with which Turkey, upon her entrance into
the war as an ally of the Central Powers, treated the
14 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
nationals of hostile countries. About 8,000 Jews who
declined to become Turkish subjects were either expelled
or departed voluntarily.
JEWS IN OTHER BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES
In all the countries where the Jews have heretofore
enjoyed freedom there has been no special Jewish problem
during this war. The Jews have identified themselves com-
pletely with the lands of their birth or adoption, and have
shared the trials and glories of the peoples among whom
then* lot was cast.
• In England, the Jewish population, according to
estimates prepared by Lord Rothschild, furnished more
than its share of recruits to the British army, its quota
of 17,000 comprising about eight and a half per cent,
of the total Jewish population as compared with the six
per cent, furnished by the non-Jewish population. The
Lord Chief Justice, Baron Reading, a Jew, mobilized
the financial resources of the country and was called upon
to head the Anglo-French commission which negotiated
the $500,000,000 credit secured hi the United States.
Lord Rothschild is treasurer of the Red Cross organization.
Hon. Herbert Samuels is a member of the Coalition
cabinet. A Jewish battalion organized by Palestinian
fugitives rendered exceptional service to the allies hi the
Gallipoli Peninsula. Many rewards, including the be-
stowal of Victoria Crosses and promotions, are listed in
the Anglo-Jewish press every week.
In Germany the Jews, although without complete
social privileges, have borne their full share of the
burdens of war. To Herr Ballin, the head of the mercantile
marine, was given the task of organizing the national
food supply, and other Jews have been prominently
INTRODUCTION 16
identified with every department of the industrial mobil-
ization of the country. In France and Italy, Austria-
Hungary and Turkey, Jews are to be found hi the
ministerial cabinets, in command of troops in the field,
and prominent in charge of the medical service of the
armies.
Thus the present war has again demonstrated the
great truth that, in tunes of struggle as in tunes of peace,
the Jews constitute a most valuable asset to those nations
that accept them as an integral part of their population
and permit them to develop freely, but wherever an auto-
cratic government demoralizes its people by confronting
them with the spectacle of an unprotected minority
denied all human rights, the government itself feels the
reaction and the moral tone of the nation is thereby
impaired.
RUSSIA
NOTE ON SOURCES OF INFORMATION
For the purposes of this report it has been deemed advisable to
select, from the mass of material available upon the present status
of the Jews in Russia, only evidence based upon:
1. Official and semi-official reports of the Russian gov-
ernment published in its official daily newspaper, "Pravitel-
etvenny Viestnik," in its semi-official organ, "Novoe
Vremya," or in its several military organs.
2. Debates and Proceedings in the Imperial Duma and
in the Council of the Empire, particularly evidence fur-
nished by non-Jewish deputies or evidence of Jewish depu-
ties that has passed unchallenged or has been challenged
unsuccessfully by the Right benches.
3. Statements in the Liberal Russian press and the
Jewish press published in Russia, all of which have been
rigorously censored.
4. Protests and manifestoes of non-Jewish organiza-
tions, parties and leaders against the anti-Jewish policy of the
government. These protests have been made publicly and
have passed unchallenged by the Russian Government.
In brief, the present report is based exclusively upon evidence
furnished by the Russian government itself, officially in ita own
press, or countenanced by reason of the revision applied, through
its military and civil censorship, to the opposition press, or in public
speeches and declarations that have passed the government benches
in the imperial legislative chambers unchallenged.
RUSSIA
INTRODUCTION
Russia acquired the great bulk of her Jewish popula-
tion through the partitions of Poland, from 1773 to 1795.
Strongly medieval in outlook and organization as Russia
was at that time, she treated the Jews with the exceptional
harshness which the medieval principle and policy
sanctioned and required. By confining them to those
provinces where they happened to live at the time of the
partitions, she created a Ghetto greater than any known
to the Middle Ages; and by imposing restrictions upon
the right to live and travel even within this Ghetto, she
has virtually converted it into a penal settlement, where
six million human beings guilty only of adherence to
the Jewish faith are compelled to live out their lives
in squalor and misery, hi constant terror of massacre,
subject to the caprice of police officials and a corrupt ad-
ministration— hi short, without legal right or social status.
Only twice within the last century have efforts been
made to improve the condition of the Jews in Russia; and
each interval of relief was followed by a period of greater
and more cruel repression. The first was during the reign
of Alexander II; but his assassination in 1881 resulted
hi the complete domination of Russia by the elements
of reaction, which immediately renewed the persecution
policy. The "May laws" of Ignatieff (1882) which
enmesh the Jews to this day, were the immediate product
of this regime. The second period, a concomitant of
the abortive revolution of 1904-5, was followed by a
"pogrom policy" of unprecedented severity which
lasted until the outbreak of the present war.
19
20 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT
At the beginning of the war the number of Jews in
the Russian Empire was estimated at six million or more,
comprising fully half of the total Jewish population of
the world. Ninety-five per cent, of these six million
people were confined by law to a limited area of Russia,
known as the Pale of Settlement, consisting of the fifteen
Governments of Western and Southwestern Russia, and
the ten Governments of Poland, much of which territory
is now under the German occupation. In reality, how-
ever, residence within the Pale was further restricted
to such an extent that territorially the Jews were per-
mitted to live in only one two-thousandth part of the
Russian Empire.* No Jew was permitted to step outside
this Pale unless he belonged to one of a few privileged
classes. Some half-privileged Jews might, with effort,
obtain special passports for a limited period of residence
beyond the Pale; but the great majority could not even
secure this privilege for any period whatsoever. A tre-
mendous mass of special, restrictive legislation converted
the Pale into a kind of prison with six million inmates,
guarded by an army of corrupt and brutal jailers.
The Recent "Abolition" of the Pale
In August, 1915, the Council of Ministers issued
a decree permitting the Jews of the area affected by the
war to move into the interior of Russia. This act has
been supposed in some quarters to constitute the virtual
abolition of the Pale, this interpretation being chiefly
attributable to the extensive publicity given the measure
by the Russian government; but the evidence, official
and otherwise, clearly indicates that far from being a
* "Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia"; edited by Lucien Wolf. London.
T. Fisher Unwin. 1912.
THE "ABOLITION" OF THE PALE 21
generous act of a liberal Government toward an oppressed
people, it is in reality only a temporary expedient, dictated
mainly by military necessity and partly by the need of
a foreign loan; it is evident that it was granted grudg-
ingly, with galling limitations which served to emphasize
the servile state of the Jews; that it is in practice ignored
or evaded at the convenience of the local authorities;
and that it has been utilized, if not designed, to mislead
the public opinion of the world.
Evidence in support of this view will now be considered:
1. It is a temporary measure dictated by military
necessity. It does not remove any of the disabilities
to which the Jews in Russia are legally subject.
This is admitted officially in the Minute of the Council
of Ministers for August 4 (17), 1915, at which session
the abolition decree was promulgated. This Minute
reads as follows:
"It has been observed, of late, in connection with
the military situation, that Jews are migrating en masse
from the theatre of war and are gathering in certain
interior governments of the Empire. This is ex-
plained, on the one hand, by the endeavor, on the
part of the Jewish population, to depart in good
time from the localities threatened by the enemy,
and, on the other hand, by the order, issued by our
military authorities, to clear certain localities in the
line of the enemy's advance. The further concen-
tration of these refugees, whose number has been
growing ever greater, in the limited area now avail-
able to them, is causing unrest among the local native
population and may lead to alarming consequences
in the form of wholesale disorders. This excessive
accumulation of Jewish refugees also impedes the
22 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Government seriously in its efforts to provide food,
work and medical attention for them. Under these
circumstances, deeming it urgently necessary to take
prompt measures to avert undesirable possibilities,
the Acting Minister of the Interior has made a repre-
sentation with respect to this matter before the
Council of Ministers.
"Taking up this immediate subject for deliberation
and without touching upon the question of the general
revision of laws now in force concerning Jews, the
Council of Ministers has found that the most advisable
way out of the situation created would be to grant
the Jews the right of residence in cities and towns
beyond the Pale of Settlement. This privilege, es-
tablished because of the exigencies of the military
situation, must not, however, affect the capital cities,*
and the localities under the jurisdiction of the Minis-
tries of the Imperial Court and the Minister of War."
The appalling facts back of this dry official statement
were already known to all Russia. Hundreds of thousands
of Jews had been expelled from their homes overnight
by act of the military authorities. At a previous session
of the Council of Ministers, Prince Shcherbatoff, him-
self a Conservative, had presented the terrible con-
dition of these refugees. He pointed out that they
were perforce driven into forbidden territory, that it
was difficult to direct them anywhere, each one naturally
seeking some place where he had friends or relatives
in the hope of finding some means of livelihood, and
that because of the residence restrictions they found
themselves outlaws against their will, and poured in
petitions and telegrams in tremendous numbers, begging
* Petrograd and Moscow. — Ed.
THE "ABOLITION" OF THE PALE 2J
for official permission to reside legally in their new homes.
These people, he pointed out, cannot be turned away
from places beyond the Pale, because they cannot pos-
sibly go back to their old homes.*
As was shown by Duma Deputy Skobelev, "the
question of the Pale was brought up in the Council of
Ministers only when the wave of Jewish refugees had
already swept away this medieval dam!"t Another
deputy, an Octobrist, Rostovtzev, declared in the Duma:
"What Pale is this you are speaking of? There is
no Pale; Kaiser Wilhelm has abolished it!"
If any further evidence were needed to demonstrate
that the abolition decree was not a voluntary act of
emancipation but was forced upon the government by
conditions beyond its control, the inspired editorial in
the semi-official government organ, the "Novoe Vremya,"
of August 9 (22), 1915, supplies this evidence. It declares
flatly that the reception of the measure by the general
press as "the first rays of a new dawn" is entirely un-
warranted; that the question of removing all Jewish
disabilities was never discussed; it is not particularly
important anyway; it was not even worked out for
presentation to the Duma.* Certain conditions, created
by a state of affairs already existing, had made it neces-
sary to modify some of the regulations with respect to
the Pale. That is all. No permanent statute will be
enacted.
2. The decree was issued in the hope of facilitating
a foreign loan.
* Petrograd "Hatch." Aug. 8 (21). 1915.
t Petrograd "Retch." Aug. 14 (27). 1915.
JThis has reference to that section of the "Constitution" of 1905, whick
empower! the government to issue ministerial decrees while the Duma is not in
session, but requires it to introduce corresponding legislation in the Duma within
six month* after the """j^nal decree has been published.
24 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Count A. Bobrinski, a Conservative member of the
Imperial Council, declared, in a statement to the editor
of the "Dehn":*
"The conservative members of the Imperial Council raised no
objection whatsoever against the recent Government measure
granting permission to the Jews to reside outside of the Pale. I
believe that we shall have to become accustomed to the idea of
seeing the Jews dwell in all parts of Russia after this war is over.
There can be no return to the old conditions.
"The necessities of the war must lead us also to sanction future
concessions toward the Jews whenever the need thereof will be
recognized by the Government in order to be able to place a
Government loan in America."
The attitude of "Kolokol," the organ of the Holy
Synod, reflects this with perfect frankness:
"Power has gradually passed from the mailed knights, from
heroes of the battlefield to the counting house, because in gold
there is more power than in fearless argonauts. If Germany excels
us in armament and was better prepared in every other way it is
because her nation is older than ours, older in its culture by several
hundred years. Herein lies our weakness. But the Jews are the oldest
people on earth. Their cult is the cult of gold and of brains. It
does not matter that they have forgotten their glorious epoch of
military heroism, have forgotten how they defended their Jeru-
salem. It does not matter that they are no longer accustomed
to bear arms and to decide with the sword their differences and
quarrels. This people has learned to draw to itself the gold of the
world. It is like a sponge. ... It has learned caution and
foresight and is organized into a powerful international force.
Under the conditions of the present war the Jews are a power not
to reckon with which is to be politically blind. Would it not be
advantageous to Russia to throw into its scales these nuggets of
gold, these billions of the international bankers? . . ."f
The naivete" of these statements is ridiculed by the
liberal press, led by the Petrograd " Retch," with the
* "Reform Advocate," Nov. 13, 1915. (Tr. from the French),
t Quoted from "Retch," Aug. 9 (22), 1915.
THE "ABOLITION" OF THE PALE 25
comment that "It is difficult for the anti-Semites of yes-
terday to pour new wine into old flasks. The scare-
crows of 'Jewish freemasonry/ the 'universal Kehillah' and
other myths still terrify the editors of 'Kolokol'; but
instead of screaming: 'The Jews are strong; crush
them!' the cry now is 'The Jews are strong; yield to
them!' It does not seem to occur to these new converts
that the Jewish question is merely one of elementary
civic decency."*
The significance of this will be appreciated when it
is recalled that the liberal press reflects the ideals of
the Russian masses just as "Kolokol" reflects the hopes
and fears of the Russian government.
3. The measure was granted grudgingly, with
galling limitations which emphasize the humiliating po-
sition of the Jews.
The Jews are even under the provisions of the new de-
cree still debarred from all villages, from the two capitals
Petrograd and Moscow, from the vicinities where royal
residences happen to be located and from the districts
of the Don and Turkestan which happen to be under
the jurisdiction of the ministry of war. These restric-
tions were denounced as senseless by all the liberal
elements of the Empire. "Russkoe Slovo," August 13
(26), 1915, declares:
"Hereafter a Jew may live in Kaluga, but is excluded from
Tashkent; in Yekaterinodar he may not live; in Nizhni he may.
It is very hard to find any sense in such distinctions, even from the
point of view of the Black Hundreds. If you should a&k Markov
2d [the leader of the Black Hundreds^ — Tr.] into what cities we
ought to admit Jews — whether into Nizhni, or into Tashkent,
he would answer at first, of course, that we ought not to admit
them into either; but confronted with 'dire necessity' he would
•"Hatch." Au«. 9 (22), 1915.
26 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
hardly give preference to Tashkent, already full of alien
nationalities.
"And yet to whom, except Markov 2d and his kind, would all
these exceptions and limitations give any aid or comfort? Sup-
pose we do allow the Jews perfect freedom of travel within the
country; suppose we do find villages where so much aa a whole
Jew — and not a fractional Jew — exists statistically per hundred
of peasant population; suppose we do find a Jewish tailor, a black-
smith or a merchant in a Russian village — would that be such
a calamity?"
4. In practice the act is often ignored or evaded
by local officials.
The Governor of Smolensk has continued to expel
Jews entering his province, entirely regardless of the
law. The government of Kiev even refused to permit
the publication of the ministerial decree until the middle
of September, some six weeks after its official promulga-
tion, and has consistently ignored it since. In prac-
tically all the other governments of the Empire the
administration of the act is entirely dependent upon
the whims of the local governors. Late advices bring
reports of the expulsions of Jews from the Caucasus,
Tomsk, Vladivostok, Siberia, and many other cities and
provinces in which, under the terms of the abolition
decree, Jews are permitted to reside.*
In many places the local authorities have even taken
advantage of the new decree to deprive the Jews of
rights possessed by them under older statutes. In
Saratov, for example, a small number of Jewish mer-
chants, professional men and artisans have been permitted
to live and engage in gainful occupations since 1893,
under the terms of a special Ukase issued in that year,
although the city, being outside the Pale, is closed to
Jews in general. The regulations, however, required
•"Evreyskaya Zhizn," Oct. 25 (Nov. 7), 1915, Nov. 8 (21). 1915. etc.
'THE "ABOLITION" OF THE PALE 27
that the Jews obtain special passports from the police
department certifying to their right of residence in
Saratov, and special permits from the local license boards,
based upon the police certificates, authorizing them to
engage in their several occupations. But now that the
Pale has been "abolished" the police officials have dis-
continued the issuing of special certificates, claiming
that since all Jews have been granted the right of resi-
dence throughout the Empire the need for issuing such
certificates to individual Jews no longer exists. Yet the
license boards persist in their demand for such certifi-
cates from the Jews and have, to date, absolutely refused
to grant them the necessary licenses without which they
cannot continue in their occupations. In other words,
the Jews of Saratov now have the legal right to live
in that city, but are denied the legal right to secure the
wherewithal to live.*
5. The promulgation of the abolition act, designed
to mislead the public opinion, and thereby to win the
sympathy, of the civilized world, has not misled the
people of Russia.
This is clearly indicated by the typical expressions
of editorial opinion which follow; and at this point it
may be well to remind the American reader again that
in Russia, more than in any other country, the press
must weigh its words carefully, since editorial missteps
have serious consequences.
The "Russkoe Slovo," August 13 (26), 1915, condemns
the measure as a half-way measure, as a substitution of
one Pale for another, "even though it be granted that the
new Pale is larger than the old." It demands the full
abolition of the Pale— "that greatest misfortune of
Russian life."
* "Evreyskaya Zhim." Nov. 8 (21), 1915.
28 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
''Unfortunately," it continues, "we tend to repeat our mistakes
only too often. When we do 'submit' to the demands of life we
do so either too late or with such indecision and so grudgingly that
in the end, instead of evoking real satisfaction, we not infrequently
evoke a feeling of misunderstanding or produce an effect which
is the very opposite of the one intended. Yet an act can be valid
and precious and achieve its highest aim only when it is done in
good time, cheerfully, frankly, straightforwardly and with decision —
as befits a government that is strong and sure of itself."
The Petrograd "Retch," the great liberal daily, August
20 (September 2), 1915, points out that the measure is
merely tentative and must be legalized by statutory
enactment within six months. It hopes that this enact-
ment will not preserve the absurd limitations of the
original decree.
"If it has at last been recognized as expedient to remove that
shameful blot, the Pale, we ought to leave not even a small speck
of it. From a moral point of view, — and even an empire must have
a point of view — it matters little whether a man is held by a long
chain or a short one. There should be no chains at all. . . ."
This is echoed by the Petrograd "Courier":
"If there is only one corner of Russia left to which Jews may
not be admitted, the Pale still remains, no matter what arguments
may be used, and no matter what promises of future 'privileges'
may be made. A principle cannot be measured quantitatively.
The step taken so far is merely a beginning, and life demands that
it should be completed. Besides the 'right to live' there are other
rights derived from it: — the right to attend school, to do business,
to own property, to choose one's occupation freely."*
Even the extreme reactionary organ, "Kolokol,"
which has hitherto been most insistent in its demand
that "True Russians" be protected from Jewish competi-
tion by the confinement of Jews to the Pale, now declares:
"Abolish the Pale entirely. Even now it is, in fact, nothing
but a sieve. All of real ability in Jewry, every Jewish faculty
* Quoted from "Evreyskaya Zhizn," Aug. 23 (Sept. 5), 1915, pp. 10-12.
THE "ABOLITION" OF THE PALE 29
sharpened for the struggle for existence, easily escapes the Pale.
But this constant necessity for circumvention of the law only cor-
rupts the Jews and exasperates them."*
The persons most affected, the six million Jews of
Russia, received the "Emancipation Act" with deep
mistrust. They were chiefly concerned lest the news
of this act should deceive their co-religionists abroad. At a
national conference of Jewish publicists and relief workers
at Petrograd these resolutions were adopted:
"We are unwilling that our brethren in other lands shall gain
a false impression from our attitude toward the abolition measure.
. . . The permission to reside in cities outside of the Pale
in no way remedies the evil, nor does it relieve the pressing needs
of our times, nor does it affect in any way the legal restrictions
in force against Jews. ... In expressing our profound indig-
nation at the humiliation and persecution to which the Jews have
been subjected since the beginning of the war, we declare that
the State can do justice to the Jews and prevent further perse-
cutions only by the total and unconditional repeal of all special
restrictions."
The leading Russian Jewish Weekly, "Evreyskaya
Zhizn," of August 23 (September 5), 1915, declared
editorially:
"If this measure had been passed in July or August of 1914
we would have met it with faith and joy. Then the Jewish people
were ready to appreciate any political measure of relief and looked
upon everything as the beginning of a new era. That new era
came, but, alas! of what a different nature! Periods of accusations
and horrors, of Kovno expulsions and Kuzhif slanders came and
the people grew desperate. This half measure of the Ministers,
in spite of its practical importance, cannot vitalize the Jewish
people, and the main reason lies in the fact that this measure does
not carry with it any new view upon the real subject matter of the
Jewish question. This measure is only a slight relief in the con-
* Quoted from "Retch," Aug. 9 (22), 1915. f See page 48.
30 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
dition of citizens who have no rights and who remain without
rights. . . . The Jews are considered, in the new order, as
citizens of the second class. We remain the same pariahs, from
whom something has to be kept back, to whom the villages must
be closed with fear, and to whom the chosen centers must be closed
with a feeling of loathing. . . . The element of distinction
between Jews and other citizens remains and is even more empha-
sized. The principle of equality of rights for Jews has not been
realized and without it no material benefits promised by the new
act will find their way to the soul of the people. Only acknowledg-
ment of the right of Jews to all rights of Russian citizenship will
melt the ice of that cold disappointment which has seized all Russian
Jews."
Finally, the eminent Jewish historian, Simeon Dubnov,
in an impassioned article in "Evreyskaya Nedelya"
(September, 1915), denounced the hypocrisy of the
government and demanded the immediate abolition of
all Jewish restrictions:
"It is fully a year since the terrified faces of the 'prisoners'
appeared through the bars of that gigantic prison known as 'the
Jewish Pale.' Part of the prison was already enveloped in the
flames of war, and the entire structure was threatened. The
prisoners, in deathly terror, clamored that the doors be thrown
open. They were driven from one part of the prison to another
part that seemed in less danger, but the prison doors remained shut.
The warden's answer to their prayer was that it was impossible
to 'release them,' even in war time, because later it would be difficult
to 'recapture' them!
"Ultimately the keepers were compelled to open the doors
slightly and to let out a part of the dazed and half-asphyxiated
inmates; but even then they were quarantined within three govern-
ments, which were immediately congested with refugees; and only
now, when the largest section of the Pale, with a Jewish population
of two million, has become foreign country — only now are the gates
of the overcrowded prison thrown wide open and the prisoners
cautiously permitted to leave. . . .
"Should our further emancipation proceed at the same pace,
we shall attain full freedom only after our complete annihilation.
. . . The sop is thrown to us under conditions internal and
OTHER JEWISH DISABILITIES 31
external which sharply emphasize its enforced character. This
measure is not one of restoration; rather is it like a rag thrown
to the victim after his last shirt has been taken from him. This
belated, partial, privilege must remind the Jew that of all national-
ities in Russia — not excepting the semi-savage tribes — he alone
needed suc.h a favor.
"At this time of profound mourning, upon the graves of thou-
sands of our brothers who have fallen victims not only to the sword
of the enemy, but because of outrage within our own borders, amidst
the ruins of our cities, our weary hearts cannot rejoice over the
beggarly dole tossed out to us. In silence shall our people accept
the miserly gift from those from whom it is accustomed to receive
only blows; but, as ever, it will demand aloud that those rights of
which it has been deprived should be restored to it."
It is apparent, therefore, that the legal status of the
Jews in Russia has remained substantially unchanged
by the war.
The restrictions normally imposed upon the Jews of
Russia (with the exception of certain specially designated
— and numerically negligible — fractions) subject them
to the following principal disabilities:
1. Other Residence Restrictions
(a) WITHIN THE PALE. Although originally granted
the right to live anywhere within the Pale, the privilege
was gradually restricted until the Jews were, in effect,
confined to the cities and larger towns. By the law of
May 3 (15), 1882, the Jews were forbidden to settle in
the villages of the Pale. By the law of December 29,
1887 (January 10, 1888), they were forbidden to move
from one town to another. By judicial and adminis-
trative interpretation "towns" were often designated
as villages and the Jews expelled from them overnight.
The net result has been the congestion of the Jewish
32 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
population in the cities and larger towns. Although they
constitute only 12 per cent, of the total population of the
Pale, they form 41 per cent, of the urban population.
As this congestion tended to create a ferocity in com-
petition which reduced incomes and standards to the
lowest limits, many Jews of necessity attempted to
escape into the interior of Russia. But their illegal
stay was possible only with the connivance of a corrupt
police. Even then the numerous police raids at mid-
night or early dawn (oblavy — literally "hunts"), accom-
panied by an excess of brutality, made the life of these
illegal residents one of fear and torment.
(b) OUTSIDE THE PALE. The privileged five per
cent, that was granted the theoretical right of free travel
and residence throughout the Empire, was also con-
tinually harassed by arbitrary police and judical meas-
ures which practically nullified their privilege. This
class comprises:
Artisans, permitted free residence by the law of 1865;
but constant restrictions and new interpretations of the
term have reduced the number of Jews enjoying this
status to a bare fraction of the Jewish population.
Merchants of the First Guild, allowed to leave the
Pale after five years' membership in their guild, and on
condition of the payment of an annual tax of 800 roubles
($400) for ten years, after removal from the Pale. Nu-
merically insignificant to begin with, this class was
further reduced by police blackmail until it became
almost negligible.
Jewish graduates of Russian institutions of higher
education. The operation of the "percentage" rule, how-
ever, reduces these to a minimum. (See pp. 33-34.)
Prostitutes. Jewish women who have become pros-
titutes are permitted to live outside the Pale.
OTHER JEWISH DISABILITIES 33
2. Occupational Restrictions
The public service of the Empire, or of any of its
political subdivisions, is practically closed to Jews.
Jews may not be teachers (except in Jewish schools),
or, as a rule, farmers. These artificial restrictions operate
to drive the Jews into the occupations permitted to
them, chiefly trade and commerce, thus overcrowding
the ranks of tradesmen and artisans.
3. Property Restrictions
Jews may not buy or sell, rent, lease or even manage
land or real estate outside the Pale or outside of the
city limits within the Pale. The artisans privileged
to practise their handicraft outside the Pale may under
no circumstances own their homes. The ownership,
direct or indirect, of property in mines or oil fields is
also forbidden to Jews.
4. Fiscal Burdens
The Jews pay, in addition to the normal taxes, a candle
tax, designed for the support of Jewish schools, and a
meat tax, originally destined for Jewish religious purposes;
but in practice these funds are diverted to general, non-
Jewish, purposes, and even used, in part, for the enforce-
ment of police measures against the Jews.
5. Educational Restrictions
Jews are not admitted to the secondary or higher
educational institutions and universities, except in pro-
portions varying from 3 to 15 per cent, of the entire
number of non-Jewish pupils. (For high schools: 10
34 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
per cent, within the Pale and 5 per cent, outside the
Pale, except in the two capitals St. Petersburg and
Moscow, where it is only 3 per cent.; and for univer-
sities all over the Empire, about 3 per cent.)
A ministerial decree issued in August, 1915, permits
the children of all Jews actively connected with the war
to enter any educational institution in the country
regardless of the percentage norm ; but hi practice this
decree, like the decree abolishing the Pale, is entirely
subject to interpretation and modification by the local
authorities, who have, so far, virtually ignored it.
The result of the percentage norm applied to the
admission of Jews to secondary schools and universities
is that in the towns to which the Jews are restricted by
the domiciliary regulations and where they constitute
in many cases a very large proportion of the population,
the great majority of the Jewish youth are denied the
means of a higher education. In Warsaw, the Jews
constitute 36.30 per cent, of the population; in Lodz,
47.59 per cent.; in Lomza, 39.42 per cent.; in Kovno,
54.60 per cent.; in Vilna, 40 per cent.; In Grodno,
52.45 per cent.; in Bialostock, 65.62 per cent.; in
Brest Litovsk, 78.81 per cent.; hi Pinsk, 80. 10 per cent.;
in Berditcheff, 87.52 per cent., etc., yet in all these
towns only the stipulated percentage of Jewish students
may be admitted.
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 Mer-
chants' Guilds, admit Jews only hi proportion to the
Jewish membership of the Guilds.
The Government also restricts the establishment of
higher schools under Jewish auspices. In 1884, it closed
OTHER JEWISH DISABILITIES 36
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 dis-
proportion. 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 them-
selves in order to attend foreign universities.
6. Military Service
The Jews constitute only 4.05 per cent, of the popu-
lation 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 mar-
riage of the person accused, is held responsible therefor.
The results of these repressions and persecutions
are known. Politically outlawed, socially and econom-
ically degraded, the Jewish population imprisoned in the
36 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 approxi-
mates 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 im-
provement 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
JEWISH LOYALTY AND VALOR 37
community of Vilna, the oldest in Russia, at the very
heart of the Pale, issued in connection with the estab-
lishment 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, be-
ginning 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 dis-
tinction 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,"*
one of the leading Jewish organs in Russia, issued this call :
* September 24 (Oct. 7). 1914.
38 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
"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 fore-
fathers, 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 Petro-
grad 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 uni-
versities 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
POLES AND JEWS 39
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."*
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." f
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
* Friedlacnder. "The Jew* of Russia and Poland." p. 38.
d.. p. 67.
40
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 de-
vice 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 con-
stitute nearly half of the population. It happened,
however, that in the city of Lodz they unexpectedly
elected one Jewish deputy, Bomash. The Jews, there-
fore, 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, affect"
ing, 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.
THE WAR IN POLAND 41
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 ques-
tion 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." *
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 dis-
membered 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, Ger-
man, Austrian and Jew against each other. It was
indeed to the interest of both Russia and Austria to
* "Ruviet," December 5 (18), 1914, p. 12.
42 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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.*
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, f
* George Brandes in "Politiken," Nov., 1914.
t "Russkaya Viedomosti," Oct. 2 (15), 1914, p. 20. "No*y Voekhod," Oct. 2
(15), m4, p. 21.
THE WAR IN POLAND 43
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 investi-
gation.*
At Mariampol, near the East Prussia frontier, because
of a similar accusation, the entire Jewish male popula-
tion, with their Rabbi, Krovchinski, at their head, were
compelled to work the roads for three days — September
22-24 (October 6-7), 1914 (the first two of these days
falling on the Sukkoth holiday. )f
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.*
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. J
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. §
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 ab-
surdity was demonstrated on numerous occasions before
* "Novy Voekhod," Sept. 22 (Oct. 8). 1914. p. 20.
t "Ra»viet," Deo. 5 (18), 1914. p. 18.
§ "Politiken." Nov. 1, 1914.
t "RaBviet," M*roh 29 (April 11), 1914. p. 20.
44 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 demon-
strated 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 Ger-
mans 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
THE CASE OF NOVE-MIASTO 45
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 con-
sideration. All of the accused were therefore acquitted.*
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
* "Raaviet," April 12 (25). 1915. pp. 18-19; " Novy Vodshod." April 10 (23)
1915. pp. 29-30.
46 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 regen-
eration. 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 com-
pelled 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
ANTI-SEMITISM IN POLAND 47
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 guar-
antee the rights of the Jewish minority as well. . . ."*
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, f
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, vindictive-
ness, 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."!
* "RaBviet," Jan. 25 (Feb. 7). 1915, p. 27.
t "Rasviet," Feb. 1 (14). 1915, p. 39.
t "RMYirt." Apr. 20 (May 9). 1915, p. 24.
48 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
The Kuzhi Case
But the Russian military authorities, seeking a scape-
goat for their own failures, eagerly seized upon the
Polish stories, and gave them official standing and
wide circulation. The notorious Kuzhi incident illus-
trates 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 govern-
ment, the "Pravitelstvenny Viestnik," May 6 (19), 1915,
and elsewhere, ran as follows:
"On the night of April 28th, in Kuzhi, northwest of Shavli,
the Germans attacked a detachment of one of our infantry regi-
ments resting there. This disclosed the shockingly treacherous
conduct of a part of the population — especially the Jewish part —
towards our troops. The Jews had concealed German soldiers
in their cellars before our troops arrived, and at a signal they set
fire to Kuzhi on all sides. The Germans, leaping out of the cellars,
rushed to the house which our regimental commander was occupy-
ing. At the same time two of the battalions, supported by cavalry,
attacked our outposts and captured the village. The house in
which the commander had his headquarters soon fell in. Colonel
Vavilov ordered that the regimental colors be burned, and. re-
fusing to surrender to the Germans, was killed. Our reinforce-
ments then arrived, drove the Germans out of Kuzhi at the point
of the bayonet, and saved the remnants of the burning standard.
All the local inhabitants who had taken part in this terrible affair
were brought before a court-martial and the ringleaders will be
sent to Siberia. This sad incident again demonstrates the need
of keeping constant guard, particularly over all those Jewish towns
which have at any time been held by the enemy."
This story, in all its circumstantial details, was spread
broadcast throughout the Empire, in all the official and
semi-official organs of the government, on the bulletin
boards, wherever the Russian populace congregates.
By military order it was brought to the attention of every
SPY STORIES 49
man in the army, down to the last private. Country
editors were ordered to reprint the story under threat
of prosecution. Not a hamlet in all Russia but shuddered
at the monstrous treachery of the Jews. In Tashkent the
clergy offered a prayer in the Cathedral, petitioning God
to deliver the Russian army from the machinations of
Jewish traitors. Even the Liberals, usually sympathetic
toward the Jews, were silent, as no defense was possible
in so black a case.
Then it occurred to someone to make an investi-
gation. Three deputies of the Duma went to the spot
in person and discovered that in the entire village of
Kuzhi there were only six Jewish families — all but one
living in miserable huts without cellar space; that the
one cellar in a Jewish house was only nine by seven and
too low for a man to stand upright in; that it could not
possibly hide enough German soldiers to attack, much
less annihilate, a Russian detachment; that the few
Jews of the town had left it, with the permission of the
military authorities, on April 27th, the day before the
town had been attacked by the Germans, and were
known to have spent the night of April 27-28 at another
village, Minstok; and, finally, that no Jews had been
tried, convicted or executed at Kuzhi; in brief, that the
story was, from beginning to end, an absolute fabrication.
This Kuzhi story was branded as a lie by the Jewish
Deputy Friedman in the Duma on July 19 (August 1),
1915. He was supported by the non-Jewish Deputy
Kerensky, who denounced the fabrication in these words:
"I declare now from this rostrum that I personally went to
the town of Kuzhi to verify the accusation that the Jewish popula-
tion of Kuzhi had committed a treacherous assault on the Russian
army, and I feel it my duty to reiterate that this is but an igno-
minious slander. There was no such case, and under local con-
ditions there could be none."
50 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
But the refutation of the lie was not spread through-
out Russia. It has been consistently suppressed by the
military censor, and to this day the great majority of the
Russian people, hi the absence of disproof, fully believe
the story.
The Shavli Case
Another spy story widely circulated in the anti-
Semitic press was that the Jews of Shavli had been
expelled from Kurland because they were detected
in the act of leading the German troops on to Shavli.
This also was printed in all the military and semi-official
newspapers of Russia and from there reprinted in the
general press. The newspaper "Dehn" pointed out
the absurdity of this and similar charges:*
"Accepting the story as it stands, without demanding the
names of the Jews found guilty, or any other details, let us simply
examine the map. Shavli is not in Kurland at all. It is in the
province of Kovno, and is 50 versts from the nearest point in Kur-
land, and more than 50 versts from the nearest point inhabitated
by Jews. The Germans, we know, moved to Shavli, not through
Kurland, but from the opposite direction. The charge, if true,
would therefore mean that the Jews of Kurland went 100 versts
out of their way in an entirely strange territory in order to commit
treason by communicating with Germans. This is obvious non-
sense. Nor is it less obvious that this fiction has been manu-
factured out of whole cloth. And this is how it was manufactured:
Reports reached the newspapers that the Jews of Kurland were
being expelled. The anti-Semitic papers at once argued that if
the Jews were being expelled they must have committed some
treason, and since the line of the German advance was known to
be in the general direction of Shavli, and since these people werfe
too lazy to consult the map, they promptly decided that the expulsion
must have been due to the fact that the Jews of Kurland had guided
the Germans to Shavli."
And so this preposterous story was started on its way.
* Quoted from "Retch." May 10 (23). 1915.
SPY STORIES 51
Other Spy Stories
No story was too absurd to be given credibility and
systematic circulation. It was reported, and seriously
believed, that at a place unnamed and a time unknown
some Jew had enclosed a million and half roubles in a
coffin and shipped the coffin to Germany. The chief
Rabbi and the Jewish community of Warsaw telegraphed
to the "Novoe Vremya" and several other leading papers,
protesting against this monstrous slander against the
Jews at a time when their sons were shedding their blood
freely on the battlefields. The "Novoe Vremya" de-
clined to publish the telegram.*
The Jewish community of Petrograd appealed to the
Grand Duke Nicholas, then Commander-in-Chief of the
Russian armies, in these words:
"The entire Jewish people would cast out,
with scorn and indignation, those base criminals
who, forgetting duty and conscience, would, in
this year of universal sacrifice, break their sacred
vows of loyalty to the fatherland. Such treachery
is alien to our faith and was never known to
exist among Jews to any greater extent than among
other peoples. And never yet, in the course of
the centuries, no matter to what persecutions the
Jews, under the influence of prejudice created
by their devotion to their ancient faith and customs,
may have been subjected, has any government
denounced ALL of its subjects as traitors to their
country. This is the first time in all history that
such an attitude has been assumed by any govern-
ment toward the Jews. At the very time that our
sons are fighting in the ranks of the Russian
* "Nory Votkhod." Au«. 28 (Sept. 10). 1914. p. 22.
52 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
army for the honor and glory of Russia, we, their
fathers, are held responsible for the acts of a few
criminals and are being persecuted for their
vile deeds, aimed at the betrayal of our own
sons. Never has any man or any people been
subjected to torment greater than this, to humil-
iation less bearable or more offensive to honor
or self respect. . . . Your Imperial Highness !
In this sad hour of trial we long to implant in our
people faith in a brighter future, we long to pre-
serve that tie of loyalty towards our common
country which is so essential for the welfare of
all the peoples inhabiting Russia, and which was
demonstrated so powerfully when the insolent
enemy first threw down the gauntlet to Russia.
We do not wish to admit discord, despair and
sorrow where should reign only unity, harmony,
hope. And we dare to appeal to your Imperial
Highness in the hope that measures insulting to
us will cease to be applied, that the stamp of out-
cast be removed from our faces and that we may
be permitted, as loyal sons of our country, freed
from all suspicion, to use our whole strength in
the struggle with the common enemy."
No reply was received to this appeal; on the contrary,
the policy of fastening upon the Jews all the blame
for Russian defeats was carried out consistently by the
military machine. The "Russki Invalid," the official
journal of the War Department, in the spring of 1915,
definitely accused the Jews of disloyalty to the State
and of sympathy for Germany, and openly attributed
Russian disaster to this cause.*
* "Novy Voskhod," April 24 (May 7), 1915.
SPY STORIES 53
Military orders like the following were common:
ORDER No. 89.
ISSUED TO THE SOLDIERS OP THE FORTIFIED REGION, FORTRESS
NOVOGEOKGIEVSK, Nov. 27, 1914.
"The German newspapers print articles de-
claring that among the Russian Jews the Germans
find reliable allies who, besides supplying them
with food, are often the best and unpaid spies,
ready to enter any service injurious to the cause
of Russia, and that hi German victory the Jews
see their salvation from Imperial oppression and
Polish persecution. Similar information continues
to come in from the army.
In order to protect the army from the harm-
ful activities of the Jewish population, the Com-
mander-in-Chief has ordered that the forces of
occupation take hostages from among the Jewish
population, warning the inhabitants that in case
of treacherous activities on the part of any one
of the local inhabitants not only during the period of
our occupation of a given, inhabited point, but also
after our leaving it, the hostages will be executed,
which order is to be carried out in case of necessity.
Upon occupation of inhabited points, careful
searches are to be made to find out whether there
are any arrangements for wireless telegraphy, sig-
naling, pigeon stations, underground telegraphs,
and so forth, and the full penalty of the law is to
be meted out to anyone connected with this.
Reference: Telegram by General Oranovsky of
this year under No. 3432. Signed, Chief of the
Fortified Region.
General of the Cavalry, BOBYB."
54 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
This order was issued from the press at six o'clock
in the evening, December 2, 1914, and immediately
proved profitable to the dregs of the Russian soldiery,
as was demonstrated at a court martial held in Lomza,
where it was proven that three members of a signal
corps had "planted" a telephone in the motion picture
theater of a Jew named Eisenbiegel, and had then ar-
rested him and demanded 5,000 roubles blackmail.
In the course of the trial it developed that one of the men
was responsible for the hanging of no less than seventeen
innocent Jews as spies solely because they were unable
or unwilling to pay the blackmail demanded by him.*
Even the loyalty of Jewish soldiers was officially
questioned. Order No. 1193 of the General Staff, dated
April 27-May 10, 1915, commands all the troops "To
watch the Jewish soldiers — especially their readiness to
surrender as prisoners — and in general, their entire
conduct."
But the publication and circulation of orders like
these reacted disastrously upon the Russian arms. By
branding the entire Jewish population as traitorous
the military authorities encouraged the Poles to fabricate
new slanders, the spread of which only served to heighten
the distrust of the populations and to make the fighting
area of Poland a quagmire for the Russian armies. The
troops did not know whom to trust or distrust. Instead
of fighting on friendly ground, welcomed and supported
by the moral and economic resources of the civilian
population, the Russians fought on ground undermined
by hatred, dissension and distrust.
When they began to realize this state of affairs some
of the Russian commanders made desperate efforts to
check the spy mania.
* "Naaha Slovo," June 24, 1915.
SPY STORIES 55
General P. Kurlov issued the following order in the
Baltic provinces on February 25, 1915:
ORDER No. 27
"Of late, more and more anonymous denun-
ciations and reports concerning crimes and actions
closely connected with the peculiar conditions of
war tunes are coming in in the provinces given over
to my supervision. Such reports not only lack
confirmation in most cases, but investigations
prove that they are caused in the majority of
cases not by a patriotic desire to help the military
authorities, but by personal reasons of revenge,
not only not admissible in war time, but also par-
ticularly criminal. By distracting the attention
of officials from then* necessary duties, these re-
ports promote disorder and excitement among the
local population.
"I have asked the various Governors to order
the police officials under their supervision not to
institute any investigations on the basis of anony-
mous denunciations except in extraordinary cases
(Article 300 of the Criminal Code), but to for-
ward these denunciations to me and wait for orders.
"In the case of signed denunciations and re-
ports, the police officials must first of all question
the denunciator, warning him of the consequence
of a false denunciation, and if any signs of crime
should be established in the courses of the exam-
ination, he should be dealt with according to
Articles 250 to 261 of the Criminal Code, or the
Governors should impose penalties in their ad-
ministrative capacity. I order the police officials
56 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
to strictly follow Article 254 of the Code when
making an investigation. Witnesses found to
bear false reports shall be subjected to criminal
prosecution according to Article 940 of the Code.
"In view of the particularly criminal character
of false denunciations in war time, I shall apply
the most rigorous measures to those found guilty
of this offense.
"I have asked the Governors to make this order
public to all."*
SUPPRESSION OF YIDDISH PRESS AND
SPEECH
It appears also that the similarity of the Yiddish and
German languages further laid the Jews open to dis-
trust. The use of Yiddish, in conversation, hi corre-
spondence, over the telephone, in the theatre, etc., was
prohibited by legal, military and civil authorities under
penalty of heavy fine and imprisonment. In Lodz, Vilna,
Riga, Warsaw, and other Jewish centers, the performance
of plays in Yiddish was prohibited and theatres closed.
Letters from foreign countries to Russia, in any
language except Yiddish were generally passed by the
censor after scrutiny, but letters in Yiddish were as a rule
not delivered at all.
In July, 1915, the commander of the Russian forces
issued the following absolute order:
"On the basis of the power entrusted to me according to Para-
graph 6, Article 415, Section 6, I prohibit postal and telegraph
communications within the district occupied by the army entrusted
to me, in the Jewish, German, and Hungarian languages." f
* "Retch," May 8 (21). 1915.
t "Evreyskaya Zhizn," July 19 (Aug. 2), 1915, p. 42.
MILITARY CENSORSHIP 57
By this order the Russian government not only
branded the entire Jewish people as spies and traitors,
but also prevented hundreds of thousands of Jewish
soldiers at the front from communicating with relatives
and friends, because many of the soldiers had been pre-
vented by educational restrictions from learning to read
and write Russian. To the Jewish soldier unable to
read or write was thus denied even that scant comfort
which his Russian comrades might derive from the stereo-
typed communications checked on the regulation postal
card and mailed by field-post.
At the beginning of the war the military censors as-
sumed command of the entire press of Russia. That they
used their power with the utmost unfairness against the
Jewish press was charged without contradiction in the
Duma by Professor Miliukov, Deputies Bomash, Sucha-
nov and others, who pointed out that if the aim of the
censor was to suppress every truth and encourage
every lie against the Jews, they could not possibly have
pursued a more consistent policy. Deputy Bomash
furnished the following concrete instances of perversion
of facts by the censorship.
1. It systematically expunged or mutilated
the names of Jews to whom the cross of St.
George had been awarded.*
* I lore is a list taken at random from an issue of "Raa-
viet," April 5 (18), 1915, p. 34:
For saving a wounded Russian officer, presumably under
fire, private B. M. O., of the village of Strumin, of Mohilef
Government, was rewarded with the cross of St. George,
fourth class.
Private S. Y. R. awarded cross of St. George, fourth
class.
Private A. Kh. L., inhabitant of the village of Saxagan,
of the Government of Ekaterinoslav, was awarded third and
58
2. When the Mayor of Petrograd congrat-
ulated the Jewish community upon the heroic
conduct of a lad of 13, named Kaufman, the cen-
sor suppressed the fact that Kaufman was a Jew,
and that the community referred to was the
Jewish community.
3. Stories in the Russian press of the valor
of Jews in the French armies are either sup-
pressed or the Jewish names cut out.
4. A news item referring to the fact that
General Semenov, whom Jewish soldiers had
saved from capture by the Germans, was treating
Jews kindly was suppressed by the censor.
5. Letters of regimental commanders to the
parents of Jewish hussars congratulating them
on the valor of their sons, or notifying them of
medals of honor bestowed upon them, were sup-
pressed by the censor.
6. The military censorship also suppressed
news of an absolutely non-military nature, whenever
it might in any manner have been construed as
friendly to Jews. Thus, a news item referring to
the non-sectarian activities of the National Relief
Committee, headed by the Princess Tatyana,
daughter of the Czar, was suppressed. A news
fourth grade crosses of St. George, and promoted to be sub-
officer.
For delivering despatches from the Staff to his battalion
under the enemy's strong fire, private B. S. G. was awarded
a medal of St. George and made a corporal.
Severely wounded and now in a hospital at Moscow,
Abr. B. was awarded a silver medal which was handed to him
by Orloff, Adjutant to his Imperial Majesty.
A long list of similar items is published in every issue of
this paper.
MILITARY CENSORSHIP 59
item regarding the disapproval of the Council
of Ministers of the policy of expelling Jews en
masse and of wholesale charges of treachery
was also suppressed.
7. Even the official declaration of Count Bob-
rinski, Military-Governor of Galicia, referring
to the correctness of the conduct of the Jews of
Galicia, was suppressed.
8. But — outrageously false items published in
the notoriously anti-Semitic papers were generally
passed by the censor without hesitation. The
"Novoe Vremya," the "Russkoe Znamya," and
other anti-Semitic organs, systematically published
reports of wholesale Jewish desertions, treachery,
spying, etc.r without at any time producing an
iota of evidence. Thus, "Russkoe Znamya," de-
clared that the loyalty of not a single Jewish
soldier could be depended upon. The "Novoe
Vremya" declared that the Jews were without
exception embittered enemies of the Russian army,
and that during the Japenese war 18,000 out
of 27,000 soldiers voluntarily surrendered as
prisoners to the Japanese. Stories without name,
date or place to the effect that small Polish boys
warned the Russian soldiers to take nothing from
Jews because everything they would furnish was
poisoned were passed by the censor, and made
much of by the press. The notorious Kuzhi
canard was not only passed by the censor and
printed in the official and semi-official press of
Russia, but the censors even hinted to that section
of the press which hesitated to publish a tale so
manifestly absurd that future relations with the
censorship might be imperilled if the story were
60 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
not given proper publicity. Editors received a
continuous stream of circulars forbidding the
touching of questions which had absolutely no
relation to the war.
9. When the great writers and publicists of
Russia decided that it would be desirable, for the
honor of Russia, to speak a good word for the Jews
and thereby indirectly deprecate before the world
the merciless governmental policy, the pamphlet
containing their symposium was suppressed by the
military censor. Even the preliminary letter of
inquiry sent out by these eminent Russians,
soliciting information as to the participation of
Jews in the war, was suppressed. The Jewish
weekly, the "Novy Voskhod," was fined 2,000
roubles and ultimately suppressed because of the
publication of this letter.
In spite of these suspensions, however, the six million
Jews of Russia still continued, in a measure, to inform
themselves as to the conduct of their sons in the field,
and as to matters of Jewish interest in general, through
the half dozen, or more, Jewish newspapers, which man-
aged to struggle on in spite of the repeated fines and sus-
pensions imposed by the censor. But on July 5, 1915,
the entire Jewish press was suppressed. Lately several
papers have been revived in new form, but today the Jews
of Russia are practically in the dark. They have no
effective means of communicating with one another or
with the Russian public. They can neither prevent
the instigation of calumnies nor refute them when
spread abroad. They live in a constant state of terror
lest some new Kuzhi slander set the country aflame
against them.
WHOLESALE EXPULSIONS 91
WHOLESALE EXPULSIONS
This public official distrust of the Jewish population
of Russia increased with the Russian reverses, and the
assumption by the authorities that the loyalty of all
the Jews was open to suspicion gave added impetus to
the spy mania, set the Jews apart as a dangerous people
and delivered them helpless into the hands of the Cossack
soldiery and the hostile Poles. The atrocities com-
mitted upon the Jews in Poland and Galicia have already
been referred to. But a more disastrous, though less
spectacular, consequence of the governmental attitude
towards the Jews was the systematic expulsion of the
entire Jewish population from the war zone, an act
which assumed the character of a merciless war by Russia
upon its own population.
From the very beginning of the war there were in-
dividual cases of Jews, who, being suspected of bad faith,
were ordered to leave a given locality. There were also
sporadic expulsions, or rather a forced exodus, of the
entire civilian population of localities which the authori-
ties desired to clear for military operations. But it was
in March, 1915, that the authorities began systematically
to expel Jews from all the Polish provinces, even those
not occupied by German troops, and from the govern-
ments of Kovno and Kurland, thus affecting about 30
per cent, of the entire Jewish population of the Empire.
Even the Jewish deputy from the Kovno district, Fried-
man, was expelled, in spite of his constitutional privileges
as a member of the Duma.
The first sufferers were the Jewish inhabitants of
the smaller towns, because these were readily segregated.
In a very brief space of time the region where the Jews
constitute over eighty per cent, of the population of the
02
small towns was absolutely denuded of Jewish inhab-
itants.* It was only the rapid invasion of this terri-
tory by the Germans which prevented the complete
expulsion of every one of the two million or more Jews
who inhabited this area. And those who have remained
in this territory for the present have been promised,
by decree of the supreme military authorities of Russia,
immediate expulsion as soon as the Russian troops regain
a foothold here.f
The enforcement of the expulsion orders was carried
out ruthlessly. The time generally allowed was twenty-
four hours, rarely forty-eight hours. The Jewish inhabi-
tants of the governments of Kurland and Kovno were
given from five to twenty-four hours' notice. J
The Jews of the city of Kovno were notified on the
evening of May 3 (16) to leave not later than midnight
of May 5 (18), 1915.
Cruelty of Officials
In a speech delivered in the' Duma the non-Jewish
deputy Dzubinsky declared:
"As a representative of our 5th Siberian division I was myself
on the scene and can testify with what incredible cruelty the expul-
sion of the Jews from the Province of Radom took place. The
whole population was driven out within a few hours during the
night. At 11 o'clock the people were informed that they had to
leave, with a threat that any one found at daybreak would be hanged.
And so in the darkness of the night began the exodus of the Jews
to the nearest town, Ilzha, thirty versts away. Old men, invalids
and paralytics had to be carried on people's arms because there
were no vehicles.
"The police and the gendarmes treat the Jewish refugees
precisely like criminals. At one station, for instance, the Jewish
* "Ziemia Lubelska," April 23 (May 6), 1915.
t "Retch," May 10 (23), 1915.
t "Evreiskaya Nedelya," June 14 (27), 1915.
EXPULSIONS— CRUELTY OF OFFICIALS flS
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 inno-
cent victims; among those who particularly distinguished them-
selves 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 offcially repri-
manded 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."*
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
• "Evreyskay* Zhim." Aug. 9. 1915. p. 19-20.
•4 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 Petro-
grad Central Committee for the Relief of Jewish War
Sufferers, which was participated hi by the most prom-
inent provincial committees, it was calculated that
the total number of homeless Jews ruined by the ex-
pulsion— in Poland and the northwestern district — is
600,000 at the least.* After the Kovno-Kurland ex-
pulsions there collected in the Vilna government alone
some 200,000 exiles, f In Riga there gathered, by May
18 (31), some 9,600 families or 42,000 persons.! Up to
August 6, 1915, there collected in the government of
Volhynia upwards of 250,000 refugees. §
Hostages
There is evidence to indicate that the Russian govern-
ment, overwhelmed by the consequences of the expulsion
policy, has suggested to the military authorities the
* "Hajnt." May 21 (June 3), 1915.
t "Evreyskaya Nedelya," May 31 (June 13). 1915.
t "Evreyskaya Nedelya." June 14 (27). 1915.
} "lUtch." Aug. 6 (19), 1915.
EXPUI^IONS-HOSTAGES i6
advisability of repatriating the exiles; but these au-
thorities 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, to-
gether with all other Jewa, 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 in-
solent 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
06 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 f eeling
which I can testify under oath, on the basis of many conversations
and observations, is universal among us. This permission to re-
turn 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 hi 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, hare assumed
UNFAIR ADMINISTRATION OF RELIEF 67
a system of self-taxation which, added to their normal —
or rather normally excessive — burden of taxation is
practically impoverishing them. The small Jewish com-
munity 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 thej
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 hi 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 popula-
tion in the cities and from ten to fifteen per cent, in the
rural districts.* 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
Mt." January 4 (17\ 1015 :-. 31-2.
et THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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,"* 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 con-
scientiously if administered by Polish hands. The War-
saw Committee is particularly distrusted, and it would
be extremely unpleasant for me to feel that the neces-
saries 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
* July 6 (18), 1915. pp. 30-31.
UNFAIR ADMINISTRATION OF RELIEF 69
September, 1915, its accounts showed that it had dis-
tributed 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 ab-
solutely 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 hi 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 pre-
cludes the shipment of any considerable quantities of
provisions to ameliorate the distress of the starving
Jews of Poland.
THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 adminis-
trative 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
THE PEOPLE VS. THE GOVERNMENT Tl
persons, accused of no crime and illegally im-
prisoned?
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, in-
cluding 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 ex-
haustion 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 Eovno 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 re-
quired 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?
72 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 in-
terpellation 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.*
Professor Miliukov, 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
* Stenographic report of the Proceedings of the Duma.
VOICE OF THE DUMA ?:*
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 mili-
tary 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 govern-
ment, 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 regime 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 publi-
cations 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
74 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 Constitu-
tional Democratic Party — officially voiced its sentiments
on the Jewish question at a national convention of the
Party, held at Petrograd on June 19-21 (0. 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 out-
break of the war, continues:
PROTESTS OF LIBERAL RUSSIA 7S
"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 prej-
udices of the Government and to have cleared
the way for the recognition in Russia, of that
civic equality which is accorded the Jews through-
out the civilized world. But this would have de-
prived 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 noto-
rious 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 es-
pionage, likely to occur among the border popula-
tions 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 col-
lectively 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
7f THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 opposi-
tion 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 dis-
tract 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 govern-
ment— 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."
PROTESTS OF LIBERAL RUSSIA 77
"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 peti-
tioned 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 govern-
ment "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 tuber-
culosis. . . . 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,
78 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
the Emperor, in passing through Lublin, Grodno, and Tiflis, haa
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. . . ."*
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, f
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.J
So also the Congress of Delegates from cities of
Western Siberia petitioned for the abolition of all Jewish
disabilities. §
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 ORGANIZA-
TIONS
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
* "Novy Voskhod." Dec. 30, 1914 (Jan. 12, 1915), p. 22-24.
t "Novy Voskhod," Sept. 4, 1914, p. 15.
j"Novy Voskhod." Aug. 14 (27), 1914, p. 24-25.
5 -Novy Voskhod," April 24 (May 7), 1915, p. 30.
PROTESTS OF LIBERAL RUSSIA TV
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 al-
together 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
80 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 there-
fore 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 con-
vention.*
At a meeting of the Free Economic Society — the
foremost economic organization of Russia — on January
16, 1915, the following resolution was adopted unan-
imously:
"The Commission . . . has taken into account the excep-
tionally 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 excep-
tional time artificially confined to the cities of Poland and the
western provinces by force of existing legal limitations which in-
creases 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
* "Retch," July 28 (Aug. 10), 1915; "Birzhevyia Viedomosti," Aug. 26
(Sept. 8), 1915.
PROTESTS OF LIBERAL RUSSIA 81
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"*
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 govern-
ment 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:
• "RMviet", J«n. 26 (Feb. 7). 1915.
82 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
"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 nation-
alities 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
PROTESTS OF LIBERAL RUSSIA 81
the soil on which he is born. Let us understand that the pros-
perity 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 disappear-
ance of persecutions against the Jews and their complete emanci-
pation will form one of the conditions of a truly constructive
imperial regime."
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 volun-
teered, although not required to do so. The Government
recognized this loyalty hi 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' com-
missions.
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.
84
GALICIA K
The Russian Governor-General, Count Bobrinaki, 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 imme-
diately 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' imprison-
ment.*
The spirit of these documents, communicated to the
troops, produced a series of outrages against the Jewish
population more horrible even than any perpetrated
hi Russia. As each town was invaded by the Russians
the troops first sought the Jewish quarters, and here
they let themselves loose hi an orgy of pillage, sack and
rapine.
In the town of Bohorodczany there appeared, in Jan-
uary, 1915, a detachment of Austro-Polish troops. They
demanded food and quarters and were, of course, sup-
plied. 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
* "Prikarpatskia RUM".
86 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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.*
In Szczerzec, Galicia, the Russian soldiers caught
one Jacob Mischel, a town councillor, poured oil over
him and burned him alive, f
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.!
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 hi Bohemia; 8,000 of these are in Prague.
There were about 52,000 in Budapest. All fugitives who
have settled hi 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
* "Judi*che« Archif," p. 5.
1 "Judieches Archir," p. 6.
J "Judisclieg Archir," p. 10.
GALICIA 8T
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 terri-
tories, 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 begin-
ning 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 locali-
ties 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
89
ft THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
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 hi 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 hi 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 sub-
ordinates 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 dan-
HOUMANIA tl
gerous acts. We know that the law punishes crimes and delin-
quencies 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 punish-
ment 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 anamolous 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
92 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZOfCE
then signed by all the great Powers of Europe, the
following articles were inserted:
XLIII. The High contracting parties recognize the inde-
pendence 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.
"The freedom and outward exercise of all forms of worship
shall be assured to all persons belonging to the Roumanian State,
as well as to foreigners, and no hindrance shall be offered either
to the hierarchical organizations of the different communions, or
to their relations with their spiritual chiefs. The subjects and
citizens of all the Powers, traders or others, shall be treated in
Roumania, without distinction of creed, on a footing of perfect
equality."
Roumania having become an independent nation
upon its recognition by these Powers, and upon the
conditions set forth in the treaty of Berlin, it may be
possible at the conclusion of the war that the viola-
tions of this treaty on the part of the Roumanian Govern-
ment may be considered by the Powers whose honor is
thus flaunted by an open violation of a treaty to which
they solemnly became parties.
PALESTINE
The Jews of Palestine were among the earliest victims
of the war. The greater part of them are dependent,
wholly or in part, upon their co-religionists in Europe
and America. With the outbreak of the war all the
normal channels of communication were temporarily
interrupted. Even had this not occurred the complete
stagnation of trade in Europe would have made it impos-
sible for the Jews, who were themselves in difficulties, to
continue to afford material assistance.
The difficulties of the situation before Turkey became
a belligerent are briefly set forth in the following extracts
from a report, dated October 21, 1914, made by Mr.
Maurice Wertheim, who was entrusted by Ambassador
Morgenthau with the distribution of a fund of $50,000
contributed by American Jews.
The colonists themselves did not stand in actual need of assist-
ance, as they are largely men of certain means and can help them-
selves. Furthermore, they are able to obtain their bank deposits
in the following manner: the Anglo-Palestine Bank, with which
most of the Jews in Palestine do business through their various
branches in Jaffa, Jerusalem, Haifa, Safed, and Tiberias, etc., are
registering or certifying for their depositors checks down to the
smallest denominations. These checks are made payable to the
drawer, endorsed by him, and the registration stamp of the bank
is equivalent to a notice that the check will be cashed by the bank
after the moratorium. With these checks the colonists are able
to supply their immediate needs and harvest their crops.
The only pressing requirement of the colonists was to exchange
some of these checks for gold in order to pay Government taxes
and military exoneration fees, and this was arranged.
Further than this, the two great needs of the Jewish colonies,
generally speaking, were: (a) to take care of Jewish laborers
thrown out of employment by existing conditions, and (b) to secure
93
94 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
new markets for their products to take the place of those that had
been affected by the war.
There are about 2,500 Jewish laborers in the colonies. It is
impossible to determine the exact percentage of unemployed amongst
them, but even if we assume that only half of them are out of employ-
ment, it is easily seen that the amount of money we were able to
divert to this purpose will not go very far. I might say here that
in dividing the fund amongst the various districts in Palestine,
we allotted to the colonies a somewhat larger proportion than their
population justified.
The opening up of new markets for Palestinian agricultural
products (oranges, wine and almonds, are the chief articles of export),
is probably the most pressing need of the colonist movement in
Palestine. Colonists feel that the chief market for the oranges
which in the past has been England, will be greatly interfered with,
and if they are not able to dispose successfully of their products,
their entire future and very existence will be threatened.
The situation in the larger centers of population is very bad.
Almost no currency enters the country and foreign checks that do
find their way there are not realizable. This naturally places
in great want those who depend on the "Chaluka" contributions
and also the large class who depend on money sent by relatives.
Furthermore, the industries of manufacture of antiques and souv-
enirs are completely stopped, owing to want of customers, and
there is no money to conduct industries such as building, carpenter-
ing, tailoring and shoemaking, in which large numbers of Jews
are employed. I found that the better class of Jews had themselves
organized temporary relief, but their possibilities of assistance
are rapidly drawing to a close. People who had, a few weeks before
my visit, contributed to the maintenance of soup kitchens, stood
in need themselves upon my arrival. One Jewish hospital had
already closed.
The food situation in Palestine was precarious, for while prices
had not risen to any large extent, yet the source of supply was
limited. The introduction of wheat from the East of the Jordan
had been prohibited by the Government (which restriction through
the efforts of the Ambassador we have endeavored to have lifted).
In order to guard against possible shortage of food and also to
offer food at the cheapest possible price, our Committee will pur-
chase from time to time as large quantities of food as it can, have
bread baked itself, and will sell same at cost, or possibly a little less.
PALESTINE 95
When Turkey entered the war as an ally of Germany
and Austria-Hungary the situation of the 50,000 Russian
Jews, who constituted half of the Jewish population
of Palestine, became precarious. As nationals of an
enemy country, they became liable to any restrictions
or deprivation of rights which military necessity or
international animosity might dictate. Thus these
thousands of Jews were to suffer because they technically
bore the nationality of a country which had virtually
exiled them.
Upon the intervention of the German and American
Embassies, however, the Ottoman Government made
special concessions to these Jews. Several weeks' time
was allowed for those who so desired to become Turkish
subjects by naturalization. Upon the expiration of this
period, those who had not availed themselves of this offer
were ordered to leave. About 600 were forcibly expelled
and about 7,000 others left voluntarily. Most of the
fugitives took refuge in Egypt, whence a number emigrated
to the United States. In the spring of 1915, however,
the Council of Ministers decided that the deportations
be discontinued.
The difficulties of the economic situation of the Jewish
population were further increased by Turkey's entrance
in the war. The Government confiscated most of the
crops, and a great many of the settlers were either drafted
into the army or compelled to buy immunity.
In March, 1915, the American Jewish Relief Com-
mittee and the Provisional Zionist Committee were
enabled, through the courtesy of the United States
Government, to send a fbod ship to Palestine. Although
considerable portions of these supplies were diverted by
the Turkish Government into non-Jewish channels, the
food question was to a great extent solved, and conditions
96 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
have been steadily improving. The present situation
is briefly described in the following extracts from a
report of the Provisional Executive Committee for
General Zionist Affairs, dated August 10, 1915:
The economic situation has also shown some improvement.
The arrival of the relief food ship "Vulcan" has been partly responsi-
ble for this result. After considerable discussion with the govern-
ment authorities, the following ratio of distribution has been agreed
upon; 55 per cent, for the Jews, 26 per cent, for the Mohammedans,
and 19 per cent, for the Christians.
The sending of the relief ship has had the important effect
of lowering considerably the prices of food. The gathering of the
harvest is now in full swing. The crops are satisfactory, especially
in Galilee, which is principally a corn growing country. Our
farms, in particular, have proved an important factor in the present
crisis by supplying the colonies and cities with grain at reasonable
prices. There is reason to believe that Palestine will now be able
to hold its own in the matter of food, without depending on further
shipments from America. There is still some shortage felt in sugar
and in some less important groceries, of which small quantities
may still be procured from Egypt.
The economic prospects would be considerably brighter were
it not for the locust which has swept over Palestine in large numbers.
In corn-growing Galilee the danger is less palpable than elsewhere
where plantations are the principal feature of agriculture. The
fight against the plague has been taken up energetically and system-
atically.
The danger of a shortage in grain was another problem that
needed careful consideration. While in normal times Palestine is
in a position to export grain abroad, the outbreak of the war, owing
to the heavy requisitions of the Government and the difficult com-
munications with the North of Palestine and the Hauran, the
granaries of the country, brought an alarming situation. To deal
with it, a special committee was organized. A number of well-
to-do Jews bought up quantities of grain and had them milled,
offering the flour to the public at cheap prices. In this way the
danger threatening the population from unscrupulous speculators
was averted and the prices were kept down. Thus, when, shortly be-
fore Passover, the price of flour had soared up as high as 65 francs,
PALESTINE 97
the action of the committee had the effect of reducing it to 48. The
committee also supplied public institutions with cheap flour.
As another means of relief, public stores were opened by the
committee for the sale of provisions. In spite of the fact that some
of the goods were requisitioned by the government, the stores served
a good purpose, helping, among other things, to circulate the checks
of the Anglo-Palestine Company.
From the very beginning of the crisis, the Palestina Amt made
it a rule that no workingmen were to be dismissed, as such action
might subject them to the danger of starvation. To supply all
the workingmen with employment, public works were undertaken,
such as road building, canalization and water supply. Several
builders who had been forced to discontinue their building operations
were assisted with loans to resume them.
Finally, a Public Loan Association was organized to meet the
needs of those who had formerly received remittances from abroad,
and, owing to the discontinuation of these remittances consequent
upon the outbreak of the war, found themselves in pitiable circum-
stances. Some 900 persons took advantage of the facilities offered
by the Association.
According to the statistics compiled by the Palestina Amt and
embodied in a separate report, some 8,000 Jews left the country
during the crisis. Of these, 4,000 were from Jaffa, 2,000 from Jeru-
salem, 1,500 from the Judean colonies and 500 from the colonies
in Galilee. The estimated number of Jews at present in Palestine
is 88,100, of whom 13,500 are to be found in the colonies.
The requisitions and the war contributions levied upon the
Jews during the war, amount to 152,805 francs.
APPENDIX
I.
REPORT OF THE RUSSIAN- JEWISH RELIEF
COMMITTEE
NOTE. — The following report was issued by the (Russian)
Jewish Committee for the Relief of Sufferers from the War,
to its members in Russia, in May, 1915, since when con-
ditions in Russia and Poland have steadily grown worse.
The authoritativeness of the report is guaranteed by the per-
sonnel of the committee, numbering among its membership
the foremost Jews of Russia, among whom may be named:
Baron A. de Gunzberg, H. Sliosberg, M. Ginsburg and B.
Kamenka, chairman of the Executive Committee; M. A.
Warschavsky, chairman of the Organizing Committee; and
D. Feinberg, L. Bramson and M. Kreinin, Secretaries.
Terrible disaster has befallen the Jewish population
of the Pale of Settlement and of Poland. Hunger and
thirst and disease and death, and moral sufferings beyond
the power of human pen to describe are the lot of hundred
thousands of Jewish men, women and children whom the
war has driven from then* homes, whose houses and
hearths have been plundered and destroyed. Hundreds
of thousands of our unfortunate brethren are staring
in hopeless despair into a future that seems to spell
nothing but new tears and sufferings. . . .
According to the data collected by the General Polish
Relief Committee, hi Poland, alone there are at least 200
towns and about 9,000 townlets and villages that have
suffered from the war, the material damage amounting
to the gigantic figure of over a milliard roubles ($500,000,-
000). Besides the terrible lossses sustained by the rural
population, the whole industrial production, amounting
98
RUSSIAN JEWISH RELIEF COMMITTEE 99
to nearly 800 million roubles a year, has been ruined.
About three million townspeople are destitute, and of
these three million at least half, i. e., 1,500,000, are Jews.
To this number of unfortunate victims we have to add
the population of the provinces of Kovno and Grodno in
the northwestern region of the Pale, the provinces of Bes-
sarabia, Podolia and Volynia in the southern and south-
western regions. These provinces, bordering upon Ger-
many and Austria, have a Jewish population of at least
500,000 people. Thus the total number of Jews that
have, in one way or another, suffered immediately from the
conditions of warfare equals over two million people,
representing one-third of the total Jewish population of
Russia.
Besides, there are hundred thousands of destitute
Jews in Galicia (within Russian occupation) looking
forward to relief from this country.
To the utter ruin of their material welfare there are
added the unspeakable sufferings that the population
of the war area has to endure. In the most favorable
of cases the inhabitants of the border places escape from
the zone of fire, taking refuge in the inner parts of the
country; while a large proportion of those unfortunate
Jewish families have remained in the ruined places,
facing the phantoms of starvation and disease that
gather a rich harvest among them.
Such is the devotion and love of the Jews to their
native places, to their own corner, that they prefer to
stay hi the devastated towns and townlets and villages,
if only permitted to do so. And those who have fled
from their homes take the first opportunity of return-
ing, heedless of the terrible disasters lying in store for
them. A vivid example, typical of many other instances,
is given by the Jews in the villages of Vissiltsy, District
100 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Busak, province Kielce. Our delegate found the place
razed by hostile shells. The population — mostly Jews —
for over three months had been huddling together in
cellars, where they had taken refuge. They were not
to leave their shelter by day; no food was to be
cooked, no fire lighted at night — such were the stringent
orders from military quarters. A humane military chief
permitted them to crawl out of their dingy holes by night
and feed out of the soldiers' cauldron. But soon another
chief took his place and the unfortunate Jews were left
to starve hi their cellars. Those that succumbed were
buried in holes that the survivors dug for them in the
very same cellars. . . .
Infinitely tragic too is the fate of those Jews who,
by rigorous orders of the military authorities at a notice
of from three to twenty-four hours are expelled from
whole provinces of Poland, their presence near the area
of hostilities being considered "a danger to the safety
of the Russian arms." Leaving their homes and belong-
ings, the fruit of years of hard toil, an open prey, the
unfortunate exiles by the thousands wend their weary
way to towns and villages, thirty or more miles distant,
that have not yet come within the decrees of the military
authorities. Old men, sick women, clasping little children
in their arms, carrying bundles with some scanty belong-
ings that they had snatched up in haste, fill the silent
roads with the sound of their moans and sobs. Here
an old man breaks down, breathing his last sigh in the
middle of the road. There a woman kneels by the road-
side staring in despair too deep for tears, at the child
that lies dead in her arms. . . . Many are those
who succumb on their way; indescribable are the suffer-
ings of those who survive. Scarcely have they found
shelter in a hospitable town or townlet when — alas!
RUSSIAN JEWISH RELIEF COMMITTEE 101
too frequently — the prohibition of the authorities is
a few days later extended also to these places, and again
the Jewish population must start upon its weary pil-
grimage.
The total number of refugees from the war zone and
of exiles can scarcely be calculated with precision because
large numbers have made their way to numerous small
townlets throughout the Pale, thus frustrating systematic
registration, while, at the same time, the progress of the
war tends to swell the host of refugees daily.
Some idea of their number is given by the following
approximate figures:
Warsaw 75,000 people Radom 2,000 people
Vilna 12,000 people Gussiatin 1,000 people
Kielce 3,000 people Shakvi (Suvalki). 1,500* people
Konsk 4,000 people Lomzha 5,000 people
Minsk 2,000 people Khmelnik
Prassnysh 1,500 people (Prov. Kielce). 1,500 people
And yet these figures only show the number of refugees
who have applied for assistance; hundreds of thousands
of others are meanwhile living upon their savings and
do not come under the registration. But they also will
be at the end of their scant resources one of these days
and will join the ranks of the destitute. . . . Thus,
for the above-named places and for many other dozens
of towns and townlets the number of refugees within
their walls may be doubled without fear of exaggeration.
While numerous towns and townlets have, in generous
hospitality, opened their gates to the unfortunate refugees
and exiles from the war area, the native Jewish population
of these places is itself suffering a severe economic crisis,
an acute attack of unemployment, which as a matter
* At moment of investigation.
102 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
of fact, is further intensified by the influx of refugees
eager to offer their services, for the smallest remuneration.
Thus poverty and misery are growing in these places
too, the burden of relief becoming too heavy for the
local community to bear.
We have already stated that the industrial Me of
Poland and in a large part of the Pale has been laid
waste as a consequence of the war. Hundreds of fac-
tories have been destroyed, hundreds others have had to
stop work for want of capital, raw material, fuel and—
first and foremost — for want of a market for their articles
of production. Many thousands of workmen who were
formerly employed by these factories have remained with-
out bread.
Whole branches of trade have been shattered, burying
the welfare of the artisans under their ruins. The
tailors, weavers, bootmakers, builders, trades, normally
sustaining a large percentage of Jews in Poland and in
the Pale, are dead; the artisans are left to starve, unless
something can be done to save them.
Commercial life also has been laid waste. The mer-
chants— great and small — are ruined; hundreds of mer-
chant's clerks are thrown out of work and have to apply
to public charity.
There is yet another class of sufferers whose wants
and needs have to be attended to. About 300,000 Jews
are fighting in the ranks of the Russian army. Their
mothers, wives and children are receiving but scanty
support (about 2 roubles a head) from the Government.
About half of them, however, are not getting any Govern-
ment aid at all, their marriages, although legally solemn-
ized, not having been entered in the official marriage
registers. (It is a well known fact that the uneducated
Jews of Poland and hi the Pale frequently omit to have
RUSSIAN JEWISH RELIEF COMMITTEE 103
their marriages registered, failing to realize the full im-
portance of this formality.) Rent and food having
become considerably dearer with the outbreak of the war,
the soldiers' families often suffer acute want, which
necessitates immediate help lest these people become
charges on their community. Many of the soldiers will
never return from the battlefields; others will come
back as cripples, unfit to support themselves or their
families. They will all want support of some kind or
another. . . .
It is a boundless sea of troubles that has to be coped
with and the full weight of the task is falling upon Jewish
shoulders. The gulf dividing the bulk of Russian society
from Jewish life and needs and sorrows has not been
bridged over by the horrors of war. Though now and
again a voice of sympathy is heard from Russian quarters,
here and there a Russian hand is extended to feed a
starving Jewish child, both moral and material assistance
offered by non-Jews to our stricken people is but in-
finitesimal as compared with the magnitude of the distress.
Nor do we now wish to dwell specifically on Polish-
Jewish relations, it being too well known to what extent
they have become pointed during the recent months,
bearing in their train infinite, yea, unbearable sufferings
for our Jewish brethren.
In order to unite the efforts of Jewish society towards
the relief of the Jewish sufferers from the war, at the
very outbreak of the European conflagration there was
formed at Petrograd a General Jewish Relief Committee,
with the sanction of the Russian authorities, to act as
a center for the collection and distribution of funds
to the destitute and needy Jews. At the very beginning
of its activity the General Committee issued an appeal
to the Jewish public calling it to its duty to the
104 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
unfortunate sufferers, just as the Jewish soldiers fighting
and distinguishing themselves in the ranks of the Russian
army are doing their .duty by their mother country.
Jewish society at large has shown its usual responsive-
ness and material support has been forthcoming in as
large a measure as individual means and circumstances
would permit.
Committees, similar to the General Committee, work-
ing on the same lines and in close unity with it have since
been organized in prominent centers of the stricken area
and outside of it — e. g., in Warsaw, Moscow, Kiev,
Odessa, Kharkov, and in addition the existing Jewish
organizations, such as the Central Committee of the
Jewish Colonization Association, the Society for the
Promotion of Education in Russia, the Jewish Health
Society, the Society for the Promotion of Trade and
Industry among Russian Jews, etc., etc., are taking active
part in the relief work. Representatives of the various
committees and societies working in the war zone and out-
side it meet periodically in order to discuss new measures
and schemes for the alleviation of the terrible distress.
The conditions and extent of distress in towns, town-
lets and villages of Poland and of the Pale are being
ascertained through delegates of the General Relief
Committee working actively and energetically towards
the organization of various forms of relief in the several
districts. In a number of places the local Jewish com-
munity has readily joined in the relief work, doing its
utmost to meet the demand for food, shelter, clothing;
the local philanthropic and communal Jewish institutions
thus becoming valuable agencies of the General Relief
Committee. On the whole, however — particularly as far
as Poland is concerned — the organization of assistance
to the war sufferers is meeting with endless difficulties,
RUSSIAN JEWISH RELIEF COMMITTEE 106
due largely to the fact that the suffering population is
in such a state of frantic terror, that many Jews do not
even dream of applying to anyone for assistance. In
many instances the first terror has given way to com-
plete apathy.
Often our representatives have to seek these people
out in their hiding places, to rouse them from their
lethargy, to exercise moral pressure on the more promi-
nent members of the community, before anything can
be done for the sufferers. This attitude of the people
becomes intelligible when we consider the conditions
that they live hi under ordinary circumstances — their
poverty, their lack of education, the contempt they are
accustomed to meet with on the part of the non-Jewish
population.
Similar conditions prevail hi the Galician Provinces
within Russian occupation:
"I found them huddling together in damp and dark
cellars, half-naked, sick and starving" — these are the
words of one of our representatives who visited some of
the places that had witnessed all the horrors of the war.
"They showed complete apathy, appeared to he in a trance
of terror. Only a madman — he had become insane
because of superhuman suffering — followed me into
the street, shrieking for bread. I handed him a coin,
but he threw it down and clamored for bread. . . ."
The ever changing conditions of war, that open
up new regions for relief work today, and close other
districts tomorrow, that throw ever new crowds of
sufferers upon public charity — these, to a large extent
baffle all our efforts towards relief, destroying today
what was organized yesterday. Add to this the peculiar
circumstances of Jewish life in Russia, the unfavorable
attitude of the authorities towards the Jewish population
106 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
in the war area — and the difficulties that the organization
of relief has to cope with will stand out in their full
significance.
Owing to these and other conditions the General
Relief Committee up till now has had to concentrate
largely on extending "first aid," this term being here
used to comprise feeding and sheltering of the sufferers.
Distribution of food (at low rates or free of charge),
of fuel, clothes, foot-wear; organization of feeding centres,
amelioration of sheltering and housing conditions, of
sanitation and hygiene among the war sufferers — are
the chief forms relief has taken so far.
At the present moment there are being equipped
by the General Relief Committee two so-called "sanitary
and feeding expeditions" whose object it will be to offer
medical assistance and provide free food to the sufferers
in the war area of Poland, irrespective of religious de-
nomination. (The money for this purpose has been
received from London with the express condition that no
distinction be made between Jews and non-Jews).
Moreover, insofar as this has been possible, efforts
have been made to secure work for the refugees and
for those who have lost their employment as a result
of the war. Thus in Warsaw there has been opened a
workshop where refugees are employed in manufacturing
various articles of underclothing for distribution among
the war sufferers. In Vilna there has been established
a workshop for bootmakers who are filling Govern-
ment orders for army boots. Similar workshops have
been organized at Dvinsk, Fastov, etc. Further, there
has been opened at Warsaw a labor-bureau which is
obtaining work for a considerable number of artisans.
A large number of small merchants and artisans being
in urgent need of credit to enable them to re-establish and
RUSSIAN JEWISH RELIEF COMMITTEE 107
operate their business and to prevent them from lapsing
into utter destitution, credit is being afforded them
through the medium of the Jewish cooperative credit
societies that are working throughout the Pale of Settle-
ment and Poland. So far, by way of experiment, about
23,000 roubles have been invested in this operation;
however, should this useful form of assistance be en-
larged, considerable means will be required for the
purpose.
At the present moment the General Relief Com-
mittee, working in close cooperation with the com-
mittees in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, is extending relief
to over 300 centres of population situated in the following
provinces:
Approximate Number
Poland — of Populated Centers
Province Warsaw (including city of
Warsaw where a large number of
refugees are concentrated) 46
Province Vilna 18
Province Kovno 40
Province Suvalki 20
Province Liublin (only part of it 25
being accessible to relief work) ....
Province Kielce (only part of it being
accessible to relief work) 12
Province Radom 15
Province Grodno (now included in
sphere of activity of Moscow
Committee) 5
Province Lomzha (now included in
sphere of activity of Moscow
Committee) 10
Province Plotsk (now included in
sphere of activity of Moscow
Committee) 8
Province Kholm (now within activity
of Kiev and Odessa Committee) . . 10
108 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Approximate Number
of Populated Centers
Southwestern Province —
Province: Podolia, Bessarabia and
Volynia (Border districts) 10
Galicia —
Petrograd Committee (cooperating
with Kiev and Odessa Committee). 75
Outside War Area 10
Total 304
Some idea of the expenditures of the General Relief
Committee in Petrograd is given by the following figures:
FOR GENERAL RELIEF
Poland — Roubles
Warsaw 350,000
Province Warsaw 10,000
Lodz 1,500
Province Lomsha 12,000
Province Suvalki 7,000
Province Liublin 75,000
Province Radom 45,000
Province Cholm 4,400
Province Kielce 40,000
545,000
Southwestern Province —
(Border Places) 14,000
Radzivilov 14,000
Chtin 5,000
Volotchisk 5,000
Gorokov 1,000
Novosselitsy 500
Various small places 5,000
31,000
RUSSIAN JEWISH RELIEF COMMITTEE 109
Northwestern Province — Roubles
Province Kovno 55,000
Province Vilna 30,000
Province Bialystock, Minsk, etc 10,000
95,000
Galicia 112,000
Assistance to Jews in Palestine and Syria (through
representative in Alexandria) 10,000
Assistance to Russian- Jewish Refugees from Abroad
(when passing Petrograd) 1,500
Assistance to Wounded and Recovered Soldiers return-
ing to the Front 15,000
Purchase of Matzoth for Soldiers at the Front (subsidy
to the Rabbinical Committee) 15,000
Subsidy to Various Educational Institutions (Ycshiboth,
Jewish teachers, etc.) 10,000
Organization of cheap credit to Jewish artisans, workmen
and merchants (through Jewish Cooperative Credit
Societies) 22,000*
Assistance to clerks of Jewish Cooperative Societies
(affected by the war) 1,000
Organization and support of sanitary and feeding ex-
peditions (two expeditions) 50,000
Total 914,000
Expenditure of the Moscow, Odessa, Kiev Committees. . . 350,000
l,204,000t
According to approximate estimates within the next
months the General Jewish Relief Committee, working
conjointly with the Jewish Committees in Moscow, Kiev
* Besides the sum* granted to the cooperative credit societies by the Jewish
Colonization Association.
t Towards these expenses Russian Jewry ha* contributed a liule over a million
roubles.
110 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
and Odessa, will require the following sums to satisfy
the most urgent needs of the organizations now in full
operation and yet to be started:
Poland and Northwestern Provinces — Roubles
Warsaw From 150,000 to 200,000
Province Warsaw From 15,000 to 20,000
Province Liublin From 20,000 to 25,000
Province Suvalki From 12,000 to 15,000
Province Radom From 20,000 to 25,000
Province Kielce From 20,000 to 25,000
Province Kovno From 25,000 to 30,000
Province Vilna From 10,000 to 15,000
Province Grodno From 8,000 to 10,000
Province Lomzha From 15,000 to 20,000
Province Plotzk From 6,000 to 8,000
Province Cholm From 10,000 to 12,000
Southwestern Provinces —
Province Volynia From 20,000 to 25,000
Province Podolia
Province Bessarabia From 40,000 to 50,000
Galicia —
Outside war area From 10,000 to 15,000
Restoration of trade and industry among
among war sufferers From 100,000 to 150,000
Extraordinary expenditure From 10,000 to 15,000
Thus From 484,000 to 650,000
[Expressed in United States currency, the sum of $242,000 to
$325,000 per month will be required, according to this early
estimate, to satisfy the most urgent needs of the sufferers.]
As already pointed out, the sphere and extent of
distress are ever increasing with the progress of the war.
The Jewish relief organizations in Russia thus stand
before the alarming problem: whence to obtain adequate
SPEECH OF DEPUTY FRIEDMAN 111
funds to satisfy the ever growing demand. This problem
becomes the more urgent as new forms of relief must be
devised as the time goes on. It will not do merely to
feed and shelter the stricken population. Many of the
sufferers are able and willing to work, if they but had the
possibility of doing so.
The attention of the Jewish public will therefore
have to be concentrated on a new problem: to help the
ruined artisans to rehabilitate themselves, to rebuild
their shattered homes and to restore then* ruined business
by means of cheap credit provided for them. The
solution of this problem will, however, require infinitely
larger means, which Russian Jewry is unable to raise. . . .
n.
SPEECH OF DEPUTY FRIEDMAN IN
THE DUMA
(August 2, 1915)
(Translated from Petrograd "Retch," of August 3, 1915, and
published in the New York "Times," September 23, 1915)
In spite of their oppressed condition, in spite of their
status of outlawry, the Jews have risen to the exalted
mood of the nation and in the course of the last year
have participated in the war in a noteworthy manner.
They fell short of the others in no respect. They mobil-
ized their entire enrollment, but, indeed, with this differ-
ence, that they have also sent their only sons into the
war. The newspapers at the beginning of the war had
a remarkable number of Jewish volunteers to record.
Gentlemen, those were volunteers who were entitled
through their educational qualifications to the rank
112 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
of officers. They knew that they would not receive
this rank; and nevertheless they entered the war.
The Jewish youth, which, as a result of the restrictions
as to admission to the high schools of the country, had
been forced to study abroad, returned home when war
was declared, or entered the armies of the allied nations.
A large number of Jewish students fell at the defense
of Liege and also at other points on the western front.
The Zionist youths, when they were confronted with
the dilemma of accepting Turkish sovereignty or being
compelled to emigrate from Palestine, preferred to go
to Alexandria and there to join the English army.
The Jews built hospitals, contributed money, and
participated hi the war in every respect just as did the
other citizens. Many Jews received marks of distinction
for their conduct at the front.
Before me lies the letter of a Jew who returned from
the United States of America:
"I risked my life," he writes, "and if, nevertheless,
I came as far as Archangel, it was only because I loved
my fatherland more than my life or that American free-
dom which I was permitted to enjoy. I became a soldier,
and lost my left arm almost to the shoulder. I was brought
into the governmental district of Courland. Scarcely
had I reached Riga when I met at the station my mother
and my relatives, who had just arrived there, and who
on that same day were compelled to leave their hearth
and home at the order of the military authorities. Tell
the gentlemen who sit on the benches of the Right that
I do not mourn my lost arm, but that I do mourn deeply
the self-respect that was not denied to me hi alien lands
but is now lost to me."
Such was the sentiment of the Jews that found ex-
pression in numerous appeals and manifestations in the
SPEECH OF DEPUTY FRIEDMAN 113
press, and finally also in this House. Surely these
sentiments should have been taken into account. One
should have a right to assume that the Government
would adopt measures for the amelioration of the fate
of the Jews who found themselves in the very centre of
the war-like occurrences. Likewise, one should have
taken into account the sentiments of hundreds of thous-
ands of Jews who shed their blood on the field of battle.
Instead of that, however, we see that from the begin-
ning of the war the measures of reprisals against the
Jewish populace were not only not weakened but, on the
contrary, made much stronger. Banished were Jewish
men and women whose husbands, children, and brothers,
were shedding their blood for the fatherland. A wounded
soldier named Alexander Roskhov, who had been shot
in the eye, came to Chafkof for further treatment. On
his passport were the words, "To be sent to a settle-
ment." The private soldier Godlewski, one of whose
legs had been amputated, and who found himself at
Rostof on the Don for recuperation, they tried to send
to his native village hi the Government of Kaliscb, al-
ready under German occupation; and it was only due
to the activities of the Rural League that he was per-
mitted to stay. An apothecary's helper, who likewise
had been wounded on the battlefield, was not allowed
to remain hi Petrograd for his cure, and it was only by
virtue of special intercession that he was later allowed
to sojourn two months more at Petrograd, with the
notice, however, that at the expiration of this period
no further extension of his sojourn would be granted.
In a long war lucky events alternate with unlucky
ones, and in any case it is naturally useful to have scape-
goats in reserve. For this purpose there exists the old
firm; the Jew. Scarcely has the enemy reached our
114 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
frontiers when the rumor is spread that Jewish gold
is flowing over to the Germans, and that, too, in aero-
planes, in coffins, and — in the entrails of geese!
Scarcely had the enemy pressed further, than there
appeared again beyond dispute the eternal Jew "on the
white horse," perhaps the same one who once rode on the
white horse through the city in order to provoke a pogrom.
The Jews have set up telephones, have destroyed the
telegraph lines. The legend grew, and with the eager
support of the powers of Government and the agitation
in official circles, assumed ever greater proportions. A
series of unprecedented, unheard of, cruel measures was
adopted against the Jews. These measures, which were
carried out before the eyes of the entire population,
suggested to the people and to the army the recognition
of the fact that the Jews were treated as enemies by the
Government, and that the Jewish population was outside
the law.
In the first place these measures consisted of the
complete transplanting of the Jewish population from
many districts, to the very last man. These compulsory
migrations took place in the Kingdom of Poland and in
many other territories. All told, about a half million
persons have been doomed to a state of beggary and
vagabondage. Anyone who has seen with his own eyes
how these expulsions take place, will never forget them
as long as he lives. The exiling took place within twenty-
four hours, sometimes within two days. Women, old
men, and children, and sometimes invalids, were ban-
ished. Even the feebleminded were taken from the
lunatic asylums and the Jews were forced to take these
with them. In Mohilnitse, 5,000 persons were expelled
within twenty-four hours. Their way led to Warsaw
through Kalwayra. Meantime they were forced to
SPEECH OF DEPUTY FRIEDMAN 115
travel across fields through the Government of Lublin,
and were deprived of the possibility of taking along
their inventories. Many were obliged to travel on foot.
When they reached Lublin, the Jewish Committee there
had provided bread and food for them; but they were
not allowed to tarry, and they had to travel on at
once.
On the way an accident occurred; a six-year-old
child was killed by a fall. The parents were not per-
mitted to bury the child.
I saw also the refugees of the Government of Kovno.
Persons who only yesterday were still accounted wealthy
were beggars the next day. Among the refugees I met
Jewish women and girls, who had worked together with
Russian women, had sewed garments with them and
collected contributions with them, and who were now
forced to encamp on the railway embankment. I saw
families of reservists. I saw among the exiles wounded
soldiers wearing the Cross of St. George. It is said
that Jewish soldiers in marching through the Polish
cities were forced to witness the expulsion of their wives
and children. The Jews were loaded in freight cars
like cattle. The bills of lading were worded as follows:
"Four hundred and fifty Jews, en route to ."
There were cases in which the Governors refused
outright to take in the Jews at all. I myself was in Vilna
at the very time when a whole trainload of Jews was
stalled for four days in Novo-Wilejsk station. Those
were Jews who had been sent from the Government of
Kovno to the Government of Poltawa, but the Governor
there would not receive them and sent them back to
Kovno, whence they were again reshipped to Poltawa.
Imagine, at a time when every railway car is needed for
the transportation of munitions, when from all sides
116 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
are heard complaints about the lack of means of trans-
portation, the Government permits itself to do such a
thing! At one station there stood 110 freight cars con-
taining Jewish exiles.
Another measure which likewise is unprecedented
in the entire history of the civilized world, is the intro-
duction of the so-called system of "Hostages," and,
indeed, hostages were taken not from the enemy, but
from the country's own subjects, its own citizens. Host-
ages were taken in Radom, Kieltse, Lomscha, Kovno,
Riga, Lublin, etc. The hostages were held under the
most rigorous regime, and at present there are still under
arrest in Poltava Jewish hostages from the Governments
of Kieltse and Radom.
Some time ago, in commenting upon the procedure
against the Jews, the leader of the Opposition, even
before the outbreak of the war, used the expression
that we were approaching the times of Ferdinand and
Isabella. I now assert that we have already surpassed
that era. No Jewish blood was shed in defence of Spain,
but ours flowed the moment the Jews helped defend the
Fatherland.
Yes, we are beyond the pale of the laws, we are
oppressed, we have a hard life, but we know the source
of that evil; it comes from those benches (pointing to
the boxes of the Ministers). We are being oppressed
by the Russian Government, not by the Russian people.
Why, then, is it surprising if we wish to unite our des-
tinies, not with that of the Russian Government, but
with that of the Russian people? When three years
ago there was pending here the Cholm law proposal,
did the thought ever occur at the time to the sponsors
of the bill that in a short time they would have to scrape
and bow before free autonomous Poland? We likewise
SPEECH OF BARON ROSEN 117
hope that the time is not distant when we can be citizens
of the Russian State with full equality of privileges
with the free Russian people.
Before the face of the entire country, before the
entire civilized world, I declare that the calumnies against
the Jews are the most repulsive lies and chimeras of
persons who will have to be responsible for their crimes.
[Applause on Left.]
It depends upon you, gentlemen of the Imperial Duma,
to speak the word of encouragement, to perform the
action that can deliver the Jewish people from the terrible
plight in which it is at present, and that can lead them
back into the ranks of the Russian citizens who are
defending their Fatherland. [Cries of "Right."]
I do not know if the Imperial Duma will so act, but if
it does so act it will be fulfilling an obligation of honor
and an act of wise statesmanship that is necessary for the
profit and for the greatness of the Fatherland. [Applause
on the Left.]
m.
ABSTRACT OF SPEECH OF BARON R. R. ROSEN
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE EMPIRE*
August 22 (September 4), 1915
(Translation from "Retch," No. 231, August 23
(September 5), 1915)
Baron Rosen began with the statement that while
the question of supplies for the army and navy was
paramount, there was nevertheless another side to it,
and that was the question of the domestic policy of the
* Baron Roaen waa formerly Russian Ambassador to the United Statea.
118 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
Empire. He reminded his hearers that in May, 1913,
he had warned the Council of the Empire of the catas-
trophe imminent in Europe, but that his statement
had been met with ridicule and skepticism. The result
of such an attitude in now obvious to all. In this great
conflict, it has become clear that neither side will be
able to crush the other, as was expected at the outset
of this war. But even as it is, this war of extermination
of the white race must, hi the end, be decided hi favor
of one of the two parties at conflict. He thought that
certain intangible elements entering into the question
would be of great importance hi the settlement of this
war. Putting aside the political, economic and psychol-
ogical questions that led to this conflict, he thought
that the ultimate issue was the decision of the world
to battle against the dictum of Germany that "might
is greater than right and right is created only by might."
Under the circumstances, it would seem that the sym-
pathies of the entire world should be on the side of the
allies. But in reality this is not the case; and for this
there are several reasons.
"It is undoubtedly within our power to do away with
one of the factors militating against us hi the public
opinion of neutral countries. In the struggle that we,
together with the most civilized nations of Europe, are
waging against the Pan-Germanism, imperialism and
absolutism, and for right and justice, for the liberty
and independence of the weaker nations, we shall achieve
the full sympathy of the civilized world only when we
shall have put our inner front — if I may use that expres-
sion— on a level with the political ideology of our valiant
allies; for instance, hi the conduct of our polity with
reference to the borderlands, and the so-called alien
races composing its population."
SPEECH OF BARON ROSEN 119
After stating that there were two diametrically opposed
political systems, one current among the Allies and the
other among the Germans, Baron Rosen continued:
"To the maximum injury of the true interests of Russia,
we have adopted and have carried out unswervingly the
true German system of politics with reference to our
borderlands and the so-called foreign races and foreign
faiths, a policy which has been made even more perfect
by the admixture of medieval religious intolerance.
"It may be retorted that the fate of a campaign is
decided by military power and not by the greater or
lesser sympathy of neutral countries for the policy of
a given state. The German Government does not think
so; for otherwise it would not spend countless millions
for pan-German propaganda in all the countries of the
world, even the most remote. But we, on the other
hand, not only fail to oppose anything to this propa-
ganda, but by the course of our domestic policies we place
in the hands of this propaganda powerful arguments
for arousing against us public opinion of such countries
as the United States, the only great neutral power, and
of Sweden, our neighbor.
"It is inconceivable that the framers of our policy
should fail to realize that the propaganda directed against
us, conducted under official auspices and equipped with
the amplest resources, will scarcely cause our own inter-
ests and the interests of our Allies one-tenth of the harm
which is caused to these interests by our attitude towards
the Jewish population of Russia and our systematic
violation of the legal conscience of the Finnish population
— an attitude which smacks of the dark times of medie-
valism.
"The question now is, why did not the Government
find it possible to put an end to this problem decisively
120 THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN WAR ZONE
and forever, as it has finally, and, alas, with such delay,
settled the question of the autonomy of Poland? This
may be explained only by the fact that the Government
hesitated to break with the traditional policy so dear
to the militant nationalism.
"Accordingly the Duma and the Council are in duty
bound to come to the aid of the Government in this
regard and take upon themselves the initiative of intro-
ducing a bill for the abolition of all laws restricting the
rights of the Jews and for the abrogation of the law of
July 17 (30) concerning Finland. The passage of these
measures would undoubtedly lighten the heavy task
now confronting the Government in the sphere of inter-
national relations and it would be met by our valiant
allies with the liveliest satisfaction.
"We must remember that this great European war
is not only a struggle of interests, but is also a struggle
of ideas and principles. In the battle against German
militarism, Russia has placed herself on the side of right
and freedom, and for the triumph of the idea for which
we are now fighting, it is necessary that in Russia, too,
there should be no longer any people without rights or
any people oppressed."
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