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By ALLEN LESSER
It isn’t likely that on April 18.
1908 more than one person in 100,-
000 could correctly identify the Rus
sian city of Kishinev. It was no dif
ferent from a score of other ob
scure, semi-industrial towns, distin
guished only in that it was the seat
of the province of Bessarabia. But
24 hours later — that was Easter
Sunday 50 years ago — Kishinev
erupted with a bloody fury that
cast it forever onto the darker
pages of history.
News traveled slowly in those
days. Weeks passed before the story
crossed the Czar’s borders and
reached the front pages of the
West. When the truth was known
Kishinev became an international
symbol of brutality and horror, of
Russian anti-Semitism in its most
violent form.
What began that Easter morning
in Kishinev was a pogrom. It was a
likely place for anti-Semitic mass
murder. Driven from the environs
of Moscow and other great centers
of Russia, Jew's were forced to
make their homes in the outlying
provinces. Thus, half the population
of Kishinev, a border town, was
Jewish.
The maniacal fury of the mob
ran wild for two days before it
spent itself from exhaustion. Not
until Monday evening did Russian
troops march in to restore order.
There was a garrison of 5,000 men
stationed in the area. But through
out the agonizing two days their
orders were to do nothing to halt
the atrocities. When the terrorized
Jews finally were able to examine
the smoking ruins of their com
munity, they found 47 of their
group had been wantonly killed.
More than 500 were injured. Be
cause Jews were the artisans of
Kishinev the mob had destroyed
600 of their business establishments.
About 700 houses were wrecked
and looted. Thousands of families
were utterly ruined.
The tragic Jew's of Russia had
suffered pogroms before, Since the
reign of Peter the Great, two cen
turies earlier, they had been the
victims of autocratic and mystical
whims of the Czars. The forerun
ners of the Nuremberg laws were
recorded in the legal impositions —
ghettoization, double taxation, extra
military service — placed upon
Jews by the imperial court. But
police rule, not mob violence, was
the official tactic. The earlier, spora
dic incidents that shed blood and
ADL BULLETIN
looted Jew’ish property were, often
as not, excesses of the growing re
volutionary movement.
Kishinev was different. Here, for
the first time and for purely politi
cal reasons, the government itself
was the instigator of mass murder.
Disturbed by the bold, terroristic
outbreaks of the revolutionists the
shaky imperial court cast about for
a means of retaliation. Anti-Semiti-
ism was the handiest weapon. By
organizing a pogrom and penalizing
Jews indiscriminately, whether
they were part of the revolutionary
movement or not, the government
intended an object lesson for work
ers and peasants of other nationali
ties who might threaten the Czar’s
rule.
The conspiracy that created the
Kishinev massacre was led by three
men: Ustrugov, who was lieuten
ant-governor of Bessarabia: Leven-
dal, chief of the local secret police;
and Kruchevan, a political editor.
They also had the connivance of the
province governor and the com
mander of the garrison who had
withheld his troops from halting
the slaughter.
The pretext was supplied by
Kruchevan. His hatred of Jews had
already made him notorious as a
disseminator of the Russian version
of the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion, the greatest anti-Semitic fake
in history. Through his newspaper
and by word of mouth, Kruchevan
set loose the rumor that Kishinev’s
Jews had engaged in a “ritual mur
der.” This fantastic lie told of how
Jews had murdered a gentile in
order to drain his blood and use it
as part of the Passover observance!
Among Russia’s muzhiks, un
learned and given to mystical inter
pretations of religion, the story was
wholly believable. After Kruchevan
had aroused their passions, Leven-
dal stepped in, urging them to re
venge. The complicity of a police
official, a man to be feared, was all
the urging needed. Quickly the cry
of “Kill the Zhids!” ran through
Kishinev. The orgy was on.
Judged by the incredible stand
ards for genocide of our present
generation, the Kishinev massacre
was a mild one. But the world of
1903 had not yet been brutalized by
the monstrosities that were to come
with Hitler. It was a world whose
conscience had not yet been im
munized to mass atrocities, whose
mind did not have to perceive mur
der in the millions. The Kishinev
pogrom needs remembering on this,
its 50th anniversary, not alone to
honor the martyrdom of suffering
Jews, but to recall a period of his-
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The Southern Israelite
(17)