A first-person account of a Jewish soldier fighting in WWI and published in 1916 in a Hebrew-language periodical called HaTekufah. Originally titled “A History of a Jewish Military Man” and translated into English here in full.
I
I was born in 1861. Over the years I came to understand that I was born under a bad sign. The year of my birth marked the beginning of the Pogroms against the Jews. And the Pogrom has clung to me in different forms, from my infancy to my grave – which I am now facing.
The vague memories of my early childhood involve tales of pogroms. My father, a poor teacher from one of the outlying towns of Kiev, did not tell me these sad stories; he did not wish to dispirit me, being an innocent child. As an idealist intellectual from the 1860s, he always held on to the high hopes of his youth – aspirations of enlightenment and progress; and was bewildered at the sight of the new dark veil descending on the history of the Jews, under the shadows of the dark Middle Ages. He could not fathom how the wheels of progress could be turned back, and thought it was but a bad dream, a nightmare, soon to be gone completely. He died holding on to that childish belief, not even slightly shaken by the horrible events of the 1880s. I did not inherit this innocence from my father, however. I was more influenced by the stories I heard from my mother, whose life’s wisdom was simpler and more straightforward than his. These stories shaped my views of the depth of the abyss that I was facing. In the earliest years of my childhood, and I was an emotional child, I heard, many times, a tale of a horrid affair, which at first, I only somewhat understood, and later my understanding deepened little by little. She told a tale of “Butchers” that ransacked our house while our family were all hiding in the basement and hearing the destruction upstairs. Later this gang of drunkards burst into our hiding place, beat my father, and forced him to do something very horrible to my mother and my elder sister. They also told me that I was still an infant and was saved from a beating after I was hidden under an overturned barrel, still asleep. This was the only Pogrom that caught me asleep. For the other Pogroms I was wide awake.
My relatives sometimes traveled to Kiev and stayed at our uncle’s house, who was a rich merchant and was granted the right to reside in the city, something forbidden to the majority of Jews. They would sometimes travel there to visit doctors or to ask the rich uncle for financial support. In one of these trips, I was brought along, and I remember a day and a night in that city: during the day we walked the beautiful streets, and I was shown large houses and palaces that I have never laid eyes on before; and during the following night… the police station. We happened to arrive at the city during a “hunt”, every now and again they hunted for Jews, who were not allowed to reside in the city. At a very late hour, while we were all sleeping, policemen burst into my uncle’s house and dragged my mother and me out of bed and took us to the Uchastok . I was eight years old. We were detained in a small stenchy cell until morning. Later we were brought in front of an enraged sergeant that cursed my mother and threatened to imprison her and send her back to her birthplace. When my uncle arrived, the sergeant’s rage subsided, and after he received the ransom, we were set free and ordered to leave the city the very same day. This is when I first found out that a Jew who wants to reside in Kiev is breaking the laws of Russia and can be imprisoned for this crime with thieves and robbers. This was the first blow to my sense of justice, which I acquired in my childhood studying in the “Heder” from the books of the Torah and the Prophets.
Afterwards, I was not astonished when this transpired at my father’s house: Every year, during the High Holidays, close relatives from one of the nearby villages would frequent our small town to pray in the Synagogue and to meet relatives and acquaintances in our community. These relatives, who were already permanent residents of that village were not affected by the “temporary laws” of 1882 forbidding Jews to settle in villages; not decreeing those who are already residents to be deported. Every year they would stay at our town and pray at the Synagogue for three weeks – and later go back to their village and their daily work. However, one time our guests returned to their home after the holiday, but a few days later showed up at our house with laden wagons filled with household items. The local government forced them out of the village under the orders of a new governor, who was a Jew Oppressor, deemed “new settlers” for leaving the village for three weeks. (I later found out that the practice of interpreting the law in this fashion became widespread). I then understood, as much as a child can comprehend, that a Russian peasant is permitted to travel to a town for the holidays and frequent the local taverns, while a Jew that travels to pray at a Synagogue is destined to be driven out from the village where his forefathers settled. This I understood and took to heart.
I remember that day, the first day of Passover when I was praying with my father in one of the Synagogues in Moscow. During prayer, worried whispers were heard, and people started gathering in groups questioning each other. From their conversations these words were heard: “by order of the Tsar … expel the Jews from Moscow”. Faces turned pale, heads were low, and a profound sadness was felt in the voice of the Cantor during the Mussaf prayer. The Synagogue goers returned to their homes and by the next day all have managed to read the evil decree in the newspapers. Forced deportation was ordered for all Jewish craftsmen and artisans, even for those who have resided in the city for a long time, and the police began carrying out the orders. Those only passing as craftsmen were hit first; real craftsmen were given different times, between three to six months, to leave Moscow. The members of my household, of course, were to be deported post haste.
I remember that terrible night after the issue of the decree. Good people came to warn us that the police would descend on the Moscow Ghetto and carry out a “hunt” at the “Galibov Court” where most Jews were without residence rights, or inappropriate rights, among them our household. In order not to get arrested, my father, along with many others, decided to not spend the night at home but spend it outside; since nobody would let those without permits spend the night at their home. On a cold March night, the four of us wondered the streets, my father, my mother, my sister, and I. The Passover moon that was at its fullest prevented us from sitting on the benches of the boulevard, because the police could easily see us. We therefore walked the back paths and hidden corners like a gang of thieves. We grew tired after a while and came to one of the boulevards and rested on a bench. Loud vulgar sounds suddenly awoke me. I opened my eyes and in front of us stood policemen, those who patrolled the city. Their captain grabbed my father by his coattails and growled “I’ll show you, homeless Zhyd, how to hide!”. Tied to a rope we were led to the police station, where we were interrogated, found “guilty”, and sent to the prison house for deportation.
In that prison we met many of our Jewish neighbors from the Galibov Court. They told us that at night they were forcefully removed from their homes during a hunt; and brought to this place to be deported from Moscow to their birthplaces. The large and dirty prison house was filled with Russian criminals who were also waiting to be processed and sent elsewhere. We were forced to spend two weeks among this gang of thieves and murderers. My recollections of those days and nights are horrible – I do not wish to describe them. Of this time of darkness one day shines bright. My father who was used to seating alone in the corner reading his bible called me over one time, pointed to a verse in the book, and said “read this”. And I read these verses:
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” (Isaiah 53)
And my father whispered to me: “they think this prophecy is about their messiah, but us Jews know the truth. It is not about a single crucified man but about an entire nation. Now too our people are in prisons only for being Jewish.” Tears ran down my father’s thin cheeks and soaked into the thickness of his wide beard. His words were like a fire burning in my heart. I felt their meaning more than I understood them. I only fully understood them much later, but during that moment, being only ten years of age, the seed of political protest was planted within me. Thoughts ran through my head: “as a sheep before her shearers is dumb”? Why? Why are the oppressed silent and not fighting their oppressors?
We were lead with the groups of prisoners for many days and were delayed along the way in many stations. We finally arrived at our hometown in the “Pale of Settlement” and were handed over to the local police, which set us free and gave us back our right to die from starvation at the “places were Jews are allowed reside in”.
Shortly after our unwanted travels my father fell ill, the long arduous journey was too much for him. Within a few days he breathed his last. A pure soul of an idealist, with his head in the clouds while the ground beneath him is filled with banditry and robbery. At eleven years of age, I became an orphan.
II
New wanderings came upon us. After lengthy trials our orphaned household found refuge in Kishinev; my mother, with the help of relatives, opened a grocery store. These relatives also looked after my education. They wanted me to study in the Gymnasium, but the “percent quota” worked against it. I remember a day in August in one of the large rooms in the Gymnasium. The examiners were sitting and in front of them were rows of benches of sitting Jewish teens with pale long faces and eyes full of trepidation – not childlike. We all came to take the entrance exams for the third division. Among us were many youths that already passed the exams in previous years but failed to enter the Gymnasium because of the quota. We were all prepared and ready for the struggle and answered all the examiners’ questions correctly only to find out that out of the thirty candidates only two would be admitted – only two Jewish vacancies were considered within the norm. Both vacancies were given to two rich youths that negotiated their admittance with the Gymnasium director. I was one of the rejected. Again, I felt the pain and insult pierce my heart. From there on I had to suffer the trials of an “extern” – the Gymnasium classes I studied by myself at home; sometimes with the help of tutors from a company of charitable and justice-seeking students. Every year I took the exams for the highest grade and succeeded every time only to be told, over and over again, “no vacancies for Jews”. One time I collected a small sum of money after giving private lessons on the cheap and traveled to Odessa. I was attracted to this southern capital for quite some time due to its many educational institutes and “European” culture. There I was hoping to find a means of support in the community of disseminators of learning. But when I arrived in the city, I found myself in the company of a large army of “externs” who only manage to find teaching positions that paid barely enough to avoid starvation. I, too, was often lacking for bread. Many times, I heard extern friends give speeches at rallies that, at first, made me recoil in fear. Here grew the revolutionary seeds among the bitter youths that were prevented from acquiring spiritual sustenance by the school and were thrown to the darkness of the streets… After many troubles I concluded my studies of the Gymnasium, took the finals, passed, received my degree, and set my eyes on university. However, here too, I faced the barbed-wire fence of the “Jewish quota”. I managed to pass this hurdle, although my soul was raked in the process. I was admitted to the University in the capital.
Here I could finally breathe at ease! I was fully swept by the student movement of the late 19th century, and the revolution they were preparing. But who made me a revolutionary? The government itself schooled me quite well since the days of my youth. My mother’s stories about the 1882 pogroms, the “hunt” in Kiev, the internment in Moscow, my father’s tears in the prisoner house awaiting deportation, the trials underwent during the journey with the other prisoners, the torment of children by the Gymnasium teachers, and the pleading at the University gates as a pitiful slave-born – is there a better preparation for revolution? Back in the years I wondered hungry on the streets of Odessa I swore to dedicate my life to the struggle against the regime that oppressed my small family, and still oppresses my larger family – the Jewish people. The rage of my forefathers – the prophets of old, who first taught us the doctrines of social justice – merged with the rage of the prophets of our current generation. My national protest merged with the socialist protest and the revolution became my faith…
During the last year of the previous century, at the time of the student protests, I was walking at the head of a protest and completely forgot that one must be somewhat vigilant. I was caught and put in prison. Later, together with other students and prisoners, we were turned over to the military to carry out military work during the days of Minister Bogolyubov; and so, I made my way from the University to the Barracks.
I served in the army for three years as a common soldier — being Jewish my education gave me no privileges like they did my Russian comrades. We Jews were especially hated by our Rotmistr who got all his political knowledge from antisemitic magazines; and would only address the Jews under his command as Zhyds. He used to torment us as much as he could in front of the entire regiment, mockingly calling us the “nobles of Jerusalem”. When he was upset, he would shout out “Payot wearing Zhyds, upfront!”. The junior officers and the common soldiers, Russian and Pole alike, took his lead and made our lives in the army miserable. Several times, I found myself slowly squeezing the trigger of my rifle with rage, and with all my willpower stopped myself from firing off a shot. My heart ached with the thought that my work for “my motherland” was in vain. She did not recognize me as her son, and even discriminated me compared to her foreign sons who were allowed to reside anywhere in Russia but were not required to enlist in her army. My military hard labor was over in the spring of 1903. I was set free and took the train back to Kishinev my hometown. On the road home I was horrified by the news of the Kishinev Pogrom.
All that I read in the Russian newspapers that were under strict censorship in the days of Plehve, paled in comparison to what I witnessed when I arrived at the “City of Slaughter” a week later. As I was traveling from the station towards my mother’s house on the other side of the city, I witnessed the signs of destruction at every step: broken home and store windows, boarded up with planks. In the poorer homes in the back alleys – just open holes instead of windows and doors. Here and there in yards with destroyed gates I could see stains that have been cleaned. “Blood stains” my Jewish wagon driver explained to me, and then went on to tell me many more things that I have yet to have heard. With my heart pounding the wagon approached my mother’s house – I could see broken windows boarded up with rags. As I walked in, I recognized the grim old woman that was in front of me – my mother, who ran and hugged me. She was young and vibrant when I left town and last saw her. Her forehead was covered with a large bandage. What happened? — “Nothing, already healed: hooligans hit me over the head with a wooden log.” And my sister? My mother’s face turned a deathly pale. She collapsed on her chair and wept. What of her? “killed”? – “No”. “Wounded?” “Oy, my son, far worse”. I understood completely. My world collapsed. We both sat there and wept bitterly and loudly. Later I was told the full account. My married sister, a young woman, hid in the attic with her husband and infant son. The terrorizers came and beat her husband severely and dragged him away. They tortured my sister and suffocated the baby to death with a rag. My sister was currently at the hospital with the hundreds of wounded and was being tended to, in order to prevent her from losing her mind.
A raging inferno burnt within me, sorrow and shame consumed me, sorrow for the murdered and desecrated; and shame for my brothers who allowed their close ones to be murdered and maimed and did not face these damned drunkard gangs who fell upon them. Why was there no organized Jewish self-defense when the police and the army were helping the terrorizers? Why did they not defend their honor even if they could not save their lives? Why hundreds of Jews fell and only two or three of Krushevan’s army? And why is this villain still alive along with the rest of those who made ready this massacre? I wandered about feeling helpless.
In one of those days a memorial was held at the synagogue. I attended the service and heard the heart wrenching cries and the chanting of “אל מלא רחמים” but I could not stay, I leapt from my seat and left the synagogue in a rush. My heart was bitter with the emotions that our Poet put on paper in “The City of Slaughter” in the following rage-filled verse:
Into the synagogue, and on a day of fasting,
Their weeping everlasting.
Thy skin will grow cold, the hair on thy skin stand up,
And thou wilt be by fear and trembling tossed;
Thus groans a people which is lost.
Look in their hearts – behold a dreary waste,
Where even vengeance can revive no growth,
And yet upon their lips no mighty malediction
Rises, no blasphemous oath.
I resigned myself to do as the poet commanded:
Let them assoil their tragedy,
— Not thou, — let it remain unmourned
For distant ages, times remote,
But thy tear, son of man, remain unshed!
Build thou about it, with thy deadly hate
Thy fury and thy rage, unuttered,
A wall of copper, the bronze triple plate!
So in thy heart it shall remain confined
A serpent in its nest
— O terrible tear! —
Until by thirst and hunger it shall find
A breaking of its bond.
Then shall it rear
Its venomous head, its poisoned fangs, and wait
To strike
The organization of self-defense against pogroms became my primary duty. I traveled to different towns who were under the threat of pogroms by the incitements of Plehve’s Gendarmes and with the help of colleagues I set up local Jewish self-defense units. During the last days of summer, it became known to me that one of these units demonstrated marvelous heroism during the Gomel pogrom. I mourned for my comrades that fell during the defense but was also filled with pride being one of the warriors fighting for his honor against the “superior enemy forces”.
Soon after this, the Japanese war broke out. I was amongst the first enlisted to the army and was hastily taken south of the frozen fields of Siberia and then to Manchuria. In Harbin I met a group of Jews who were deported from Port Arthur under orders of the Russian authorities a few days before the start of the war. “I am off to fight for Port Arthur, so it remains a part of Russia” I joked bitterly. I went to spill my blood for Russia as a common soldier with the wish that my brothers in arms will notice this great deed. I was wrong. The military authorities and military men, albeit not all, treated me with suspicion – much like they did in peace time. My duties in the army, under these conditions, became a moral burden. Near Mukden I was wounded and was taken away from the front. I was recovering from my wounds and was moved from hospital to hospital. When I returned to European Russia the revolution was already in force and I found myself among my people.
Oh 1905, the year of the great revolution and the terrible pogroms, the year of high hopes and deep despair, is there a more tragic figure in your maddening drama than the Jew? The Jew joined the liberation movement with a cry of pain and the enthusiasm of a martyr. The enslaved prisoner of the Pale of Settlement, illtreated with slavery and political inquisition, went to war with the old regime with the fervor of a devout religious man. As other Jewish participants in the revolution, I felt that backing us was an enraged nation and that “this punishing arm is targeting our blows at the heart of the hated regime”. In these moments I sometimes forgot my immediate goals and was dragged after distant aspirations. That’s how I performed my duties at the altar of freedom, but my days at these duties were not long. The political inquisition threw at us the agents of chaos – The Black Hundreds and they destroyed our altar and drowned freedom, upon its birth, in the miry waves of pogroms from the lowermost of Russia.
Back in the spring of 1905 I foresaw the black clouds that were about to cover the land. More than once did I clash with the bloodthirsty army of the Black Hundreds. I took part in the self-defense in Zhytomyr and saw the body of the student Balinov – a member of our self-defense heroes. The body of the only Russian that fought with us lay at my feet. I stood with the ten fallen in Troyaniv. The ten dismembered bodies of the martyred youths that set off to help their brothers in Zhytomyr and were murdered enroute by a gang of peasants who fell upon them in a predatory frenzy. During the summer I toured the southwestern region — that was to Russia as Vendee was to France – and I witnessed the days of the Pogroms before the coming October harvest.
Then came that defeat in Uman, a city already known in history for the horrors of the Haydamaks. In one of the days of the pogroms that came after the October 17 Manifesto, I was marching at the head of a group of armed defenders towards a mob of hooligans that were committing a pogrom against Jews in a “patriotic manifestation” holding a picture of the Tsar in their hands. We drove back the hordes of terrorizers from many houses and killed several looters that fell upon us with whipping sticks. One of them, however, managed to hit me on the back of my head and I fell. Badly wounded and delirious I was taken to the hospital.
During the lonely days of rest after my injuries I often contemplated about our path. I was wounded twice – I noted to myself – the first time from a Japanese bullet fighting for Russia, and a second time from a blow by a “patriotic” Russian hooligan who hit me with a whipping stick in the name of Russia. Again, my people were put between the hammer and anvil, as in many instances throughout history. Isn’t life meaningless if there is place for such horrible contradictions when a letter delivering a constitution arrives enveloped in pogroms against Jews? From the Russian prison I longed for the light and fresh air of that great republic across the ocean. I did not wish to leave behind my brethren in peril, but I longed to join the brethren that put their troubles behind them and headed en-masse to that great Western Nation. The escape to America seemed to me the primary solution to the Jewish problem. As I was preparing to leave, the State Duma was constituted. I doubted for a moment: perhaps this is the sign of dawn rising in Russia? And then I heard the groans of the killed in Bialystok. Then the Duma was dismissed and came the horrible military pogrom in Siedlce. The main instigator, Colonel Tichonowski, received official instructions for his role and began reigning death by official decrees and by the use of the Black Hundreds, who targeted mainly Jews. And finally came the revolution of June 3, 1907 a complete travesty. It was obvious to me that this “black reaction” will be long-lasting, and I joined the masses of emigrants.
With a tumultuous heart, on a pilgrimage of Freedom, I approached the American holy city of that religion. I was longing to quickly witness how the new Jewish center established in the United States, and birthed through the pogroms of 1881, grew to number 1,500,000 in the course of 25 years. I witnessed the Jewish New York, a great city by itself, and I saw many Jewish centers throughout other cities across the great republic. I relished the political freedom in the air and where a Jew can slowly start to stand upright. Two years I spent in this grand workshop in which, amidst the sounds of clinging metal, a Jewish center numbering millions was being formed. But I could not stay. From the faraway European Egypt the laments of my brethren reached my ears, I supposed that I stayed too long in this great land; and that I must return to the place of sorrow. I had to return home and help my downcast brothers in the “iron furnace” that was my motherland.
And in this motherland the government was busy countering the liberation movement and bringing to justice its members. I too, was not without old sins. The Secret Police searched for me for many days and as soon as I crossed the border into Russia, the Border Guards greeted me with open arms, arrested me, and took me off to prison. After many days at the Kiev prison, I was sent to the far north to cool my revolutionary fervor.
From my exile I could watch the events unfold in Russia and how it was returning to its old ways. The third State Duma with its revolutionary members became akin to a department run by the government. The terrorizing of Jews that at first was only sanctioned by the government was now also sanctioned by “elected representatives”. Stolypin’s regime returned us to the days of Plehve. So returned the old “hunts”, mass deportations, the percentage quotas in and out of schools, for my younger friends, the miserable externs. The persecution was a manner of retribution for the Jewish participation in the revolution. And so went that vicious circle: they plot because they are abused, and they are abused because they plot. Then fell on us the outrage for the act of Bogrov, who shot and killed Stolypin in Kiev. In the reactionary public echoed the words: “at the hands of a Jewish assassin”. What happened in Kiev after this catastrophe, in the harsh days of September 1911, I remember well. During those days, my exile in the north was over and I returned to Kiev in the beginning of September when all Jews were stricken by a deathly fear. The lower ranks of the Black Hundreds were not preparing a pogrom but a massacre. Thousands of Jewish families filled the train stations trying to flee the city. The thousands who remained resigned themselves each evening to being slaughtered. I again felt the anguish and humiliation for Kishinev. Miraculously the higher ranks decided this was not the time for the Black Hundreds to go out to play, and the signal was given to return the beasts to their cages. Instead, in the basements of the ministry and in the tea houses of “Russian Society” a new weapon against the Jews was forged – The Beilis affair.
This awoke within me the spirit of an old warrior, the spirit of organized self-defense in which I previously participated. I arose to battle the agents of agitation against the evil conspirers who spread this age-old blood libel. I began writing daily in provincial newspapers exposing the evil deeds of the lower and upper ranks of the Black conspirators. I joined a group determined to investigate and uncover the details of the terrible conspiracy from the Kievan thieves’ den in the Cheberyak apartment to the court of the justice minister, Shcheglovitov. I turned anywhere and everywhere driven by the anguish of this latest blow, and many times was proven that all my efforts were in vain. For my articles on the Beilis Affair the newspapers were fined repeatedly, the redactors themselves sometimes faced charges. I caused the redactors significant losses and they avoided printing my articles. I therefore started publishing my own newspaper in a provincial town. Within a short time, my newspaper gained fame for its courage, among the public, and infamy, among the censors. I soon was on the receiving end of a barrage of administrative fines and faced charges for “spreading hatred of the government”.
Even after the Beilis Affair was over, before the dust settled came the atrocity in Festov, and many redactors, newspaper publishers, and public figures were fined for daring not to accept the original Justice Ministry’s findings. In June 1914 the St. Petersburg’s lawyers who protested the injustices of the trial were found guilty and on July 19 I was supposed to stand trial in the city where I published my sinful newspaper — but that day turned out to be a different day of Judgement. The world war broke out and conscription began. Instead of standing before the court I was brought to stand with the conscripted. This was the beginning of the final, and most terrible, chapter of my sad life.
III
To this day I do not fully understand the mental state that suddenly fell on me and on thousands of Jews like me in the days of July 1914, only to be begrudgingly changed later due to the harsh circumstances. The call to join the world war split my soul in half. The events of days past: the lack of basic rights, the pogroms, the Beilis Affair, the hell that is Jewish existence in Russia, all these were swept away and in the void that was left rushed in something akin to Patriotism. It wasn’t of course the same patriotism of the first days of the war manifested by loud and in-genuine public displays which sometimes revolted me. This was a different mental state, a very complicated feeling, a mixture of a “strange” love for the motherland and a noble and strong faith – or more accurately the need for the faith – that this war would bring forth liberty to the world. First it was the call of the motherland that reached my heart, after all that region between the Neman and Dnieper rivers was my homeland too, my forefathers settled here a thousand years ago; and now she is under the threat of fire, sword, and destruction, waiting for her sons to come to her aid. Then I was grasped by the idea that this may be the last and final war between cultured people, a war against war, against the God of war, who is showing his face predominantly in Germany. We are to be allies to the two great democracies in Europe who sounded the call to “free small nations”. Could it be, my heart told me, that the call for liberty for Belgium and Serbia, with their troubled past would not be answered with a similar call for the nation of six million; occupied by the largest of the “Liberation Alliance” and providing these allies five hundred thousand troops – a call for freedom! This must be an impossibility at a time when history itself is facing its judgement day.
In my mind I wandered even further. The enslavement of my people will undoubtedly be abolished instantly. It is a certainty: if one saves his country by giving his life, it is an impossibility that his country will oppress him. He who defends his country from outside oppression will surely no longer be oppressed by his own countrymen. Don’t let the reader think that I was rash and over-confident. All my life’s experience taught me otherwise. However, during those days those of us going off to die for our country – our step-motherland, believed it was inevitable that the treatment of Jews and the internal politics will change. I confess, I waited daily for some sort of declaration of emancipation, for some late and public show of regret from past oppressors on the eve of this Judgement Day. I had complete faith in the eternal justice of history – it contains more truth and justice than everyday prosaic deeds. And when I picked up a newspaper in the barracks and read the summary of the “historical” session of the State Duma of July 26, my heart sank with worry. I was looking forward to important acts by the government, high demands from the Duma; I was wishing, at least, for some small starts and fixes, but could find none. Even in the address made by our own Deputation there was only the mention of us “ready to fulfill our duty to the end” – and nothing about the great debt owed to us by our motherland. For a moment I felt embarrassment but then resolute: Whatever will not be done willingly will be done by force. History itself will force those refusing its call and judgement, victory is won with great trials. With this tumultuous spirit I marched in the ranks of a great army into Eastern Prussia.
On the way I picked up a newspaper and there it was: The General’s call for the Poles, in beautiful language, not typical of such official releases, “the yearnings of your forefathers are about to come true”. The beginning of modernization was before me: the call for liberty for one of the oppressed nations… but why only for one? Where are all the pompous slogans for an even more oppressed nation, which too the Germans have invaded, and her sons too are dispersed among the warring kingdoms. Will they overlook us again and not love us as children or respect us as stepchildren? No, it is impossible. We will wait, our day too will come… and we marched with the columns of a great army into the burning furnace of Eastern Prussia. Lead by a grey-haired General, our acquaintance from 1905, head of the oppressive expedition, the reactionary General and Jew Oppressor – Rennenkampf, but we wished to forget, in this great hour, the character of our leader. In the beginning we were successful several times, but paid a heavy price in the killing fields: we were already heading for Königsberg. Here one incident shook me to the core.
After a fierce battle near Insterburg I led a group of chained German prisoners, among them were several wounded. Along the way one of the wounded moaned loudly and spoke to the Russians around him, but they did not understand his tongue. I came closer and asked him in German: what is the matter? His semi-shut eyes opened, and this young pale-faced man asked in a whisper: “will we reach the station soon? I am badly wounded. I think I am dying”. Then he looked at me inquisitively and asked with a low voice “You are Jewish?”. My answer “Yes” shook him. He fell silent, and then said facetiously “I am Jewish too”. I went to war against Russia, to fight for Russia’s Jews. I sought revenge for the horrors of Kishinev, for the October Pogroms, for the Beilis Affair, for the plight of the millions of my brothers… and here you also seem to be an intelligent Jew: Do you honestly believe you are fighting for the liberation of your people?”. “I do believe”, I answered. He looked at me with a long piercing stare as if he wanted to tell me something, but the pain overcame him, and he only let out a moan. We handed over the dying man to the nearest medical station and continued onward. I walked along a straight and paved road reflecting the rays of the summer sun, but my mind was storming with thoughts. What a tragedy, a twofold sacrifice of a dispersed and separated people. A Pole warring against a Pole, a Jew against a Jew. An Austrian Pole calling a Russian Pole to join the Austro-Polish Legions to liberate Poland; a Jew from Germany dreams of avenging Russian Jews, thinking he brings us freedom – he does not know that we are defending ourselves in this fight, we are fighting for both the liberation of Russia from Germany and from the tyrannical regime in Russia itself – the source of our troubles. At that time my faith in our path for liberation was not yet extinguished.
The great defeat we suffered near Soldoi was followed by a quick retreat from East Prussia. During this retreat my leg was wounded. In a train full of wounded soldiers, I was transferred north to Vilnius. Our unit unraveled and was separated into different groups on the train. Russians by themselves, Jews by themselves, and Poles by themselves. In the Polish section the word “Zhyds” was annoyingly whispered. From the nearby Russian section, one could hear: “Germans and Zhyds, they are the same… traitors. The Rotmistr said so.” I heard this and angered. These are the teachings of Rennenkampf, he needs an excuse for his incompetence and ignorance, it is too much for him to bare, blame the Jews, their eternal fate is to be the scapegoat. For the first time during the war my faith in my noble pursuit began to waiver.
From Vilnius I was taken to St. Petersburg, which was now called Petrograd, and placed in a hospital. They saw no need to amputate my leg, but many days of healing were ahead of me. Being far from the front I began to contemplate my travails in the army and observe my surroundings. My roommates were Jewish military men from various areas in the Pale of Settlement. Two young lads were waiting daily for their parents to arrive from Vilnius, but in vain. The police did not allow those old Jews to stay in the capital. One of the mothers dared to visit her son without a permit. During the day she cried over her son’s amputated arm and at night she was arrested, taken to the Uchastok, and deported without being allowed to bid her son farewell. This news left us astonished in the hospital room. The old system of arrogant oppression is still in place. Even this great tragedy has not moved the inquisitionary regime and its disdain of Jews. Is nobody in the depths of Russia paying attention to the hand of history handing down judgement? I asked a Petersburgian friend who came to visit me to bring me Jewish newspapers. I must know everything that is happening to my brethren in the rear lines, for them I headed to the front lines of this raging war, for them stand four hundred thousand Jewish military men against the strong death and despair wielding Teutonic hands. I learned many horrible things. I learned of the many Jewish refugees from the Lithuanian border provinces under enemy control. The government blocks these refugees from fleeing the enemy and forbids them to move deeper into their own country and seek refuge with relatives. I learned of refugees from our school, Jewish students that were previously expelled from Russian schools for being Jewish and are now being expelled from German schools for being Russian; and are not admitted into Russian universities to complete their studies. The Jew-hating Minister Kasso announced to the applicants that the Jewish quotas in schools will remain in place, and hundreds of Jews were forced out of University and into the barracks, that is, to march to certain death for the preservation of the quota. Students died fighting for Warsaw like their heroic comrades died fighting for the Belgian city of Liege. There – because the foreign school accepted them, and here – because their school expelled them… I was shaking in anger as I read the two edicts by the Governor-General of Petrograd Obolensky; edicts in the spirit of 1891. In one he decreed that Jews without a permit to reside in the capital and dare enter the city without a permit would be jailed for three months and then deported. In the second edict the police were ordered to confiscate the passports of deported Jews and provide them with a temporary travel document for passage to their hometown. These two edicts were given due to the “state of war”. There on the real battlefront are thousands of Jews who are not allowed to reside in the capital by law, and under this martial law are to be imprisoned when entering the capital. You are bound to die for your motherland, but you are not allowed to reside in her capital or most of her land. I then learned of the grace given to Jewish military men who lost their arms or legs in the war: Minister Mikhalkov allowed them to stay in the capital “no more than two months, so they can get prosthetics made to replace their amputated limbs”, and after this extension the maimed must quickly exit the capital that they fought for and lost their limbs for. I tried to recall all the oppressive laws set upon this persecuted nation for the past hundreds of years but could not recall anything like this decree.
With great trepidation I felt that the coldness of this world is chilling my fiery lust for war and that my passion for great deeds is dwindling, I was already regretting the infantile and ignorant views I possessed only days before. Here, you were waiting for equal rights, I told myself, or at least reinforcing promises. I hoped for peace or at least a truce with the Jewish people, but the war against them rages with the same intensity… I felt the earth collapse under my feet. I could not tolerate breathing the air in Petrograd due to all the news and conversations going around. I already heard that from Poland, which was in complete chaos, were spreading throughout Russia libelous accusations of the “Treason of the Jews”. What do my brothers feel, there at the front, as they crawl with shrapnel hissing over their heads? How horrible must be the burning fire within the hearts of these persecuted that fight for their motherland? I should be there with them, suffer alongside them. I therefore asked to hasten my release from the hospital, stating I am well enough to return to the front lines. They granted my wish, of course, with great enthusiasm, and in October 1914 I traveled by train to the Warsaw theater, towards the raging war.
IV
What I saw here was beyond all my most bitter expectations. The Polish air was poisoned with the “Military Libel”. After gaining expertise in the actions of the Russian oppressors I witnessed here the differing ways of their Polish brothers. The Russian oppressor mauls like a bear, the Pole sinks his teeth like a snake. The bear walks heavily and directly towards its prey, attacks, and strangles it. The snake sneaks from behind, crawling silently, bites at the heel, and quickly escapes into the bushes. When in Russia they concocted the Beilis Affair, a horrible plot but obvious to the naked eye, in Poland a boycott against the Jews broke out. At first glance the boycott is a clean affair, an action-less opposition, but in truth it is a soul-destroying poison that drips and seeps with all its might into the family, the school, and the public. The Russian terrorizer assaulted the Jew in the open with a whipping stick, the Pole set the Jewish farmer’s house ablaze during the night only after blocking the door from the outside, leaving no means of escape for those waking up and trying to flee. Even during the start of the war, the public air in Russian Poland was so foul, that the seeds of the military libel could propagate and spread without end. The Polish snake began biting us back in the peaceful days, when its murmurs where targeted at both the “Muscals” (who it couldn’t bite) and the “Zhyds”. But only at us did it set its fangs after the provisional Russian promise for Polish liberty. In anticipation of freedom the Polish public began rooting out the Jews and preparing a tyrannical regime of “one nation across the Vistula”. Then came the days that both persecutions – the Polish and the Russian – combined into one, and the Jews began to feel the bites of the snake and the blows of the bear at once.
I joined one of the regiments passing from one place to another on the Lublin-Warsaw front, in the great fire zone of the advancing Germans. There I witnessed the manufacturing of the weaponized libels against the Jews. As our force entered a town, shortly after a German withdrawal, the commander immediately received a deputation of Poles offering patriotic greetings (even though only yesterday many of them supported the Austrians) and whispering in his ears, incidentally, some things about the Jews: The Jews welcomed the Germans with love, the shopkeepers sold them their wares willingly (since there was a forced requisition) and others spied for the enemy (and names of specific Jews selected for death were read out), and all was already prepared, the venom was injected. The military commanders officiate and deliver justice. Two or three false witnesses and the body of the Jewish “Spy” is swinging from a rope. And for those “German Loving” Jews, who are not charged with espionage and tried, they are brought to justice posthaste: a shopkeeper whose wares were requisitioned by the Germans was accused of hiding his wares and refusing to sell to the Russians, and his entire property and belongings were looted by the army.
In one city our General, who treated Jews harshly, received a deputation from the local Jewish community. The General received them with a fit of rage and immediately started pointing out the crimes of the Jews, being: supporting the enemy, acts of treason, etc. When the deputation provided evidence that none of these were true the General exclaimed: “You can’t deny that the Jews distributed the German proclamation reading “Remember the Beilis Affair, remember Kishinev, remember the pogroms””. The deputation replied that it is possible that some Jews found these proclamations and read them but did not distribute them. “How couldn’t they distribute them” cried out the General. “Were there not pogroms, was there not the Beilis Affair, you cannot have forgotten these! The content of these proclamations must have entered your hearts!” This was the psychology of that libel: “Must have”. They unjustly torture and then, clearly, the tortured seeks vengeance because he “must have” retribution. The shadow of the murdered pursues the murderer.
All this I witnessed firsthand, and I was in one of the regiments that brought perdition on my brethren. With my own eyes I witnessed an old and distinguished man taken to the gallows. He was falsely accused and found guilty of signaling the Germans with his windmill. The man screamed without end in Polish: “I am innocent, I swear!” and was hung. Then I heard that the military Procurator himself said that without a doubt that old man was innocent. I also found out that one of the old man’s sons died in the war, perhaps at the same time his father was hung… I saw Jewish stores being ransacked by soldiers and I tried to dissuade my army comrades who replied: “Shut up Jew. You came to save your brothers, the traitors.” I saw a Cossack with bloodshot eyes angrily beating an old Hassidic Rabbi, a grey-haired man with a saintly face, only because he wouldn’t answer his questions; and how could he if he did not speak a single word in Russian. The face of that old man seemed familiar, then I realized it reminded me of the depictions of the crucified. The eyes that look up and painfully ask “what for?” And then I remembered what my father told me in my youth about the crucified people and the crucified man…. I witnessed much more, but I cannot tell it all. My days are numbered. Only that that which angered me the most I hastily write.
This took place during the last days of harvest in 1914. Our division was marching through the Warsaw region, already partially occupied by the Germans. On a straight road towards Grodzisk, about 20 versts from the city, we saw a large rabble of men, women, and children walking towards us. The lines of men spanned a whole verst. All these were Jews from Grodzisk, from small infants to elderly 100-year-olds, all forcefully deported within a three-hour period under orders of the General in charge of the Polish Theater; for being people that their “residence near the battlefront was not beneficial”. They were the victims of the Russo-Polish libel. Among the hundreds of deported families less than 10 wagons could be seen, on them a few miserable household items and the sick, the old, and children that did not have strength to walk. The rest marched by foot: women carrying infants on their arms, sometimes fell to the ground fatigued; weak old men and women fumbling about and held up by their arms. People walking without energy and with tired failing legs. Many from the front of the rabble noticed we had Jews in our regiment and called out to us in Yiddish, brethren, see what is being done to us (ברידער,זעהט וואס מען טוט מיט אונז!). These words were like the touch of burning iron on my skin, I recoiled as I heard them, and was about to jump and run towards their pleading hands, but one of the soldiers held me back by my sleeve and said: “What are you doing? Are you mad? He is breaking rank!”. I stood still and wanted to speak on behalf of the pleading, but I could not utter a word. I looked at my Jewish comrades in the regiment, many of them, especially the able ones, were wiping the tears with their sleeves as they were running down their cheeks. I would imagine some of them were thinking of their own families that are facing similar peril. Our Rotmistr quickly put an end to this display and ordered us to march faster. We passed the miserable vagabonds. Three hours later we marched into Grodzisk and encountered a strange sight: barren streets, houses with locked doors and windows, closed shops; but at the doors of some open shops with Jewish name signs on them were Poles behaving as they have just replaced the owners: how quick were they to take advantage of their neighbors’ demise and inherit the land. We later discovered that a similar expulsion was forced on the Jews of the nearby town of Skierniewice and many other towns in the Warsaw region. The roads were filled with tens of thousands of refugees marching by foot to Warsaw, sometimes walking 80 versts in the harvest mud, the rain, and the cold winds. The women, the children, and elderly, who were too tired and fell, were picked up and carried by hand, there was no room for them on the laden wagons. Upon arrival in Warsaw the refugees saw that some of the sick that were carried by wagon died on the way, and many others froze and were now dying. In Warsaw many of these exiled found their conscripted relatives doing their part in the defense of their homeland. But they could not defend their homes, their mothers and fathers, and their wives and children from the robbery and burglary brought upon them from their own military command.
Where have my courage and enthusiasm from the days of July gone! As I ran off to this great war, believing my brethren will be set free by it – and what do I see now? I, fully armed, on the way to break the arm of the German giant cannot even protect one of my brothers, save from death even one old man, not even a small child being chased away by a Russian bayonet. I walk rank and file in an army that a rabble of impoverished Jews scatters in front of it as it passes, like dust in a storm. Thirty-five years the civilian government waged war on the Jews, and now the military government does too, but with stronger and harsher pogroms, and with impetuous justice. Now this government has rushed into the Pale of Settlement with millions of bayonets regarding Jews as enemies: taking hostages from their distinguished community elders, to be used as collateral, and make sure the local Jewry are kept in line. Old Rabbis and well-known merchants are exiled to the northern provinces and warned that they will hang if the Jews show any sign of affection to the Germans arriving in their towns. And how could the simple folk not fail this test if, for example, in the large city of Płock the Russian General ordered all Jews to be deported, and the German regiment that entered the city the very same day, expelled the Russians but ordered the Jews to remain in place? The hostages taken from the Jews of Płock – if the Russian army managed to take them with them – were under the threat of death for the gratitude of their brethren left behind to the Germans that saved them from forced deportation.
My agony and shame crushed my heart especially as Galicia was occupied by the Russian Army, and our regiment entered the region. From Brody to Lvov and on to Przemyśl spread the news of the terrible deeds of the Cossacks, the reoccurrence of the horrors of 1648 (The Khmelnitsky Riots). Scores of Jewish communities were wiped off the face of the earth. Russian soldiers, by and large, did not touch the Poles, as ordered by their General to not lay a hand on them or their Ruthenian brothers; all their rage they kept for the Jews. Not only common soldiers, but also the officers, handed down judgement on the Jews in an evil insensible rage for “treating with enmity” the Russian army. As if subjects of Austria must show fondness to their pogrom-preaching Russian enemies. In Lvov I met intellectuals who were the heads of the Jewish community, who stayed on hoping to save their brethren from the claws of the bloody Russian officials of the Governor-General Bobrinsky. “We will soon be given equal rights to yours” told me one of these Jews gloomily; he was a Doctor of Philosophy. The newspapers were already stating that the Russian government is determined to revoke the civil rights of Galician Jews, and confiscate their properties in the villages, to be handed over to Russian Moscow-loving colonists. To the six million without rights will be added one more million – these are the fruit of your war of liberation. The word “your” deeply wounded me. The speaker did not realize that this war has already stopped being a war of liberation to my eyes; he didn’t know that he dealt me a blow in a place I was already bruised and destroying something that was already falling apart. I too already knew that instead of freedom I was bringing riots and pogroms to my brethren in Russia and the shackles of slavery to my free brethren in Galicia.
I feel that during the six months of war I aged more than twenty years. I am no longer the enthusiastic and irascible man with a fiery lust to stand against any injustice. I am overwhelmed by the burden of the events that I witnessed. My spirit full of courage at the beginning of this great earth-shaking storm, has been beaten to the ground and, I imagine, never to rise again.
V
At the end of April 1915, we were defeated and began retreating from Galicia. The enslavement of Galicia’s Jews was no longer a regret: they will now be free, albeit poor and destitute. The detachments that remained of our Southwest Army were quickly sent to Poland and Lithuania, that were being devastated by the Austrians and Germans. In the beginning of the month of May our regiment was already at the Kaunas region.
All the roads and train stations were ripe with activity. Was this a new mobilization? Yes, but not an army was mobilized here, but two hundred thousand who were exempt from service, old men, children, and women, all of them Jewish residents of Kaunas, Courland, and parts of Grodno. Under the orders of the Generals all the peaceful Jews were expelled to the last man within a few days, and in some places in a matter of hours, while the German citizens were allowed to remain. Without mercy all Jews were deported, even doctors who were needed to treat the Christians, and the patients in hospitals and mental asylums. This cruelty was reminiscent of the ways of the Assyrians and Babylonians who exiled entire peoples. In front of my eyes passed thousands of new miserable refugees exiled by the Nebuchadnezzars who terrorized Judaean Lithuania. From the openings of the dark bulk and cattle carriages peeked the thin faces of exiles amongst the sobs of mothers and cries of children. At the train stations no one was allowed to get out of the carriages. In some stations the station chiefs did not allow the merciful men and women who came with food to pass it on to these miserable souls. Only envoys from the “Jewish Committee for the Support of War Casualties” from Petrograd were allowed to aid these casualties of the internal war between the regime and the Jews. In one train station I met one of my Petersburgian friends. After he managed to provide food for the exiles of that day’s train, he took me aside and told me of a new crisis. I laid my eyes on his pale thin face and said to him: You are sick, you should return to Petersburg and rest in a countryside house this summer. “What countryside rest – called out my friend. I too am deported; I have rented a house in nearby Finland but a few days ago the General of the Northern Army forbade Jews to reside anywhere on the Finnish coast. All the Jews left in the capital are destined to suffer the suffocating air of the city this year”.
A strange and depressing feeling engulfed me as I passed with my regiment through the towns of Lithuania that were just emptied of my brethren. This entire region was desolate as a desert, even before the Germans arrived it turned into a wasteland. With my own eyes I witnessed most terrible events. In our regiment were many Lithuanian Jews, who left their families behind, and were now longing to see their families as they pass through; And now these people witnessed their birthplaces with pillaged homes, no wife, no children, not a soul. I passed such a house in Panevėžys, and I heard a heart-wrenching cry; I entered the house and saw sitting on a broken chair one of soldiers in our regiment, leaning against the windowsill and weeping. I saw him holding in his hand a child’s toy. This is one of my son’s toys, he told me weeping – he is gone, and my wife with my second boy, a baby still un-weaned, is gone” … He quickly wiped away his tears, held my arms and said to me in a weak and hoarse voice: “You are an educated man. Please tell me: What am I fighting for? For the integrity of my country? They took my homeland, they destroyed my dwelling, devastated my family, and not the enemies did this to me, but people, the same people I fight alongside with. And for what sin! Only for being Jewish” … what could I, the “intellectual”, respond to this poor and honest tailor to console him? I leaned over and whispered in his ear: my dear brother, in the beginning I knew what I was fighting for, and now I do not… Several days later this Jewish soldier went on some counterattack against the Germans: he surged towards the front lines as if with a resentful death-wish, took a bullet, and instantly fell to the ground. I stooped over him: his lips quivered, his semi-shut eyes turned to the bright spring skies, and within a few instants he breathed his last.
The hatred towards the Jews was burning strong in Lithuania during that time, much as it previously did in Poland. Russian soldiers, who stood rank and file with me were reading pamphlets that were given to them, and these pamphlets contained the false accusations of Jewish treason in the small town of kužiai near Šiauliai. The local people told me that it was impossible for any Jews to have committed treason because not even a single Jew was present at the town then. It was all the work of a local commander whose entire unit was decimated by the Germans due to his own negligence and indolence. He was looking for some “traitors” to take the blame. When I read in the newspaper a few days later about the espionage of the “True Russian” Myasoedov, a close acquaintance of the Minister of War Sukhomlinov, and the Minister’s own deeds, who did not provide ammunition for his army, only then I fully understood the extent of the evil conspiracy of the military regime, all learnt from the civil regime; that is, blame the Jews for all the Russian defeats of the war, just as previously they were blamed for all the revolutionary acts, in order to unleash the Black Hundreds at them.
In July, the Germans pushed us back towards Vilnius. Warsaw was about to fall. The Lithuanian capital was not yet in enemy hands, and I, deep in sorrow from my time in the army, sought the company of my free brethren in this old Jewish center. Some kind of force pulled me to my people, to painful conversations on the troubles at the front lines and at the rear, to the old Synagogue that witnessed the Moscovite armies and the terrible deeds of the “Tsar”, Aleksey Mikhaylovich, that oppressed our forefathers. I loved reading newspapers in Yiddish and bought them daily at a newspaper stall at the end of the Jewish Street. One day I arrived at that street corner and the newspaper stall was gone. I entered a nearby bookstore and was told that under orders of the military command all Jewish newspapers are prohibited from being printed in Vilnius or Warsaw. In the decree, that was quickly made public, there was no reason quoted for this prohibition, but it was obvious: the same reason for the deportations, arrests, hangings, hostage takings, and the incitement by military newspapers against the Jews – to paint the Jew as a traitor, and incidentally to anger him, and humiliate him. At fault was the common language of the Jews and the language of the holy scriptures, without which our persecutors would not have their Christian names. Did they really believe that the local Jews will signal the Germans using the language of the Ten Commandments and the Visions of the Prophets? undoubtedly, they did not think this; but if you could use martial law to forbid the Jew to read in his mother tongue why would the rulers deprive themselves of this pleasure? And as I contemplate, I remember things I saw in the trenches: Here is a Jewish soldier, that can only speak in his mother tongue, and cannot write a letter home in his own tongue, because it will not be delivered, and he asks me to write in his name in Russian and sighs. He knows that his parents or young wife who yearn to hear from him in his own handwriting and tongue, they too can only write to him in a foreign tongue, the same language used by the hated police clerks.
The worst was yet to come, we left Vilnius under heavy and terrible artillery fire. The German assault and the heavy weapons fire all around us caused an all-out retreat from Lithuania. Hundreds of thousands of troops were withdrawing in roads already filled with tens of thousands of refugees from the region’s various ethnicities. Like a storm passing through a land covered with blooming flowers only a few days earlier, “and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.” The soldiers frolicked around and looted and plundered regardless of nationality or tongue, but were especially cruel towards the Jews, as they were already incited against this nation. What was done to the Jews throughout the regions of Vilnius, Minsk, and parts of Vitebsk on the path of our retreating army during August and September 1915, is destined to fill a special page, a darker and viler page than all preceding it, in the book of the Plight of Israel in Russian history. Completely demolished streets, destroyed houses, killed or maimed men, raped women, this is the plunder of the fleeing army. These terrible deeds were most plentiful during the High Holidays, that in this year were literally “Days of Awe”. Smarhon, Pastavy, Kreva, Glubokoye, Dokshytsy, Lemeshevichi – all these were but stops in a blood-filled road, that my soul drenched in endlessly, as they murdered my brothers and sisters in front of my eyes.
Here is Smarhon, previously a fertile Jewish center of leather traders. Our soldiers enter as the Germans withdraw. Our soldiers, especially the Cossacks, fall upon the Jews, breach their houses as if looking for Germans, and rob, batter, and rape. Many flee from these robbers to the woods. A few Jews take refuge in the old synagogue. But Cossacks break inside. A group of Jews from our regiments hurries over to expel these evil villains from the synagogue. I head this small party, we walk into the synagogue, a horrible sight in front of our eyes: Cossacks breaking the Torah Ark and ripping apart the holy books. On the ground, unconscious, lay raped women. Around a dead body of a young woman is the dead body of her old father, perhaps dying trying to save his daughter’s honor. My friends and I open fire with rage, we fell upon the Cossacks, and a bloody battle ensued, first inside the Synagogue and then outside. Dead and wounded fell on both sides. I miraculously survived. The Regiment Commander ordered the arrest of all participants and to send them to the front lines. We, punished Jewish soldiers, began leaving Smarhon and all of the city’s Jews were ordered to leave it immediately. The city emptied immediately. Only one family stayed behind: a father suffering from a stroke and his two sons who did not have the heart to walk their father away, (since no wagons or carriages were given). Suddenly a Cossack officer charged into the house: “how dare you, Zhyds, stay here? – “we remained with our sick father”. “Where is your father?” – “In the next room”. The officer hastened into the next room and fired his revolver at the bedridden man and went out to his sons and said: “You can travel now”.
On the way to the front lines, I witnessed another terrible Pogrom. We were about to rest in Lemeshevichi a village near Pinsk. That day was Yom Kippur. The Jews of the neighboring towns were preparing to flee. Their belongings were loaded on boats on the Pripyat River. They gathered waiting for the artillery to die down so they can cross the river (the Germans were already surrounding Pinsk). On the riverbank these refugees prayed for “Judgement Day” on Yom Kippur. Suddenly a group of Cossacks fell upon the frightened rabble. They imprisoned the men and led them somewhere, and then began hunting down the women. Miserable mothers, young maidens, and even 12-14 year-old girls were grabbed by the Cossacks, dragged into the woods, and tortured like animals. Many women ran and hid deep in the forest in trenches and holes. Some sought shelter in the houses of Russian peasants they knew, but the peasants turned them away, obviously supporting the Cossacks. All night the woods were filled with the cries of tortured women, I was told. I took my rifle and left the village secretly. In the forest I walked towards a scream that I heard, and soon enough saw a Cossack dragging a young woman by her arm. I hit him over the head with my rifle and he dropped to the ground. The young women, who was barely conscious, I took out of the woods and brought to the riverbank, where her father and mother were running around aimlessly. I then returned quietly to the village, and nobody noticed my absence. I did not return out of fear but due to exhaustion – both physical and spiritual. I suddenly felt that the events of the last few days have mortally wounded my soul and only a mortal physical wound can now save me from my pain.
I did not have to wait long. A few days later, on the front lines, a German bullet hit me in the torso and added another serious wound to the many I received from the hands of Russia in the thirty-five years of my life.
I now lie in a small village, in a police sanitary station near the front, and from here I will be taken to Kiev. I healed, somewhat, from the serious wound, but I know – from the doctor’s faces – that my days won’t be long. I don’t ask anything but this: I want to revive my soul with this account, to provide the next generation this brief and shortened lecture on the events of the generation before them because my words are the words of all the educated Jews of my generation. Thirty-five years we fought the Russian inquisition, our sacrifice was our source of courage, with it we created a strong national opposition. But we have reached the limits of suffering. Let there come new men to replace us, to replace the casualties of the historic storm of our days. Let our successors raise our flag up high, higher than Russia, higher than blood filled Europe. The Jewish question, the thousand-year question, mankind’s question, who got entangled in this world war, should be a question for the entire world. If there is a universal sense of justice, the world must solve this question now. If there is a universal sense of justice, the world must provide an unequivocal solution to this question and remove this shameful stain from human history. I die with complete faith in a universal sense of justice, and in my people the one eternal nation, eternal like the world itself, which history forged together in an unbreakable bond.
March 1916
* One year after these columns were written the Russian Revolution solved this tragic question according to the universal sense of justice.
The original Hebrew text is available here.