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Terrible is the havoc wrought by the elements, the devastating flash, the furious wind; appalling is the destruction of the roaring flames, the all-devouring flood; but what elements can measure their forces with the fury of man, once he has torn asunder the bonds of reason and rushes madly and irresistibly onwards toward the accomplishment of his passionate desires.
"Gefaehrlich ist's den Leu zu wecken,
Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn;
Jedoch das schrecklichste der Schrecken,
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn."
The animosity of the Russians towards the Jews had not ceased, it had only been held in check for a final onslaught. The unfortunate year 1881 dawned upon the Hebrews. Its beginning found them hopeful, and confident that for the future trouble would be averted; its close left them the victims of a cruel and relentless persecution. We would gladly spare the reader the harrowing details of this most atrocious of outbreaks, but we must follow the fortunes of our friends to the end.
The meagre statements which found their way into our newspapers merely announced that riots against the Jews had occurred here and there, but were of so general a nature that they failed to impress the imagination. They never evoked pictures of the terrible scenes which actually occurred: men murdered, women outraged, infants butchered—arson, pillage, slaughter and lust combined.
The ceaseless workings and writings of Mikail and other members of his commission, had gradually aroused the fury of the masses. Their utterances were not only repeated in every kretschma , but were grossly exaggerated. Professional agitators, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by promoting a race quarrel, were actively at work among the people, keeping alive the flame of hatred which they had taken such pains to kindle.
Elizabethgrad, a large city to the south of Kief, containing ten thousand Jews, was their first point of attack. Weeks before the event, proclamations were posted throughout the district, calling upon the inhabitants to throw off the yoke of the Jews and fixing Wednesday, April 27th, as the day for the general uprising. Copies of a fictitious ukase , commanding that the property of the Jews be confiscated and handed over to the Christians, were freely circulated and universally accepted as emanating from the Czar. Every lying accusation which had ever been employed against the Jews since the rise of Christianity was unearthed and used with telling effect. The atrocious calumny that the Jews required the blood of Christian children for their Passover rites was poured into eager ears. For a similar accusation the early Christians were tortured by the Romans, and in their days of prosperity they in their turn employed it against the Jews.
The Israelites were paralyzed with terror at the fate which hung over them. The most influential of their number waited upon the Governor, who after much deliberation received them. He listened with well-feigned attention, while the Jews proved that they were law-abiding and that the accusations against them were unjust. He smiled pityingly when they had finished, and, reminding them that they were in God's hands, dismissed them. No further notice was taken of their appeal.
On the twenty-seventh day of April came the crisis.
In a cabaret , kept by a Jew named Kirsanoff, a religious dispute arose. The matter was of small importance, but it led to a scuffle by which a large crowd of idlers was attracted. The mob grew in numbers and in lawlessness, and having ejected the proprietor of the shop, they proceeded to despoil the place of its liquors. Inflamed by their copious libations, the rioters were ripe for any excess. At this moment there arose a ringleader, a man whom no one knew, but who had been active for some weeks past in stirring up the neighborhood. He mounted a cask and addressed the maddened crowd:
"My friends," he cried, "your time has come! On to the Jewish quarter! Kill, destroy, take what you can! The Czar gives you their property."
With a rallying shout he left the inn, the crowd following close upon his heels.
"Down with the Jews!" arose the cry, and, as the mob increased, it was repeated by a thousand intoxicated wretches.
Then began a wild destruction of property. Shops and warehouses were attacked and their contents carried out into the street, to be destroyed or carried away. Costly linens and works of art, fine furniture and articles of apparel were served alike. What was too bulky to be stolen was carried into the street and burned. A dozen bonfires roared and blazed in the Jewish quarter.
The Jews could no longer look passively upon this wanton destruction. Hastily conferring, they placed themselves under the leadership of one of their merchants, one Zoletwenski, a powerful and courageous man. Armed with clubs and such rude weapons as were within their reach, they hurried to the scene and attempted to defend their own. Alas! the little group was soon routed by the infuriated mob. Their resistance served only to increase the anger of their assailants, who now left the shops and turned their attention to the dwellings of the Hebrews.
Zolotwenski's house was the first to be attacked. Down crashed the door and a hundred excited brutes forced their way through the house. They seized his wife, whom they found in bed sick and helpless, and choked her into insensibility. They followed his two daughters to a room in the upper story in which they had locked themselves, and with threats of vengeance worse than death they broke open the door. The poor girls threw themselves from the window to the ground below.
In the meantime, the Rabbi, accompanied by a number of his congregation, again hastened to the Governor's palace and besought him to protect the innocent women and children. This time the appeal bore fruit. The Governor promised to call out the military, and an hour afterwards a detachment of soldiers appeared upon the scene. At first they stood by, amused spectators, cheering the mob whenever it broke into a dwelling, taunting the poor women who ran hither and thither in frantic endeavors to escape the wretches who pursued them; but later in the day the temptation to join the plunderers proved irresistible, and the soldiers became active participants in the outrages which continually increased in brutality. Indeed, the leaders of the soldiers soon assumed command of the mob, and, with a refinement of cruelty, incited the people to lust rather than to pillage.
A number of rioters and soldiers broke into the dwelling of an old man named Pelikoff. The poor fellow had carried his sixteen-year-old daughter to the attic and barricaded the door. In vain his resistance. The rusty lock yielded to the onslaught from without; twenty men precipitated themselves into the apartment, and twenty men threw themselves upon the trembling child.
"Kill me," cried Pelikoff, "but spare my innocent daughter!"
"To the devil with them both!" laughed the leader.
Pelikoff fought with desperation. With his bare fists he felled two of the stalwart soldiers to the ground, but he was no match against the overpowering numbers. They seized him in their arms, carried him to the roof, and hurled him over into the street below, while a dozen of the ruffians attacked the unfortunate girl. When sympathizing friends visited the house next day, they found the child dead, and Pelikoff a hopeless maniac.
Night brought a cessation of hostilities, but not a glimmer of hope.
With early dawn, the outrages recommenced. The synagogue now became the point of attack. Thither many of the women and children had fled for refuge, and the mob, actuated rather by lust than by love of plunder, proceeded to demolish the building, which they set on fire. The poor women, as they fled from the burning pile, were set upon and cruelly assaulted by the rioters. All that day and the next, the Hebrew quar ter was at the mercy of the savages. What the ax did not crush, fire destroyed. Five hundred houses and over one hundred stores and shops were ransacked; whole streets were demolished; property to the value of two million roubles was destroyed, and upwards of twenty people lost their lives while defending their possessions or their honor.
Thus ended the first anti-semitic riot. The plans for General Drentell's vengeance, through Mikail the priest, were in a fair way of being realized. [20]