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[Page 161]
48°33' 26°30'
Translated by Monica Devens
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A town on the bank of the Dniester river, at a distance of about 16 versts from the regional city of Kamyanets Podilskyy. Its existence is known from the 15th century. In 1653, the Heidmak regiments laid siege to the Polish army of King Casimir in Zhvanets, which ended in the conclusion of a peace treaty between Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Casimir.
On June 22, 1769, Zhvanets was again forced to suffer in a cruel battle between the Russian army and the main concentration of the Polish rebels, who numbered 2,500 men and who barricaded themselves in Zhvanets and in the nearby town of Okopy. The battle ended in a major defeat for the rebels. The Jewish population in Zhvanets counted 1,134 people in 1765 with 4,335 in the surrounding area. Due to the political events, and especially the military, their number decreased and in 1775 the town counted only 395 souls, with 126 in the surrounding area. In 1784, however, the Jewish community grew to 617 souls. However, it never reached the numbers of 19-20 years earlier. The topographical situation of the town on the banks of the great river Dniester contributed to its recovery over time. Because of the Dniester, towns had trade relations with other towns, mainly in the sector of wood for building and for furniture. There were in the town a pharmacy, a synagogue, 4 Beit Midrash, 2 schools for boys, a school for girls, and one mixed school. In 1847, during the reign of the Tsars, the town had a Jewish population of 1,619 souls and, according to the census of 1897, out of the general population of 5,005 residents, 3,353 were Jews, that is 67%. |
[Page 162]
[Page 163]
by A. Stit
Translated by Monica Devens
The town of Zhvanets lay on the banks of the Dniester and in the days that will be discussed below, its borders were triangular - on the one hand it bordered on the region of Bessarabia, with the Dniester river cutting between them and where the Romanians ruled and annexed it to their borders, and the other border was Galicia under the rule of the Poles where the Zbruch River separated them.
It was in 1904 or 1905. The renown of the self-defense in the town of Zhvanets, Podolia region, reached me and I was still a child in the second or third grade of the Hebrew grade school in the town where I was born;
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| From views of the city |
as children, we were eager to know what the grown-ups hid from us, the things that were talked about in whispers and secret exchanges. These were the days of the Russian Revolution and after it. There was an active branch of the “Russian People's Association” in the town - a movement whose leaders and movers came from the right-wing and the extreme reactionaries in the Russian public sector; they were always involved in inciting riots among the Jews and in organizing them, and the clergy helped them through their Sunday sermons in the church. The ignorant crowd saw in them messengers of the Messiah and the Tsar. The organization was famous throughout Russia and especially in the area of the Jewish Pale of Settlement. They excited the masses with the well-known slogan, “strike the Jews and save Russia.” Most of the rulers of Russia were appointed by the Tsar from this group. The local branch of the association established a consumer cooperative in the town and the surrounding countryside in order to create for itself a public base for its activities and in order to deprive the Jews of trade. They established the branch of the market precisely in the Jewish trade center and they would persuade the Christians to avoid buying from the Jews and, in this fashion, to cut off their livelihood. They flavored the lobbying with propaganda and incitement against the Jews as enemies of Russia and the Tsar
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and the causes of their disaster. It was an act of destruction and expropriation under the guise of cooperation and party propaganda hostile to the Jews. The cooperative did not exist long; after the danger of disturbances passed, it was closed, whether because it could not compete with the Jewish trade or whether because it did not achieve its other goal - to cause riots against the Jews. At the head of the organization of the disturbances was a popular teacher in the Christians' elementary school and around him was concentrated the Christian population of the town, the farmers, or the middle class, and the Ukrainian intelligentsia. These days were gloomy for the Jewish population, the days of October-November after the revolution. The cold that started to show its signs and the black clouds that hung over the town's sky added to the insecurity and fear of what was to come.
For the first time, we heard about the self-defense that began to be organized, about training in small arms and meetings in the forests of the town, and that the Jewish population is armed with round iron bars, a weapon of defense for anyone who does not know how to use firearms.
The frantic preparations to meet the rioters in an active manner and not to be a sheep to the slaughter became noticeable. In the town it was known that the day of the disturbance was approaching. The farmers who came to the town began to openly threaten that when the day came, they would riot against the Jews. I remember, I saw one of the farmers being led home and he was all wounded and bleeding as he waved his fists while threatening and shouting. It was two
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| The Defense Committee of 1918 |
or three days before the appointed day, later I heard stories at home that in the plaza of the city market, this farmer and others started threatening and shouting, then some people from the town approached and started beating them, and they grabbed one of them by the back of his neck and threw him with great force face down into a pile of gravel and his face was completely covered with blood and wounds. At the time of this act, all the villagers panicked and within an hour the town was emptied of villagers. The Jews of the town warned and threatened the residents of the nearby village that as soon as disturbances started - they would set the village on fire from all four sides. The very fact that the Jews were ready to fight back stifled their unrest. A rumor spread among the villagers that the Jews were preparing mechanized weapons (then
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there were still no machine guns) that they would activate on the day of the disturbances. The bullets of this machine would not harm Jewish pedestrians, but only Christians.
It can be assumed that in those cases when Jewish organization advanced - the defense people had the upper hand, prevented riots, and managed to stand up for themselves and save their property. It was clear that the villagers incited by the black federations to riot did not do so out of patriotic feelings or loyalty to the Tsar and his regime, but out of hatred of Jews.
The year 1918. The state of the town was in every way bad in terms of security. The authorities would change frequently, once it was the Germans, who retreated from Kyiv, once it was the Poles who advanced and retreated. And then the Ukrainians and the Bolsheviks who came in and out in turn and at the twilight of alternating governments - irregular military units or just bandits operated. The Jews were always between a rock and a hard place and it was necessary to create a self-defense force to protect the Jewish population caught up in fear and helplessness. In those days, another trouble appeared. At the initiative of the Ukrainian government, an uprising broke out in the villages of the neighboring Khotyn district in Bessarabia. The uprising by Ukrainians was forcefully suppressed by the Romanians with artillery fire on the rebelling villages. For many days, pillars of smoke and fire from the rebelling villages could be seen in the town. The rural population fled out of terror of the occupation and the fires, together with their families and the little possessions they could save, crossed the Dniester, and found refuge as refugees in our town of Zhvanets until the fury passed.
Once again we were forced to organize self-defense due to the disturbances that broke out in Ukraine, the great massacre in the city of Proskorov (= Khmelnytskyi), the riots and the massacre in the town of Pilshtyn. The staged provocation by the Ukrainian authorities served as a reason for the riots, who orchestrated a coup in favor of the Bolsheviks and only after that, arranged a massacre that cost about 400 Jewish lives.
All this was known to us young people. However, the homeowners' circles were hesitant to accept the idea of self-defense and there were those who opposed it and fought against this idea and reasoned with them: “it might provoke
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| Youth Group (A) |
[Page 166]
the anger of the Christian population and the authorities.” The young people had nothing to start with - no weapons and no money to buy them. It was also necessary to obtain some kind of legal approval from the authorities to establish defense. On the basis of a regulation of the Ukrainian government on the existence of Jewish self-government, as the secretary of the local Jewish community, I appealed to the governor of the district to approve self-defense for us. The answer was not long in coming - its gist was that he had no weapons and no ammunition. In the confusion devoid of power that characterized this government - this answer satisfied us. From a formal point of view - they did not refuse to approve the defense and did not even refuse to hand over weapons to us. We could, therefore, shut up the skeptics and the hesitant and say that, while the defense was indeed not approved, it was only for a lack of weaponry. As far as we were concerned, we had the option of solving the question of the weaponry and their purchase by our own means. We started by breaking into the police armory without them noticing and took a few rifles out of a large number that were scattered about in no order and without registration. Second, we purchased weapons and sold some to the self-defense in Kamyanets, so that the Kamyanets defense paid for one rifle the price we paid for two rifles so that we got a rifle for free. That's how we collected a few dozen rifles and armed the members of the defense who were mostly young, those who knew how to use weapons taught the others who were not used to weapons. In those days, cases of theft and robbery increased on the roads and in the town. This action had an immediate result - the thefts and robberies stopped altogether among the Jewish population and concentrated among the Christian population.
The sight of our boys in the dead of night walking with weapons instilled a measure of confidence in the Jewish population, but among the Christians, rumors began to spread that we were holding machine guns and even cannons. Of course, there was no basis for the rumors, but we tried not to deny them.
And here again, like 15 years ago, there were three incidents this time in the town, which proved that the mere existence of the Jewish defense was enough to deter rioters from going wild or to drive them away without the need to use weapons and without the need to bring the defense into any action whatsoever.
The first incident happened in the spring when the Romanian government announced an amnesty for the refugees and allowed them to return to their destroyed and deserted villages. The masses crossed with their vehicles, their livestock, and their families, over the Dniester by Zhvanets in order to return to their places. The beach was full of people, children and infants, and a huge crowd waited for their turn to cross. The bridge across the Dniester had been blown up by the Romanians and the river water rose because of the melting of the Carpathian snows and the crossing proceeded slowly for several days. It was a tumultuous and excited, disgruntled crowd, and even so, resigned itself to its fate and waited impatiently for its turn. However, among the refugees, there were those who were afraid to return and decided to stay in the town. Families of professional robbers who terrorized passers-by and, even during the time of the Tsar and in times of peace, dared to attack convoys that contained mail shipments and money and were guarded by policemen and armed soldiers, but even they knew that there was a defense and that the Jews had weapons, therefore they refrained from any and all intimidation and terror. One of them, who was drunk, grabbed a Jewish coachman and his cart and began to urge him to drive quickly through the town and shoot in the air with his pistol…We didn't know then if it was a mere prank or a planned provocation to scare us. I remember, I went with one of the members of the community then to collect funds for a cultural or economic purpose and I saw the pale and frightened face of the wagoner and the rioter shooting in the air. I recruited some members of the defense
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who started chasing him and even overtook him, took him off the cart, took his gun, and beat him steadfastly until he bled. Finally, they transferred him to the transit camp on the Dnieper to return him to Bessarabia.
This was a gentile, well-built and healthy, but the road leading to the river was about a kilometer and the whole time they did not let up from the blows. Bleeding, humiliated and persecuted, he arrived at the transit camp and began to beg for his life, that they kill him and crucify him so long as they did not hand him over to the Romanians. He started begging the raging crowd to intervene on his behalf and rescue him. Indeed the crowd started shouting and demanding to fulfill his request. Of course, we did not want to arouse the anger of an agitated crowd and we handed him over to the police.
The second case happened in early autumn. One day around evening time, a small unit of cavalry soldiers with all their weapons appeared and bought themselves a rest at one of the inns. In the unit there were two horsemen from the place, whom everyone knew. The supervisor of the unit called the Jewish head (starosta) and presented him with an ultimatum - bring food to his men, take care of fodder for their animals, and give them 5,000 rubles in cash, and this within 5 minutes and if not - they would destroy the town.
Frightened and trembling with fear and helplessness, the starosta came to me as the secretary of the community. I told him to collect everything and give it to them. And I went to complain at the local police station. The police officer was not there, all the policemen were on vacation and only one policeman was at the station. The policeman answered me that he has neither the power nor the authority to do anything, not even to contact the district authorities. When I asked for a weapon - he replied that he did not have a weapon. It was clear what danger we were in and what might happen. The two cavalry soldiers born in the place - their job is to show the exits of the places and their entrances. And especially to go to the nearby villages to persuade the peasants to come on the appointed day for looting and to participate in the killing. This publicity and the organization of the villagers would usually only take a few days and in the meantime, they rained terror to paralyze all strength and will to resist. The other six, with a group of rioters from the town, their role was to carry out isolated and random raids on residents and houses and to instill fear and terror among the Jews. The gunshots that were heard in the dead of night, with the aim of scaring as well as killing, the knocking on doors and cries for help, the wails that startled the night's rest, and the few murders that were only known the next day - enough to bring the population to despair and lock themselves in their homes, to fear every fallen leaf.
I gathered the defense personnel, put them in the arranged places, group by group, and each of the groups responsible for its area sent out to the streets of the town. It was a guard night for us and that first night - nothing happened. Apparently, the soldiers were tired from the toil of the road and fell asleep immediately. I wandered the streets to visit and monitor those sent out and here the owner of the inn came out and told me that the soldiers of the unit were sleeping and I could disarm them and confiscate the horses because they didn't even set up a guard as they were so sure of their success. Of course, I refused his offer, which did not look right to me, and we planned our actions for the next day and the night after that. We were up all night and with the sunrise we dispersed, each to his home to rest, with instructions on how to act and where to gather in case riots started.
At nine o'clock the next day, one of the townspeople woke me up and told me the story: when the soldiers got up in the morning - their leader called out to the starosta again and said the same words from yesterday: food for the soldiers,
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fodder for the horses and the sum of 5,000 rubles, and this in 5 minutes; and if not - the town would be destroyed. The starosta went out to collect the demanded funds and while he delayed a little in collecting the funds - a policeman approached one of the native soldiers and whispered in his ear - here there is self-defense and it guarded the town all night. Before long, the horsemen did not wait for food, did not wait for fodder, and did not wait for money, but immediately put the saddles on the horses and fled in a panic, and left the town.
The third case happened in the middle of winter that year. With the end of the autumn season and the beginning of the snows and frosts - a somewhat strange creature appeared in the town. By his appearance, he was a short, skinny gentile, wearing a red shirt actually, the color of which indicated the Bolsheviks, and in those days the government was in the hands of the Ukrainians, who were far from being patient with the Bolshevik regime. We were surprised that the local authorities did not pay attention to his appearance, treated him with tolerance without attention and disturbance.
For several weeks he walked around the town, and we did not know what his actions were and who had sent him. He would appear on the streets and disappear for a while and reappear again.
Once we even learned about a street meeting he had with one of the Hebrew teachers, about political issues, and he immediately started arguing and propagandizing for the Bolshevik regime and, when the Hebrew teacher did not agree with his assumptions and position, he suddenly finished: “Yes, you are one of the people - from the counter-revolutionaries” and left.
That's how we also learned that he considered himself a communist. It was a winter evening.
The town was covered in frost and the snow fell without respite. The cold grew stronger, everything froze from the intensity of the cold. One of the members of the defense appeared at my house and informed me that a Christian wanted to speak with the person in charge of the defense. I went outside, he presented himself as a revolutionary, as a Bolshevik, he heard that self-defense existed. His plan - to carry out an uprising against the Ukrainian regime and he suggests that the defense join him. I gave him an evasive answer, that I should bring the question to the defense committee and it would decide. I added to him - that the self-defense is not a political organization and its only goal is to protect the property and souls of the Jews, regardless of their social class. In the second meeting, I answered him that the committee thinks that it is not within its authority to decide on this important matter without calling a general assembly and asking the opinion of the members of the defense. I presented the question to him - - Why did he choose our town, which is a neglected corner in the government system, and how does he think that with the meager defense forces, it is possible to carry out such a large undertaking. He answered me that in the vicinity of the town there are as many insurgent forces as an entire division, properly armed. We said that we could only act as a force guarding his rear, we would keep the peace in the town, something that should not be taken for granted, then he unexpectedly gave up on the participation of members of the defense in his plan and he was satisfied that the defense would give him its weapons so that he would have a way to arm his bands, he suggested that we visit one of the units of the insurgents located in our town in order to dispel our doubts, and he led us through the dark alleys to one of the two-story buildings that stood at the edge of the town. We went inside. By the light of a small lantern we saw “sheygetzes” walking around dressed in tatters and almost barefoot, unshaven, spiky hair, with a gloomy expression. They didn't have the look of soldiers and military personnel, and we didn't see any weapons, the building didn't have the appearance of a barracks from the inside
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or temporary housing for soldiers. There was disorder in the rooms, they slept on “candles” (sort of beds made of unpolished wooden boards) or walked around doing nothing. We immediately recognized that these were the refugees of Bessarabia. The next day - he disappeared from the town without our seeing him again.
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| Zionist Club in 1910 |
[Page 170]
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| Youth Group (B) |
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| Youth Group (C) |
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| The founders of the “Talmud Torah” with Baron Ginzburg in 1906 |
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| The members of the administration of the “Talmud Torah” |
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and prepared to welcome the Russian language. When he saw us, our teacher, R. Alter, sighed deeply: “To become Gentiles, one must be baptized and washed, but to study Chumash and Rashi, it's permitted to have a dirty face…”
At 2:30, we are taken out to the yard. The same guy arranges us in two lines. We are standing and talking - and suddenly a shout in Russian: “Maltshat!” (Shut up!) We didn't know the meaning of the word, but we all kept quiet and again, one after the other, we go over the greeting to the teacher in Russian. Apparently, this time we satisfied his demands. We go up to class. The room is clean and full of light and the benches are clean. We are trembling, hold our breath, and await the teacher.
And here comes the teacher, Pollak. Slim, swarthy, and a clever smile on his lips. He says: “Hello, children!” We all get up in a hurry and at the command of the guy: “Zdavstvuyte Gospodin Uchitel!” That's how we started learning and speaking Russian.
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| A kindergarten in 1934 |
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| “Talmud-Torah” |
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| Girls' School |
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Kamyanets Podilskyy, Ukraine
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