[Page 114]

The Massacre of 1905
and the Great Pogrom of Bialystok

According to the words of the correspondent^[1] who was present, the shooting lasted continuously for several hours until late at night. They shot at passersby, into the dark doors and gates. The wounded were shot and stabbed. More than anything else, they shot in the street that was closest to Surazer Street. However, the remaining streets were not spared. A Jew stuck his head out of a window to take a look; he was shot…

These are the names of the 25 who were murdered^[2]:

Yitzhak bar [son of] Meir SZMUKLER, 68.
Chaim bar Avraham SZUSTER, 67.
Yitzhak bar Meir SLON, 65.
Ahron bar Benyamin WELWELEWICZ, 65.
Mordekhai-Ruwin bar Shmuel-Pinkhus Melamed [teacher], 46.
Avraham-Leib bar Treitel GOLDBERG, 45.
Avraham-Shimkha bar Moshe-Zalman JANKELEWICZ, 40.
Yitzhak-Zwi bar Borukh SACILER, 40.

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Moshe-Mikhal bar Zwi-Arye ORSZAJN, 40.
Shmuel bar Yona FAJNSZTAJN, 29.
Eliezer Chaim bar Yitzhak SLON, 21.
Shmuel-Chaim bar Mier GALAND, 20
Yitzhak Pesakh bar Zwi Hirsh WAPNER, 20
Shmuel bar Feywl SOKOLSKI, 17.
Moshe-Zev bar Dovid NAROCKI, 17.
Wolf-Chaim bar Leib DUDAK, 75.
Shmeya bar Dovid GALAND, 63.
Yehezkal bar Feywl KRESZES, 61
Chaim Mendl bar Gotlib GOLDFARB, 59.
Borukh Shmuel bar Meir Ahron SOKOLSKI, 26.
Josef Eliezer bar Leib LIPKES, 25.
Gabriel bar Meir LEWIN, 13.
Yitzhak bar Ruwin BARSZEWSKI, 11.
Moshe bar Shaul SUPRASKI, 11.
Dovid bar Mikhal CUKROWICZ, 11.

Although a memorandum was issued on the 17^th of October 1905, the soldiers did not stop shooting and killing Jews – also on the 18^th of October.

According to an order from Petersburg, due to the memorandum a patriotic demonstration and simultaneously – Jewish pogroms – were organized that took place in almost the entire Pale of Settlement, in not less than 690 locations. As a result, 810 were murdered and 1,770 were wounded.^[3]

A rumor spread in Bialystok on the 18^th of October that, according to the memorandum, the jail would be opened today and all of the prisoners would be let out. Thousands of Jews assembled to be present, but the gates of the jail were locked. The young revolutionaries wanted to rip them off with strength. Earlier they had warned the soldiers. After the shooting of blanks without any effect, they shot live bullets and 22 Jews were killed and wounded.

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Here are the names of the 22 victims:

Borukh-Mikhal bar Asher ROGAL, 53.
Moshe bar Yakov SACHARNI, 28.
Shmuel-Hersh bar Eliezar MARGOLIUS, 34.
Moshe bar Nisen FAJNSZTAJN, 50.
Golde-Sura bas [daughter of] Mordekhai PASTRIGACZ, 70.
Chaya bas Moshe CHWOROWSKI, 50.
Feygl bas Yitzhak TICHOWSKI, 38.
Hindl-Bayle^[4] 25.
Ester bas Shmuel BARTINOWSKI, 17.
Szprinca bas Avraham WAJNBERG, 54
Leib bar Tzwi-Hirsh LIBERMAN, 17.
Guta-Freyda bas Mordekhai KAPLAN, 20.
Freyda bas Yitzhak KOPICER, 56.
Chana bas Dovid Zalman KAPLAN, 60.
Khisa bas Moshe Zev PINONZNIK, 40
Tzipora bas Benimin KOHEN, 70.
Beyla bas Moshe LIBERMAN, 32.
Chaya bas Ahron KOHEN, 19.
Rywka LEWIN, 30.
Chashe bas Yitzhak MOSKOWSKI, 20.
Chava bas Yehoshua Haim LIBERMAN, 21.
Ester bas Yakob-Leib KURAN, 21.

After the revolution of 1905, the black, dark reactionaries, with [Konstantin] POBEDONOSTSEV [the Russian Czarist advisor considered a leading reactionary, who held anti-Semitic views] at the head, continued to support the Czar and to enforce self rule because of the desire, ostensibly, of the entire Russian people, with the exception of the small number of revolutionaries, the majority of whom came from the foreign peoples in Russia, mainly the hated Zydes [derogatory word referring to the Jews]. Therefore, this revolutionary movement had to be suppressed along with its leaders and agitators. They simply carried out pogroms against Jews. Let them know that they need the protection of the government.

In the Police Department, pogrom proclamations against the Jews would be published and then spread over all Russia. Through secret

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agents and, particularly, agitators the regime would organize pogroms in all of Russia. It was done in the same style: The pogroms were ostensibly carried out by the people who were upset by the revolutionary movement among the Jews. This was the old method of the PLEHVEs and the DURNOVOs.^[2*] It was forbidden to acknowledge the pogroms in the Russian newspapers. The police and their secret agents delivered false, untrue information or exaggerated the size of the revolutionary movement among Jews to the higher regime in Petersburg. Jews were blamed for the entire revolution. As far as the central regime in Petersburg being fooled by this, we can conclude from the proposal that PLEHVE made to HERZL in his audience with him: if HERZL would persuade the Bund to cease its struggle against the Russian government for a period of 15 years, he [PLEHVE] would undertake to obtain a charter for Jews in Palestine during that time. And if he did not obtain the charter, the Bund would again be free to do what it found necessary.^[5]

Although the liberal course was successful and a memorandum was issued on the 17^th of October 1905 establishing certain freedoms for the people and creating the Duma [Russian parliament], the dark, reactionary party strengthened its power through proclamations and pogroms in all places. The Bialystok police, which was one of the worst to Jews, wanting to show its devotion to the Czar, inflated the local socialist movement into a terrible revolutionary wave of the entire Jewish population. The Bialystok police were not satisfied with the slaughter of the 30^th of July and the 18^th of October and wanted to do something bigger and this led to the pogrom of June 1906.

Several days before the 1^st of June, it was learned that a cloud of a pogrom would pass over Bialystok. This was connected with the murder that was carried out in a secret manner on Surazer Street on the 28^th of May. DERKATCHEFF, the Bialystok chief of police, who happened to be a good person and favorably disposed to the Jews, was killed. It was especially apparent in comparing the chief of police's goodness to the then police commissioner, SHEREMETEV, who was a great

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enemy of the Jews and awoke a bitterness against the police with his dreadful attitude. However, the police spread information that the good police chief was murdered by Jews, although he was removed by the same SHEREMETEV in order that he not be any hindrance to the pogrom and indeed, later a former policeman was detained in Bielsk as his murderer.

The anti-Semitic SHEREMETEV did not want to accept the garland from the Jewish kehile to place on the coffin of the murdered one. He told the Jewish deputation: “First you spilled blood and then you come to lay a garland!” With this, he said almost openly that a pogrom could be expected in Bialystok.

The various dark elements in Bialystok, who spread the idea among the military that a war against Jews is a war against the revolutionary movement, created favorable soil for a pogrom in Bialystok. A political leaflet was spread in the garrison in the way rumors were spread that Jews would throw bombs into the Russian Orthodox churches and into the Catholic churches. If the clergy wanted to deny the lies, the military administration forbid it to do so.

Even the Jewish workers parties prepared with a self-defense group, but it was understood that they could do nothing against an armed military pogrom. The fear in the city was great. The richer Jews sent their families away from Bialystok.

The 1^st of June was the griner donershtik [Green Thursday – Pentecost – 50 days after Easter]. A Catholic and Russian Orthodox religious procession was going to take place. But a few days earlier, a rumor spread that Jews would throw a bomb into the procession. A Jewish delegation traveled to the governor in Grodno to ask that he protect the Jewish population and that he remove SHEREMETEV. The governor strongly admonished the delegation that according to his reports, Jews were shooting into the police and soldiers and that the moment would come when they would get even with the Jews. However, the governor gave his assurance that there would be no pogrom on the coming 1^st of June in Bialystok.

A day later, after the assurance from the governor that there would be no pogrom, a terrible, bloody show began. It began

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during the Russian Orthodox procession that extended from Sobor across Nikolajewski and Aleksandrowske Streets.

When the procession turned from Aleksandrowske and Institutske Street, a provocateur threw explosive materials into the procession from Yenkle RECHITISE's house or from one of the neighboring houses. A certain Mankovskaya and Demidiuk were wounded by them.

A shot echoed, which was the signal to begin the pogrom. And it began immediately. The military that was in readiness in a nearby branch of the state bank began to fire on RECHITISE's house.

The military entered the residence of Note LAPIDUS. They immediately murdered two young sons and a daughter and robbed the house. A Christian student from the Real School (DIKAR), who wanted to defend his friends, the LAPIDUSES, was also murdered.

And thus the pogromshtshikes [those carrying out a pogrom] began to go from house to house, murdering and robbing the entire day.

When the procession reached Bazarne Street, a bomb was thrown on Surazer Street not far from the procession. The bomb was thrown by the Jewish self-defense group that had been created then by the Jewish proletarian youth to defend the poor Jewish quarter from pogroms. They did not have enough strength to protect the entire city against an armed military power. The military and the pogromshtshikes were afraid to go on Surazer Street.

The plan of the pogrom with all of its particulars was developed by the Bialystok Lieutenant-General BUGAJEWSKI who had a Jewish wife from the ZABLUDOWSKIs, and, in general was considered good to Jews. It is worth noting that later the same BUGAJEWSKI gave a donation of 500 rubles to the Jewish pogrom committee.

In the course of the first day, the prearranged hordes of Christian hooligans went in groups of 10-20 people from house to house, from shop to shop. They broke, stabbed, murdered and stole everything that they could. Soldiers, who shot and murdered right and left, accompanied them to protect them. They did not spare any old men, any women and any children.

On Friday the police appeared to actively point out the Jewish houses from which the soldiers drove out the residents and

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shot them. They committed terrible atrocities. If we were to provide all of the facts, the blood would freeze in the veins. The most terrible tragedies occurred in the suburb of Starobojare.

Such a tragedy took place in the house of the calligraphy teacher, Leizer EJNSZTAJN; first, the pogromshtshikes made a ruin of his residence and robbed his things and took them away. Then they came back with their leader and called out EJNSZTAJN, who was hidden by a neighbor, that he should come with his family. They killed him, his wife, his two sons, Yerachmial and Shmul, and his daughter, Sonia. Only six small children remained, the youngest was barely 10 months old.

Hooligans bombed PODLASZUK's tannery from all sides for an hour's time. Then as the workshop was taken by storm, the hooligans entered inside and there they murdered PODLASZUK's son-in-law, Yitzhak GEWIRCMAN and six workers.

Thus they continually murdered. They stuck the pillows with knives and a cloud of feathers moved through the streets. Small, gentile boys searched for hidden Jews in the attics, in the cellars like blood thirsty little dogs and brought them to the murderers.

The second place with the greatest violence was the train station. When the pogrom started on the 1^st of June, a number of hooligans concentrated at the train station waiting for the Jews who would run from the city or come from afar. The commandant was there with two gendarme officers, as well as the vice prosecutor.

The Grodno governor arrived; he set off for a quarter of an hour in the city and returning did not want to listen to the pleas of the Jews to protect them from the murderers. He departed for Grodno on a special train.

The Jews who arrived from outside were not allowed into the city and were chased back to the train station where they were murdered. Calm and laughing, the commandant and the gendarme officers watched the terrible massacre that was carried out against the Jews. Jews who were passing by were pulled from wagons and they were murdered, attacked, nails hammered into their heads and there were gasps of laughter at this.

One of the Jewish women was murdered by a blow of a crowbar over the head. Her 11-year old girl was grabbed by the throat by a hooligan and

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lifted in the air and was held so long that her small, weak body ceased to wriggle.

The hooligans became so wild that, on the night of 3^rd of June, a number of them fired shots into the Jewish hospital. All of the sick left their cots and lay on the floor (podloge – floor in Polish).

A Jew later explained how his two daughters were murdered in the street and how he had bought a third daughter with two children for a ruble and 80 kopeks. A father with a broken hand told how the hooligans murdered his two sons before his eyes, one of them very successful. They searched him and found seven rubles which they took and broke his hand. There were many, many such accounts.

It was terrible to look at the wounded and dying in the hospital. The greatest number of them were wounded by bullets and spears. Even more terrible was the image of the dead bodies with broken skulls, with poked out eyes. One corpse had its tongue cut out. Almost half of all of the bodies were children, women and old men. These were all bitterly poor…

The road to the hospital was full of blood. Each half hour someone went into the courtyard that became enveloped with the screaming and wails of those accompanying them. It is still difficult to dwell upon the terrible images of the pogrom.^[6]

The Rabbi, Dr. Josef MOHILEWER, was then with his family at a summer residence; the pogromshtshikes took revenge in his home, making a ruin of everything that they found in it. The hooligans ripped open his iron strongbox and tore all of the papers in it, among them the manuscript of Rabbi, Reb Shmuel MOHILEWER, a book of questions and answers that was to be set in print. They also shot into KHAZANOWICZ's residence, but they missed.

A. KAUFMAN, the local bookkeeper, former agent of the newspaper, Dwadcati Wiek (Twentieth Century), explains that he received an inquiry from his newspaper about the extensive shooting in the pogrom. He advised sending a special reporter. The newspaper sent out its

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colleague, VLADIMIROV, who raised a tumult throughout the world with his published report about the pogrom. He was listened to as he was a distinguished writer and a Russian. In addition, he could identify recent traces of the bloody policies which the regime attempted to erase. We can see this from an excerpt of the published report:

“On the 2^nd of June a telegram from the official Petersburg Telegraph Agency (P.T.A.) was published in the newspapers that on the 1^st of June the Jews in Bialystok threw a bomb into a religious procession, a Catholic priest was killed by the explosion, a foot was torn from a Russian clergyman, many participants in the procession were wounded. During the panic children carrying holy pictures were trampled.

“This vile lie was published on the 2^nd of June and an official denial of this lie was published on the 3^rd of June: Petersburg (Official). The telegram of the 2^nd of June from Grodno which stated that the Bialystok Jews allegedly threw bombs into a religious procession, that a Polish clergyman perished, that a Russian clergyman had a foot torn off and in the course of the resulting panic children perished was sent to us unofficially by a private correspondent, STUKALEVITSCH, the head of the division of the crown tribunal that gathered unverified news, collected from rumors.”

Here there is a pattern of official retractions of an official lie! It is a fact that only thanks to the arrival of the later mentioned deputies that the pogrom of the 4^th of July immediately ceased. The heroes became frightened; the police commissioner, SHEREMETEV, the governor, KISTER, the police warden, BAJBAK, Captain OZOL, General BOGAJEWSKI and BADER, police commandant KOSTECKI, the gendarme colonel, GRIBOJEDOV, and so on. From Duke URUSOV (former Vice Minister of Internal Affairs) we learned in which state offices the proclamations about the pogroms were published… Count L. TOLSTOI then wrote: “The police were guaranteed that they could commit the worst crimes without punishment and with the guarantee they killed Jews, set fire to their homes, violated their women and so on.”

It would also not be superfluous to mention that after the pogrom the regime ordered TRILING, the Jewish manufacturer, to return to work two

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workers who had taken part in the pogrom who had been fired by him.^[7] It was later shown that among the pogromshtshikes were found many tramway employees and subordinate employees of the state bank. And when their comrades requested that they be banned, the authorities not only did not permit this, but they penalized those making the request by sending them to other places.

The Jewish victims were – 80 killed and more than 80 wounded. Three plants were robbed, along with 120 stores and houses of commerce and more than 100 residences. The robberies were mostly in the streets in the middle of the city, but the pogromshtshikes were afraid to go down to Surazer Street where bombs could be thrown at them. They had information that the Jews there were well armed. The rich Bialystok Jews were not touched, it appears because of an order.

However, the Bialystok pogrom differed from all earlier pogroms on Jews in that it was took place in the time when Russia already had a State Duma [lower house of parliament] with people's representation from the organized public opinion. As soon as the telegraphic news^[8] arrived about the beginning of the pogrom, 49 deputies brought in an announcement on the 2^nd of June about an immediate inquiry by the Interior Minister, in which it was said: “The Jewish population in Bialystok calls for help from the State Duma in fear because it has been abandoned to the local pogromshtshikes without any help from the government powers to quiet them.” A separate commission was immediately chosen, the so-called “Third Commission” of deputies: Professor SCHTCHEPKIN, Prosecutor ARAKANTZEV and JACOBSON who were sent to Bialystok. The pogrom stopped on Friday evening, the 3^rd of June with their arrival in Bialystok.

After a precise investigation with witnesses on the spot the commission determined that the pogrom was prepared by the police and the highest government powers and had no additional reasons of

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national conflict or hatred. This had not existed in Bialystok between Jews and other people. The revolutionary movement that needed to be restrained by emergency means also was not the reason. They simply murdered, robbed, killed the old, children, women who were quiet, peaceful people. The military and police themselves were active in the pogrom. All of the rumors that were spread about the Jews were shown to be false.

Therefore, the commission inquired of the Interior Minister: would he judicially arraign the Grodno governor and the Bialystok police for responsibility for inactivity and others for aiding the pogrom and taking part in it? There was also an inquiry of the County Minister: “Did he know that even before a state-of-war was declared in Bialystok, the governor and the police chief had withdrawn the military command from fulfilling its duties and contrary to the law had taken it upon themselves, and that the military summoned to the city was entrusted to the authority of the lower police regime and, according to their instructions and according to the instructions of private persons, peaceful people were shot?”

On the 26^th and 27^th of June, the delegates showed in their speeches – particularly ARAKANTZEV and the Jews, JACOBSON and Dr. Shmaryahu LEVIN – the true face and character of the Bialystok pogrom.

At the session of the 7^th of July it was accepted that the responsibility fell not only on the local government regime, but also on the central government organs. The only means of preventing the further spread of such pogroms was to decisively hand over to the court all of the responsible government personnel without discrimination as to rank and class and the Minister should at once submit his resignation.

The pogrom aroused the conscience of the entire liberal communal circle. The left and the liberal parties stormed against the Czarist pogrom regime. RODICHEV, the great orator and leader of the Kadets party [Russian party advocating a constitutional monarchy for Russia], particularly excelled with his direct accusations against the Interior Minister.

The Interior Minister had to appear to give a reply to all of the charges. The Czarist government was greatly embarrassed. It decided that instead of answering, it would dissolve the first “State Duma.” The Czar gave such an order; the Duma was dissolved. The direct cause for this was the Bialystok pogrom.

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We present here all of the names of those murdered in the pogrom of 5666 (1906). There were 80 dead; may their souls be bound in the bond of life.

Haim ber [son of] Yitzhak GEBEL, 30.
Yona ber Eliezer KOHAN, 26.
Feywl ber Meir RIBALOWSKI, 23.
Nusan Note ber Naftali BAKHRAKH, 21.
Menakhem Manes ber Moshe HURWIC, 19.
Yitzhak ber Elihu SAPIR, 18.
Aryeh-Leib ber Dovid ZAKHEIM, 10.
Moshe ber Yakov LIBERMAN, 3.
Borukh Elihu ber Matisyahu FREJDKIN, 62.
Leib-Haim ber Dovid-Ber SZMID 28.
Avraham ber Khona MAKHIE, 24.
Shlomoh ber Nakhum-Meir FURMAN, 22.
Zalman-Moshe ber Zev-Wolf LAMCEWICKI, 20.
Ruven ber Yisroel SZUSZAN, 18.
Moshe ber Gedalyah AWEC, 18.
Yisroel ber Beinish KUSTYN, 3.
Josef ber Tzvi-Hirsh BURLE, 3.
Mordekhai ber Eliezer KRUGLYANSKI, 60.
Shmuel ber Aizik CALEWICZ, 59.
Avraham ber Shlomoh-Zalman KAC, 49.
Mendl ber Asher MAKEL, 43.
Mordekhai ber Eliezer LEWIN, 38.
Yitzhak ber Shmuel GWIRCMAN, 35.
Falk ber Zev CHMELNIK, 28.
Mordekhai ber Nusan-Note LAPIDUS, 19.
Ahron Moshe ber Nusan-Note LAPIDUS, 19.
Avraham Aryeh-Leib ber Hilel SEGAL, 58.
Tzvi-Aryeh ber Moshe WAJNCYMER, 48.
Zalman ber Dov-Ber GRYNBERG, 43.
Avraham-Shimeon ber Aryeh-Ber EPSZTEJN, 35.
Yitzhak ber Hersh SZWARC, 24.
Moshe ber Ruwen KOSTYN, 22.
Shmuel ber Eliezer EINSZTEJN, 19.
Zorakh ber Borukh PANDRES, 18.

Tzvi Hirsh ber Avrahahm TASZMAN, 63.
Yehuda Ber ber Avraham-Yitzhak TAJCZMAN, 51.
Avraham-Yitzhak ber BERNSZTEJN 47.
Yakov ber Josef SUROWICZ, 35.
Avraham ber Zev-Wolf GRINHEIM, 26.
Pinkhas ber Aleksander ASZ, 20.
Avraham-Yitzhak ber Yona LEVARTOVSKI, 18.
Moshe-Dovid ber Mordekhai-Yosef PAT, 16.
Aryah-Leib ber Yitzhak-Yona MAZUR, 14.
Yitzhak ber Moshe-Yehoshua GEBEL, 56.
Haim ber Yakov SZAPIRA, 43.
Eliezer ber Ezra EINSZTEJN, 40.
Shlomoh Yisroel ber Shimeon SUSZICKI, 36.
Yoel ber Moshe-Yehuda TWARKOWSKI, 29.
Nakhum-Yakov ber Moshe-Tzvi GRABOWSKI, 27.
Yakhmiel ber Eliezer EINSZTEJN, 21.
Avraham-Hersh ber Dovid NEJFELD, 71
Yakov ber Mordekhai LEWIN, 50.
Shlomoh ber Bunim PRUZANSKI, 43,
Shaul-Wolf ber Mordekhai NEVIAZHSKI, 41.
Sholem-Ahron ber Shmuel-Josef NOVIK, 28
Aizik ber Avraham BAKHRAKH, 24
Ziml ber Tzvi-Hirsh CUKERMAN, 22.
Mordekhai ber Binyamin SZMUKLER, 18.
Yitzhak-Leib ber Shmuel-Zalman RAWICKI, 16.
Tzvi-Hirsh ber Gedalyah HEPNER, 63.
Josef Mendl ber Eliezer GILEWICZ, 48.
Moshe-Simcha ber Dovid BRIANSKI, 45.
Dovid-Yitzhak ber Shlomoh TSMETNIK, 32.
Simcha ber Fishl WALENSZTEJN, 25.
Mordekhai ber Avraham BASZYN, 19.
Haim-Zev ber Dovid Ber SZLACHTER, 16.
Dovid ber Elhanan CHWOROWSKI, 15.
Toyba bas [daughter of] the Rabbi Pinkhas KAC, 71.
Zlata-Feygl bas Reb Yehiel SZLACHTER, 50.
Ruchl bas Reb Noakh KLEJNBORD, 48.
Sheyne bas Reb Yehmiel EINSZTEJN, 40.
Sura bas Reb Yitzhak JEWEROWSKI, 20.
Chaya-Pesha bas Reb Avraham SEGAL, 50.

Mariam bas Reb Menakhem-Mendl SAPIRSZTEJN, 48.
Pesha bas Reb Yakov ATLAS, 42.
Bluma bas Reb Nusan-Nota LAPIDUS^[9], 20.
Chana-Bluma bas Reb Shabtai GINZBURG, 20.
Tziva bas Reb Dovid-Gershon GUTKIN, 10.
Sura bas Reb Eliezer EINSZTEJN, 20.
Chana bas Reb Mordekhai RUBINOWSKI, 19.

Translator's Footnotes

1. Shabbos Nakhmu is the Shabbos after Tish b'Av (9^th of Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem). The month of Av is also referred to as Menakhem (Consoling) Av Return
2. Ministers of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Konstantinovich PLEHVE and Pyotr Nikolayevich DURNOVO – both were considered extreme reactionaries Return

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