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Chapter Six: Rights and Restrictions Census of Jews in Augustów and the Surroundings in 1765 – Liberal Attitude of Russia to the Jews – Worsening Change in Attitude Nikolai I – Kidnapping of Youth for Cantonist Army Service – Nullification of Edict under Alexander II – Polish Revolt of 1831 – Murder and Hangings of Jews – Cholera epidemic – Expulsion of Jews - Augustow Canal Opened to Traffic – Increase of Jews in Augustów Region – Under Alexander II – Election of Jews to the Regional Council Description of Augustów in 1860 – The Economy in Jewish Hands – Second Polish Revolt in 1863 – Nullification of the Korovka Tax in 1863 - Extreme Hunger.

We mentioned above that according to the census of 1765, 279 Jews were counted. It was not a regular, general state-wide census of the population, but a special one of the Jews and the first to be held since 1550.

According to the law of 1764, a census like this should be carried out once every five years. In 1768, the law was changed, and it was decided that the Jewish officials should conduct a census once every twenty years. Yet, already in 1775, after the first Partition (in the year 1772), a law was enacted to conduct a census of the Jews that same year and subsequently every three years (the head-tax was then increased to three guilders per person). Since then a new census of the Jews was carried out in 1778, 1781, 1784, 1787, and 1790. After the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, the government disintegrated and the census' of the Jews were no longer conducted.

Five years after the Warsaw Duchy was turned over to Russia, according to a decision of the Vienna Congress (1815), the first general census was established. According to it, the number of residents in Augustow were: Christians – 1504; Jews – 1167; other religions – 254. In the suburbs of the city: Chernovo – Christians, 285; Jews – 18. In Turovka – Christians, 189; Jews, 3. In Birnetki: Christians, 285; Jews, 24. In the city at that time there were 5 mansions, 385 wooden houses. It turned out, therefore, that the number of Jews in the city reached 33% of all the residents of the city.

In the first years of the annexation of Augustów by the Russian government, a liberal wind blew among the officials, who dealt with the Jews with tolerance. Catherine II, in the early part of her reign, adopted a stance of “Enlightened Absolutism.” She granted to urban dwellers the right of elected self-governance, added the Jews to the status of town dwellers and traders, made the Jews equal to the Christians in the payment of taxes, granted them the right to vote and be elected to city councils. In no state in Europe at that time did the Jews enjoy rights such as these. On the other hand, the Jews were permitted to dwell only in the regions in which they lived during the time of the Polish government, or the southern regions earmarked for settlement (“New Russia”). Alexander I promised in his first manifesto to citizens not to touch their rights, but when Nikolai I, his brother, rose to the throne of the Tsar (1825-1855), a bitter period began for the Jews. This period is considered the darkest in Jewish history.

In the year 1827, Jews were forbidden to settle in Augustów because it was located adjacent to the border

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of Prussia. That is to say, for those who were already resident in Augustow, they were permitted to continue to dwell there, but entry to it was forbidden for Jews from other places who wished to settle there – and not only Augustów – but in all the places that were in the entire strip along the border with Germany and Austria.

On August 26, 1827, the despotic Nikolai enacted the cruel law enlisting young men into the army that negatively impacted the life of the individual and the collective. During the Kingdom of Poland era, the Jews were entirely exempted from military service because in Poland there was no obligatory service. Service in the military was considered a right of the noble class and farmers, who were considered property of the nobility. All the Jews belonged to the merchant class, and as such were exempt from military service. According to orders from September 1794 and January 1796 a tax of 500 rubles was levied as “ransom” on everyone reaching the age of military service. However, according to an order dated 26 August 1827 (5587), the Jewish community was obligated to fulfil the obligation to serve in the military with people and not through monetary payments. The “community” was given the right to turn over to the army any Jew who committed the crimes of not paying taxes, lack of employment, lack of identity papers, and the like. This order served as a dangerous means in the hands of the decision-makers of the community, who could turn over to the army anyone that they wanted, and they attempted to extricate from this trouble only the children of the wealthy and privileged. Army service lasted for 25 years, starting at age 25. Yet according to the order of the right-hand man of Nikolai, the Minister of the Secret Police Beckendorf, they would also take into the army Jewish children from the age of 12, who were detained in Cantonist^[1] barracks. The despotic Beckendorf intended by this to achieve two purposes: a) generally reduce the number of Jews and b) force the Jews to convert. This awful and tragic decree hit most strongly on the children of the poor. The rich and powerful knew how to extricate themselves from this trouble. It would make one's hair stand on end to hear the descriptions of the actions of the Jewish “kidnappers.” Hired by the community, they would steal young children, tender and weak, from the arms of their mothers. They would send the children to Cantonist regiments in Siberia, and there force them, by persecution and terrible tortures, to convert. The children would die of starvation by the thousands either on the way to Siberia or in the barracks. This decree affected all the communities. Even Augustów was not exempt from it. The elders of the surviving refugees in the land of Israel or other countries mention these Cantonists who served 25 years in the army, and were able to survive the difficult experience and returned to their homes and their towns, and they would always recount to the young ones of their towns what happened to them in the depths of Siberia and how great was the danger. Nevertheless, they did not leave the faith of their ancestors, and remained faithful to the ancestral tradition.^[2] According to the known numbers from the years 1833-1854, about 70,000 Jewish children fell victim to the Cantonist decree. The Jewish soldiers were sent back after 25 years of military service and were not permitted to remain in their homes in distant Russia.

At the time of the Polish revolution that broke out in November 1830 the Jewish population was “between the hammer and the anvil.” They had no interest in assisting the Polish nobility in its war with the Russian government. On the other hand, the harsh decrees of the Russian government lay heavy upon the Jews. The Polish rebels decided in the main not to attack the Jews, in order not to push them to the Russian side. The revolutionaries knew of the bitterness that existed among the Jews against the Russian government. Revolutionary councils called the Jews in various cities to come to their aid. The rebels swore the Jews not to reveal their secrets to the enemy, but the opposite; that they would inform them of the movements of the Russians. Nevertheless, there were some Jews who transmitted information to the Russians on the concentrations of the rebels, their movements, and their activities. The rebels,

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on the other hand, hanged Jews in the Augustów region without investigation or trial.^[3] A company of Polish fighters, who met a cart full of Jews on their way to a wedding, murdered them all. This murder stirred up the emotions of the Jews of Lithuania. The years of the rebellion rocked the unstable economic situation of the Jews of Augustów who endured stress and poverty.

Apart from the troubles that were caused to the Jews of the Augustow area by the revolt, in the year 5591 (1831) a disaster struck them that befell almost the whole of Lithuania and the areas of Poland adjacent to it. Over the course of more than half a year, an epidemic of cholera raged that had been brought by the Russian army, and struck down many victims in the city. The sick were stricken with diarrhea and abdominal pain, and dropped like flies.^[4]

In April 1843, the cruel Nikolai promulgated a law stating: “All the Jews living within 50 viorst of the Austrian-Prussian border must soon leave their places of residence and move to Russian areas more distant from the border.” It was a very harsh decree that struck thousands of Jews in the Augustów region. The Jews, of course, began to investigate means of nullifying the decree. The Jewish communities of the region were the first to fight against this decree. The community of Konigsberg helped them with this, because a portion of its Jews were connected by family or economically with village Jews in this region. Johann Jakobi, one of the chief fighters from Konigsberg in the fight against the decree of expulsion, had family connections in the town of Neustadt, where his father was born. The Russian emissary in Konigsberg at the time was Jacob von Edelstein from the village of Yurburg. Despite being a convert, he was unable to remain passive in the face of the edict against the Jews of his area. He helped his friend Johann Jakobi and indeed the edict was effectively not carried out.

In spite of the edict, in 1851 there were in Augustów and the surroundings 677 Jewish families.

In 1839, the famous Augustow Canal was opened, which developed new trade routes. Augustów merchants opened new trade connections from Minsk to Prussia and from Kovno to Danzig.

The Jews in Poland, and among them the Jews in the Augustow area, tried to bring to life the saying “…and the more they afflicted them, the more they grew.”^[5] According to one newspaper account, 100,007 Jews were added to the population of the Augustów district over the course of the forty years, from the year 5617 – 5577 (1817-1857).

Alexander II, the son of Nikolai, rose to the throne in the midst of the days of the defeat in the Crimean War. His reign (1855-1881) began with signs of liberalism. The good wind that began to blow in government circles was felt also on the Jewish street. The retreat away from his tyrannical father's method of cruel edicts began with the repeal of the Cantonment decree. On August 26, 1856, the edict that had so repressed the Jews of Russia and Lithuania for years was nullified.

There also came important relief from the decree expelling the Jews from the 50-viorst strip along the border that affected the Jews of Augustów as well, if less than other communities. The expulsion of 120,000 Jews from the border areas was stopped in the spring of the year 1858.

According to the new rights that the new Tsar granted to the residents, the nation was permitted to choose municipal and regional advisors from within. Even to the Jews was given the right to be counted among these electees. Elections were held in many places. Among 615 advisors and their deputies elected for the Department, from the Jews, 26 advisors and 27 deputies were chosen. The total number of Town advisors and deputies reached 184, of them 28

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advisors were Jewish and forty were deputies. In the Augustów district Yitzchak Bialystotzki and Binyamin Biskovitz were elected to the Regional Council and as Deputy, Eliyahu Rosental.

The Hebrew press knew to inform that Jewish Augustów gave much aid to the neighboring communities in the time of trouble. After a blaze that occurred in nearby Szczuczyn, in April 1858, many Jews remained without a roof over their heads, hungry and naked. All the neighboring towns, including Augustów, rushed to provide food and clothing.

Augustów of the year 1860 was briefly described by a Polish historian (Yan Yarnotovski); according to him the area of the town, according to a map from 1822, that was produced by Yablonski – 537 tzamday sadeh, 28 small plots of land*^[6]and 266 shevet.**^[7]

The population was divided in 1859 according to religion: Catholics – 4,418; Evangelists – 113; Jews – 3,764 (that is – 45.3% of the total population). 15 mansions of more than one story were found in the city, one-story houses – 9, wooden houses – 504. In the city, there was a Catholic church built with two steeples and one – old and built of wood and also an Evangelical Augsburg church and a prayer-room for Uniates; 3 hotels, 5 hostels built of wood, 12 pubs, 1 candy store. Government offices: Office of the Provincial Governor, the Municipality, office of the 13^th Area Regional land and water transport authority, the office of the district head of water transport, office of the treasurer, office of the citizen class, salt warehouse, office of the gendarmes, post office, primary school and a pharmacy.

The town had much land, fertile and good for pasture, and consequently many residents were engaged in agriculture. The city had twenty streets. The village of Bialovzhiga was a part of the city. Six Fairs were held annually; market days - twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

On the canals and river mainly produce from Russia was transported. In the last years of transport movement different vessels arrived in Augustów: 10 – Berlinki;^[8] various vessels – 46. The total value – 150,000 Rubles.

With the opening of the Augustow Canal to public river transport a new class of Jewish merchants developed who dared to traverse enormous distances of the vast Russian State as merchants and agents for import and export. A significant part of the trade in fruit and horses was by Jews. In their hands were the mills, tanning, distilleries of hard liquor and beer. Also, the most important product of the region, wood, was almost entirely in the hands of the Jews.

In the year 1843, the number of Jewish shopkeepers and merchants in the Augustów region was the smallest of all the other regions in Poland. In contrast to that, the number of laborers grew. Shoe-makers – 576; wagon-masters – 109; Jewish black-smiths – 297. Comparing this with Jewish smiths in the other regions, it is possible to see the position of Augustow in this area: In Mazovyetsk region – 8, in Sandomierz region – 12, in Kieltz region – 6 …and the like. The number of tar-workers in the Augustów region was the greatest – 39, (in Mazowiecka region – 6, Kieltz – 18). The same applies to Jewish builders whose numbers were – 48, (in Plock region -9, Sandomierz – 6,

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Kalish – 11…and so on). In the second half of the 19^th Century Augustów district had a great number of Jewish textile workers. Already at the beginning of the fourth decade, the Jews controlled the general economic life in the district, such that the Provincial Governor found it necessary to warn the government not to place the obligation of military service on the Jews, because that was likely to cause economic destruction in the area. In a report of the district Minister in Augustow from 1865, he again indicated that the Jews filled a crucial role in the external commerce of the region. In 1861 there were established in a number of places in Augustow a “Farmers' House,” where residents from the villages would sell their produce or receive loans. However, this competition for Jewish trade did not last long.

In the year 1861, in Poland, waves of a spirit of revolution began to strike. In these provincial towns, fraternities were created of Poles and Jews who inscribed on their banners the motto “One God created us, one fate is hidden for us from the hands of the Russian enslaver.” In Paris there dwelt the famous Polish writer and historian Joachim Lelewel, who had acquired for himself a name also among the Jews, for his idea of the freedom of nations, on complete equal rights for Jews in a free Poland, on the awakening of the Hebrew nation, who would arise and build their historical homeland the Land of Israel and such. The ideas of Lelewel found a strong echo in the groups of the enlightened Jews in Poland and especially among the members of the enlightenment that dwelled along the Prussian border in the Augustów region.

In the Second Polish Revolution of 1863 the Jews of Augustow were found again, as in the year 1831, “between the hammer and the anvil.” The Jews had strong ties with their Polish neighbors while the Russian government wanted to draw them to their side. The easing of restrictions that the government of Alexander II had made, in comparison to the decrees of Nikolai I aroused hope among the Jews, whose situation was improving. Many Jews in the Augustów area remained neutral and only a few willingly helped the Poles. Since most of the Jews did not reveal willingness to aid the rebels, the rebels threatened them with revenge. In some places the rebels carried out their threats; they shot and hanged Jews whom they suspected of supporting the Russians.

On the road between Suwalki and Augustów, the rebels caught a Jewish man and tried to hang him on a tree, saying he had revealed their secrets to the Russian army.

But he got lucky. When they hung him on the tree the branch broke under the load of his weight and he fell to the ground. The leader of the rebels told the Jew to go on his way, for he saw this as a sign that God was with him (October 1863). During this revolution, Rabbi Shlomo Margalit (Perla), a Moreh Tzedek^[9] from Lomza who was known in Augustów, was killed by the rebels, and its Jews mourned for him as if he were one of their own residents.^[10]

The Jews of Augustów suffered like all the Jews of Poland from the “Korovka” tax that burdened them, in their paying a tax for every pound of kosher meat that they ate. This tax was nullified at the beginning of 1863, and for the Jews there was relief.

After the Polish Revolution failed again, the Russian Government took punitive measures against those who participated in it. As one of these means came a declaration, by order of the government, to annex the Province of Augustów to the Empire of Russia (November 1863). Until then the Province was an intermediate province, doubtfully part of Poland and part of Lithuania. This doubt came to be realized in the languages, the ways of life of the inhabitants, and the like.

In the years 1867-1869 (5627-5629), there was heavy famine hunger in the districts of Lithuania and the Polish provinces

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that were within it. At the end of 1868 a committee of Lithuanian exiles from Prussian Memel came to their rescue. Its secretary was the rabbi of Memel Dr. Yitzchak Rilf, a journalist and thinker who was very active for the affected in Prussia, and from then on, he hastened to the assistance of all Jews across the border in all cases of distress, fires, or persecutions. In a call for help from the “Memel Committee” for the “assistance of their brethren in the western Russian provinces” and in Jewish German newspapers that were across the border of Prussia, Memel and Tilsit, the terrible conditions of the Jews in the Suwalki and Augustów areas were described. The ^[11] aper “HaMaggid” that appeared in Lek, a village adjacent to Augustów, especially raised “and they cried out”^[12] about the suffering of the famine. A special committee from “HaMaggid” sent hundreds of rubles to the Jews who were suffering from the famine. Indeed, not only the nearby cities, but the whole Jewish world awoke to relieve the terrible suffering.^[13]

Adolphe Crémieux, the director of the association “Alliance Israelite Universelle,” described the hunger as follows: “In the streets, in the synagogues and study halls hundreds of hunched over people wander around, and without strength hundreds of people who are dying of hunger; people who are mere shadows appear and beg that their lives should end. In the schools the children are dying before their parents' eyes, and the young girls weep and complain in front of their friends.” The main committee in Konigsberg engaged, among other activities, in sending Jewish orphans from the suffering areas to German towns in order to educate them and teach them a trade. It was clear that such a terrible hunger greatly shook the economic foundations of Augustów and the surrounding area. Among those who perished was the “Maggid”^[14] of Kloiz.^[15] This Maggid was one of the major opponents to the new rabbi Yehuda Leib Gordin, who worked to remove the new rabbi and to return Rabbi Katriel to his seat. The death of the Maggid became a major talking point in town because he was brought low during a sermon in which he cast aspersions against the rabbi. He boiled with anger and was stricken, apparently, with a heart attack. But the new rabbi's followers saw in his sudden death the finger of G-d and proof of the righteousness of the new rabbi.^[16]

The first of March 1881 fell on Purim day. The morning of that day arrived with stunning news from Petersburg for the Governor of the Province – that Alexander II, the Tsar of Russia, had been murdered. In Augustów panic and confusion prevailed. The community leaders instructed the Jewish residents to refrain from joy and from the celebration of a holy day, according to the law of the day, and certainly not to do it publicly. They should not sing, or dance or wear masks^[18] lest they bring upon themselves slander and libel. It would make them odious in the eyes of their gentile haters, the members of the Russian people, to see them rejoicing over the calamity. It was advertised that the following morning during prayers in the synagogue every Jew must swear an oath of loyalty to the new Tsar.

The following morning was Shushan Purim;^[19] the synagogue was filled from end to end with men, women, and children. The Ministers, governors and police all came. Rabbi Gordin read the oath from the document, first in Russian then in Hebrew translation, and all the people repeated after him word for word. On the table of the reader's platform a Torah^[20] scroll lay open; the Aron Kodesh^[21] was also open. The police warned

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everyone that any person who failed to come and participate in the oath-taking ceremony would be severely punished to the full extent of the law as a rebel against the State; more than that, they further warned specifically that they – the police – would very carefully supervise to ensure that every Jew would repeat accurately the entire contents of the oath. Anyone who sinned by incorrectly pronouncing the words or who refrained from saying them would be fined.

Concerning the new Tsar, Alexander III, at the time, all they knew was this: that he was decisive in his views, brave, courageous, and steadfast, a clear hater of Israel, surrounded by evil advisors, wicked men, and bitter enemies of Jews.

Immediately after the festival of Pesach, saddening rumors began to arrive of attacks against the Jews in Alita, Belozirka, Yelisavetgrad, and several other cities in southern Russia.

Although there were no pogroms in Augustów after the murder of Alexander II, lawless people set fire to the town and on the bitter day, nothing remained of the toil of many years.

At that time a new heralding voice arrived that one great philanthropist, a wealthy Jewish financier, with great wealth, – Baron Hirsch was his name – whose only son had died young, decided to create a memorial monument to his only son. With that purpose in mind he acquired a large tract of land in Argentina, intending to settle it with Russian Jewish exiles impacted by the pogroms, so that they could build new lives for themselves. However, at the same time, a pamphlet appeared, authored by a medical doctor in Odessa - Leon Pinsker – entitled “Self-liberation” (Auto-Emancipation ), and the motto of the pamphlet was : “If I am not for me then who will be for me?”^[22] Dr. Pinsker explains and proves with evidence and proof that there is no hope of improving the condition of the Jews of Russia and Rumania while they are dependent on the “table of others” and live by the kindness of rulers and ministers who are not generous to them; that the matter of pogroms is not a passing thing, but a plague that spreads and fells many slain. There is no recommendation therefore but to gather together the far-flung of Israel to one place, where it will be possible to build a new life on new foundations, where the Jews would stand on their own, and in that way the Jewish problem would be solved. Jewish writers of the day – M. L. Lilienblum,^[23] David Gordon,^[24] Peretz Smolenskin^[25] and others were seized by this idea and began publishing articles in “HaMelitz,”,^[26] “HaMaggid,”^[27] and HaShachar,”^[28] all of one opinion, that only by settling the Land of Israel would the redemption of the Jews arise.

The newspapers were also reporting that in Paris an exceptionally rich person, wishing for the moment to remain anonymous, and hiding behind the name "The well-known philanthropist” was the one who was offering his opinion and his pocket for the settlement of the land of Israel.

When these stories reached the ears of the young people among the Jews in Poland and Russia, they aroused within them the aspiration for freedom and liberty. When the distinguished officer Sir Moses Montefiore^[29] celebrated his one-hundredth birthday, the Warsaw branch of “Chovevei Tzion ”^[30] published his photograph, accompanied by a laudatory poem composed by the national poet Y. L. Gordon.^[31] That photograph was distributed by the young people of Augustów and there was almost no home that did not have the Montefiore picture hung in it. The income was entirely dedicated to the fund for working the land^[32] in the land of Israel. They adopted a new custom that on each and every Shabbat, those who were called for the reading of the Torah would pledge a donation towards the settlement of the country. Also, on the eve of Yom Kippur, they would place a bowl for the good of the redemption of the land, and each Jew who gave tzedakah, a redemption for the soul, on the eve of Yom HaDin contributed from a desire to give a proper donation for this lofty and sacred purpose.

The pogroms in Russia spilled much blood, and caused much grief and agony. However, they also aroused the people from a deep sleep to a new life. Also, our land, which was sunk in a long sleep, the sleep of Honi the Circle-Maker,

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now awoke for revival. No longer will it be said “the land of the dead,” where only the elderly and the aged come to stretch themselves out over the graves of ancestors and for the privilege of being buried in the dust of the Holy Land when their time comes, but rather, it will be called the “land of the living,” because the strength of the young, strength full of power and vitality, will enliven it, and they will plant eternal life within it.

One of the most common events in many Jewish towns during the summer days was to be an eyewitness to the sight of fires that were ignited, intentionally or unintentionally. The announcers and heralds were the large bells in the churches. These were the bells that sounded a mighty and powerful sound, from one side of town to the other; these were the bells that would herald good days and bad days, holidays, or the occurrence of fire. The fire-fighters are already ringing the bells with clanging cymbals and with loud-clashing cymbals,^[35] going through the city with their vehicles loaded with equipment to extinguish fires: tanks of water, hoses coiled like snakes across entire streets, iron ladders whose legs are set on the ground,^[36] and whose tops reach the highest story in town, the brass helmets on their heads, axes and probes on their thighs, steel vests on their chests, hurrying to save whoever it was still possible to save; working with fire and water without fear or terror; jumping and leaping from place to place and extricating its prey from the jaws of the blaze.

In cities where the population was mostly Jewish, most of the firefighters were also of the children of Israel. Artisans, butchers, but also the reckless and good-for-nothings who loved to glorify themselves and dress themselves up in the uniform of the fire workers. The children and the youths admired and respected them a lot and when there was a line of fire, the youths would run quickly after them to increase the commotion. And when they were in cities where most of the population was Christian, most of the firemen were Christians also and the homes and property of the Jews were “…as clay in the hands of the Creator.”^[37] They did not always hurry to fulfill their duty to extinguish the fires in the house of the village, without difference in religion or race. Here too the hand of hatred of the Jews filled no small role.

According to the law, every resident of the town was indeed obligated to have ready in his house a hose and a fire-axe, or any other implement for extinguishing a fire. But that was only according to the law, and no one did it. When a fire broke out in town, they went from door to door looking for the equipment that was required by law to be in each house. It so happened that there was an outbreak of fire in a near-by town, and they summoned the firefighters from Augustów. They went in haste, taking with them the only hose of the city that they had that would send water to most. When they arrived at the site of the tragedy a miracle occurred; it became clear that the hose discharged not water but spirit-water.^[38] (In secret ways like this they would transport brandy or other strong drink into the city, and they had not yet had time to empty it and convey it to the clients.)

That same summer there were many fires in the towns and the Jewish residents were left naked

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and lacking everything, without a roof over their heads and without covering for their bodies. Those burnt out of their homes cried out for help, turning to the communities with announcements and public appeal in newspapers, asking for food and lodging.

It is possible to suppose that an invisible hand arranged these fires. Augustów, whose population at that time was mainly Christian, suffered greatly from the damage of the fires. The firefighters, who were mostly Christians, tried to save the homes of the Christians, and skipped over the homes of the Jews. In “HaTzefirah”^[39] (18 Iyar 5635 [May 23, 1875]), we find a report from the son of the town's Rabbi of a fire that broke out in one house, and like a destroying angel, in a few moments swept over the many wooden houses surrounding it. From there the blaze reached mansions, and warehouses full of merchandise. About sixty homes went up in flames on the pyre and left the residents destitute. The reporter continues to say that it was terrible to see the unfortunate ones wandering around in the streets without shelter.

Since then about three years passed. It is not known how the victims of the blaze were restored, who gave them assistance, or how many homes were rebuilt. But again, in the month of Sivan 5641 (1881) at the end of Shabbat, again a fire broke out

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in a cowshed belonging to a Jew. The informer of this in the newspaper reports on the mood of the town's Jewish people after they read of the pogroms that broke out against the Jews in southern Russia, and the good people of the Jewish population of Augustów were aroused by the cry of brokenness to collect donations for the unfortunate and devastated. In a moment, the wheel turned for them, the town was engulfed in flame, and the donors became the receivers. Within the space of half an hour, more than three hundred houses had gone up in flames, and among them the great Beit Midrash, that was built magnificently, with all the holy books. Only the Torah scrolls were saved. Even the rabbi's home and the government school, and all the cheders of the poor were lost. There were also losses of human souls. A Jewish child was burnt to death and even his bones were not found; many old and young people were severely burned on their hands and faces by the flames. Over six hundred families, about a thousand people, were left naked and lacking everything.

The Fire Brigade

Standing from right to left: M. Tanenbaum; Denmark, G.; Rotenberg, M.; Rechtman, Y.; Lonshel.; Y. Strozinski; Second row: L. Lonshel; M. Goldshmidt ; Unknown; Y. Zeligzon; Third row: Unknown; Unknown; L. Rechtman; M. Kolfenitzki; Domovitz; Unknown; M. Rechtman's daughter

The Road to Suwalki

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The night had become a time for watching and the day – a time for recovery. The fire equipment of the brigades stood ready in the market square for any trouble, may it not come. Trade stopped entirely. The buyer didn't buy for lack of means and the vendor was full of worry.

In a note that came about a month later in the same newspaper, the writer points out that: “They did not know the reason for the first fire in Augustów, and they thought that it was simply by chance. However, afterwards they were convinced that it was not by chance, but that the hands of foreign enemies were accomplices. The same criminal hands just a few days later ignited the fire in the Jewish man's cow shed. As a result of that fire almost all of the houses of “The Long Street” were burned, most of them the houses of Jews, among them a kloiz.^[40] Panic was rife in the town. The faces of the residents of the city showed worry of what might be coming. Five days later, after the second fire, suddenly again the shouted warning: “Fire! Fire in Krakovska Street.” To our joy, three Christians who had lit the fire were caught at the scene. Even after, the evildoers did not stop carrying out their plots, and the following day tried yet again to set a fire on Krakovska Street, but this time they missed the target “because in these hard days we gave no rest to our eyes, and all work in our city ceased, and day and night we were on guard, for only a moment,^[41] until the fire was put out and no damage was done.” Indeed, the Psalmist has said: “unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman keeps vigil in vain.”^[42] About two weeks after this, at midnight, the evil doers again carried out their plans in Krakovska Street and this time caused complete destruction in our city, and from the whole town nothing remained but the Great Synagogue, and one kloiz, and about forty Jewish houses scattered here and there. After all this, the reckless ones continued with their threats, with their hands reaching out to destroy our homes so that we would leave their country. Two thousand Jewish families in Augustów have been left naked and lacking everything, while those wandering the streets openly expect starvation from lack of support.” The writer highly praises the Jews of Tovalk who did so much for the Jews of Augustow in these terrible times, in sending them wagons loaded with bread and food and clothing, in addition to hundreds of rubles.

Seven weeks passed, and in the same newspaper again a note told that within one month alone, five fires had broken out in Augustów, one after the other, and from all the houses of the Jews there remained just a few embers rescued from the fire. Many were aroused from the near and far cities to send aid to them. Even though the small amount did not fulfill the needs of the many, it was possible to speedily dispatch some assistance to the needy. Transports of bread, food and articles were received from many towns, including cash. Among the donors who contributed were included the names of respected Christians, like the nobleman Markovitz from Netta, the nobleman Bokovski from Pomian, the estate owner Shveida in Kolnitza, the Justice of the Peace, the notary. Donations were also received from Warsaw, Rigrod, Grayevo, Sapotzkin, Lomza, Szczuczyn, Sejny, Sztabin, Filipova, Halinka, Prirushla Stavisk, Lek, Kalvaria, Mariampol, Lipsk, Ludvinova, Lazdie, Vilkovitz, Seirijai, Sidra, Sakiai, Dombrova. Also, there entered into the burden of the help the wise Rabbi Rilf from the city of Memel, who sent a significant sum of money with a promise to produce additional money.

In an additional report in the same paper about two months later it was told that the help coming from the many near and far towns and villages had decreased. They had done their part in the early days of the tragedy of the fires – and then stopped. In contrast to that, Rabbi Dr. Rilf from the city of Memel continued to see to means for the purpose of rehabilitation

[Page 51]

of those affected in Augustów with the cooperation of his friends, Luria and Yechiya Vitkind, who from time to time sent significant sums of money to the town, out of consideration that the Yamim Nora'im, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the festivals, were approaching. Even Baron Ginzburg from Peterburg showed an interest in the situation of those affected in the city, and contributed 5000 rubles for their welfare. Likewise, the noble “well-known philanthropist,” Sir Moses Montefiore in London, was kind enough to send his donation.

The frequent fires of course confused the Jews of the city. Families began to roam from apartment to apartment in the few houses that remained, or they left “until the fury passes,” in their finding shelter in the nearby towns.

The heads of the yeshivot and rabbis of the local towns would visit from time to time, and showed interest in the youth of the place who arrived for years of learning, and transferred them to various institutes of learning, according to their abilities. The historians of these towns record that only thanks to the fires that from time to time befell the wooden houses that filled the villages, the residents arrived at the conclusion that it was better to change from wooden structures to walled houses made of stone and other materials, and many villages, thanks to that, became nicer, with tall houses among them, and also some houses built with multiple stories.

The rehabilitation of the houses of the Jews of Augustów was not done in one fell swoop. The damage was too great. For a long time, most of the streets stood full of mounds of destruction, heaps of sooty bricks, charred wood, and ash. People wandered around stooped over and searched through the ashes.

The economic situation after the frequent fires that engulfed virtually all the houses in town was very bad. However, precisely at that time that a new battalion of Cossacks were stationed in the barracks who were good customers; they bought whatever came to hand. Apparently, they came from a distant region of Siberia where there was nothing to be had even for money; here they found a selection of items and products to buy. Indeed, there were no shops, for they had all been burned. In their place the shopkeepers put up “kiosks” (a temporary stall of a table with a fabric cover against the rains). The proceeds were good enough, until they would be able to get the shopkeepers, economically, back on their feet, and to rehabilitate many of the people of the city, who saw it as help from heaven.

The frequent fires served as dates for births and deaths. The women, when they were talking about the age of acquaintances or relatives, would say: this one was born at the time of the first fire, this one at the second fire, this one at the third, and so on.

On the other hand, the fires aroused the thought among the Jewish residents to seek a more secure place to live outside of the city borders, either by internal migration or by migration to another country. The question was – to where?

1. Jewish children who were conscripted to military institutions in czarist Russia with the intention that the conditions in which they were placed would force them to adopt Christianity. Return
2. Original footnote 27. On the period of the Cantonists and “Nikolai's Service” an extensive literature has been created. In the book “Zikhron Yaakov” Rabbi Yaakov Lifshitz describes the tragedy of the boys and young men that were kidnapped from the laps of their parents for Russian military service and the bitterness of their fate. The Rebbetzin Zelda Edelstein-Koshelevski remembers Mordechai-Gershon, a teacher of young children from Augustow, who participated in the Crimean War (1853-1855) and after his return he would always tell of the adventures of the war. Return
3. Original footnote 28. See “Lithuanian Jewry” p. 84. Return
4. Original footnote 29. Also in Augustow they were using means at that time for the quieting of the epidemic that were accepted in every place, such as: fast days, the recitation of Psalms, the smoking of shemot [documents on which God's name was written] in the street, and willow branches. Exodus 1:12 Return
5. Exodus 1:12 Return
6. Original note: *a small plot of land – moreg – dunam. A unit of land area used especially in the state of Israel equal to 1000 square meters or about ¹/4 acre. Return
7. Original note: ** shevet - pret Return
8. A kind of small transport ship. Return
9. Righteous teacher, that is, a decisor of Jewish law. Return
10. Original footnote 30. “HaMaggid” 25 Tevet 5623 (January 15, 1863). Return
11. The Storyteller. Return
12. Exodus 14:10 “As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites caught sight of the Egyptians advancing upon them. Greatly frightened, the Israelites cried out to the LORD.” Return
13. A traditional Jewish religious itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of Torah and religious stories. (Hence the name of the newspaper cited above). Return
14. Original footnote 31. The famine in Augustow was written about in "HaMaggid" 49 Nisan 5628 [1868] in the form of an announcement, according to which the typhus disease came as a result of the famine. Return
15. A “Beit Midrash” (Study House) associated with and led by a recognized and accepted strictly orthodox and scholarly rabbi usually as part of the synagogue complex. Return
16. Original footnote 32. In the book “Thirty Years in Lithuania and Poland” (Yiddish) written by Abba Gordin, he brings a few details on this chapter, together with the dismay in the city because of the famine and the cholera epidemic. Return
17. Of Israel. Return
18. All of these would be customary Purim activities. Return
19. Shushan Purim falls on Adar 15 and is the day on which Jews in Jerusalem celebrate Purim. Return
20. The Five Books of Moses, or Pentateuch. Return
21. Holy ark. Return
22. OHillel in Pirkei Avot 1:14 “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” Return
23. Moshe Leib Lilienblum, 1843- 1910, was a Jewish scholar and author. Return
24. Aharon David Gordon, 1856–1922, Zionist thinker Return
25. Peretz Smolenskin, 1842–1885, Zionist writer and thinker of the Jewish enlightenment, founder and editor of the Hebrew journal HaShachar (The Dawn). Return
26. “The Advocate.” The oldest Hebrew newspaper in Russia, founded by Aleksander Zederbaum, in Odessa, in 1860. Return
27. A Hebrew-language weekly published first in Prussia and afterward in Berlin, Krakow, and Vienna from 1856 to 1903. Return
28. “The Dawn,” a Hebrew journal which was published and edited in Vienna by Peretz Smolenskin from 1868 to 1884. Return
29. Sir Moses Chaim Montefiore, 1784 – 1885, was a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Sir Moses Montefiore's activities on behalf of the Jews in the land of Israel included plans to acquire land to help them become self-sufficient. He also attempted to bring industry to the country by introducing a printing press and a textile factory. He inspired the founding of several agricultural settlements; Yemin Moshe, a settlement outside of Jerusalem's Old City, was named for him. Return
30. Lovers of Zion. Return
31. Yehudah Leib Gordon 1831–1892, the most important Hebrew poet of the nineteenth century and a leading figure of the Russian enlightenment movement. Return
32. Working the land with their own hands was an important principal in the thinking of the early Zionists. Return
33. Original footnote 33. Information about the fires in Augustow came from the Hebrew weekly “HaTzefirah,” five times one after another, with different signatures: On 10 Sivan 5641 [1881] with the signature of Avraham Yaakov Ilsheski and Shabtai Rosental; on 17 Sivan 5641, with the signature of the writer Avraham Mordechai Piyurko, from Grayevo, the government-appointed Rabbi Y. Stein; on 8 Tammuz 5641 with the signature of Avraham Yaakov Gatsky and Rabbi Katriel Aharon Natan ; on 28 Av 5641 Shabtai Rosental, Naphtali Trovesh, and Yehudah Kahana; and on 2 Mar Cheshvan 5642 [1882] the four previous signatures. Also in “HaMelitz” there twice came information about the fires: on 17 Tammuz 5641, with the signature of Yisrael Yitzchak Ivri , and on 22 Tammuz 5641 with the signature of Rabbi Katriel Aharon Natan. Information about the fires in the city also came in other newspapers. Return
34. Joel 3:3 “Before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes, I will set portents in the sky and on earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke.” Return
35. Psalm 150:5 “Praise Him with clanging cymbals; praise Him with loud-clashing cymbals.” Return
36. Genesis 28:12 “He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it.” Return
37. Jeremiah 18:6 “. Just like clay in the hands of the potter, so are you in My hands, O House of Israel!” Return
38. Alcohol. Return
39. The Claxon. Return
40. A place of study for adult Jewish men. Return
41. Proverbs 12:19 “Truthful speech abides forever, A lying tongue for but a moment.” Return
42. Psalm 127:1. Return

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