The Great War Against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920 1527502899, 9781527502895

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction: The Jews in Russia
The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia
Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!
Pomoshch'! The EKOPO and Relief in Russia
The Invasion of Galicia
Under German Occupation
Gimme Shelter: The Refugee Crisis during the War
Strangers in a Strange Land
The Jewish Question in Poland
No Man's Land: The Pogroms in Ukraine
Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War
Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children
Wind of Change: The Russian Jews and the Revolutions of 1917
Conclusions
Sources and References

Citation preview

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920 By

Giuseppe Motta

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920 By Giuseppe Motta This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Giuseppe Motta All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0289-9 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0289-5

CONTENTS

Introduction: The Jews in Russia ................................................................. 1 The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia .................................... 19 Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living! The Birth of the American Joint Distribution Committee .................................................... 35 Pomoshch'! The EKOPO and Relief in Russia .......................................... 55 The Invasion of Galicia ............................................................................. 67 Under German Occupation ........................................................................ 87 Gimme Shelter: The Refugee Crisis during the War ............................... 109 Strangers in a Strange Land: The Jewish Refugees in the Far East ......... 123 The Jewish Question in Poland ............................................................... 141 No Man's Land: The Pogroms in Ukraine ............................................... 177 Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War ...................... 203 Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children ........................................... 223 Wind of Change: The Russian Jews and the Revolutions of 1917 .......... 237 Conclusions ............................................................................................. 261 Sources and References ........................................................................... 267

INTRODUCTION: THE JEWS IN RUSSIA

In an attempt to describe the history of Jews in Russia in a simple though succinct manner, Pavel Milyukov has explained that it was not until 1563 that the Russian government had to deal with the Jews, when Ivan the Terrible conquered Polotsk. The Tsar was asked on that occasion what to do with them. Ivan had no hesitation: “Baptise or drown them in the river”.1 One century later, Tsar Alexis came up with a different response to the same problem and adopted a milder solution: deportations. Another century passed before Catherine II was to establish the notorious Pale of Settlement that would remain in vigour until the First World War. In a more complex and reasonable manner, it could be said that the presence of Jewish communities in Tsarist Russia ran parallel to the territorial acquisitions of the country. As a matter of fact, Russia did not have to face a Jewish problem before Catherine II extended her dominions westwards, in the second half of the eighteenth century. Naturally, Jews were present in Kiev during the years of the medieval ‘Rus: anti-Jewish violence broke out in 1062 and in the following years a “crusade” against the “Judaizers”, Zhidovstvuyushchive, was carried out. Though the contacts between Russians and the Khazar Kingdom – the Khazars converted to Judaism – were frequent, prior to the age of Catherine the Great the large masses of the future Russian Jewry were residing in the territories under Polish and Lithuanian rule. The Jewish presence in this part of Europe was a consequence of the Jagiellonian policies to repopulate the eastern territories of the PolishLithuanian state – the Commonwealth after the Union of Lublin, in 1569 – and of the Jewish persecutions in the West (the crusades, the oppression after the Black Plague, the Medieval Inquisition, the CounterReformation...) that favoured the movement of Jewish groups eastwards. After Kiev was sacked and ravaged by the Mongols, the Polish and Lithuanian states expanded on the ruins of Kievan 'Rus, and in the year 1 P. Milyukov, “The Jewish Question in Russia”, in M. Gorky, L. Andreyevgun, F. Sologub (edited by), The Shield (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917), pp. 58 ff.

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Introduction: The Jews in Russia

1264 Boleslaw Nabozhny enacted the Statute of Kalisz, which granted some privileges to the Jewish communities of Poznan and Kalisz. The Statute permitted the legal existence of the Jews during the entire period of Polish independence, and this tolerance was further granted by the Magna Carta of Jewish autonomy (the charter that Sigismund II Augustus promulgated on August 13, 1551) and the declaration of the Confederation of Warsaw of January 28, 1573. This was one of the first acts of tolerance in European history and legally assured the security of the Jews in Poland for two centuries.2 The “General Privileges” granted considerable autonomy to the Jewish communities, who formed their Kehilla (Kehillot) to govern questions of religion, jurisdiction, charity, organization, taxation and budget. The body of representatives of the Polish Jews was established in 1591 under the name of Council of the Four Lands. It had two central institutions: the Jewish Sejm and the Tribunal. Though forming an integral part of the urban population, the Jews were not officially included in any of the general urban estates under the administration of magistracy and trade unions. The Jewish community thus formed an entirely independent class of citizens, a civil entity with separate forms of life, with its own religious, administrative, judicial and charitable institutions: a Jewish city within a Christian city.3 After the sixteenth century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth underwent a slow but gradual decline. This is generally considered a consequence of the liberum vetum that paralysed the Sejm, the excessive power of noble families and confederations and the lack of a solid central authority.4 2 N. Davies, God's Playground. The Origins to 1795, Vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University, 2005), p. 126. 3 S. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, trans. Israel Friedlander, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1916), Vol. 1, pp. 103-108. The members of the Kehilla were elected annually during the intermediate days of Passover. The sphere of a Kehilla's activity was very broad and included the collection of state taxes, the management of synagogues, Talmudic academies, cemeteries, and other communal institutions, the execution of title-deeds on real estate, the instruction of the young generations, the affairs concerning charity, commerce, handcrafts, and so forth. 4 D. H. Gershon, B. Gershon, The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984); C. Abramsky, M.

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This decline was accelerated by social tensions among the different ethnic groups. Land ownership was in the hands of the state and the PolishLithuanian magnates, who were holders of vast estates (latifundium), cities, towns, villages and farming settlements. In these areas, a mass of industrious small landowners worked in conditions that resembled serfdom. This economic structure was managed by a veritable army of leaseholders who served as intermediaries between the owners and their workers: the Arendators (in Ukrainian Ɉɪɟɧɞɚɪ, Orendar; in Russian Ɉɬɤɭɩɳɢɤ). The term, deriving from the Latin Arenda, was used to indicate the lease of fixed assets, such as land, mills, inns, taverns, breweries, factories, distilleries or special rights, such as the right to collect custom duties, to use bridges, to fish, and so forth. Usually, these intermediaries were Jews and consequently the Ukrainians viewed this mediation as a form of oppression. This perception of Jews was very much alive during the XVII century, when the friction between the Cossacks and Poland led to the great uprising of 1648. This revolt had many causes: social tensions deriving from the oppression of the magnates against serfs and rural people; religious rivalry, as the Polish rulers were Catholic and their attempt to create an Eastern Catholic (Uniate) church with the 1596 Union of Brest was not well received by Orthodox subjects; political expectations, as the Cossacks were seeking recognized status within the Polish hierarchy, struggling against the power of the Polish aristocracy, the szlachta. The Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 - also known as the Ukrainian War of Liberation - is often cited because of the anti-Jewish massacres and pogroms. The word pogrom derives directly from the verb pogromit (pogromit’) which means to break, to smash, suggesting a severe degree of destruction and violence. What was particularly relevant in the case of Russian pogroms is the collective dimension of these expressions of hatred, which always saw a considerable participation by voluntary perpetrators, assistants or “well-heeled bystanders”.5

Jachimczyk, A. Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); J. Goldberg (ed.), Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth. Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in PolandLithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Critical Edition of Original Latin and Polish Documents with English Introductions and Notes (Jerusalem: Israel Academy, 1985). 5 As Robert Weinberg noted in the analysis of Vasilii V. Vakhrenov's drawings of the 1871 pogrom in Odessa. R. Weinberg, “Visualizing Pogroms in Russian History”, Jewish History, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1998), p. 76.

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Introduction: The Jews in Russia

The events of 1648 are described by numerous witnesses – e.g. Nathan ben Moses Hannover - and analysed in many historiographical works, such as those by Orest Subtelny, Bernard Weinryb, Max Dimont, Edward Flannery and Martin Gilbert, with differing estimates of the casualties, which could reasonably be calculated at approximately 100,000. However, as the Russian historian Simon Dubnow emphasised, it was not only the number of victims that was appalling, but also the nature of these losses in the decade of 1648-58: “In the reports of the chroniclers, the number of Jewish victims varies between one hundred thousand and five hundred thousand. But even if we accept the lower figure, the number of victims still remains colossal, even exceeding the catastrophes of the Crusades and the Black Death in Western Europe. Some seven hundred Jewish communities in Poland had suffered massacre and pillage. In the Ukrainian cities situated on the left banks of the Dnieper, the region populated by Cossacks... the Jewish communities had disappeared almost completely. In the localities on the right shore of the Dnieper or in the Polish part of the Ukraine as well as those of Volhynia and Podolia, wherever Cossacks had made their appearance, only about one tenth of the Jewish population survived”.6

The 1648 uprising inaugurated a period that is known as the “deluge” in Polish history, for it coincided with the Polish Commonwealth’s crisis and the advance of Moscow, the heir of Kievan 'Rus claiming possession of the Ukrainian territories. Between the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654, when the Cossacks pledged their allegiance to Tsar Alexis, and the Treaty of Andrusovo in 1667, the decline of the Polish state set the stage for the future agreement between Russia, Prussia and Austria and the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795, leading to the disappearance of the Polish state from the European map.The Polish territories hosting substantial communities of Jews were inserted in the so-called Pale of Settlement (þerta postojannoj osedlosti, ýOP). According to the ukase of December 23, 1791, this included: 6 S. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Vol. 1, pp. 156–57; B. Weinryb, “The Hebrew Chronicles on Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossack Polish War”, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 1 (1977): 153–77; The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, first published in 1965, also gives figures of 100,000 to 500,000, while Martin Gilbert in his 1976 Jewish History Atlas estimated over 100,000 Jewish casualties. M. Dimont, Jews, God, and History (Signet Classic, 2004), p. 247; Herbert Arthur Strauss (ed. by), Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism 1870–1933/39 (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), p. 1013.

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Western Kraj, Mogilev, Polotsk, Malorossiya, Kiev, Chernihiv, NovhorodSiversky (Poltava), Novorossiya, Ekaterinoslav and Taurida. This zone was further expanded with the ukase of June 23, 1794 (Minsk, Volhynia, Podolia), after the Third Partition of Poland and in the years 1805-35 (Lithuania, Belarus) when rural areas that were 50 versts from the border were closed to new Jewish settlements.7 The Pale of Settlement was divided into two parts: the north-western Severo-Zapadny Kraj, including Vitebsk, Mogilev and the four provinces of Vilnius, Grodno, Kaunas and Minsk; the south-western Jugo-Zapadny Kraj, including Podolia, Volhynia, Kiev, Bessarabia, Cherson, Chernihiv, Poltava, Ekaterinoslav and Taurida.8 But the life of Russian Jews did not depend solely upon the existence of the Pale of Settlement. Many other dispositions, beginning with the imperial decree of December 9, 1804 and the decree of April 13, 1835, contained further restrictions, obligations and prohibitions. When analysing the various “disabilities” the Russian Jews were subjected to, a 1916 publication of the American Jewish Committee listed several categories: occupational restrictions forbidding public service and certain activities such as farming; property restrictions prohibiting the possession of land or immovable property; fiscal burdens with special tributes such as the “candle tax” or the “meat tax”; educational restrictions that practically impeded admission to secondary or higher educational institutions and universities, except in proportions varying from 3 to 15 per cent of the entire number of non-Jewish pupils. In addition to these measures, many secondary schools (schools of military medical hygiene, railroad engineering, electricity, etc.) were entirely closed to Jews. In 1827, severe restrictions were imposed on the residence of Jews in Kiev, the largest town in Southern Russia; by the law of May 3 (15), 1882, Jews were forbidden to settle in the villages of the Pale; following the law of December 29, 1887 (January 10, 1888), they were forbidden to move from one town to another. After being exempted for many years, the Jews were gradually recruited into the army but were confined to the lower

7 A verst is an old Russian measure of distance, nearly two-thirds of a mile. 8 A. Cifariello, “Ebrei e zona di residenza durante il regno di Alessandro II”, Studi Slavistici, VII (2010): 85-109. See also John D. Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Question, 1772-1825 (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986).

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Introduction: The Jews in Russia

ranks and could not benefit from many exemptions that were reserved for non-Jews.9 Another important measure was issued on December 19, 1844, when a ukase suppressed the autonomy of the Kehilla and turned its administrative and fiscal functions over to the police departments and the municipalities. On the same day, another regulation transferred the taxes on kosher meat and the general basket tax, from the Kehilla into the hands of local administration. A decree of 1851 classified the Jews into five categories. The majority, that is to say the proletariat mass, was classified as neosedlye mešþane; the other categories were made up of the privileged classes, namely by those Jews who were allowed to enjoy certain rights. This privileged 5 per cent were granted the theoretical right of free travel and residence throughout the empire, but were equally subjected to the arbitrary measures of military and local authorities. Artisans were permitted free residence by the law of 1865, but persistent restrictions and new interpretations reduced the number of Jews enjoying this status to a bare fraction of the Jewish population. Merchants of the First Guild were allowed to leave the Pale after a five-year membership in their corporation, only on condition that they could pay an annual tax of 800 Roubles for ten years. Other exemptions were granted to a limited percentage of Jewish graduates in Russian institutions of higher education, and to the prostitutes, who were permitted to reside outside the Pale. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the involvement of Jews in the management of brothels and their subsequent “criminal dangerousness” would later become a leitmotif of antisemitic propaganda. But these few opportunities were an exception to the rule, and the great majority of Russian Jews continued to be subjected to special laws. The concessions and reforms, on the contrary, often contained the clause krome evreev (except for the Jews), as they were applied to all Russians except Jews. 9 In the cantonist schools, the Jews were forcibly enlisted together with Gypsies, Old Believers, vagabonds and members of other “difficult” minorities. L. Domnitch, The Cantonists: The Jewish Children's Army of the Tsar (Jerusalem: Devora Publishing, 2004); Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Drafted into Modernity: Jews in the Russian Army. 1827-1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Following the 1827 Statute on Conscription Duty by Tsar Nicholas, the Jews were liable to military service and were subjected to the same conscription quota as all other tax-paying subjects.

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In the period 1840–63, a special committee for the Jews in Russia was created in the context of Alexander II’s reforms, and in these years the Jews consequently benefited from a new, more favourable, attitude of the government. In 1861–62, they were granted rights to buy land, and in the same context the abolition of “cantonism” and other reform proposals were issued by Alexander II. These measures extended the right to settle outside the Pale to the merchants able to pay the registration fees of the First Guild, to foreign Jews (the decree of March 16, 1859), to various craftsmen, to university graduates and to Jews with a higher level of education (e.g. doctors or even kandidat students who were ending their courses, according to the decree of November 27, 1861). These reforms did not apply to the great majority of Jews who were labelled bezpoleznye (un-useful Jews), while the predominant voice in the newspapers commented on these attempts of modernization with the motto: Žid idet! (the Jew advances!). In this context, the articles of J. A. Brafman, a convert who wrote against Judaism in Vilenskij Vestnik attacking the Kehilla as a state within the state, had great resonance.10 The association between trade and Jews led to the consolidation of the anti-capitalist and xenophobic myth of Jews as lovers of gold, swindlers, dishonest, untrustworthy, and immoral subjects: “the more palpable was the fall of real wages in Russia in the 1860s to 1880s, the more vociferous became the Russian xenophobes eager to blame the entrepreneurial profitoriented Jews”.11 The symbol of “Jewish immorality” was the tavern, which, like its Jewish owner, was an intrusion of the “other” into the countryside: “vodka prices were low, but the tensions they triggered were very high”.12 For the villagers of the pre-modern world, anything that was foreign was suspected of having special connections with the devil, and in the case of Jews, these suspicions were clearly fostered by the powerful influence of religious bias, which was widespread among Polish Catholic and Russian Orthodox peasants.13

10 A major scandal, the Tovarišþestvo, concerned the firm Greger, Gorvic, Kogan & co., which was accused of corruption and speculation during the 1877 RussoTurkish War and was also described in Krestovskij’s Tamara Bendavid. 11 Y. Petrovsky-Shtern, The Golden Age of Shtetl. A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe (Princeton & New York: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 118. 12 Ibidem, p. 136 13 W. T. Bartoszewski, A. Polonsky (ed. by), The Jews in Warsaw: A History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991); H. Levine, Economic Origins of Antisemitism: Poland and its Jews in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University

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Introduction: The Jews in Russia

Concerning the relationships between Poles and Jews, Theodore R. Weeks highlighted that the 1863 Polish rebellion represented the climax of a path that abandoned assimilation and turned into growing separatism. It is true that the 1831 and 1863 uprisings strengthened the idea of a common citizenship for Poles and Jews, but afterwards the new Jewish role in industrial development went hand in hand with the increasing rivalry between the two distinct economic groups. Russian Jewish immigrants had an important impact on trade and economy in Poland but, at the same time, their success fostered the hatred against Jews. Their language, traditions and customs were perceived by Poles as alien and after 1863, Polish society increasingly viewed the Jewish communities as a threat to the cultural, economic and political development of Poland. In addition to the general acceleration in the creation of national identities (both Polish and Jewish), several long-term factors contributed to distance Poles from Jews and to increase tensions between them: the economic changes and the growth of industrial cities, the subsequent birth and development of socialist movements that were interpreted as a purely Jewish creation and the arrival of new “maskilim” Russian Jews (especially after the 1891 expulsion from Moscow) who were perceived as a vector of Russification and were offensively called as “Litvaks” though they were not Lithuanian. All these factors served to inflame a troublesome relationship that further deteriorated after the 1905 Russian Revolution and the start of the political struggle inside the newly created Duma.14 Another momentous event was Alexander II’s assassination in 1881, clearly aggravating the situation. The May Laws of 1881 prohibited any new Jewish settlement outside towns and villages in the Pale of Settlement (except for the Jews who had been living in villages before issuing the decree), while special authorities were given extraordinary powers to keep “public order” and punish any suspicious revolutionaries and, naturally, the Jews, who were perceived as the driving force behind the subversive

Press, 1991). 14 This policy of Russification was a strange combination of Polonophobia, inherent conservatism and of the official hostility of Tsardom against the Catholic church and the Jews. In this context, the Lithuanians were perceived as victims of the negative Polish-Catholic influence and became “potential Russians” to be rapidly “Russified”. T. R. Weeks, “Russification and the Lithuanians, 1863-1905”, Slavic Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 98 ff. Theodore R. Weeks, “Assimilation, Nationalism, Modernization, Antisemitism. Notes on Polish-Jewish Relations 1855-1905”, in R. Blobaum (ed.), Antisemitism and its Opponents in Modern Poland (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 32 ff.

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organizations.15 The physical isolation and the discriminations were accompanied by a widespread sentiment of antisemitism, which fuelled the hostility that was frequently expressed through the pogroms. In this context, Aronson argues, an important role was played by local authorities' ambivalence, and by the rumours that almost invariably began in cities (where the pogromists could take advantage of their relative anonymity) and then moved to adjacent hamlets and villages.16 The Warsaw pogrom in 1881 opened a new phase in Polish-Jewish relations: a census of the Kehilla showed that many had declared themselves as Poles before 1881 and as Jews after 1881 (“Before 1881 a Pole, after 1881 a Jew!”). The following decades recorded the spread of antisemitism in the press, and in the nineties the radicals organized the national movement of Szlachta and the Polish League, which later became the Polish National Democracy. In his first book, Thoughts of a Modern Pole, Roman Dmowski drew on ideas that were spreading in Germany and suggested that the two peoples (Poles and Jews) were struggling in order to assimilate each other. During the following years, thousands of Jewish families were expelled from Kiev (1886) and Moscow (1891), while the Pale underwent a rapid process of urbanization, as a consequence of the acceleration of the Russian industrial development.17

15 S. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russian and Poland from the Earliest Times until the Present Day (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1916), Vol. I, p. 408. See also, E. Petrovich Semenov, The Russian Government and the Massacres: A Page of the Russian Counter-Revolution (London: Murray, 1907); L. Wolf (ed. by), Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia (London, 1912); The Persecution of the Jews in Russia (London: Wertheimer 1920); E. Mendelsohn, Class Struggle in the Pale. The Formative Years of the Jewish Workers' Movement in Tsarist Russia (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970); B. Vago-Mosse (ed.), Jews and Non-Jews in East Central Europe (New York, 1974); J. Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1864-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 16 I. M. Aronson, Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990). 17 The numbers are to be read in thousands: Evreiskoe naselenie Rossii, 1917, Vol. 7, col. 382, 1994. See also J. Leshchinsky, Jewish People and Numbers (Berlin, 1922).

Introduction: The Jews in Russia

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City Warsaw Odessa àódĨ Kiev Vilnius Ekaterinoslav Biaáystok Daugavpils (Dvinsk) Berdychiv Kishinev

1796-1803 9,2 (in 1800) 0,2 0,3 (in 1820) 1,2 6,9 0,3 4,0 1,5 (in 1787) 2,0 0,1 (in 1772)

1897 219,1 138,9 98,7 31,8 63,8 41,0 41,9 32,4 41,6 50,2

1910-14 337,0 219,4 166,6 81,3 77,5 69,0 61,5 56,0 55,9 52,0

The economic role of Russian Jews was considerable. In a 1903 book, Michael Davitt explained that in many parts of the empire – e.g. in Kiev the expulsion of Jews was often invoked by their rivals, but also challenged by the authorities themselves, who underlined that such measures not only meant an increase in prices but, in some cases, the total shortage of some specific products.18 This economic power represented a serious problem and a further cause of envy. The Jews were increasingly viewed as potential traitors who organized the rebellion against the Tsar and the subversion of traditional Russian benchmarks (Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Narod’nost). This anti-Jewish hatred was manifest in the press and in articles such as A. S. Suvorin’s “Žid idet!” (Novoe Vremja, March 23, 1880), or again in Skalkovskiy’s analysis in Sovremennaya Rossia (1890), which mentioned the case of Sakhalin Island: “While the Jews succeeded in acquiring small fortunes, the convicts of other religious persuasions lost everything... Scarcely a single Jew performs the hard labour allotted to him, as he is always in possession of the means to hire other convicts to work for him, while he himself carries on his illicit trade, and gradually robs his fellows of the last of their possessions”.19

18 M. Davitt, Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1903), pp. 19-20 ff. It is worth noting that, for example with an 1823 decree, some attempts were made to establish Jewish agricultural settlements and colonies in the Pale. M. Wodzinksi, “Clerks, Jews, and Farmers: Projects of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Poland”, Jewish History, Vol. 21, No. 3/4 (2007), pp. 279-303. 19 “The Tsar and the Jews”, The Contemporary Review, January 1, 1891, p. 316

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The general belief of the Russian rightist reactionaries was that banks and finance represented the ruin of Russian political order and a real menace for the state, as trade was in the hands of “foreigners” such as Jews, Germans, Armenians...20 The same considerations were shared by the Polish nationalists, who viewed the increase of the Jewish population in Warsaw (38% in 1914) as a “calamity”. According to Robert Blobaum, this “Litvak invasion”, combined with the consolidation of the industrial capitalist system and the crisis that affected small business aspirations, marked the passage to a new political phase in which socialist and nationalist radicalism was ready to emerge.21 But to describe the conditions of Jewish life in Russia, the focus should not solely be on the cities where the Jewish middle-class (traders, professionals, merchants) gradually moved during the last decades of the XIX century. Indeed, much scholarship (Hoffman, Zborowski, Herzog, Bauer, Petrovsky-Shtern, Miron) has focused on the role of the village, the Shtetl (from the German words städtel/städtle, namely “little town”), not as a simple physical space, but as a cultural dimension, a small world representing the special Yiddish nature of a good part of Eastern European Jewry. Marie Sukloff described in this way the place where she grew up: “The little village of Borovoi-Mlin, in which I was born, consisted of about thirty huts - low wooden structures with slanting thatched roofs. The walls, both inside and out, were plastered with mud and whitewashed. All the huts stood in a row, which formed the only street in the village. A wide dusty road passed in front - the meeting place of the cackling, quacking, and barking members of the community. Farther down, the communal pasture, a long and narrow strip of land, ran along the high bank of the rivulet Okena below. In the rear were small kitchen-gardens surrounded by low wattle fences, back of which rye fields stretched as far as the eye

20 M. Villchur, “Russian Reactionary Politics and the War”, The Russian Review, Volume 1, April 1916. Only a year before the war, a report drawn up by a group of noblemen of the government of Poltava pointed out the incalculable injury done to the interests of the Russian gentry by the introduction of banks and railroads, for these institutions “undermine the foundation of the existing political order”, besides being “a menace to the State, as well as to the interests of the gentry”. If we add to this bias a concept of nationalism, which would dispose, by extermination, of fifteen million “foreign” nationalities, such as Jews, Finns, Armenians, etc., one may get a more complete picture of the social and political beliefs of the Russian ultra-reactionaries. 21 R. Blobaum, “The Politics of Antisemitism in Fin-de Siècle Warsaw”, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 73, No. 2 (June 2001), pp. 280-284.

Introduction: The Jews in Russia

12 could see”.22

Another meaningful testimony was given by Mary Antin, one of the thousands of Russian Jews who looked for a new “promised land” in the United States, and portrayed her old home as a sort of microcosm: “Nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia lived the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the dreadful prisons from which people never came back... It was strange that the Czar and the police should want all Russia for themselves. It was a very big country... Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the Pale of Settlement, and within this area the Czar commanded me to stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews”.23

Apart from emigration, the Jewish political responses to this adverse context were multifold. On one side, some Jewish activists championed the cause of reform and rejected both revolution and emigration, for example with the League for the Attainment of Full Rights for the Jews of Russia; on the other, radical Jews became one of the most fierce enemies of the Tsar.24 Their wide-ranging participation in the birth and development of the first socialist movements, the Bund and the Social-Democratic Party, however, proved very counterproductive as it strengthened the aversion of the authorities and public opinion. Mendelsohn described the spread of the Russian Jewish labour movement at the turn of the twentieth century, when Marxist slogans of class solidarity spread among the Jewish urban 22 M. Sukloff, The Life-Story of a Russian Exile (London: William Heinemann, 1915), p. 3. On the reality of the Shtetl, M. Zborowski, E. Herzog, Life is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York, 1962); E. Hoffman, Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews (Boston: Houghton Miffin, 1997); Y. Bauer, The Death of the Shtetl (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); D. Miron, ‘The Image of the Shtetl’ and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination (Syracuse-New York, 2000), pp. 1-48; Ben Cion Pinchuk, “Jewish Discourse and the Shtetl”, Jewish History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2001), pp. 169-179; B. Nathans, Beyond the Pale (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: Berkeley University Press, 2004). 23 M. Antin, The Promised Land (Boston-New York: Riverside Press, 1912), pp. 1 ff. 24 The League was created in Vilnius in 1905 as an alliance of Jewish liberals, cultural autonomists and even some moderate Zionists. These groups later established a political “convergence” with the Kadets. A. Orbach, “The Jewish People's Group and Jewish Politics in Tsarist Russia, 1906-1914”, Modern Judaism, Vol. 10, No. 1 (February 1990), pp. 1-15.

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proletariat and intellectuals. The Jews understood the importance of spreading socialist movements among the Christians, but this option was abandoned owing to the weakness of Christian socialist movements and to the increasing separatism that was dividing Jewish and Russian communities.25 Only in a few cases did these movements succeed in extending their organization to non-Jewish workers, while generally the relations between the two communities were strained by the competition for jobs and the anti-Jewish feelings. In places such as àódĨ (the “Manchester of Poland”) and Biaáystok, the cooperation of Jewish and non-Jewish workers could influence the success or failure of a given strike. Consequently, the authorities exploited the frictions between the two, using the strategy of divide et impera: with this tactic, the police frequently contributed to the conversion of mass-scale strikes into serious anti-Jewish excesses.26 As pointed out by Dubnow, the fundamental article of faith of the Jewish socialists was idealistic cosmopolitanism: the fight was directed towards general freedom and the reform of the Russian Empire, and only indirectly concerned the particular situation of Jews.27 Naturally, the reform of society and institutions was conditioned by the nationality question, and an interesting way of dealing with this issue was the so-called “autonomism” – Dubnow himself was a supporter of this model – according to which the destabilization effects of nationalism were to be mitigated thanks to the principle of “national autonomy”. The latter was particularly appreciated also by Marxists, as proved in Austria by the case of Karl Renner and Otto Bauer, and in Russia by Vladimir Medem.28

25 Mendelsohn, for example, described the cases of Sholem Levin and Vladimir Medem. E. Mendelsohn, Class Struggle in the Pale: The Formative Years of the Jewish Worker’s Movement in Tsarist Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press), p. 33. See also the important work of Leopold H. Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955). 26 E. Mendelsohn, “Jews and Christian Workers in the Russian Pale of Settlement”, Jewish Social Studies, Oct. 1, 1968, 30, 4, p. 245 27 S. Dubnow, Vol. II, p. 223. 28 J. D. Zimmerman, Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality: The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892-1914 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004); S. Dubnow, Nationalism and History. Essays on Old and New Judaism, ed. Koppel S. Pinson (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958); E. Bauer, “A Polish Jew and a Project for Jewish Emancipation in the Russian Empire: Nahum Sokolow and Count S. I. Witte, 1905-1906”, in E.

14

Introduction: The Jews in Russia

This atmosphere of intense debates and heated discussions set the stage for an incredible coup de theatre, which was directed against the Jews and had far-reaching consequences for their future in Europe: the Tsarist secret police fabricated a fraudulent pamphlet, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which was published in 1903. This forgery was proposed as the proof of a Jewish conspiracy to conquer world power through finance, economy, politics, masonry, disorder and destruction of religion. It was published by Znamya, a journal that was close to the movement of the Black Hundreds (Chornaya Sotnya), a rightist antisemitic movement that was terrorizing Russian Jews, inciting violence as happened in the 1903 pogrom of Kishinev.29 On this occasion, the agitations were propagated by the antisemitic local newspaper Bessarabets and led to brutal murder (45 casualties and hundreds of wounded), looting and mutilations. Alarming reports appeared in the press and generated many agitations among the Jews, for instance, in Warsaw, where special self-defence squads were organized. The Jewish Herald published a letter from Buhush (Bessarabia) portraying the Christian mob as “hyenas” who “smelled blood from afar”.30 Violence continued after the 1905 Revolution, when, according to authors such as Weeks and Jedlicki, the Jews became a powerful personification of a mysterious “enemy from within”, a complex combination of religious hatred, economic factors and political bias.31 Many other cities were Melzer, D. Engel (eds.), Gal-Ed on the History of Jews in Poland (Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 1997). 29 The movement was loyal to Tsarism and opposed every form of national selfdetermination, for example the Ukrainian one. H. Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881-1917 (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 204 ff. W. Laquer, Black Hundred: The Rise of The Russian Extreme Right (New York: Harper Collins, 1993); D. C. Rawson, Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905, Cambridge, 1995. H. Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (University of California Press, 1986). 30 “Jews in Romania and Poland Alarmed”, The New York Times, May 21, 1903. “Information showing that the outrages at Kishineff had an effect of inflaming anti-Jew passions elsewhere than in Bessarabia was received yesterday in this city. Alarming conditions in Warsaw, Russian Poland, and Romania, were described in letters. Further details of the distress at Kishineff were were also received”. For more press articles and comments, Cyrus Adler, The voice of America on Kishinev (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1904). 31 J. Jedlicki, “Intellectuals against Antisemitism in the Last Years of the 'Polish Kingdom'”, in R. Blobaum, cit., p. 61; R. Weinberg, “Workers, Pogroms, and the 1905 Revolution in Odessa”, Russian Review, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1987), pp. 53-

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

15

affected by a new wave of pogroms (Odessa, Biaáystok, Melitopol, Feodosia for a total number of about 254 episodes in all), which had the primary effect of increasing the emigration from Russia, especially to the United States. Here, an important group of Jewish communities established active organizations of charity and assistance such as the Board of Delegates in Civil and Religious Rights of the Hebrew, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society (HIAS).32 The dramatic Jewish reality generated a great flow of emigrants, who left Russia in search of better conditions, like Mendel Singer in Joseph Roths' Job: his belief in God was weakened by the adversities, the despair and the tragic conditions of life under Tsarism. Another clear example of the disastrous and paradoxical effect of these migrations is the fact that while Russia lost the potential benefits of “undesired” Jewish people, the emigrants treasured other countries such as the United States or France, where a young generation of Jewish artists contributed to create the legend of expressionist painters such as Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Moise Kisling and many others.33 The emergency of the Jewish question was clear to foreign public opinion but also to Russian liberals. In 1910, the Jewish members of the Duma, headed by Naphtali Friedman and supported by the ConstitutionalDemocratic Party, proposed a bill for the abolition of the Pale of Settlement, but the response was naturally negative. Many other projects were similarly turned down in the following years, when the increase of emigration proved to the international observers how the Jewish presence was perceived in twentieth century Russia. Another occasion causing outrage that reverberated throughout the world was the “Beilis affair”, in 1911-13. On March 11, 1911, Andrei Yushchinsky, a twelve-year-old pupil of the Kievo-Sofievsky Theological 75; G. Surh, “Ekaterinoslav City in 1905: Workers, Jews, and Violence”, International Labor and Working-Class History, No. 64, Workers, Suburbs, and Labor Geography (Fall, 2003), pp. 139-166. 32 “From Kishineff to Biaáystok: A Table of Pogroms from 1903 to 1906”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 8 (September 20, 1906, to September 8, 1907), pp. 34-89; see also, S. Lambroza, “The Tsarist Government and the Pogroms of 1903-06”, Modern Judaism Vol. 7, No. 3 (October 1987), pp. 287-296. 33 For instance, Aron Haber Beron, Henri Hayden, Alexandre Altmann, Isaac Antcher, Zygmunt Landau, Ossip Lubitch, Zygmund Schreter and Marcel Slodk. See Nadine Nieszawer, Marie Boyé, Paul Fogel, Peintres Juifs à Paris 1905-1939 Ecole de Paris (Paris: Editons Denoel, 2000).

16

Introduction: The Jews in Russia

Seminary, disappeared and his corpse was discovered only some days later. Mendel Beilis was arrested on July 21, 1911 and his fate was conditioned by a campaign that very much resembled the Dreyfus Affair in France. Beilis spent more than two years in prison awaiting trial, while the authorities tried to build a case against him by falsifying papers, pressurizing witnesses and launching an antisemitic campaign in the press. But the case backfired and in October 1913, the jury unanimously acquitted Beilis who rapidly became a celebrity.34 The new wave of antisemitism after the 1905 Revolution reached its peak in the 1912 Polish campaign for the Duma. The electoral law was changed and Warsaw was able to send two delegates to the Russian assembly: one for the Russian population and one for the others. The Jews had the majority and wanted a Polish candidate who advocated Jewish rights. However, the Polish National Democratic candidate refused to guarantee his intentions to fight for Jewish equality, and the Jewish parties decided to vote for a socialist, Eugeniusz Jagieááo. The reaction was harsh: Polish members of the Duma agitated the peasants against Jewish “wandering mice”, who were paradoxically accused of Russianizing Poland and, at the same time, of Germanizing the country. The National Democrats also launched the economic boycott, overhauling an idea that had been spread in Poland by Father Jelensky in the last decades of the XIX century.35 The war was approaching and Russian Tsardom would soon come to an end. The decline was ratified by the conflict and the revolutions, which showed how the country was still conditioned by an anachronistic resistance to modernization, a context in which it was normal to concentrate a particular group of people in the notorious Pale of 34 “Anyone wanting to see the major stars of New York’s Yiddish stage on Thanksgiving weekend in 1913 had three choices: Mendel Beilis at Jacob Adler’s Dewey Theater, Mendel Beilis at Boris Thomashefsky’s National Theater, or Mendel Beilis at David Kessler’s Second Avenue Theater”. J. Berkowitz, “The ‘Mendel Beilis’ Epidemic on the Yiddish Stage”, Jewish Social Studies, 8, No. 1, Fall, 2001, p. 199. See also, Bernard Malamud’s novel, The Fixer, which was published in 1966, and M. Samuel, Blood Accusation: The Strange History of the Beilis Case (New York: Knopf, 1966). 35 S. Joseph, Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910 (New York, 1914), p. 172; B. D. Weinryb, “East European Immigration to the United States”, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 45, No. 4, Tercentenary Issue (Apr., 1955), p. 519.

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Settlement, a sort of open-air prison for Jews. At that time, the Pale still comprised the western part of the Russian Empire: almost all of the Ukraine including Bessarabia, Russian Poland and the Lithuanian and White-Russian provinces (Vilnius, Vitebsk, Grodno, Kaunas, Minsk, Mogilev), and hosted roughly 6/7 of the entire Jewish population; 2,600,000 inhabitants of Ukraine were Jews, 1,400,000 lived in the six provinces of Lithuania and White Russia.36

36 Memorandum “The Pale of Settlement in the Former Russian Empire”, Archives of the Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC). USSR: Agro-Joint, Publicity, 1925-1927, 1921-1932, item 359421.

THE GREAT WAR AND THE JEWISH QUESTION IN RUSSIA

C'est la guerre c'est l'été Déjà l'été encore la guerre (Jacques Prevert)

The Expulsions When the Great War broke out, the Pale became the theatre of battles and conflicts between Russian and German troops. At the same time, the conflict provided an opportunity for those Jews who hoped to reform and cancel Tsarist misrule, “to make Russia a modern state built upon righteousness and justice”, to “have a voice in the framing of the laws of that medieval country”. It was not surprising, therefore, that in August 1914 a Jewish journal in the United States openly criticized Russia and invoked the success of the German army: “The two evils that support the Russian throne and sustain the haughty and arrogant aristocracy, are the ignorance of the Russian peasants and its puissance through their soldiers. To dispel the one and break the other is the only and sole salvation of the oppressed of Russia... The nature of the persecution of the Jews by the Russian government is actually designed along the lines of suppressing and expelling them. In the first place, they fear that the Jews will influence the peasants and spread some enlightenment among them. They therefore seek to separate the Jews from the Russians and have crowded the former into what has been styled the Pale of Settlement. They have compelled over four million persons to live within these quarters, refusing to allow any, with some exceptions, to leave or to settle in the interior of Russia... From this cesspool of ignorance and superstition, there emanates the epidemic of nation-wide persecution and popular anti-Jewish hatred”.1

The enemies of Russia, and Germany in particular, were fully aware of this state of things and tried to exploit the situation and address the hostility of Jewish people against Russian troops. In 1914, the German 1 I. I., “Russia and the Jew”, The Sentinel, August 14, 1914, p. 2; “War Items of Special Jewish Interests”, The Sentinel, August 14, 1914, p. 4.

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The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia

command inaugurated this strategy with the help of the zionist leaders Max Isidor Bodenheimer and Nahum Sokolow, and of associations such as the Komitee für den Osten and the Mannesmann-Comité.2 The German Committee for the Freeing of Russian Jews (Deutsches Komitee zur Befreiung der Russischen Juden) was created in August 1914 and supported the distribution of propaganda leaflets in the occupied zones of Poland, including a bulletin in Yiddish and Hebrew, reminding the Jews (An die Juden in Polen!) of the constant anti-Jewish persecution in Russia. Naturally, the Tsar tried to neutralize this potential menace. During the first months of war, he issued a proclamation to his “dear Jews” and even decorated some of them, such as Rabbi Bruk of Kovel (Volhynia). It was also true that former Russian Jews residing in France volunteered in the French army where they had gained liberty, while the Jewish deputy of the province of Kaunas, Naphtali Friedman, in the historic “war session” of the Russian Duma (August 8, 1914) reaffirmed Jewish loyalty to the Tsar: “In the great spiritual uplift which has come to the nation, the Jews fully participate, and they will go to the field of battle shoulder to shoulder with the other nationalities of the Empire. Although we Jews have long suffered, and are still suffering, from grievous civil disabilities, we feel, nevertheless, that we are Russian citizens and faithful sons of our Fatherland. Nothing will ever alienate us from our country, nor separate us from the land to which for so many centuries we have been attached”.3

But Friedman's assurances did not sound so convincing to the Russian commanders: as underlined by Petrovsky-Shtern, while the energy and devotion of Jewish soldiers might be greatly appreciated within the rank and file of the army, the regime supported the antisemitic idea of treating Jews as enemy aliens, and refused to allow modernity rule the structure of a state that was not yet ready to fight a modern war.4 The conflict was fought in many Jewish centres. A straight north and south line from Riga to Thessaloniki, “the spinal cord of European Jewry”, touched every important battle of the Eastern Front. The material damage was gigantic: the Jews were concentrated in a restricted area and shut off from the sea and neutral countries. They had no avenues of escape and 2 Z. Szajkowski, “The German appeal to the Jews of Poland, August 1914”, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 59, No. 4 (Apr., 1969), pp. 311-320. 3 G. Kennan, “The War and the Russian Jews”, The Outlook, January 20, 1915, p. 132. See also, H. Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986). 4 Y. Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army, cit.

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were overwhelmed in that strip of Europe; they were evacuated, suffered devastation and pillage, as well as the paralysis of economic life. The Russian Jews' precarious situation has been analysed by many historians (Altshuler, Ansky, Bianchi, Gatrell, Goldin, Levene, Lohr, Prusin), whose works must be interpreted in the general context of the Eastern Front – for example Norman Stone's The Eastern Front (London, 1998) – in order to complete the detailed and compelling description of Russia's unsuccessful military strategy and tactics. Eric Lohr, in particular, has reviewed the different dispositions that the Russian army adopted during the war, underlining how they were inspired by the vision of Jews (and of Germans too) as an unreliable element: spies or deserters who were to be removed from the zones of major strategic importance. As a consequence, the military commands used the War Statute of 1914, and the unlimited powers that this act bestowed upon them, to expel Jews, Germans and foreigners from certain areas. Semion Goldin has analysed the legal framework that permitted these deportations, beginning with the order of August 11, 1914, the first deportation that affected about 1,500 Jews in the district of Khotin.5 According to these regulations, the members of the military command who were at least on the level of army commander, like the governors in time of peace, were entitled to expel from their zone of operation all persons whose presence they considered undesirable. Nowhere in these regulations was it stated that Jews or other large groups were to be viewed as undesirable, but the Stavka (the headquarters of the High Command) considered the Jews in particular as spies and potential traitors, the perfect scapegoats to justify the failures on the front. According to Ansky's testimony, the procedure for expulsion began with an order by the military authorities. He quoted the order of evacuation for PrzemyĞl: “By orders of the commander of the fortress of PrzemyĞl, I hereby notify that the Jews residing in PrzemyĞl and its environs must leave this area as quickly as possible”. Then a Jewish implementation committee was set up, and in the case the Jews resisted evacuation, the threat of a company of Cossacks was sufficient to accelerate the expulsions.6

5 S. Goldin, “Deportation of Jews by the Russian Military Command, 1914-1915”, Jews in Eastern Europe, 1 (41), Spring 2000, pp. 40 ff. 6 Semyon Ansky, The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), p. 124.

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The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia

The Jewish author, researcher and activist - famous for his 1914 play, The Dybbuk - reported on the numerous falsehoods that he heard in various localities, where the same “tales” were reworked and embellished time and again. One version ran that the Russian Jews were installing telephones in their synagogues and dispatching secret reports in bottles across the Vistula. Another tale told of how, at a checkpoint of Russian troops, an elderly Jew succeeded in transporting a sack containing a German man and 2,500 silver Thalers on his shoulders.7 The information about the deportations reached Western Europe thanks to a number of articles, like those by Georg Brandes in the Copenhagen newspaper, Politiken. Another article by a special correspondent of the London Evening Standard, reprinted in both the World and the Jewish Chronicle, reported in detail about the terrible sufferings of the Jews in Poland and Lithuania, where thousands of people were reduced to a condition of wretched beggary. In October 1914, Warsaw was hosting 2225,000 refugees, and on January 25, 1915, the military authorities ordered the expulsion from more than 40 localities in the region of Warsaw, where the mass of refugees had reached the number of 80,000.8 In April-May 1915, the third phase commenced with larger scale mass evacuations: in this case the deportees were assigned destinations in advance and the journeys were better organized with the use of trains and the help of civilian officials. In May, the expulsions took on extreme proportions and were extended by General Nikolai Radkevich to the whole of Courland, to the province of Kaunas and part of Grodno and Suwaáki: 200,000 Jews (40,000 from Riga) were expelled and treated as deportees. Nonetheless, these measures were not always fully implemented owing to some technical problems, to the resistance of some generals such as Alekseev, and to the lack of space in which to hold the expatriated Jews: the great majority of the Pale of Settlement was in fact under military control and only few zones remained available to concentrate the Jewish deportees. Some criticism was also voiced by civilian and political authorities, for example by a number of governors who pointed out that in 7 S. Ansky, The Enemy at His Pleasure, pp. 16-19, 103. 8 “The securing of our military interests from the harmful existence of hostile foreigners in the Vistula Region, in the very theater of war, is very much complicated by the excessive number of German colonists living there; as current experience is showing that, although they have taken Russian subject-hood, they are only hiding their often criminal attraction toward their German fatherland”. Outline of the history of EKOPO from August 1914 until the end of 1919. AJDC, JDC, Relations with Associations, item 233137.

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many cases the removal of local Jews meant the paralysis of certain economic sectors. Indeed, the war went hand in hand with an almost immediate economic crisis that affected Jewish commercial activities in particular. In Poland, Lithuania, Volhynia and Podolia, where Jews made up from 40% to 80% of the total population, the war completely interrupted export trade. Quantities of goods remained in the warehouses and it was calculated that 25-30% of Jews were deprived of all means of existence and compelled to fall back on public charity. The last expulsion of Jews from an entire region was decreed in the province of Pskov in late August 1915. But the deportations of Jews decreased significantly only in October and November 1915, partly due to the stabilization of the front, partly due to the replacement of Yanushkevich as chief of staff of the High Command by Alekseev, who was more pragmatic than his predecessor.9 After the initial disorganized chaos, in this second phase the evacuation and settlement of refugees was effected in a relatively orderly way. The journeys were better organized: the trains were provided with food supplies and were accompanied by escorting crews, which consisted in most instances of one physician, one nurse and other attending personnel. Special cars were reserved for the sick, while the refugees were registered according to sex, age and occupation. Nonetheless, in the largest transit railway stations the escorting crews frequently found cars crowded with refugees and to which no definite destination had been assigned. When the minister of defence Prince Nikolai Shcherbatov realized it was impossible to settle all the refugees within the Pale, a directive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of August 4 (17), 1915 permitted the Jews, who were finally recognized as war sufferers, “to live in urban settlements” outside the Pale of Settlement, “with the exception of the capitals Moscow and Petrograd and locations under the authorities of the Ministries of the Court and Defence”. This decree generated much discussion and wideranging interpretations. On one hand, it was presented by the Russian government as the virtual abolition of the Pale; on the other, many signs clearly indicated that, far from being a generous act of a liberal government, this measure was only a temporary expedient, dictated by 9 Though Alekseev opposed large-scale deportations of Jews, which he viewed as harmful to the interests of the Russian army, many other factors contributed to mitigate these measures and reduce their impact: first of all technical difficulties and chaotic decision-making of the command at the front. S. Goldin, cit., p. 51.

24

The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia

military necessity and by the need for a foreign loan. The American Jewish Committee’s “black book” mentioned many reasons in support of this interpretation: the act did not remove any of the hardships to which the Jews in Russia were legally subjected. As an Octobrist deputy, Rostovtzev, declared in the Duma: “What Pale is this you are speaking of? There is no Pale; Kaiser Wilhelm has abolished it!” The minutes of the Council of Ministers (August 4-17, 1915) prove clearly that the necessity for such a measure was also justified by the need to obtain the financial support of Jewish finance and to exert influence on the press in terms of changing its revolutionary tone: “But what can we do when the knife is at our throat? If the evil influence of the Jews is undebatable... the necessity for money is equally undebatable”.10 The measure was granted grudgingly, with several limitations that emphasized the humiliating position of the Jews, who under the provisions of the new decree were still debarred from all villages, from the two capitals Petrograd and Moscow, from the vicinities of royal residences and from the districts of Don and Turkestan under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War. In practice, the act was often ignored or evaded by local officials, as happened in Smolensk, where the governor continued to expel Jews entering his province. In conclusion, the promulgation of the abolition act was designed exclusively to mislead public opinion and to conform to military requisites, as denounced by the press: the Russkoe Slovo, on August 13 (26), 1915, and the Evreyskaya Zhizn, on August 23 (September 5), 1915, both condemned this “half-way measure” as a simple substitution of one Pale for another. In an impassioned article, the eminent Jewish historian Simeon Dubnow denounced the hypocrisy of the government and called for the immediate abolition of all Jewish restrictions.11 The various documents sent to the JDC headquarters directly from Russia confirmed 10 The Jews of the Eastern Front, p. 23. Michael Cherniavsky (ed.), Prologue to Revolution: Notes of A. N. Iakhontov on the Secret Meetings of the Council of Ministers, 1915 (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1967), pp. 57-61. 11 “It is fully a year since the terrified faces of the 'prisoners' appeared through the bars of that gigantic prison known as 'the Jewish Pale.' Part of the prison was already enveloped in the flames of war, and the entire structure was threatened. The prisoners, in deathly terror, clamoured that the doors be thrown open. They were driven from one part of the prison to another part that seemed in less danger, but the prison doors remained shut. The warden's answer to their prayer was that it was impossible to 'release them, even in war time, because later it would be difficult to recapture them!”. Evreyskaya Nedelya (September, 1915)

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

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that the “abolition” of the Pale had no practical consequences on the conditions of Jews and especially of Jewish refugees.12 In the meantime, the practice of hostage-taking marked the passage to a new phase. As transferring whole populations generated great inconvenience, new commands ordered that deportation be replaced by hostage-taking, allowing the communities of deportees to return home under the condition that hostages were to be taken from each group. Though deportations and hostage-taking diminished in scale by the end of 1915, the army commanders still retained the power to decide forced expulsions and take hostages, and many generals used this prerogative also in the following years. In 1915, the Russian situation continued to be monitored by the international press. A report by Georg Brandes (“Jews Persecuted in Russian Poland”) appeared in the New York Times on March 19, 1915, denouncing the continuing cruelty against the Jews. Though the Jews were fighting loyally in the Russian army (which recruited between 250,000 and 400,000 Jewish soldiers), Brandes claimed that a “pogrom agitation” could readily be observed in Russian Poland. Europe had been turned into a cemetery, a house of mourning and ruin, and Russia was bringing this hatred inside her frontiers. The abominations of the Russian government included the deportation of Finnish statesmen, the disruption of socialist organizations, the assassination of socialist members of the Duma and, last but not least, the persecution of Jews. The author went on to stress the lack of solidarity within Jewish communities themselves, and the “abnormal” antisemitism of the Polish press. “The Jews have been robbed, brutally maltreated, and, in many instances, murdered. Furthermore, they have been expelled, on twenty-four hours’ notice, from a number of towns where they were formerly allowed to live…. All their possessions, which they were forced to leave behind them, were rifled or stolen. In like manner the Jews have been driven out of eight towns whence they fled to the capital, where it was impossible to shelter them”.13

12 The press in the US partially shared this opinion: “Reports Jews Ordered Out”, New York Times, January 3, 1916; “War Causes Destitution”, New York Times, July 9, 1916. The reports of the EKOPO showed that up to February, 5,709,188 Roubles had been distributed in Russia and Southern Siberia, 254,000 Roubles in Galicia. The committee registered 185,596 Jewish refugees, 74,078 were in the interior of Russia. 13 Georg Brandes, “Jews Persecuted in Russian Poland”, New York Times, March

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The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia

Nahum Sokolow's interview after his return from Eastern Europe created a considerable stir. Sokolow observed that donations had recently tailed off and the only explanation was that the working classes had “forgotten their obligations”, whilst the “wealthy were aloof”. 200,000 Jews were expelled and their conditions were so terrible that it would “require the pen of a Dante to adequately narrate”.14 In May 1915, the Russian-Jewish Relief Committee of Petrograd issued a report according to which there were at least 200 towns and about 9,000 townlets and villages in Poland that had been affected by the conflict, in terms of agricultural and industrial production. “Hundreds of factories have been destroyed... while branches of trade have been shattered, burying the welfare of the artisans under their ruins... Commercial life also has been laid waste. The merchants - great and small - are ruined”.15

In 1915, the Jewish deputy of the Duma, Friedman, lamented that about half a million persons had been condemned to a state of misery and vagabondage: in the province of Kovno (Kaunas), wealthy persons became beggars in few days, while all the cities and the villages within and outside the Pale were crowded with an increasing number of refugees.16 On August 30 (September 12), 1915, a Special Conference for the Organization of War Refugees was formed by the government, including the members of different relief organizations. In some places the situation was undoubtedly very serious. In just a few months, the number of refugees rose from 1,135 to 3,166 in Vilnius (Vilna) and from 5,366 to 10,842 in Poltava. The provinces of the north-western front-line (Vilnius, Vitebsk, Livonia, Minsk, Mogilev) hosted 53,534 refugees; those of the south-western frontline were even more numerous (41,146 refugees in Ekaterinoslav, Poltava, Taurida, Kharkiv; 16,836 refugees in Bessarabia, Volhynia, Kiev, Podolia and Chernihiv); the provinces of the interior and 19, 1915. 14 Mentor, ‘‘Russia’s Expulsion of Jews”, New York Times Magazine, August 15, 1915. 15 The Jews in the Eastern War Zone (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1916), pp. 101-102. 16 “Among the refugees I met Jewish women and girls, who had worked together with Russian women, had sewed garments with them and collected contributions with them, and who were now forced to encamp on the railway embankment”. Deputy Friedman's speech in the Duma (August 2) was published in the New York Times on September 23, 1915.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

27

of the rear had 74,078 refugees.17 In April 1916, the report of EKOPO, the Russian-Jewish Relief Committee, estimated a total number of 400,000 refugees. In summer 1916, the city of Smolensk alone witnessed the arrival or passage of great masses: 1,500 people in June 1916, 6,500 in July, and 8,600 in August.18 These flows were directed not only eastwards but also to the other side of the front, namely to those Austrian and German territories where the fugitives hoped to find better living conditions. According to a report of the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien (November 17, 1916), Bohemia hosted 75,135 Jewish refugees, Moravia 31,344, Eastern Silesia 7,000, Styria (Steiermark) 4,000, Northern Austria 10,000, Vienna and Southern Austria 50,000, and Western Austria 200,000. The deportations in Russia had another important effect and created a legitimized framework for anti-Jewish violence, which duly broke out during the conflict. After the first episodes (at àódĨ on July 3, 1914; at Mlava, CzĊstochowa, Radom, Mrosikov at the hands of German invaders in September 1914; at Tomashev and Pilvushki in October 1914; at Lublin, Kielce, Grodzisk and Petrokav in November 1914; again, at àódĨ on December 18, 1914 but the list also included several cases in AustriaHungary), a bigger and more serious wave of pogroms began in 1915. These attacks were “caused” by the Russian retreat and by the “revenge” of some Cossack units, who often instigated violence and encouraged the local people's participation in looting and violence.19 Indeed, the conflict exacerbated the hostility between Poles and Jews, and the attacks of Austrian and German troops were interpreted as the result of Jewish connivance. In the localities where the Russian troops succeeded in driving their opponents back, severe punishments were inflicted upon Jews who were charged with high treason but were often proved innocent by witnesses. The Russian military authorities preferred to seek a scapegoat for their failures and to give Polish accusations wide circulation, as in the case of Kuzhi (Kuziai). According to a military paper, Nash Viestnik, during the night of April 28, 1915, the Germans carried out an offensive 17 Report of the Special Conference for the Organization of War (December 30, 1916). AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10081. 18 M. C. Hickey, “Revolution on the Jewish Street: Smolensk, 1917”, Journal of Social History, summer 1998, p. 826. Jews in Smolensk organized a Society for the Aid of Jewish War Victims and a refugee labour bureau. 19 “Draft of a memorandum on constructive relief in the Eastern War Zone”. Letter transmitted by M. A. Charosh to Cyrus Adler (January 23, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms and Persecutions, item 214709.

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The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia

against Kuzhi counting on the collaboration of some “disturbing traitors”, especially Jews. Before the Russian units' arrival, it was said that Jews were hiding Germans in the basements, and at the signal of a gunshot, they burned the village. The 1915 investigations proved that these accusations were entirely fabricated. It was denounced in the Duma on July 19-20 by some deputies (N. M. Friedman, N. S. Chkheidze and A. F. Kerensky, who headed the inquiry commission), who explained in detail that there were only 3 Jewish houses in Kuzhi - clearly insufficient to hide German troops - and that the local Jews had already left the village out of fear of the enemy attack. A similar case occurred at Zámosti, which was captured by a detachment of Austrian Sokol troops in September 1914. Here, the Poles accused the Jews of having given aid to the Germans: 12 were arrested and 5 had already been hanged when a priest intervened; the remaining 7 were set free.20 Violence was a natural “corollary” of the reign of chaos affecting the western provinces, leading to a number of victims and damage that was difficult to quantify. In March 1917, Dr. Otto Schiff, the secretary of the Fund for the Relief of the Jewish Victims of the War in Russia, estimated that one and a half million Jews lost their homes, at least according to the inquiries of the Russian Jewish statistical society: 31% were settled in the war zone, 31% in South Russia, 16% in Central Russia, 16% in the provinces of Volga, 6% in Urals, Siberia and Central Asia. Most of the refugees found their way into larger cities such as Warsaw or àódĨ, where they swelled the already large number of unemployed and impoverished. Other cities in the Russian interior began to feel this forced “invasion”, and the respective governors often asked for a mandatory return of these homeless people to their native places.

The War against the Jews The reality of war was one of atrocities, countless episodes of violence and devastation, affecting especially Russian Jews. These were chronicled in detail by Šlojme-Zanvl Rappoport, better known as Semën Akimoviþ Ansky, in the well-known The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey Through 20 Ibidem.

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29

the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I. The Jewish journalist described the Russian invasion of Brody and the train station where a party of Russian officers were eating in soup bowls that bore a Hebrew inscription, “mazel tov” (congratulations). “The road to Brody was flanked by burned and desolate cottages. In the distance, we saw a broad field covered with ruins. Soon the devastated town emerged from the grey mist of an early winter morning. There were blackened chimneys and burned walls as far as we could see, visible beneath a dusting of downy snow. The town looked like the ancient, mossy remnants of Pompeii. I noticed the scorched wall of a synagogue. Above the door, some Hebrew words had survived: How awesome is this place [from Genesis 28:17]. The verse was fitting for the ruins of the house of worship and for the entire spread of the shattered neighbourhood. Nestled among the wreckage I saw a small cottage almost embedded in the earth. It looked as if it had crouched down during the conflagration, hidden in the ground, and therefore survived”.

The occupiers gave every street a new name: Pushkin Street, Gogol' Street, Lermontov Street and Turgenev Street. Ansky thought that naming these devastated streets after the luminaries of Russian culture was nothing short of ironic, even offensive to the memory of those great Russian authors. Almost half of the town had been burnt down, including several hundreds of Jewish houses and the old market place; an “army of poor, ragged, famished kids” walked through the ruins of the market begging for a Kopek. When the author handed a coin to a Jew, all Christian children started shouting: “Don’t give him anything! Don’t give him anything! He is a Jew”!21 Another telling account is given by John Reed, who was able to move fairly freely in those zones thanks to an official assignment on behalf of the US diplomatic service, which designated him to rescue some American citizens, mostly Jews, from the war zone. “We have travelled for two hundred miles behind the Russian front, through Bukovina and Galicia as far as Poland, finding everywhere examples of the sufferings inflicted upon the Jews. One village after another of muddy humbugs plastered over with lively colours have been sacked and destroyed by the Cossacks and the Russian soldiers, who have particularly persecuted the Jews. Zalešþiki, where thousands of Jews have lived, was a jumble of ruins; people have been joined by Russian vanguards and thrown against the enemy. Rovno has witnessed antisemitic

21 S. Ansky. The Enemy at your pleasure, pp. 66–71.

30

The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia troubles, while at Kielce, in Poland, a real ancient-manner pogrom occurred, with mass murdering by the Cossacks”.22

Many towns and villages were destroyed and met with a tragic fate, as happened to Schaulen (Šiauliai), which was described as a desolate “ghost town” in the EKOPO report of March 1, 1916. Before the conflict, Schaulen was a prosperous town of 36,000 inhabitants, including 20,000 Jews. It was burnt to the ground by the Russians and transformed into a heap of ruins: only a few houses were left on the outskirts. The 20,000 Jews were all expelled and only 115 families (about 520 souls) remained. Kaunas met with a similar fate. It had 70,000 inhabitants before the war, 45,000 of whom were Jews. The majority of these were expelled. During German occupation, some of the Kaunas Jews returned from Vilnius, where they had taken refuge and many others came back from the villages nearby. These 5-6,000 Jews found nothing but bare walls on their return, their homes and shops having been looted and sacked. Using the words of a Russian observer, “Cruelty, undisguised and unadorned” became “the sole article of faith, the only rule of behavior”. Cruelty was transmuted into heroism: “men forgot their values and the most elementary principles of inter-human life. Human creatures in different uniforms were there to destroy and to be destroyed”.23 The documents in the JDC archives are undoubtedly less poetic, but are equally eloquent to understand what happened to the Jewish people in Russia during the conflict. A report dated July 6, 1915, for example, spoke of the “the unrelenting efforts of the Polish nationalists and of the antisemitic press” in spreading “wholly unfounded accusations of disloyalty” against the Jews. Another report described the journeys of the convoys with the refugees, who were mostly children (70%) or people unable to work. In one case, a train was dispatched from Kaunas to Poltava, then obliged to return to Kaunas after a stop in Vilnius, and then again sent to the interior of Russia: it spent one month doing this absurd meandering.24

22 J. Reed, The War in Eastern Europe (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), p. 177. 23 “Every one was silent... What was to be done? War is war”. A. Michailovsky, “War is War” - Incidents of the Present Strife”, The Russian Review, Vol. 1, March 1916, p. 116. 24 Reports of EKOPO (July 6, 1915) and OZE (February 10, 1918). AJDC, Refugees in Russia, 1915-1917, items 6710, 6712.

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These documents contain many accounts and complete first-hand descriptions, such as the report drafted in 1918 by Albert Van Raalte, who left The Hague, in February 1918, went to Berlin and spent 75 days visiting the different localities and contacting Jewish communities in the Germanoccupied zone (the cities of Warsaw, Kaunas, Vilnius).25 The archives also include many articles from the Russian newspapers, for example the Evreyskaya Nedelia, concerning the situation of refugees (July 17-30, 1916) or the alarming mortality rates in Warsaw (July 16-29, 1916). In other cases, these archives testify to the sentiments, to the general feeling of the Jewish people, and to the way they faced the challenges of war. A letter by Baron Sasha de Günzburg to Felix Warburg (May 20, 1916) focused on the political situation and the widespread desire for peace and justice. The war produced a revival of separatism and two main ideas were addressing Jewish political options: Zionism and Yiddishism. According to Günzburg, Yiddishism was patronized by the radical party that had nothing to do with Judaism and used Yiddishism as an instrument to gain the sympathies of forlorn and embittered simple people. On the other hand, Zionism adopted a language that was effectively jargon that dug “still deeper the ditch which separated Russians and Jews”. At the same time, Günzburg portrayed the attitude of Russians towards antisemitism: antisemitism was “merely a political platform”. The officers resorted to antisemitic measures conforming to the program of their ministers or to the idea that antisemitic principles meant quick promotion. But the Russians were not as antisemitic as many people in Germany: “A Russian can easily profess the most horrid antisemitic doctrines and when you appeal to his good heart (perhaps weak heart) he will help you”.26 Perhaps as a consequence of this growing antisemitism, the conflict strengthened the Jews' loathing of Russia and consolidated Jewish solidarity. Unlike in Germany or France, where Jews had to identify nationally with the majority nation, in a supranational monarchy the Jews could easily identify themselves as a separate nation without casting doubt 25 Van Raalte's final report was sent to Holland and New York on June 12, 1918. In the previous months Van Raalte had already transmitted some partial accounts of his trip, on March 1, 14 and 27. AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC Committees, Holland Bureau, June-December 1918, item 1052. 26 Letter of Baron de Günzburg. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10034. See also S. Ansky, p. 105. The commanders and the authorities in general were not much convinced about the Jewish espionage, this accusation was used just to cover the real motives.

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The Great War and the Jewish Question in Russia

on their loyalty to the emperor. Frankel noted the effects of these “paradoxical policies of marginality” and underlined how in the midst of brutality and weakness many Jews came to the conclusion that the moment of emancipation was finally approaching. These ideas were brought to America by migrants such as Elias and Riva Cherikower, who left Palestine and began disseminating vivid accounts of Jewish sufferings. This testimony contributed to reinforce the consciousness of the Jewish question as a “global” problem that was intimately connected with the political aspects of WWI.27 Within the Russian frontiers, the misfortune accompanying the military operations contributed to increase the political influence of those liberal factions that were undoubtedly more inclined to reform the legal conditions of Jewish people. A certain “sympathy” towards the Jews increased only with the rise of liberals inside the Duma, which meant an acceleration in drawing attention to the Jewish question, as demonstrated by many Russian newspapers at the end of 1916, when the changes in the government were commented on and the liberal intentions of the ministers towards the Jewish question highlighted. But the Jewish newspapers did not contain such optimistic reports. On the contrary, they were laden with news on the continuing discrimination against the Jews. A report of the Moscow Evreyskaya Zhizn (December 18-31, 1916), for example, mentioned the recent prohibitions against the slaughter and cold storage houses including Jews on the board of directors.28 The numerous protests and appeals inside the Duma or in the press never produced any radical improvement in the legal and material conditions of the Jews, who were still destined to live in a territory constantly subjected to the menaces of an invading army. The articles in the Evreyskaya Nedelia confirmed this ambivalence. They reported on small concessions such as the permissions to come back home that were granted in some cases, for instance at Zvanez, Solanov, Tarnorudu, in Podolia (Evreyskaya Nedelia, July 3-16, 1916). Yet they equally mentioned the order of Chief Commander Brusilov: any Jew encouraging or helping Jewish deserters was to be courtmartialled (Evreyskaya Nedelia, July 24-August 6, 1916). 27 J. M. Karlip, The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 100 ff. 28 Extracts from recent Russian newspapers translated and issued by the American Jewish Committee. AJDC, Russia, Persecution and Pogroms, 1916, 1918, item 10347.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

33

A description of a Duma session appearing in the New York Times further confirmed that times were not ripe for a complete revision of Jewish legal conditions. The Russian deputies were involved in animated discussions about the intrigues of the Germans, the fight against corruption and bribery, and seemed to appreciate the behaviour of Poles and the loyalty they had shown during the war – for example denouncing the Jews – but made no reference to the discriminations against the Jews.29 Only the revolution would later lead to the abrogation of Jewish restrictions. At the same time, the chaos of 1917 meant a tragic continuation of war and antiJewish violence.

29 C. Johnston, “A Lively Session of the Duma, Discussions on the Equality of Poles and their Behaviour During the War (Duma Session of February 24, 1916)”, New York Times, April 1, 1916.

SHROUDS FOR THE DEAD AND BREAD FOR THE LIVING: THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE

Have pity, give shrouds for the dead and for the living - bread! (Shimon S. Frug, Hot Rakhmones)

The American Jews and the Joint Distribution Committee The natural reaction of the Jewish communities to the problematic situation of Russia was emigration, at least for those who had the courage, the means and the opportunity to flee. As suggested by Bernard Weynrib, at the dawn of the twentieth century the principal options were America and Palestine, with America becoming in practice the most frequent destination: whereas 30-40,000 Jewish immigrants went to Palestine in 1881-1914, over one and a half million from Russia and 300,000 from Austria-Hungary arrived in Northern America.1 Only a small part of Jewish emigrants adhered to Zionism and to the idea of creating their own state in Palestine. Following both old and newer projects such as those of Joseph Nasi, Sabbatai Zevi and Moses Montefiore, Theodor Herzl infused Zionism with a new ideology and practical urgency, leading to the first Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897, where the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) was created. The great influx of East-Central European Jews in the US led to important changes within American Jewry. Many of the newly arrived settlers were attracted by labor and socialist movements, and numerous Jewish newspapers such as the Morgen Freiheit or The Jewish Daily Forward (Forverts, colloquially called The Forward, an American Yiddish newspaper published in New York City in 1897) attracted the attention of 1 Bernard D. Weynrib, “East European Immigration to the United States”, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 45, No. 4, Tercentenary Issue (Apr.,1955), p. 518; S. Joseph, Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914), p. 172.

36

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

this “colourful” mass. This flow of Eastern European Jews appeared very different from the well-established Jewish communities, mostly of German origin, who were generally very receptive to the issues of assimilation and Americanization. The number of Jews in New York City was about 75,000 in 1881, while by 1890 it had grown to 200,000, of whom only 50,000 were of German origin, and 135,000 settled in the “ghetto” on the East, between the Bowery and the 14th Street. American Jewry was a compound of diverse constituents: the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardic) Jews and their German Jewish brethren (Ashkenazic), middle and upper classes, liberals rapidly adapting to the American way of life, and large numbers of East European Jews. The numerical growth of Jewish communities also meant a swift development of cultural, political, social and philanthropic organizations, such as the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), founded in Chicago in 1893. The NCJW’s Americanization program included assisting immigrants with housing, health and employment problems, helping them to socialize, and at the same time to maintain a strong Jewish identity. As Jonathan Frankel pointed out, the great mass of Jews coming from Russia brought with them a palpable “internationalism”, which in turn led to a particular interest in the conditions of Jews all over the world, and especially in Russia. The violence in Eastern Europe, thus, had considerable resonance in the US and contributed to the growth of Jewish associationism and to the consolidation of this deep concern towards the reality of Eastern Europe. The 1903 pogrom of Kishinev had a “shattering impact” on American Jewry, as for the first time the new immigrant groups observed a major crisis in the mother community from afar. The reaction was immediate and generated a series of initiatives that included protest-actions and relief funds. In particular, the impact of the Kishinev pogrom consolidated the idea that the Jews in the “New World” should pay greater attention to the condition of their brethren in Eastern Europe, facilitating their immigration to the United States and contributing to improve their material conditions through economic aid and relief.2 While 2 In the years between 1904 and 1907, the average number of immigrants was 100,000, and the great part came from Russia. After the 1903 pogrom, these Jews enhanced their political struggles and their efforts produced a series of mass meetings (such as that at Carnegie Hall, in New York, on May 27) and relief funds like those collected by the bankers' committee or by a committee of uptown Jews that also included Jacob Schiff, a leader of the American Jewish Congress and Joint Distribution Committee. J. Frankel, Prophecy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism, & the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

37

it could be very difficult to achieve an immediate end to these barbarities (the 1903 diplomatic crisis between Washington and Moscow had not produced any substantial results), it was surely easier to prompt material aid to those who were suffering. From this perspective, the pogrom of Kishinev was a turning point, as it generated harsh reactions not only in the sphere of American Jewry but in the broader public opinion, as demonstrated by numerous press articles (C. Adler, The Voice of America) and by the great participation in mass meetings and conferences that aimed at collecting money for the victims through the National Committee for the Relief of Sufferers by Russian Massacres. The violent pogroms in Russia sparked indignation and aroused the sympathy of the entire civilized world and contributed to the birth of “the dean of American Jewish organizations”, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which was established in 1906 to safeguard the welfare and security of the Jews worldwide.3 The AJC was created by a small group of influential American Jews and mentioned as one of its official statements the objective to “prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution”. The organization was led by well-to-do and politically influential Jews mostly from New York City, such as Louis Marshall, Jacob H. Schiff, Judge Mayer Sulzberger and Cyrus Adler.4 The committee was substantially not politically oriented: judges Louis D. Brandeis and Julian W. Mack were to become the mainstays of American Zionism during the war. Others, especially Julius Rosenwald, the head of Sears Roebuck (a chain of houseware stores), followed the German Jewish liberal tradition and considered Judaism a religious creed and not a national identity. In effect, the outbreak of war meant the beginning of the end for mass immigration of Eastern European Jews to the United States. The entire area of Eastern Europe became a war zone with little possibility of moving out, while transatlantic travel was menaced by the U-Boats. General and Jewish immigration declined sharply, although some Russian Jews did Press, 1981), pp. 473 ff. 3 A. Goldman, “Jewish Group Faces Reorganization”, New York Times, February 13, 1990. 4 Evyatar Friesel, “Jacob H. Schiff and the Leadership of the American Jewish Community”, Jewish Social Studies, 2002, 8(2-3): 61-72; Seth Korelitz, “A Magnificent Piece of Work: the Americanization Work of the National Council of Jewish Women”, American Jewish History, 1995, 83 (2): pp. 177-203.

38

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

succeed in leaving by way of Siberia and Japan. It was a real “humanitarian emergency”, and this tragedy ignited spontaneous and global solidarity. Focusing on the American conditions, academics such as Y. Bauer, O. Handlin and H. Bernstein have underlined how this particular context created the perfect occasion to establish what is now considered as the world’s leading Jewish humanitarian assistance organization, the Joint Distribution Committee.5 According to these sources, on August 31, 1914, a cable sent by Henry Morgenthau, the US ambassador to Turkey, was forwarded by W. J. Brian, the secretary of state, to the office of Jacob H. Schiff, head of the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., with a request of $50,000 for the 60,000 Jews in Ottoman-ruled Palestine. Morgenthau wrote of a “terrible crisis” and the menace of a “serious destruction” which derived from the fact that the Turkish authorities compelled many Jews to join the army, leaving many families without their respective “breadwinner”. In a letter dated September 4, 1914, Morgenthau reminded L. Marshall of the Jewish conditions in Palestine: “Most of them have always depended for their support on charitable institutions and benevolent men in other countries, and now that the inflow of money has absolutely ceased, most of the societies will have to be abandoned, and it is almost too horrible to think of what will become of the poor men that will be stranded high and dry”.6

But the crisis soon spread to Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Numerous appeals arrived from many European societies such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Anglo-Jewish Association, the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien; from Antwerp and other cities such as Prague and Budapest that hosted Jews fleeing Galicia.7

5 Yehuda Bauer: My Brother’s Keeper. A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1929-1939 (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1974); Oscar Handlin, A Continuing Task: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1914–1964 (New York: Random House, 1964). Both books are partially based on Herman Bernstein's manuscript, “JDC History” (1929). 6 Telegram of August 31 to Jacob Schiff, New York; letter of US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau to Louis Marshall (September 4, 1914). Archives of the AJC online. 7 After the first late August appeals regarding Palestine, the AJC sent $25,000, $12,500 were sent by Jacob Schiff, $12,500 from the Zionist Organization of America, and $5,000 were sent to Antwerp. AJDC, JDC Administration,

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Two distinct groups of American Jews took action and each formed a fundraising entity. On September 28, 1914, the conference of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations resolved to send telegrams to all orthodox congregations in the United States, asking each to conduct an appeal for relief contributions on Yom Kippur Eve. On October 4, 1914, the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering through the War was founded. The leaders of the committee were Leon Kamaiky (publisher of the Jewish Daily News), Harry Fischel, Harry Lucas, Albert Lucas and Morris Engelman. Meanwhile, the meetings of the American Jewish Committee discussed the same issues and extended the mission of aiding Jews in Palestine to Europe as a whole: “Our duty is not, however, confined to come to the assistance of the unfortunate Jews of Turkey, but the great body of Jews of Russia, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and of other affected lands where for weeks past has occurred the most destructive warfare known to history, stand in grievous need, and must of necessity look to us for assistance”.8

The leadership of the American Jewish Committee convened a meeting of forty organizations, which took place in New York on October 25, 1914, in order to establish the first committees to organize the collection of funds and to coordinate the relief work. “Fellow Jews: The stupendous conflict which is now raging on the European continent is a calamity, the extent of which transcends imagination. While all mankind is directly or indirectly involved in the consequences, the burden of suffering and of destitution rests with especial weight upon our brethren in Eastern Europe. The embattled armies are spreading havoc and desolation within the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Russia, and the Jews of Galicia and East Prussia dwell in the very heart of the war zone. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are in the contending armies. Fully one-half of all the Jews of the world live in the regions where active hostilities are in progress. The Jews of Palestine, who have largely depended on Europe for assistance, have been literally cut off from their sources of supply; while the Jews of Germany, Belgium, France, and England are struggling with burdens of their own”.

On that occasion, a committee of five was elected (Oscar S. Straus, Louis D. Brandeis, Julian W. Mack, Harry Fischel and Meyer London). The Chronology of Events 1914-1918, item 145. 8 “Eighth Annual Report of the American Jewish Committee in November 1914”, American Jewish Yearbook Vol. 17, p. 367.

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Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

latter helped set up the American Jewish Relief Committee (AJRC): Louis Marshall was its chairman, Felix M. Warburg the treasurer, and Cyrus L. Sulzberger the secretary. The Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee, held at the Hotel Astor on November 8, 1914, emphasized once again the emergency of Palestine and Eastern Europe, where economic paralysis was crippling commerce, bringing about the complete stagnation of business, and making it impossible for the Jews of Europe to continue to afford material assistance.9 The first funds ($10,000) were sent to Palestine and Europe and on November 22 the American Jewish Committee announced a further contribution of $100,000 to the Relief Committee. On November 24, 1914, the two aid committees joined forces to ensure the most effective, far-reaching relief, and united their funds and structures into the Joint Distribution Committee of Funds for Jewish War Sufferers (JDC). On December 13-15, 1914, the first sums were placed at the disposal of the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) and the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien (respectively $50,000 for Russia and $25,000 for Austria). At the end of 1914, $185,000 had already been distributed for relief, and the contributions continued in the following months reaching $457,500 in March 1915.10 Similar initiatives were also springing up in other countries. In England, a London Relief Fund was established, and the Anglo-Jewish Association began a series of initiatives not only to collect money for the relief of Eastern European Jews – for example with a public meeting on December 31, 1914, at the Mile End Pavilion Theatre, in the East End – but also to denounce the Russian ally and its treatment of Jews.11 Many different 9 Letter to Jacob E. Schiff, Louis Marshall, Nathan Straus, and to the members of the American Jewish Committee, New York City (Constantinople, October 21, 1914): “Gentlemen: Upon the request of Ambassador Morgenthau, I have spent the past month in Palestine investigating the exact condition of the Jewish community in that country, and supervising, as far as I could, the distribution of your fund of fifty thousand dollars. I brought the money personally to Palestine on North Carolina. Very sincerely yours”. 10 AJDC, JDC Administration, Chronology of Events 1914-1918, item 145. 11 The alliance with Russia and the treatment of Jews were clearly subjects of intense discussions. S. Johnson, “Breaking or Making the Silence? British Jews and East European Jewish Relief, 1914–1917”, Modern Judaism, Advance Access published February 8, 2010.

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associations such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris or the Israelitische Allianz in Vienna, pursued the same objectives and contributed to alleviate, directly or through other committees, the conditions of Eastern European Jewry. Russia

$205,000.00

German-Poland

$145,000.00

Austria-Hungary

$25,000.00

Hungary

$30,000.00

Palestine

$25,000.00

Salonica

$5,000.00

Jewish university students in Switzerland

$2,500.00

TOTAL

$457,500.00

In the United States, an important contribution was also made by the HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). It served not only for the reception of migrants, but also for securing permission from German and Austrian commands for residents of the military zones to write short messages to their families in the US.12 This assistance had an important moral value, and proved essential for those who had not received any word from relatives since the outbreak of the war, even owing to a simple change of address.13 Furthermore, the HIAS established a branch at Seattle, a port of arrival for Russian refugees, and by December 1915, it had taken in more than 13,000 Jewish refugees.14 The JDC played a crucial role in sustaining Jewish lives throughout the war zones. At first, the JDC transferred funds and supplies to Jewish communities in need with the help of foreign consuls and relief organizations. Through these partners, the JDC shipped food, clothing, 12 Lawrence J. Epstein, At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, 1880-1920 (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2001). 13 “Jews in Russia Seek Their Friends Here”, New York Times, December 16, 1917. 14 “Report Great Work for Jewish Relief”, New York Times, January 4, 1916. The steamships of Nippon Yusen Kaisha or of the Osaka Chosen Kaisha brought 30-60 Jewish refugees a week. J. Sommer, “War Refugees at Seattle”, Bulletin of the National Conference of Jewish Charities, March 1916, p. 130.

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Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

medicine and money; it supported soup kitchens and other meal programs for starving people, and enabled individual American Jews to send help to their loved ones abroad. One year after its foundation, a third member-organization joined the JDC: the socialist-oriented People’s Relief Committee of America, which was formed in August 1915 by Meyer London and Sholem Asch. The three JDC constituent committees were organized on a national scale with branches throughout the US, and were capable of reaching practically all the individuals of the different Jewish communities, as far as the smallest villages. As it saved lives with emergency food, clothing, shelter and medical assistance, the JDC proved to be an affirming, tangible representation of American Jewish support for millions of Jews in wartorn countries.

Relief and Neutrality In his Relief in Time of Need, Michael Beizer suggests that the assistance to Russian Jews was “encouraged” by the State Department in order to contain a mass influx of would-be migrants to America.15 If this interpretation is difficult to prove, what is certain is that the action of relief was carried out thanks to the support of the American government, for example the American Secretary of the Navy, whose consent was necessary in order to infringe a blockade and permit the JDC to dispatch 900 tons of food and medicine on board the USS “Vulcan” to Palestine in March 1915. Furthermore, the JDC received permission from the State Department to create a committee of Dutch representatives to administer relief funds in enemy-occupied countries. The Departments of State and of War channelled the funds and organized a central committee – Max Senior and Boris Bogen were sent to Europe and were involved in this complex work of organization – in order to distribute and administer this money in Europe, establishing the headquarters in the US diplomatic office in Amsterdam. The support of the US government was even more evident when, after a resolution introduced by Senator Martine of New Jersey, President Wilson

15 M. Beizer, Relief in Time of Need. Russian Jewry and the Joint. 1914-24 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015), p. 30.

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designated January 27, 1916, as Jewish Sufferers Relief Day. On that day, more than 1 million dollar was collected.16 This help was vital owing to the rigid conditions that the conflict imposed on commerce, communications and transport of people and goods. As a consequence, the presence of American agents in Europe became fundamental to carry out this intense relief activity: the American ambassador in Petrograd, David R. Francis, was used by the chairman Felix Warburg as a “middleman” for communications with the Jewish Colonization Association in Russia, which received the first remittances, and the same role was played by other American consuls, for example in Stockholm.17 Naturally, a similar strategy was adopted in the relations with the Russian consuls in the US, for instance with Hon. C. J. Medzakhovsky, the commercial attaché in New York, who was approached in order to obtain permission and fiscal exemptions for the passage of food and clothing in the port of Archangel.18 The support of the Federal Reserve was equally important in order to transfer the American money to Europe. Such attention was testified by many letters in which Ambassador Francis appears personally involved in distributing funds, for example approaching the leaders of local Jewish communities, providing for the budgets of the different Russian committees and rerouting the sums, or again by obtaining detailed information about the sanitary conditions in the Russian camps for prisoners of war.19 In this context, the work of Fulton Bryslawski’s Washington office was indispensable, and the influence of the JDC leaders was fundamental in 16 On February 17, Wilson received the representatives of Central Relief Committee and Women’s Proclamation Committee, who expressed their most sincere gratitude. On January 27, during the Jewish relief day, the collections reached the total sum of about $2,000,000. 17 Letter of F. Warburg to D. M. Bressler (July 6, 1915). The remittances were arriving from the relatives all over the world, for example from Argentina. AJDC, Russia, Refugees, item 6709. 18 Letter of Felix Warburg (January 16, 1916). AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10047. 19 On May 15, 1916, Francis wrote to Paul Warburg (Felix’s brother), a member of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, thanking him because the Federal Reserve had greatly contributed to the mission in Russia and to his movements. On August 22, 1916, he explained to Felix Warburg how the American funds were distributed through the Jewish Colonization Association to the committees in Petrograd and Moscow. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, items 10053, 10054.

44

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

order to deal with state authorities and to “balance” the foreign policy of neutrality with the action of relief in Palestine and Eastern Europe. In addition to its historical leaders, the lawyer Louis Marshall and the banker Felix Warburg, the JDC was managed by a close circle of influential men such as Paul Baerwald, also a banker, James N. Rosenberg, a lawyer, Joseph C. Hyman and Dr. Bernhard Kahn, who became known as “Mr. Joint”. According to Bauer, the JDC was a combination of aristocratic leadership and elasticity of action, and founded its activity on a number of precise tactics and principles: teaching business principles for self-help, freedom from any political involvement, coordination with the US government, the right for all Jews to live in their home country without needing to emigrate, and the support of other help organizations. The contributions were collected from the beginning of the war and, as was estimated by Albert Lucas, they reached a per capita sum of more than $6 (considering a general Jewish population of 3 million people). Naturally, some contributors had significant means (Julius Rosenwald of Chicago donated $1,000,000), but the majority of collections were moderate contributions from “those who had little if anything to spare above their own needs”.20 The money collected in the US was sent to Europe through the Kuhn & Loeb Bank, and then managed by the Dutch committee. The JDC did not have the staff or facilities to be directly involved in this work of relief and could operate only thanks to the different local committees, such as the Russian EKOPO, the Jewish Colonisation Association in Russia, the Jüdisches Hilfskomite für Polen und Litauen in Germany, as well as local committees accredited by US diplomatic officials in Turkey, Palestine, or at Thessaloniki. In German-occupied Poland, the funds were distributed through the bank of Max Warburg, Felix Warburg’s brother.21 Having received the funds, Max Warburg then typically turned over a portion of funds to the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, an established relief organization of well-to-do German Jews, and credited some of the money 20 Albert Lucas, “American Jewish Relief in the World War”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 79, War Relief Work (Sep., 1918). 21 These sums were transmitted to Germany in the first phase: 304,009.25 Marks before December 31, 1915; 3,758,769.89 Marks in the period January 1-July 25, 1916; 2,417,641.84 in the period July 25-September 30, 1916. In total 6,480,510.98 Marks. Ibidem.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

45

to an account in Vienna via Maximiliam Paul-Schiff, the committee’s representative who redirected the funds also to the East Galicia committee in Lemberg. The JDC representatives emphasized the impossibility to create “Committees of the American Jewish Relief Funds”, namely independent JDC committees, and the need to stress the American provenience of the funds when setting some general directives: the cooperation of local citizens, the inclusion of all elements of Jewish population, the preference for large centres to establish headquarters, if possible the inclusion of an American citizen as a permanent representative in the committees.22 The money was distributed according to the needs of the different immigrant hometown associations, called landsmanshaften, which solicited donations from the United States. To receive this relief the various local organizations had to fill in a landsmanschaften questionnaire indicating the name and the data concerning the organization, the legal representatives and other details. These documents were collected by the Joint Distribution agents and distributed among the applicants. The sums could be substantial (for example, $200,000 was sent to Russia and 200,000 to German-occupied Poland and Lithuania on October 10, 1916) or minimal, in some residual cases when the help was directed towards small sporadic groups: the Jewish refugees in Alexandria, for example, received $1,500 on July 14, 1916.23 While these actions were collectively referred to as general relief, on January 1, 1915, the JDC received permission to establish a transmission department under the supervision of Harriett Lowenstein, in order to deliver personal remittances, that is to say individual relief. This was destined to those areas in Europe and Palestine where normal transmission agencies were unable to function under war conditions. In this way, relatives from the West were given the means to deposit small amounts of money (typically $5 or $10, up to $100) for the JDC to transfer to their relatives overseas.24

22 See for example the Magnes-Dushkin report to the JDC. March 1917. AJDC, Turkey, Smirna 1916, item 155106. 23 Financial report of the Central Jewish Committee for Aiding War Victims (from the commencement of its activities to July 1916). AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 147. 24 A. Lucas, cit., p. 227.

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

46

Sent to

Number of remittances

Amount

Russia

9,363

$189,828.43

Austria

870

$15,564.41

Occupied territory

12,274

$288,691.01

Palestine and various

2,151

$113,724.47

TOTAL

24,658

$607,808.32

The American organizations, for example the AJC, in the meantime continued to discuss the conditions of European Jewry and the future strategies that were to be defined at the end of the conflict. The expectations that the war might end quickly, and that the Jews of America should take some action at once in order to prepare bringing the Jewish question to the attention of the Powers, gave rise to the idea that the Jews of America should hold a congress. At the convention of the New York Kehilla, on May 23, 1915, and at the AJC meetings on May 9, 1915, and June 20, 1915, for instance, it was decided to summon a specific conference, appointing a committee of seven to organise the event. The situation of Russia was particularly alarming and became increasingly central in the work of the AJC at its ninth annual meeting, on November 14, 1915. “When the war broke out, the Jews of Russia showed great willingness to forget the past and begin life anew in a united and regenerated Russia. They gave themselves completely to Russia. Thousands of Jewish young men who had been forced to leave Russia in order to get the education which their own country denied them, returned voluntarily to the colors, even though they believed that all hope of preferment and promotion was closed to them. In all the field of battle the Jewish soldiers displayed a strength and courage which endeared them to their fighting comrades, and won for hundreds of them the much desired cross of St. George for distinguished valor. It appeared at first as though the long desired union with the Russian people was about to be realized. But it soon developed that the chains which tied the Jews of Russia to their past could not be broken. Forces which they could not possibly control doomed them to the greatest tragedy in their history. The Pale in which they lived was Polish in origin and population. Poles and Jews were fellow victims of the Russian oppressor; but instead of being united by the common bond of suffering, they were separated by religious and racial differences, which for the past five years had assumed their bitterest form in an unrelenting boycott of the Jews by the Poles. When the war broke out the political status of the Poles

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

47

changed overnight. The dream of a free Poland revived. Both the Russian and the German armies found it politic to cultivate the goodwill of the Polish population, whilst they made a scapegoat of the Jews. The Russian military organization met with disastrous defeats. In order to exonerate themselves in the eyes of their own people the military camarilla unloaded”.25

In those months, the decision was taken to issue a special publication on the Jews in Russia, their history, their legal and material problems before and during the war, while at the following AJC meetings also the conditions of Romania were taken into consideration, thanks to the letters and reports arriving from Europe (for example the letters of Rabbi Niernirower of Iaúi and of the Union of Native Born Jews, on May 9, 1915). The diplomatic aspect concerning the support of European and especially Russian Jews was significant. Apart from the political influence of its leaders, the AJC insisted that the government connect the question of Jewish conditions with the negotiations of a commercial treaty with Russia. In addition to this, on December 30, 1915, the AJC issued a petition to Pope Benedict XV: “We confidently express the hope that timely action be taken by the Vatican, to the end that the sufferings under which millions of our brethren in faith are now weighed down may be terminated by an act of that Humanity to which Your Holiness is so passionately devoted, and that the cruel intolerance and the unjust prejudice which have been aroused against them may forever vanish before this glorious exorcise of Your Supreme Moral and Spiritual Power”.26

The financial support of the JDC continued in the following years and by the end of 1917, the JDC had transferred $2,532,000 to Russia, $3,000,000 to German-occupied Poland and Lithuania, $1,532,300 to Galicia, and $76,000 to Romania. These first sums were just the beginning of a complex work of relief consisting not only in immediate material aid, but also in creating the basis for the future reconstruction. From this perspective, the purpose of the JDC was briefly described by one of its 25 “Ninth Annual Report of the American Jewish Committee”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 18 (September 28, 1916, to September 16, 1917). 26 The document was signed by Louis Marshall, Jacob H. Schiff, Oscar S. Straus, Mayer Sulzberger, Cyrus Adler, J. L. Magnes, Julian W. Mack, Julius Rosenwald, Isaac W. Bornholm, Harry Cutler, Jacob H. Hohlander, Samuel Dorf, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, and Leo W. Sobel.

48

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

agents, Mr. Zuckerman, “not merely to give bread, but to give the hope of a better life, to help our brothers over there to live again, to give them the means wherewith to live, and to enable them to live as Jews”.27 The reconstruction could not be seen simply as the restoration of the devastated areas. The goal was to enable the victims of war to resume their lives anew and to apply their own efforts for their rehabilitation. It was only by “encouraging” those communal activities that might correct the old evils and abuses that had oppressed the Jews, that the moral and economic support of American Jews might prove to be even more valuable than their material support in the long run. By virtue of this strategy, the JDC aimed to create the premises for a peaceful and rapid development, passing from a policy of assistance to one of the first examples of what today we call “development aid”.

The Relief after the American Declaration of War In 1916, the relationships with Europe were more frequent and wellorganized, and the JDC sent some representatives directly to Europe in order to negotiate the conditions for the distribution of relief: in January, two auditors, Elkan Adler and Philip Henry, visited Russia, and on July 26, Magnes sailed for Russia on the steamer “Frederic VIII” via Christiania and Stockholm, returning on November 1.28 These journeys increased once America entered war in the spring of 1917, and the usual methods of distribution were cut off. The JDC sent its representatives (Boris D. Bogen and Max Senior) to neutral Holland, while an intensive campaign of fund-raising was launched by Jacob Schiff and Jacob Billikopf with the aim of collecting $10,000,000 in 1917. After the American military intervention, the main problem was how to transfer money to areas under enemy control. Many authorizations to transmit funds to Europe were subsequently nullified by the Trading with the Enemy Act of November 2, and new permissions were required to 27 Internal report of the Joint Distribution Committee (August 10, 1919). AJDC, JDC Administration, Committees, Standing and Subcommittees, 1919-1921, item 201103. 28 This mission was made up of observing members such as the chairman Magnes, Samson Abel, Rabbi Bernard Abramowitz, Jacob Panken, the secretary Alexander Dushkin, and by executive members such as Jacob Billikopf and Boris Bogen. At the end, only Magnes and Dushkin were admitted in the territories under German occupation.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

49

send money to the regions under German occupation such as Poland and Romania. In this phase, the War Trade Board had to “license” every single remittance. The funds were transferred from the JDC in New York to the State Department in Washington. From Washington they went to the US ambassador in the Netherlands, then on to the Dutch Foreign Ministry, to a committee of Dutch Jews, to Max Warburg, and then to Poland and Austria as before.29 Regarding Russia, the situation was still more complicated and after the 1917 revolutions the transfer of money to Petrograd became increasingly difficult. The messages that the JDC sent through the American ambassador in Petrograd could only reach the EKOPO after lengthy delays. As a consequence, the EKOPO had to borrow money through other channels, relying on the promise of funds once the war and the revolutionary tumult passed. By the end of 1918, however, the JDC had managed to collect over $16.5 million.30 The sums below indicate the total of the relief funds sent since the outbreak of the war until July 31, 1918.31㻌 Russia

$2,812,300.00

Poland

$5,376,662.98

Austria-Hungary

$1,583,700.00

Palestine

$1,571,485.86

Turkey

$616,004.30

Alexandria, Palestinian refugees

$56,394.84

Greece

$91,021.88

Serbia

$22,500.00

Serbian Jews in Switzerland

$2,000.00

29 For example, the authorization of August 24, 1917, to transmit funds was nullified on October 16, 1917. AJDC, 1918 Chronology, item 150. “Special arrangements announced by Albert Lucas to send remittances to Germany and countries occupied by Germany, e.g. Poland and Romania”, New York Times, March 7, 1917. 30 The sum of 16.5 was mentioned by Y. Bauer, while another source referred to about 13.75 million dollars across Europe and the Near East during the war. J. Granick, “Waging relief: the politics and logistics of American Jewish war relief in Europe and the Near East (1914–1918)”, First World War Studies, 5:1, p. 57. 31 A. Lucas, cit, p. 228.

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

50

Romania

$135,900.00

Bulgaria

$18,500.00

Tunis, Algiers and Morocco

$9,000.00

Students and writers in Denmark and Switzerland

$11,200.00

Destitute families of Russian Jews in France (July 14, $5,000.00 1915) Spanish-Turkish refugees

$8,000.00

Japan-Russian refugees in Yokohama

$80,000.00

Persia

$26,700.00

Kosher food for Jewish prisoners of war in internment $415,500.00 camps Advanced a/c refugees from Palestine

$12,298.12

The collection of funds continued after the end of war, when the initiatives were reiterated and, if possible, improved: in the first half of November 1918, the United War Work Campaign of New York sent to Europe $700,000, in December it aimed to reach $1,000,000.32 At the time, it was clear that a cessation of relief was out of question, and fresh discussions and an intensification of the activities were needed. The creation of new Nation-States – Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria – and the Bolshevik Revolution caused further dislocation and local conflicts in which the Jews once again fell victim to slander and persecution. As the chairman Felix Warburg underlined at the beginning of the fifth year of war: “We must be prepared to make sacrifices for many years to come, if the Jewish people abroad are to be saved. It has always been the purpose of the Joint Distribution Committee to first feed the starving; to put bread into the hands of those who have no food, to provide raiment for the naked and shelter for the homeless... in order that the mere breath of life be sustained in these helpless souls, American Jewry must be prepared to give and to keep on giving... When the war shall come to a close, there will be new problems, greater problems, to be met. Rehabilitation will then 32 “To Seek $5,000,000 for Starving Jews”, The New York Times, November 25, 1918.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

51

occupy our minds and hearts... Many and great are the obligations imposed upon us, but sublime and splendid is the duty”.33

The JDC structure itself was no longer adequate to deal with the post-war reality and the initial, rather rudimentary, scheme was to be replaced by a more robust organization. This shift has been analysed by Zosa Szajkowski, who defined the “begging system” (using Van Raalte's words) during the war as “palliative relief” and dated the moment when this kind of action became a real plan of reconstruction to 1920.34 The new scheme included a systematic calculation of post-war European standards (not American ones) and a new classification of the different categories of people needing help: permanently and totally dependent; permanently and partially dependent; temporary and totally dependent; temporary and partially dependent. The actions of relief were classified as material support (food, clothing, raw material, loans), or as moral support (medicosanitary organization, industrial management, social service).35 In conclusion, a new chapter in the history of the JDC had begun and in this context its service was carried out also thanks to the American Relief Administration (ARA), which was created on February 24, 1919 and signed an agreement with the JDC on October 20, 1921.36 In January 1920, the US steamer “Westward Ho” sailed for Poland with food to be divided and handed out separately to Jewish and Polish 33 “Jewish war relief at the beginning of the fifth year (August 1918)”, report of the JDC chairman Felix M. Warburg. AJDC, Administration, General 1914-17, 101. 34 Zosa Szajkowski quoted many declarations of JDC workers who spoke of the difficult postwar conditions, for example in Poland, as confirmed by Rabbi Moses Haymson and by Samuel B. Kaufman, superintendent of the Jewish Federation of Indianapolis. Z. Szajkowski, “Reconstruction vs. Palliative Relief in American Jewish Overseas Work (1919-1939)”, Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), pp. 14-18. In a similar perspective, especially regarding the Russian famine of 1921-22, the same passage has also been analysed by T. Sasson, “From Empire to Humanity: The Russian Famine and the Imperial Origins of International Humanitarianism”, Journal of British Studies, 55 (July 2016), pp. 519-537. 35 Draft of a memorandum on constructive relief in the eastern war zone, as transmitted by M. A. Charosh to Cyrus Adler, on January 23, 1919. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms and Persecutions, item 214709. 36 Joseph Rosen and Boris Bogen were the JDC members of the ARA staff. B. M. Weissman, Herbert Hoover and Famine Relief to Soviet Russia, 1921–23 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1974); B. M. Patenaude, The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

52

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

recipients, in order not to foster antisemitism. In June, the JDC was recognised as a social agency by the Polish government, and appointed Dr. Julius Goldman as the European director. In February 1920, Boris Bogen arrived in Poland with 126 members of the first Overseas Unit. The degree of commitment of this second phase is clearly appreciable when looking at the funds and their destination to some particular zones, especially in Eastern Europe.37 Country

Amount appropriated July 1, 1919 to June 30, 1920

Abyssinia

$11,704.80

Amount appropriated July 1, 1920 to June 30, 1921

Amount appropriated since November 1914 $11,704.80

Alexandria (for refugees)

$58,904.39

Austria (including $589,586.67 Austria-Hungary before 1920)

$590,947.36

$3,781,016.89

Baghdad

$2,520.11

$10,305.61

Baltic Provinces

$68,201.28

$68,201.28

Belgium

$2,500.00

$2,500.00

Bulgaria

$600,00.00

$26,600.00

37 “Joint Distribution Committee: statement showing funds appropriated for the relief of Jewish war sufferers”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 22 (September 13, 1920, to October 2, 1921/5681), p. 343. “Joint Distribution Committee: statement showing funds appropriated for the relief of Jewish war sufferers”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 23 (October 3, 1921, to September 22, 1922), p. 269. The data in this text are not complete (some minor amounts are not listed) and have been adjusted owing to some differences between the two budgets published in 1921 and 1922. In the case of Poland and Lithuania or Russia and Ukraine, the sums were calculated jointly or separately depending on the year. In the case of Holland, the sum of 1920-21 was not mentioned in the budget but the total expense for the country increased in 1922. The appropriations for Danzig ($10,012.25) appeared only in 1922. The budget of the following year once again contained some discrepancies. The sum for Abyssinia, for example, increased to $11,797.23. “Joint Distribution Committee: statement showing funds appropriated for the relief of Jewish war sufferers”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 24 (September 23, 1922, to September 10, 1923), p. 289.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Central Europe

$388,451.53

Czechoslovakia

$75,022.46

53

$388,451.53 $190,972.67

Denmark

$316,008.73 $1,700.00

France (for refugees)

$7,996.55

Galicia

$12,996.55 $753,600.00

Germany

$207,514.98

Greece

$53,517.74

$177,920.99

Holland

$80,500.00

$92,115.70

Hungary

$177,000.00

Italy (for Jewish prisoners of war)

$204,750.34

$424,765.32

$303,092.63

$408,092.63

$25,998.99

$29,998.99

Japan (for Russian Jewish refugees)

$125,002.50

Yugoslavia and Bulgaria

$61,600.00

Latvia

$5,011.26

$112,381.10

$117,392.36

Palestine

$1,473.733.72

$939,108.66

$4,087,219.58

Persia

$10,000.00

Poland and Lithuania

$5,428,527.27

$1,998,397.96 (Poland) +$154,487.17 (Lithuania)

$17,145,771.35

Romania

$569,135.48

$550,295.53

$2,023,415.65

Russia

$216,680.27

$721,206.65 + $19,599.84 (refugees in Siberia)

$4,000,000 + 300,000 (prior 1920) + $1,168,448.72 (Russia and Ukraine)

Serbia

$20,640.51

$35,700.00

$50,640.51

54

Shrouds for the Dead and Bread for the Living!

Siberia

$286,751.65

$19,599.84

Spain (for refugees)

$498,494.41 $18,000.00

Switzerland

$2,500.00

Transportation facilities, Poland

$138,124.14

$20,781.77

$37,281.77 $138,124.14

Tunis, Algeria and Morocco (for refugees)

$9,000.00

Turkey and Syria

$336,279.02

Ukraine

$393,279.02

$349,541.96 +$49,956.34 (Syria) included under Russia

War prisoners in German internment camps

$393,279.02 $15,500.00

Miscellaneous

$87,808.94

TOTAL

$10,605,607.01

$87,808.94 $6,271,399.56

$38,121,433.10

The magnitude of the disaster could not merely be measured with economic parameters. Physically, Jewish communal life was shattered, the synagogues destroyed, schools and hospitals razed, and the entire network of institutional philanthropy that had been built up in the decades before the war, was almost completely ruined. Economically, Jewish trade and industry were devastated. But, as underlined by Cyrus Adler, the Jewish capacity for a regular communal existence and for cooperation could only be strengthened by these terrible trials, and the worldwide support was a further, very relevant, factor of hope.38

38 Report on the constructive relief in the eastern war zone, transmitted to Cyrus Adler on January 23, 1919. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms and Persecutions, item 214709.

POMOSHCH'! THE EKOPO AND RELIEF IN RUSSIA

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Jewish population in Russia had the opportunity to strengthen the economic, social and cultural dimension, developing a solid and widespread network of groups and organizations. From this perspective, Alexander II’s reforms were seen as a “respite”, the dawn of better days rising over the troubles and darkened horizon of Russian Jews.1 Although Alexander’s death meant an end to these expectations, when World War I broke out, the Russian Jews could count on a consolidated network of associations that helped them support their social, cultural and economic life. The first educational and civic association devoted to the acculturation of Jews in the Pale was the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia (known in Russian as Obshchestva dlia Rasprostraneniia Prosveshcheniia Mezhdu Evreiami v Rossii, OPE), which was founded during the period of liberalization, in 1863. The OPE was established by Joseph Günzburg and other wealthy Jews of Saint Petersburg to ensure that Jews fulfilled the government’s own categorization of “useful” subjects: the Jews were considered helpful to the state when working as merchants, farmers, artisans, or holding university degrees. The OPE initially extended grants to a limited number of Jewish students, gave money to Ha-Melitz, the Hebrew newspaper for the proliferation of general education, and published Hebrew-language books on Russian history. It provided opportunities to learn Russian, to gain knowledge of secular subjects, and to attend Russian schools, combining these cultural goals with the desire to improve Jewish legal status. Some years later, in 1880, a group of Russian Jews – among them Nikolai Bakst (1842-1904), a Jewish professor of medicine - established a fund to assist Jewish trade schools and to promote new agricultural colonies, schools and model farms in order to help Russia’s five million Jews lift themselves out of crushing poverty. The appeal was successful and the Society for Trades and Agricultural Labor for Jews of Russia (Obschestvo 1 M. Davitt, Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia, p. 26 ff.

56

Pomoshch'! The EKOPO and Relief in Russia

Remeslenovo i Zemledelcheskovo Trouda, ORT) was created. In its first 25 years, the ORT provided training to 25,000 Jews in 350 towns within the Russian Empire, and improved their quality of life.2 Another important step was accomplished on August 7, 1912, with the birth of the OZE (Obschestvo Zdravookhraneniia Evreev), a Jewish organization for the promotion of health, hygiene and childcare. Its first chairman was the physician Semyon A. Kaufmann, and among the committee’s early members were prominent Saint Petersburg physicians, including Naum R. Botvinnik, Abram M. Bramson, Moisei M. Gran, Grigori I. Dembo and Iakov B. Eiger. Special attention was devoted to children: the OZE organized summer camps for youths from low-income families, provided maternity and early childhood consultation, set up outpatient clinics and observation centres, and distributed free medication to the needy and milk to their children through a network of stations called “A Drop of Milk”. A special committee supervised physical education at Jewish schools and set up outdoor playgrounds. By the end of 1913, as many as eight OZE branches were registered within the Pale. From an economic viewpoint, the Jewish people developed an increasingly important web of cooperative societies. The first ones were established in 1865, their example being quickly followed by others. Their functions included the purchase of goods without the intervention of middlemen; the direct sale of products without mediation; the supply of small credits at cheap rates to the working population.3 When World War I broke out, these organizations faced many difficulties and were compelled to almost suspend their activities or to re-address them to the service of Jewish war victims. This intricate aggregation of societies, committees and organizations received the generous aid coming from America, which had already become a sort of “myth” in these Eastern European communities – see for example the reference to Jacob Schiff in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Family Moskat – and during the war this connection proved essential 2 The history of Jewish agricultural colonization is a very interesting chapter in modern and contemporary Jewish history and later also characterized the experience of Jewish integration into Soviet Russia. J. Dekel-Chen, “JCA-ORTJAS-JDC: One Big Agrarianizing Family”, Jewish History, 21, No. 3/4 (2007), pp. 263-278. 3 The Russian cooperative movement (December 25, 1917). AJDC, Russia, General, 1918-1919; “Fifty Years of Co-operative Movement in Russia”, The Russian Review, Vol. 1 (April 1916). See also, B. Horowitz, Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late-Tsarist Russia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009).

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

57

to meet the material needs of many. Only at a later moment, in 1915, did the government allot some funds to aid war victims and Jewish people.4 The Russian Jewish communities prompted a set of relief measures in order to help the co-religionists who were affected by the conflict. A first committee was created by the Petrograd choral synagogue; another society (the EVOPO, Evreiskoe obshchestvo pomoshchi zhertcam voiny) was established in Moscow, but the most important relief committee was located in Petrograd (the new Slavic name was used to enhance patriotic feelings and stress the separation from the former German name, Petersburg). Here, the administrative council of the Great Synagogue called for a plenary meeting and established a trustee on August 18 (31), 1914. The meeting elected an organization committee of 37 persons including the Jewish members of the Duma, the rabbis of Petrograd, the president M. A. Varshavsky and many other members – which created an executive committee presided over by Baron Alexander Günzburg, Boris Kamenka, Genrikh Sliozberg. The latter appointed a secretariat with many delegates who headed up the different departments.5 This organization was called EKOPO (Evreiskii komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voiny, Jewish committee of aid to the victims of war): it consisted of the Petrograd central committee and of different branches all over Russia, and cooperated with the OZE, OPE and ORT, as well as with the local authorities, the Zemstvos, which also continued and intensified the actions they had begun in previous decades.6 4 For a rapid account of the American help in Russia during and after the Great War, H. H. Fisher, The American Relief Administration in Russia, 1921-1923 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1943); Z. Szajkowski, “Reconstruction vs. Palliative Relief in American Jewish Overseas Work (1919-1939)”, Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan., 1970); J. Granick, “Waging relief: the politics and logistics of American Jewish war relief in Europe and the Near East (1914–1918)”, First World War Studies, 5:1, p. 57. 5 Joshua M. Karlip, The Tragedy of a Generation, pp. 96 ff. 6 Thomas Fallows, “Politics and the War Effort in Russia: The Union of Zemstvos and the Organization of the Food Supply, 1914-1916”, Slavic Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1978), pp. 70-90. Through the assistance of Zemstvos many cooperative dairies, blacksmith shops, and shoe-shops were organized during the period from 1866 to 1874. Cooperative credit institutions were developing at the same time. Between 1873 and 1877, about one hundred and fifty loan and savings associations were established annually. The Zemstvos alone established over 800 such associations between 1870 and 1877. In 1895, a new type of cooperative credit institution came into being. This was the credit society, in which there are no shares or stock, the capital being a loan from the State Bank, or from local

58

Pomoshch'! The EKOPO and Relief in Russia

The first relief was planned for Petrograd, which was divided into ten zones, while many petitions were sent to the government to extend the work to the whole of Russia and call a conference of the Jewish communities. The minister of the interior approved these requests in September 1914, when the Petrograd committee was recognized as the central Jewish agency for relief to victims of war. A general convention to reorganize the whole system was held in Petrograd on August 29-31, and a new executive body was appointed. In August 1915, the all-Russian convention of Jewish relief organizations decided that the EKOPO in Petrograd was to become the centre of this web of local branches, establishing the secondary offices in Moscow and Kiev.7 The Jewish relief system was acting upon the principle that those called upon to defend the fatherland were entitled to the assurance that their families would be protected and supported by public assistance, should their breadwinners be killed or incapacitated for work. But soon the EKOPO was forced to expand its activities owing to the conditions in Poland and the expulsion of Jews from the front zone: being relocated to other regions, these masses of refugees were almost completely deprived of shelter and food. Hence, the EKOPO organized local committees in different localities and exerted all its efforts to ameliorate the situation. The EKOPO had to rely mostly on foreign funds. Standard ways of collecting money were initiated only after the convention in Vilnius, on January 6-8, 1915, when it was resolved to resort to self-taxation as a primary source of income.8 It was decided to request 5% of each individual’s income and to integrate this sum with the contributions from abroad: the donors in England, South Africa, Europe and America, proved very generous, and also benefactors such as Count Tolstoy and F. Sologub Zemstvos. At that time, the majority of loan and savings associations were in the western part of Russia, where the peasant population was more prosperous, while the credit societies were more common in the eastern provinces of Russia. On July 1, 1913, in Russia there were 12,225 loan and savings associations and credit societies, with a membership of 7,649,192, and the total amount of loans amounting to 519,400,000 Roubles. On January 1, 1916, the number of these organizations reached 15,450. 7 Outline of the history of EKOPO from August 1914 until the end of 1919. AJDC, Russia Relations with Associations, item 233137. 8 Memorandum on the EKOPO of Petrograd by G. Sliozberg (April 22, 1921). AJDC, Reconstruction, General, April-June 1921, item 214913. According to the Evreyskaya Nedelia of May 22, the EKOPO in Moscow had 607 members in May 1915, 3,479 in May 1916. Self-taxation gave 11,380 Roubles monthly.

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contributed. In May, the government granted the first 1,000,000 Roubles. Sliozberg was sent to Warsaw to confer with the government and the military authorities, obtaining 500,000 Roubles and a second tranche of 500,000.9 In November 1915, the Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Victims in Petrograd presented a statement to the Russian minister of the interior, asking for the sum of 2,100,000 Roubles for clothing, shelter and loans for the Jewish refugees from Poland. As a result, the Russian government made a grant of 1,000,000 Roubles; 500,000 more were given in January 1916, and in 3 years the total sum from the government treasury reached 17,179,606 Roubles. A clear idea of how EKOPO obtained the funds can be given by the income (in Roubles) entered in the books of the committee up to January 1, 1916, as indicated in the report of March 1, 1916: Single contributions in the city of Petrograd

769,522.77

Monthly contributions in the city of Petrograd

207,682.19

Self-taxation in the city of Petrograd

216,027.72

Single contributions outside of Petrograd

811,904.38

Monthly contributions outside of Petrograd

89,933.82

Grants from the Council of Ministers

1,000,000.00

Grants from the Special Conference on the Organization of Refugees

1,800,000.00

Contributions from individuals and institutions in Russia and abroad

777,560.53

Interest on the current account

19,995.70

Collected from district committees, but not yet entered

16,561.36

Total

5,709,188.47

The scheme of relief work was completed by special legal sections that were established to help the refugees and the victims of violence, for 9 “Report of the Central Jewish Committee for Relieving the Victims of the War from the Beginning of its Activities (August 1914) to the 30th of June, 1917” (June 28, 1917). AJDC, Russia, General 1917, 10135,

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example concerning documents and state subsidies. A statistical section was created at the beginning of 1915; the information and statistical bureaus were organized in Petrograd according to the resolution of the conference in Kiev, on June 8-10, 1915. This structure was based in Petrograd but had widespread coverage: the principal branches were set up in Kiev, Odessa, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow, while 148 sub-committees and 161 agencies operated in small towns, and this number was gradually increased. Thanks to this web of local agencies, the relief work extended to almost all the territories of Russia.10 Concerning the general strategy, on February 7, 1915, the council in Petrograd defined the chief objective, namely to supply food through popular eating-places and selling food at low prices. The acquisition of clothes, shoes, etc. was to be concentrated in the large cities, which should become distributing centres for their respective regions, according to the principle of cooperation. For the purposes of organizing assistance through work, it was decided to open employment bureaus for refugees and for the unemployed in general. The persistent expulsions were clearly another pressing issue. After the expulsion of the Jewish population from the provinces of Kaunas and of Courland, and from parts of those of Suwaáki and of Grodno, a special conference was arranged in Petrograd on May 14-16, 1915. This conference, which acted on the principle of absolute equality among the different nationalities, was presided over by the minister of the interior and consisted of members of the Imperial Council, the Duma, of other ministers and of members from several committees. Naturally, not only were there Jewish delegates, but also Poles, Latvians and other nationalities were represented.

10 Including Poland (Warsaw, Kalish, Kieltsy, Lomzha, Lublin, Piotrkow, Radom, Suwaáki), the government of Cholm, the north-western and Baltic zones (Vilnius, Vitebsk, Grodno, Kaunas, Liefland, Minsk, Moghilev), the southern and southwestern zones (Ekaterinoslav, Bessarabia, Volhynia, Berestetchko, Kiev, Podolia, Poltava, Kharkov, Kherson, Taurida, Chernigov), the internal governments (Kastroma, Kazan, Moscow, Novgorod, Penza, Perm, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk, Tambov, Ufa, Yaroslav), and Siberia (Enisseysk and Tomsk). Report “Fund for the relief of the Jewish victims of the war in Russia”, signed by Otto Schiff and sent to Felix Warburg on March 14, 1916, in response to a letter of February. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10014.

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The EKOPO created an office to register refugees in the different regions, and submitted budgetary and statistical estimates every three months. Some delegates were sent to different places where refugees frequently passed through, and a settlement commission was created at Petrograd. The question of refugees was analysed at the Kiev conference, on June 89, 1915, which divided the work into the following sections: economic and organization, medical and sanitary, children’s relief, assistance through work, travellers, registration and statistics. Special attention was devoted to the conditions of younger generations and to the fight against their growing demoralization. On one hand, it was necessary to procure a remunerative occupation and a certain level of education for the young men and girls; on the other, the conference confirmed the need to establish infants' guardianships, day nurseries, shelters, and feeding stations for very young children. This issue was heavily conditioned not only by the changes of the front and the movements of troops, but also by the decisions of the army commanders. An August 1915 circular of the minister of the interior, for example, authorized the Jews to settle throughout the empire with some exceptions (it was still prohibited to settle near imperial residences and in localities under jurisdiction of ministries). But the opening of flows to new localities obviously meant the extension of relief organisation to these areas, and this problem was first discussed at the convention of representatives of relief committees in Petrograd, on August 20-23, 1915. On this occasion, more than 150 participants (all the members of the Petrograd committee and a certain number of representatives from central, regional, and local organizations) contributed to drafting a resolution: “The Convention, being conscious of the duties which are imposed upon the peoples of Russia by her desperate struggle against the invader, expresses its solidarity with the statements and the aspirations which have lately been made and expressed by all the progressive elements of Russia, After having discussed the questions relating to the relief for the war sufferers, in connection with the general situation and with the circular of August 13, which extends the rights of the Jews with regard to the choice of residence, the Convention believes that the mere granting to the Jews of the right to settle in urban centres located outside the limits formerly set for them does not to any extent meet even the most urgent needs of the present moment, and does not introduce any basic changes in the oppressed condition of the Jews. The Convention expresses its profound indignation against the persecutions and the humiliations to which the Jewish population has been made to suffer during the war, and proclaims that only by enacting legislation which shall abolish all restrictions of the

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Pomoshch'! The EKOPO and Relief in Russia rights of the Jews will the State be able to accomplish its duty towards the Jewish people and to make the return of similar persecutions impossible”.

With a new law, on August 30, 1915, the government decided to subsidize the refugees and on August 31 the conference of the relief committee, therefore, opted to reduce its subsidies. Other changes became necessary in April 1916, when new rules entered into force. Despite the extreme urgency to provide elementary needs, the committee realized that the monetary subsidies had a demoralising effect. It was better to create institutions to stimulate collective efforts, and to bring about the participation of the victims through the creation of food and meal centres, warehouses and stores. A successful example was the society Ezra in Warsaw, which in 1915 opened a certain number of food centres, distributing daily from 13,000 to 14,000 meals – even 20,000 on some occasions – and 25% of them were free. Another example of this kind of self-sustainable help was represented by those organizations of mutual aid like the Workingmen’s Consumers’ Society, a society of store clerks. In Vilnius, the trade unions distributed 40,279 meals from December 1914 to April 1915: 20,848 were served free of charge. Furthermore, the EKOPO had to deal with the problem of housing. The practice of lodging evacuees in barracks and in common lodgings interfered with every attempt for a rational relief organization. What's more, the common lodgings were often a hotbed for the spread of contagious diseases, in turn causing discontent and alarm among the neighbouring population. On a sanitary level, in order to combine rapid intervention with long-term targets, the EKOPO gave financial assistance and coordinated the work of other organizations. The OZE granted medical and sanitary help, supplied the refugees with medicines, and took charge of children who did not attend school by creating shelters, nurseries, institutions known as “A Drop of Milk”, dispensaries, and special kitchens for the intensive feeding of the weak and sick. Doctors, nurses and nutritionists formed “flying squads” that were dispatched to territories close to the front lines, and organized medical and sanitation relief measures on site, saving thousands of people from starvation and epidemics. From the outbreak of war until August 1917, the OZE opened 90 polyclinics, 19 hospitals, 28 canteens and nutrition centres for children, 10 “A Drop of Milk” stations, 125 kindergartens hosting 12,000 children, 13 summer camps for about 2,500 children, 40 playgrounds for some 15,000 children, 2 sanatoria and 2 hostels for tuberculosis

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patients in Crimea. It published brochures in Yiddish and issued a journal (Izvestiia OZE). 45 OZE branches operated in 102 different cities. The medical and sanitary aid was structured in this way: local committees and delegates of the central section provided medical aid and distributed medicines free of charge; general sanitary provisions were applied in regions that were affected by epidemics; hospitals and dispensaries were established by the committees in addition to the existing ones; in some localities, special centres were created for intensive treatment of sick and convalescent patients. The OPE played a positive role and managed special schools for refugees, using its power to promote Yiddish as the “native language of the students”. This decision was controversial and provoked protest by the Zionists and pragmatists who believed that the refugees first of all needed a good knowledge of Russian.11 The ORT created employment bureaus, training shops, courses and workshops. It was very active in developing labour exchanges to help unemployed Jews and refugees find productive work and means of living for themselves and their families. To fulfil this objective, the EKOPO prompted special agencies to give assistance through loans: by the end of 1914, a first amount of 29,000 Roubles had already been spent in Poland, while in summer 1915, 10 new loan associations were established in the “new pale”. The loans were channelled through the Bank Varshavsky Vicobank (Varshavsky was the leader of the Petrograd committee) and in a very short period the credit amounted to 315,450 Roubles.12 In regions with no local agencies, the funds were entrusted to special commissions that examined the numerous applications. In the fiscal year 1916-17, the committee spent 343,500 Roubles through Vicobank and 516,123 through credit commissions and funds, plus 23,690 for credits that were directly granted by the committee itself. Great attention was given to the support and development of cooperative movements, which had developed intensively in the previous decades and were fully in line with the relief strategy of self-sustainability.13

11 Memorandum on the EKOPO by Sliozberg (April 22, 1921). AJDC, Reconstruction, General, April-June 1921, item 214913. 12 Ibidem. 13 Number of cooperative societies in the period 1905-1917. Document of December 25, 1917. AJDC, Russia, General, 1918-1919, item 10169.

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1905

1914

1915

1916

January 1, 1917

Credit & loan 1,434 savings associations

12,751

15,350 15,450 16,057

Consumers' societies

1,000

10,080

10,900 15,203 20,000

Agricultural societies

1,275

5,000

5,000

5,500

6,000

Articles of kustar' & butter-making articles

2,000

3,000

3,300

3,600

4,000

TOTAL

5,709

30,831

33,550 39,753 26,057

After the two all-Russian cooperative congresses - held in Moscow in 1908 and in Kiev in 1913 - by the end of 1917, there were about 50,000 cooperative societies with 15,000,000 households, which extended their activities to include producer organizations. Among the principal and most active cooperatives were the Central Association of Flax Growers in Moscow that united 46 cooperative unions and 142 individual societies; the Union of the Siberian Creamery Associations comprising 1,500 creameries and 1,000 stores (in 1917, 95% of the butter in Siberia was produced by cooperative societies); the Moscow Union of Consumers’ Societies, established in 1898, with an agency in London and more than 3,500 affiliated societies owning flour mills, tobacco factories, match factories, fruit drying factories, chemical works and so forth; the Cooperative Society of Railroad Workers representing 1,500,000 workers with stores that supplied shoes, boots, socks, clothes, underwear along the railroad system; the Moscow Union of Consumers’ Leagues, which, by July 1, 1915, was made up of 1,390 member leagues, with a total capital of 345,761 Roubles; the Warsaw Union of Consumers’ Leagues, and the Perm Union. The centre of the cooperative credit organizations was the Moscow Narodny Bank, which was established in 1912 as the financial centre of Russian cooperation. It had a purchasing agency in New York and branches all over Russia. Its business activity, in 1914, amounted to 110,221,081 Roubles. The vital importance of cooperative societies became evident as the conflict and the 1917 revolutions meant an all-out crisis for Jewish

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economic welfare. Manufacturing and business houses and banks closed their doors and the workers were thrown out of work; the government stopped subsidies and the local committees were not immediately reorganized. The old problems were pushed to the rear. In many places the committees were disbanded. The Soviet government liquidated the Special Conference, dissolved the social organizations and took hold of all the relief work through a special department of social welfare. Only the central committee and a few other associations managed to continue their work amidst great difficulties, facing the lack of funds and the interruption of connections with foreign countries: “but owing to the catastrophic condition of the political, social and economic life in all parts of the former Russian empire, the results of all these decisions were bound to be insignificant”. Every systematic action proved nearly impossible and the relief was sporadic and limited to cases of extreme urgency. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk did not signify a real cessation of hostilities. Not only did the war fail to end, it was spreading to new territories. “Unfortunately, the new political situation in Russia created new conditions and imposed new tasks. The action of the Central Relief Committee, which constitutes a glorious page in the history of Jews in Russia, has not been sufficiently appreciated; it has indeed been almost forgotten. Nor have the activities been appreciated of the directors of the Central Committee, or, above all, the efforts of its delegates, of those young men and women who had done their duty, full of courage, inspired with love for their fellow-men, and often losing their lives at the front”.14

14 G. Sliozberg' s memorandum on EKOPO in Petrograd, item 214913.

THE INVASION OF GALICIA

The Nationality Question and the First Russian Occupation Galicia, traditionally divided into two (western and eastern) parts, was among the poorest territories of the Habsburg Empire. The region as a whole was an intricate melting pot of nationalities, a place that was completely unknown to western observers who failed to understand the difference between Orthodox Russophile Slavs, Ruthenes and Little Russians, Poles and Russians. In Western Galicia, the Poles made up 78.7% of the population, while the Ukrainians 13.2%; in the eastern part, 21% were Poles while 64.5% were Ukrainians. At the turn of the twentieth century, 237,700 (7.6%) Jews lived in Western Galicia and 573,500 (13.7%) in Eastern Galicia.1 The Galitzianers made up more or less three quarters of the Austrian Jews: 102,919 lived in Bukovina, 175,328 in Vienna, 85,826 in Bohemia, 41,158 in Moravia and 12,442 in Silesia. At the beginning of the war, the Jewish population in Galicia probably amounted to 900,000 with about 600,000 in the eastern part, 300,000 in the western one: 70,000 Jews lived in Lemberg, 157,000 in other 19 towns, 156,000 in 83 small market towns, 256,000 in country districts. A small part was engaged in the rural economy (30,000), while the majority worked as tradesmen (125,000), artisans-workers (55,000), professionals (20,000) or in various offices (116,000 including the professions). About 80,000 Jews worked in trade and 73% of them were employed in the clothing trade, 21% in “victualling”, and 8% in the wood industry.2 On the contrary, the majority of the Poles worked in agriculture (79%), while only few were engaged in industry (15%) and commerce (6%). The same was true for the Ukrainians, as the greatest majority (90%) was

1 P. Eberhardt, Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century Central-Eastern Europe: History, Data and Analysis (Armonk-New York-London: M. E. Sharpe), pp. 92-93. 2 Report of the Galician Jewish National Council (May 5, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218844.

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engaged in agriculture (only 3% in industry, and 2% in commerce).3 The Ukrainians were generally small farmers and, except for the Uniate hierarchy, they almost lacked a middle class. The Jews were mostly urban dwellers, while the Poles stood midways between the two ethnic groups. The main force of Jewish economy in Galicia was built upon a solid network of loan kassas which had supported the Jewish community in the years when the increasing misery was causing progressive urbanization and intense emigration (173,000 Jews fled Galicia in 1880-1910). An important role was also played by the Credit Union Ltd. of Lemberg with its affiliated branches (in Brody, Berezhany, Ternopil, Skalat), which financed 60-80 cooperatives all over the region.4 The rate of unemployment, however, was higher for the Jewish population. For every Jewish person in work, there were three unemployed, while for every Christian employee only two were without work.5 The desperate conditions of the Galician economy created a hotbed for the diffusion of anti-Jewish propaganda by Polish politicians. This gave rise to anti-Jewish demonstrations such as in 1898, when peasants and workers in many different localities unleashed their rage and attacked Jewish stores and houses.6

3 Document on “The Condition of the Jews in Eastern Galicia” (May 20, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, 218853. In the territory east of the Sand Line there were Ukrainians (68%), Poles (25%) and 660,000 Jews (12%). About 70,000 Jews lived in Lemberg prior to the war; after, there were only 57,000, one third of the population. 157,000 lived in 19 western towns, 185,000 in 83 townlets, and 255,000 on the land. For a general survey of the Galician economic conditions, S. Hryniuk, “Peasant Agriculture, in East Galicia in the Late Nineteenth Century”, The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 63, No. 2 (April 1985), pp. 228-243. C. Hann, P. R. Magocsi (ed. by), Galicia: A Multicultured Land (Toronto-BuffaloLondon: University of Toronto Press); M. Shkandrij, Jews in Ukrainian Literature: Representation and Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). 4 List of loan kassas in 1913. AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, items 218872-218873. 5 Memorandum of Michael Ringer of the Lemberg Relief Committee on the relief work for the Jews of Galicia and Bukovina (February 1, 1917). AJDC, Bukovina, General 1917, item 7224. 6 K. Stauter-Halsted, “Jews as Middleman Minorities in Rural Poland. Understanding the Galician Pogroms of 1898” in R. Blobaum, cit.; see also P. Wrobel, “The Jews of Galicia under Austrian-Polish rule, 1896-1918”, Austrian History Yearbook, 25 (1994), pp. 130-133. Ezra Mendelsohn, “Jewish Assimilation in L’viv: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman”, in Andrei S. Markovits, Frank E. Sysyn (eds.), Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia

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In Galicia, as in other Eastern European regions, religious distinctions went hand in hand with economic rivalry. The main political confrontation involved Ukrainians and Poles, who had coexisted within the same state, at least as long as Poland maintained its stability. In the XVII century, Bohdan Khmelnytsky's uprising (1648) brought the Ukrainians closer to Tsarist Russia, which succeeded in carrying out the unification of the three East-Slavic countries (Ukraine, Belarus and Russia) with the Treaty of Andrusovo (1667). This conflict had religious and cultural implications, as many Ukrainians had been pushed towards the union with the Church of Rome through the creation of an eastern-Catholic (Uniate) confession in 1596. In a substantially poor and rural region, the role of religion had a decisive influence on the ethnic and cultural integration of Catholic and Jewish workers, and even socialist propaganda used religious phraseology, metaphors and symbolism.7 Anna Veronika Wendland draws a portrait of Lwów's public life during the first half of the twentieth century, and controverts the picture of tolerance and peaceful co-existence between Poles and non-Poles (both Ukrainians and Jews), insisting on the contrary that the disintegration of Galicia had already begun long before the outbreak of World War I. This process was significantly facilitated by the increasing urban segregation, the emergence of “national” boundaries between neighbours, and the preservation of traumatic memories.8 After the outbreak of war, the economic conditions of the Jewish families deteriorated rapidly: almost all physicians were in war-service, about 95% of the artisans and 80% of tradesmen were called to the front, thus inflicting a heavy blow to economic and social life.9 In a region with high rates of illiteracy, it was normal to enrol as functionaries all those who (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 94–110; Joshua Shanes, “Neither Germans nor Poles: Jewish Nationalism in Galicia before Herzl, 1883– 1897”, Austrian History Yearbook 34 (2003): 191-213; Israel Bartal, Antony Polonsky (eds.), Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, 1772–1918 (London: Polin, 1999); Leila P. Everett, “The Rise of Jewish National Politics in Galicia, 1905–1907”, in Andrei S. Markovits, Frank E. Sysyn (eds.), cit., pp. 149– 177. 7 A. Zarnowska, R. Pearson, “Religion and Politics: Polish Workers c. 1900”, Social History, Vol. 16, No. 3 (October 1991), p. 311. 8 Anna Veronika Wendland, “Neighbors as Betrayers: Nationalization, Remembrance Policy, and the Urban Public Sphere in L'viv”, in C. Hann, P. R. Magocsi (ed. by), Galicia: A Multicultured Land, pp. 139 ff. 9 Memorandum on the relief work for the Jews of Galicia and Bukovina by Michael Ringer of Lemberg relief committee (October 19, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218870.

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could write and understand German language, and these qualities were not so common among Poles and Ruthenes.10 The Italian soldiers of the Habsburg army who were sent to Galicia during the conflict could hardly believe their eyes and described this area as a “filthy country” (paese sudicio).11 This precarious situation was further aggravated by the systematic economic boycott, an idea that was particularly widespread among the Poles of Galicia. They were deeply influenced by the Roman Catholic clergy, who were very powerful and used their influence both against the Ruthenian Greek Catholics and the Jews, fanning the flames of racial and religious antagonism. The cultural, economic and national distinctions among Galician communities had considerable weight when the conflict broke out. At that time, as noted in Rozenblit's detailed study, the Jews of Austria-Hungary showed all their patriotic enthusiasm and were particularly galvanized by the fight against Russia, the enemy of the Jews: “Austrian Jews of all political and religious persuasions firmly believed that Austria was fighting a just war on behalf of culture and civilization against an utterly evil enemy, the epitome of barbarism, despotism and tyranny”.

Rabbis throughout Austria reiterated appeals and messages of loyalty, and dedicated their prayers to a conflict that could be described as “a battle of 10 The principal Jewish centres were Oswiecim, Mielec, Chrzanov, Tarnobrzeg, Tarnow and Podgorze in Western Galicia (where the Jews were 7.9%). At Kolomya, Lwów, Brody, Stanisáawow, Tarnopol and in these places the percentages were much higher. Wlodzimierz Wakar, Rozwoj terytorialny narodowosci polskiej, Vol. I (Kielce, 1918), pp. 93-95, 105-107, 126-127, 129130. 11 This is the tone of numerous testimonies, for example Angelo Paoli, Giovanni Pederzolli, Umberto Artel, Pietro Pompermaier and Antonio Danielis, who stated: “La Galizia era piena di ebrei. Cercavano di farla franca in tutto. Cucinavano la polenta, la tagliavano a fette e ci buttavano sopra un po' di zucchero. Poi domandavano una corona per un pezzettino. Allora i nostri si sono messi d'accordo. Come questi qua arrivavano con i loro banchetti, uno all'improvviso tirava una pedata, buttando tutto per terra, e gli altri svelti si portavano via la polenta”. S. Ranchi, “L'avventura galiziana negli scritti e nelle memorie degli infanteristi del Litorale”, in G. Fait (a cura di), Sui campi di Galizia. Gli Italiani d'Austria e il fronte orientale: uomini popoli culture nella guerra europea (Rovereto: Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra, 1997); Il popolo scomparso. Il Trentino, i trentini nella prima guerra mondiale 1904-1920 (Rovereto: Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra, 2003).

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good against evil, of light against darkness, a battle of morality against immorality, of virtue against wickedness and brutality, of law against lawlessness and barbarism”.12 Z. A. B. Zeman's 1961 study, The Break-up of the Habsburg Empire, 1914-1918, remains an indispensable overview and analysis of the development of nationality politics in the Habsburg Empire. It argues that in Galicia the war created so many sub-conflicts that it was impossible to comprehend the Jewish anti-Russian attitude (and the identification of Jews as the true defenders of Habsburg legitimacy), and the reluctance of Slavic subjects. The latter had grown up with the myth of Holy Russia and Pan-Slavism, and were thus called upon to fight against what was perceived as a sort of second mother country. Once hostilities had begun, Galicia became an important theatre of war operations. Soldiers fought over unknown places like PrzemyĞl, Lemberg and the Carpathian Mountains, which soon became famous thanks to the literature of Josep Wittlin, Stefan Zweig or that splendid anti-war parody by Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Švejk. The fight began in 1914 with the advance of the Russian army under the command of generals Aleksei Brusilov and Nikolaj Ivanov, and the siege of PrzemyĞl on the way to Kraków. On August 18, 1914, the Russian army invaded Galicia and pushed the front 160 km (100 miles) forward into the Carpathians, while the Austrians retreated and many Slavic soldiers in the Habsburg army simply surrendered or even offered to fight for the Russians. The principal city of Eastern Galicia, Lemberg, fell into Russian hands on September 3. By the end of 1914, the Russians had control of almost the whole of Galicia, which was retained until the counteroffensive of German and Austrian troops in spring 1915.13

12 M. L. Rozenblit, Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria During World War I (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 4246. See also W. O. Mc Cagg, A History of Habsburg Jews. 1670-1918 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); A. Roshwald, Ethnic nationalism and the fall of empires (Boulder: Routledge, 2001), pp. 42, 91; Mark Von Hagen, “War, Loyalties and Identities in the Russian Empire”, in S. Pons, A. Romano (ed. by), Russia in the Age of Wars, 1914–1955 (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1998), p. 17. 13 For the military aspects of this phase and the battles of Komarow, Gnila Lipa, Rawa, see B. H. Liddell Hart, The Real War: 1914–18 (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1963), pp. 224–227; J. Schindler, “Steamrollered in Galicia: The AustroHungarian Army and the Brusilov Offensive, 1916”, War in History, Vol. 10, No.

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This first occupation of Galicia and Bukovina (September 1914-June 1915) began with General Brusilov proclaiming that Galicia was a Russian land from time immemorial, while the Russian commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, issued a manifesto portraying the people of Galicia as brothers who had “languished for centuries under a foreign yoke”, and urged them to raise the banner of United Russia. The Russian government of Galicia aimed to eliminate everything from the region that might be regarded a sign of “alien” influence, and treated non-Russian communities as “foreign spies”. The governor of the region, Lieutenant-General Count Georgii A. Bobrinskii, was not a reactionary man and seemed disposed to come to terms with the non-Russian subjects. Bobrinskii realized that there were reasons for the local Jews to feel some enmity towards Russia, and recognized that the relations with the authorities, on the contrary, were of no hostile nature.14 Unfortunately, his real power was limited and he had to reckon with all kinds of forceful influences, with “the moods of other men in power”, primarily of the local military authorities who ignored his orders and decrees entirely. The real power was in the hands of the military stavka, and the General Headquarters were filled with the “worst Jew-baiters, such as Nikolay Nikolayevitsch and Yanushkevitsh” or Yevstafiy Nikolayevich Skalon, the governor of Lwów (Lviv) who was de facto commander of the region: “his treatment of Jews was terrible”. Count Bobrinskii, who was described by Ansky as a “highly educated and good-natured” man striving to avoid violence, had to navigate through all these crosscurrents as best he could.15 The Eastern Galician Jews were assumed by the Russian military authorities to be loyal to Austria, and were therefore treated as potential spies and traitors. The Jewish community's publications were censored, and Jews were arrested, deported and taken as hostages in order to prevent alleged spying for Austria. Jewish real estate owners, lessees, merchants and artisans were expelled from the villages, and all their possessions confiscated. In February 1915, the Russian authorities banned the Jews 1 (2003), pp. 27-59; D. Stone, The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015); G. Jukes, The First World War; The Eastern Front 1914-1918 (Minneapolis: Osprey Publishing, 2003); M. Neiberg, D. Jordan, History of World War I. The Eastern Front 19141920 (London: Amber Books, 2003). 14 A conversation with Brobinskii was published by the Russkoye Slovo on April 23, 1915. 15 S. Ansky, pp. 77, 122. See also, S. Mc Meekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 94 ff.

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from moving into Eastern Galicia and prohibited all publications and correspondence in the Yiddish language. On February 13, 1915, in view of the increase in spying by the Jews, Grand Duke Nicholas decreed that: “1. No person of Jewish nationality may enter Galicia. 2. No persons of Jewish nationality may pass from one District of Galicia into another. 3. Infractions of this decree will be punished by a fine of three thousand Roubles or by three months' imprisonment”.

The authorities did not permit the Petrograd committee to hand money directly to the Lwów committee that was made up of subjects of an enemy state.16 It was not until January 1915 that a member of the Petrograd committee, D. Feinberg, made several trips to Galicia and succeeded in obtaining from the Russian authorities the legalization of the Jewish committees, for example the Jewish committee in Lviv, under the leadership of Dr. Bassern. According to the records of the Russian Zemstvo Association, at least 50,000 Jews in Galicia were impoverished and needy. They had no prospects for the future since their businesses were paralysed and they had no land to cultivate.17 Similar treatment was reserved for the part of Ukrainian society under the influence of the Uniate hierarchy, as denounced in 1915 by the organizations of Ukrainian-Ruthenian emigrants in books such as Vladimir Stepankovsky's The Russian Plot to Seize Galicia. The behaviour of the Russian authorities was described as cruel and barbaric, a “European scandal”, by the Jewish newspapers throughout Austria, and by numerous press articles in the US and Canada.18 Quoting a 1919 memorandum of the Jewish women of Galicia, this region presented “the most bloodstained battlefield in the world”, and “the savage brutality” of the Russians rendered the Jews the first victims of soldiers' warring ferocity and lust for stealing. In effect, the Russians were fighting a “war within the war” against the Jews.19 As a result of this oppression, it 16 Outline of the history of EKOPO from August 1914 until the end of 1919. AJDC, Russia, Relations with Associations, item 233137; S. Ansky, p. 76. 17 The conditions of Jews in towns were more tragic than the general reality of rural areas. Letter of Varshavsky to the EKOPO offices in Petrograd (January 1427, 1915). AJDC, Galicia 1915-1919, item 7298. 18 The official establishment of Russian government over Galicia was proclaimed on September 30: but the local religious chief Sheptytsky could not attend as he had been arrested on September 8. “Tsar's Rule in Lemberg”, New York Times, June 26, 1915. 19 “Memorandum of a relief action to be instituted on conclusion of the war in

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was calculated that at the end of 1914 a number of approximately 200,000 Jews had already fled Galicia and Bukovina, seeking assistance in AustriaHungary.20 Ansky was very frank when describing the attitude of the Russian plenipotentiaries, depicting them as narcissist, selfish, corrupted and frivolous people, entirely disinterested if their troops pillaged and ravaged the Jewish quarters. “The Russians seem to take joy out of the destruction of Jewish property and, frequently, with the active assistance of the native Christian population, they robbed Jewish homes, set fire to their houses and even burned whole Jewish villages”.21

The Jewish newspapers in Austria (collected by the Jüdisches Archive) reported many episodes of violence: on October 24, 1914, Alter Papper was arrested and shot at Kniazoluka near Dolina because his neighbours denounced him to the Russian soldiers; Rubin Hoffner was killed by the Cossacks at Drohobych while resisting the violation of his wife Eva; at Sambor and Vyzhnytsia, many Jews were arrested for having insulted the Tsar; the whole population of 8,000 Jews from Zalschiki was deported, and many orders to evacuate the Jewish population were issued in different localities.22 The expulsions were not always successful. Indeed, the governor of Poltava Alexander Baggovut accepted only 2,000 deportees: the evacuation was thus postponed. In March 1915, another attempt to implement the deportations favour of the Jews in Galicia who have suffered from the War” (January 1, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218837. 20 Letter of the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien to the JDC (December 6, 1914). AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC Committees, Israelitische Allianz zu Wien, item 1381. 21 Memorandum of Michael Ringer of the Lemberg Relief Committee on the relief work for the Jews of Galicia and Bukovina (February 1, 1917). AJDC, Bukovina General 1917, item 7224. “Each insisted that his order be carried out. Ivanov was uninterested in the work. He spent hours getting dressed, doing his nails... a soldier went to the evacuation hospital from the trenches for a pulmonary gangrene, the commandant sentenced him to 25 lashes and sent him back to the front. The day after he was unconscious, two days later he died”. Only General Leming at BrestLitovsk was human, decent and kindhearted: “he never took a Kopek in bribes”. S. Ansky, pp. 174, 190. 22 Letter of Dr. Yanisky to the Wahrheit (April 19, 1916). AJDC, Galicia 19151919, item 7296.

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towards Austria was made but was again stopped. On the other side, several thousand Jews were evacuated to the interior of Russia (in July 1915, Kiev hosted 1,164 Galician Jews) and to Siberia (the American consul in Moscow supported 4,000 of them), while the relief work of the Petrograd Committee met with “almost insurmountable obstacles on the part of the administration”.23

Destruction and Relief In June 1915, when the Austrian troops returned to the region, Prince Karl I celebrated Galicia's Jews for their patriotism. But this occupation of Galicia, Bukovina and the Russian provinces of Volhynia and Kholm, lasting from June 1915 to June 1916, did not substantially improve the conditions of Jewish people: they might be able to come home but their houses were in ruin, partially destroyed or wholly looted. A testimony of this period was given by Magnes and Dushkin, who visited Lemberg on October 11-15, 1915, when the city was again the objective of a Russian offensive. The first observation they made was that most of the better-todo were living in Vienna, so that the relief work in Lemberg could not count on the support of those individuals who hitherto would have contributed with their energy, skills and funds.24 The Austrian administration seemed well disposed towards the Jews and the higher officials, both in Vienna and throughout Galicia, were for the most part keen to secure the Jews their constitutional rights, and to respond to the well-founded complaints. The difficulty lay in the fact that the Jews did not come into daily contact with the higher officials, but with petty functionaries, almost exclusively Austrian Poles, who on the contrary seemed eager to hound the Jews to the utmost of their ability: for some, “the poison of Polish propaganda” was worse than enemy fire.25 The Austrian government erected special barracks to shelter the refugees, and provided them with clothing and linen, and a Crown a day per head. These 400,000 exiles were also amply cared for by private actions in such places where they were interned. In addition to public relief, part of the 23 S. Goldin, cit. p. 66. 24 Report of the commission of the American Jewish Relief Funds (chairman J. L. Magnes, secretary A. M. Dushkin) of March 1917. AJDC, Turkey, Smirna 1916, item 155106. 25 Letter of A. Antolkovsky to the Novy Voskhod (May 7, 1915). AJDC, Galicia 1915-1919, item 7297.

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funds was provided for by private donors such as Anita Muller-Cohen, or by other organizations such as Dr. R. Schwarz-Hiller's Interdenominational War Relief Society, or again by the JDC. After the first appeal that was sent by the Allianz in August 1914, the JDC funds were distributed through Maximiliam-Paul Schiff with the help of the American embassy, through Fredric Penfield or through special emissaries such as Judas Magnes who visited Vienna in September 1916.26 In the second half of 1916 (June 1-December 31), the Israelitische Allianz spent 4,336,641 Crowns (1,967,242 for refugees, 1,053,670 for Galicia, other sums were destined to occupied territories such as Lublin, Radom, Piotrków, Kielce).27 The situation of those remaining in Galicia, instead, was more problematic, as they were entirely dependent on their co-religionists as their only source of help. The misery and suffering of these people defied all description. Their homes were so devastated that they were obliged to pass the winter in damp and cold makeshift holes in the ground, with foul straw for their beds and lacking suitable clothing. Cholera, spotted typhus and dysentery proved fatal for many. Almost the entire male population of the largest places in Bukovina and Galicia, except those serving in the army, had been dragged off by the Russians and sent to Siberia. Many of them were murdered, so that virtually thousands of widows and tens of thousands of orphans remained behind. The situation was further exacerbated by the fact that a great number of marriages in Galicia and Bukovina were merely of a ritual nature, and were not legally recognized by the State. Therefore, as all the male population of Bukovina and Galicia aged from eighteen to fifty were serving in the army, their families often did not receive the support that the law conceded them. 26 In 1916, the JDC distributed more than 8,200,000 Crowns, and on December 31, 1916, the American fund in Austria reached 10,318,290 Crowns. “As the distress grew keener, our friends in America, in particular, made ever greater efforts to collect relief funds, and their munificence enabled us (until the break in diplomatic relations) to conduct our widely branched relief activities”. During 1917, the third year of JDC relief in Austria, more than $13,000 were appropriated to the Israelitische Allianz. By February 1918, the total appropriation for Austria had reached $300,000. Report of the Allianz for the administrative year 1916 (June 25, 1917); report of the American consulate in Vienna to the JDC (March 5, 1917). AJDC, Overseas Administration. Israelitische Allianz zu Wien, 1917-18, items 1481, 1501, 1513. 27 General relief through the Israelitische Allianz 1915-1918 (January 1, 1919). AJDC, Overseas Administration. Israelitische Allianz zu Wien, 1917-18, item 1461.

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The general conditions, particularly the lack of hygiene and undernourishment, were causing illness and death on a large scale. These unhygienic “lairs” were the root cause of the increase in mortality rates, especially among children. In 1916, it was calculated that out of 5,180 deaths, 1,190 were due to tuberculosis, and that for every hundred Jews who died 42 were children. Privation induced nervous diseases; according to an investigation published by the Jewish Chronicle in London, 40% of the patients treated for nervous diseases were Jewish (20% Romanians, 15% Czechs, 13% Germans).28 In June 1916, the start of the second Russian occupation meant a repetition of what happened in 1914, namely expulsions, violence and privation. On August 14 (27), 1916, the journal Evreyskaya Nedelia described Galicia under Russian occupation: in some zones only children, women and old people remained, as all the men had been evacuated, and new masses of fugitives from Eastern Galicia and Bukovina streamed into the Austrian western territories as a consequence of the Brusilov Offensive.29 The situation of Bukovina was not as tragic as the Galician one, but also this region was affected by military operations and the result was no less appalling. Novoselice, near the frontier between Russia, Austria, and Romania, was one of the first to fall under Russian occupation: not a single Jewish house remained, all were destroyed. 150 families of Novoselice fled to Chernivtsi, the rest to West Austria and Czechoslovakia. Over 600 Jewish houses were destroyed at Vyzhnytsia. The same fate happened to Gora-Humara, where “practically the entire town went up in flames”, or again to other villages such as Sadhora (Sadagura), which was described by Zuckerman: “This town was so fortunate as to have the Russians walk into it four times and walk out four times, each time letting the people feel what Russians can do. The Austrians on the other hand doing their bit to destroy all Jewish belongings that escaped the hands of the Russians. Very few nonJewish houses were destroyed. Very few Jewish houses were left”.30

28 Letter by M. A. Charosh transmitted to Cyrus Adler on January 23, 1919. AJDC, Russia. Pogroms and Persecutions, 214709. 29 Report of the Central Jewish Committee for Relieving the Victims of the War from the beginning of its activities (August 1914) to the 30th of June, 1917 (June 28, 1917). Russia, General 1917, item 10135. Letter of Rabbi Salamon Frankel of Pilszen (November 25, 1916) to Felix Warburg. AJDC, Galicia 1915-1919, item 7302. 30 Report by Mr. Zuckerman on Bessarabia; Romanian report no. 28 (May 4,

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A vivid first-hand description of what happened in Galicia during the conflict can be found in the reports of certain eye-witnesses, such as Cherikover, who described Galicia as though compiling a martyrology, comparing the Galician Jews to the Ten Martyrs of Roman times, to the stories about the destruction of Jerusalem, and to the victims of Torquemada.31 Another essential source is S. Ansky's The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey Through the Jewish Pale of Settlement During World War I. Ansky travelled to Brody, and then on to the frontline at Tarnow, Lviv, PrzemyĞl and Sokol, and witnessed both terrible scenes and surprising escapes. He told of the unlikely rumours about Jewish attempts to help the Austrians defeat the Russians (by smuggling money to the Austrians or using telephones to provide them information about Russian troop movements), of hasidic legends about the imminent arrival of the Messiah, of survivors' accounts of their torments. A telling description of the state of Galicia in 1917 is contained in the report of the Central Jewish Committee for Relieving the Victims of the War of June 28, 1917.32 According to the document, the whole communal life in Lemberg was “utterly destroyed” and the “attempts to relieve the suffering population were almost futile, considering the needs of the large numbers of people who congregated there for refuge”. A representative of the Zemstvo, it was said, saw the conditions there and stated: “I have seen scenes in Lveff which have become burned deeply in my memory”. Underground cellars were filled with half-naked people unable to go into the open air, hungry children and half-naked people crowded houses and synagogues, fighting wretchedly to get a bread ticket. The situation in the smaller cities was even “more horrible”. There are plenty of historiographic sources and works describing the Galician situation, for example Mark Von Hagen's book on the occupation politics of Russian and Austrian authorities. The situation Von Hagen depicts is tragic and underlines how the different policies of the occupation 1920). AJDC, Romania-JDC-Romania, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Calarasi, Campulung, Cernauti, Chisinau, Iasi, Novo Sulita, Pancio, Targul-Ocna, Sadagura, Suceava, Transylvania, Vatra Dornei, Wiznitz, 1919-1921, item 231872. S. Ansky, p. 292. 31 J. M. Karlip, The Tragedy of a Generation, pp. 104-105. 32 Report of the Central Jewish Committee for Relieving the Victims of the War from the beginning of its activities (August 1914) to June 30, 1917. (June 28, 1917). AJDC, Russia, General 1917, item 10135.

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forces, from 1914 to 1918, were haphazard, sometimes violent, often contradictory, and in the end, counterproductive.33 .

Alexander V. Prusin's study compared the wartime anti-Jewish policies of the Russian occupation regime with the post-war practices of the emerging Polish Republic. Prusin argues that Russian and Polish civil administrators and military officials shared the same perception of East Galician Jewry as a “destructive inner enemy”. The author highlights an inherent link between the violence against the East Galician Jews and the Russification and Polonization campaigns of the respective administrations, as well as their dissemination of antisemitic propaganda during times of collective fear and disorientation.34 In his analysis, Prusin is careful not to identify the anti-Jewish violence by Russian and Polish troops as “genocidal”, but by the same token he argues that the Russian military treatment of Jews differed from its actions against other minorities. Though there was no “preconceived plan”, the Russian military leaders considered the Jews “a challenge to Russian rule” and began devising “long-range radical plans to handicap” the Jewish population.35 In 1917, the Russian revolutions complicated the situation further and brought chaos to many regions under Russian occupation: the poor discipline of the army became more evident day by day, with inevitable consequences on the military forces and on the security of the civilians, who after 4 years of war were subjected to an almost total paralysis of economic life, shortage of food and raw materials, in short, to misery and starvation.

The War after the War Though the Austrian occupation was surely more human and meant the restart of an organized administration, the Austrian authorities still had to face many hurdles: the Habsburg Empire was characterized by strikes, desertions and by the growth of nationalist movements that were increasingly influential in Eastern Galicia. During the war, this process of “nationalization” brought the different communities to abandon their traditional loyalty to the Emperor (Franz Joseph died during the war), and 33 Mark Von Hagen, War in a European Borderland. Occupations and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine. 1914-1918 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), p. 128. 34 A. V. Prusin, Nationalizing a Borderland: War, Ethnicity, and Anti-Jewish Violence in East Galicia, 1914-1920 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005), pp. 37-8, 116. 35 Ibidem, p. 23.

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to prepare for the construction of a national home, that is to say an independent national state. This turn had important consequences and the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk represented a “junction at which the ideological antisemitism of Polish politicians and the popular antisemitism of the masses coalesced into a powerful drive for national independence”.36 Some months later, the disintegration of Austria-Hungary aggravated the situation, halting government assistance and paving the way to the birth of a new conflict between Poles and Ukrainians, which had tragic consequences for the Galician Jews.37 While in Western Galicia, the Poles were the overwhelming majority and had very good chances of uniting this region to the Polish Republic, in Eastern Galicia the question was far more complicated. The Ruthenians declared the birth of a Western Ukrainian Republic, to be united to Ukraine, though in a first phase it was structured as an independent state, whose capital was to be located in Lviv. The proportions and the relationships among the different ethnic groups were complex: according to a 1919 report, in Eastern Galicia there were 3,293,015 Ukrainians, 1,349,926 Poles and 658,722 Jews. National distinctions were combined with social ones and both had been exacerbated by the conflict, which generated many reciprocal accusations: who was the most loyal to the emperor? Who betrayed whom? Who mistreated and persecuted the Jews? The Jews found themselves in the midst of this chaotic framework and would soon be at the heart of a real conflict between the troops of two states that both claimed the possession of Eastern Galicia. In October 1918, with the intervention of the pro-Ukrainian Archduke Wilhelm, the Habsburg “Red Prince”, some regiments consisting of mostly Ukrainian troops were brought into Lemberg (Lviv). Most of the Austrian troops stationed there were ethnic Ukrainians, while the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen in Bukovina were ready to join the Ukrainian troops in the city. On November 1, 1918, the Ukrainian soldiers occupied the public utilities and military facilities in Lviv, raising Ukrainian flags and proclaiming the West Ukrainian Republic. Shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state, the Polish residents organized a small resistance group in a school. The defenders were joined by hundreds of volunteers, mostly teenagers and students, the Lwów Eaglets (OrlĊta Lwowskie), and began to 36 Ibidem, p. 72. 37 “The position of the Jews in Eastern Galicia” (May 5, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218843.

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fight in the streets. Although numerically superior and well-equipped, the Ukrainians were stopped by the Polish resistance. The city remained under siege for some months, while the Ukrainian forces continued to surround Lviv from three sides. In this conflict, the Jews declared their complete neutrality and the Poles regarded this choice as an act of treason against the Polish idea. As a delegation of Galician Jews at Paris would later declare, in this context the Jews represented the perfect “scapegoat” and saw the only ray of hope, “the last straw we clutch at”, in the reliance on their brethren in America.38 After the signature of an armistice on November 18, the Polish take-over of the city culminated in a two-day riot, in which mostly Polish criminals and soldiers carried out widespread pillage and plunder. During these riots, on November 21-23, many Ukrainians and Jews were murdered.39 The pogrom of Lviv was described in numerous sources, for example by Ambassador Morgenthau and Max Blokzyl, editor of the Algemeen Handelsblad of Amsterdam, who visited Galicia with Harald Hanses, a journalist of the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.40 These two observers concluded that the Polish authorities were not directly responsible 38 Statement from the delegation of Galician Jews at Paris submitted by the Conference of Galician Societies (Leon Reich, Tannenbaum, Joshua Thon) on May 28, 1919. AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218859. 39 Heavy fighting for other cities continued despite the union of Western Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Republic of the Directory that transpired on January 22, 1919. On February 24, 1919, an armistice was signed following pressure by the Entente and temporarily re-established a climate of normality, as noted by the Italian Captain Accame after his visit to the region. Positional skirmishes between entrenched sides lasted until May 1919, when the Polish offensive on the EasternGalician front forced the Ukrainians to withdraw, ending the six-month battle for the control of Lwów. After the creation of a commission for the negotiation of an armistice between Poland and Ukraine under General Louis Botha's presidency in the summer of 1919, the Polish forces seized most of the territory that was claimed by the West Ukrainian People's Republic and reached an agreement with Petljura's Ukraine, consolidating the occupation of the eastern part of Ukraine. 40 Max Blokzyl spent 3 days in Lemberg and established contact with Count Alexander Skarbek, the leader of the National-Democratic Party, Tobias Ashkenaze as president of the Jewish Kultusgemeinde, Osias Wasser, and many other people, Jews and non-Jews. On the Lemberg pogrom and its legacy in Polish and European history, see also David Engel, “Lwów, 1918: The Transmutation of a Symbol and its Legacy in the Holocaust”, in J. D. Zimmerman (ed.), Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 32-46.

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for the pogroms in Poland and Galicia, though they did not sufficiently oppose these abominations, indeed giving the impression of having favoured them. On December 24, 1918, the Polish Ministry of Justice ordered a rigorous investigation of the events. A special commission headed up by a judge of the Supreme Court met in Lemberg for about two months and produced an extensive formal report. The local court-martial sentenced military personnel to confinement for as long as three years for the brutalities of Lemberg. From the Polish viewpoint, it was Austria that was to blame for having surrendered the town to the Ruthenians on the night of October 31November 1. This strategy turned to bloodshed, to a civil war that resulted in the massacres of Jewish citizens. According to the government version, the Poles were obliged to accept every kind of reinforcement: as a consequence, numerous thugs, unreliable individuals and criminals set at liberty by the Ruthenians took this opportunity to arm themselves. The Lemberg Ghetto witnessed numerous persecutions, a revenge against the Jews whose militia was guilty (for the Poles) of having sided with the Ruthenians. The Polish government declared that the rioters were not soldiers of the Polish army, but escaped criminals in Polish uniforms. An eyewitness, Joseph Tenenbaum, a leader of the Jewish militia, on the contrary wrote that, when the Polish troops cut off the Jewish quarter, patrols of 10-30 men, each led by an officer and armed with grenades and rifles, went through the quarter banging on the doors. The closed doors were blown open with grenades. In the following months, international outrage at the series of similar acts of violence against the Jews (in Lemberg but also in Pinsk, Lida, Minsk and Vilnius) led to the appointment of an investigating commission by the US President. On October 3, 1919, Henry Morgenthau's commission published its findings on what happened at Lviv and in the surrounding region after the end of the First World War. Ambassador Morgenthau briefly described the events of Lviv in this way: “On October 30, the Ukrainian troops assumed control of the town. A few hundred Polish boys, combined with numerous volunteers of doubtful character, recaptured about half the city and held it until the arrival of Polish reinforcements on November 21. The Jewish population declared themselves neutral, but the fact that the Jewish quarter lay within the section occupied by the Ukrainians, and that the Jews had organized their own militia, and further, the rumor that some of the Jewish population had fired upon the soldiery, stimulated amongst the Polish volunteers an antisemitic bias that readily communicated itself to the relieving troops.

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The situation was further complicated by the presence of some 15,000 uniformed deserters and criminals released by the Ukrainians from local jails, who were ready to join in any disorder, particularly if, as in the case of wholesale pillage, they might profit thereby”.

The damage was quantified in the official reports of the Jewish Relief Committee: 73 Jews killed; 443 Jews wounded; 10,869,527 Crowns were stolen; the damage amounted to 6,109,270 Crowns of stock, 15,146,832 of furniture, 49,790,143 of goods, in total: 102,986,839 Crowns. In 2,815 out of 3,620 cases, the culprits were individuated: 1,918 crimes were committed by soldiers without their officers, 494 by soldiers commanded by their officers, 6 by officers only, 391 by soldiers together with civilians, 6 by civilians only; in 98 cases women and in 14 cases Red Cross nurses were accomplices. Among the civilians who were found guilty, grammarschool pupils acted in 15 cases, students in 5, railway officials in 17 cases, tram conductors in 3 cases. A postman, 2 soldiers of the militia, 1 workman of the slaughterhouse were found guilty in the other cases. Out of the 103 murderers who were identified, 72 were military men (18 officers and 54 soldiers) and 31 civilians. Similar events happened in other localities, for example at PrzemyĞl, where the Polish army seemed irritated by the Jews' decision to be neutral and not to fight against the Ukrainians. The PrzemyĞl pogrom began on November 11, immediately after the seizure of the city by Polish soldiers, who began looting the Jewish-owned stores along the main street, Franciszkanska, cutting off beards, dismantling the Jewish militia and causing the death of over a dozen Jews.41 Blokzyl described the Lemberg Ghetto as “merely squalid”: the barrack-like dwellings mostly had shops on the ground floor, while many of the large, modern houses were burnt down. “Armed to the teeth and with bayonets”, the young Polish soldiers stopped grey-haired Jews in the street, inspected Jewish traders' shops, and demanded their papers under the menace of arrest and forced labor. Four years of battles, violence, evacuations, and suffering in Eastern Galicia, was an incalculable trauma and what's more had meant the forced removal of a significant part of the Jewish population. While in 1880 there were 7 towns and 40 small market towns with an absolute majority of Jews, only 2 towns and 25 small market towns preserved their predominant Jewish

41 J. E. Fahey, “PrzemyĞl, Galicia: A Garrison Town Before, During, Between and After the War (1873-1953)”, Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar, 5, 9, 2016, pp. 222-223.

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character after the conflict.42 The Jews of Lemberg, 75% of whom required assistance, could rely on a limited number of institutions to meet the needs of the poor: one public kitchen where 4,600 people were fed; 3 committees for distributing products among the population and, in particular, among the intelligentsia (this committee gave out weekly 7,000 loaves of bread, 14,000 kg. of potatoes, 7,000 kg. of vegetables and 7,000 kg. of grits); the committee Kolo Kobiet Zydowskich' to help children from infancy to youth.43 At the end of 1918, Vienna still represented the centre of this relief action and while in 1915-18 the Jewish community had cared for 120,000 refugees, at the end of 1918 the city still hosted 44,000 war refugees (including 4,500 pogrom refugees) out of a normal population of 180,000 subjects. The Kultusgemeinde helped 7,000 families and 1,000 soldierstudents, but the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis and the lack of raw materials and employment made the prospect for a return to normal living conditions very doubtful.44 At Vienna, the funds of the JDC were managed by Mrs. Harriet Loewenstein and then distributed to the local relief committees, which also collected the donations of the respective communities: for example in Lviv, Mordekai Hirsh subsidized the project of creating schools employing 250 teachers for 10,000 children. The JDC had a stable position in Vienna but after the Polish advance, Eastern Galicia was no longer connected to Austria and was instead placed under the jurisdiction of the Warsaw offices. Later on, the regional relief activity was divided between Lemberg and Kraków, where many Galician Jews had gone during the war and a Nationalrat was formed under the direction

42 Report of May 5, 1919. AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218843. 43 From the first of April, 1918 to the first of November 1918, the funds of the committee reached the sum of 6,841,003.96 Crowns. Its income derived from the Jewish committees in Russia, the contributions of American Jews through the Israelitische Allianz in Vienna, the Lviv community, individual contributions, the interest on the capital. Gillis' report of August 12, 1919. “Measures and proposals for alleviating the most pressing need in Eastern Galicia” (Paris, May 20, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1915-1919, items 218841, 218866. 44 Report of the Jewish national-council for German Austria (December 13, 1918). AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC committees, Israelitische Allianz 19171918, item 1505. After the war, in 1923, the Jewish population of Vienna rose to 201,513. Shmuel Spector, Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Vol. 3 (New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 1393.

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of Rabbi Thon.45 Immediate help was needed, but the conditions remained terrible also during the first months of 1919, when the region was still affected by military operations. This meant that the cooperation of Polish troops was essential also for the relief actions, as demonstrated in Kraków, where the rooms occupied by the children were requisitioned for a military hospital. In other cases, it was reported that, although destined for the relief of Jewish people, many food supplies were instead distributed by the local authorities among the Polish population.46 On their part, the local committees and the landsmannschaft organizations lacked solid guidance and were negatively conditioned by the internal frictions among the different parties.47 The cooperation between the centres of Kraków and Warsaw, for example, was not optimal. The Jews of Galicia and Warsaw did not understand each other, they spoke different languages and all of them wished to be placed under the committee of Vienna. In Kraków alone there were 2 committees: the old one represented the Wiener Allianz (president Rafal Landau, vice Josef Steinberg), while a new one, Vereinigte Jüdische Komitee zum Schutze der Juden, was organized in November 1918 and gradually replaced the former. The duties of these committees were staggering. The war had destroyed farms and colonies and inflicted upon the Jews a direct damage of about 1.8 billion Crowns. The loss deriving from the pogrom in Lemberg amounted to more than 120,000 Crowns. At least 1,500 Jewish state employees were left without work, and further damage was caused by the Polish boycott, which was launched as a “welcome gift” in the new Polish republic.48 45 “Tragic position of Jews in Eastern Galicia”. Memorandum of the Jewish National Council in Vienna (May 21, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218840. 46 Rafael Landau, the chair of the committee, obtained permission to continue using these quarters for the orphans only after a private meeting with Paderewski, on April 2, 1919. Report on the activity of the committee of Kraków in the period March 30-April 5, 1919 (April 5, 1919); “Jews in the Light of war liquidation”, document of delegation of the Jewish national council for Galicia (Vienna, May 20, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, 218838, 218845. 47 Report by Dr. Rengel (October 19, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, 218869. 48 Report of the delegation of the Union of Jewish State Matters in Eastern Galicia (signed by Chajsa, Wesler c/o Dr. Jacob Kerkis, Dr. Bernard Hausner, Lemberg) to the JDC offices in Vienna (August 1919). Galicia 1913-1919, 218826.

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It was estimated that this situation could be rectified only through a coordinated activity of a central financial bank with many centres of credit to be financed by American capitalists, for example through a reconstruction bank with a capital of 10 million dollars.49 But these plans for the future seemed utopian in the face of stark reality. In the new political context, the life of Galician Jews was put in the hands of the newly created Polish republic, with problems and controversies that would inevitably animate the entire interwar period.

49 Many plans were drawn up to relaunch investments in the region, which however could not be set in motion until the agrarian conditions had been straightened out. Resettling Jews on the land (46,000 were already working) required more modern methods and a legal consolidation of the agrarian scheme through the creation of a traders' bank, and a central financial institute. It was calculated and proposed that the cost of production was much cheaper in Galicia than in the US: 30-40 Crowns were exchanged for $1-1,50, while in the US the average daily salary was $6-8. Document of the delegation of the Jewish National Council for Galicia, The Jews in the light of war liquidation (Vienna, May 20, 1919), addenda to the memorandum of May 3, 1919 (Paris). AJDC, Galicia 19131919, items 218845, 218854.

UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION

“Everything should have been just the same on the other side of the line – and everything seemed entirely different. It should have been another cozy piece of the homeland, embellished with a scattering of farmhouses and peasant huts, with the same eighteenth-century coach road sparsely lined with birches and disappearing over a rise and beyond the river, the same windmills, poplars, and derelict stork's nests – but instead it was a parcel of alien land under alien rule”.1

The Jewish Question under German Rule Following military victories in 1914 and 1915, the German armies seized possession of the Baltic territories and parts of Poland, where between 1915 and 1917, the occupying forces used the opportunity to create a stable administration. The Germans occupied Lithuania, Latvia and Warsaw between March and August 1915, while the conquest of Estonia was achieved during the later stages of the conflict, between September 1917 and February 1918. Just before the signing of the peace treaty at BrestLitovsk, in March 1918, the whole territory of the future Baltic States was in the hands of the German army. The territories under German administration were divided into the General Government of Warsaw (including the Grand Duchy of Poland, Grodno, Warsaw, Kalisch, Plotzk, Minsk, Lomza, Lukov, Siedlec, Petrikov), and the Ober Ost (Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten, the Supreme Command of All German Forces in the East, including the conquered portions of Courland, Vilnius, Suwaáki, Grodno, and Biaáystok). The Ober Ost comprised a population of 2,909,935 people (at the end of 1916), and was intended as a sort of buffer-state. It was presided over by important figures such as Paul von Hindenburg and Prince Leopold of Bavaria, and had a well-defined administrative structure with three Verwaltungsgebiete (administrative territories): Courland, Lithuania and Biaáystok-Grodno. Each was subdivided into Kreise (districts); Landkreise 1 A. Solzhenitsyn, November 1916: A Novel. The Ref Wheel – Knot II (New York: Ferra, Straus and Giroux, 1984), p. 6.

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Under German Occupation

(rural districts) and Stadtkreise (urban districts); the control of these units was generally entrusted to the Baltic German nobility, Baltendeutsche, who represented the upper class and the biggest landowners. This region included a substantial population of Jews and many important places for Jewish culture, for example the town of Volozhin that hosted the so-called Volozhin Yeshiva, also known as Etz Chaim Yeshiva, the “mother of all yeshivas”. The Lithuanian community was the most important Jewish group in the Baltic. The 1897 Russian census registered 320,700 Jews residing in the provinces of Kaunas and Western Vilnius (14.1% of the population), and 364,700 (13.2%) in all Lithuanian lands. Estonia hosted only 5,000 Jews (0.5%) and Latvia 122,600 (6.4%), for a total of 492,300 in the Baltic Countries.2 But the greatest portion of Jews under German occupation lived in Polish territories, as demonstrated by the statistics in the province of Warsaw, where the industrial growth had stimulated a rapid increase in the population, which reached 625,000 in 1897 and 885,000 by 1914. In the city of Warsaw, the Jewish population increased to 210,500 (33.7%) in 1897 and 337,000 (38.1%) in 1914.3 The dynamic industrial city of àódĨ was another typical example of the effects that the belated Russian industrialization had on the Jewish presence in the urban dimension. In the period between 1873 and 1897, the Jewish population of àódĨ had increased from about 10,000 to nearly 100,000, and by 1914, the city was home to more than 500,000 people, including 170,000 Jews.4 Mindful of the difficulties under Tsarist rule, these Jewish communities were faced with multifold options: to defend the homeland notwithstanding oppression and discrimination, to do so but demanding precise guarantees, or again to fight a fratricidal war against the German Jews who were driven – at least it was perceived so - by the desire to fight Russia in order to improve the conditions of Russian Jews.

2 P. Eberhardt, pp. 22-29. 3 S. D. Corrsin, Warsaw before the First World War: Poles and Jews in the Third City of the Russian Empire, 1880–1914 (Boulder: Routledge, 1989); W. T. Bartoszewski, A. Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Warsaw (Oxford, 1991). 4 In the entire Polish Kingdom in 1897, the Jews numbered 1,255,000 (13.7%), the second largest group after Poles. They represented 1,310,000 (14.2%) of the current Polish territories belonging to Russia until WWI. P. Eberhardt, pp. 78-79.

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On one side, Germany tried to play the role of “liberator” of the Jewish people, and the German-Jewish Komitee für den Osten (KFDO) demanded that the Ostjuden of Poland and other East European countries were to be granted autonomy as a national minority. On the other, the Russian army and the Cossacks unleashed their anger not only against the invaders but also against the Jews, who were targeted as traitors and German spies. In truth, the arrival of the Germans with their pro-Jewish propaganda consolidated the accusation of connivance with the enemy. Though the Russian Council of Ministers did not fully share the opinion of Ianushkevich, it was not able to change the politics of the military authorities, who pressed for the “evacuation” of the local Jewish communities. The Russians played the Poles off against the Jews, while the Poles hoped to play Russians, Austrians and Jews off against each other, for example by denouncing the Jews as spies and traitors. The situation became clear at Zamosti or again at Mariampol, near the Eastern Prussian frontier, where the entire Jewish male population, including Rabbi Krovchinski, were compelled to work on the roads for three days (September 22-24, October 5-7, 1914), or in the villages of Groitsi and Nowe-Miasto near Warsaw, which were occupied by the Germans for a few days in September-October 1914. When the Russians retook the town, the Poles denounced the Jews as accomplices of the Germans. This episode is significant to understand the situation of the Jews before and after the arrival of German armies. The German commanders subjected their zone of operation to a complete re-organization, and in this frame also the relationships with the large Jewish communities became very important, when not essential. Herman Struck was appointed liaison officer and head of the Jewish Department of the German army, while Leo Deutschlander was in charge of Jewish education. The work of these “enlightened” men undoubtedly contributed to the preservation of schools and community cohesion.5 Nevertheless, the evolution of the situation was not as idyllic as had been expected. As highlighted in many historiographic analyses (for example by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius), the Germans found themselves in a land of foreigners with unfamiliar traditions and cultural identities. Amidst the 5 M. Greenbaum, The Jews of Lithuania. A History of a Remarkable Community (Jerusalem: Gefen, 1995), pp. 216-218.

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disorder and confusion, they believed these to be the natural characteristics of the East, and not the outcomes of war and oppression. Liulevicius states that this experience had an important role in shaping the Nazi perception of the East: inspired by Ober Ost, the Nazi dictatorship would later prepare its youth for the German “Drive Towards the East”.6 In particular, one of the military German leaders, General Ludendorff, would later confess during his trial for the 1923 Munich Putsch that he had become acquainted with the “Jewish question” during the war, probably because of the strong impact that the very particular reality of Eastern European Jews had on him.7 The Germans were horrified by the Eastern Jews' living conditions and many of them became convinced that the spread of typhus was closely linked to the Jewish population (typhus was popularly called the “Jewish fever”). They expected to be welcomed as liberators but instead found a mass of what they saw as miserable, poor, lazy, dirty, ignorant and backward orthodox Jews who were an obstacle to the transformation of that region. In this context, many authors like Bartov, Volkov or Crim, agree in stating that antisemitism became a cultural code or an “associative merger” for many German veterans and right-wing activists. The latter associated Jews with revolution and military defeat, and would consider the tumultuous events of 1918 as the prelude to a tough confrontation against Judeo-Bolshevism. The association between Jews and Bolshevism into the so-called Judeo-Bolshevism, and the revival of the classical antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish speculators and usurers, marked the growing hostility of the military apparatus.8

6 V. G. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 6. 7 “Ludendorff Assails Jews, Pope and Catholic Clergy”, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 1, 1924. General Ludendorff, on trial for treason in connection with his participation in the 1923 “putsch”, which was unsuccessfully engineered by Adolf Hitler, confessed in his testimony to have strong antisemitic bias. General Ludendorff said that he had become acquainted with the “Jewish question”, during the war: “For me it is a question of race, little as the Frenchman or Englishman can be permitted to obtain dominion over us, so little can the Jew be permitted. Freedom of the nation can not be expected from him. Therefore, I was against him. The Jew does not understand German interests and therefore it is necessary to abolish Jewish influence”. 8 O. Bartov, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); S. Volkov, Germans,

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After the German conquest of Congress Poland (the section of Poland given to Russia after the Congress of Vienna in 1815), the Jewish problem in the occupied territories was closely connected with the Polish question. In the frame of the discussions between Germans and Austrians, certain attention was paid to the possible recognition of the Jews as a national minority in a future autonomous or independent Polish state. The German goal, formulated at the beginning of the war, was to maximize control in East-Central Europe, while weakening Russia and suppressing irredentism among the Polish residents of Prussia. With this aim in mind, the Germans tried to appease the Jews and also the Lithuanians, supporting the development of a movement claiming autonomy and the establishment of a Lithuanian provincial council (Taryba), which assured Berlin of its close collaboration.9 The Polish situation was highly problematic and with many different options: the total or partial annexation of Polish territories to Austria; the creation of an Austrian-German administration, or even of a quasiindependent Polish entity linked to Germany, as proposed in several memoranda during 1915 and 1916 by Hans Hartwig von Beseler, the governor-general of the Polish areas under German control. Austria-Hungary had instead a different idea. The “Austro-Polish solution” was based on the creation of a Polish kingdom under the Emperor, who, among his other titles, was already King of Galicia and Lodomeria. Charles, who ascended the Habsburg throne after Franz Joseph's death, promoted this idea, but German and Magyar elements within the monarchy opposed it for fear of creating a predominantly Slavic area. The other options envisaged the division of the former Congress Poland between Prussia and Jews, and Antisemites (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006), pp. 88-90; B. E. Crim, “Our Most Serious Enemy: The Specter of Judeo-Bolshevism in the German Military Community, 1914–1923”, Central European History, Vol. 44, No. 4 (December 2011), pp. 624-641. 9 In the case of Latvians and Estonians, German authorities never took in consideration the self-determination principle and failed to recognise the intensity and vitality of these nationalisms. This fact could also be explained by the relationships with these two communities, who were historically subjected to the economic and social influence of the German Baltendeutsche. J. D. White, “National Communism and World Revolution: The Political Consequences of German Military Withdrawal from the Baltic Area in 1918-19”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 46, No. 8, Soviet and East European History (1994), pp. 1349-1369. G. von Rauch, The Baltic States. Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. The Years of Independence 1917-1940 (London: Hurst and Co., 1974), pp. 39 ff.

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Under German Occupation

Austria-Hungary, or between Austria-Hungary and a state consisting of Lithuania, Belarus and the remnants of Congress Poland. Naturally, the settlement of the Polish question also depended on the Jewish-Polish relationships and on a possible mutual agreement for a common political future. The discussions began in the spring of 1915, when the Komitee für den Osten tried to arrange a common strategy with the Polish Supreme National Council in Vienna, where it was tentatively agreed that the Jews of Poland should obtain the right to have their own communities (Gemeinschaften), to be organized both in regional branches and in a central body. The Jewish communal leaders were to be recognized as government officials, and the Jews were to obtain a number of deputies in the future Polish Parliament in proportion to their numerical strength. The Jews were promised the right to have their own schools (including a university) in their own languages (Hebrew and Yiddish). The electoral system was to be organized according to national curiae. In exchange, the Poles obtained a statement from the Jewish assimilationist leaders of Galicia (Tobias Ashkenaze, Herman Diamand, Henryk Kolischer and others) that the Jewish problem in Poland was part of the Polish problem. Prof. Franz Oppenheimer of the KFDO, instead, strongly attacked this declaration of the Moschkos (sycophants) - as the assimilationists of Poland were dubbed by the other Jews - and demanded the appointment of Jewish specialists in the German administration of Poland: M. J. Bodenheimer, Adolf Friedemann, Moritz Marxheimner, Franz Oppenheimer and Max Ginsberg for economic matters, Prof. Carl Lewin for medical activities, Dr. Arthur Levy, chaplain in the German Army, and Hermann Struck for Jewish schools. The Austrian Jewish leaders demanded that the KFDO should advocate a future Austrian protectorate over Galicia in the discussions with the Poles in Vienna. In February 1916, a new Austro-Polish proposal foresaw the creation of a Polish entity with reduced borders and sovereignty, functioning as an Austrian satellite. Around the same time, with the active assistance of the moderate assimilationist leader Samuel Goldflam, the Komitee für den Osten convened the senior leadership of various Jewish ideological camps in Warsaw. The aim was to unite the Polish Jewish leadership behind a common program, and to overcome what Sokolow had called the “traditional pestilence” that infested and fragmented the organizations of Polish Jewry. In order to mitigate the alarming enmity between Poles and Jews, it was necessary to control the centrifugal impact of forces such as the Bund and the Zionists, and to establish a joint platform to represent

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and defend Jewish interests. The unity of Jewish parties was considered essential in order to face the challenges that the war was imposing on an isolated Polish Jewry.10 The meetings took place in Warsaw and attracted the representatives of all four political camps: the integrationists (often called assimilationists), the nationalists, the socialist workers and the orthodox movement. The various Polish Jewish groups advocated full civil rights, cultural autonomy, linguistic self-determination and the non-coercive Polonization of the Jews. Dr. Eugen Fuchs's idea, in particular, was that the Jews were not only a religious community, but also a nationality, with a specific language and culture.11 Despite the unexpected convergence towards a joint political program, this was not destined to be concretely implemented. The Jewish question was regulated by the German authorities with the ordinance of November 1, 1916. This edict was often called the Haas ordinance after Dr. Ludwig Haas, the man largely responsible for its drafting. Haas believed that it would be very difficult to reach a compromise with the Poles, and consequently worked on the idea that the political future of Polish Jewry, which depended on the structure of the Polish state to come, was to be temporarily put aside. While the political negotiations wavered, the German occupation had to cope with extremely difficult material conditions, which were aggravated by the British blockade of the Baltic Sea that hindered the arrival of food and supplies by sea. This emergency was so acute that General Ludendorff, instead of creating a complex set of relief agencies and measures, even considered evacuations and large-scale migration as possible solutions. But the German Jews, who saw themselves as the protector of their coreligionists in the East, viewed this imminent mass immigration as undesirable. As a consequence, at a meeting with Ludendorff in February 1916, Bernhard Kahn succeeded in imposing his plan for a general action of assistance. The emigration from German occupied territories was clearly a symptom 10 M. Silber, “The Development of a Joint Political Program for the Jews of Poland during World War I: Success and Failure”, Jewish History, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2005), pp. 211-226. 11 Zosa Szajkowski, “The German Ordinance of November 1916 on the Organization of Jewish Communities in Poland”, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 34 (1966), pp. 111-139.

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of increasing misery, as summarized by Paul Nathan's report (Nathan was a member of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden), which was published in May 1916 in the Evreyskaya Nedelia. The war had caused vast damage to many Jewish localities: 75 had been partially destroyed, 39 largely destroyed, 16 destroyed or burnt down; 28% of Jews reported that their activity was ruined, 22% of the synagogues or other communal institutions were burnt down or demolished; 14% of the shops were plundered. Furthermore, all factories were closed and trade was paralysed. In conclusion, the Jews had suffered with the Russians and still suffered with the Germans and the Poles.12 Simon Ansky shared this view on the continuity between Russian rule and German occupation: despite all the protests against Russian barbarism that had flooded this region, also under German rule there was no real sympathy, and only the Austrians treated the Jews more humanely: “The Germans themselves displayed no small amounts of brutality. They didn't perpetrate massacres or pogroms, but their harshness and scorn were nonetheless hard to endure. German forced labor was no easier than a Russian prison, and their appropriation of property was no different from outright theft”.13

Masha Greenbaum stressed the distance separating Jewish expectations for the introduction of human rights and equality (as promised by General Erich Ludendorff, who appealed to “Meine Liebe Juden”) from the reality of occupation. Many Jews served in the occupation force but generally were not so sympathetic towards their coreligionists, the Ostjuden whom they treated with a certain contempt. “All persons under German rule have been compelled to bear their common share in the general hardships. Besides this, the Jews have had to bear certain privations which are practically limited to them alone. The situation obtaining among the Polish Jews today, it is believed, is worse than it has ever been”.14

Forced labor became a daily reality for all those Jews (and Christians alike) who could not pay a 600 Marks ransom: economic conditions worsened, epidemics spread and medical care was almost nonexistent. The Germans treated everyone badly, as “animals that were of use to their 12 Evreyskaya Nedelia, May 13, 1916. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10077. 13 S. Ansky, p. 25. 14 “Jewish War Relief Work”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 19, September 17, 1917, to September 6, 1918/5678, pp. 214-215.

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master but had no rights whatsoever”. Nonetheless, according to some authors such as Abramowicz, who lived in Vilnius at this time, the Jews were treated slightly better than the other national groups, perhaps because they could more easily communicate with the conquerors.15 The failure of the Austro-Polish solution and the 1916 Jewish army census (Judenzählung) were probably the decisive proof that in the midst of an inhuman conflict the German authorities no longer considered the improvement of Jewish conditions an integral part of their politics in the East. Some months later, the creation of the Kingdom of Poland with its Council of State put an end to the Jewish dreams of national autonomy.

The Material Conditions According to a report of March 1, 1916, at that time there were about 1,360,000 Jews in Poland. The General Government of Warsaw hosted a Jewish population of over 930,000, the Ober Ost a Jewish population of over 235,000, and about one-third (455,000) were dependent upon the support of relief funds. This number was growing from month to month, inasmuch as there were limited opportunities for employment for small traders, employees and artisans. In Lithuania, the cities of Grodno, Kaunas, Suwaáki and Vilnius hosted 700,000 Jews before the war: here, the Jews represented about 50% of the urban population and took up practically all commerce and industry, artisanship and liberal professions.16 The war clearly jeopardized this situation: economic hardships and cruelty of political and military authorities were accompanied by mass expulsions (even the Jewish deputy from the Kaunas district Friedman was expelled), and the result was the wholesale decrease of the Jewish population in the entire region. During the battle of àódĨ, 50-60 trainloads of wounded men were evacuated daily. As there was nowhere to send them, in the end hundreds of railroad cars were stuck in the countryside without food or medical attention.17 A sum between 150,000 and 250,000 Marks per month was needed for the most elementary needs of these displaced itinerants. 15 H. Abramowicz, Profiles of a Lost World. Memoirs of East European Jewish Life before World War II (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1999), p. 199. 16 Letter transmitted by M. A. Charosh to Cyrus Adler (January 23, 1919), “Draft of a memorandum on constructive relief in the Eastern War”. AJDC, Russia, Persecution and Pogroms, item 214709. 17 S. Ansky, pp. 31-32

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Under German Occupation

Out of 700,000 Lithuanian Jews, about one-fourth was expelled, and 125,000 voluntarily followed the retreating Russian army: in Lithuania there remained about 400,000 Jews, of whom more than a half - at least 250,000 - depended upon the relief funds. The Jewish population of Vilnius district decreased to 125,000 (210,000 before the war), that of Kaunas to 75,000 (215,000), 60,000 remained at Suwaáki (85,000). In all, the population dropped from 710,000 to 410,000, and the Jewish relief committees indicated at 235,000 those in complete distress after 1916.18 In times of peace, Libau had a population of 80-90,000, of whom 1112,000 Jews, 45,000 Latvians, 15,000 Germans, 5,000 Russians, 3,000 Poles and 15,000 Lithuanians. During the war, the population was reduced to 50,000, including 7,000 Jews. Before the war, Grodno had a population of 60,000, including 40,000 Jews. After, there were only 24,000 left, including 18,000 Jews. The villages hosting large Jewish communities were now almost empty. The Jews remained undisturbed only in Hasenpot and Polangen, where each community numbered about 1,000, as well as in a few small places like Grobin near the German border, which were occupied so early in the war that the Russians had no time to expel them. Another significant document to describe the reality of Poland is the report drafted by Judas Magnes and Alexander Dushkin, who visited the region in August-October 1916.19 This document contained a kind of census of the Jewish population living in the largest cities:

18 “Then one sees the enormous number of hungry people dressed in rags, lying in the streets day by day, without any outlook for improvement, one can understand that those are the ones that suffer most”. Letter of Dr. Simonson (Copenhagen, August 14, 1918). AJDC, Russia, General, 1918-1919, item 10240. 19 Report of March 1917 to the JDC of the commission of the American Jewish Relief Funds (chairman J. L. Magnes, secretary A. M. Dushkin). AJDC, Turkey, Smirna 1916, item 155106. The journey began in August and included the passage from Stockholm, Hamburg, Berlin (August 18-26), then continued to Warsaw, Radzimin, Vilnius, Berlin, Warsaw once again, àódĨ, Lublin, Lemberg, concluding on October 18-20. In Stockholm, the Russian diplomatic agency refused to grant a visa to Magnes, who was a Jewish American citizen.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Jewish population

People in need

Warsaw

335,000

165,000 (46%)

àódĨ

110,000

15,000 (13%)

Vilnius

65,000

30,000 (46%)

MiĔsk Mazowiecki

30,000

12,000 (40%)

CzĊstochowa

23,000

6,456 (28%)

Laisch

17,000

7,000 (41%)

97

The estimated number of refugees was over 55,000, of whom more than 35,000 were women and children, but this number was just a part of the real total. In his report, Dushkin described in detail the problems of emigration, which though greatly diminished by the war had not ceased entirely. With the establishment of more normal conditions in German occupied Poland, it was somewhat encouraged, but only with a passport which was of course difficult to obtain - and via the Holland-America Line. The Scandinavian as well as the German and English lines were not permitted to carry such passengers. In the Ober Ost, the help of Berlin was fundamental to grant relief to Jewish communities. The role of the Feldrabbiners placed under military orders was essential as they were among the few who were allowed to move throughout the whole territory. In the district of Warsaw, on the contrary, the restrictions were not as severe and travelling was easier. In the Ober Ost, the government had forbidden sectarian relief activity. The funds were to pass through the hands of the civil administrator and to be distributed through his subordinates. The relief actions were organized according to a decision of the chief commander, the Lieutenant General Count Waldersee: the network included a central relief committee in Vilnius representing the military administrations of Courland, Lithuania, Biaáystok-Grodno, a military county administration at Suwaáki, an inspection station beyond the Bug and various spheres of operations. A relief commissioner was appointed by the chief of military administration, and a committee of 7 members, plus county and local relief committees, operated in each district.20

20 Document of December 23, 1917. AJDC, Ober Ost, General, 1917-18, 7928.

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Under German Occupation

In Poland, the main centre was located in Warsaw, where the Committee for the Relief of the Jewish Victims of War had been organized by the local Jewish community in August, 1914 (when Warsaw was still Russian), with Stanislaw Natanson as chairman. The relief work depended mostly upon the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, which found itself to be the only agency that could in any way act as an intermediary between the suffering Jews of the invaded territory and their friends, relatives and sympathizers in the outside world. The general secretary, Bernard Kahn, and the director, Paul Nathan, as well as some of the other members of the Hilfsverein, visited the occupied territory repeatedly (Kahn, in particular visited Poland and Lithuania some fifteen times in two years) for the purpose of learning at first hand the most urgent needs, and to subsequently organize the relief system. The annual report of the Hilfsverein, in April 1916, and the MagnesDushkin report, in the same months, gave a harrowing description of the misery afflicting the area and, in particular, of the local Jewish communities in Lithuania, where the problems were even greater than in Poland. During the war, Vilnius, the “Jerusalem of Lithuania”, became a centre for refugees. When the Germans entered the city, they found 22,000 needy refugees (the richest were not counted) and all, except 4,660, were repatriated at the expense of the local relief committee. Of those who remained, 915 were lodged in public shelters, 3,400 were placed in private houses; 710 refugees received meals from the people's kitchens and 20,000 needy persons received 1 Mark a month from Jewish institutions such as the United Synagogue: “The people go barefoot when the season permits. This is impossible in winter. Shoes - are needed for at least 10,000 children, as well as for adults - laborers and artisans... There is no petroleum; electric and gas light are not obtainable. Candles are very dear, and must also be bought from the burgomaster (and not at cost price)… Many well-to-do people have become a burden upon the charitable institutions because their assets cannot be liquidated. Their money is in Russian banks. Some of them own real estate, which is either not rented or is occupied by the militia”.

A memorandum of the Zedokoh Gedoloh (September 1-13, 1916), the largest and best known of the Vilnius communal institutions, underlined that the crisis cut off all sources of income: there were no revenues from meat tax because hardly any cattle were slaughtered for the Jewish population. The cemetery, too, ceased to be a source of income since the

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well-to-do Jews left Vilnius in the summer of 1915. Those who remained became a burden upon the charitable institutions because their assets could not be liquidated as their money was in Russian banks. The number of people who had to resort to charitable organisations for passover Matzoh increased from 7,000 to 32,000. In the period between December 12 and 31, 1916, Paul Nathan and Bernard Kahn undertook a trip through Courland and Lithuania on behalf of the Jüdisches Hilfskomite für Polen, and their report contained more or less the same conclusions.21 It was true that the Lithuanian Jews responded to the German occupation with a measure of optimism, and the supreme commander von Hindenburg seemed to foster these hopes. However, the dire economic conditions and the policies of occupation proved exclusively addressed towards the advancement of German interests, and soon quashed this optimism. During the years of German occupation, however, the Jews were fairly much at liberty to develop their own cultural sphere and to cement a solid link with the Lithuanian movements.22 Despite the serious efforts of the German military board of health, the mortality in the entire occupied district tripled. In Warsaw, for instance, the average mortality rate was 15 per thousand in August 1915; in 1916, it increased to over 35 per thousand. The tragic situation of Warsaw closely resembled that of Vilnius, as these important cities became the shelter for the great masses of homeless refugees that the conflict was generating. Naturally, also Warsaw is present in the Magnes-Dushkin and Kahn reports, which described its deplorable conditions, in particular the lack of goods such as shoes and clothing.23 Kahn emphasized the fact that in Warsaw as well as in the province, the result of this particular absence was that people were frequently ashamed of venturing onto the streets to get their warm soup in a people's kitchen. As a result, the children were not only deprived of education but also of food, as meals were provided to them in the school buildings. The situation was even more appalling in 21 Reports received by the Joint Distribution Committee (Clarence Nathan & Co., New York, 1916). AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC Committees, Jüdisches Hilfscomite, August-December 1916, item 1307. 22 M. Greenbaum pp. 214 ff. See also I. Cohen, A History of the Jews in Vilna (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1943). 23 Kahn's report about his travel in December 1916 (December 23, 1916). AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC Committees, Jüdisches Hilfscomite, AugustDecember 1916, item 1348.

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some parts of the province, for instance near Radzimin, where Magnes met 50 families of refugees from Pinsk: all the refugees were living in barracks and were entirely without belongings except for the clothes, or rather rags, on their backs. The relief committees suffered from the lack of funds, which were insufficient to cover all the needs of destitute and poor refugees and fugitives. This meant that while in some moments the service of Warsaw public kitchens was almost suspended, in others it was greatly increased: 600,796 midday meals were served by the Warsaw committee in March 1916, 600,962 in April, 694,742 in May, 805,694 in June, 909,289 in July and 944,652 in August. The cost of a meal increased from 9 to 11 Kopeks each. This money arrived from the municipal administration (50,000 Roubles a month), from those who paid the requested 3-6 Kopeks for a meal (the richer ones paid 20), from the community and most of all from American funds. The young girls represented a very special problem. There were from 80,000 to 100,000 Jewish refugees in Warsaw, and the extreme destitution of the homeless often resulted in their daughters becoming highly demoralized. Consequently, in cooperation with the local Woman's Protective Organization, the American section devoted 1,500 Roubles per month in order to maintain a home for 200 homeless girls.24 The reports clearly admitted that German occupation seemed to deal with the Jewish question with a degree of tolerance – for example recognizing the use of Jewish languages in schools, as stated by the Evreyskaya Nedelia on October 9 (22), 1916 - but the Jewish conditions in Poland were equally defined as desperate and indescribable in several JDC circulars (on March 4, 1917, and December 17, 1917). A cablegram from the American consulate at Copenhagen to the Department of State (October 30, 1917), noted that those in a state of deprivation in the occupied districts amounted to about one and a half million. According to Mr. Farbstein's report (December 15, 1917), the absence of the most essential goods (food, clothing and shelter) created enormous complications such as the spread of diseases: in Warsaw, 30,000 children were in the first stages of tuberculosis. Owing to their inability to feed their families, widows and wives of soldiers who were fighting in the Russian army recorded a 24 Report of the sub-committee on people's kitchens of the relief commission for Jewish war victims (October 10, 1916). AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC Committees, Jüdisches Hilfscomite, August-December 1916.

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worrying increase in the number of cases of mental disease. Prof. Ellinger's and Alfred Heyman's harrowing reports noted that about 80% of the population in Warsaw lived on public help. On January 1, 1918, there were 31,140 families (187,000 persons) registered for relief, food was distributed daily to 100,000 persons: 33% of the children were threatened with consumption.25 Henry Ferbstein, member of the Warsaw Town Council, reported that in some cases the enormous distress led “the parents to keep the death of a child secret in order to make use of his/her bread card”. Out of 90,000 children between 3 and 13 years of age, only 21,000 found accommodation in schools and children’s homes, the others begged in the streets and fell into physical and moral decline. These documents were confirmed by some letters arriving from the war zone, where Jewish conditions were “beyond description”, as there was nothing to eat or to cook: “though we have money, meat and other supplies are refused at any price”.26 One of the few Jewish refugees who succeeded to reach the US, Esther Wologniski of Vilnius, reported: “When the Germans came, she said, it was not so bad at the first. They did not interfere with business. Indeed, some of them bought in our shop and paid the prices asked. Germany had occupied the town about ten days when, acting under a military order the authorities, they seized the shops, the manufactories, and the other places of business. We wanted to know why our things were taken, but we had to be content with the reply that everything was done under orders. Two of our sons were seized by the soldiers. They were released on the payment of $1,000”.27

These conditions were aggravated by the fact that the Polish authorities were not well-disposed towards the Jewish communities. The city councils, probably the only institutions where the Germans were not fully in control – for example in Warsaw and Lublin - created all kinds of hurdles against the subvention of Jewish schools or other organizations. What was happening in Warsaw was equally true for other cities or towns: 25 Draft of a memorandum on constructive relief in the Eastern War Zone (January 23, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Persecution and Pogroms, 214709. 26 “Our conditions here are beyond description. Every day the outlook is becoming more and more dreadful. We are absolutely without food to eat, and we are living far back in the interior, quite removed from cities of any size… We have nothing to cook and though we have money, meat and other supplies are refused at any price”. “War Causes Destitution”, New York Times, July 9, 1916. 27 “Jewish Refugees here from Poland”, New York Times (June 1, 1917).

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at àódĨ, for example, the lack of employment was particularly distressing. Owing to the shortage of raw materials, the great textile industries from which the city drew its sustenance were at an end. As a consequence, when àódĨ was occupied by the Germans, 35,000 skilled workers emigrated to Germany, in order to leave a place that foreign observers described thus: “The place was an absolute inferno. I could never have imagined anything worse. It was fearfully cold, and the hospital was not heated at all, for there was no wood or coal in Lodz, and for the same reason the gas-jets gave out only the faintest glimmer of light. There was no clean linen, and the poor fellows were lying there still in their verminous, blood soaked shirts, shivering with cold, as we had only one small blanket each for them. They were lucky if they had a bed at all, for many were lying with only a little straw between them and the cold stone floor. There were no basins or towels or anything to wash up with, and no spittoons, so the men were spitting all over the already filthy floor. In the largest ward where there were seventy or eighty men lying, there was a lavatory adjoining which had got blocked up, and a thin stream of dirty water trickled under the door and meandered in little rivulets all over the room. The smell was awful, as some of the men had been there already several days without having had their dressings done”.28

In Austrian occupied Lublin, bitter complaints concerned the discrimination that the Polish organizations as well as some of the Austrian officials practiced against the Jews in the general relief work of the municipality. At Minsk, after the beginning of the German occupation, the number of refugees increased markedly. Refugees registered in October 1917 numbered 31,981, and included 12,811 children up to 14 years old, and 2,598 men and women over 60 years of age: 26,958 people out of 31,981 depended exclusively upon assistance.29

The Last Phase of War After the October Revolution, the armistice of December 1917 and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, the Ober Ost reached its 28 Violetta Thurstan, Field Hospital and Flying Column. Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia (London and New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915), p. 133. 29 After German occupation only 52,000 Roubles were received, but the monthly need was for 120-150,000 Roubles. Letter from Minsk occupied by German forces (May 28, 1918). AJDC, Russia K. M 1917-18, 10336.

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greatest extent, as German forces also conquered Livonia and Estonia, and controlled the political situation in formally independent Ukraine too.30 In this period, the fight against Bolshevism was combined with an attempt to colonize the Baltic territories, promising the volunteers of the Freikorps the opportunity to settle in this region and receive land and adequate facilities. In this context, the German command aimed, through a process called Kultur, to transform the identities of the different native populations: German “genius” was essential to impose a new culture on those “uncivilized” people. Given the local ethnic diversity, this was a momentous objective. It was little short of reinventing their culture. In Poland the situation was no less difficult. At the end of 1917, the KFDO was still advocating the introduction of national curiae, but by then, and even much earlier, it had already become clear that the curiae system, or any other form of Jewish national autonomy, would fail. Germany was not willing to do anything about it, the Poles even less, and the Jews - of both Germany and Poland - were divided in their attitude towards autonomy. Germany was often criticized for making only vague promises to the Jews of Poland. In September 1917, G. Gothein, deputy of the Reichstag, wrote that Germany's mistake was to apply to Polish Jews the same policy that was applied to Poles. The only possible solution, according to Gothein, was to revise this strategy and to secure the principle of national autonomy for the minorities. On January 5, 1918, two months after the publication of the Balfour Declaration, the German Deputy Foreign Secretary, von der BuscsheHaddenhausen, made a statement in the name of his government in favour of Zionism and the cultural development of Jewish minorities in Eastern Europe. The German zionist press was jubilant and Franz Oppenheimer warmly welcomed this German declaration “in favour of the linguisticcultural autonomy of the minorities”. It was exactly in this context, when Russian forces were diverted to internal problems and German Ober Ost reached its maximum extent, that Albert Van Raalte was able to spend some months in this region visiting the different localities and contacting the different Jewish communities. 30 Basil Dmytryshyn, “Treaty with Rada on February 9, 1918. German Occupation of the Ukraine, 1918: Some New Evidence”, Études Slaves et EstEuropéennes/Slavic and East-European Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3/4 (AutomneHiver/Fall-Winter 1965/66), pp. 79-92: Xenia Joukoff Eudin, “The German Occupation of the Ukraine in 1918”, Russian Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Nov., 1941), pp. 90-105.

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Leaving the JDC European headquarters at The Hague, in February 1918, Van Raalte went to Berlin and then to Kaunas for a journey that led him to Warsaw, Vienna, Vilnius and other cities of the occupied territories. During this 75-day trip, Van Raalte observed the situation, got in touch with the different local representatives, collected data and information, and tried to produce a clear overview of the Eastern European situation and of the local population's real needs. The general observations naturally underlined the precarious conditions of Jewish communities in the different towns and the need for financial help, as the efforts of the local wealthy people and of the normal citizens were insufficient. Van Raalte described the tragic poverty in Vilnius: the hygienic conditions of life were dire and the general misery especially affected the Jews of the city, as proved by the account of Dr. Schabad, who stated that in his clinic, open to people of all religions, a percentage between 50% and 80% of the patients was Jewish. Some families of refugees managed to obtain a house to live in, while others were not so lucky. There were also families who had been well-off, but in the present situation were demoralised to such an extent that they became common beggars. In one of the Lithuanian towns, Van Raalte had breakfast in a confectioner's, where he saw a young woman whose appearance indicated that she came from a well-to-do family. This girl had been studying to be a pianist before the war and all her brothers had been students at the university. Left behind with her mother, they had been reduced to absolute poverty. Van Raalte visited numerous shelters, public kitchens, schools, charity institutions and described the efforts that the local committees, with the help of American funds, were sustaining in order to alleviate the conditions of poor and needy people. These institutions, such as the àódĨer Israelitische Worltatigjeitsverein, were providing the poor with meals and other support, and in some cases were also handing small amounts of money to impoverished merchants. In àódĨ the needs were increasing and in March 1918, out of 140,000 Jews, about 30,000 were getting their meals in public soup-kitchens. Together with his descriptions of this tragic reality, Van Raalte adopted a more scientific approach and collected budgets, information and all kinds of data, for instance regarding mortality and diseases. Only with this information could the JDC seriously begin to think about the future reconstruction and the “normalization” of Jewish conditions, preparing the

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ground for the work that, it was clear, the JDC agents would be called on to begin after the end of the conflict. It is worth noting some of the figures that Van Raalte inserted in his reports in order to get a general and circumstantiated account of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. First of all, Van Raalte underlined the considerable proportion of people in need of support through meals, clothes, loans and so forth. City

Total Jewish population

People needing support

Kaunas Vilnius Grodno Biaáystok

7,000 57,500 15,350 38,000

3,000 29,430 5,100 27,600

Van Raalte's most exhaustive data concerned the city of Vilnius, where he relied on the cooperation of Dr. Schabad, who provided him with the information regarding the passage from the pre-war situation to that after 1914. These statistics are a unique source of information and are particularly significant as they were collected by those who were directly witnessing the worsening of material, sanitary and psychosocial conditions. The mortality rate in Vilnius was very high and the table below gives a precise account of how the death rate of the civil population rapidly increased after the outbreak of war, saw a drop in 1916 and reached its maximum in 1917, when the casualties doubled those of the previous year. January February March April May June July August September October November December TOTAL

1911 94 111 94 77 101 113 93 111 94 95 88 112 1,183

1912 133 99 83 102 81 103 95 90 105 126 101 93 1,152

1913 98 84 94 98 95 66 79 86 101 106 97 84 1,188

1914 112 98 104 104 79 91 95 130 115 124 105 139 1,302

1915 128 129 130 130 146 154 188 271 330 435 145 163 2,165

1916 173 192 116 116 120 99 95 99 108 121 166 209 1,680

1917 330 360 447 378 424 325 304 274 251 184 182 221 3,680

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Van Raalte underlined the high mortality rates of children under 5 years of age, which were evident on looking at the statistics of 1916 and 1917. Taking into consideration the lack of proportions between the general death rate and the infant mortality, it was evident that such “abnormal” phenomenon could only be explained by the appalling conditions in which the Jews were living. Boys 88 78 148

1916 - first half of the year 1916 - second half of the year 1917 - January-May

Girls 63 63 120

The following figures, instead, give an insight into the death causes and showed a clear increase of some diseases, which were clearly the consequence of poor material conditions and of the lack of medical assistance (tuberculosis, kidney diseases and weakness, which could easily be confused with poor nourishment and hunger).

Contagious diseases Tuberculosis Diseases of the digestive organs Diseases of the respiratory organs Heart and blood-vessel diseases Diseases of the urinary organs Nerve and brain diseases Cancer and such like Blood diseases Weakness Accidents

1915 12.05% 6.05% 7.25%

1916 2.80% 12.70% 4.55%

1917 (January-May) 3.36% 13% 4.30%

19.25%

15.15%

12.20%

9.05%

10.05%

9.50%

5.50%

11.90%

14.70%

6.60% 4.50% 1.10% 17.50% 10.70%

5.20% 3.50% 1.45% 26.40% 6.30%

2.70% 1.50% 1.30% 34.40% 3.04%

Further evidence of the constant worsening and impoverishment was given by the data on life and death rates:

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 (January-May)

Births 904 908 773 748 667 394 112

Deaths 606 641 568 696 1,164 869 1,052

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Difference +298 +267 +205 +52 -457 -475 -941

The proportion of Jewish deaths compared to the general mortality also showed that the death rate among the Jews was always higher – albeit not greatly - than among the non-Jews. If according to the census of 1916 the Jews represented 41.5% of the total population of Vilnius, the rates of the first months of 1917 always exceeded this proportion:

January February March April May June July TOTAL

Persons 659 731 875 871 1,030 752 784 5,702

Jews 282 325 442 363 463 304 354 2,533

Jewish percentage 42.80% 44.40% 50.50% 41.60% 45% 40.40% 45.10% 44.40%

The same situation affected other cities such as Warsaw (where the death rate doubled from 1916 to 1917 and rose from 7,211 to 14,111 casualties), àódĨ or Lublin (here, the deaths were 712 in 1913, 842 in 1916 and 949 in 1917). These figures should be interpreted taking into account that the Jewish population generally decreased as many moved to smaller towns in the occupied territory. At the same time, the food rations were improved also thanks to the assistance of the American Jews, which was appreciated and viewed as necessary by all the committees that Van Raalte met during his journey. The financial help of the JDC supported the efforts of these numerous local associations and branches in providing for food, clothes and even psychological assistance to the needy, including the families of

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reservists and of emigrants who could not count on a monthly revenue.31 Just a few months after Van Raalte's visit, the fall of the Russian Empire and the internal crisis of Germany foreshadowed the end to the war. At the end of 1918, the area under German occupation was rapidly dismantled by the birth of new states such as Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

31 In 1917 the committee of Lublin assisted 402 families of reservists (1,145 persons), 229 families of emigrants (814 persons) and 974 families of poor people (3,377 persons), for a total account of 1,505 families or 5,336 persons.

GIMME SHELTER: THE REFUGEE CRISIS DURING THE WAR

The massive population displacement brought about by the conflict is undoubtedly a focal point to understand the problems of a new era. Despite its relevance, the fate of millions of people has been omitted from the narrative of twentieth-century Russian and European history, and only recently have books such as Peter Gatrell's A Whole Empire Walking focused on this crucial issue.1 The problem of refugees was a direct consequence of war operations and affected both the Western Front, for example Belgium, and the vast areas of the Eastern Front. But Gatrell suggests that the rupture caused by population displacement was qualitatively different from the human ordeal of loss and destruction felt by all belligerent countries. World War I not only meant the fall of empires and the shaping of a new international scenario, it also led to a complete transformation of institutions and society. In Russia, the fratricidal civil war went hand in hand with the “revolution” of ideas, models and behaviours: “refugees mocked modernity no less than they ridiculed the social conventions of Tsarist Russia”.2 According to Gatrell, the primary element to understand the “refugeedom” in Russia was represented by the dichotomy civil vs. military power. On one side, the army evacuated entire areas, expelled people and generated increasing flows of refugees; on the other, the local authorities, the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, with the support of relief organizations, dealt with the demands of social services throughout the empire, trying to reduce and mitigate the effects of this humanitarian emergency.

1 P. Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). The moderate estimate of 3 million people is based on the documents of 1915-1916 while the People’s Commissariat for Health, after the Revolution, maintained that the real number of refugees was closer to 9 or 10 million. 2 Ibidem, p. 199.

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Generally, the iconic representation of refugees and the mobilization of aid on their behalf were the consequence of their marginalization, which prevented them from taking a meaningful part in the political and social dynamics of their new communities. At the same time, the aid to refugees was an important instrument for the consolidation of “national” identities and for strengthening the internal cohesion of particular minority groups. This cohesion, unfortunately, often meant the “demonization” of the other ethnic groups: “The unrelenting efforts of the Polish nationalists and of the antisemitic press have been crowned with ample success. The wholly unfounded accusations of disloyalty they have piled on the Jews have led to the expulsions of our brethren from the whole of Poland (with the exception of one or two provinces), further from the Baltic provinces, from the province of Kovno and from part of the province of Vilna”.3

In essence, the problem of refugees was a tragedy within a tragedy. As a Russian observer commented in 1916, the sacrifices that these unfortunates experienced had no parallel and could only be compared with the slaughter of the Armenians in Turkey: in both cases, thousands of peaceful, innocent people were killed in the midst of hideously cruel armed conflicts.4 The conflict and the Russian military politics continued to drive thousands of refugees from Poland, the Baltic Provinces and Northwest Russia into the interior of the country. In April 1915, for example, the entire Jewish population from the governorates of Kaunas, Courland and Grodno began to move in droves, driven by the Cossacks' nagyka and herded into closed railroad cars. In some places such as Chelyabinsk, the mortality of the children meant the annihilation of the entire young generation.5 The conditions of these refugees immediately awakened the interest of specialized observers and public opinion. By the end of 1916, the Tatiana committee proposed organizing a special exhibition on refugees to inform the Russian public about their living conditions, though the project was interrupted by the February Revolution. A similar initiative was organized by the Interior Ministry in Austria. In this context, two new words became frequent in the columns of Russian 3 Document of July 6, 1915. AJDC, Refugees in Russia, 1915-1917, 6710. 4 “Russia's War Refugees”, The Russian Review, Volume 1, May 1916. 5 Report of OZE of February 10, 1918. AJDC, Refugees in Russia, 1915-1917, item 6712.

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press: vyselentsy (those who were forced to leave) and biezhentsy (those who fled voluntarily). The former were often ordered to leave within twenty-four hours owing to military directives, the latter could prepare their flight better. In both cases, these terror-stricken civilians were compelled to sell all their property, or simply leave it behind, as they rushed to take any available road leading to the nearest place of safety. The result was that tens of thousands of Jewish families were homeless fugitives (mostly women, children and old men) living in holes, barracks or roughing it on the pavement. In this unending confusion, parents lost their children, husbands became separated from their wives, and many lost their lives in a flight often amidst blazing fires and heavy artillery. A vivid description of this mass of people on the move is contained in Ansky's report on Galicia, where the Jewish researcher had the opportunity to meet crowds of retreating troops and evacuating people.6 In some coaches, 4-5 people were squeezed together with their back to the horses. These bizarre vehicles recalled those once used to transport criminals through town: “the faces of those condemned Jews were like those of criminals being taken to execution”. The Ministry of the Interior could not simply ignore the question and organized a specific department for the removal of refugees, while a Special Conference (law of August 30, 1915), presided over by the assistant minister of the interior, was called to consider the problem and to take care of the streams of refugees and of their immediate needs. In the first phase, these measures were largely ineffective. In fact, the apportioned sums were not immediately available because the department of Police and the Ministry of the Interior issued a circular to all governors not to provide any subsidies to Jewish refugees but to direct all applications to the Petrograd committee. As a result, the refugees began to receive state money only after the real enforcement of the law, with the regulation of March 2, 1916, when the situation changed and the funds were transferred directly to the various committees. The territory of origin of these refugees was considerable in extent. Not only the governments occupied by the “Teutonic” troops (Poland, the governments of Grodno, Vilnius, Kaunas, Courland, the western part of Minsk, Livonia, Volhynia and Galicia), but also those which were merely threatened with invasion, gave their quota of refugees (the governments of Podolia, Bessarabia, Vitebsk, Pskov, the southern part of Transcaucasia 6 S. Ansky, The Enemy at His Pleasure, p. 193.

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and parts of Kiev). In addition, many localities were equally conditioned by the disastrous effects of the war, and witnessed the passage of retreating soldiers, evacuees and fugitives. The small shtetl of Kobrin, for example, was crowded with refugees, cooking food and drying laundry over campfires or feeding cows and horses: “All squares, courtyards, vacant areas, riverbanks, and parks were occupied by the homeless, especially male and female peasants, who could be identified from afar by the loud colours of their clothing... These thousands of people looked like nomads wandering with their herds from place to place”.7

The total number of refugees was difficult to calculate as the estimates were mainly based on the lists of those applying for relief, but not everybody registered for help. The United Committee of the Municipal and Zemstvo Unions estimated that by November 1915, the number of refugees who had settled in new residences, in large cities or in rural areas, had reached 2,267,274. Some regions had huge numbers of refugees: the government of Ekaterinoslav hosted 250,000; that of Samara 204,000; Tambov 155,000; Kharkov 121,000; Saratov 117,000.8 Among the various national organizations for rendering aid to the refugees, extensive and structured work was carried out by the Jewish committees. On November 8, 1915, a conference of Jewish engineers and technicians was held at Petrograd, and the question of refugees was widely discussed. From the reports of the conference, it appeared that by November 1, 1915, one hundred and forty-three Jewish committees were engaged in the task of registering refugees all over the country. Moreover, one hundred and sixty-one special committees were organized for the purpose of rendering aid, joining the efforts and work of the All-Russian Zemstvos and Municipal Unions, of co-operative organizations, as well as of national or religious organizations. The material needs of the refugees were further aggravated by problems preventing their emigration from Russia and the Pale: in fact, only in spring 1915 did the government concede permission to settle refugees outside the Pale, where many territories had been overcrowded during the first phase. Despite this government measure, in many cases the “capricious orders of the governors” continued to hinder a rational 7 Ibidem, p. 196. 8 Report of OZE of February 10, 1918. AJDC, Refugees in Russia, 1915-1917, 6712.

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distribution of refugees. While an average transportation lasted 10-14 days, one train became renowned for the length of the journey, which lasted one month and caused considerable privation to the passengers: it departed Kaunas en route to Poltava, then returned to Kaunas, stopped in Vilnius and was finally sent again to the interior of Russia. It was only after the first months that the committees managed to create better conditions. The OZE organized convoys for 42 trains and 40,000 refugees, and in some of the trains entire hospitals and homes for the aged were transported, in others again there were many invalids suffering from various diseases such as cholera. The journey was an experience that brought refugees face to face with death, but also with birth. During this “odyssey” some people died, while a number of children came into the world. In addition to the challenging business of “humanizing” travel conditions, the relief committees were called on to provide for the settlement and lodging of these unfortunates, which in the beginning was thought to be merely a temporary accommodation. The continuation of war proved however that these experiences could easily become something different. In 1916-17, when it became clear the war was not ending and the return home was out of question, people tried to settle in their new places of residence. “Families were scattered and separated on the roads in the forests and fields, and left to die of starvation and cold. Most of these wanderers found their way into larger cities, also in cities of the interior of Russia, overcrowded trains going from place to place without any particular destination, the committee had to take of these trains with medical aid, food and provisions, money and guides”.9

This document did not contain an overall estimate of the refugee number, but described the situation only in a particular moment, counting on incomplete and provisional statistics. Many reports explained that it was not possible to state the approximate number of homeless Jews: on November 1, 1916, the committee registered 210,000 refugees, but the numbers obviously indicated only those applying for help (food rations, lodging, medical aid). Responding to Warburg's enquiries, Otto Schiff reported these numbers: 1 million and a half had lost their homes, and 300,000 of them still seemed to be homeless. The most crowded localities 9 Report of the Central Jewish Committee for Relieving the Victims of the War from August 1914 until June 30, 1917. AJDC, Russia, General 1917, item 10135.

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were Simferopol (7,584), Kharkov (5,800), Kiev (12,000), Vitebsk (3,700), Dwinsk (5,000) and Minsk (28,506).10 In another 1916 document, the situation was described in greater detail, highlighting the differences among the 4 main areas of dislocation. The provinces of the north-western front-line (Vilnius, Vitebsk, Livonia, Minsk, Mogilev) hosted 53,534 refugees. The provinces of the southwestern frontline were divided into two zones: Ekaterinoslav, Poltava, Taurida, Kharkiv with 41,146 refugees receiving food from the local organizations; Bessarabia, Volhynia, Kiev, Podolia and Chernihiv with 16,836 refugees, dependent on the committee of Kiev for food, and from the central committee for clothes and shoes. The provinces of the interior or of the rear hosted 74,078 refugees who were supported through funds for the general needs of the provinces, but in many places such as Kaluga or Tula, the care of Jewish refugees rested entirely upon the means of local Jewish committees, which in turn received their funds from the Moscow Society for the Relief to the Victims of War. The committee calculated that 75% of refugees received warm clothing and shoes, while food supplies were furnished in accordance with the requests of the local committees. In Astrakhan, a typical food ration consisted of one quarter lb. of meat, one and half lb. of bread, tea and two lumps of sugar, one quarter lb. of potatoes and 1/8 lb. of cereals. Some cities were particularly affected by the problem of refugees as they lay on the routes they were taking: in 1916, in Poltava the number rose from 5,368 to 10,842 in a few months, in Taurida from 8,350 to 9,074, in Ekaterinoslav from 10,842 to 13,211, in Volhynia from 520 to 8,259, and in Vilnius from 1,135 to 3,166. In many cases, this increase was simply the consequence of new registrations of people who initially had the means to live without receiving public aid.11 According to the Evreyskaya Nedelia, Odessa was receiving at least 25-30 persons every day, while the Lublin newspaper Glos Lubel reported that, before and after the conflict, the Jewish population of Kholm passed from 38.8% to 72.3%.12 At Kiev, the evacuation committee registered 1,800 10 Document signed by Otto Schiff and sent to Felix Warburg in response to a letter of February (March 14, 1916). AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10014. 11 Data submitted by the EKOPO to the Special Conference for the Organization of War Refugees. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10010. 12 In the State of Smolensk, 844 families of refugees were not working but living on their own resources, while the Jewish relief was giving allowances to 23 families. Evreyskaya Nedelia (May 15-28, 1916). Document of December 30,

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refugees and deportees in only 3 months (September-November 1916), and between May 1915 and November 1916 “invested” 400,000 Roubles for the help of 19,758 persons.13 The increase was apparent chiefly in the provinces of the south-western and north-western front lines, whereas in the provinces of the interior the number of refugees did not substantially change. In some localities, where registration was more complete, the situation was not as disastrous as it was initially expected: in the province of Irkutsk, there were only 334 needy refugees instead of 712 as previously reported; in the province of Kazan, 1,424 instead of 1,927; in the province of Zostroma, 770 instead of 825; in the province of Novgorod, 456 instead of 677; in the province of Tver, 1,011 instead of 1,670. About 84% of them received food rations. Naturally, this was just one side of the story. The other concerned those places people were fleeing from: the Jews from Khirardov, Piaseczno, Grodzisk and Pruszków were crowding into Warsaw, those of Lithuania went to Vilnius. As a consequence, in places such as Brody, while 16,000 fled, only 6,000 remained, at least according to A. Pankratov, the correspondent of the Russkoe Slovo. In November 1914, there were 20,000 “foreign” Jews in Warsaw: 800 were from Kielce, 1,500 from Radom. At Opolia, the resident population was 688, the refugees were 557.14 In March 1915, there were 100,000 refugees in Warsaw, Suwaáki and Kielce, 40,000 in Vilnius and Kaunas, 80,000 in Ekaterinoslav, Mogilev, Poltava, Taurida, Chernihiv.15 To relieve the needs of this mass of people, the committees opened food stores and cooperatives to buy and sell products at the same price. They provided fuel for the winter, clothes and footwear, opened schools and educational centres for children, gave credit loans to professional workers, established medical-sanitary units, a legal advice bureau and a statistical bureau. The cost of these initiatives was calculated at 1,800,000 Roubles a month for a total number of 350,000 refugees: the average expense for every registered refugee, as estimated in July 1916 by the Jewish Committee for the Relief to the Victims of War, was 8 Roubles in the front

1916. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10081. 13 Evreyskaya Nedelia (October 23; November 3, 20; December 3, 1916). 14 Report of OZE (February 10, 1918). AJDC, Refugees in Russia, 1915-1917, 6712. 15 Outline of the history of EKOPO from August 1914 until the end of 1919. AJDC, Russia, Relations with Associations, 233137.

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zone and 7 in the rear.16 On March 1, 1916, the EKOPO reported to the Special Conference that the total sum of expenditures since September 1914 up to January 1916 was 5,290,381.90 Roubles (excluding the sums transferred to local philanthropic institutions after January 1916). The incoming sums were a little higher (5,709,188.47 Roubles) and consisted in contributions, collections and self-taxation, in addition to the funds that were assigned from the government and from the committee of Princess Tatiana Nikolaevna.17 These resources, however, were insufficient to cope with the testing conditions of those times. At Irkutsk, not all the refugees received government help (in Manzurk 12 out of 31, in Kachug only 3 out of 55), and the Voronezh authorities refused the refugees their portion of food on the grounds that they arrived at that gubernia on their own account.18 In many localities, the only income came from the central committee, and in general “not all the refugees could avail themselves of food rations”. The requests for clothes and footwear were always higher than what was effectively distributed: for example, Simferopol requested 10,000 Roubles but received 5,000; Odessa 60,000 and got 30,000, Mariupol 20,000 but received 10,000; only in a few cases did the sums match (at Elizabetgrad, for example, 17,000 Roubles).19 A good strategy for organizing this complex and extended structure was to carry out a policy of centralization. To this end, the committee organised a central purchasing bureau in Moscow, buying raw materials in large quantities. Another strategy was to give people the means for selfsustenance, and the committees consequently organized loans on a large scale, furnishing credits through banks and credit societies to those refugees who only needed temporary aid to become self-supporting. About one-third of the registered Jewish refugees benefited from these loans.20

16 Cablegram of the Jewish Colonization Association (May 17, 1916). Russia, General 1916, item 10031. 17 Data submitted by the EKOPO to the Special Conference for the Organization of War Refugees. AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10010. 18 Evreyskaya Nedelia, September 16 (29), 1916; November 13 (26), 1916. 19 Financial report of the Central Jewish Committee for Aiding War Victims (from the commencement of its activities to July 1916). AJDC, Russia, General 1916, item 10075. 20 Report transmitted to Cyrus Adler on January 23, 1919.

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Another urgent problem was the question of housing. In many cities the refugees were quartered in synagogues, parks and market places, and were accommodated in temporary shelters, with no segregation as to age, sex or family relations. In places like Orenburg the refugees were housed en masse as only a small number could be settled in separate lodgings, while the majority was obliged to live in mission houses. To ameliorate these conditions, the committee found it necessary to induce the refugees to move on in small groups to the nearest suburbs that were not yet overcrowded: “Experience shows that refugees living in separate lodgings settle down to some kind of business or work much quicker. The living of refugees en masse demands, therefore, considerable moneys, by far exceeding the expense necessary either for the evacuation of refugees, or even for the organization of special lodgings”.

The problem of housing was particularly important as it conditioned the medico-sanitary aspects. Various diseases could spread more easily in missions, public buildings or houses where many people lived together, considering too that the general lack of transportation and facilities did not permit carrying out medico-sanitary measures efficiently. At Vitebsk, for example, for 15,990 refugees, there were only 4 ambulances, 1 hospital and 4 homes. The OZE was designated to organize medico-sanitary relief and to care for the children, organizing the convoys with special escorting crews that accompanied refugees to places of new settlement and supplied them with food. It arranged special divisions with clinics, hospitals for infectious diseases (Danbrov, Vangrov near Lomsa, Otvotsk in the governorate of Warsaw), hospitals with 12-15 beds in view of an epidemic of typhoid fever (Melitopol), an isolation house (Ekaterinoslav), and created special places for the children called “A Drop of Milk”. Some medical expeditions were organized in zones near the frontline: they consisted of a flying ambulance to administer medical relief and possibly nourishment to the population, one executive, two physicians, two trained nurses and two dieticians. The cost of these operations, as published by the Evreyskaya Nedelia, increased constantly: at the end of 1914 it was 8,448 Roubles, in January 1915 it reached 15,054, in December 1915 it grew to 34,962. The total expenditure for 1915 was 245,711 Roubles (149,558 for medico-sanitary

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help; 61,797 for children's settlements, 22,579 for special feeding).21 Another less urgent but equally important form of help was the opening of schools. This was possible by cooperation with the Society for the Spread of Education among the Jews of Russia, which operated in 88 localities and supported 115 schools that were attended by 18,635 children. Furthermore, some special agencies to secure work through local committees were established under the direction of the Society for Manual and Agricultural Labor among Jews. “The enforced idleness of tens of thousands of persons in their new settlements and the resulting demoralization of those refugees, raised, from the beginning, the question of assisting the victims by procuring work for them”.22

The ORT became a genuine labor department of a small state: some special manufacturing shops were created to make shoes, linen, knitwear, and clothes; other agencies organized manual training classes for boys and adults capable of working; some special workshops were established for seamstresses in Ekaterinoslav, Simferopol and Nizhny Novgorod, for carpenters in Mariupol, and for embroiderers in Lugansk.23 The department of relief established shelters for apprentices between 12 and 17 years old in 10 different localities and placed 500 apprentices through contracts with the proprietor of the shop (there were also afternoon courses with subjects such as technical drawing). Finally, other expenses concerned the information and statistics bureau, the local offices and the payment of executives' salaries and travelling costs. The EKOPO could not limit its work to furnishing material needs but, in some way, it also had to intervene to defend the interests of refugees and to ameliorate, when possible, their juridical conditions. A legal advice bureau was created in order to help the Jews without valid passports or in cases of abuse on the part of police authorities. In addition to this legal aid, the political pressures at the central level proved highly efficacious, for example to support the law of August 30 21 The employees were: 30 physicians, 40 assistant surgeons, 2 sanitary officers, 9 sisters of charity, 8 dieticians, and 47 kindergarten assistants who were remunerated (250-550 Roubles to the physician per month, 75 to the sanitation officer). Evreyskaya Nedelia, November 27 (December 10), 1916. 22 Outline of the history of EKOPO from August 1914 until the end of 1919. AJDC, Russia, Relations with Associations, 233137. 23 Evreyskaya Nedelia, October 9 (22), 1916.

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(Sept. 12), 1915, thanks to which the government released state funds for refugees and deportees; or in 1916-17 to ask the minister of the interior to allow those Jewish families whose children were attending Moscow schools, to remain in Moscow. The minister approved and the government commission later congratulated the EKOPO for its work.24 Naturally, the problem of refugees was not just a Russian question. The invasions of Galicia, in particular, generated substantial flows that were directed towards Austria-Hungary, where the government tried to set up a widespread relief network of committees. A conference was convened on November 28, 1916, in order to create a Central Committee for the distribution of the relief funds, though it was forced to halt its work after two months. The Austrian government furnished free shelter in specially constructed barracks, provided a minimum of clothing, and granted one crown per day to every refugee. Three large auxiliary committees for Eastern, Central and Western Galicia were established on the part of the Israelitische Allianz in Lemberg, PrzemyĞl and Kraków, and, in addition, some executive committees were formed in large towns such as Kolomya, Yaroslav, Brody, Stanislaw (Stanisáawów).25 The flow of refugees touched many different localities such as Stanisáawów, or Ungarisch-Hradiach, where in August 1916, the arrival of 8,000 refugees was recorded in a single day, or Lemberg, where the local committee cared for 9,844 refugees in June 1916, 11,572 in July and 24,269 in August. Unfortunately, the barracks erected by the Austrian government as stopovers for refugees en route to their allotted destinations often proved unsuitable. In a later phase, the government abandoned the barracks system and distributed the refugees in villages and small towns, regardless 24 In July 1916, the Jewish committee of Enisaysk wrote to Deputy Wostrotine demanding to permit refugees to live in or near large towns; the right to move from one place to another; to grant the members of the committee to act as attorneys for refugees who did not speak Russian. Outline of the history of EKOPO from August 1914 until the end of 1919. AJDC, Russia, Relations with Associations, 233137. 25 In a second moment, the relief work in Galicia and Bukovina was supervised by two committees, The Jewish Relief Committee for East Galicia, with headquarters at Lemberg, and the Jewish Central Relief Committee for West Galicia, with headquarters at Krakow. Plans for the participation of American Jewry in the rehabilitation of the Jews in Galicia by Dr. Riegel. report on the condition of Jews in Eastern Galicia (May 20, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-19, item 218853.

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of the presence of other Jewish groups. Relief actions were assigned to local committees, like those mentioned in the table here, which took care of the relative number of refugees: Brunn

6,000

Budweis

4,510

Deutschbrod

367 + 505

Gaya

2,221

Graz

4,000

Karlsbad

3,000

Lienz (district)

9,833 (including 5,022 from Bukovina)

PlzeĖ

7,434

Weisskirchen

2,000

Salzburg

1,815

Troppau (Silesia)

12,633

Mistek

2,398

Singular conditions were to be found in Prague, where at first the local community organized a centre for the refugees in the inner city but did not establish an agency in the suburban towns. In Hungary, the government decreed the expulsion of 200,000 refugees during Passover season in 1916. After the pressures of the Allianz, a postponement of some weeks was granted and the rules somewhat relaxed. Some of the refugees were later sent to Austria, while those who were at least in part self-supporting were allowed to remain.26 Also in Austria, the number of refugees was difficult to calculate and an estimate at the end of 1916 referred to 75,155 Jewish refugees in Bohemia, 31,344 in Moravia, 7,000 in Eastern Galicia, 4,000 in Styria, 10,000 in Northern Austria, 50,000 in Vienna and Southern Austria, and 300,000 in

26 Report of the Allianz for the administrative year 1916 (June 25, 1917). AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC Committees, Israelitische Allianz 1914-1916, item 1501.

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Western Austria.27 One of the main consequences of the refugee crisis was that the salvation of these people also meant their marginalization. As Gatrell poignantly underlined, as newcomers, the refugees were often isolated in their new communities, and were consequently shut out of the scramble for land and power that was taking place throughout Russia. Equally, in many different regions of the Habsburg Empire, a certain feeling of hostility against the refugees from Galicia was generated by the misery and lack of means of these people. The Jewish lawyers in Vienna, for example, asked for a limitation of the legal profession for their Jewish colleagues coming from Galicia and Bukovina.28 When the war ended and new frontiers were drawn up on the European map, a new life began for many of these refugees, but it brought new perspectives and new challenges: they had to settle in a new country, with a different official language, with different rules. The presence of these people in many European countries was often perceived as a “threat” to their national cohesion. The solution to the question of refugees depended on the dilemma between repatriation and emigration, which was central to Cyrus Adler's reports. Over the years, the European political developments steered things in favour of the latter. As Carlyle Macartney would later point out in his book on the work of the League of Nations, the seeds of these mass movements of population were laid even before the Russian revolution of 1917. They began in the fighting along the Eastern Front, which created the first global refugee question in 20th century history, inevitably conditioning the following years, and the settlement of a new “order” after the Great War.29 From the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Balkans to the Baltic Sea, the Russian 27 Report of Israelitische Allianz zu Wien on November 17, 1916. Press notice of January 23, 1917. AJDC, Overseas Administration, JDC committees, Israelitische Allianz 1914-1916, item 1442. 28 Letter of Dr. Yanisky to the editor of the Wahrheit (April 19, 1916). AJDC, Galicia 1915-1919, item 7296. 29 K. Long, “Early Repatriation Policy: Russian Refugee Return 1922–1924”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 22, Issue 2, pp. 133-154, 2008; E. Chinyaeva, “Russian Émigrés: Czechoslovak Refugee Policy and the Development of the International Refugee Regime between the Two World Wars”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 8, Issue 2, pp. 142-162; S. Johnson, “Communism in Russia Only Exists on Paper: Czechoslovakia and the Russian Refugee Crisis, 1919-1924”, Contemporary European History, Vol. 16, No. 3 (August 2007), pp. 371-394.

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refugees were forced to rebuild their lives among communities who often viewed them with diffidence and hostility. Such feelings were stronger against the Jews, who were demonised as agents of Bolshevism and enemies of the nations they were now living in.

STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND: JEWISH REFUGEES IN THE FAR EAST

“Within the past three months Seattle has become the home port and destination point of hundreds of Jewish refugees from war-stricken Europe. Two steamships lines, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha and the Osaka Chosen Kaisha, alternate in weekly arrivals of their steamers at this port. On every steamer are from 30 to 60 of our brethren, mostly young, hardy men, representing all trades and professions”.1

According to the Russian census of 1897, in Siberia there were 34,477 Jews by religion: 8,239 in the governorate of Irkutsk, 7,899 in the province of Tomsk, 7,550 in Trans-Baikal. The majority lived in towns along the Trans-Siberian Railway. When the military authorities began their policy of evacuations, these small local communities were enlarged by those who had been expelled or deported. If in 1913 the total Jewish population amounted to 58,730, it was estimated that between 20,000 and 80,000 people traversed the Urals during the war.2 Some of them managed to settle by employing their own resources or with the help of the EKOPO, others instead continued their trip eastwards eventually headed towards America. As a consequence, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) established a special agency in Seattle, one of the main landing ports of the new immigrants (mostly women and children). American public opinion was especially interested in the conditions of these refugees, for example in Harbin, where Russian and Japanese officials seemed to cooperate.3 According to the New York Times, more than 13,000 Jewish refugees had reached the port of Seattle up to December 1915, while many others also arrived at San Francisco and Vancouver, travelling from Russia through Siberia, China and Japan: “Since the revolution however, owing to the depreciation of the Russian 1 J. Sommer, “War Refugees at Seattle”, Bulletin of the National Conference of Jewish Charities, March 1916, p. 130. 2 Draft of a memorandum on constructive relief in the Eastern War. Letter of M. A. Charosh transmitted to Cyrus Adler on January 23, 1919. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms and Persecutions, 214709. 3 “Jews suffering in China”, New York Times, January 16, 1918; “Help 200 Jewish Refugees”, New York Times, May 5, 1918.

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Strangers in a Strange Land: The Jewish Refugees in the Far East Rouble, many immigrants who began their journey with sufficient funds to reach their destination have found that their funds were exhausted before they reached the port of embarkation and as a result many immigrants were stranded in China and Japan and especially at Yokohama”.4

The State Department instructed the consul in Japan to investigate, and the subsequent survey reported the presence of some Jewish refugees in Yokohama (one man, 156 women and 170 children) awaiting transportation to the US. Schiff urged the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to send a representative to the Far East, in order to investigate and improve the situation of Russian-Jewish refugees migrating to Japan, via Vladivostok, Harbin and Korea. Samuel Mason was selected for the mission and left New York on November 16, 1917, staying in Yokohama from January 1 until July 7, 1918. Mason's work, thus, needs to be contextualized: it took place immediately after the October Revolution, when the Reds had seized power in Central Russia, while the Whites were recharging their batteries in the vast periphery of what up to that moment had been a century-old Empire. Right after his arrival in Japan, Mason wrote to the president of HIAS, John L. Bernstein, informing him of the conditions he found when taking possession of the local sheltering house together with Lester L. Schnare, vice-consul at Shanghai: “I was shocked to find the house they were kept in (the new quarters) lacking the most necessary sanitary facilities, and the plight of the inmates was so much more pathetic because they emanate from the better classes and have been accustomed to modern standards of living. My first attention was therefore directed to the housing conditions with a view of protecting the health of the inmates”.5

At the time of their departure, the emigrants were mainly well-to-do people. They often succeeded in travelling in relative comfort, bringing with them considerable sums in roubles, which later substantially depreciated: a rouble was sold in Yokohama for the equivalent of six American cents. Mason also added that other refugees were starving in 4 “Report Great Work for Jewish Relief”, New York Times, January 4, 1916. Letter of HIAS President John Bernstein to Warburg (February 17, 1918). More detailed information about this flow, however, was received only in 1917 thanks to a letter that B. M. Fleischer, publisher of the Japan Advertiser of Yokohama, sent to Jacob H. Schiff. AJDC, HIAS 1918, 5544. 5 Letter of S. Mason from Yokohama (January 14, 1918). AJDC, HIAS 1918, 6673.

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Siberia between Chelyabinsk and Chita (not only Jewish but also Catholic, Armenian, Syrian refugees); 11,000 lived in Harbin and 4,000 in Yokohama. In the localities of transit the situation was very grave. At Harbin, the Russian emigrants were cruelly exploited by organized swindlers, traffickers in white slave and opium. At Vladivostok, men, women and children were kept in dirty cellars, without beds but only tables to sleep on, no separation of sex, no protection for women and girls from sailors and soldiers. On January 28, Mason reported on the first measures he took to improve the conditions of refugees: he chased out an organised gang of swindlers; male and female emigrants were separated and lodged in different quarters; every inmate was physically examined, the clothes were fumigated and vaccinated; eligible emigrants under US immigration law were selected. Some were repatriated to Russia, for others English language classes for migrants were organised, while notices were published in Russian and Yiddish press about the necessary qualifications required in the US.6 In a confidential supplement to his public report, Mason described his travels in post-revolutionary Manchuria and Siberia more fully, noting “a stubborn anti-Jewish feeling” and the fear of imminent destruction, as both the Bolsheviks and the anti-Bolsheviks were announcing terrible punishments.7 Mason was informed about the slaughter of 400 Jews in Glochoff and explained how he perceived this situation: the Russian government was in the hands of a small minority of intellectual extremists, who were backed by an ignorant mass of illiterate peasants and former soldiers. Many Jews (but also German and Austrian prisoners of war) were hired as secretaries and clerks because of this shortage of “hands”, and were thus identified by the populace as the “revolutionaries” governing Red Russia. According to Mason, on the contrary, the Jews were decidedly opposed to Bolshevism, as they were mainly engaged in trade and commercial activities. In Harbin and Vladivostok, Mason met many Jewish young men who wished to join the American army (for example Max Leipziger, who served in the Russian army after 1915 but later escaped to China) or the Jewish Legion 6 The statement about the results after Mason's arrival was contained in a letter to Jacob Schiff from Yokohama (January 28, 1918). AJDC, HIAS, item 6675. 7 Confidential supplement to the public report of Samuel Mason (February 28, 1918). AJDC, HIAS 1918, item 5586.

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serving in Palestine under the British Flag.8 Nevertheless, in South Russia and Eastern Siberia it was easy for reactionary elements to incite the soldiers against the Jews, and to create the impression that the Jews alone were to blame for the Bolshevik regime. In addition to the hostile White Regime governing Siberia, the German prisoners of war represented another serious threat, for example at Tomsk: “for them the Jews were the easiest prey for exercising their ill-concealed desire for vengeance”. In the report he drafted in August 1918, when the first American troops reached Vladivostok, Mason explained the situation in Japan, where in cooperation with the Günzburg Home for Russian Emigrants and a committee of kind-hearted charitable ladies (Günzburg, Isaacs, Berrick, Neville), he had worked for the creation of the Home for Refugees that was opened on February 11, 1918, in the former Royal Hotel.9 After one month, this building, which in January had appeared filthy and in a deplorable state, looked modern, clean and in every respect representative of the high purpose it was serving. A room was used for classes, another for religious worship, 8 new lavatories were installed, while 2 small houses in the rear served as a storeroom for foodstuffs and as a laundry. Some Jews worked as waiters, porters, executive secretaries, and night watchmen; a medical division was regularly employed, including an eye specialist, a physician, and at least 2 lectures were given every week to teach hygiene and start a process of “Americanization” for those going to the US.10 Mason underlined the problematic question of emigration to the US, which was first of all hindered by bureaucratic problems and the refusal of the American consuls in the Far East to visa Russian passports without an order from Washington. The process normally took at least 3 months (application, control at Washington, visa), and the only alternative was to pay for a cable to the respective families in the US: 3-5 weeks were needed for a response, but the cost was 400 Roubles (80 Yen), more than a month's salary of one of the employees at Yokohama. The procedure could 8 On the Jewish Legion's military operations in Palestine, Michael Shlomit Keren, We Are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010). 9 Mason's report, Our Mission to the Far East (August 12, 1918). 10 The employees at Yokohama were: Aron Kassakiewitch, Josef Silberberg, Louis Mandelbaum, Malkiel Godlin, J. Bolokovsky, Isidore Gold, Abram Rodoff, Max Rochlin, Dr. Reidhaar (physician), Dr. Rukoky (eye specialist). The porters and maids were Japanese and Russian.

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be quicker when the relatives in the US directly applied to the Department of State, but in this case those having relatives were facilitated more than those (even educated people, professors) without any family. Aware of these problems, on February 12, Mason presented a petition in order to expedite the bureaucratic procedures for emigrants, for example by sending a special permanent controller to the American consulates in the Far East. A confidential order was subsequently sent to the prefectures and the times were greatly reduced. Between April 8 and May 14, Mason travelled to Harbin, where he worked to set up the Central Information Bureau for Jewish War Sufferers, and negotiated the free transportation from the city to the frontier of Siberia or to Changchun. At Vladivostok, a local Jewish charitable society had been formed in November 1917, and operated until the autumn of 1918, when it “collapsed” owing to the increase of arrivals. The bureau of Vladivostok had direct connections with all the centres in Siberia, while Harbin generally dealt with refugees of Manchuria, the headquarters of the Central Bureau being at Yokohama. Owing to the abnormal conditions in Siberia and Russian Manchuria, it was impossible to obtain accurate figures of the number of Jewish refugees, and Mason himself seemed rather confused. Once he pondered it was reasonable to think that there were above 20,000 Jewish refugees, all scattered east of the Urals. However, in another document he stated: “There must be at least one million Jewish souls somewhere between Moscow and Vladivostok who either have lost all trace of their relatives in this country, or have no relatives in this country or who are not desirous of coming to this country”.11

His correspondents in the US were disinclined to accept such catastrophic estimates: Bernstein thought “that there were no less than half a million refugees along the Trans-Siberian Railway from Omsk to Vladivostok, of whom no less than 100,000 were Jews”; the JDC Secretary Albert Lucas spoke of 500,000 Jewish refugees throughout the whole of Siberia.12 The most fortunate and tenacious of the refugees arrived in Japan from Russia (by steamship via Vladivostok), or from Manchuria (by steamer via 11 Confidential supplement to the public report of Samuel Mason (February 28, 1918). HIAS 1918, item 5586. 12 M. Beizer, “Restoring courage to Jewish hearts: Frank Rosenblatt’s mission in Siberia in 1919”, East European Jewish Affairs, Vol. 39, No. 1, April 2009, p. 41.

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Fusan, Korea). This journey lasted 2 months. Some families had been wandering from place to place in Russia for three years before reaching Yokohama, and for those who possessed a Russian passport and were headed to South Africa, British consuls decided to overlook the need for a visa. The conditions of these refugees were heartrending, at least on reading Mason's comments about the refugees at Harbin - “How they manage to live is a mystery” - or Vladivostok, where many male refugees were left without any help, and were “actually picking up crumbs of bread wherever they could find them, and they slept in any shed they could find along the railroad tracks”. “Jews are always to be found among others sleeping at the railroad stations. The old Jewish Relief Committee at Harbin is dominated by officials that simply do not wish to make any systematic effort to help these unfortunate people. Most of the refugees had once applied to the community but meeting with discouragement, never dared to ask for aid again. Only a small percentage of the refugees are receiving communal aid”.13

Furthermore, the arrival at Harbin of penniless refugees from the interior of Russia and the increase of their applications for emigration meant that many passports had accumulated in stacks upon the desks, under the keen eyes of bribe-takers. The office at Yokohama also had the function of simplifying communication between the refugees and their families in the US, and of arranging transportation with some steamship companies, including the Royal Nederland Line, China Mail Steamship Company, Pacific Mail Steamship Company and Canadian Pacific Ocean Service. Mason stated that the problem was two-fold: first to secure European third-class accommodations, and second to provide special accommodations for women and children, and both objectives were not always possible. Many steamship companies that had carried Russian passengers from America to Japan shortly after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, for example, limited the sale of steamship tickets to Russians because of the problems these passengers caused celebrating the revolution on board. But these refugees, and the Jews in general, were not Bolsheviks and neither were they in any way sympathetic to the Soviet regime:

13 Letter by M. A. Charosh transmitted to Cyrus Adler on January 23, 1919. AJDC, pogroms and persecutions, item 214709.

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“They are peace-loving, law-abiding people who under the old regime went about their business. Intensely Jewish, they actively participated in every communal endeavour. They fled from intolerable conditions and give evidence of every eagerness to resume their former normal life as speedily as possible. In a word, the refugees belong to what may termed the Bale-batishe element or as we would say the middle-class”.

Mason's work also consisted in keeping contact with the American consuls at Harbin, Vladivostok, Kobe and Yokohama, and with the Japanese authorities, especially with regard to the Japanese immigration regulation, which imposed (also to children) the possession of 250 Yen to be admitted in Japan: for the refugees, this was “the hardest blow”.14 Until the day Mason opened the Scrolls of Law that he brought from America, he was particularly struck by the fact that “there was no semblance of Jewish life anywhere in Japan”. Only a small community was living in Nagasaki, where the synagogue had remained closed since the opening of hostilities. On Mason's departure, in the summer of 1918, only 154 refugees remained in Japan: 93 in Yokohama, the others in Tokyo and Kobe (the total number including Harbin and Vladivostok was 400); 1,706 persons had been rescued from disease, starvation and poverty (including 106 non-Jews of different nationalities): 172 adult males, 624 adult females, and 910 children; 1,551 were leaving for the US, 103 for Canada, others for South Africa (15), Argentina (10) and 11 - those who did not meet the requirements of American laws - were sent back to Siberia at the expense of the Society.15 Only one refugee, a Greek-Catholic coming from Tcherepowitz in the Novgorodsky gubernia, died from tuberculosis on February 1. During his mission, Mason disbursed some $40,000, only a part of the advance of $80,000 that the JDC granted to the HIAS, but he was aware 14 Mason contacted Mr. Miyaoka, the former Japanese minister to Washington, with the help of Ambassador Morris. In his report, Mason also thanked Maurice Russel, B. Kirschbaum, Schiff, B. W. Fleisher, Mr. and Mrs. Günzburg, Roland S. Morris, the American ambassador to Japan, Hon. George H. Seidmore, the American consul at Yokohama, the Japanese government and Dr. Ono Miyaoka. 15 As a matter of fact, the problem of Jewish refugees coming from the Far East involved many associations and groups in the US. On September 26, 1918, David Juda Radasubney wrote to N. Strauss and expressed his gratitude for the work done, which had been possible only thanks to Herman Bernstein and the HIAS. AJDC, HIAS, item 6683.

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that the outbreak of the Russian Civil War was likely to aggravate the situation. Upon his return, Mason endeavoured to convince the American Jewish leaders that the Bolsheviks were preparing to massacre thousands of Jews, who were continually leaving for Siberia in order to escape to the United States. In a letter to Jacob H. Schiff dated November 25, 1918, Mason told of his interview with Colonel Kourbatov, who said that the Jews in Bolshevik Russia were in grave danger of massacres, and foresaw the destruction of 75% of the Jewish population in Russia in the following six months: every Jew taken out of Russia was practically saved from death. When Mason returned to Japan on December 24, 1918, he found the Home in good condition but no longer suited to satisfy the growing demand for accommodation, or to welcome a new class of refugees, chiefly young and middle-aged men without means and without prospects of earning a livelihood, including some soldiers of the reorganized Russian army. The latter were noticed because of their mental conditions (many of them were traumatized and even affected by epilepsy), and because of their antisemitic feelings, as many continued to blame the Jews for the Russian crisis.16 In the following months, Mason resumed the work he had started during his previous visit and, in cooperation with the American Red Cross, he organized the distribution of clothes to Irkutsk, Tomsk and Omsk. He spent 23 days in Irkutsk, where he “counted” 2,000 Jewish families, 1 synagogue, one home for the aged and an orphan asylum. Mason's presence at Irkutsk was necessary as in January 1919, the first Congress of the Jewish Communities of Siberia and the Urals decided to form a Central Refugees’ Organization there and organised modern democratic communities along ethnic (national) rather than religious lines. The congress elected an umbrella organisation, the National Council of Jews of Siberia and the Urals (Natsional’nyi Soviet Evreev Sibiri i Urala, NCJSU), which was controlled by the Zionists and by Moisei (Moshe) Abramovich Novomeysky.17 Mason tried to set up a stable and efficient apparatus around the Central 16 Letter from Yokohama (January 13, 1919). AJDC, Japan 1919-1921, 220730. 17 According to Mason, the Council was formed by the engineer M. Novomejsky, president of the Jewish National Soviet, Mr. Yarmanowitch, president of the Central Zionist Bureau, Dr. Schneiderman, president of the Kehillah, Mr. Pomis, president of the synagogue, Dr. Elishewitz, a physician and active communal worker

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Information Bureau for Jewish War Sufferers in the Far East (with the sees of Yokohama, Harbin, Vladivostok, and one to be organized at Shanghai) and the Central Information Bureau for Jewish War Sufferers in Siberia and Ural, at Irkutsk. However, he found this work hard and left critical comments about the attitude of the Jews in Vladivostok, where the Kehilla was reorganized under Mr. Burlakov also thanks to the funds donated by Bernstein during his stay in Vladivostok. The people residing in Vladivostok, Mason said, knew very little of the conditions in the Siberian interior, and were not particularly interested in refugees outside their hometown. In fact, there were no systematic communications, and all the information arrived thanks to some “incidental tourists” such as Captain Roger William Straus, who spent some time in Blagoveshchensk, a city on the Amur. The Jewish community in Siberia was a strange combination of the elites, who formed the Jewish National Soviet (Council) and of poor refugees, including many Galician orthodox Jews who had not eaten meat for five years, owing to their religious beliefs.18 The distance between the oldsettled and newly-arrived groups resulted in poor cooperation among the different communities and the respective councils and sub-committees: “Some of the Communities having heard of the unlimited resources of the Joint Distribution Committee began to display a peculiar attitude, playing Politics in order, to get a Big Slice of the funds which American Jews contributed, in Vladivostok the community went so far after the arrival of Dr. Rosenblatt as to discontinue giving meals to a half hundred refugees in spite of the fact that they had plenty of money for this purpose”.19

In April 1919, another American representative, Frank Rosenblatt (born in Volhynia in 1882) stepped ashore at the Russian port of Vladivostok. His mission was to give money and clothes to German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war of Jewish origin in Siberian camps, and to Jewish war victims and refugees from European Russia.20 On April 12, 1919, Rosenblatt had a meeting with the representatives of the Vladivostok Jewish parties and organisations, which had kept up administering the Emigration Information Bureau conforming to the instructions Mason had left before his departure. Like Mason before him, 18 Report by Mason from Yokohama to Felix Warburg (May 25, 1919). AJDC, Siberia General 1919, item 234542. 19 Ibidem. 20 M. Beizer, “Restoring courage to Jewish hearts”, pp. 35–56.

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Rosenblatt had to deal with the apathy of the Siberian Jews and of the new settlers, who “were afraid of their own shadows and talked in whispers”. Under such conditions, it was hard to enhance the activity of the Vladivostok Jewish public, and Rosenblatt had to resort to the services of responsible salaried administrators to distribute aid. The seriousness of the situation was confirmed by other American diplomatic reports, according to which Harbin was afflicted by a cholera epidemic that required the “immediate necessity” of providing habitable quarters. In general, in all the cities, the almost total absence of men under forty-three years of age jeopardized the existence of entire Jewish communities.21 In this context of mounting tensions, the region was placed under the command of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, who was backed by the Allies and became the minister of war of the Omsk Provisional Government (Directoria). After November 1918, he declared himself the “Supreme Ruler of Russia”, in truth, the commander-in-chief of the anti-Bolshevik forces in Siberia.22 The hostilities began at the end of 1918 and intensified the following months: the first victims were the prisoners of war and the Jews, who were massacred by the Cossacks, as happened on July 10-14, 1919, at Ekaterinburg, where Ataman B. V. Annenkov, with his Semipalatinsk Cossacks, entered the city and killed many Jews.23

21 Letter by US consul Caldwell to the secretary of state (Vladivostok, April 18, 1919). Letter of Jenkins to the secretary of state in order to inform the JDC in America (Harbin, August 20, 1919). AJDC, Siberia General 1919, items 234540, 234550. 22 On the role that Alexandr Vasilyevich Kolchak had after the 1917 revolutions and during the Russian Civil War, G. C. Hammond, Admiral Kolchak: A Contrast of Hope and Betrayal for Russia, 1918–1920 (Western Connecticut State College, 1982); R. M. Connaughton, The Republic of the Ushakovka: Admiral Kolchak and the Allied Intervention in Siberia, 1918–1920 (Boulder: Routledge, 1990); W. Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, 1918–1921 (New York: DaCapo Press, 1999); Jon Smele, Civil War in Siberia: The Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); P. Golub, White Terror in Russia (1918–1920) (Moscow: Patriot, 2006). 23 Report submitted by the American military attaché at Omsk, Major Slaughter, to General Graves. The consul general Mr. Harris, instead, minimized or did not believe these reports, which he considered false and irresponsible. On 12 September 1919, Rosenblatt sent a cablegram with the news about the pogrom, mentioning 3,000 victims as an unconfirmed number. The American secretary of state, Robert Lansing, requested an explanation from the consul general in Omsk, Ernest Lloyd Harris, a committed believer in Kolchak, who answered: “At no time

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Kolchak's attitude towards the Jews was a central issue especially at a time when the White Armies were seeking the support of international powers. As a matter of fact, Kolchak openly condemned the pogroms in order to reassure the allies of his good intentions. Though it is generally recognized that such violence in Siberia was “notably less widespread” if compared to Poland and Ukraine, Kolchak's own headquarters “was the source of some of the most vicious proclamations depicting Jews, along with socialists and certain foreigners, as by nature hostile to Russia's legitimate state aspirations and national character”. As a consequence, “unarmed Jewish civilians paid the terrible price of belonging to the same nationality” as the Jewish commander of the Red Army, the notorious Trotsky.24 On the other side, the Bolsheviks seemed equally brutal, at least according to the cables of the Irkutsk council, for example the document that Rosenblatt received on February 14, 1920. The Jewish communists invoked a “crusade” against the Jewish community, and in this context there was an increase in the number of refugees, helpless sick old men, women and children who were compelled to beg for bread. During this period, the HIAS and JDC continued assisting and supporting refugees and emigrants, and these endeavours were kept up in the following years despite the proposed cessation of the Far East structure. The cooperation between HIAS and JDC was also extended to Europe, assuring “all reasonable efforts” to induce local communities abroad to provide and maintain temporary and appropriate shelters for emigrants awaiting transportation to the United States. The management of these shelters, when possible, was to be placed in the hands of the local communities under the supervision of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society.25

has there been a single pogrom or any Jew discriminated against since Kolchak came in power… These false reports emanate possibly from certain Jews who were attempting to escape military service”. William S. Graves, America's Siberian Adventure. 1918-1920 (New York: Peter Smith Pub Inc., 1931); John Albert White, The Siberian Intervention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), pp. 72 ff. 24 N. G. O. Pereira, White Siberia: The Politics of Civil War (Quebec City: McGill-Queen, 1996), p. 139. See also O. Budnitski, Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 25 According to the resolution of HIAS (May 11, 1920), the sums were donated by the Jews in the US to the Society for Relatives Abroad and then nominally

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In 1920, the emergency seemed to have eased up, but the rumours about the imminent closing of the House in Yokohama and the impending liquidation of the Central Information Bureau in Harbin created “great anxiety”. This anxiety was justified by the fact that the restoring of railway and postal communication with Western Siberia meant an increase in the number of arrivals from the Soviet Union. Harbin was practically “besieged” from morning to evening by impoverished and debilitated refugees, and was furthermore affected by a serious economic crisis.26 According to the Kehilla of the city, the main cause of these problems was the depreciation of paper money resulting from the change from Tsarist to Kerensky Roubles, then from the latter to the Siberian currency. Those who were formerly millionaires continued to keep their millions, but were unable to buy anything and were “perhaps as poor as the rest”.27 The same worries were expressed in other letters, such as that of an anonymous “experienced observer”, who on November 10, 1920, stated that the conditions in Eastern Siberia were even worse than they were in 1918.28 These letters denounced the “dangerous” attitude of some bureaucrats, “magnates” or “speculators”, who intentionally delayed the arrival of remittances to exploit the refugees and gain control of the situation. The same accusation was made by Mr. Mandelbaum, who managed the Home at Yokohama and spoke of the “intrigues of the Kehillah”, noting the misuse of funds that could have been more satisfactorily directed to alleviate the economic depression.29 In addition to this, after the end of the war there was a further hurdle to the “normalization” of the refugee question: the immigration laws. The transmitted to the HIAS, where a JDC clerk was in charge of the necessary administrative cooperation. Memorandum sent to Harry Fischel, treasurer of HIAS, on May 13, 1920. The terms of the agreement are better explained in a draft memorandum about the transmission of funds to Europe in accordance with the resolution adopted by the board of directors on May 11, 1920. AJDC, HIAS 191921, items 210398, 210400, 210421. 26 Document “Crisis of the Central Information Bureau” (translation from a paper in Harbin) signed by Uriel. AJDC, HIAS, 1919-21, item 210413. 27 The Kehillah of Harbin wrote to the JDC on November 1, 1920 requesting 15 sewing machines and 3 paper box machines. AJDC, China 1919-21, item 217963. 28 Letters to B. Zuckerman of November 10 and 21, 1920. The writer wished to remain anonymous as he feared being denounced as a Bolshevik. AJDC, Japan 1919-1921, 210774. 29 Memorandum of Robert Rosenbluth on the situation at Harbin and Yokohama (February 17, 1921). AJDC, China 1919-1921, item 217717.

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documents of 1920-21 not only referred to the difficulties refugees faced in Harbin, Vladivostok or Yokohama, but began to analyse the legal impediments affecting the fate of these people. If Japan required people entering the country to have at least 600 Yen if they were asking for a visa to America and at least 1,500 Yen if they were staying in Japan, also the American laws, after 1920, were not particularly favourable and forced people to remain “paralysed” at Harbin, in Japan or wherever. As Mason dramatically illustrated, immigration to the US was made impossible not only by Mr. Burnett and the other congressmen's restrictive measures, but also by the discretional power of simple clerks, who were free to judge an application by the name of the signatory, and this decision practically became law. The refugees' cries sounded to Mason like “a voice in the wilderness”: “They cannot go back to Russia for a thousand good reasons. There is no way of earning a livelihood by labor in Japan. They have no funds, they have no friends here. They would be compelled to resort to excesses if it were not for our Home, but is this a task for our Society. It is true they are war sufferers, but to help war sufferers is the task of the Joint Distribution Committee. There are refugees here bound for Africa since nine months. No ships to take them. All women and children. They could go through the United States. The Consul refused them a visa to pass through the United States, unless Washington would authorize him to. A cable to Washington was paid for. A guarantee was offered that they would not stop anywhere en-route. They would board the first ship for America to join their husbands and fathers, but Washington cabled orders to refuse them that privilege”.30

The problem of refugees (not only Jewish) was so enormous that the newly created League of Nations appointed a High Commissioner, and in this context the Far East still represented the “second focus of extreme misery”. Sometime before December 1922, about 22,000 Russians, the remnants of Kolchak's and other forces (mostly men, only about 10 per cent were women and children), had fled from Vladivostok and settled on the east coast of Korea, in China and in Japan. An even greater number entered China in the autumn of 1923, while many others reached Northern Korea. In 1924, it was estimated that there were over 20,000 refugees in China, of whom some two-thirds were in Manchuria and most of the remainder in the northern provinces. The general conditions seemed to improve very slowly, at least on reading what Dr. Nansen's representative 30 Report by Mason to Felix Warburg (Yokohama, May 25, 1919). AJDC, Siberia General 1919, item 234542.

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reported in 1924: “The conditions under which the refugees are existing are pitiable in the extreme. For the most part, they have insufficient clothing and no money. They are living on doles of money and on intermittent employment of a most precarious nature. The houses where they lodge and the underclothing they wear are indescribably dirty. Medical assistance is only available in large towns and medical supplies are most inadequate. Overcrowding is a constant menace to the health of the communities where they are. Their inability to speak the Chinese language and the rigorous winters of Manchuria, where most of them are, make their lot an exceedingly hard one. It is noteworthy that comparatively few acts of violence have occurred; their stoical endurance is amazing. The fact that nearly all the men have had military training and have served in the army partly explains it. Nevertheless, it is remarkable. Many took service in the contending Chinese armies. Others undertook the lowest form of coolie labour - a fate of indescribable misery, when the difference between the normal European and Chinese standards of living is considered. Others carried on a nomadic, semi-independent existence on the frontiers of Russia”.

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Annex. Budgetary Documents31 Disbursed to July 1, 1918 as per statement rendered

$42,588.82

Disbursements July 1, 1918-February 28, 1919 Shelter house equipment

$3,384.09

Food and shelter

$15,327.64

Medical and hospital charges

$3,236.76

Office salaries and expenses

$8,255.83

Rent

$1,352

General expenses

$2,934.25

Vladivostok bureau

$851.14

Advances to emigrants

$8,423.58

Total up to February 28, 1919

$87,233.95

A part of these sums was granted by JDC through different transfers: July 7,1918

$15,000

August 20, 1918.

$5,000

September 18,1918

$5,000

October 15,1918

$5,000

November 20,1918

$5,000

December 15,1918

$5,000

January 8,1919

$5,000

February 5,1919

$5,000

March 3,1919

$5,000

31 A first budgetary document was drafted by an independent company, Stratford Audit Co. dividing the sums disbursed and those received from the JDC. HIAS financial report for the operations at Yokohama (January 1, 1918-February 28, 1919) redacted by Stratford Audit Co. Letters of J. Bernstein, president of HIAS, to Albert Lucas (March 18, 1918) and to F. Warburg (May 3, 1918). AJDC, HIAS 1918, items 5547, 5549, 5584.

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April 9,1919

$5,000

TOTAL

$80,000

Statement of cost of work in the Far East (January 1 - July 1, 1918).32 Equipment of shelter house

$3,065,27

Food and shelter

$6,623,56.00

Medical and hospital expenses

$3,182,87.63

Office salaries and expenses

$6,512.06

Rent

$106,600

General expenses

$1,883.41

Yokohama Emigrant Aid Society

$1,485.44.00

Harbin bureau

$1,682.37

Vladivostok bureau

$587

Advances to emigrants for transportation

$16,500.75

Total

$42,588.82

Statement of cost of work in the Far East (July 1, 1918 - February 28, 1919).33 Equipment of shelter house

$3,384.09

Food and shelter

$15,327.64

Medical and hospital expenses

$3,236.76

Office salaries and expenses

$8,255.83

Rent

$1,352.00

General expenses

$2,934.25

Harbin bureau

$851.34

Vladivostok bureau

$879.00

32 AJDC, HIAS 1919-21, item 210428. 33 AJDC, HIAS 1919-21, item 210429.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Advances to emigrants for transportation

$8,423.58

Total

$44,465.13

139

Statement of cost of work in the Far East (February 29, 1920 - May 31, 1920).34 Equipment of shelter house

$576.61

Food and shelter

$7,767.18

Medical and hospital expenses

$398.63

Office salaries and expenses

$2,510.36

Rent

$507.00

Sundry expenses

$1,633.71

Harbin bureau

$604.34

Vladivostok bureau

$416.00

Advances to emigrants for transportation

$2,057.46

Total

$16,471.29

34 AJDC, HIAS 1919-21, item 210432.

THE JEWISH QUESTION IN POLAND

The End of the War After the occupation of many Polish territories previously under Russian rule, Austria and Germany supported the creation of a Kingdom of Poland in order to perpetuate the image of liberators that had animated their propaganda in 1915. On November 5, 1916, Governor von Beseler issued an act, in which he promised that a Polish state would be created. A provisional council of state was established, a provisional constitution was promulgated and a Regency Council was installed as a government. Later on, Wilson's recognition of Polish self-determination, together with the 1917 Russian revolutions, resulted in the strengthening of Polish aspirations, which could finally flourish after the end of the conflict. In this context, while Ignacy DaszyĔski headed up a Polish government in Lublin, Józef Piásudski, then under arrest, was liberated and came back to Warsaw. On November 11, 1918, Piásudski took control of the government thanks to his popularity, and the Regency Council appointed him Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces. On November 14, the council dissolved itself and transferred all its authority to Piásudski as Chief of State (Naczelnik PaĔstwa). DaszyĔski resigned and a new government was created: an independent Poland had at long last been restored. The Second Republic was immediately faced with the dilemma of the uncertain borders. The new state and its frontiers were to be recognized by the peace-conference, yet the Polish politicians themselves were profoundly divided regarding the dimension of the country. Scholarship has conventionally described this issue by distinguishing two main options: to build up a solid Nation-State with limited boundaries and a more solid ethnic framework with a majority of Poles, as wished by Roman Dmowski's National Democrats, or to remember the past, aiming at an extended state including the territories of the former Commonwealth and many minorities such as Lithuanians, Germans and Ukrainians. Furthermore, independent Poland inherited a delicate Jewish question, which became one of the main subjects of discussion also in the

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international forum. In 1897, the Polish Kingdom, that is to say the greatest part of Poland under Russian rule, hosted 1,255,000 Jews (13.7%), and in the Polish territories of Russia the Jews were 1,310,000 (14.2%). On the contrary, the Jews were just 1% of the population in Polish territories belonging to the German Empire (in 1900) and 7.3% in those of Austria-Hungary.1 In the geographical dimension accepted by the Department of State at the end of 1918, there were 1,700,000 Jews in Poland, but should the aspirations of the Poles for a Greater Poland materialize, this would mean a further million Jews. In the eyes of international observers, the Jewish issue was seen as an emergency. The position of Polish Jews was a matter of animated debates: on one hand, the Jews were portrayed in a positive way, emphasizing Polish antisemitism; on the other, the Polish nationalists stressed the “eastern” nature of the Polish Jews, their separateness and their difficulties in terms of integration. Another factor that was frequently taken into consideration was the Jewish role in commerce and economy and, subsequently, the “oppression” that Jews carried out on Christians: “Being quite strange in society, they can employ so much easier all unscrupulous means of dealing in relations with the economically weaker population. Without giving here detailed proofs it is sufficient to call to memory the agricultural strike of 1902 in Eastern Galicia, which was due to Jewish abuse”.2

Many publications spoke of Jewish anti-Polonism, and observed that the Jews were passive, indifferent or even contrary to the Polish state. Only a small number of them participated in public institutions, while the majority adhered to radical movements such as the Bund, Poale-Zion and the communists. Naturally, these generalisations did not exhaust the various political positions of the Polish scenario, but are nonetheless meaningful to understand how the Jews were perceived by a significant part of Polish public opinion. Some Jewish political demands, in particular, were perceived as the 1 P. Eberhardt, pp. 73 ff. 2 “Industrialization set in motion, suddenly and unexpectedly, a process of social transformation, which, however insufficient, modified to a large extent the very substance of Jewish society”. Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland 1919-1939 (Berlin: Mouton, 1983), p. 93. The economic boycott, as a consequence, became an integral part of the nationalists' program. F. Bujak, The Jewish Question in Poland (Paris 1919); Aleksander Bochenski, Tracing the Development of Polish Industry (Warsaw: Interpress, 1971).

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symptom of their “separateness”. On November 12, 1918, in a meeting with Piásudski, the Jewish “assimilationist” leaders expressed their support and asked for self-government, democratically elected Jewish communal councils, a Jewish national assembly and a department for Jewish national affairs in order to fulfil the projects of autonomy that had been recently formulated also by Israel Bodenheimer and Lucien Wolf.3 Furthermore, the pressures of Jewish organizations at the international level proved very important for the negotiation of the so-called Minority Treaty that was signed by Poland on June 28, 1919. This treaty caused a great deal of controversy and was depicted in a bad light by the rightist and nationalist press and politicians, who expressly affirmed that no “privileges” were to be conceded to national minorities.4 It was a “bitter irony”, according to the Kurjer Polski, that the imposition of special minority clauses was due to the despotic spirit of “people from the Spree like Oppenheim, Bodenheimer and Friedmann”.5 The Polish press was almost unanimous in rejecting the Jewish attempts to enhance the principle of national autonomy, and considered the Jews guilty of having solicited foreign intervention for the introduction of a “degrading and offending paragraph”. It was common opinion in Poland that the Jews were going too far in defaming Poland “in the most scurrilous manner”, benefiting from the work of their agents such as Herman Diamand, a Polish diplomatic commissioner to Berlin, and Henryk Loewenherz, a member of the Polish delegation in Paris for the settlement of Eastern Galicia.6 The Jewish demands sought to create a “state within the state” and their efforts were to be rejected both at an international level, opposing the 3 Cable from the Zionist Bureau of London to the Zionist Organization in New York (March 6, 1919). AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions 1919-21, item 228054. 4 On the different positions and negotiations of the various groups at Versailles, M. Levene, “Nationalism and its Alternatives in the International Arena: The Jewish Question at Paris, 1919”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 28, No. 3 (July 1993), pp. 511-531. 5 Kurjer Polski, May 15, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions, 1919-21, 228109. 6 “Too much bitterness has already accumulated against the Jews in Poland and it would be advisable for the Jews themselves not to increase it”. Letter of Joseph Wolff from the Polish Book importing Co. in Warsaw to the JDC (January 7, 1920). AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions, 228110.

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special minority clauses, and in the internal debates, for example reducing the power of making legislative proposals of the parliamentary commission for Jewish affairs. The Jews were not a national minority but “the rest of a medieval case”, and they “had no right to claim the recognition of their language”.7 The effects of this combination of factors were clear since the beginning: after the evacuation of Austrian troops, on November 11, 1918, the Jews organized a meeting in the Polski theatre at Kielce. During the afternoon, a crowd of Poles, mainly students, gathered outside the theatre. At 6.30 the meeting broke up, and soldiers entered in search of arms. A double line of men on the stairs started to rough up the Jews leaving the building, while the mob outside gave a second “ticking off” to those who reached the street. By the end of the riots, four Jews had been killed.8 Some days after, on November 21-23, what happened at Kielce was repeated in Lemberg, where the Polish troops decided to teach another lesson of “patriotism” to the Jews, who were guilty of not cooperating in the military operations against the Ukrainians. This climate of continual hostility was aggravated by the state of war against Bolshevik Russia, and the Red Menace proved to be the “ideal” argument to create the conditions for a new wave of violence and antisemitism. As Ambassador Morgenthau underlined in his report to the Senate: “The chauvinistic reaction created by the sudden acquisition of a long-coveted freedom ripened the public mind for antisemitic or anti-alien sentiment, which was strongly agitated by the press and by politicians”. A new tide of violence erupted after the first clashes against Soviet troops, first of all in Pinsk, on April 5, a month after the start of Polish occupation. On that occasion, 75 Jews gathered in the assembly hall with the permission of the town commander to discuss the distribution of relief. A band of soldiers burst in, robbed those assembled and took them as prisoners to the gendarmerie headquarters. They were then escorted to the market place and lined up against the wall of the cathedral. About 25 men and 6 women were separated and taken aside while the remaining 35 were 7 Extracts from the Nowy Dziennik (May 18, 1919), and Kurjer Warszawski (May 16, 1919). Document of the information office in Copenhagen (June 2, 1919). AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, items 228081, 228083, 218088. 8 J. T. Gross, “In the Aftermath of the Kielce Pogrom: The Special Commission of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland”, in E. Melzer, D. Engel (eds.), Gal-Ed on the History of the Jews in Poland (Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 1997).

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shot “with scant deliberation”. The following morning 3 more were shot, while the survivors were confined in the jail and maltreated. The charges of Bolshevism, however, soon proved inconsistent: “The Morgenthau commission that investigated the facts was convinced that no arguments of Bolshevik nature were mentioned in the meeting in question. While it is recognized that certain information of Bolshevik activities in Pinsk had been received by two Jewish soldiers, the undersigned is convinced that Major Luczynski. the town commander, showed reprehensible and frivolous readiness to place credence upon such untested assertions, and on this insufficient basis took inexcusably drastic action against reputable citizens whose loyal character could have been immediately established by a consultation with any well-known nonJewish inhabitant”.9

Events in Lida on April 17, 1919, after the Poles had captured the city from the Bolsheviks, followed a similar script. During house-to house pillaging, 39 Jews were killed and many others including the rabbi were arrested. Nobody was punished for these excesses. This case was later discussed in Parliament, where an interpellation to the ministers of war and of the interior was issued. Similar bloodshed occurred on April 19, when Polish forces marched into Vilnius. According to the Morgenthau report, on this occasion 33 Polish soldiers were killed and 65 Jews lost their lives, mostly because they were accused of being Bolshevik; 8 were shot after a 3 km forced march out of the city, others directly in their houses. Over 2,000 houses and shops were plundered. Hundreds were arrested and deported, and 2 prisoners died from the treatment received: “From the evidence submitted it appears that none of these people, among whom were four women and eight men over 50 years of age, had served with the Bolsheviks”.10 In Vilnius, the Poles held about 400 prisoners and, according to the desire of the Labour League of the Holy Casimir, began their rule by dismissing the Jewish railroad workers, as reported by the journal Haint.11 After having easily concluded an arrangement with the Lithuanians, the Jewish communities had once again to restart negotiations with a new power, chiefly to guarantee the work of the relief committees. From this 9 Morgenthaus' report, cit. 10 The political evolution during these months is described by J. D. White, “The Revolution in Lithuania 1918-19”, Soviet Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2 (October 1971), pp. 186-200. 11 According to the press, 600 Jewish railroad workers were dismissed after the Polish entry in Vilnius. Haint, May 15, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Vilna 1921, 230093.

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perspective, the existence of a Polish-Lithuanian controversy clearly complicated the delicate situation. These episodes were only the tip of an iceberg made up of daily discriminations and violence, which were regarded by foreign observers as the direct consequence of the instigations of Polish nationalist press. The latter exploited the victories of the Polish army to support an antisemitic campaign in which the soldiers' violence was portrayed as a just reaction against Jewish attacks. The Kurjer Warszawski (April 22) published a report about Lida stating that “a great part of the Jewish population opened fire” against the Polish soldiers, who were forced to react against this attack. According to the Gazeta Warszawska (April 22), a further sign of Jewish anti-Polonism was the fact that the first battalion of the White-Russian army fighting against Poland was formed by a Jewish regiment.12 Boris Bogen argued that the Polish newspapers did not furnish the Polish population with any serious information, for example concerning the special clauses that the Allies desired to impose upon Poland, which was described as an armed nation living a dream of military glory. On the contrary, it was surprising that many more pogroms did not take place. “If the Poles would only stop playing with guns... all would be well... Hundreds of thousands of Jews talk continually of emigrating to Palestine, but most of them want primarily to escape from Poland, and many may attempt to emigrate to America”.13

Various agents and correspondents of the JDC compiled a press review, noting the numerous small accidents affecting the Polish Jewry daily. On April 17, 1919, the Haint reported a “razzia” in Kraków, where the troops were looking for deserters and arrested more than 100 Jews.14 The Gazeta Polska of Warsaw (April 15), reported on the announcement made by “The Polish Sanitarian” society, which was looking for female medicinestudents: some Jewish students made a personal application but got the reply that they were not suitable. One of the functionaries in the office, it was said, remarked: “and first of all we do not want Jewesses”. 12 Report of the information office in Copenhagen (April 30, 1919); Julian Leavitt’s Report (June 30, 1919), part I (Pogroms). AJDC, Poland, Julian Leavitt Report, item 224157. 13 The Jewish Daily Forward published a report by B. Bogen on July 6, 1919. 14 Haint, April 17, l9l9.

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The Polish weekly paper Government and Army published an article concerning the “Signs of brutalisation in the army”, wherein the author denounced that Polish soldiers were absolutely free to rob Jewish property and shops and to sell the stolen goods, and also to take clothes and shoes off the Jews in the street. This sort of street “bullying” was particularly common in the cities near the front.15 Other articles concerned the case of Moishe Regenboim, who was arrested and beaten at the police-station in Czysta street, where he remained from Friday to Monday (Lebensfragen of Warsaw on April 20, 1919); the public demonstration in Pabianice near àódĨ invoking the dismissal of Jewish public employees (Haint, April 19, 1919); the publication of an appeal that had been posted in the streets, and the following arrest of the young Jews who tried to tear it down: “Warning! The Germans and the Bolsheviks make preparations to betray Poland. Their agents are the Jews. We are in possession of documents whereof it is evident that the principal leaders of Communism are Jews, who with the help of their Jewish agents intrude into the circles of labourers for the purport to sell Poland to Germany and Russia. There are prepared in the next days assaults on the highest statesmen of the Polish nation, and also taken measures for the demoralization of the army, destruction of roads of communication, and of bridges, and to call forth a revolution”.16

According to the Copenhagen information office, Poland was recruiting a new army and the press used this opportunity to organize antisemitic agitation: in spite of the formal prohibitions against the spread of pogromproclamations, many newspapers continued to write about the zionist attacks and accused the Jews of shooting at Polish soldiers. The Jewish writer H. D. Nomberg wrote in the Moment (April 18) that “smart politicians” used antisemitism for a widespread pogrom-propaganda, fishing in a “poisonous sea of hatred”.17 As a consequence, the campaign 15 Moment (April 17, 1919), described the case of a Lemberg Jewish officer, Adolf Schreiber, who was accused of insubordination and tried by the Polish court: the initial death-sentence was replaced by 2 months arrest. Schreiber did not obey the command to fight the Ukrainians and declared that he belonged to the Jewish nation, therefore he was neutral and could not participate in the war-operations against the Ukrainians. 16 Document of the information office of Copenhagen signed by Vladimir Grossman (April 18, 25, 1919). AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions 1919-21, item 228060. 17 The government officially intervened but the campaign continued in the semi-

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of the Polish army in the East turned into an open persecution of the Jewish nation as a whole, and the pretext of fighting Bolshevism was used to terrorize Jews with the murdering, pillaging and ill-treatment of innocent people.18 But also the working conditions were alarming, at least considering the articles in the Kurjer Nowy (April 27, 1919) and the Jewish newspaper of Biaáystok Das Neue Leben, which reported that 200 Jewish railway workers lost their jobs as they were not admitted in the Polish trade-union after the war.19 The economic boycott was almost a tradition for Polish nationalists and was consequently re-proposed after the end of the conflict with the program Swoj do swoego, which invited the Poles to support their own doctors, artisans and lawyers. In the parliamentary meeting of May 6, 1919, the clergyman Senzimir incited against Jewish labour and trade, and defined the Jewish merchants as contrabandists. This kind of political message was put into practice by local authorities in many places such as Biaáystok, where the Polish workers in the weaving mills industry requested the dismissal of Jewish workers.20

official press. The Polish Telegraph Agency, for example, did not mention the number of Jewish soldiers in Lublin but the fact that 70 Jews in Kraków did not fulfil their military liabilities. Document of the information office of Copenhagen (April 28, 1919); Haint, April 28, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, items 228057, 228065. 18 In Minsk, the Bolsheviks persecuted the clergy and the Poles who consequently punished the “insolence” of the Jewish Bolsheviks. Gazeta Warszawska, May 1, 1919; document of the information office in Copenhagen (May 8, 1919). The military corps sang antisemitic songs in the streets. The Galician Parliamentary Club also produced the copy of an officers' order of April 24, which forbade these offensive songs. Das Judische Folk, May 8, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, items, 228059, 228070, 228076. 19 The Lubliner Tagblatt (November 20, 1919) published a collective petition of the Jewish railway workers who had been dismissed. AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, item 228064. 20 In the weaving-mills of Biaáystok, the Jews could work only in Jewish weavingmills and in the latter half of the labor force was made up of Poles: out of 500 people, 350 were Jews but the Poles demanded the dismissal of 100 of them. The government commissioner Ziprovitch summoned a conference with the Polish labor-union Zvionzek Narodowy and the Jewish weavers (Meer Miness, Borel Lewubm Zalel Gordon). The attitude of the Polish delegates was “sharp and provoking”, the factory inspector defended the Poles, and the Jews had only 3 days

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Employment was a problematic issue in the post-war scenario and the presence of Jews in the public field was viewed as an injustice by the National Democrats, who claimed that half of the employed labourers were Jews and communists: the work should therefore be divided according to the principle of proportional distribution.21 Another description of Polish-Jewish relations was published by the Liberum Veto (June 14), which spoke of a “peaceful intrusion” of the Jews, who were everywhere, monopolized important trades and laughed at boycotts and anti-Jewish outrages in distant provinces. The postal traffic in many townlets was in the hands of the Jews, who were present in high percentages in hospitals, courts of justice, the stock exchange... Even the diplomatic couriers to Paris were mostly Jews: “Why should the Paris-correspondent of the socialistic paper Robotnik be Mr. Hieronim Cohn? Certain people helped them: the editor of Gazeta Polska had been suffering the malady of philosemitism... expecting intellectual and bureaucratic class would marry Jewesses”.22

The Polish authorities issued an edict according to which Jews as aliens should report themselves to the registry-office, and then began imposing fines en masse on the Jews who did not register in order to obtain the permit for their continued sojourn in Warsaw.23 The paradox of this situation was that the bulk of the Christian population remained poor and pauperised while the Polish merchants became richer: to submit a memorandum. Haint, May 7, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, 228067. 21 Many unemployed people started to do public-works without permission or enrolment in the registry, and the number of lawless labourers increased daily. Pusszak, a Christian democrat, blamed Jews and communists and invoked the creation of a fighting unit. Lebensfragen, May 16, 1919. AJDC, Poland, discriminations and persecutions, 228093. 22 Liberum Veto, June 14, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions, 228093, 228100. 23 During the second part of 1919 many other “criticalities” were reported by Polish newspapers: the confiscation of bread in Jewish bakeries in Warsaw (Lebensfragen, October 21-22, 1919), the refusal of the municipalities to engage Jews; the discriminatory rents to Jews for the market-stalls in Warsaw (Das Jiddische Folk, No. 125 October 3, 1919); the meetings and protests against the economic boycott. Report of the information office in Copenhagen (June 18, 1919). AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions, items 228102, 228105, 228094.

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the deputy Dobura, the tailor Kolodshej, the merchants Dubowski and Kobjela paid their debts, purchased houses, amassed money, but did they give away their fortune or even part of it to the poor Catholic-Poles?24 This milieu of anti-Jewish agitations was also described by many foreign diplomatic and military delegates who were operating in Poland. In July 1919, for example, Captain Charles Grey stated that a visitor could easily learn what the general attitude of Polish people was towards the Jews “by his conversations with non-Jewish Poles of any class”: “The Pole, in dealing with the Jew, does not weigh the facts in the case with a view to meting out justice, nor does he make allowance for the persecution which has placed them in their present condition. He sees them as they are, or as he believes them to be, and his feelings are continuously influenced by the press of Poland, which is indefatigable in its antisemitic efforts”.25

Grey wrote of the “daily humiliations” that both civilians and soldiers perpetrated on the typical orthodox Jews, who were frequently attacked. When their semitic kinship was manifest – many Jews had long coats, small round hats and long beards - there was no way out for both Jewish men and women, who were subjected to various acts of meanness, such as being stoned by children, being forced off the sidewalk, being struck or cursed, having their beards cut off, or many similar acts of aggression. These afflictions were evidently “tolerated” only owing to the fear of graver reprisals, as happened at Kolbuszowa, where on May 7, 1919, a crowd of peasants and former soldiers entered the town, disarmed the soldiers and attacked the Jews (8 Jews died, one of the rioters was tried and executed), or at CzĊstochowa, where on May 27, 1919, an unknown person fired and wounded a Polish soldier. The Jews were accused of the act and during the following riots 5 Jews were beaten to death, including a doctor who was aiding one of the wounded. Grey acknowledged that the Poles themselves could in turn present evidence establishing a sufficient percentage of their Jewish population to be undesirable and dangerous citizens. But they could not prove that they 24 The organ of the Economical District Society in Bjala, province of Siedlec, Tygodnik Bjalski, for example, criticized the boycott and the same conclusions were common also in socialist publications such as Robotnik. AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions, items 228102, 228103. 25 Report by Captain Charles Grey (July 1919, Paris). AJDC, Poland, Discriminations and Persecutions, item 228097.

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were trying to turn these “bad citizens” into good ones. In the zones under military occupation, in particular, Grey affirmed that “an investigation carried out along judicial lines would result in an indictment of the Polish population and the government on this score”.26 Zuckerman witnessed one of these episodes of violence during a journey to Brest. There were about 50 Jews travelling on his train and each one was allowed to bring a limited quantity of goods. At almost all the stations meticulous “controls” took place. The soldiers took away everything they wanted and the Jews, already frightened, just had to patiently bear the loss of the food they were bringing to their own families.27 What Zuckerman saw during his journey was not an isolated case and many other documents contain similar descriptions of Jewish life in postwar Poland. Many Jews in New York, for example Emanuel M. Beckerman, Solomon Lubliner or Herman Nelson, received numerous letters about the “countless horrors” and the lesser though daily prevarications.28 The situation was compared to fifteenth century Spain, with the Polish martial courts replacing the Spanish Inquisition: “It is my opinion the trouble for the Jew in Poland has but begun and will but end the same as it ended in Spain 440 years ago... Smulski, Dmowski, Paderewski, I yet have to find any Pole, of prominence or otherwise, whose stock in trade is not anti-Jewish in the same, if not greater, extremity as the Spaniards were in 1492”.29

Naturally, these episodes went hand in hand with many legal “difficulties”. The Jewish laborers were rarely admitted into the corporations, and consequently had no opportunity to find employment. They met insurmountable obstacles in purchasing land for agricultural purposes, and if they succeeded in acquiring farms, they were boycotted by the local authorities and neighbours. Grey further illustrated some cases in which the Jews were subjected to “special”, though not violent, treatment: 26 Ibidem. 27 “While on the train I had a chance to be myself a witness of the way Polish soldiers are requisitioning for the army”. Report by Zuckerman (May 16, 1921). AJDC, Ober Ost 1919, item 221989. 28 Story of Herman Nelson; letter from Rottenberg Co. Broadway-New York (June 29, 1920); letter of Emanuel M. Beckerman from the municipal court of the second district of Bronx (September 7, 1920). AJDC, Poland. Persecutions and Pogroms, 1919-21, items 228128, 228131, 228163. 29 Letter of Emanuel M. Beckerman to F. Warburg (May 25, 1919). AJDC, Poland. Persecutions and Pogroms, 228177.

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The Jewish Question in Poland “In June, a very wealthy and well-known Jew, ardently patriotic for Poland, and also very much of a gentleman in the European sense of the word, applied for a passport to travel from one part of Poland to another. When he received the document, he noticed that the word Jew was written in the line stating the nationality of the bearer. Very much offended at this, he went to the foreign office and complained that he was a Jew by religion, but a Pole by nationality. He requested that the passport be corrected. After some consideration, the foreign office returned the passport to him. After the word nationality there was a blank, and in the column of the passport the officials had written religion Jewish”.

The Polish “patriots” seemed to accept only two radical solutions: suffocating Jews by boycotting them commercially and industrially, or driving them out of the country. In both cases, Grey pondered, some occasional pogroms could be useful to speed up the execution of the program. The Jews were not true Poles, they did not speak the Polish language and refused to learn it; they were profiteers or Bolsheviks. The Polish discourse associated Jews and criminality and connected them with prostitution, sex crimes and sexual offences, brothels and white slavery, and other Jewish vices such as divorce, abortion, polygamy, incest and sodomy.30 The political division among Jewish communities was unlikely to improve the situation. Too many political, religious and social factions, all with their own interests and dogmas, compromised the work for a common cause. Owing to this complexity, Grey explained that to understand the real conditions of Polish Jews, it was necessary to be more than a casual observer: only by meeting and having a long conversation with local Jews, would the eyes of this observer begin to realize how the Jews were living in constant terror of violence and attacks on their person and property.

The Material Conditions “Million hungry naked dying desolately of disease and cold sorrowfully accept our charity which debases the stronger and demoralizes the weaker stop their future real permanent existence anxiously waited your successful plans organize here possibilities for labor, trade educational restoration economic reconstruction and a return to respectful self support stop”.31

30 R. Blobaum, “Criminalizing the other: Crime, Ethnicity, and Antisemitism in Early Twentieth-Century Poland”, in R. Blobaum (ed. By) Antisemitism and its Opponents in Modern Poland (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 81 ff. 31 Cablegram to New York (December 10, 1919). Poland General, July-December

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While political debates were inflaming the debut of Polish government in the international arena and the Polish-Jewish relations in the Polish Sejm, the conditions of Jewish people needed urgent relief in order to enhance the living standards, which had been seriously affected by many years of war, evacuations, military occupations, deportations and violence. The transfer of funds to Poland continued during 1918 and thereafter, when the Joint Distribution Committee elaborated a special plan for the post-war reconstruction. The JDC sent a permanent mission to Poland to cooperate with the American Relief Administration (ARA), which was established by President Woodrow Wilson in February 1919 in order to administer the relief measures in accordance with the $100,000,000 congressional appropriation of February 25, 1919. The JDC contributed with $3.3 million, and in return JDC workers such as Boris D. Bogen were allowed to undertake aid missions in Eastern Europe as officials of the ARA. The principal accomplishments of the JDC in Poland are described briefly by Y. Bauer, beginning with the arrival of the US steamer “Westward Ho” at the end of January 1919. The JDC paid for half of the steamship's cargo, which was handed out separately to Jews and Poles, in order to avoid rivalry and antisemitic feeling. After this first delivery, it was later decided to create mixed committees for distributing commodities without distinction as to religion, nationality or birthplace.32 In June 1919, the US ambassador in Poland arranged for official Polish recognition of the JDC as a social agency operating in that country, and at the end of the year Julius Goldman was appointed the first European director of the JDC, while Boris Bogen was responsible for Poland and Russia. When he arrived in Poland as the executive director, in February 1919, Boris Bogen established contact with the existing Jewish committees - the committee for Congress Poland headed up by Herman Ginsberg, those for Warsaw and àódĨ, headed by Stanisáaw Natanson and Stanisáaw Jarocinski - and explained his duties to the American minister at Warsaw Hugh Gibson: to study the conditions for the relief of Jews; to inspect the existing relief agencies in order to reorganize them; to readjust

1919, item 224233. 32 Report of June 20, 1919. AJDC, Poland general April-June 1919, item 224081. Report by B. Horwich (June 24, 1919). Part of his reports was later resumed by the Chicago Joint Relief Committee for Jewish Sufferers (August 11, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, items 224164, 224168.

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the relief machinery.33 Notwithstanding that President Paderewski publicly approved the work of the JDC, the relations with the Polish government were affected by some incidents and “unfortunate difficulties”: the confiscation of 100,000 Marks that had been delivered through the offices of the American Red Cross (destined to relieve people in Pinsk, while General Listowaki stated this sum was for the purposes of Jewish propaganda); the trouble in distributing the Westward Ho's cargo, and the hostile attitude of the authorities in many localities. In a report of November 13, 1919, Boris Bogen explained the difficulties that the JDC was experiencing in Poland. At the time, the only organizations authorized to import such commodities were the American Relief Administration and the American Red Cross, while the Joint Distribution Committee had to limit its contribution to such amounts that it could delegate for distribution to the above-mentioned agencies.34 In any case, the JDC was granted sufficient liberty to organize its own structure and appoint its delegates in Poland: Hershfield, who was assisted by Lieutenant Samuel Schein, or Mr. Zuckerman who visited many territories, supervising the distribution of relief and re-organizing the committees (in some instances the local Jewish Gminas were serving as committees and in other instances, for example at Brest-Litovsk, special committees were organized for this purpose). In November 1919, the Jointdisco launched a plan for the Overseas Unit which involved these activities: the institution of central and district apportioning committees; the establishment of control and supervision procedures; the organization of local distributing committees; the establishment of transfer and delivery facilities for remittances or relief in kind such as food packages; the stimulation of local support by means of relief campaigns; the creation of rehabilitation activities. Bogen was aware that the American Jewry was about to make “one of the momentous tasks in its history”, organizing a unit of selected workers under the management of Elkan C. Vorsanger, senior chaplain of the 77th division. An appeal was published and a special office was charged with the selection of volunteers through personal interviews: 180 people 33 Letter of Bogen to the American minister at Warsaw Hugh Gibson (May 15, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, April-June 1919, item 224057. 34 Boris Bogen’s report (November 13, 1919). Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224121.

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submitted their application and 23 were finally selected.35 The unit was assembled on December 15, and intensive work of training was initiated combining the work in the field and a course of study with some essential matters: Polish language (Dr. J. Vortzimer), contemporary history (prof. J. S. Shapiro), Jewish religious background in Poland (prof. I. Friedlander), work of the JDC (Dr. Bogen), practical office, business, and management (Mr. Loeb). Poland was divided into 12 branch offices with an Overseas Unit member in charge, while a central district relief agency was established in Warsaw. The central office had a remittance bureau (Golter), a personal service department (Rubenstein), a transportation and warehouse department (Rosenblum), a bureau of information, statistics and publicity (Florian Sokolow), offices of childcare, medical and regional directors.36 Bogen also outlined the general relief activities: the support of local social service institutions; the care of war orphans (60,000 estimated orphans who were uncared for by any organization); sanitary and other medical activities; economic assistance for self-rehabilitation in trade and industry (50,000 Marks were given to the families of Jewish functionaries who were discharged en masse at Lviv).37 To meet these necessities, the activity of the JDC in Poland included many different measures, which for example included the payment of summer 35 The complete unit under contract included: Boris Bogen, Jessie Bogen as organizing secretary, Charles I. Cooper, I. Field as accountant; Adolph Gerstenzang for the sanitary corps, Sam Golter, Harry Kagan, M. Katchor, S. B. Kaufman, Rabbi J. M. Kowalsky, J. Leff, Oscar Leonard, Simon Peiser, Irving Price, Meyer Raskin, George Rooby, Edward Rosenblum, Julius Savitsky, Samuel E. Schmidt, Abraham Shohan, Jacques Rieur, E. C. Vorsanger (Overseas Director of the Jewish Welfare Board), Abraham Zucker. Albert Lucas’ document of December 18, 1919. AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224241. 36 Poland was divided in 4 relief areas: Congress Poland (Warsaw and Lublin), Polish Lithuania (Biaáystok, Minsk, Vilnius, Brest-Litovsk), Galicia, Polish Ukraine (Kowno, Kameniets Podilskiy, Kiev). The following branch offices were established: Warsaw city (Charles I. Cooper as director), Warsaw district (Isaac Rubenstein), Lublin district (Jacques Rieur), Lwow district (Bernard Cantor), Kraków (A. Zucker), Biaáystok (Julius Savitsky), Vilnius (S. B. Kaufman), Minsk (here Schmidt was replaced by Jacob Field), Brest-Litovsk (Rabbi Kowalsky), Kaunas (Abraham Shohan). 37 Albert Lucas’ information letter no. III on Poland (December 8, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224236.

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colonies for 30,000 anaemic and rachitic children, the delivery of food packages (Captain Charles Grey brought £100,000 in clothes from England via Danzig, then shoes and food supplies), the transportation, the collection of individual remittances and the collection of addresses in order to facilitate the communication with the relatives in the US.38 After the initial difficulties, Bogen seemed to have fully realized how challenging the present situation was, and what would be the consequences in the future: “Our task in Poland is only just begun. For years to come the Jews of America must render moral and economic support to their brethren there. That this support should be established on effective, unified and equitable bases, a practical program of organized rehabilitation of Polish Jewry must be adopted. The preparation and administration of such a program is the task of the Joint Distribution Committee, a gigantic task, but one that, if sincerely and wholeheartedly attacked, cannot but meet with glorious success. Cooperation, constructive, wholehearted and continuous, is the keynote of this program; democracy and justice are the foundations on which it must be established; sympathy and deep understanding of the conditions and the problems of those whom it seeks to succour must be its guide”.39

The main problem arose from the fact that the reconstruction phase could not be started according to the initial programs. Theoretically, palliative relief care was coming to an end, and the aim was no longer to ensure the physical survival of people (though this was not exhausted) but to revive and stimulate their courage and hope. Practically, this passage could not be carried out, as Bogen himself confessed that his opportunities were limited and that, despite doing his best, it was not sufficient.40 Bogen's pessimistic vision seemed well-founded, at least reading the very detailed reports that were drafted by Julian Leavitt and Bernard Horwich, 38 Letter of May 21, 1919 from the JDC offices in Warsaw. AJDC, Poland, General 1919, item 224064. 39 Report sent by Boris Bogen to Albert Lucas (November 13, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General July-December 1919, item 224121. 40 “As to my work, I can conscientiously say that I have done all that was possible. I know that the work could have been more extensive, it should have embraced besides relief and philanthropy other departments of perhaps greater importance. But unfortunately my opportunities were limited”. Bogen’s report on his work in Poland was published in the Jewish Morning Journal (October 14, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224211.

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who visited many localities of Poland in 1919. On February 22, 1919, Horwich and Hershfield sailed from New York for Copenhagen on the steamer “Hellig Olav” of the Scandinavian American Line. At Copenhagen, they met Zuckerman and stayed there until March 4, gathering 400,000 Crowns for Poland before going on to Danzig and finding the ship “Westward Ho” fully loaded. On March 9, they arrived at Warsaw and met Colonel Grove and Bogen, who had arranged a plan and submitted it to the Polish minister of food and labor. Before leaving for Poland, Horwich received a questionnaire with 32 points representing a set of guidelines and, when in Warsaw, he organized the distribution of goods and inspected the various institutions. On April 28, Horwich left the city on an inspection trip lasting some weeks (he left for Vienna on May 25, then Paris and came back to New York in July). According to the data he gathered, the Jewish population in the places he visited (Sedletz, Ostroleka, àomĪa, Biaáystok, Pabianice near àódĨ) numbered about 25% less than the pre-war years, and only 30-40% of them were self-supporting (professions, business, trade, textile industry and unskilled labor).41 Malnutrition, hunger, typhus and other diseases were the main causes of death and were particularly worrying for the roughly 40,000 orphans living in these territories. The spread of typhus, in particular, obliged the JDC to recruit additional Yiddish-speaking doctors and nurses, with a special authorization from the secretary of state.42 Horwich had a realistic perspective and expressly mentioned that there was no need for new synagogues, but rather for tools and machinery to work, for orphan asylums and homes for the aged: “I found people living from eight to fourteen in one or two rooms, men, women and children packed together. Besides a great many are dwelling in dugouts, barns, freight cars”. He also emphasized the fact that the rivalries and clashes among the different political factions heavily influenced the relief action. The money was too often used by local institutions in a spirit of propaganda, in order to obtain influence for the various parties. Bogen confirmed these impressions, and reported on the pressures of the democratic elected

41 Horwich's report of August 9, 1919. AJDC, Poland, General, April-June 1919, item 225190. 42 Telegram of the secretary of state to Felix Warburg (April 5, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, April-June 1919, 224022.

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Kehillot, which claimed the exclusive right to distribute American funds.43 In the committee of Warsaw, for example, the working class was not represented at all, and the so-called assimilationists, who were in reality but a small proportion of the Jewish population, were in the majority. Assimilationist, zionist, bundist and orthodox, all the different 75-80 institutions of Warsaw were trying to get as much of American money as they could: even the public kitchens were used as a means to obtain party influence.44 As a consequence, in localities where new committees were to be established, an attempt was made to have the representation along as democratic lines as possible. Mr. Zuckerman organized all of his committees in accordance with this principle, except where “local Gminas, democratically constituted, existed”. These cases were not without problems. Among the impediments Bogen had to deal with, he mentioned the arbitrary allotment of funds according to the discretion of the JDC representatives. This meant neglecting the small communities to the advantage of larger centres, the lack of American control over the utilization of money and, last but not least, the misuse of funds for factional purposes, subsequently neglecting important needs such as childcare and medical service: “It became a matter of interest to the factions to secure majority representation on the distributing committees. Once having achieved such power, the majority consistently neglected the agencies of other factions in favor of its own”.

Experience showed that the system of having committee representatives of all elements in the community in proportion to their number did not work out satisfactorily, since it accentuated political divisions and strife within the committees. Each faction endeavoured to gain the largest representation and the biggest share of the appropriations, and new groups were continually being promoted and established for the purpose of securing additional representation in the committees. 43 Report about the relief by Boris Bogen (November 13, 1919). AJDC, Poland general July-December 1919, 224121. On the role and status of Polish Kehillas before and after the conflict, A. Guterman, The Warsaw Jewish Community between the Two World Wars. National Autonomy Enchained by Law and Reality, 1917-1939 (Tel Aviv: Centre for the History of Polish Jewry, 1997). 44 The situation of schools and cultural institutions was even graver. Report by Bernard Horwich (August 9, 1919), responding to the 32 questions submitted by the JDC as guidelines before his departure. AJDC, Poland General, July-December 1919, 224190.

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On one hand, the existence of democratically elected Kehillas claiming the right to distribute the American funds was a delicate problem. In the new territories east of the Bug River, the Americans noticed a real fight for power among the different Jewish organizations, which were eager to administer the funds for reasons of prestige. In some instances, certain factions received subventions simply to keep peace within the committees. But this generosity was counterproductive and with the exception of some places where Gminas still exercised the right to demand compulsory taxation, the voluntary donations were exceedingly small. This method did not stimulate the rich to give or to increase their contributions. By the same token, the representatives of the middle class had lost their prosperity and could contribute little to the relief. Maybe the expectations were exaggerated as proved by the “unfounded belief” that families could easily go to America: many people sold their belongings, went to Warsaw expecting to get a passport for America, but remained there, helpless, without shelter or resources.45 On the other hand, the needs were overwhelming: four or five families lived in one cellar, worse than beasts, without clothing and with just a minimum of food. It was understandable that the great majority of people were anxious to emigrate.46 In such conditions, the work of the American organizations was extremely helpful: “Whether it was a private, or a captain or a lieutenant, I have never seen an American officer pass by a little girl or boy begging on the street, but he would not put his hand in his pocket and give them something... The Americans are competing with the cemetery. If you can send enough money the cemetery is losing out and if you don't send enough money the cemetery is winning”.47

The extreme misery of Polish Jewry was fully described in many documents, for example in Horwich's report about the organization of work and the meetings he had in Warsaw (part I), the conditions of Jews in

45 Hershfield stated: “At the present time however, immigration from Poland to America is impossible... many tragedies are being caused by the unfounded belief that families can come to America”. Information letter no. III on Poland (December 8, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224236. 46 Letter from Cyrus Adler to F. Warburg (Paris, April 9, 1919). AJDC, Poland, April-June 1919, 224023. 47 Horwich's report of August 14, 1919. AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224189.

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Warsaw and in the country (part II), and the pogroms (part III).48 The second part of Horwich's report is undoubtedly the most interesting. From an economic viewpoint, the urban population of 325-350,000 Jews living in Warsaw was classified by distinguishing those depending entirely upon charity (20%), those who had some small revenue and thus depended upon charity only partially (30%), those belonging to the middle class and who contributed a “trifle” to charity (35%), and the so called well-to-do class (15%).49 Horwich seemed to share the widespread opinion that the Polish Jews, especially the rich, were not fully doing their duty toward the poor. The anxiety about the pogroms was killing all initiatives of reconstruction.50 While the Polish press was responsible for instigating violence, the Jewish press printed exaggerated reports of massacres daily, and kept the nerves of the people on edge. In addition to this, the assimilationists regarded the poor Jews, who were orthodox in their old chassidim style, as a problem conditioning the relationships with the majority, and cast them in a bad light. According to Jacob Billikopf, who spent more than a month in Poland between May and June, the rich Jews were “delinquent in their responsibility”: “There is not a Jew in Warsaw who is doing anything at all towards the maintenance of the Dinensohn Schools and Hebrew Schools. Everyone is relying on American funds”.51 It was not possible to walk in a Jewish part of the city for more than a few 48 In the first part, he described the meetings with Polish representatives, including President Paderewski, and also the more commonplace problems, for example regarding the distribution of Matzoh to the needy families in Warsaw. Here, the community requested compiling a registration of who was in need of assistance. A new registration was ordered by Bogen who wished to give Matzoh only to those registered by JDC, but the registration was not complete: “We almost had a riot in the office with a crowd of 2,000 men and women crying “You came from America to rob us of our Matzoh!”. In the end, it was decided to distribute Matzoh to everybody (Bogen remained dissatisfied). Report by B. Horwich (June 24, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224164, 224165, 224166. 49 Horwich's report - part II (June 24, 1919). 50 “Pogroms are a most real and painful fact in Jewish life in Poland now”. Ibidem. 51 The latter, for their part, even accused Bogen because of the relief: they did not want flour or other “grotesque means of re-establishing themselves” but something to sustain them economically and socially. Billikopf's report after his stay in Poland between May 15 and June 20, 1919 (July 8, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224173.

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minutes before some poor woman appeared with a child in her arms, or without seeing little 6-12 year-old children running around bare-footed in the coldest kind of weather. When Horwich bought a piece of cake for a boy, he asked him why he hid it away in his pocket instead of eating. The boy answered that he was afraid he could not resist eating it all without sharing it with his brother and sister. On April 30, 1919, Horwich visited the family of Bertha Grossman, a mother who lived in one room with her 5 children of 18, 16, 12, 10, and 5 years of age – her husband, Israel Grossman, resided in New York. That day she did not bring soup home and her youngest child ate only the candies that Horwich gave him. The conditions of the Jewish hospital in Warsaw were desperate. The lack of rooms forced many people to wait outside in the cold; the corridors were crowded and the rooms were cold and dismal; the beds were old and broken, the mattresses made out of old rags were filled with old straw fibre; the linen was used up for shrouds. Thousands of people lived in a “filthy, horrible cellar” and just managed to survive thanks to a plate of soup without bread in a public kitchen. In Siedlce, Horwich visited a barracks where 200 war refugees had lived for 3 years with no heat or light or any pretext for privacy: they were all living off the public kitchen. Horwich had the opportunity to visit many places, and the statistics he quoted are highly significant to understand the huge damage that the conflict had caused.52 Place

Total population

Jewish population Living only on relief

Warsaw

825,000

325,000

32,500-35,000

Sedletz

34,500

16,500

5,500

Biaáystok

80,000

50,000

22,000

Ostrolymna

7,000

4,800

2,500

Równo

60,000

40,000

8,000

Krzemieniec 26,000

12,000

4,000

Koretz

8,000

2,500

16,000

52 Horwich's reports about his visits to Sedletz, Krzemieniec, Koretz, Ostrolymna, and Ostroh on October 14-15, 1919. AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, items 224216, 224217, 224169, 224172, 224218.

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Ostroh

20,000

16,000

6,000

Pruzhany

7,000

5,000

1,650

àomĪa

23,000

11,000

3,500

Biaáystok, one of the most important centres of Jewish economic life, had a population of 100,000 (70,000 Jews) that dropped to 80,000 after the war. It was a perfect example of how political contrasts were prejudicing the work of assistance. Here, the local committee was made up of 15 members of the Bund, 10 socialists, 2 members of the People's Party, 2 of Poale Zion, 3 mechanics, 1 clerk, 1 teacher, 12 Zionists, 11 orthodox, 5 young Zionists, 5 chassidim, 3 business men, 1 property owner, the representatives of 6 synagogues and 33 rabbis. The funds were granted by the community and by many charitable institutions, while the well-to-do refused to help the Gmina because of the presence of the radicals who refused to accept that the costs of the public kitchens should be totally covered by the city government.53 The population of Równo, on the contrary, increased as it hosted Petliura's headquarters and the people working to supply his army. But after the war, middle class people were in a state of despair and apathy. The schools that were open under Ukrainian rule were closed down. There were no sheltering institutions or orphan asylums, only synagogues, one Jewish hospital with 50 beds, an ambulatory and an old people's home with 45 inmates.54 At Pruzhany, in the province of Grodno, the complete lack of employment was accompanied by hunger and epidemics (for example smallpox), by economic ruin and by the end of social assistance.55 Other observations 53 Horwich's report on Biaáystok (May 3, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, AprilJune 1919, 224170. 54 Jews in Równo were: 60% merchants, 20% artisans; 10% professionals, 10% various. 200 families of refugees were living in Równo, receiving bread and sheltering from a committee of 30 people, which was elected from the 40 members of the Gmina board representing the town and the 18 villages of the district amounting to 20,000 people (4,000 in extreme need and 5,000 poor). The Polish institution CKPD was not giving any food to Jews as they were “extremely suspicious”. Isidore Hershfield's report on Równo. AJDC, Poland, General, AprilJune 1919, 224119. 55 The Jewish newspaper Lebensfragen of Warsaw (April 18) published a report from Pruzhany, where the kitchen closed and also the children home soon exhausted its resources. The hospital had run out of medicines and the asylum for

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were dedicated to the small centre of Dubno, “a nest of pauperism”, or to Korets, a typical Ukrainian Jewish village, where many refugees from the surrounding areas were living in “dilapidated houses”: “We entered the first room, climbing a broken stair and saw the body of a young woman who died of hunger, she was lying on some bits of straw, which was her deathbed and there was even not a rag to cover her body. In the next bare room, we saw two children crouching in the corner, staring and motionless. There was no life in them at all seemingly. They had not even the energy to defend themselves against the flies, which ate them literally. We noticed also a strange bundle lying in the middle of the floor. I thought it was an old, rugged cushion, when it suddenly jumped up and proved to be a small child, which huddled into a round shape, covered itself up entirely with a rag, in order to defend itself against the flies. There was no one looking after these poor children. I have the impression that none of these children will ever become a normal, grown human being”.56

In the district of Vilnius and in other parts of Lithuania the conditions were even graver, as testified in the reports by Dr. Herzkin, who was appointed by Boris Bogen to supervise the medical situation.57 All towns and villages were in a very bad state, there were no more physicians or hospitals. In the city of Ashmyany (3,000 Christian and 3,000 Jewish inhabitants, plus 1,500 refugees), the hospital had 40 beds and the doctor was obliged to send the patients away, owing to the lack of food and medicine.58 Also Captain Kunz was astonished by the real situation in this hospital and in particular by its personnel. “The three nurses are characteristic of the rest of the people in this country, they are incompetent and not sufficiently intelligent to do any other than mechanical work. Added to this they are thoroughly possessed of the most childish whims of petty jealous, and other forms of undesirable stupidity. The poor people, however, are too frightfully stupid to grasp the situation... Civilization would hardly hold a place in the native dictionaries, if any were properly published”.59

Better conditions were observed only in the district of Troki, where the the aged was “starving”. 56 Report by Lt. Schein and Mr. Bocko sent on October 13, 1919. AJDC, Poland, Wolyn, 1919-21, 230332. 57 Report by Dr. Herzkin on Vilnius (July 20, 1919). AJDC, Poland, Vilna 1921, 230103. 58 Medical report from Sunday, June 22, until Saturday, June 28. AJDC, Poland, Vilna 1921, item 230101. 59 General report of June 22. AJDC; Poland, Vilna 1921, 230099.

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cases of typhus and smallpox were less numerous and the hospital was quite well organised. Also in this part of the district, which had largely been spared from the destruction of the battles, there was nonetheless a “good deal” of tuberculosis, especially among children. The zones near the Bolshevik front such as Zalesik, Smarhon, Kiens, Soáy, Szumsk were in ruins, the people were living in the trenches and were under-nourished. One of the causes of this food shortage was the high inflation, considered by the Jews a direct consequence of the Polish occupation, but by the Poles as a product of Jewish exploiters.60

Black bread lb. White bread lb. 10 eggs Meat lb. Potatoes lb. Butter lb. Milk per quart Bacon lb.

Market price (in Marks) 5,50 13 9 10 2 14 2 14

Shop price (in Marks) 6,50 16 15 25 2,50 20 3 16

All the prices increased under Polish occupation and the situation was no better in the Bolshevik territories, where there was no market at all and a badly blemished apple could cost from 3 to 4 Marks. Clearly, malnutrition facilitated the spread of epidemics: the most serious such as typhus, tuberculosis, peritonitis and smallpox, as well as those related to the lack of soap and hygiene, such as crabs and impetigo.61 The slow process of reconstruction could only begin in 1919, when the ORT resumed its activities and made an investigation into the conditions of trade and agriculture in the district.62 The situation of Jewish workers was particularly dire and there were no signs of the expected economic “renaissance”, especially in those traditional 60 Letter of September 11, 1919 to L. Messinger. AJDC, Baltic Countries 191920, 217476. 61 Second part of Kunz's report about the visit of many different localities after June 16: Swieciany, Niemenczyb, Podrobze, Soly, Orzmiany, Rukojne, Miedniki and so forth. AJDC, Poland. Vilna 1921, 230098. 62 Report about the activities during February 19-21. AJDC, Poland. Vilna 1921, item 230125.

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sectors where the Jews had always played a special role. An inquiry into the clothing-trade workers showed that 74% were without employment and about 80% were not qualified for any other work. During the time of the Russian empire, buyers came from Siberia and Caucasus to get ready-made clothing. In àódĨ, where about 2,200 tailors had been employed in large work-shops and stores of ready-made clothes (300 employed more than 5 journeymen; 700 had from 1 to 5 journeymen, and 1,000 worked with no assistance), a great number of them lost their jobs: the middle-class had no money to buy clothes and raw materials were difficult to find. The economic boycott, furthermore, brought with it numerous controversies, for example between the small craftsmen working at home with families and children as assistants, and the Needlework Labourer Union, which demanded to close workshops where less than 12 machines and 20 workmen were employed (Lebensfragen, April 25). During this difficult transition period, the market was depressed and overstocked with goods from Switzerland (better quality) and Italy (cheap goods) reaching Poland via Vienna.63 Another key factor, according to Julian Leavitt, was the displacement of thousands of workers. Warsaw was crowded with people coming from the frontier but also from small towns in the district of Warsaw. Across the whole country, thousands of families were still living away from their usual place of residence and were almost entirely isolated or marginalized.64 The critical conditions of the country required great financial resources that could be collected only through charity and humanitarian initiatives. The problems in organizing relief, as underlined in numerous reports, were a further hurdle in the path towards normalization, and were aggravated by the continual state of war, which hindered the activity of relief and, at the same time, worsened the position of Jews. Poland was in the midst of a severe confrontation with Soviet Russia. In this context, the Jews were naturally destined to be affected by the negative consequences of this new conflict that impeded the full implementation of relief actions. In some zones aid was initially brought by Dr. Spivak and Captain Vorsanger, but only in a second phase was it 63 Report by K. Grossman (information office of Copenhagen) regarding the conditions of Jews in Poland (June 20, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, April-June 1919, item 224082. 64 Julian Leavitt's report (June 30, 1919) with an appendix on the economic conditions. AJDC, Poland General, April-June 1919, 224160.

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arranged to establish two additional JDC branches, one in Kiev supervised by Dr. Friedlaender, and one in Kamianets-Podilskyi managed by Mr. Kass, with Captain Vorsanger as general director. Information coming out of this territory was disturbing. The political changes in the last year (under the Tsar, Kerenski, Germans, Ukrainians, Bolsheviks, once again Ukrainians, Poles) and the contemporary circulation of 6 different currencies (imperial and Kerenski Roubles, Bolshevik Roubles, Ukrainian Grivnas, Austrian Crowns and Polish Marks) reflected the chaos afflicting the region. But more alarming were the pogroms and massacres of innocent people that were perpetrated by the different armies and by paramilitary bands, creating an apathetic and passive attitude to all events: there were no schools, the institutions were practically shut down and all signs of social work entirely disappeared.65 In the summer of 1920, the situation in Poland was at a critical point and the advance of Russian troops obliged the members of the Overseas Unit to withdraw from the eastern territories. Kamianets-Podilskyi, Równo, Lemberg, Biaáystok, Brest-Litovsk, Minsk, Vilnius and other centres were evacuated leaving the local organizations with some funds, and saving the remittances and the food supplies, which were brought to Warsaw with cars and horses. In any case, many warehouses, relief agencies, kitchens, children's homes, were given over to the Russian army and, even worse, the entire Jewish population of this area was once again subjected to the perils of “lawlessness” that inevitably characterized the period between the evacuation by the retreating armies and the occupation by the victors.66 In this phase, the Jews asked the JDC members not to leave them, for only the presence of the JDC could prevent a new tragedy. In some cases, the JDC agents remained in the localities even during the confrontation between Russian and Polish forces, for example at Novy Borisov, where Samuel Schmidt organized non-sectarian relief. He safeguarded 350 cans of condensed milk, 1,500 kilos of flour and 15 kilos of beans in a warehouse at Smolevichi (35 versts from Novy Borisov). Every night he took the day's ration with a truck, while an ambulance brought the wounded civilians who could not be treated on the spot out of the city. In Warsaw, a special committee was established when the refugees began 65 Report on the conditions in Ukraine (October 13, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, item 224124. 66 Information letter of September 1, 1920. AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, 228124.

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to pour into the city from the front. The fear of imminent defeat, which in those days seemed highly probable, compelled the Overseas Unit to transfer the headquarters to Danzig. But a miracle on the Vistula favoured the victory of Pilsudski's forces and the defeat of Soviet armies before the very gates of Warsaw, putting an end to this phase of emergency. Nonetheless, even after the armistice with Soviet Russia, new complications were provoked by General Buáak-Baáachowicz, who recruited an independent army with White-Russians, Cossacks, Ukrainians and Poles, operating between Pinsk, Mazyr, Kowel, and directing his troops eastwards on his own authority, in order to set up a buffer state and form an independent White Russia.67 As openly confessed by a member of this improvised army, Lt. Shiek, these troops were made up of brigands and adventurers, and it was not possible to grant safety to the JDC workers, who continued to supervise the action of relief.68 After visiting this territory, Zuckerman and Kowalsky spoke of devastation and fear, of atrocities beyond the conception of the human mind: “Whole villages have been wiped out, the female population outraged, everything of value taken away”. Once again in history, Poland proved to be a God’s Playground in the middle of strategic, ethnic and political tensions, and the Jews were perhaps the first victims of this historical imbroglio.69

The International Dimension On an international level, the outrages in Poland gave rise to a tense diplomatic controversy, which brought foreign observers to Poland such as Sir Stuart Samuel and Ambassador Morgenthau. The observations of Morgenthau's commission, in particular, may prove interesting here not only because of the realistic and balanced description of factual events, but also for the general conclusions and for the ambassador's moderate approach: the use of the term “pogrom”, for example, was deliberately avoided as it could be applied to everything, from petty outrages to 67 Report from Warsaw (October 12, 1920). AJDC, Poland, Persecution and Pogroms, 228145. 68 The deputy of the Sejm Greenbaum arranged a meeting between a JDC delegation and General Lachwycki, a member of the staff of General BuáakBaáachowicz. Cable of Becker to the Jointdisco in Paris (October 27, 1920). AJDC, Poland, Persecutions and Pogroms, 228155. 69 Norman Davies, God's Playground. A History of Poland, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).

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premeditated and carefully organized massacres.70 Morgenthau's commission included General Edgar Jadwin and Mr. Homer H. Johnson, and was formed at the request of President Paderewski. The commissioners reached Warsaw on July 13, 1919, and remained in Poland until September 1919. All the places where the principal abuses had occurred were visited. In addition, the mission also examined the economic and social conditions in places like àódĨ, Kraków, Grodno, Posen, Cheám, Lublin, and Stanisáawów, undertaking the investigations in the presence of Polish government representatives and of members of the Jewish communities. Morgenthau briefly described the sentiment of antisemitism which reached its most intense stage in 1912, with the campaign of the National Democratic Party, and paved the way for the atrocities of the last phase of war. The main episodes of violence occurred just when the conflict was officially concluded, and the Eastern territories of Poland were occupied by the newly-established Polish army. The attacks were perpetrated by urban residents and peasants (in Kielce and Kolbuszowa), as well as by soldiers, who either acquiesced in the disorder, or directly committed the outrages (in Lemberg, Lida, Vilnius, and Minsk). In many places antisemitic prejudice was inflamed by the 70 A daily account of the investigative trip of the Morgenthau commission in the eastern regions was written by a member of the delegation. A. L. Goodhart, Poland and the Minority Races (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1920). At CzĊstochowa, “there was no reason at all for connecting the Jews with the shooting of the soldier, who had probably been hit by a spent bullet fired at a range in the neighbourhood” (p. 118). On the 27th of August, “At breakfast this morning the waiter brought us black war bread”. There is plenty of flour in the country, he said, “but the Jews have hidden it all. They are doing everything to hurt us, and so our life gets harder from day to day” (p. 128). The pogrom was also described as “a military sack by victorious armed forces of civilians marked as enemies”. W. H. Hagen, “The Moral Economy of Popular Violence. The Pogrom in Lwow, November 1918”, in R. Blobaum (ed. by), Antisemitism and its Opponents in Modern Poland (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 126; C. Fink, Defending the Rights of Others. The Great Powers, the Jews, And International Minority Protection, 1878-1938 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 110. For a comprehensive outlook on the situation of Jews in Eastern Poland and Ukraine, see the special number on Ukrainians, Jews and the Holocaust which has been published by Nationalities Papers (Vol. 39, number 3, May 2011). See also G. D. Hundert (ed.) The Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); L. Wolf, The idea of Galicia. History and fantasy in Habsburg political culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).

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charge that the Jews were Bolsheviks or enemy of the Polish State, in many others by the economic conditions after the conflict. The two factors could not be entirely separated, as the propaganda for the economic suffocation of the Jews fostered anti-Jewish hatred. After countless press articles, political announcements and public speeches, this aversion was inevitably destined not to remain confined to the form of an economic boycott. In its second part, the Morgenthau report tried to analyse the relationships between Christians and Jews, the causes of resentment against the Jews, and the political pressures that were put on Poland to draw up a special agreement for the minorities.71 According to Morgenthau, the responsibility for the excesses, which were apparently unpremeditated, lay with the undisciplined and ill-equipped Polish recruits. Uncontrolled by their inexperienced and timid officers, they sought to take advantage of that portion of the population whom they regarded as alien and hostile to Polish nationality and aspirations. The ambassador believed that wider publicity for reports of judicial and military prosecutions might minimize subsequent excesses, by discouraging the belief that robbery and violence could be committed with impunity. But violence was also exercised, and even more frequently, through other forms of persecution: shaving the beards of Jews, beating and forcing Jews off trains and out of railroad stations. Such episodes resulted in keeping the Jewish population in a state of turmoil and fear. At the same time, the economic boycott represented “an invisible rope around the necks” of the Jews: in many cases non-Jewish labourers 71 The facts were described by the Mission of the United States to Poland and by the American commission to negotiate peace in Paris (Paris, October 3, 1919). Henry Morgenthau, All in a Life-Time (Doubleday: Page and Company, 1922). To protect Poland's international reputation against widespread, even if exaggerated, accusations of mistreatment, Washington dispatched an investigatory commission led by Henry Morgenthau, one of the most prominent American Jewish political figures. Morgenthau was selected for the job precisely because he was known to be sympathetic to Poland, and his report largely exculpated the Polish government, exactly as was expected. As a matter of fact, the American commission was officially invited by the Polish government. N. Pease, Poland, the United States, and the stabilization of Europe, 1919-1933 (New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). The information about the massacre of Pinsk heightened worldwide and especially in the United States - the attention towards the Jewish question in Poland. M. B. Biskupski (ed. by), Ideology, politics, and diplomacy in East Central Europe (Woodbridge: University of Rochester press, 2003), pp. 65 ff.

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refused to work side by side with Jews; the percentage of Jews in public offices, especially those holding minor positions, such as railway employees, firemen, policemen, was materially reduced, while the cessation of commerce was particularly felt by the Jewish population, who almost entirely depended upon it. Morgenthau distinguished the relatively calm situation in Congress Poland from that of the new territories, and suggested that many abuses were substantially due to the military activities and the troops' lack of discipline. At the same time, the Jewish situation was aggravated by the efforts of certain malicious German influences, which sought to discredit Poland financially and politically, for example publishing exaggerated articles. In a report of the Neue Freie Presse of November 30, 1918, an eyewitness estimated the number of victims of a pogrom between 2,500 and 3,000, although the highest number given by the local Jewish committee was 76. On the contrary, Morgenthau, as well as Bogen and other JDC representatives, believed that this doctrine of “controversialism” was founded on extremely dubious grounds, and could be counter-productive. Also the Joint Foreign Committee preferred a moderate approach to avoid a worsening of the relations with Poland, whose government was always approached by L. Wolf with tact, for example without any formal reference to the term “pogrom”.72 Paradoxically, the result was that both Samuel and Morgenthau were challenged by some members of their commissions, and were equally criticized by some factions of the Jewish parties, which condemned their diplomatic tones in describing the atrocities.73 At the same time, though 72 The Polish government recognised Wolf's politeness, and justified the violence by recalling the effects of war: “The insecurity is not felt by the Jewish population only. Owing to the state of war and to the continuous invasions insecurity affects in a high degree the whole of the country, and there have been many Christians who have suffered by it, who have lost their properties and lives”. Letter sent by Paderewski and Ashkenazy to Mr. Lucien Wolf (Geneva, December 5, 1920). Report of the Secretary and Special Delegate of the Joint Foreign Committee on Jewish Questions dealt with by the First Assembly of the League Presented to the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Council of the Anglo-Jewish Association (London: Joint Foreign Committee, 1921), p. 41. See also E. C. Black, “Squaring a Minority Triangle: Lucien Wolf, Jewish Nationalists and Polish Nationalists”, in P. Latawski, The Reconstruction of Poland (London: Macmillan, 1992); M. Levene, War, Jews, and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf, 1914-1919 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 73 N. Davies, “Great Britain and the Polish Jews, 1918-20”, Journal of

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Morgenthau appreciated the cooperation of Polish authorities and their general discipline, his report was interpreted as a strong accusation against Poland as it had the effect of worsening the Polish image before western public opinion during the delicate phase of the Versailles peace talks. The Poles, on their side, reacted against these accusations publishing articles in the international - “Why the Jews dislike the Morgenthau report”, The Dearborn Independent (30 October, 1920) - and national press - Robotnicza, Mysl Niepodlegla -. Furthermore, the National Democratic Party gained another argument for its anti-Jewish propaganda, as the international diplomatic defence of Polish Jews was interpreted as clear evidence of Jewish anti-patriotic attitudes. This association contributed to increasing the idea of a voluntary separation of the Jews from the Polish interests, and, especially in localities where other problems of nationality existed, this automatically led to the arbitrary identification of Jews as anti-Polish elements. Morgenthau's report caused a great deal of controversy within the ranks of American diplomacy. Some thought that it was the result of an anti-Polish campaign, while others argued it was too soft and too politically correct. The American ambassador in Warsaw, Hugh Gibson, firmly opposed the thesis of pogroms or anti-Jewish mass murders and was very critical towards the Jewish organizations, which on their side sent to Poland their own delegation under the leadership of Felix Frankfurter and Harold Gans. To support his position, Gibson sent Washington a protest of the Jewish representatives from the towns of Borysáaw, Tustanovice and Wolanka “against exaggerated charges on the subject of pogroms spread by elements hostile to the Polish army”. He also transmitted a note verbale he had received from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, calling attention to the fact that the conflicts “were generally the results of the work of certain provocateurs”.74 According to Gibson, the purpose of American Jews' propaganda campaign was not the welfare of Polish Jews but “a conscienceless and cold-blooded plan to make the condition of the Jews in Poland so bad that Contemporary History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (April 1973), pp. 130-131 74 A. Kapiszewski, “Controversial Reports on the Situation of Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War I. The Conflict Between the US Ambassador in Warsaw Hugh Gibson and American Jewish Leaders”, Studia Judaica, 7: 2004, No. 2 (14), pp. 257-304; A. Kapiszewski, “Polish-Jewish Conflicts in America during the Paris Peace Conference: Milwaukee as a Case Study”, Polish American Studies, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Autumn 1992), pp. 5-18.

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they must turn to Zionism for relief”. The aim was also to weaken Poland in the interest of Germany, which had little desire for an economic and political rival. In turn, Louis Marshall summed up his opinion on Gibson in a long letter he wrote to Abram Elkus. Marshall stated that most of Gibson’s reports were “inaccurate and ill-digested” and that Gibson dedicated to the subject “merely superficial attention”.75 Another agent of the JDC, Jacob Billikopf, “gathered the impression that he (Gibson) knew nothing about the Polish situation, but had definite views on the whole subject”. As a matter of fact, Ambassador Gibson, who arrived in Poland during the first months of 1919, was frankly contrary to the concession of Jewish national autonomy and questioned: “What would you think if the Jews would ask for national rights and national autonomy in America”?76 But Gibson's “politeness” in treating with the Polish government was not shared by international diplomacy, which drafted a special treaty for the respect of minority rights and practically “imposed” its signature upon Poland. The following developments, unfortunately, demonstrated that this imposition alone could not solve all the problems and reconcile Poles and Jews after so many controversies. On the contrary, since the early twenties, the Jewish organizations had to intervene to defend the interests of the Polish Jews, for example against the menaces of expulsions or the proposals concerning the introduction of a Jewish numerus clausus in the universities, following the example of the University of Posen, which limited the number of Jewish admissions to 2% of the total roll of students. Another affair that stirred public opinion was the Court of Warsaw's decision to remove from his seat Noach Prilutzki, deputy of the city, who was substantially guilty of not being Polish enough. On this occasion, the public prosecutor asked the Diet to institute proceedings against Jewish deputies for having accused the government in the Yiddish press.77 This case proved that despite the signature of international treaties and the work of international commissions, the real situation continued to be extremely 75 Marshall actively supported the Jewish cause in Paris, contacting the most influential Polish politicians, as Dmowski, and Wilson's consultants such as David Hunter Miller and Manley-Hudson. The issue was first of all discussed in a series of public meetings. M. D. Evans, Religious Liberty and International Law in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 109-110. 76 Billikopf's report of July 8, 1919. AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224173. 77 “Record of events in 5680 (September 13, 1920, to October 2, 1921/5681)”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 22, pp. 239 ff.

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tense. The Treaty of Versailles mentioned the right of national autonomy but the Jews were compelled to close shops both on Saturday and Sunday, the Jewish schools were left to their own destiny without the funds of the government, which in turn tried to find reasons to expel the Jews although the treaty bestowed upon them the right of ipso facto citizenship.78 The implementation of the constitutional text fuelled much discussion and animated strong parliamentary obstructionism against the laws set on improving Jewish conditions. In 1924, the supreme administrative tribunal formally affirmed that the constitution had only proclaimed but not concretely introduced equal rights, which were to be implemented through adequate laws and regulations. Only as late as 1931, was a specific law issued to eliminate the Tsarist and Austrian restrictions but, ironically, it was enacted “at a time when Jews were being forced to wage a new struggle against the first projects launched by the National Party”, the successor of the National Democratic Party.79 The Polish case attracted the attention of many international observers, and sparked a lively debate even within the Jewish communities, largely in connection with the political options that were advocated as possible solutions against antisemitism. As underlined by William Hagen, the postwar events reinforced the perception that antisemitism was an instrument in the hands of political institutions and ideologies rather than the product of undying anti-Jewish prejudice. Only the establishment of the “rule of 78 Memorandum on Polish Jews and national autonomy. AJDC, Poland, Persecution and Pogroms, item 228167. 79 In 1923, the General Prosecutor's office did not admit Hebrew and Yiddish languages in public affairs; in 1928 the Ministry of Religion and Public Education forbade the conversion of a Catholic to Judaism on the basis of an Austrian law of 1905. Only in 1927, did Minister Slawoj-Skladkowski re-establish the right to use Yiddish language in public assemblies. S. Rudnicki, “Anti-Jewish Legislation in Interwar Poland”, in R. Blubaum, Antisemitism and its Opponents in Modern Poland, pp. 152-158. For a careful study of Jewish percentages inside Polish public administration, and their presence in the different professions (physicians, engineers, barristers and prosecutors), in schools and universities, see R. Mahler, “Jews in public service and the liberal professions in Poland, 1918-39”, Jewish Social Studies, 4 (October 1944), pp. 291 ff. The author stressed that “the systematic drive against Jews in the professions was but one aspect of a general assault on their entire economic position, launched by the ruling reactionary forces. At a time when the government officially adopted as its policy the “Polonification” of the country's economy and the compulsory emigration of Jews, Jewish professionals, as forming the intelligentsia of their people, were necessarily the first victims”.

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law”, it was said, would soon end the age of pogroms.80 These considerations were shared also by Samuel, who stressed the necessity of carrying out precise legal measures such as restoring the Jewish officials in their posts, ordering all publications advocating a boycott to be suspended, abolishing the restrictions in the universities, and so forth.81 The interwar development witnessed a difficult transition towards the return to normal conditions and the establishment of a genuinely democratic regime. The Polish state was weakened by the international threats that surrounded Poland and by the internal fight between Dmowski and Piásudski. Only the 1926 golpe, which meant the rise to power of the latter, brought the “Jew baiting” strategy to a definitive close. In 1927, the American Jewish Congress recognized the tolerant and “not hostile” approach of the new government and, even without expecting a rapid change from antisemitism to brotherly love, expressed satisfaction for Piásudski's reforms. Similar considerations were also expressed by the director of the Leagues' Minority Section, who underlined that the Jews of Poland never officially raised any question or made any complaint.82 The years after the war and especially the thirties, recorded in turn a drastic acceleration towards the consolidation of nationalism as the alpha and omega of practically all the European governments, and this political evolution finally conditioned any possible Pacyfikacja. Poland was not 80 W. W. Hagen, “Murder in the East: German-Jewish Liberal Reactions to AntiJewish Violence in Poland and Other East European Lands, 1918-1920”, Central European History, Vol. 34, no. 1 (2001), p. 29. 81 Among Samuel's suggestions: no restrictions should be placed upon the number of Jews admitted to the universities; a decree to be published declaring boycott as illegal; all prisoners in internment camps be brought to immediate trial, and that humane treatment be assured to all interned prisoners; facilities be afforded for the introduction of new industries into Poland with a view to converting a larger proportion of Jewish population into producers; the British government should assist Jews wishing to emigrate from Poland by providing facilities to proceed to countries such as Palestine, Canada, South Africa, Algeria, and South America, or any other country desiring to receive them. “Poland and Jewish Pogroms, British Commissioners Report - Why Migration from Poland”, Advocate of Peace through Justice, Vol. 82, No. 8 (August, 1920), p. 285 82 The Washington session (February 20-21, 1927) commented on the report of the United Jewish Campaign, which was one of the groups that were associated to the American Jewish Congress: “With the advent of Marshal Piásudski the attitude of the government has become more friendly. It is at least not hostile”. Archives of Foreign Affair Ministry (MAE), Bucharest, Vol. 36, 316. See also, P. De Azcárate, The League of Nations and National Minorities (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 1945), p. 34.

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exactly the “chosen land” for Jews, but despite growing antipathies, it was the land of the largest, most culturally and politically dynamic Jewish community in Europe. Jews and Poles viewed their coexistence in different terms: the Jews spoke of intolerance, violence in the streets and religious hatred; the Poles evoked dramatic images of overpopulation and economic crisis.83 These arguments reflected old prejudices that in 1919 were still alive and widespread, as Morgenthau noted during his visit, when he modestly suggested: “All citizens of Poland should realize that they must live together. They cannot be divorced from each other by force or by any court of law... The Polish nation must see that its worst enemies are those who encourage this internal strife. A house divided against itself cannot stand. There must be but one class of citizens in Poland, all members of which enjoy equal rights and render equal duties”.

Quoting a Polish Jews' petition, “even if Poland, in its new existence as an independent nation, would choose to abolish the artificial barriers existing between Jews and non-Jews and to give them an equal justice as citizens of the new commonwealth, even then it would require time, and considerable time, to outlive the effects of tradition and experience. But Poland chose another path: using the Jewish people as a scapegoat”.84 The life of Polish Jews during the interwar period would inevitably be affected by new and ancient problems that resurfaced and consolidated during the conflict. On one side, the traditional social juxtaposition between Christian peasants and Jewish traders (in 1931, 96% of the Jews depended upon non-farming occupations), on the other, the internal division that opposed orthodox, zionist, socialist, revisionist, autonomist, nationalist or assimilationist parties, reflected not only the diverging social and political views, but also the geographical and historical identities of two different communities.85

83 A. Smolar, “Jews as a Polish Problem”, Daedalus, Vol. 116, no. 2 (Spring 1987), p. 33. 84 Confidential report on Poland, written by Polish Jews (December 24, 1919). AJDC, Poland, General, July-December 1919, 224243. 85 The electoral systems favoured the zionist parties, and in 1921 Poland had 250,000 Shekel-payers or zionist supporters. Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland. 1919-1939 (Berlin: Mouton, 1983), pp. 261 ff; J. Zimmerman, Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).

NO MAN’S LAND: THE POGROMS IN UKRAINE

The Facts After the February Revolution, Ukraine was controlled by a central council (Rada), which at the time professed to be a progressive government, and indeed enacted legislation that was favourable to the minorities, including the Jews. On January 22, 1918, the Ukrainians proclaimed an independent state in Kiev; on January 25, 1918, the Fourth Universal of the Rada, decreed its independence from Russia, and on February 9, 1918, Ukraine and Germany signed a special treaty of cooperation.1 Although the Ukrainians had stipulated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as allies of the Central Powers, the latter occupied the country, disbanded the Rada, and with the coup of April 29 proclaimed Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, the son of a Cossack aristocratic family, the ruler (hetman) of Ukraine. But at the end of 1918, the situation changed once again. On November 15, when the Central Federation of Ukrainian Trade-Unions issued a resolution calling for a general strike, disorganized insurrectionary riots broke out in the Donets river basin, and the Central Powers were forced to withdraw. On December 14, Skoropodasky abdicated and a new government, the directorate, was formed under the leadership of Symon Petliura. In this moment, Ukraine was “besieged” by the Poles, Denikin's army, and by the Soviet troops. The Bolsheviks started a counter-attack, organized a Soviet government at Kursk, and advanced from north to south, capturing Homel, Sumy, Kupiansk, Kharkiv, Ekaterinoslav, and Kiev on February 2, 1919. Meanwhile, on November 1, 1918, the West Ukrainian People's Republic was established in the former Austrian territories. This republic was engaged 1 For the integral text of the universals, see T. Hunczak (ed.), The Ukraine 19171921: A Study in Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1977). For the analysis of Ukrainian history after the First World War, A. Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine: The Second Campaign, 1918-1919 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963); J. Reshetar, The Ukrainian Revolution, 1917-1920: A Study in Nationalism (New York: Arno, 1972).

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No Man’s Land: The Pogroms in Ukraine

in a war against Poland for the possession of Lviv and Eastern Galicia. On January 22, 1919, the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic signed an act of union in Kiev. The annulment of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was followed by a Bolshevik offensive that overran most of Eastern and Central Ukraine. The Ukrainian People's Republic was reduced to a strip of territory around the headquarters of the army near the Polish border – Vinnytsia, Proskurov, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Równo - and during the spring and summer of 1919, Denikin's volunteer troops overran all of Central and Eastern Ukraine, and made significant gains on other fronts. In winter, the tide of war reversed decisively, and by 1920, all of Eastern and Central Ukraine except Crimea was again in Bolshevik hands. The Bolsheviks also defeated Nestor Makhno, their former ally against Denikin. In April 1920, Piásudski and Petliura signed an agreement to fight the Bolsheviks: Petliura recognised the Polish annexation of Galicia and agreed to Ukraine's role in Piásudski's dream for a Polish-led federation. After the initial “Pyrrhic victory” of May 1920, however, Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Red Army carried out a successful counter-offensive and moved towards Warsaw, where against all odds it was defeated by Piásudski's troops in August 1920. Notwithstanding the different political changes of this phase, the Jewish question was widely discussed but, unfortunately, these political negotiations did not produce any material improvement of Jewish conditions. On one side, the Ukrainian governments issued several acts in favour of Jewish rights: the vice-secretariat of Jewish affairs and a national council were organized in the second part of 1917, the law of national-personal autonomy was promulgated on January 24, 1918, and even a Ministry for Jewish Affairs was established by the Directorate. On the other, despite these formal achievements, in 1919-20 the Ukrainian area was the epicentre of the worst pogroms: “During the past two years the most thickly populated centres of Jewish life have been swept by an endless succession of pogroms. The hecatombs of Proskurov, the massacres of Uman, the carnage of Fastov, the funeral pyres and devastation in hundreds of towns, the seats of ancient Jewish communities, the atrocities and cruelties inflicted, the disasters and agonies suffered, constitute a catastrophe which has no parallel in the troubled history of the Eastern Jews during recent centuries. Brutalised hordes, with no thought but to kill, to dishonour, to burn and destroy, have descended in masses on the Jewish communities, devastating their homes

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and maltreating and murdering their peaceful and innocent inmates with a bestiality and fury which defy description. Everywhere men and women, old and young, the aged, the infirm, and the helpless, mutilated, tortured, outraged, burnt, buried alive; scores of communities overwhelmed or decimated, their hearths, their cemeteries, their sanctuaries destroyed or desecrated, every house either a ruin or a wailing place; thousands of emaciated fugitives wandering in the forests and hiding in caverns, and most pitiable of all many thousands of orphaned children, hungry, naked, and homeless, their young lives poisoned by terror and vagabondage. Such is the spectacle presented by a large part of the Jewry of Eastern Europe”.2

As argued by Henry Abramson, the situation was genuinely paradoxical. At the very moment that Jewish rights were finally being affirmed by the Ukrainian revolutionary movement, men operating in the name of the latter were brutally terrorizing, persecuting and killing thousands of Jews.3 In this chaotic context, the central governments were unable to gain full sovereignty, with the effective control of the territories being in the hands of local landlords, Cossacks and other paramilitary formations that were used by the different powers. As a consequence, Ukraine became a no man's land where every army, small or great, was free to sack, ravage and destroy. It is easy to imagine how violence, brutality and oppression, became the routine in many parts of Ukraine. Once again, the Jews were among the principal victims. From this viewpoint, the pogrom of Uman in November 1917 and the massacres of Lviv were just the first acts of a tragedy that in 1919 caused a considerable stir throughout the world, thanks

2 Letter sent by the Joint Committee to the President of the Assembly (Geneva, December 8, 1920). Similar feelings were expressed by other associations, such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which in a letter sent to the President of the Council of the League (Paris, December 8, 1920) affirmed: “La tragedie de 1'Europe orientale qui a deja fait tant de victimes, et qui suspend sur tant de millions d'etres des menaces terrifiantes, atteint en particulier la population juive”. Report of the Secretary and Special Delegate of the Joint Foreign Committee on Questions of Jewish Interest at the Third Assembly of the League (London: Anglo-Jewish Association), pp. 41-43. 3 H. Abramson, “Jewish representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917-1920”, Slavic Review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Autumn 1991), pp. 542-550. See also S. Godelman, Jewish National Autonomy in Ukraine 1917-1920 (Chicago: Ukrainian Research and Information Institute, 1968); M. Silberfarb, The Jewish Ministry and Jewish National Autonomy in Ukraine (New York: Aleph Press, 1993); H. Abramson, A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).

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No Man’s Land: The Pogroms in Ukraine

to numerous articles in the New York Times or to Cherikover's work.4 A document redacted by A. T. Roseff and S. Salkind in May 1919 described the changes of 1917-1919 as a continuous series of tragedies: first the 1917 February Revolution gave way to the repatriation of many Jewish refugees, then the Kerensky offensive converted into a battlefield the Russian territories inhabited by Jews, whose houses were burned or occupied by soldiers and local inhabitants.5 The land held by Jews in all those towns practically fell into the hands of the local Christian population: “While the Germans were exercising their ability in ruining the Jewish population in the West, the Bolsheviks were doing their best to accomplish the same in the rest of Russia”.6 The Germans were followed by the Bolsheviks and the Poles, then by the Bolsheviks and the Romanians, the Poles and the Ukrainians, and once again by the Bolsheviks. All these armies swept through the country many times, burning, pillaging, violating and killing the civilians who happened to be in their path. In the midst of this struggle, the Jews represented the Bolshevik supporters in the Ukrainian and Russian eyes, while for the Bolsheviks they were the intellectual bourgeoisie to be struck down. For the various bands, they were simply a good prey to rob, torture and kill. In the end, the Jews became the favourite victims of both large and small armies of every flag, colour or ideology. The historians (Bartal, Buldakov, Fuller, Löwe) have interpreted this season of terror and despair as a mixture of common criminality, military agitations, and political chaos. From the beginning, the Jews were affected by violent discrimination under the slogan “Kill the Yids, Save Russia”. In June-July 1917, the attempts to revolutionize the soldiers in Petrograd and Moscow were accompanied by agitation for pogroms; in September 1917 at Soroki, in Bessarabia, the mob dispersed the local Duma because it included representatives of the Jewish population; at Ovruch, in Volhynia, a peasant rebellion tried to establish a republic under the influence of the White Russian Bolsheviks, and this coup was followed by the repression of Meschanchuk's “Clan of Death” and of the Cossacks, who continued to sack and rob until the middle of January, with the result of 80 Jews killed

4 E. Cherikover, Antisemitizm i pogromy na Ukraine 1917–1918 gg. (Berlin: Mizreh-Yidishn historishn arkhiv, 1923). 5 “Jewish Relief Work in Russia and the Ukraine”, report signed by A. T. Roseff and S. Salkind (May 30, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, 233458. 6 Ibidem.

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and 1,200 houses plundered.7 These incessant episodes of looting and violence were concentrated especially along the Kiev-Poltava railway line. The special Jewish defence guards such as the All Russian Congress of Jewish Fighters, or the Ukrainian Union of Jewish Fighters, were almost powerless against this calamity.8 Many works have underlined that the antisemitic agitations increased in the fall of 1918 and in the first months of 1919, precisely in the period when Petliura restored the autonomy of minorities and appointed his Jewish ministers: Pinchas Krasny was the minister for Jewish affairs, Goldelmann of Poale-Zion and Arnold Margolin were under-secretaries. Despite the official policy of the government, the reality was completely different, as demonstrated by the first pogroms that occurred at Ovruch, Zhytomir and in some villages in the early days of January 1919. In these cases, the perpetrators were local hetmans such as Kozyr-Zyrka, Volynetz, Makhno, Grigoriev (Nykyfor Hryhoriiv), and other groups such as the Gaiadamaks, Batki, and Paschenko's clans of death. In February 1919, a deputation of Zhitomir was sent to Vinnytsia, where the Directory was located after the Bolshevik occupation of Kiev. The members of this delegation reported that the leaders of the death clans like Pashchenko were free to stay in the same hotel as the ministers, who celebrated them as the glory of the Ukrainian army: “Pashchenko is the best son of Ukrainia, and if he had not been arrested, we should not have lost Kiev. Now that he is free again we shall regain Kiev”.9 In the same days, new pogroms took place in Elizabetgrad, Novomyrhorod, Pyryatyn, in the district of Poltava, and at Proskurov on February 15. Situated in the governorate of Podolia, Proskurov appeared a very lively town, with a population amounting to 50,000 people, of which nearly 25,000 were Jews. It had a democratic municipal council consisting of 7 E. Heifetz, The Slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine in 1919 (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1921), p. 185. 8 P. Buldakov, “Freedom, Shortages, Violence: The Origins of the Revolutionary Anti-Jewish Pogrom in Russia, 1917-1918”, in J. Dekel-Chen, D. Gaunt, M. Neir, I. Bartal, Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011); Heinz Dietrich Löwe, “Pogroms in Russia: Explanations, Comparisons, Suggestions”, Jewish Social Studies, New Series, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 17 ff. 9 E. Heifetz, Slaughter of the Jews in Ukraine, pp. 32-33.

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Christian and Jewish members, and in February 1919 experienced a Bolshevik uprising. Under the guidance of a small Bolshevik military attachment and of local communists, the insurgents occupied the mail, telegraph and treasury offices, but soon surrendered to Ataman Semosenko's Zaporozhsky Cossacks. Semosenko seized the city, disarmed the student militia and the self-defence organization and gathered his “Hydemaks” calling upon them to blame the Jews for the insurrection. The troops then spread through the different parts of the city and the slaughter began. Not even the intervention of a Russian deacon could stop it and when the massacre ceased, the same regiment took a train, went to the city of Fel'shtyn and repeated the performance of Proskurov.10 Leaving 3,964 killed and 2,014 wounded, in addition to the accounts of barbarian atrocities against synagogues and even schoolchildren, the hecatomb of Proskurov was to resonate widely.11 In March, Petliura recorded some military success, but at the end of the month the Bolsheviks reinforced their position and another wave of pogroms affected Belshit, Shamgorod, Iskorost, Ushomyr, Tetiiv and Zhytomyr. In this last case, the Bolshevik troops left Zhytomyr on March 21, and Petliura's forces entered the following morning: the Jewish masses abandoned the city and, on their return, they were considered Bolshevik fugitives. The pogrom began on March 22 and lasted 5 days causing “only” 317 victims, largely because many Christians protected the Jews in their houses. The pogroms continued the following months, for example in May, at Voronovitsy, Równo, Krementz, Litin, Kodyma, in June at Skvyra (45 casualties), Derazhnya, Khmilnyk, Strishanya and Starye Siniavka. A first provisional account of these episodes was given in the Roseff-Salkind report, which included a list of pogroms and the respective number of casualties.12

10 Kenez states that the largest pogrom took place in Proskurov, in February of 1919, where about 2,000 people were murdered. P. Kenez, “Pogroms and White Ideology in the Russian Civil War”, in J. D. Klier, S. Lambroza (eds.), Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 295. 11 Letter from Landescu (Zuckerman) to Dr. Weitzman (July 22, 1919). AJDC, Romania, Bessarabia, Bukovina, item 231875. 12 A. T. Roseff and S. Salkind, “Jewish Relief Work in Russia and the Ukraine”. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, item 233458.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Place Berdychiv Shilomir Ovruch Ekaterinoslav Elizavetgrad Letychiv Vasekov Pavlograd Fastov Bila Tserkva

183

Casualties 50 80 50 Unknown 6 8 9 7 10 11

Information regarding the pogroms reached the US through the reports of indirect witnesses such as Rabbi Teitelbaum of Constantinople, who met people arriving from Odessa, and reported on the daily massacres and the pogrom of Proskurov.13 In June 1919, Isaac Don Levine wrote to Rabbi Berlin from Stockholm, stating he had been the last American to enter and leave Soviet Russia, which was almost hermetically sealed and isolated from the outside world. The conditions of the Ukrainian Jews were appalling and the Central Committee of the Russian Zionist Organization calculated that the pogroms had already “produced” about 84,000 casualties.14 Many perceived this first phase as a prelude to a frightful blood-bath that might even end in the annihilation of millions of Jews. Violence was the product of anti-Bolshevik propaganda, which was carried out in a fanatical manner, inciting the populace to attack the Jews in villages, towns, and train stations. The pogroms continued in summer and autumn, when also Denikins' White Army participated with “enthusiasm”, for example in the province of Kiev, at Fastov on September 2-8, or on September 28-29 at Smila. Other massacres were recorded at Dubovo (June 17, 1919), Skvyra (June 23, 1919), at Pereyaslav and Rizhichev in July, at Yustingrad-Sokolovke and Pogrebishche in August.15 The Pogrebishche pogrom was described by Cherikover as a product of Zeleny's paramilitary forces, who had disarmed the Jews just some days 13 Letter from Constantinople of Rabbi Teitelbaum to Albert Lucas (March 30, 1919). AJDC, Pogroms and Persecutions, item 223457. 14 Letter from Stockholm of Isaac Don Levine to Rabbi Berlin (June 17, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, 233450. 15 The events are described in the appendix to the memorandum on the massacres and violence committed against the Jewish population (December 26, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms, 1920, items 233371, 233372.

No Man’s Land: The Pogroms in Ukraine

184

before the Ukrainian regular division surrendered the town to a band of more than 1,000 men, who slaughtered and killed 350-400 Jews. Kiev was affected by pogroms in the first days of September 1919, when the volunteer army entered the city, and again in October after a counterattack of the Bolsheviks: once again, anti-Jewish violence was carried out as a punishment against the Jewish alleged collusion with the Reds. It was impossible to state the number of Jewish casualties as the bodies were being picked up in gullies and hollows on the outskirts of the city - only 294 were registered at the Jewish cemetery -, but it was calculated that approximately 18-20,000 Jews had been plundered and robbed.16 The pogroms were even more ferocious than in the past: the pogromists not only benefited from the connivance of the government, but they themselves were the government and could do what they pleased. The modus operandi was more or less identical: a house was approached by a group of 10-15 soldiers including 2-3 officers; they ordered the front door to be opened under threat of firing on the house; having broken into the house, groups of 3-4 men could freely dispose of the apartment. The police appeared only 2-3 hours later, and when somebody called for help, the most common reply was that there were only a few guardsmen, and that the military authorities did not grant them enough units. According to the descriptions that were informally passed among American observers, what was happening in Ukraine was beyond all description. Even for the most hardened imagination it was difficult to conceive of these massacres, which might be compared to the Inquisition and the persecutions of the Middle Ages. “In the Ukraine there were slaughtered thousands and thousands of people. Orphans, both boys and girls, were left without any support whatsoever. Girls were left without anybody to take care of them; and it is those young girls that I am going to talk about. In the part of Ukraine occupied by Poland there naturally were a great number of children of that class. Before the Poles care, the priests gave shelter to the girls, and as soon as the Poles arrived, a charity organization of the nobility appeared, that sent all those orphan girls to Warsaw and to the vicinity of Warsaw. There they were placed in monasteries or in homes near churches, kept some twothree months, made acquainted with soldiers, gendarmes, both Polish and French, after a while were converted, and married. We number about 500

16 Ibidem.

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such cases so far, and who knows how many more there will be”?17

A 1919 report of the Russian Red Cross Society for the Relief of Pogrom Sufferers counted 279 localities that had been attacked up to August 3. The total number of those who perished was difficult to calculate, but the number of casualties in the worst cases was appalling.18 Proskurov (February 15)

1,650

Elizabetgrad (May 15-17)

1,525

Cherkassy (May 16-20)

700

Fel'shtyn (February 18)

485

Tulchyn (July 14)

519

Uman (May 13)

400

Calsin

390

Trostianets (May 10)

370

Novograd-Volyns'kyi

350

Zhytomyr (March 22-26)

317

Teofipol (June 26)

36

Krivoe Ozero

280

Kamsnry Brod (July)

250

Bratslav

229

Fundukleevka

206

Kamianets-Podilskyi

200

Uman (July 29)

150

Pryluky (July 4)

150

Lityn (May 14)

130

17 Letter in Yiddish received by Mr. Rehabiah Lewin Epstein from his uncle Lewi Lewin Epstein in Warsaw (November 23, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, 233483. 18 “Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine in 1919”, report by the Head of Information Branch, committee of Russia of the Red Cross Society for the Relief of Pogrom Sufferers (January 1, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1920, item 233373.

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No Man’s Land: The Pogroms in Ukraine

Vasylkiv (April 7-15)

110

Ladyzhenka (May 14)

100

Novomyrhorod (May 17)

105

Mezhgorye

104

In a 1921 publication, instead, Heifetz noted the number of destroyed localities, for example in the regions of Kiev, Volhynia and Podolia: District of Chernobyl (Struk)

43

Trypillia (Zeleny)

9

Cherkassy-Chirigin (Grigoriev)

21

Berdychiv

5

Tarashcha

20

Uman

12

Skvyra and Pogrebische

30

Kiev

16

Radomyshl-Zhytomyr (Sokolovsky)

52

Governorate of Volhynia Ovruch

26

Zhytomyr

20

Równo

10

Governorate of Podolia Gaisin

29

Balta

8

Vinnytsia

16

Proskurov

1

Kameniets-Podilskyi

1

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Territories such as Podolia and Volhynia suffered horribly from the pogroms that were committed by the detachments of Petliura or some other insurgent forces, in some cases also by the Bolsheviks. When the Poles conquered these territories, in the autumn of 1919, they found them in ruins, while the Jewish population was in a state of untold misery and fear: “Stark terror spread among the entire Jewish population of Vohlynia and Podolia; panic-stricken, the terrified people fled from city to city hiding in field and forest week after week to avoid the armed bands that passed by”.19

The Interpretation News of the massacres in Ukraine immediately spread throughout the world and prompted many inquiries that were carried out by Jewish associations, by the department of pogrom victims of the Russian Red Cross (Evobshchestkom), and by the international commissions in Eastern Poland (Samuel and Morgenthau). The nature and extent of the massacres in Ukraine became an important political issue conditioning the international recognition of Ukraine. As a consequence, practically all the different groups denied responsibility for these atrocities and blamed their soldiers and their lack of discipline.20 The Directory sought to defend its image abroad. Arnold Margolin, the representative of Petliura's government in Paris, granted an interview to the Jewish chronicle on May 16, 1919, while in October Israel Zangwill expressed his satisfaction for the concession of national rights to the Ukrainian Jews: “an example of the strength and the exalted patriotism that comes from the cordial co-operation and mutual respect of all the varied racial and religious elements that make up a modern State”.21 In February 1918, the Jews had 8% of the representatives in the First Rada 19 Report of the JDC, first period (October 1919-April 1920). Poland, Report on Polish Ukraine, item 226233. 20 P. Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 129. See also V. Kozerod, S. Y. Briman, A. I. Denikin's Regime and the Jewish Population of Ukraine in 1919-1920 (Kharkiv: Jewish Heritage Organization, 1997). 21 Julian Batchinsky, The Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine and the Ukrainian People's Republic (Washington: Friends of Ukraine, 1919); The Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine. Authoritative Statements on the Question of Responsibility for Recent Outbreaks against the Jews in Ukraine (Washington D. C.: The Friends of Ukraine 1919).

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and were granted national autonomy: Skoropadtsky suppressed this autonomy but the Directorate newly conceded it, and Kresny, a Jew, was appointed minister for Jewish affairs.22 Senator Arnold Margolin declared that his government was ready to accept an American commission of inquiry, and his interviews were reported in various newspapers in October-November 1919. He admitted that only in the case of Proskurov were the perpetrators soldiers of the Ukrainian People's Army and, in any case, the pogroms that had lamentably taken place in Ukraine were entirely different from those of the Tsarist regime: “Whereas the latter were instigated and connived at by the authorities, the Ukraine Government has steadfastly set its face against the pogroms, and it has had no part in, or responsibility for them”. Margolin, who at the end of 1919 resigned in protest against the Directorate, considered that the government was wholly innocent concerning the pogroms. The violence against the Jews was the legacy of “a sinister spirit of pogroms... the spirit of czarist Russia”. The government fought against antisemitism among the ranks of the Ukrainian forces, sentenced the perpetrators to death, expressed the deepest sympathy with the Jews, and promised the fullest compensation to the victims: as minister for Jewish affairs, Krasny secured 20 million for the indemnification of pogrom victims.23 The official version blamed individual soldiers and bands of brigands, such as Makhno's and Grigoriev's clans. These groups were united by the aversion against Bolshevism, and indirectly against the Jewish nation that allegedly used Soviet power to rule over the Orthodox peasants. A common instrument of anti-Jewish propaganda was to resort to the traditional identification of Jews and communists, using slogans such as “Down with the communists, down with the Jewish commissars”, “Down with the commune”, “Down with the Jews”, “Beat the communists and the Jews”, making many references to Lenin and Bronstein (Trotsky). In Chernobyl, Struk's gangsters broke into Jewish houses yelling: “Jewcommunists, open or else we'll kill, hack, drown all of you”. At Rosava, 22 The Jews in the Ukraine. Notes by Hermann Struck upon a report by Senator Arnold Margolin (Kiev, December 27, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1920, item 233375. 23 Ibidem. In Paris, 3 distinct tendencies emerged with regards to Ukraine: Pichon and Berthelot were inclined towards the establishment of a Great Russia; Clemenceau wished to strengthen Poland and Romania against Germany; Bouillon, a radical leader, was against Ukraine.

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the bands shouted “Jew-communists, Jew-speculators, all Jews must be slaughtered”. Sometimes the words were reinforced by messages in favour of Ukrainian sovereignty and independence (“Kill the Jews, save Ukraine”, “Ukraine has not perished yet”), even calling for a Holy War. In many cases the catchphrase was simply “Jews, give money”, while in a few cases even the Reds yelled “Down with the Jewish commissaries”.24 These slogans echoed throughout Ukraine, and in this milieu both large and small bands felt that antisemitism represented a useful instrument: “The Batki understood clearly the value of the Jewish pogrom as a political weapon, established by the Directory. They saw the real results of Jew baiting in the unruliness of the mob which was so necessary for them. Giving up the Jewish population to the village as booty seemed to the Batki advantageous in many respects”.25

Another anti-Jewish accusation was that of being speculators and, as a consequence, of artificially increasing prices in order to get rich. In Kiev, prices were increasing rapidly and the law against speculation had no appreciable effect. Bread was sold in free trade, a glass of tea cost 3.30 Roubles, a room 400 per month, a pair of boots 400-500 Roubles. According to the official Ukrainian telegraph agency, this price-hiking was caused by the speculations on the part of the so-called Mesohetschniki (hawkers), who collected foodstuffs in order to sell them in faminestricken Russia.26 The situation was very different from the image rendered by the Ukrainian government: its mission abroad emphasized the participation of Jews in the cabinet, promised a full economic compensation to the pogrom sufferers and invited the JDC to send a commission to investigate the pogroms.27 This approach was considered by some Jewish parties as “sympathetic and friendly”, and the zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky even

24 Anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in 1919, Report drafted by the committee of Russia, the Red Cross Society for the Relief of Pogrom Sufferers. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms, 1919, item 233373. 25 Heifetz, p. 63. 26 Letter transmitted to Cyrus Adler by M. A. Charosh (January 23, 1919). AJDC, Pogroms and Persecutions, 214709. 27 Letter of Lucien Wolf to Albert Lucas (November 11, 1919) about the meetings in London between Montefiore, Warburg and Bogen. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms, 1919, 233470.

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concluded an agreement with Symon Petliura.28 Petliura's documents were often quoted to prove that the official government politics aimed to put an end to this violence, for example the order no. 131 of the Ukrainian People's Republic (August 26, 1919): “Officers and Cossacks! Ensure the victory by directing your arms against the real enemy, and remember that our pure cause, necessitates clean hands. I expressly order you to drive away with your arms all who incite you to pogroms and bring them before the courts as enemies of the State. And the tribunal will judge them for their acts and the most severe penalties of the law will be inflicted on all those found guilty”.

These efforts proved fairly satisfactory for the American Department of State. While condemning the massacres by some “irresponsible bands”, Lansing positively evaluated the “systematic effort on the part of responsible leaders”, and the “careful and systematic attention” of the government.29 A more pragmatic view was recorded by Judge Harry Fisher and Max Pine, who noted Petliura's approach towards the Jewish question. “To quote Petlura, in an interview we had with him on the 12th of February this year, in answer to a question whether he believes the Jews of Ukraine to be Bolsheviks, he said: I wanted my answer to this question to be emphasized as strongly as possible. With the exception of some individuals, few in number, who have risen to leadership among the Bolsheviks, there is no greater tendency towards Bolshevism among the Jews than among the Ukrainians. On the contrary, the Jews, being mainly merchants, are strongly anti-Bolshevik”.

At the same time, Fisher and Pine could not help underlining Petliura's duplicity: from the evidence they gathered, there was not the slightest doubt that a strong determination on the part of Petliura's government would have prevented the pogroms in the vast majority of cases, and would surely have minimized the loss of life and property in nearly all instances.30

28 Document of the diplomatic mission of Ukraine to Holland sent to Bogen (Den Haag, November 21, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms, 1919, 233479. 29 “The situation of the Jews and others in the regions in question is receiving the careful and systematic attention of this government and every possible means will be adopted to relieve their distress, an American Consul General, accompanied by an adequate staff is being sent to Odessa and it is hoped that through his efforts further information will be obtained”. Letter of Lansing to Colonel Cutler (November 28, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms, 1920, 233367. 30 Confidential report by Judge Harry M. Fisher and Mr. Max Pine,

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Outwardly, Petliura appeared a “mild mannered, serious person”, genuinely devoted to Ukraine, but he was “absolutely devoid of any feeling of horror or shame” when frankly admitting that pogroms had occurred and speaking of them as if they were routine activities in his country. It was true that he intervened against Semosenko, the “beast of Proskurov”, who was apprehended and condemned to death by the Ukrainian courts, but it was equally indisputable that at times Petliura had proof of the preparations for a pogrom and took no steps. Many Jews, in any case, held him personally responsible for the pogroms: in 1926, Petliura was killed in Paris by a Jewish activist, Scholem Schwartzbard, who sought to punish him for his crimes. Henry Abramson’s monograph, to a degree, absolved Petliura and regarded the Directory troops not as instruments of the state but as “peasants in uniform”. The pogroms, therefore, were not state-driven and not fuelled by some form of fully-fledged ideological antisemitism. Petliura's “innocence” is also supported by Rudolf Mark's well-received monograph, according to which he “did all he could”.31 Petliura's absolution was often invoked on the grounds of the Jewish statements in support of his government, but in reality, the Jews were the weakest link of the post-war chain and it was very unwise to oppose any such force that represented “the government”. As a consequence, many Jewish groups made similar proclamations that permitted revisionists and apologists to affirm that Petliura's government was not antisemitic and not responsible for the pogroms. The same discourse characterized Denikin's regime, which was a kind of continuation of the monarchic pre-revolutionary social establishment, and succeeded in creating a solid apparatus. This state, on the one hand, was self-sufficient, and, on the other, had a number of weak points such as the absence of a stable national basis and the poor discipline among the Cossacks. Like Petliura's, Denikin’s regime never openly declared its negative attitude towards the Jewish population, but the Whites equally committed numerous outrages. commissioners to Ukraine (Warsaw, April 6, 1920). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1920, 233407. 31 H. Abramson, “Jewish Representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917–1920”, Slavic Review, 50, No. 3 (1991): 542–50; L. Fischer, “The ‘Pogromshchina’ and the Directory: A New Historiographical Synthesis?” Revolutionary Russia, 16, No. 2 (2003): 47-93; N. Gergel, “The Pogroms in Ukraine in 1918–21”, Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science, 6 (1951): 237-52; V. Khiterer, “Arnold Davidovich Margolin. Ukrainian-Jewish Jurist, Statesman and Diplomat”, Revolutionary Russia, 18, No. 2 (2005): 145-67.

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In their relations with the Jewish citizens, the White Guards resorted to theft, robbery and extortion, and the Volunteer Army became an anarchic force, a money-grabber like any other armed group operating in Ukraine. At the same time, it was true that Denikin's regime re-introduced a certain freedom of press, opening all the organs of the press that had been closed by the Bolsheviks. In some cases, when the units of the Volunteer Army illegally occupied the houses of Jews, those actions were officially investigated and justice was restored. Exactly as Petliura had done, Denikin and his generals professed humanity and equality for all citizens, and promised to stop and punish antisemitism.32 In reality, open discrimination was carried out by the different units, removing the Jews from town councils and local institutions. Individual commanders were free to incite the masses against the Jews, while journalists such as V. V. Shulgin openly advocated the exclusion of Jews from the new Russian state: in his article “Pytka strakhom” (Torture with Fear) he explained that the only good Jews were those who did not go into politics and convinced other Jews to follow suit.33 In September 1919, a memorandum of the Alliance for the Regeneration of Ukraine notified Denikin of the pogroms occurring at Kremenchuk, Teherkasey, Bila-Tservka, Niezhyn, Bohuslav, Boyarka, Vasylkiv, Vorontzova, Korsun, Stepansky, Rakitno and in many villages, including the suburbs of Kiev.34 The main premise of this document was that the 32 Denikin stated: “Gentlemen, I will be honest with you. I do not like you Jews. But my attitude toward you is based on humanity. I, as Commander in Chief, will take steps to prevent pogroms and other acts of lawlessness and will punish severely those who are guilty. But I cannot guarantee that in the future there will be no excesses”. P. Kenez, “Pogroms and White Ideology”, in J. D. Klier, S. Lambroza (eds.) Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History, p. 305. 33 The article appeared on Kievlieanin on October 8, 1919. D. Engel (ed. by), The Assassination of Symon Petliura and the Trial of Scholem Schwarzbard, 19261927. A Selection of Documents (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), p. 207. 34 Memorandum of the Main-Committee of the Alliance for the Regeneration of Ukraine sent to Denikin on September 13, 1919 (approved by the main committee on September 6, 1919). Despite some positive initiatives, such as LieutenantGeneral Bradov's order, on August 23, 1919, the memorandum suggested that a general order of the commander in chief was necessary, as well as a supreme investigation commission, the printing and distribution of propaganda within the army, and the establishment of special military detachments for the protection of travellers along roads and waterways. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, 233370.

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anti-Jewish massacres by the Volunteer Army were sullying the reputation of the new Russia: women were violated in the presence of their parents and husbands, many rabbis were beaten to death, holy rolls of the Torah were burnt, travellers were thrown out of trains, beaten and sometimes shot, schools were attacked, books and benches destroyed... This behaviour, it was said, went against the spirit of devotion and sacrifice of the best men in the ranks of the volunteers, who were acquiring a bad reputation, in contrast to the principles of lawfulness and tolerance they were fighting for. The authorities did not need the zeal of self-appointed national armies attacking the Jews, but the restoration of order. Furthermore, the defence of Jewish trade and business could be helpful from an economic point of view, as well as in order to gain the support of the Allied Powers. At that time, the local authorities failed to assert the fundamental principle of equality of all citizens before the law, and the Jews were kept out of public posts and institutions. The toleration of antisemitic propaganda favoured the sense of impunity, and Denikin's forces were free to perpetrate the worst violence against Jewish people, for example at Fastov, where a pogrom took place on September 9, 1919, and caused 400-600 victims. Only after several days did Denikin give orders to end the violence. Regarding the different batki or bands who changed side several times, some such as Grigorev openly declared their hatred of Jews, while others such as Makhno professed liberal ideals and formally condemned antiJewish violence. But when Makhno fought against the Soviet government, he summoned his people to murder and exterminate the Jews.35 In addition to the general divisions between Reds, Whites and Ukrainians, the problem was that there was a wide internal front. Many former Petliurans passed over to the Soviet camp and then again revolted and formed bands, operating in their native territories: Struk's men in the north of Kiev; Sokolovsky's gang to the west of Kiev; Yatzenko, Golub and others to the south of Kiev; Mordalev in the Brusilov section: Klimenko, Tutunik and Popov's gangs in the district of Uman; Volinetz's gang in the Gaisin section; Angel's Gang in the Bachmatch section... Elias Cherikover focused attention on Zeleny, whose uprising lasted from the end of March until September 1919. Danilo Trepilo (his real name) was the son of a carpenter and received his nickname (Zeleny means green 35 Heifetz, cit., p. 74.

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in Russian) after hiding in the green valleys next to his village during the days of the Hetman Skoropadsky. Zeleny represented the prototype of the Ukrainian rebel and was portrayed by the nationalists as a romantic hero. Zeleny, who even cooperated with the Bolsheviks for some time, then became their arch- enemy. He drove the Red Army out of Tripoliye, and spoke out at meetings about peaceful, amicable relations between Jews and non-Jews. At the same time, however, Cherikover reported his antiJewish expressions and blamed his troops for many pogroms, for example at Pereyeslav in mid-July, when Zeleny’s force carried out a four-day pogrom.36 The reports were generally more generous when describing the Western Ukrainian government, which seemed sincerely interested in fighting antisemitism, at least until it kept its independence, as revealed by Gabriel Frank's letter. Frank visited Russia and Ukraine and explained to Mr. Engelman, at The Hague, what happened at Stanisáawów, where peasant disturbances were forcefully suppressed by the government troops. The West Ukrainian government, he said, proceeded energetically against every attempt of pogroms, and established a Jewish administrative office under the direction of the well-known zionist leader, Dr. Waldman.37 The Bolsheviks were also viewed in a different light, at least with regards to their attitude towards the Jews. It was true that generally the rise of Bolshevism was seen as a catastrophe for the Jews, and that in some cases anti-Jewish attacks were carried out by the Bolsheviks under the slogan “Strike at the bourgeoisie and the Jews” (for example at Trostianets in May 1919). However, the Soviets soon adopted strict measures against pogroms. The commissioner Sverdlov established a commission of inquiry, and the Reds were consequently regarded by the Jews as the only serious force, the lesser evil if compared to the violence of other military 36 Zeleny stated: “I am neither a Jew-lover nor a Jew-hater. It is not because of hatred that we do not take Jews into our ranks. We are fighting for freedom and land; with freedom every resident of the Ukraine will benefit, but the land belongs only to the Ukrainians. The Jews certainly cannot take offence at this. The Jew does not need land. The Jew does not want to toil, just as the Jew does not want to fight a war… A Jew needs freedom, and he will get it. Let him do as much business as his heart desires, as long as it is of honest and respectable character. In return for the freedom we will bring to the Jews, they should help us out with money”. Cherikover, cit. chapter XI. 37 Letter of Gabriel Frank to Mr. Engelman (May 2, 1919). AJDC, Pogroms and Persecutions, 214719.

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forces. In a proclamation of the Kiev Jewish community (September 4, 1919), the main complaints against Soviet oppression were the nationalization of industry and commerce, the destruction of bank apparatus, the taxes (3/4 of the middle-class contribution in Kiev was paid by the Jews), the requisitions and confiscations, the closing of Jewish cultural and religious committees, councils, parties and organisations. Fisher and Pine's report emphasized the fact that some pogroms had been committed by soldiers serving in the Red Army, but in many cases the latter were punished. It was common that Jewish men were taken hostages and threatened with death unless the contribution demanded from the town was paid, and the Jewish community had to pay the ransom. But, generally, the suffering of the Jews under the Soviets was not due to their origin but to their class origin.38 This does not mean that Jews did not fall under what Nicolas Werth called the “collateral violence” of Lenin's politics, which asserted it was necessary to purify Russian society from the enemies of revolution, who were reduced to the state of “parasites, flees, germs”.39 The common feeling was that the Bolsheviks simply confiscated goods and clothes, while the Whites, the Ukrainian nationalists and other forces did not respect the people and their life, using the old methods of the Black Hundreds, as many eyewitnesses affirmed: “In the small cities of Ukraine populated mainly by Jews, the discontent, though not evident, is very strong due to the behaviour of Petljura's troops. With or without the permission of the command, these troops left in the cities and in the villages an impact which was by far worse than the Bolshevik one. While the latter were content with the confiscation of goods, clothes, commodities... Petljura's troops had not respected people and their life. Witnesses reported events and recordings which were barbarian and uncivilized”.40

38 Confidential report by Harry Fisher and Max Pine, cit. 39 According to N. Werth, approximately 150,000 Jewish victims (125,000 in the Ukraine, 25,000 in Belarus) died between 1918 and 1922. N. Werth, “Crimes and Mass Violence of the Russian Civil War (1918-1921)”, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, 2008. 40 J. Ainsworth, “Sidney Reilly's Reports from South Russia, December 1918March 1919”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50 No. 8 (December 1998), p. 1459. An Italian report stated: “in quanto alle popolazioni delle numerosissime piccole città (tipo Ucraina) composte in gran parte da ebrei, i loro malcontenti, anche se non evidenti, sono vivissimi per la condotta delle truppe di Petljura. Con o senza l'assentimento del Comando, sta il fatto che queste truppe hanno lasciato nelle città e nei villaggi un ricordo peggiore di quelle bolsceviche. Giacché, mentre

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The result was that the refugees from various towns and boroughs of Ukraine flooded Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, and other Ukrainian cities. It should be noted that one of the first institutions to render systematic assistance to the victims of pogroms in Ukraine, was the Russian Red Cross (RRC), which provided for aid-posts of free-of-charge catering, temporary shelters for the victims' children, and a hostel in Kiev for the Jewish refugees. At the same time, the Russian Red Cross Assistance Committee prepared a map of the “pogrommed” places, a schematic survey of pogroms, according to months and provinces, a map of the assistance committee establishments, and a scheme of distribution of various types of assistance. In September-October 1919, as the Bolsheviks were taking up the rightBank Ukraine, they organized assistance for the victims of pogroms. Those structures were called “province sections” and were attached to the province departments of social maintenance. In conclusion, not all the different forces were inimical in principle to the Jews, but practically all of them committed some atrocities against them, and this was partially true also for the Bolsheviks, who were generally seen as a lesser antisemitic force. Scholarship has given considerable attention to this phase of endless brutality and tried to make some order of the progression of violence with various schemes. Kozerod and Briman singled out three periods: the period of the so-called “quiet” pogroms (June-July 1919), in the provinces of Kharkiv and Ekaterinoslav, was characterized by raids and assaults in the streets with the purpose of robbing, committing violence, and raping women; the period of mass pogroms (July-August 1919), when robberies, arsons and chaotic murders took place in the western part of Poltava, the southern part of Chernigov (Chernihiv), and the eastern part of Kiev district; the period of slaughter and bloody pogroms (September-October 1919), in the provinces of Kiev and Chernigov. Other sources have preferred to distinguish the pogroms in terms of typology: the pogroms of the Petliurans while capturing a village or retreating from it (Volhynia, Podolia, provinces of Kiev, Poltava, Kherson); the pogroms of various bands (Struk, Sokolovsky, Zeleny, Mordalev, questi si contentavano di comunizzare i viveri, i vestiti, le mobilie ecc... le truppe di Petlijura non hanno rispettato neanche le persone e la loro vita A questo proposito testimoni concordi attestano cose tutt'altro che civilizzate”. Document “Relazione informativa alla data del 1 novembre 1920. Crimea e Caucaso” (October 29, 1920), Archivio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito, Rome (Aussme), E11, 57, 18.

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Golub) after the retreat of the Petliurans or the Bolsheviks; the pogroms perpetrated by Bolshevik military units together with the commanding staff (Grigorev during this alliance with the Red Army, before May 1919); the pogroms perpetrated by undisciplined Soviet troops (Rosava on March 3, Zlatopol in May, Korosten on March 14, Elizabetgrad on April 13).41 The schemes also distinguished the events according to the different perpetrators of violence. The New York Times, for example, published a list of pogroms by the American Jewish Committee, citing a small Odessa publication.42 During the Civil War, 1,236 incidents of anti-Jewish violence were recorded, and 887 were classified as pogroms. Petliura, with 439 episodes, was at the top of this list; the Atamans Grigorev, Zeleny, Makhno recorded 307, Denikin 213 and the Red Army 106.43 Heifetz tried to specify how many attacks and victims were committed by the different forces: Army

Places

Victims

Petliura's troops

120

15,000

Sokolovsky

70 (district of RadomyshlZhytomyr)

3,000

Zeleny

15

2,000

Struk

41 (district of Chernobyl)

1,000

Grigoriev

40 (district of CherkassyElizavetgrad)

6,000

Sokolovsky and others 38 (district of Uman)

2,000

Yatkenso and Golub

16

1,000

Bolsheviks

13

5,000

TOTAL

30,500

41 “Anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in 1919”. Report by the Head of Information Branch, committee of Russia of the Red Cross Society for the Relief of Pogrom Sufferers January 1, 1919. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, item 233373. 42 The list of Ukrainian pogroms was published by the New York Times, September 11, 1919. 43 N. Gergel, “The Pogroms in the Ukraine in 1918-1921”, YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science, 1951, p. 244.

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Another significant document is the report of the US secretary of state on the Jewish race in Southern Russia, which was submitted in response to a senate resolution of December 20, 1919, and was based on first-hand information collected by General Jadwin and Evan E. Young, an experienced consul general in service at Odessa, in cooperation with the special agent of the Department of State Rear Admiral McCully.44 According to this resolution, a Jewish committee furnished a list of 10,712 pogroms, while at least 20,000 refugees were temporarily sheltered in Kiev.45 In January 1920, when a JDC special commission arrived in Ukraine (made up of Judge Harry M. Fisher of Chicago, Max Pine, a Jewish labor leader from New York, Professor Israel Friedlaender, and Morris Kass), much of the country was under Polish occupation, but the order was not restored yet, to wit, the death of two JDC emissaries, Professor Israel Friedlaender and Rabbi Bernard Cantor, who were killed together with a Jewish leader named Grossman on the way to Lviv via Proskurov and Ternopil. As underlined by Michael Beizer, “Even against the background of tens of thousands of Jewish victims in the Ukraine, the death of these two people was of special significance. Never before JDC employees who were American citizens had been killed while discharging their duties”.46 In the morning of July 5, 1920, as they were approaching the shtetl of Yarmolintsy, their car was attacked by men of the red cavalry unit who had broken through the frontline. Mistaken for Polish officers and a landowner, the three passengers (Friedlaender, Cantor, and Grossman) were killed, while their chauffeur escaped. The circumstances of the killings were distorted by the press because of the inaccuracy of the information coming from a distant and isolated place, as well as for political biases. An editorial in the New York socialist newspaper Forverts (July 13, 1920), played an important role in this “information war”. The editorial unequivocally refuted that the JDC emissaries had been killed by Red Army men and stated - without offering any evidence - that the 44 The document of the 66th Congress no. 176, signed by Robert Lansing, was sent as a message to the President on January 12, 1920. “Conditions in the Ukraine Respecting Treatment of Jews”, doc. 176 of the US Senate (Lansing) in response to a senate resolution of December 20, 1919. AJDC, Pogroms, Ukraine, item 233382. 45 Ibidem. 46 Michael Beizer, “Who Murdered Professor Israel Friedlaender and Rabbi Bernard Cantor: The Truth Rediscovered”, American Jewish Archives Journal, Vol. LV, 2003, No. 1, pp. 66 ff.

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murderers were Polish, or some of Petliura’s men wearing Red Army uniforms, or again bandits with whom the chauffeur was conspiring. This tragic phase came to an end in 1921, after a Soviet delegation stipulated an armistice and began peace talks with Poland. In November, Petliura's forces were driven back to Poland, and on March 18, 1921, Poland finally signed the Treaty of Riga. In accordance with this treaty, the Bolsheviks recognized Polish control over Galicia and Western Volhynia, while Poland recognized the other territories as part of Soviet Ukraine. This age of conflict remained an important topic of historical analysis, particularly regarding the responsibility of the various forces and the number of victims. These estimates could be extremely different: Salo Baron stated that the number of victims “easily” exceeded 50,000; Nora Levin gives the figure of 50-60,000; Shmuel Ettinger estimates 75,000, while others (Gergel, Ivanovich, Orenburgskij) counted 100,000; in B. Lekash's opinion, 226 pogroms of the Volunteer Army in Ukraine resulted in 80,000 victims; Subtelny gives a figure of 35,000 to 50,000 people, while the higher estimates seem quite exaggerated.47 An accurate estimate is contained in Nahum Gergel's work, which gives a total of 1,236 attacks with 31,071 casualties.48

47 S. Baron, The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1975), p. 184; N. Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, Vol. 1 (New York: New York University Press, 1988), p. 49; S. Ettinger, A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 954; Lars Fischer, “Whither pogromshchina - historiographical synthesis or deconstruction?”, East European Jewish Affairs, 38:3/2007, pp. 303-320. 48 N. Gergel, “The Pogroms in the Ukraine in 1918-1921”, YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science, 1951, pp. 237-252. According to Nahum Gergel’s conservative estimates, the number was somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 casualties, in more than 1,200 pogroms. Over 900 of these episodes, took place in 1919, costing the lives of some 31,000 Jews. He concluded that the directory troops were responsible for 40% of these pogroms and 53.7% of these killings.

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Perpetrators

Pogroms

Attacks

Total

Murders

Directory

355 (40%)

138 (39.5%)

493 (39.9%)

3,471

Miscellaneous bands

206 (23.2%) 1,010 (28.9%)

307 (24.8%)

16,706

White Army

183 (20.6%) 30 (8.6%)

213 (17.2%)

5,235

Red Army

57 (6.4%)

49 (14%)

106 (8.6%)

4,615

Grigoriev's bands

50 (5.6%)

2 (0.6%)

52 (4.2%)

725

Others

24 (2.7%)

9 (2.6%)

33 (2.7%)

185

Polish Army

12 (1.4%)

20 (5.7%)

32 (2.6%)

134

It is not the almost impossible calculation of the exact number, however, that defines the catastrophic events in Ukraine in the middle of this tragic phase. More relevant is perhaps the perverted combination of many different factors (the war, the revolution, the Ukrainian struggle for independence, the spread of diseases such as typhus, the context of anarchy created by an uninterrupted series of military occupations and paramilitary groups' attacks), and the fact that once again the main victims of this chaos were the Jews. The anti-Jewish outrages, in some way, could be seen as the release valve for the misery, the dissatisfaction, the thirst for revenge by soldiers, bandits, peasants and ordinary people. It was not a question of social classes or ethnic groups, but the tragic end product of a war that had abolished the Pale and the old Tsarist persecutions. Those factors that Gitelman called the “ambiguities of liberation”, however, proved that the present was no less appalling: “A short stay in this part of the world impress one with the feeling that all forces of destruction and misery have been let loose upon this unfortunate people. For months, typhus has been raging throughout this territory and particularly in the larger centres, taking more victims than the war and pogroms combined. The most dreadful thing about this disease is that it attacks most violently those who are engaged in the service of combatting it. Out of thirty-two physicians in the County of Proskurow, ten have paid with their lives the penalty for attacking this monster. The homes that the Jews live in are miserable shacks with an accumulation of dirt inside and out that nauseates you to look at. The clothes the people wear are ragged, torn and filthy. You see the lice crawling all over them. They have no baths. The public baths that were maintained before the war by the

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920 Kehillas were either destroyed or have become so deteriorated that they can no longer be used. Even the wealthier class is compelled to go without bathing. There is no soap, no linen, no underwear to change”.49

49 Report by Harry Fisher and Max Pine, cit.

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VICTIMS OF PEACE: THE REFUGEES AFTER THE END OF THE WAR

Refugees in a New Eastern Europe As underlined by Michael R. Marrus, if before the war there were no stringent administrative impediments to the movement of people between states, after the war the fear of open borders spread throughout the world. Thereafter, the conditions for migration changed entirely. Passports came into use as a way of certifying nationality, and nationality represented an important issue for the security of a state, thus becoming a central criterion for restricting access at the frontiers. The question of refugees inevitably marked the passage from one phase to another, and had great relevance in the moment when national identities and nation states became the main ideas of a new historical era.1 Two main concepts need to be considered when dealing with the question of refugees. First, the new state entities were strongly hostile to Bolshevism and viewed refugees coming from Russia - between May and November 1918, 400,000 refugees left Russia - as a threat to their social stability. Secondly, the new frontiers of Eastern Europe cut many communities off from their former, real or supposed, mother country, and the new legal 1 M. R. Marrus, Unwanted. European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (OxfordNew York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 92; V. Thurstan, The People Who Run: Being the Tragedy of the Refugees in Russia (New York: Putnam's Sons 1916); A. Zolberg, “The Formation of new states as a refugee-generating process”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 467, 1983, pp. 282-296; C. M. Skran, Refugees in Interwar Europe. The Emergence of a Regime (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); P. Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); N. P. Baron-P. Gatrell, “Population Displacement, state-building and social identity in the lands of the former Russian Empire, 1917-1923”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Euroasian History, 4, No. 1, 2003; N. P. Baron, P. Gatrell (eds.), Homelands: War, Population and Statehood in Former Russian Empire, 19181924 (Anthem Books 2004); P. Panayi, P. Virdee (eds.) Refugees and the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the Twentieth Century (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2011); Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee (Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

requirements hindered the way back of thousands of people who were obliged to look elsewhere for a new home. The gravity of this situation was evident and the JDC established a special committee on refugees, made up of David Bressler (chairman), Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Morris Rothenberg, Abraham Schepper and Julius Simon. The majority of the Russian Jews who had been driven away since the outbreak of war and still expected to return home were “stationed” in localities such as Równo, where 7,000 refugees were accommodated in places that sufficed just for some hundreds, and 470 sick refugees were lying in 220 beds.2 Many bodies were found frozen along the railways, others were obliged to remain in the wagons or to find a shelter in the trenches, while the re-emigrants who succeeded in coming home, barefooted, naked and emaciated, usually found their homes and properties destroyed. Some places had been heavily deserted by the conflict: at CzĊstochowa only 23,000 remained out of 73,632 Jews before the war; Kaunas decreased from 45,000 to 7,000 Jews; at Lida, where the Jews were 8,000 in an urban population of 12,000 before the war, only 6,000 remained out of a population of 8,000. These places were considered temporary residences by many refugees, who wished either to return to their homeland, or to emigrate to other more “friendly” countries. As a consequence, there was not a single port in Europe that was not overcrowded with Jewish (and non-Jewish) refugees and emigrants.3 The Vienna Conference on refugees, in November 1920, made this provisional estimate regarding the number of refugees in the different countries.4

2 Speeches of Deputy Schepzig and Priest Sokolski - regarding the terrible conditions of Równo - during the meeting of the Polish parliament of December 7, 1921 (Rzeszpolita, No. 15; Moment, No. 294). 3 At least according to Albert Lucas. Publicity item “Jewish emigrants from Poland throng all European ports”. AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 1919-21, item 214491. 4 Document of the Vienna conference in November 1920, as reported in the memorandum of December 30, 1921. AJDC, Refugees, General, 1921-1922, item 320131.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Place

Number of refugees

Poland

400,000

Austria

200,000

Czechoslovakia

44,000

Hungary

250,000

Lithuania

25,000

Latvia

20,000

Palestine

32,000

Germany

40,000

Turkey

80,000

Romania

100,000

205

In addition to these numbers, another document gives an estimate of the number of Jewish people in the different countries and the percentages of those depending on relief.5 Pre-war population

Post-war population

Dependent on relief

Poland

1,700,000

1,400,000

1,000,000

Lithuania

625,000

350,000

205,000

Russian Pale

4,000,000

3,500,000

1,800,000

Baltic provinces

80,000

30,000

Romania

300,000

250,000

200,000

Galicia

900,000

550,000

500,000

1,600,000

300,000

Austria-Hungary 1,300,000

At a glance, this table shows that the main lines of emigration started in Poland, Lithuania, Galicia and Russia, where the Jewish population was 5 “Draft of a memorandum on constructive relief in the Eastern War Zone”. Letter of M. A. Charosh to Cyrus Adler (January 23, 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogroms and Persecution, item 214709.

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Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

“reduced” by the war, and were directed to Austria-Hungary. A useful source of information on the conditions of refugees in former AustriaHungary is the report that Gillis drafted on August 25, 1919, after visiting Italy, Yugoslavia, Vienna, Czechoslovakia and Galicia. In Vienna, Gillis found 60-70,000 war and pogrom refugees. Many were living in “dark and pestilential surroundings” which made “a cell in a New York prison” appear “luxurious in comparison”. Until March 1, 1919, the refugees received a bread card from the Austrian government. After that date, the best “holiday meal” for a Viennese refugee consisted of a dish of hot water with a few beans and a little barley or oats floating on top. “The best bread is hardly edible... the cereals contain more chaff than nourishment. There is very little milk. The children all look dreadful with skin drawn over sharp bones - no shoes, no stockings and only a makeshift covering”.6

With many territories of the former Empire now passed into the hands of other states, at a time when industry had collapsed and the cost of living was increasing between 20 and 225 times, Vienna became the capital of a country that was too small and too poor to support the great mass of refugees.7 The Austrian city was one of the main centres for refugee relief efforts and here the JDC cooperated with many organizations, such as Anita Miller's Soziale Hilfsgemeinschaft, the Alliance Israelite and the other groups that were represented in the local committee. This latter consisted of 35 members from different organizations (Bund, Allianz, Jewish Ladies' Union, Bukovina, Poale Zion, B'nai B'rith...) and completely replaced the government in providing relief. Heads of households received 6 Crowns daily, the others just 2. Jewish students requiring assistance were granted 200 Crowns a month. There were two large offices in Vienna (a central office and a refugees' office), 3 soup kitchens serving 4,800 persons daily; a medicine department, a home for orphans, the Vienna girls institute for girls of 12-18 years of age, and various other institutions. An American relief commission under Dr. Weist opened children's kitchens in every district of Vienna, which imported and produced kosher meat with the help of Dr. Greenberger's food commission. Under the care of the Vienna committee, there were about 30,000 refugees in the city alone, costing about $10,000 monthly. The real number of refugees was clearly higher and only a part of them could 6 Report of May 22, 1919. AJDC, Refugees, General 1919, item 224065. 7 It was calculated that a million people were dependent upon the help of charitable and relief organizations. “Third General Report of the American Friends Service Committee”, Bulletin, No. 33 (June 1919-September 1920), pp. 7-8.

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207

benefit from the relief measures. All the territories of the former Habsburg Empire were a destination point for a substantial flow originating in Poland and Galicia: according to Alsberg's report, in April 1919 there were 30,000 displaced people in Austria; about 1,000 in Yugoslavia and 1,500 in Hungary. In Czechoslovakia 4,800 out of 7,600 refugees were from Eastern Galicia and 500 from Bukovina.8 In May 1919, a memorandum of the Jewish National Council in Vienna stated that at the collapse of the Habsburg Empire 50,000 people were still refugees within the frontiers of Austria, then they became foreigners.9 Thereafter, practically all the governments constituting what was formerly Austria-Hungary, with the exception of Hungary under Béla Kun's regime, threatened to begin forcible deportations unless these refugees were repatriated voluntarily. In Vienna alone, 20,000 Jews were faced with the threat of expulsion.10 A more human approach was taken only by Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. In Czechoslovakia, the JDC began operating in March 1919, when Henry G. Alsberg was sent to Prague by Louis Straus and formed a committee consisting of 40 members with an executive committee of 9 persons. The committee had 3 branches (for Czech lands, Slovakia, Carpatho-Russia) and its president was Robert Fuchs Robettin. Slovakia, in particular, witnessed many incidents of harassment after the end of the war, when “Jews were driven from cafes and restaurants into the street, where mobs were waiting to beat and rob them”, many were deprived of their business licenses and a boycott against Jewish traders was launched.11 It was only in the first months of 1919, that Alsberg noted 8 Report by Henry G. Alsberg about the refugees from Galicia (April 12, 1919). AJDC, Refugees 1919-20, item 215032. 9 Document “The fate of the Jewish Refugees” (May 20, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218846. 10 Document of the delegation of the Jewish National Council for Galicia: “Jews in the Light of war liquidation” (Vienna, May 20, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 19131919, item 218845. 11 Leon Wechsler, of the Vienna JDC branch, made this estimate of the Jewish population in Czechoslovakia: Bohemia 85,827, Moravia 41,183, Silesia 13,442, Slovakia 143,545, Carpatho-Russia 55,000, for a total between 348,997 and 490,452. Report regarding the conditions in Vienna (March 25, 1920). AJDC, American Red Cross, 1919-21, item 210030.

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Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

a diminution of antisemitism, Masaryk granted the Jews and other minorities the same national rights, and the University of Prague began to attract many Jewish students from Hungary and Galicia. But in many localities Jewish life still depended on outside assistance. The main problems involved Slovakia and Carpatho-Russia, which had received little or no attention from the Prague committee: “The Prague committee seems to have acted upon the Talmudic principle that one's own poor come first”.12 The total number of Jews in the country was comprised between 490,452 (according to Alsberg) and the National Council's estimates: Bohemia

85,827

Moravia

41,183

Silesia

13,442

Slovakia

143,545

Carpatho-Russia

55,000

Total

338,997

In Poland, the refugees and, generally, the Jews were in a worse situation. In cities like Lemberg and Warsaw, first-hand accounts reported that it was not safe for a Jew to walk the streets alone, because of the Poles' “bitter hostility”. From his balcony, Bogen witnessed a scene in which the Jews in the street had been shot at, manhandled and very badly treated by the Poles; an 18-20 year-old girl was followed by children throwing stones at her just because she was a Jewess; in the trains several Jews were forcefully thrown off onto the platform by the Polish officers, while other travellers looked on passively.13 These precarious conditions created the perfect premise for a major increase in Jewish emigration, and Danzig became the centre of this “Big Exodus of Polish Jews”. In August 1920, the Baltic port was overrun with 12 Report from Pressburg about the relief work in Czecho-Slovakia (March 26, 1919). AJDC, Czechoslovakia, January-July 1920, item 217787. 13 At the same time, Warsaw continued its social life like a second Paris, with opera, theatre and “delicacies”. Lieutenant Kausakowich from Chicago said that the only solution was: “a dignified but loud outcry from the Jews of America and England, insisting on square treatment”. Report of May 22, 1919. AJDC, Refugees, item 224065.

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209

the war victims from Poland, the situation was critical and immediate help was necessary.14 The refugee camp at Troyl was visited many times by the JDC agents, for example by Edward Rosenblum, a member of the Overseas Unit, who commented positively on the JDC management and the sanitary conditions in the camp, but was more critical towards the HIAS, because of the lack of interest in looking after the welfare of the poor emigrants: “There is no system whereby one can find out who is who in the barracks, nor is there any way of obtaining information from the HIAS as to when an individual sailed, or when he is going to sail. I heard many complaints from the people who were stopping there with reference to the rate of exchange paid them for American dollars, and also for the treatment accorded them by the men in charge”.15

The chairman of the local committee and his deputy, Kanaiky and Maszel, on the contrary, were doing a fine job especially considering that the Troyl camp was prepared for 900 people, but effectively hosted 5,000, and the arrivals reached a peak of 1,800 in a day. The camp was constantly overcrowded with people who were “herded together like cattle” and were moved about like cattle, “aimless, bewildered, not knowing where to turn for information or advice”.16 The presence of so many Jews in Danzig gave rise to many protests and to antisemitic prejudice that was reflected in some press articles. According to the Danziger Zeitung (August 13, 1920), the camp at Troyl, which had been previously used as a camp for the prisoners of war, became a real “ghetto”: “the most diverse specimens of the Jewish type” were gathered there in large numbers.17 But the newspaper believed that the poverty was 14 Resume of cables of August 9, 16, 19, 25, 1920. AJDC, HIAS 1919-1921, items 214502, 210405. 15 Report of a trip to Danzig by Edward Rosenblum (July 22, 1920). AJDC, Danzig 1920-21, item 218296. 16 Report on Danzig by Simon Peiser (August 25, 1920). AJDC; Danzig 1920-21, item 218315. 17 Danziger Zeitung (August 13, 1920). Overseas Administration, General, August 1920, item 208456. According to some American officers, for example John C. White, charge d'affairs in the Polish capital, these “undesirable” Jewish immigrants in transit constituted a sanitary menace. G. Korman, “When heredity met the bacterium: Quarantines in New York and Danzig, 1898-1921”, http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/545/. In the period 1920-25, some sixty thousand Jews passed through Danzig, Gershon C. Bacon, “Danzig Jewry: A

Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

210

only apparent: it was possible to see expensive jewellery on ragged garments and big rolls of paper money that was used to buy almost everything from speculators and profiteers. To cope with the emigrants' requests for visas, the HIAS and JDC succeeded in obtaining the help of the American consul in Warsaw, who opened a passport office in the camp. The camp had postal and telegraph services, stores, shoe and clothing repair shops, a synagogue, a motion picture place, 2 restaurants (kosher and non-kosher). The Danziger Zeitung described it as a sort of self-governing village where the emigrants should pay for everything: 60 Marks for medical examination, 22 per person for a night lodging in a private room, 18 in a dormitory. There was also an elegantly furnished room with meals à la carte (not kosher): “Emigrants have a psychology of their own. In the new camp at Danzig the same thing may be observed that those familiar with the emigrant camps at Hamburg and Bremen have to tell: pitiful wailing followed immediately by childlike merriment; tattered clothes and jewels; almost incredible parsimony in small things and lavishness in big things. So, they will purchase bread cards by underhand methods and fetch bread from the city. To go to town for this purpose, they will hire a cab or an automobile, regardless of the cost, so that the cabdrivers of the vicinity are doing a thriving business”.

Berlin was another important centre, charged with administrating and coordinating the assistance of refugees, with Bernard Kahn as the JDC supervisor. On January 8, 1920, Kahn redacted a budget scheme with the various amounts necessary to support the work in the different areas.18 Monthly Poland

$12,000

Romania

$8,000

Constantinople

$5,000

Lithuania

$2,000

Latvia

$2,000

Short History”, in Danzig 1939: Treasures of a Destroyed Community (New York: The Jewish Museum, 1980), pp. 31 ff. 18 Report of January 8, 1920 by the Berlin refugee department (B. Kahn) to the JDC offices in New York. The document contained the budget for the refugee work. AJDC, Refugees 1919-20, item 304115.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Hungary

$750

Total monthly budget

$29,750

Total yearly budget

$357,000

Extra budget for Germany

$50,000

211

In the following year (1921), the JDC appropriated $645,000 for about 200,000 refugees, distributing the funds to 115 committees (70 were in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania); 100 refugee shelters and 23 medical centres were established, clothes for $180,000 were delivered.19 Place

Number of refugees

Sum

Poland

35,000 and 12,000 reemigrants

$150,000

Romania

30,000

$90,000

Lithuania

40,000

£75,000 (together with Latvia)

Latvia

20,000

Hungary

9,000 sent away by the government

$40,000

Germany

50,000

$50,000

Italy

3,000 en route

$30,000

Constantinople 10,000

$125,000

Austria

$60,000

Danzig

$15,000

Other countries

$10,000

Notwithstanding the gravity and extent of the problem, Kahn expressed some doubts about a possible increase of this sum. In his opinion, in many places the problem was caused by the “bad habit” of the East European Jews, who generally used “to keep their pockets closed”, showing “mercenary 19 Bernard Kahn's report of the activity regarding refugees in 1921. AJDC, Refugees 1919-20, item 304122.

212

Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

desires” and avoiding any kind of social work for the refugees that they considered the exclusive duty of the Americans. As a consequence, it was not very advisable to leave the refugees to the care of the local population without the Jointdisco exercising constant supervision. Hence, Kahn argued that the Eastern European Jews did not need much money, rather a general support to help them reach a sound level of economic activity once again. As long as refugees were not enabled to leave the country where they were compelled to live for a somewhat prolonged period, Kahn believed that the only constructive or productive help was to create and support cooperatives and educational workshops. With regard to the repatriation problem, the difficulties were even greater as the matter was solely in the hands of the respective governments, which were called upon to negotiate specific agreements with the Soviet Union, like those signed by Latvia and Lithuania. These acts were conditioned by the problematic relationships with the Bolshevik neighbour and by the relatively attractive conditions of Soviet Russia. A terrible epidemic of spotted typhus, for example, prevented many re-emigrants from going back home to Russia, while Lithuania did not allow them to remain in the country. Such refugees (5,000 Ukrainian refugees, 75% of them Jewish) were gathered together at Shebosh, on the Russian-Latvian border. They were locked in cold railroad cars and could neither go forward or backward: 1,000 were suffering from typhus, 26 were dying daily, 25 had frozen limbs that had to be amputated.20 On the other side, the flight from Soviet Russia was without end. Polish sources estimated that between 600,000 and 900,000 entered Poland in 1920-21, largely during the famine period. It seems, however, that no more than about 120,000 took up residence in Poland. Great numbers passed through Germany; others were later found to be Polish subjects from White Russia and Eastern Galicia. Similarly, many of the 100,000 refugees who entered Romania proved to be Bessarabians, 30,000 of whom were Jews escaping from the antisemitic disturbances in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Refugees and Emigrants in the International Dimension After the conflict, the question of refugees had a direct impact not only in Eastern Europe but also in those countries that were affected by the 20 Letter no. 447 from Riga of H. J. Hyman to James Rosenberg, director of the JDC in Paris (January 18, 1923). AJDC, Refugees, General 1919-1921, 320145.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

213

subsequent flows of emigrants, for example the United States. The war interrupted a flow that in the years 1910-14 had recorded a yearly average of 125,000 Jewish immigrants entering the US, and was reduced to a total of 75,000 during the five years of war. A renewed increase of immigration was evident only in 1920 as shown by the data on the arrivals at Ellis Island: 55,900 in July, 57,874 in August, 70,052 in September, 74,665 in October.21 The largest number of Jews coming to the United States before the war was recorded in 1906 (153,745); while during the month of October 1920, it was estimated that out of the 74,665 immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, more than 75% were of Jewish faith. City

Steamship

Arrived at New York Steerage

Antwerp

Lapland

November 29, 1920

1,350

Gothenburg

Stockholm

November 29, 1920

711

Copenhagen

United States

November 30, 1920

615

Bergen

Stavangerfjord

November 30, 1920

600

Naples

Duc de Abruzzi

December 1, 1920

1,340

Palermo

Providence

December 1, 1920

1,770

Palermo

Dante Alighieri

December 1, 1920

1,658

Le Havre

Rochambeau

December 1, 1920

1,400

Le Havre

Argentine

December 1, 1920

949

TOTAL

10,383

The problem was clear to the eyes of the JDC agents, who conducted personal investigations at Ellis Island, and discovered that on one Sunday (November 15, 1920), more than 16,600 immigrants were awaiting examination either at Ellis Island or on ships in the harbour. On the steamship “New Amsterdam”, sailing from Rotterdam, the committee found that 50% of the steerage passengers were from Galicia, practically all of Jewish extraction. On the “New Rochelle”, arriving from Danzig, the committee estimated that more than 90% were of Jewish origin. After a 21 “Emigration and Refugees”, document signed by Kahn and presented by the JDC in Paris (December 18, 1920). Report 1109 on temporary suspension of immigration (December 6, 1920). AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 1919-21, items 214517, 214523.

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Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

visit to Poland, a commissioner of the Hebrew Sheltering and Aid Society concluded that: “If there were in existence a ship that could hold 3,000,000 human beings, the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland would board it to escape to America”. Though only a part of these emigrants gave the desire to escape religious or political persecution as their reason for coming to the United States, the data showed that the reality was quite different. In Vienna, for example, 60% of the emigrants were Jewish, 20% German, and 20% of other nationalities. The attitude towards these people was deeply conditioned by the distinction between refugees and immigrants. The issue caused a great deal of controversy, since the American government's policy on immigration was becoming more restrictive. American public opinion was considerably concerned about matters of immigration and, beginning in 1919, the JDC published some articles in the Jewish press regarding amendments to the immigration law, while the HIAS asked to negotiate a special agreement in view of the new restrictions.22 Nonetheless, numerous anti-refugee comments were published by various journals. In the Chicago Daily News, Hal O'Flaherty underlined the different language of these Jewish emigrants, the easy spread of diseases among them, and their intention to introduce communist doctrines in the US: “They were non-producers... those who worked in the agricultural field knew nothing about modern farming... others coming from Polish villages never produced anything but discord”.23 The supporters of “closed doors” such as Anthony Caminetti attacked the JDC, the HIAS and other Jewish organizations, accusing them of fostering illegal immigration and violating American law. Other more neutral reports of the Associated Press appeared in the New York Times: there was nothing in the law to prohibit persons or associations not engaged in transporting

22 Document of the US Department of Labor Bureau of Immigration (Washington, May 16, 1921). Report of the information office in Copenhagen (April 10, 1919). Letter of the subcommittee on transportation to the executive committee (October 23, 1919). AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 1919-21, items 214478, 214479, 214534. 23 Hal O'Flaherty's “Big Exodus of Polish Jews to America creates Chaos” appeared on the Chicago Daily News. AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 191921, item 214502.

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215

migrants from inviting or encouraging people to come to America.24 The same divisions also characterized the activity of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, whose report of December 6, 1920, estimated that a number between two and five million of Europeans were seeking to migrate to the US, and a large part of them was of Jewish origin. The majority of the committee tended to emphasize this fact, and the subsequent conclusion that these people mainly represented additional population for the principal coastal cities and congested industrial districts. The minority, the delegates Siegel and Sabath, on the contrary, stated that the new emigrants were largely women and children trying to reach their relatives; the children would be thoroughly assimilated within a very brief period. Furthermore, discussing the religion of the emigrants was profoundly contrary to the Americanism that had always prevailed in the past. Kahn elaborated his opinion in a document for the Versailles peace conference, on December 18, 1920.25 According to Kahn, a refugee is a person who is compelled to leave his home owing to a harm inflicted upon him or his family; a serious danger threatening him/her; an evacuation by official order, but also a return after such an evacuation; a menace of bad treatment on account of nationality or religion. On the contrary, an emigrant is a person who freely decides to leave, without having endured harm or any threatening danger. The emigrant has time to think the matter over, whilst the refugee has to escape straight away. Consequently, the refugees should be granted special support and should be facilitated to return home, if there is a guarantee of safety and the right assistance in their native places. They should be given judicial and personal advice; their passports should be immediately regularized; their relatives discovered, their working capacities and need of help ascertained. In case they are unable to get along by their own means or the help of relatives, then special relief would be necessary. In Felix Warburg's opinion, things were to be seen in a more pragmatic way, avoiding difficult definitions and indicating only the categories that should be assisted in their emigration to the US: emigrants possessing funds and credentials; emigrants and refugees possessing tickets, money 24 Memorandum by Maximiliam Hurwitz to Miss Horr (January 25, 1921). This document included the immigration commissioner Anthony Caminetti's attack against the JDC before the Senate Immigration Committee as reported in the Jewish Morning Journal of January 26, 1921. AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 1919-21, items 214524, 214525. 25 Ibidem.

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Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

and passports; real war sufferers.26 From the perspective of the JDC, the question was naturally focused on the Jewish subjects, who were mostly to be considered as refugees emigrating because of political reasons, and not owing to economic problems. But the distinction was in fact impossible and the issue was so muddled that nobody knew whether there were 50,000 or 500,000 refugees. It was simply recognized that it was necessary to do something in order to help at least a part of them to reach and settle in the US. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe, which had been interrupted by 6 years of war, was assuming tremendous proportions. It was clear to the JDC that wholesale emigration was not practicable. A special institution should study the question from the point of view of emigration and immigration, some even proposed to create a Jacob Schiff institute of Jewish emigration, but it was inevitable – for example for Felix Warburg – that some restrictions were to be imposed.27 The political negotiations in the pertinent bodies ended with a number of bills introducing temporary suspensions with certain exemptions, but did not radically modify the spirit of the new regulations.28 In 1921, the United States approved the Emergency Immigration Act and the Johnson Quota Act, which imposed numerical limits and the quota system to be calculated on the basis of the existing proportions of a determined ethnic group. In this context, the JDC could only continue to support the refugees in their places of stay, in Europe as well as in Asia, or encourage alternative destinations, for example to Brazil.29

26 Warburg declared before the executive committee that no assistance should be given to military deserters-fugitives of law and only a limited help to people who had relatives in the US. AJDC, Emigration and Immigration, item 214526. 27 Letter of Rapaport (Jüdische Emigration Kommission of Zurich) to F. Warburg (November 15, 1920). AJDC, Emigration and Immigration, 214511. 28 Report no. 1109 on temporary suspension of immigration committed by the House of the State of the Union and submitted by Mr. Johnson's Committee on Immigration and Naturalization (December 6, 1920). The question was discussed by the committee in December 1918 until March 4, 1919, and during the sixtysixth congress, first and second sessions. From May 19, 1919 to June 5, 1920, a number of bills providing for prohibitions of immigration for terms of years were introduced. The bills also provided for a two-year suspension, with certain exemptions, which were described in detail in this report. AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 1919-21, 214517. 29 Memorandum of Dr. Rosenbluth to Albert Lucas regarding immigration to

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217

In spring 1920, the JDC and HIAS (Marshall and Sulzberger) signed a special agreement for cooperating in aiding certain classes of emigrants, dividing more or less equally the functions: the JDC should receive money and applications from the residents of the US, depositing the sums to the HIAS; the latter, instead, was devoted to the maintenance of shelters abroad and the management of “external relations” through the US embassies and consulates. The HIAS engaged in feeding and sheltering 3,000-3,500 emigrants a week, securing 400 visas a day.30 Some joint committees were established with three members representing each of the two associations.31 The cooperation between JDC and HIAS, however, was not optimal and some adjustments were made in the following months, in order to improve the procedure and facilitate the passage of money from the JDC (and the respective donors) to the HIAS (or to the direct beneficiaries of the donations), and to the offices in Warsaw or Danzig, where the HIAS respectively engaged 80 and 50 employees.32 According to an estimate of Brazil (March 2, 1921). AJDC, Emigration and Immigration 1919-21, item 214529. 30 Dispatch of Louis S. Gottlieb to the Morning Journal of January 26, 1921. AJDC, Emigration and Immigration, 214525. Memorandum sent to Harry Fischel, HIAS treasurer (May 13, 1920). AJDC, HIAS 1919-1921, item 210401. 31 Memorandum of A. M. Goldberg to Lucas (September 29, 1920); resolution of November 25, 1919. HIAS, 1919-21, items 210404, 210398. The agreement JDCHIAS for the cooperation in aiding certain classes of emigrants also stated that all applications received by the Joint Distribution Committee from residents of the United States should be transmitted to the HIAS branches, and that all communications with foreign governments in matters relating to immigration should be conducted by the representatives of HIAS “solely through the medium of embassies or consulates of the United States”. On March 12, 1920, Louis Marshall sent a copy of the new arrangement he had negotiated with Sulzberger. According to a HIAS resolution of May 11, 1920, the procedure was the following: upon the receipt of the cables from abroad, a record was made of each case mentioned in the cable; the families in the US were contacted and asked to send the amount of money requested by cable to their relatives. The money deposited by relatives was credited to the particular case, and the commission advised by cable to advance to that case the equivalent of the amount deposited. The cost of the cable was paid by the relatives in the US. 32 Draft memorandum about the transmission of funds to Europe. After a trip to Danzig in July, Edward Rosenblum, a member of the Overseas Unit, criticized the HIAS for lack of interest in looking after the welfare of the poor emigrants. There was no system to find someone in the barracks or to obtain information about one individual (if he had sailed or if he was going to sail). In addition, many

218

Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

the Times, there were no less than two million Russian refugees: half of them in Poland, five hundred thousand in Germany, nearly a quarter million in France, many more were scattered in every capital of Europe between Constantinople and Paris.33 Naturally, the Jews were not the only ones suffering. One particular category were those people who had crossed no frontiers on their way out, they had never gone beyond the limits of their own country. The Magyars, who had fled from Temesvár, woke up in the bright morning of the peaceera to learn that they had escaped not from one Hungarian town into another but from Romania into Yugoslavia. The Austro-Germans who had gone from Lemberg to Prague were no longer either a native or a resident of Austria; they were refugees from Poland in Czechoslovakia. These people were frequently described as a new race of civilised gypsies, the tragic product of militarism, the “victims of peace”. Another problem concerned the “unscrupulous agents”. According to the information of American Jewish organizations, these were persuading emigrants who had difficulties with their passports for the United States, to go to Mexico instead and await the legal straightening out of their difficulties there.34 But the land frontier between Mexico and the United States was rigorously monitored, and there was no possibility to get into the States, as proved by the fate of numerous persons who were interned in Texas or sent back to Mexico. Some decided to follow a similar route and settled in Cuba, where 1,400-1,500 immigrants were residing by January 1922: about 400 found some kind of work, while 150 were peddling on Havana streets.35 These problems demonstrated that the question of refugees was no longer complaints regarded the exchange of money. Letter no. 79 of October 22, 1920 from the JDC offices in Warsaw to New York. AJDC, HIAS 1919-21, items 210400, 210404, 210410. 33 Document prepared by the JDC delegation in Paris (January 7, 1921). AJDC, Refugees 1921, 215065. 34 Document signed by Kahn (March 31, 1921). AJDC, Refugees, 1921, 215089. Another very interesting case regarded a certain Captain Rieur, in Constantinople, who after Tiomkin's resignation, took over the refugees' committee and liquidated it. Letter from Constantinople containing the translation of “A Liquidator Gone Wild”, Golos Rossii of Berlin (December 2, 1921). AJDC, Refugees, General 1921-1922, item 320087. 35 Report by Joseph Shohan to the JDC offices in New York (January 25, 1922). AJDC, Cuba, Refugees, 1921-22, item 320131.

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a purely European affair, but assumed a “global” dimension. At the end of 1921, some JDC representatives began thinking of a possible solution to the problem, but the information from Europe showed that all along the frontier with Soviet Russia, many new refugees were still escaping Bolshevism and living in desperate conditions.36 Many were residing in Lithuania and Latvia, where Kahn observed a discrete level of tolerance. They were also in Poland, where the biggest economic endeavour was to be accomplished ($23,625 per month, especially in Lemberg and Równo $3,000 each, $2,000 in Vilnius), and in Romania, where Kahn made a visit at the end of 1921.37 Bucharest hosted 6-7,000 refugees, Soroca in Bessarabia 4,000, but the overall number was not as high as the 100,000 refugees that had been foreseen by the Vienna conference (67,000 plus a 50,000 estimated increase in Bessarabia).38 At the end of 1922, the statistical reports from Constantinople still recorded many new arrivals: in the week September 1-8, 1922, 105 new arrivals were registered; 71 during the following week; 24 in the week September 15-22; 95 between October 1-8; 64 in the week of October 815. Many of them required assistance and were totally or partially dependent upon some measures of relief.39 The conditions of cities such as Constantinople or Thessaloniki (Mark 36 Memorandum no. 125 of December 20, 1921 sent by Bogen to Cyrus Sulzberger. AJDC, Refugee committee 1919-20, 304108. Document of Albert Lucas (May 2, 1921) approving Kahn's report on refugees of March 17, 1921. AJDC, Refugees 1921, items 215066, 215083, 215079. 37 In Poland, the most affected centres were Lemberg (with 9000 refugees), Równo, Pinsk, Biaáystok and Vilnius. Abstract of a preliminary report on the refugee problem drafted by Bernard Kahn (April 26, 1921). AJDC, Refugees 1921, item 215081. In Ukraine, the principal centres receiving aid from the JDC were Berschad, Chaschtokewaty, Stavischtsch, Krivoje Oserp, Vinograd, Jajkov). List of Ukrainian refugees who received aid from the JDC up to June 24, 1921. AJDC, Refugees 1921, 215099. On the general situation of refugees in Lithuania, T. Balkelis, “Nation Building and World War I. Refugees in Lithuania 1918-1924”, Journal of Baltic Studies, Vol. 34, 4, 2003. 38 On July 15, 1921, Kahn wrote from Berlin to the JDC in New York about his journey in Romania, which started on June 17 and included a visit to Bucharest on June 21. Here, Kahn had a long interview with W. Fildermann, chairman of the Romanian refugee committee. AJDC, Refugees 1921, 215101. 39 Statistical reports from Constantinople (September 1-October 15, 1922). AJDC, Refugees, 1919-20, 304158.

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Victims of Peace: The Refugees after the End of the War

Mazower's City of Ghosts) reflected the emergency of this humanitarian crisis, which required the creation of a special high commission for refugees under the auspices of the League of Nations, the so-called Nansen Committee. At the end of August 1921, Dr. Nansen was appointed High Commissioner, and the Conférence d'étude sur la Question des Réfugiés Russes at Geneva recommended that each government should solve the legal difficulties concerning the status of refugees by adapting its own legal regulations to the present abnormal conditions.40 The position of the refugees was immensely complicated by the fact that the great majority of them had no legal status. They had no identity papers, or had papers issued by governments that no longer existed. This lack of valid documents constituted one of the chief handicaps under which the High Commission operated. No country, in European post-war conditions, was willing to admit unidentified and destitute strangers, and least of all Russians who might prove to be secret emissaries of the Third International. Furthermore, the repatriation of Russian refugees required the establishment of a political relation with Bolshevik Russia, and any agreement would be seen as a sort of recognition.41 The role of the High Commission was thus necessary in order to resolve this problem and to obtain the cooperation of the different members in an affair that represented a first serious testing ground for the newly created League of Nations and its ambitious idealism. Nansen insisted that no one was to be sent back to Russia against his will, and indeed the cooperation of the League's High Commission proved essential in many cases: for postponing the menaced evacuation of refugees from Bessarabia, for obtaining an amnesty of the Soviet government, or, in 1923, for convincing 40 Resolutions adopted by the Conference of the League in Geneva (August 26, 1921). On the legal questions affecting the condition of refugees, L. Holborn, “The Legal Status of Political Refugee, 1920-1938”, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 32, 1938; H. J. Feist, “The Status of Refugee”, Modern Law Review, Vol. 5, July 1941. 41 The problem affected those groups, for example the Cossacks, who had openly supported the White Armies, and also thousands of people who had fled due to different political or economic reasons. N. Bentwich, The International Problem of Refugees (Geneva: Geneva Special Studies, 1935); G. Ginsburgs, “The Soviet Union and the Problem of Refugees and Displaced Persons 1917-1956”, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 51, No. 2, April 1957; M. Housden, “White Russians Crossing the Black Sea: Fridtjof Nansen, Constantinople and the First Modern Repatriation of Refugees Displaced by Civil Conflict, 1922-23”, The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (July 2010), pp. 495-524.

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the Polish government to suspend the evacuation of 3,600 Jewish refugees, who in the meanwhile were allowed to emigrate.42 What became clear to Nansen and his functionaries who were dealing with the settlement and repatriation of these people, was that the sum of various national actions could only produce small results in comparison to a wideranging international action. Cooperation among the different agents was essential in order to overcome the numerous hurdles: the material ones such as the difficult transportation along the Balkan route, the financial and the bureaucratic ones entailing the costs and concession of valid documents and visas. The different countries showed a multitude of contrasting approaches, offering to receive 20,000 children from the Volga region as in the case of Bulgaria, or creating various problems as happened in Poland or in Romania, where a kind of internal frontier was established between Bessarabia and the Old Kingdom.43 The former inhabitants of the Pale had become refugees and were destined to renew the traditional image of “wandering Jews” in a new world of frontiers, passports and visas.

42 “Evacuation from Bessarabia for most part indefinitely postponed. This favourable result obtained chiefly through cooperation with Nansen Committee”. Report by B. Kahn of the JDC Berlin refugee department to the JDC (January 8, 1920). AJDC, Refugees 1919-20, items 304107, 304115. Reports by the High Commissioner for Refugees, extract no. 25, published on the Official Journal of the League of Nation in March 1924. 43 The Jewish refugees had to obtain documents of identification and residence permission in order to be transferred to Old Romania. General report of the work accomplished up to March 15, 1922, by Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, High Commissioner of the League of Nations. Communicated to the Council of the League on March 15, 1922. JDC document called “Agenda” (November 28, 1921). AJDC, Refugees, General, 1921-1922, item 320079.

FLESH AND BONES: THE RELIEF OF THE CHILDREN

Since the men were destined to be recruited into the various armies, the great mass of refugees, especially during the conflict, were women and children. The problem of childcare was thus evident, not only during the war, but also in the following years. Vladimir Zenzinov described the problem of child-care in 1931 and concentrated his analysis on the years of Soviet rule. One of the most alarming descriptions in the book is when Zenzinov focuses on Crimea, where in many places the dead bodies of children served other children as pillows or as tables from which to eat their food.1 Taking into account the documents of the JDC, however, it is indisputable that the same issue was also present before the revolution, and it is equally true that the real origin of the Russian “orphan crisis” was to be found in the years of war. In order to analyse the dreadful conditions of this context, it is first of all necessary to recall that these children had witnessed destruction and violence - sometimes even against their relatives - and this experience had disastrous consequences on their mental health: “In the presence of their children, mothers were maltreated; parents were forced to watch their young daughters being assaulted; and these women were then murdered. These terrible scenes were witnessed by children of tender age; as time passed, the story of their sufferings and those of others could be read in their sunken skin and wondering eyes”.2

These traumatic events caused many cases of epilepsy among the children, and other nervous diseases such as hysteria, especially among the widows and wives of soldiers. Sons and daughters suffered because of the absence of their paternal figure. In addition, their age represented a further problem: their resistance to cold and hunger was clearly less than that of 1 Vladimir Zenzinov, Deserted: The Story of the Children Abandoned in Soviet Russia (London: Herbert Joseph, 1931), p. 10. 2 Report from the Society for the Rescue of Abandoned Children of Galicia and Bukovina, established by the B'nai Brith of Austria, signed by B. Khorman and Edmund Kohn (January 31, 1919). AJDC, Galicia 1915-1919, item 7328.

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Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children

the adults. The relief workers were fully aware of this physical weakness, and they sought funding from governments and organisations to devote to childcare, for example with the creation of special kitchens to feed the children with hot milk, white bread and some hot cereal or soup with meat. The relief measures distinguished: full orphans; half-orphans with surviving mother or father; abandoned children; children separated from their parents by emigration, exile or other causes; lastly, the sub-divisions according to sex and age (until 3, between 4 and 8, 8 and 12, 12 and 16 years of age). The presence of parents, however, was not always to be considered positively. Indeed, according to their religious beliefs, many orthodox Jewish parents did not allow their children to go to non-orthodox charitable institutions, and whatever bad conditions they might be living in, this rigid behaviour had negative effects on the children. The reports described the plight of these “little refugees”: they hardly had a shirt on their emaciated bodies, but rags full of vermin, their feet were blistered, with pale faces and dull eyes, in which it was possible to read the horrible remembrance of the terrible scenes they had witnessed.3 Another memorandum noted children of 5-6 years of age who were unable to walk, their bodies sunken and soft as jelly. When in 1916 the representatives of Scandinavian relief organisations, Prof. Ellinger and Alfred Neymann, visited Russian Poland and Galicia, they noticed the lack of the most necessary foodstuffs such as milk, and also of children's houses or kindergartens, or other places where orphans could attend lessons and receive meals.4 The food the children had from their parents who were out of work was unsuitable to maintain their vitality in the long run and caused a “gradual starvation”. As a consequence, Ellinger and Neymann were inclined to predict that in the future the survivors would be unfit to take up the hard struggle for their existence and would become a burden upon society. As for the refugees in general, some places were especially affected by the problem of war orphans. For example, Galicia, one the principal sources of refugees, hosted penniless children – in a cable it was said they numbered 10,000 - who became orphans as a result of Russian invasions and of postwar pogroms.5

3 Ibidem. 4 “The Jewish War Orphans”, report of August 17, 1916. AJDC, Galicia 19131919, item 5714. 5 Cablegram of December 4, 1918. AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 5719.

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Warsaw, as a destination of refugees, hosted 80,000 children between three and thirteen years of age, one third of whom were threatened with consumption. Schools and children’s homes could assist only 31,000, the rest were in the care of nobody. Jewish girls were obliged to beg from soldiers for a piece of bread for themselves or for their brothers and sisters, and were consequently exposed to a great “moral danger”. In another document the number of children in Warsaw was calculated at 90,000, with 30,000 of them in the first stages of tuberculosis as a direct result of privations. Outbreaks of rickets, degeneration of bony substance, kidney diseases and general debility were other symptoms of the awful conditions of the children, who in some cases were not even able to walk.6 But if Warsaw had at least some sanitary structures to deal with these problems, other places were entirely unprepared: for example, Wáodawa, a town of 7,000 inhabitants (75% were Jews) hosted 300 orphans but had no orphanage or other institution to sustain them.7 The JDC Bulletin of June 1919 recognized the difficulty in having accurate numbers and took as a benchmark the estimates of Palestine, where out of 40,000 refugees some 3,000 were orphans. Naturally, the hope was that in Eastern Europe the percentage was smaller.8 The number of orphans was instead destined to increase owing to the unceasing pogroms, as was noted by the organizations operating in this field: the Agudat Israel war orphan funds in the various countries, Mrs. Anita Mueller's organization in Austria, and the Palestine Orphan Committee, for example.9 The strategy of the relief action was twofold: on one hand, to alleviate the “gradual starvation of the innocent little children”, on the other, to care for the surviving ones, who represented the future generation. One possible solution was to work out a plan to send the children to their relatives in America, as suggested by Siegfried Bernfeld, who proposed inserting 6 Ibidem. 7 Report by C. H. Halliday about an investigation trip to Wáodawa on October 10 (November 8, 1920). AJDC, American Red Cross 1919-1921, item 210077. 8 A. Lucas' report was published as a supplement in the Bulletin of June 1919. AJDC, Child Care, 1919-21, item 213794. 9 Letter sent from Holland to Felix Warburg (September 30, 1919). Report of the Office General de la Fondation des Orphelins de Guerre de l’Agudat Israel, sent by Rabbi Avram Loen to the New York Committee for the Relief of Jews, Central Bureau of Agudat Israel, signed by T. Lewenstein (October 3, 1919). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, items 213828, 213841.

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Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children

advertisements in various papers such as Der Jude.10 The JDC also devised the plan “All the Jewish War Orphans Will Be Adopted”, following a model that had already been used for the orphans in France and Belgium, and asking for a contribution of $80 per year to adopt one orphan.11 A campaign was to be launched in the US, under the supervision of a special bureau that was to be established as soon as possible, while permission was required from the Department of State to speed up the procedure and permit the Jewish war orphans in Europe to enter the US and reach their families.12 Furthermore, the National Conference of Jewish Charities was called upon to take rapid steps towards providing the means to care for Jewish orphans in Europe. Later on, the JDC organized a Committee on War Orphans in order to study the situation of the children in Europe and Palestine, and established a special Department for the Care of Jewish War Orphans.13 The latter operated under the direct supervision of the former, which was composed of fifteen members under the chairmanship of Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, formerly Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York. The plans had the following aims: to ascertain in each country the number of orphans, the active agencies, the available workers, and so forth; to secure data on budgets for the work in the various fields and to develop aggregate budgets for the entire work of orphan care; to prepare the repatriation, when possible, and make arrangements for the reuniting of these children with their relatives wherever possible; to study the problem and possibilities of special care for pogrom orphans and arrange for their transfer to other localities or to America; to arrange for a system of “orphan adoption” like those in Serbia, France, and Belgium, by which persons in America might pay a given amount for the support of a designated child in an institution or in a private family in Europe; to launch an intensive campaign to secure funds especially destined for 10 Documents: “The Jewish War Orphans” (August 17, 1916); “Suggestions for an investigation of the situation of Jewish war orphans” (December 7, 1919). AJDC, Galicia, 1913-1919, item 5714; Children, Orphans 1916-1919, 213845. 11 Supplement to the Bulletin of June 1919. AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213794. 12 A direct proposal was made to R. Lansing by Mr. Gompers: “Plan for Jewish Orphans” (September 16, 1919). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213826. 13 JDC statement to the public, signed by Albert Lucas (October 6, 1919). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, item 213833.

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childcare work; to arrange for proper publicity and propaganda in this field.14 This plan was later known as “Adopting a Generation”. The foster-parent would be kept in regular contact with the orphan and the family or agency directly caring for the child. The special children's fund consisted of three kinds of sums: those appropriated for children's work from the general funds of the JDC; the funds that were especially collected through the three collecting committees or the landsmannschaft in designated communities; the donations of the individuals who adopted orphans.15 In 1920, the JDC orphan committee signed a special agreement with the Canadian Orphan Organization (which was established thanks to the initiative of Edmund Walker, Sir William Mulock, Sir Mortimer B. Davis) for cooperating in the work with orphans in Europe and Palestine.16 In Europe, a children's bureau was to be established in each main city, and a Central Jewish Children's Bureau in each country. The central offices, for example in Poland, were responsible for establishing uniform standards, record forms, inspection systems, and special courses for childcare workers. The district and community bureaus, on their part, were responsible for monitoring not only the care of the children in homes and private families, but also the activities of the various children's agencies, day nurseries, colonies and sanatoriums, clinics, milk stations, etc.17 In Poland, the management and supervision of this complex structure was assigned to Dr. Simon Peiser of the Overseas Unit, who was engaged in the work of establishing children's committees in the various centres. Three methods were used to support the childcare: bulk subventions to local institutions (in Poland and Romania); direct management and 14 JDC information service letter (September 15, 1920). AJDC, Child Care, 19191921, item 213854. 15 Jewish Children in Europe (August 4, 1920). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, item 213853. 16 The main principles of the pact were: the cooperation in the work with orphans in Europe and Palestine, the inclusion of a Canadian member in the JDC orphans committee; the final decision in cases of controversies and doubts was of the JDC (art.3), the Canadian donations were to be delivered to the JDC warehouses in Europe. Text of the agreement between JDC and HIAS. AJDC, Child Care, 19191921, 213877. 17 The procedure passed from the town office managing the different vouchers, then to the district office and then to the central bureau. Document of the ChildCare Bureau (February 5, 1921). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213883.

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Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children

supervision of the institutions (this method was adopted in Palestine); subventions to institutions and homes on the basis of a per capita sum for every child sheltered under supervised and standard conditions. This last system was introduced in Poland only in a second moment, after February 1, 1920, and allowed increasing the number of sheltered children. After November 1, 1920, the bulk subventions were gradually replaced by per capita subventions also in Romania, Lithuania and other countries. In 1921, a precise list of priorities was published to define the most urgent targets: full orphans without relatives in Polish Ukraine, Eastern Galicia and White Russia; full orphans in other parts of Poland; full orphans having relatives in Ukraine or Eastern Galicia; fatherless children in Ukraine, Eastern Galicia, White Russia; full orphans having relatives in Galicia and Congress Poland; half-orphans in Congress Poland.18 Peiser was sent to Warsaw, where he succeeded in getting a definite arrangement for Galicia. He established a solid basis of cooperation with other organizations such as the Paris Relief Society and the Canadian War Orphan, achieving positive results and introducing the system of per capita subventions.19 From Warsaw, Peiser had constant contact with the War Orphans Department in New York and sent several reports concerning the situation of orphans in Europe. To this end, Peiser calculated the costs to bring orphans to America and indicated the sum of $210 for a child above ten years, $150 for a child below that age.20 Trip to Warsaw and port Outfit Stay at Warsaw and port Visas Steamship ticket Escort

$3 $20 $17 $10 $150 $10

18 Document of April 1921, “The problem of War Orphans”. AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, item 213891. 19 Letter of Bogen to the Child Care committee of New York (Warsaw, March 18, 1921). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213890. 20 Report by Simon Peiser, from the Orphan department of Warsaw to the war orphans department of New York (February 18, 1921). AJDC, Child Care, 19191921, 213886.

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The policy of the JDC in Poland was to encourage the care of children by offering a given daily allowance for every child in an institution or in a private family: about $75 per child per year. The initiatives also included a chain of sixteen milk stations in Warsaw, which supplied cups of hot sweet milk to about 40,000 children daily; summer colonies for about 50,000 anaemic and rachitic children; clinics and children’s hospitals, and a sanatorium for tuberculosis children in Warsaw.21 The results of these efforts were enthusiastically commented on by Peiser, who was proud to state that out of 150 children who were examined by a physician in Kraków, only one was found with his head unclean while many others experienced a “splendid benefit”. At the same time, while Peiser criticized the Galician War Orphans Committee for its management of the orphan asylums that hosted about 18,000 orphans (“In my humble opinion the money spent is money wasted”), in New York, some observers such as I. Rubinstein, deplored the way Peiser organized the new system of relief and criticized his reports in many points.22 Naturally, Peiser's mission was hampered by the communication difficulties with the villages, by the lack of reliable people to supervise the institutions, and by the scarcity of funds, which obliged the JDC to make a choice between those who were placed directly under special care, and the other children in need. For example, in the district east of the Bug River, including the Brest-Litovsk and Baranowicze territories, Peiser concluded arrangements for the care of about 750 children. This distinction unfortunately meant that in the same community a number of children were provided everything a child required, while there were others for whom little or nothing at all was being done.

21 Report by Peiser, “Jewish Children in Poland “(December 21, 1920). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, item 213873. 22 Letter of I. Rubinstein to Mr. Lucas (April 20, 1921): “Lastly, Dr. Peiser shows on page 4, just what it cost the JDC to carry on this work in Galicia and also in Congress Poland. However, the figure of 10,514,794 Polish Marks expended in Galicia in money and supplies, does not mean so very much. We may assume that not all of the 2,424 children who are at present under our care in Galicia came to us on one day in October 1920. In all probability, the number of these children grew and increased gradually. It seems to me of importance to know what the per capita cost per child is in each district in Galicia”. AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213902.

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Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children “But this is life - what we find here we can also find anywhere else in the world. As long, however, as there are not sufficient means to provide properly for all, and as long as we cannot induce the local committees to do their duty by the poor children, I deem it by far wiser and better to provide properly for the few than to attenuate our assistance, reaching many more, but helping them insufficiently and thereby accomplishing nothing”.23

In 1920, the JDC information service estimated that at least 300,000 Jewish children were scattered throughout Europe and Palestine, “exposed to all the menace of disease and demoralization, uncared for or cared for wretchedly, lying on bare boards, in rags, or lying in the streets, begging, stealing, exploited by the vicious elements of the cities”.24 In another document, these numbers were better specified: Peiser stated that his Polish war orphans committee was working with 13,461 children, of whom 2,448 were full orphans, 10,752 fatherless, 261 motherless. In the four cities of Kraków, Chrzanów, Trzebina and Wieliczka the total was 396 children. The expenditures of the various local committees were comprised between 1,221 and 1,252 Marks per month.25 But these statistics related to just a part of the enormous mass of orphans that was produced by war and deprivation throughout Galicia and Ukraine. Also Mrs. M. Saslovskaya's report, in May 1920, described the conditions of about 1,200 pogrom orphans who were sheltered in Kiev, but specified that many more were still without assistance and protection.26 In Eastern Galicia, the Central Committee for the Care of Jewish War Orphans (created on May 3, 1916, and chaired by Emil Parnass) supervised many other institutions for the orphans in the region.27

23 Report of May 19, 1921. AJDC, Child Care, War Orphans Bureau, item 213911. 24 JDC information service letter (September 15, 1920). AJDC, Child Care, 19191921, 213854. 25 Report of the War Orphans Bureau (April 6-May 6 1920) sent by Jesse Bogen on May 10, 1920. AJDC, Child Care, War Orphans Bureau, 213908. 26 “Jewish Children in Europe” (August 4, 1920). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, item 213853. 27 During its existence, the committee received 1,461,867 Crowns from the government. Document on the situation in Eastern Galicia (not signed, undated). AJDC, Galicia 1913-1919, item 218873.

The Great War against Eastern European Jewry, 1914-1920

Place and name of the institution Lviv St. Teresa str. 26° Lviv Zbrosvaya str. Lviv Pekarskaya Lviv Asylum in Bernstein st. Lviv Asylum in Lokotka st. Lviv Brsarovsk PrzemyĞl PrzemyĞl asylum Sanok Yavoriv Yavozhe kolonia Yavozhe Simakhovich institution Sambir Stryi Jaroslavl Chortkiv Kolomyia asylum Ternopil TOTAL

Total number 100 50 20 20

Boys

Girls

57 23 0 12

43 27 20 8

25 9 80 43 26 33 116 50

3 7 32 20 12 21 63 39

22 2 48 23 14 12 53 11

110 32 40 65 29 32 880

54 20 18 27 17 20 445

56 12 22 38 12 12 435

231

In 1921, an approximate number of 3,600 children was registered in the district of Brest-Litovsk, and only 900 of them (25%) were provided for.28 Peiser reported on the condition of 20,000 orphans in Galicia who were as yet uncared for; a report by Judge Fischer and Max Pine estimated about 150,000 uncared orphans in Russia. But the number of children in the institutions fluctuated widely as many were leaving, while others were coming in. Such variations were due to the fact that the very existence of these institutions was uncertain; they either closed for some time or could barely maintain themselves, not having sufficient resources to feed the children. Relief work was also organized in Ukraine and Russia, where Peiser made a number of visits in March-April 1921, reporting on the activities of the 28 Report on the district of Brest-Litovsk (January 4, 1921). AJDC Poland, BrestLitovsk, 229338.

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Flesh and Bones: The Relief of the Children

local committees as being satisfactory.29 In Ukraine, 27 institutions were under the control of the United Committee for Relief of Pogroms Victims (7 school-houses, 8 orphan asylums, 6 kindergartens, 2 mixed homes, 1 quarantine, 3 children clubs), hosting a total of 2,020 children: 80-90% of them were children of pogrom sufferers.30 In 1921, a general estimate counted more or less 185,000 orphans, who were distributed in the following regions:31 Congress Poland Galicia White Russia Polish Ukraine Romania Palestine Lithuania Ukraine under Soviet Rule

15,000 20,000 20,000 30,000 8,000 4,000 4,000 80,000

The relief work was carried out in cooperation with the American Relief Administration, which in 1920-21 was reducing its activities and the quantities of regular food allowances, as well as with the Red Cross and other institutions. The report of the Canadian Jewish War Relief, for example, mentioned the observations of Major H. T. Davis, a member of the Red Cross Commission to Poland, who described thousands and thousands of children, old men and women without clothing, warmth or food, and racked by typhus and other diseases: “In the city of Pinsk I saw hundreds of children, women and inmates of hospitals who did not have a piece of bread for four days. And the bread they are asking for - a filthy mixture of a little flour with bark of trees or leaves, sawdust and God knows what. What do you think of a diet of wild horse-chestnuts for those sick with typhus or of warm water with a little cornmeal mixed with it”?32

29 Letters from Warsaw of Simon Peiser to the war orphans committee in New York (April 7, 1921; May 19, 1921). AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, items 213911, 213898 30 Information about the 27 institutions under the control of the united committee for relief of pogroms victims in Ukraine (report of September 1919). AJDC, Russia, Pogrom 1919, item 233463. 31 Document of April 1921, “The problem of War Orphans”. AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213891. 32 Under-Nourished Children in the War-Stricken Countries in Central and

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A survey of the situation in Poland was also drafted by Margaret C. Paukner, delegate of the Jewish Women Council, who reported on the conditions in Warsaw, Kielce, Lublin, BĊdzin, Novoradomsk, Konsk, and Radom, where many of the children suffered from intellectual disabilities, many had tuberculosis, others suffered from favid, nearly all had rickets, and all were undersized and underfed.33 The situation of Lithuania was comparable to that of Poland, and according to the 1921 reports of the Committee for Children's Relief, in the city of Vilnius 17,000 children registered for help. In the district, the estimate was of 13,000 children.34 Town Soly Granciszki Dubinki Vilejka Troki Landworowo Rakance

Number of children to be fed 500 1,000 600 500 400 500 600

Number of children fed 500 300 300 500 125 150 300

In a small structure like the Kichenon orphanage of Kaunas, the majority of the 35 children were war orphans: the father of one had been shot by the Cossacks; another had first been abandoned by his father, who left with the army, then by the mother who left him with a neighbour and disappeared.35 The district committee of Ashmyany (Oszmiany) reported that the kitchen fed 1,000 children, but there were another 1,000 children in the town and 2,500 children in the district who equally needed aid. In some cases the committee directly bought bacon and potatoes, in others, where the lack of money precluded such acquisitions, the children could do little other than Eastern Europe (Canadian Jewish War Relief, 1920). AJDC, Child Care, 19191921, 213856. 33 Paukner's visit was made between April 21 and May 18, 1921. The report was sent by Peiser to New York on May 19, 1921. AJDC, Child Care, 1919-1921, 213912. 34 Report by Mrs. Dr. Herzkin on Vilnius (July 20, 1919). AJDC, Poland. Vilna 1921, item 230103. 35 The orphanage was founded in 1905; after the outbreak of war, it moved to Vilnius and later came back to Kaunas. Report by Rabbi Izchek on Kaunas. AJDC, Kovno 1918, item 7778.

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eat grass and leaves. A village priest told captain Kunz that he had personally seen many children climbing the trees, plucking leaves and eating them, and that, being present at a post mortem examination of a child, he had seen his intestines full of grass. The undernourishment facilitated the spread of diseases such as typhus or tuberculosis, and hindered the recovery of children. According to Herzkin's report, because of the malnutrition, after an injury the children recovered very slowly, and many risked dying. A fracture of a bone required several months until it was cured. In one case, a child of one year of age had a fracture of a hip, and though this child stayed in the hospital for 2 months, only a gristle callus was formed. These considerations are quite common in the documents, which include many descriptions of the conditions of war orphans and the system of childcare. This special interest proves that the First World War represented the real starting point for that phenomenon called besprizornye, that is to say the unattended children who were frequently seen in the Russian cities and are commonly perceived as part of the Soviet experience. World War I, the Russian Revolution and Civil War cannot be seen as separate events without real connections between them. In this endless tragedy, the continuity resulted in the loss of at least 16 million lives within the Soviet Union’s borders, where countless contacts between children and parents were irremediably severed. In the following years, these orphaned and abandoned children, besprizorniki, became multitudes and began crowding the cities, towns, and villages throughout the new Soviet state. Harsh street life, consisting in illegality, crime and prostitution, as testified by the statistics, was the inevitable consequence for many of these abandoned children.36 The Soviet regime used this emergency in order to carry out a social experiment, replacing the traditional bourgeois family environment with socialist asylums and institutions. In the spirit of revolutionary idealism, the Soviet state created special orphanages (literally called children’s homes, detskiy dom, detdom) that provided food, education and activities, all of which intended to “win” the children off the streets. These institutions also implemented systems of “self-service”, which meant that 36 In 1920, a survey made on a considerable number of street girls showed that about 90% of them had resorted to prostitution to survive. A. M. Ball, And Now My Soul is Hardened. Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918-1930 (BerkeleyLos Angeles-London: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 56-60.

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youths took on chores and made administrative decisions; the intention was to enable them gain a sense of self-determination and a “collective” instinct.37 Some described the bezprizorniki as gangs that banded together in communal organizations varying in size from five to ten individuals to groups as large as six hundred. For others, such as Viktor Shul’gin, director of the Marx-Engels Institute of Pedagogy, the street children, by their very nature, lived in constant struggle with the bourgeois notions of property and order, and their communes represented primitive forms of socialist organization.38 On the other side, the life of these bezprizorniki became a kind of vicious circle: the veterans of the circuit often entered a city in the fall intending to gain admission to a children’s institution, lived there through the winter, and then ran away with the return of warm weather. Some repeated this pattern year after year, like migratory birds. The phenomenon, in any case, became common in other socialist countries – the most striking example would be Ceauúescu's Romania – and was studied by some authors such as Alan M. Ball, who carried out intensive research on this topic.39 From this perspective, the documents of the JDC show that the problem of bezprizornye was already evident by the end of World War I, when the JDC and other charitable organizations resorted to “classical” bourgeois methods to cope with the emergency. Naturally, the number of orphans was destined to increase owing to the continuation of war and to the famine that affected Russia in the early twenties. In any case, these orphans gave rise to a phenomenon that has characterized contemporary society: they were not just “children of the revolution”, but the product of the First World War and its “modernism”, which revolutionized the world society and the role of family in communist Russia. 37 Communist pedagogy aimed at creating a “vast communistic movement among minors”. Alan Ball, “State Children: Soviet Russia's Besprizornye and the New Socialist Generation”, Russian Review, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 228-247. 38 Anne E. Gorsuc, Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 160. 39 In addition to A. M. Ball, see also An American Report on the Russian Famine (New York: The Nation, 1921); H. H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919– 1923: The Operations of the American Relief Administration (New York: Macmillan 1927); B. M. Weissman, Herbert Hoover and Famine Relief to Soviet Russia, 1921–1923 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974); J. A. Stevens, “Children of the Revolution: Soviet Russia’s Homeless Children (Besprizorniki) in the 1920s”, Russian History”, 9, Nos. 2–3 (1982): 242-264.

WIND OF CHANGE: THE RUSSIAN JEWS AND THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1917

“The Christian was from the very beginning the theorizing Jew. The Jew is therefore the practical Christian and the practical Christian has once again become a Jew. Christianity overcame real Judaism only in appearance. It was too refined, too spiritual, to do away with the crudeness of practical need except by raising it into celestial space. Christianity is the sublime thought of Judaism and Judaism is the vulgar application of Christianity. But this application could not become universal until Christianity as perfected religion had theoretically completed the self-estrangement of man from himself and from nature”.1

The February Revolution After many years of war, military defeats, political stagnation and the worsening of living conditions, the Tsar had lost his credibility in the ranks of the political arena. His image as the supreme ruler was soon to be shattered, and Russia was set to become the epicentre of new disturbances and turmoil. On March 7, 1917, the workers of the largest industrial plant announced a strike, and the day after they were joined by other rioters (including women celebrating International Woman's Day) under the rallying cry of “Down with autocracy!”. In a few days, the revolt spread to all the industrial sites of the country: the Tsar ordered the repression of these riots, but the army mutinied and took control of Petrograd. On March 1516, Nicholas resigned and a provisional government was formed under the presidency of Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov. According to Richard Pipes, it was certain that the Tsar faced no popular pressures to abdicate: “the pressure stemmed exclusively from the ranks of politicians and generals who thought the Crown's removal essential to victory”.2

1 K. Marx, “On the Jewish Question”, in Early Writings, introduced by Lucio Coletti (London: Penguin Books 1975), p. 240. 2 R. Pipes, Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution (New York: Vintage Books,

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In point of fact, Pipes' opinion differs from the report by S. Ansky, who was in Kameniets during those days and testified: “The sole concern of everybody here, Jew and Gentile, was whether the revolution would bring a speedy end to the war”.3 The Jewish reaction to this turn of events was initially of great interest and agitation, but not of joy. The atmosphere was celebratory and even fraternal, but it was clear that something fearful was imminent. The revolution lacked solid foundations and the government had no real power and was indeed challenged by the Soviets that were growing everywhere. In response to the announcements about the reform of Jewish conditions, the Kehillot from all over Russia sent congratulatory telegrams expressing support for the new government, while in the synagogues the old prayers for the Tsar were revised “for the welfare of the country, the army and the people”.4 The Kehillot held elections, a Jewish congress was convened in Petrograd, the relief committees organized various meetings (for example on March 5, with the representatives of the EKOPO, OPE, ORT, OZE and JCA), and generally the Jewish leaders set great expectations in negotiating with the new political authorities. Some observers defined the new cabinet as “the ablest body of men in the world”, the leading zionist publicist Leo Motzkin, on the pages of the New York Times, declared he was confident that the revolution would mean the ultimate liberation of the Jews and progress for the zionist movement: “There is no doubt, however, that the condition of the Jews in Russia was materially ameliorated in an administrative way when the temporary authorities came into power, and there is no doubt that the Constituent Assembly will grant equality to the Jews”.5

1995), p. 28. See also, R. A. Wade, The Russian Revolution, 1917 (Cambridge University Press, 2005). 3 S. Ansky, p. 289. 4 For a description of this phase, from the first days after the revolution, when normal life in Petrograd and other cities became paralysed, see M. Beizer, “The Petrograd Jewish Obshchina (Kehilla) in 1917”, in L. Dymerskaya, Y. Cohen (editors), Jews and Jewish Topics in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989). 5 Charles R. Crane perhaps exaggerated when stating “Russia will teach the world Democracy” in a letter to Alfred Brandeis on March 23, 1917. M. I. Urofsky, D. W. Levy (ed. by), Letters of Louis D. Brandeis: Volume IV, 1916-1921 (Albany: State University of New York, 1975), p. 276; “Sees New Life for Zionism”, New York Times, March 28, 1917.

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Another example of this hopeful sentiment is reflected in the message the American Jewish Committee sent to one of the most prominent men of the new regime, Pavel Milyukov, then minister for foreign affairs, on March 21, 1917, and by the cablegram sent by the US Department of State in April, 1917, which also expressed the fear that the revolution could lead Russia to sign a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers: “American Jewry is alarmed by reports that certain elements are urging a separate peace between Russia and Central Powers. A separate peace may, in our opinion, lead to the ultimate restoration of an autocratic Government and the degradation of the Russian Jews below even their former deplorable condition. We are confident Russian Jewry are ready for the greatest sacrifices in support of the present, democratic Government as the only hope for the future of Russia and its people. American Jewry holds itself ready to co-operate with its Russian brethren in this great movement”.

Furthermore, the American government decided to send its agents to Russia, in order to prevent the provisional government from destroying the cohesion of the Allies, and Elihu Root was chosen to head this mission. The group reached Petrograd on August 8, but did not achieve tangible results.6 Thanks to the Department of State and the American consul, David R. Francis, the American Jewish leaders (for example Marshall, Morgenthau, Schiff, Straus and Rosenthal), frequently interchanged telegrams with the minister of foreign affairs Milyukov. They supported the view of the American government according to which a separate peace with Germany might bring more misery to the Russian Jews.7 In any case, Prof. Milyukov repeatedly assured international observers about the war policy of his cabinet: 6 The Jewish question was not considered, and only some members of the commission spent a few hours with Henry B. Sliozberg, a member of the Cadet Party. Z. Szajkowski, “Jews and the Elihu Root Mission to Russia. 1917”, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 37 (1969), pp. 84-85. 7 At the same time, they reassured the Russian cabinet about their intention to assist the democratic government and the Jewish people in Russia. Letter by Albert Lucas to the Jewish Colonization Association, April 26, 1917; letter by the secretary of the Joint Distribution Committee to Hon. David R. Francis (July 25, 1917). AJDC, Russia, General 1917, items 10113, 10137. Milyukov responded positively to these appeals. “Answers American Jews. Milukoff Assures them no Separate Peace is contemplated”, New York Times, April 28, 1917.

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Wind of Change: The Russian Jews and the Revolutions of 1917 “The Russian Provisional Government is very appreciative of the sympathy which the authorized representatives of American Jewish citizens are so good as to accord to its effort to assure the triumph of the great principles of democracy, of liberty, and of equality of all Russian citizens, without distinction of nationality or religion. As regards the uncertainty shown by the American Jewry on account of the rumours of agitation of certain elements for a separate peace, I can assure them that these rumours are wholly without foundation; no Russian party, whatever its political program, has contemplated or could contemplate the eventuality of a separate peace with the foreign aggressor”.8

As a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (the Kadets), Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov had played an important role in previous years, when he had attributed the government's failures to “stupidity or treason”.9 Milyukov was fairly sympathetic to the Jewish problems and publicly accused the government of having used antisemitism as a “simplified attempt to bridle the masses, to suggest to them the feelings, motives, views and methods which are in the interest of those who play the game”. In a book edited by Gorky, Andreyeev and Sologub, the minister underlined that the problem of Jewish equal rights was the problem of all citizens in general. In Russia, the antisemitic parties were anticonstitutional parties: it was natural, therefore, that the constitutional forces intended to abolish all discriminatory laws against the Jews in the name of equality.10 The first news announcing an amelioration of Jewish conditions had appeared in 1916, but did not seem very realistic to the Russian Jewish press, which on the contrary was full of articles concerning the continuation of the habitual discrimination. In the US, the Jewish leaders were criticized for their inertia.11

8 “Eleventh Annual Report of the American Jewish Committee”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 20 (September 7, 1918, to September 24, 1919). For other aspects of the activity of Consul General Summers, Acting Consul General DeWitt C. Poole and Ambassador David R. Francis, see D. A. Langbart, “Five Months in Petrograd in 1918: Robert W. Imbrie and the US Search for Information in Russia”, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 52, No. 1 (March 2008). 9 M. Kirschke Stockdale, Paul Milyukov and the Quest for a Liberal Russia, 18801918 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press), p. 235. 10 P. Milyukov, “The Jewish question in Russia”, M. Gorky, L. Andreyevgun, F. Sologub (edited by), The Shield (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917), p. 67. 11 Extracts from recent Russian newspapers translated and issued by the American Jewish committee (December 25, 1916). Letter of prof. Edward T. Devine

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The situation changed only after the February Revolution and the coming to power of the provisional government, which decided to abolish all limitations on the rights of Russian citizens based on race or religion. The edict was promulgated on March 21 (April 3), 1917 and was signed by Kerensky, as minister of justice, and Prince Lvov, as president of the cabinet.12 The act set out a lengthy enumeration of about 365 laws, edicts and even executive orders that were annulled by virtue of this proclamation, whose provisions were valid also for the foreigners, except those from an enemy country: “All these restrictions had a deep corrupt influence upon Russian State affairs. The shameful page of our history is closed today – and a new era is opened no matter what the fate of the Russian revolution will be”.13 At this historic moment, the EKOPO central offices received many cables and telegrams from the “innocent exiles” all over Russia, who wished to return to their homes. The Evreyskaya Zhizn published several articles with the wires arriving from Siberia (from the provinces of Tomsk and Narym), where thousands of refugees were awaiting their liberation as the amnesty was not put into force by local authorities.

(January 1, 1917) after returning from Russia. AJDC, Russia, Persecution and Pogroms, 1916, 1918, items 10347, 10096. “And why are not the Jews in Russia relieved of their terrible burdens? Because the leaders of the American Jews are too busy with their own affairs and cannot or will not find the time to take a trip to Russia and straighten out matters”. “Jews here criticise Samuel and Aladin”, New York Times, August 25, 1916. 12 The numerous restrictions stipulated by the decree concerned the right of domicile and of travel, of purchase of real and personal property of every kind, as well as its ownership, enjoyment and stewardship; the rights of mortgagor and mortgagee; the free exercise of every occupation in artisanship, commerce and industry, including the participation in state enterprises, contracts and public auctions; the free participation in stock and other corporations and associations for commerce and industry; the liberty of engaging servants, business representatives, assistants, labourers and apprentices; the liberty of holding government offices, both civil and military, participating in elections for the establishment of local autonomous administration; the admission into all schools and the enjoyment of scholarships, and employment as teachers and educators; the right to act as guardians and jurors; the use of other non-Russian languages and dialects in private correspondence, as well as in instruction in private schools and commercial book-keeping. 13 Report of EKOPO of April 4, 1917; report by the American consul from Petrograd (April 18, 1917); report of the Allianz of June 25, 1917. AJDC, Russia, General 1917, items 10107, 10125; Overseas Administration 1917-18, item1501.

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The Jewish organizations began a new life, taking advantage of the unprecedented opportunities that the 1917 context created. Many parties were re-organized or established ex-novo (for example the United Jewish Socialist Party, the Neitsakh Israel), and despite the difficult material conditions the Jews sought to make the most of these new liberties. Zionism was particularly revitalized – for example by Ber Borochov's program Eretz Israel – and, as suggested by Oleg Budnitskii: “The political geography of Russia’s Jews in 1917 looked something like the following. The most popular parties by far were Zionist in orientation, with a total membership of approximately 300,000 in 1,200 local party organizations”.14

At a cultural level, these efforts ranged from “innovative distribution strategies for secular literature, to attempts to create rituals around secularnational culture, and to astonishingly rapid formation of massive, competing Hebrew and Yiddish educational systems”.15 The Jews packed out the halls where lectures and recitals were given. 63 gymnasiums, teaching in Yiddish and Hebrew, and the first Jewish people's university were opened in the educational district of Kiev; a polytechnic was created at Ekaterinoslav. In Odessa, the Society of the Lovers of the Jewish Language established the Jewish Pedagogical Institute with Hebrew as the language of instruction: 99 students registered on the first day. In a small Russian city like Smolensk – which has been studied by Michael C. Hickey - men and women from every walk of life participated in some form of explicit Jewish activity, thousands engaged in cultural and political initiatives, and a great interest was manifested in Jewish culture (arts, history, theatre, languages): “Jewish language lectures always carried strong political overtones and soon became a field of political competition”.16 This period has been described by Kenneth Moss as a real “renaissance”, 14 O. Budnitskii, Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917–1920 (Jewish Culture and Contexts) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 50. 15 The financial support was granted by some organizations such as Tarbut, founded in Moscow in April 1917, and the Kultur Lige, founded in Kiev in 1918. K. B. Moss, “Bringing Culture to the Nation: Hebraism, Yiddishism, and the Dilemmas of Jewish Cultural Formation in Russia and Ukraine, 1917-1919”, Jewish History, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2008), pp. 263-294. 16 M. C. Hickey, “Revolution on the Jewish Street: Smolensk 1917”, Journal of Social History, Vol. 31, No. 4 (summer 1998), p. 834

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the fulfilment of Jewish activists' old dreams of emancipation. The simultaneous triumph of Hebraism and Yiddishism, through institutions such as the Tarbur or Kultur Lige, was also based on the belief that the whole of the Jewish nation could share in the intelligentsia's culture.17 These outstanding cultural initiatives, however, were limited by the general conditions of misery, which represented a great hurdle in the majority of cases, as denounced by many rabbis who tried to revitalize their educational institutions but had insufficient money and means.18 The problems did not simply vanish: the local and military authorities did not implement the orders; the army was ruled by chaos and “revolutionary” attempts to convert it into a “democratic” institution; the country was on the edge of imminent turmoil. Anti-Jewish agitations continued to spread and the government expressed a distrust of Yiddish language - “on account of its similarity to German” -, while many Jewish leaders such as Günzburg and Varshavsky consequently suggested to “leave that language out of consideration”.19 The Jewish political leaders were conscious of these difficulties and Friedman was particularly worried by the numerous rumours of possible pogroms in Bessarabia, Volhynia, Podolia and in the province of Kherson.20 The course of the revolution was largely conditioned by the capricious whims and demands of the garrison soldiers, who could no longer see the reason for unthinking obedience. The officers, on their side, were not prepared to explain the political events to their troops, and many of them showed ambivalence or hostility to the new order. The revival of hostilities in the middle of 1917 - the so-called Kerensky offensive which converted new Russian territories inhabited by Jews into a battlefield – showed that the war was far from over and that “normalization” was still to come. It was in this context that the political power of the class discourse became apparent. The provisional government enjoyed great prestige in the first weeks, but soon Lenin's Dual Power became manifest, and after April the 17 Kenneth B. Moss, Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009); K. B. Moss, “Bringing Culture to the Nation”, p. 269. 18 Rabbi Grodzensky of Vilnius received 100,000 Roubles from the US in order to establish schools. Letter by Ch. Heller from Homel to Professor Marx (May 23, 1917). AJDC, Russia, General 1917, item 10122. 19 Unsigned letter of January 1, 1918. AJDC, Russia, General 1917, 10096. 20 See for example, Evreyskaya Zhizn of March 27 (April 9), 1917.

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Soviet emerged as the most authoritative organ of revolutionary democracy. In 1917, the question of peace was one of the main issues characterizing the political evolution, and together with the grave economic crisis it contributed to strengthen the position of the Bolsheviks, who were the only force challenging the continuation of war.21 The Bolsheviks promised peace and land and attacked the government's inertia. The members of the Duma seemed more committed to continuing the war and to keeping Russia's status as a great power than they were to radical social and political changes. In Bolshevik political speeches the main arguments were: “Do we need this bloody, criminal war? Kerensky, the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionaries are betraying the working people; they have sold themselves to the Russian, English and American bourgeoisie. Will the Kerensky government give you more land? No, never. They protect the interests of the landlords”.22 The force of this propaganda lay in the fact that the whole country was economically ruined, and drastic and immediate changes were keenly awaited by the population. In truth, the entire economic fabric of Russia had collapsed long before the revolution, as testified by Boris Schumacher's report after a journey in Russia. Schumacher, who was interviewed by Albert Lucas after his return, visited 7,000 towns and villages and spoke with the heads of families and associations over five months. Where heads of families were men, they were mostly elderly and unfit for military service, while many families were made up exclusively of orphans. These “families” had no income and depended solely on charity and on the funds allocated by the government, the Princess Tatiana Fund, the Jewish Relief Committee, and by private donors, who spent part of their modest earnings on helping the refugees.23 According to the Novaya Zhizn (April 23, 1918), in 1917 the production of cereals was only 78% of that of pre-war years and the expectations for the 21 E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966); O. Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924 (New York: Penguin Books, 1997); R. Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime: 1919–1924 (London: Harvill Press, 1994); R. Pipes, The Russian Revolution (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011). 22 S. Pushkarev, “1917 - A Memoir”, Russian Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1967), pp. 59-60. 23 “Everyone of these resident people are spending $20 of his income for refugees”. Interview with Mr. Boris Schumacher (January 5, 1917). AJDC, Russia, General 1917, item 10085.

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harvest in 1918 were not hopeful. Substantial decreases were foreseen everywhere: at Voronezh (60%), Kharkov (47%), Saratov (75%), Samara (70%), Kazan (66%). In Central Russia, the size of the cultivated land was only 40% of that tilled in 1916. In addition, the separation of Russia's wheat-growing regions, Siberia and Ukraine, from the central area brought the population of Central Russia face to face with starvation. In April 1918, the bread ration in Petrograd was reduced from a quarter to an eighth of a pound and in May to one-sixteenth. In Smolensk and the surrounding districts, the food situation was desperate. The collapse of the industrial, commercial and transportation system caused the shortage of manufactured articles of prime necessity, coupled with the depreciation of paper money and the almost total economic isolation of the whole country. Prices increased day by day, many towns were overcrowded with refugees and with wealthy men who left the rural areas looking for security.24 Only the cooperative organizations remained active, counting on a membership of over 30,000,000 people. The Jews also participated in this movement and in 1917 Jewish cooperatives opened in Nizhny-Novgorod, Yaroslav, Tula, Astrakhan, Ekaterinburg and many other large cities of Russia. These difficulties accompanied Russia towards its final collapse and the Bolshevik coup, which further consolidated the myth of JudeoBolshevism. The October Revolution was perceived by many Russians as a political manoeuvre steered by Berlin thanks to Jewish accomplices in loco, that is to say thanks to the Bolshevik leaders, whose majority was believed to be Jewish (for example Zinoviev, Kamenev, Uritsky, Sverdlov, Sokolnikov and naturally Trotsky). The alleged association between Jews and Revolution was nothing new in Russian history, but the rise of the Bolsheviks consecrated this myth, which was greatly revitalized in 191718.

The October Revolution Scholarship has debated widely about Jewish participation in socialist and communist movements, in particular in the Russian case. Though often overestimated, this allegiance has been partially explained by the harsh discrimination that the Tsarist regime had meted out to its Jewish subjects. It has been underlined how rootless, alienated and educated middle class Jews absorbed the Russian intelligentsia's cultural dynamics, including the 24 According to the Novaya Zhizn of April 23 1918 (July 1, 1918), the losses were comprised between 47% at Kharkov and 75% in the province of Saratov.

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expression of dissent, and were therefore susceptible to radicalism. The Jews sought ethnical neutrality inside socialist universalism, and a part of them combined assimilation with politicization.25 The natural milieu for the spread of socialist ideas was undoubtedly the middle-class, the students and the urban proletariat: the number of Jews was considerable in all these categories. An important meeting ground between Russian and Jewish students was the search for justice, which included a general reform of the empire and an improvement of Jewish conditions.26 Another reason explaining the “association” between Jews and Bolshevism was that the revolutionary movement was strong in urban areas with industrial factories and these centres were located in the Jewish Pale. “No great imagination is needed to explain why there were large numbers of Jewish revolutionaries from (as well as in) Odessa, Vilna, Minsk and Warsaw. Nor is it surprising that Russian universities turned out Jewish revolutionaries in the same large numbers as they created their gentile comrades. This comradeship and absence of prejudice among revolutionaries, incidentally, was one of the principal features that drew Jews into the movement”.27

It was true that since the beginning of the revolutionary movement, the Jews had participated in all aspects and played an important role in the organization of this force, but nothing, as argued by L. Shapiro, suggests that their presence was not proportionate to the percentage of the Jewish population in Russia. It was equally true that Marxism adhered closely to Jewish internationalism, but at the same time the Jewish Bund had broken up with Lenin's faction in 1903, and considering the ethnic composition of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, it was the former that had by far the

25 R. Brym, The Jewish Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism. A Sociological Study of Intellectual Radicalism and Ideological Divergence (New York: Schocken, 1978), p. 4. See also R. S. Wistrich, Revolutionary Jews from Marx to Trotsky (London: Harrap, 1976); E. Mendelsohn (ed.), Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (New York and London: New York University Press, 1997). 26 After the pogroms and the rise of Hovevei-Zionism, anyone who hoped to lead the Jewish masses had to speak out rather openly in favour of ethnic interests, as indeed the Bund did. C. E. Woodhouse, H. J. Tobias, “Primordial Ties and Political Process in Pre-Revolutionary Russia: The Case of the Jewish Bund”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Apr., 1966), p. 336; B. Halpern, J. Reinharz, “Nationalism and Jewish Socialism: The Early Years”, Modern Judaism, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Oct., 1988), p. 226. 27 Y. Ro'i (ed.), Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union (Ilford: Newbury House, 1995), p. 150.

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greater percentage of Jewish members.28 “If the Jews are to be condemned because of a Trotsky, who has never in the slightest degree concerned himself with Judaism or the welfare of the Jews, then there is not a people that has ever lived that might not with equal rights be condemned because in its membership there were men who are alleged to have advocated hateful doctrines”.29

A sociological analysis reveals that, compared to their proportion of the Empire's population, many minorities (Jews, South Caucasian groups, Latvians) were over-represented in the Bolshevik leadership, while others (Poles and Ukrainians) were instead under-represented. But the most important factor was the class representation, which was relatively homogeneous within the single ethnic groups, but heterogeneous across them. The Bolsheviks of the lower classes were mainly Russian, those of the middle-higher classes belonged to national minorities. The Jewish Bolsheviks were the product of the social integration that their fathers' Russification had permitted, and Russian socialism bestowed on the new generations something absent in a wider society. In other words, class and ethnicity complemented each other, and Bolshevism offered an alternative representation, exactly where Tsarism was failing. “The Russian socialist movement served as a key social ally, validating assimilated identities in a context of political illiberalism and in the absence of ethnocultural belonging. Bolshevism was not only organizationally ecumenical, accommodating deep ethnocultural differences among its many non-Russian members, but it was also generally anti-antisemitic, and provided identity, position, dignity, and a social home to assimilating but ethnically marginalized Jews”.30

28 L. Schapiro, “The Role of the Jews in the Russian Revolutionary Movement”, Slavonic and East European Review, Dec. 1, 1961, pp. 148, 150-157. On the international diffusion of the Jewish-Bolshevik theorem, see also S. Ettinger, “The Jews in Russia at the Outbreak of the Revolution”, in L. Kochan (ed.), The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917 (London: Oxford University Press, 1978); J. BrunZejmis, “National Self-denial and Marxist Ideology: The Origin of the Communist Movement in Poland and the Jewish Question”, Nationalities Papers, Vol. 22 (1994), pp. 29-54; J. W. Bendersky, The Jewish Threat. Anti-Semitic Politics of the US Army (New York, Basic Books, 2000). 29 Public statement of the American Jewish Committee released on December 1, 1920. 30 L. Riga, “Ethnonationalism, Assimilation, and the Social Worlds of the Jewish Bolsheviks in Fin de Siècle Tsarist Russia”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Oct., 2006), p. 763. This analysis was conducted on 93

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Associating Jews with Communism was widespread. Anti-Bolshevik tendencies fed antisemitic attitudes, and Bolshevism was described by many, even influential international observers, as a product of Judaism, a construction of Jewish ideas. Indeed, the future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was to declare in 1920 that: “Bolshevism among the Jews is nothing new. From the days of SpartacusWeishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Béla Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing”.31

The identification of Bolshevism and Judaism was becoming increasingly popular belief, furthered by many articles in the press, for example the Obshee Delo, which on October 16, 1917, published the list of people accompanying Lenin in the sealed wagons, noting that 99 out of 159 were of Jewish origin. Actually, by the time the Bolsheviks seized power, Jewish participation at the highest level was not disproportionate: 5 out of the 21 members of the Central Committee were Jewish and 1 Jew, Trotsky, was in the first Council of People's Commissars. In the months preceding the revolution the party had created some national sections, and after the coup the Jewish representation was structured upon the Jewish Commissariat within the Narkomnats (the People's Commissariat of Nationalities), the Jewish party section (Evsektsia), the voluntary and state institutions, the nationality administrative institutions, and the

Bolshevik leaders in the period 1917-24. The Jewish members were highly educated and belonged to the commercial middle class of Lithuania, Ukraine and the Russian interior. L. Riga, “The Ethnic Roots of Class Universalism: Rethinking the Russian Revolutionary Elite”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 114, No. 3 (November 2008), pp. 666-668; B. Nathan, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press 2004). 31 W. Churchill, “Zionism vs. Bolshevism”, Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920. The same ideas gave birth to The Jewish Bolshevism, a pamphlet published in London in 1922. G. Lebzelter, Political Anti-Semitism in England: 1918-1939 (Oxford: Macmillan, 1978); W. I. Brustein, R. D. King, “AntiSemitism in Europe before the Holocaust”, International Political Science Review, Vol. 25, No. 1, Religion and Politics (January 2004), pp. 35-53.

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“federative” unit of the Jewish nationality.32 The Jewish Commissariat (Evkom) was established in February 1918, whereas the Polish one was set up in November 1917, and consisted of six departments with offices in just 13 towns: among its duties were the creation of Jewish institutions to support the Soviet government, the dissemination of propaganda in Yiddish, but also the assistance to refugees. The Evkom had frequent contact with the Evsektsia, which was set up on October 20, 1918, and was the most important and representative Jewish structure of the state, exactly as the party was the main centre of power in the Soviet state. From the relief actions perspective, the October Revolution changed the rules of the game. As the EKOPO's chairman Baron Alexander Günzburg stated in his letter to American Ambassador Francis: “Russia of the present moment does no more resemble our old country”.33 Indeed, the widescale nationalization of private property and the disastrous policy of War Communism ruined the national economy. The new government believed that philanthropy was a tool in the hands of the church and the wealthy stratum to manipulate the broad masses. As a consequence, it prohibited religious organizations from engaging in welfare activities, and obstructed private and public philanthropic initiatives. The Special Conference was dismantled, governmental aid ceased, the EKOPO's savings were confiscated, and the relief committee was banned from receiving foreign aid. During 1917, the JDC succeeded in sending funds to Russia, but these transfers ceased at the end of the year. Lucas and Brylawski requested official assurances about further transmissions from the State Department and the Red Cross, but the situation was too chaotic. In those circumstances, nothing could be done except for some sums to be sent via the Young Men's Christian Association, the only one capable of obtaining information about Jewish relief in Russia.34

32 B. Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union. The History of a National Minority (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 58-71. See also N. Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917: Paradox of Survival, Vol. 1 (New York: New York University Press, 1988). 33 Letter of Günzburg to Francis (February 26, 1918). AJDC, Russia, General 1918-19. 34 These sums were sent by the JDC after the revolution. The stop in remittances was confirmed by the cable received from Ambassador Francis, on December 8,

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April 13, 1917

$100,000

April 26, 1917

$300,000

May 29, 1917

$100,000

June 19, 1917

$120,000

September 13, 1917

$100,000

December 3, 1917

$50,000

During this difficult phase, the Russian Jews faced a traumatic choice between two different evils, what Zvi Gitelman called “the dilemma of one alternative”: life under Soviet rule or death under the Whites. The Jews were victimized from both sides at once: by the Bolsheviks as bourgeoisie and by the anti-Bolsheviks as revolutionaries who had sold Tsardom to Germany. According to the reports sent to the JDC offices, in many localities, either under Red, White, German or Polish occupation, the situation was critical. At Poltava, prominent Jews and Jewesses were flogged and some of the badly injured victims subsequently shot; in certain townlets, the Jews were systematically terrorized by gangs who shot them and set fire to their houses; in the villages of Lukiamovka and Skamorshka, the peasants resolved to expel all the Jews; at Glusk, all the prominent Jews were imprisoned, the shops and houses were plundered, the prisoners were released on payment of 20,000 Roubles. “During the time the Germans were exercising their ability in ruining the Jewish population in the West, the Bolsheviks were doing their best to accomplish the same in the rest of Russia. The nationalisation of commerce, the abolition of private property, and the prohibition of private enterprise, destroyed the economic basis on which the vast majority of the Jewish population lived”.35

1917, and by many other communications, for example the cable of Herman Bernstein from Kristiania (Oslo), on May 14, 1918. Major Wardwell of the American Red Cross was the last American official to leave Russia and worked hard to get permission from the State Department to send Red Cross aid to Petrograd. Memorandum submitted by Dr. Magnes on January 27, 1920. AJDC, American Red Cross 1919-21, item 209978. 35 “Jewish Relief Work in Russia and the Ukraine” signed by A. T. Roseff and S. Salkind (May 30, 1919). AJDC, Russia, General, 1919, item 233458.

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Samuel Mason wrote to Jacob Schiff that thousands of Jews were leaving Russia for Siberia to escape the Bolshevik massacres and to emigrate to the US across the Pacific Ocean. The Jews residing in Bolshevik territories were in grave danger of massacres and every Jew taken out of Russia was practically saved from death.36 Throughout the Russian interior, the struggle against the bourgeoisie deeply affected the Jews. Where before the revolution only the poorest refugees needed financial aid, after 1917, many others required help and facilities in order to reach the frontiers.37 Soviet power meant the total oppression of Jews first of all owing to the economic policy that included the nationalisation of trade and commerce and the destruction of the banking apparatus. In addition, it was calculated that 2/3 of the contributions that were “extorted” by the Soviet authorities were paid by the Jews, who were personally guilty on the grounds of their belonging to the bourgeoisie as a class, but not owing to their religious creed or ethnic origin.38 At the same time, however, being generally welleducated, many Jews were engaged in the State industry and public institutions as clerks and functionaries - positions that had previously been denied them in imperial times -, and this justified the impression that the majority of Soviet employees were Jews.39

36 Letter of Samuel Mason to Jacob Schiff (November 25, 1918, one week before the departure for Siberia) containing the information from Russia obtained from Colonel Kourbatov, who made explicit comparison to the massacres of Armenians in Turkey. He feared the destruction of 75% of the Jewish population. The only way to save them was to organize relief activities in the ports on the Black Sea and the Pacific Ocean. AJDC, Russia, Persecutions and Pogroms, item 10346. 37 Appeal transmitted by Israel Roseff member of the Central Committee for the Relief of War Victims and signed by S. Salkind (August 1, 1918.) AJDC, Russia, General, 1919, 233477. 38 The origin of Soviet antisemitism could thus be traced back to the works of Marx and Engels, on an economic basis. According to this perspective, Marx transposed the concept of the Jew from the religious to the social sphere, and the term Jew became synonymous for bourgeois society. If the revolutions of 1917 ended official antisemitism in Russia, popular myths and anti-Jewish bias were by no means eradicated but simply re-directed. B. Frei, “Marxist Interpretations of the Jewish Question”, The Wiener Literary Bulletin, Vol. 28, 35/36, 1975, p. 3. W. Korey, “The Origins and Development of Soviet Anti-Semitism: An Analysis”, Slavic Review, Vol. 31, No. 1 (March 1972), pp. 111-135. 39 This conclusion is suggested in many reports sent from EKOPO agents in Russia, for example, that of September 1, 1919. AJDC, Russia, Pogroms 1919, 233462. The Jewish presence in specific structures, however, was evident, for example considering that in 1919, 75% of the Cheka officials in Kiev were Jewish.

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This meant that while Jews were increasingly viewed as the agents of Bolshevism, they were also discriminated against as belonging to the middle-class and as a religious group. Many institutions were closed down, including cultural societies, hospitals and schools; religious establishments were prohibited and all the political movements were persecuted, especially the Zionists owing to their connections with England and America. The Bolsheviks also hindered the relief work of the organizations, which were practically closed down, except in Ukraine.40 The problem of reparation and restitution shifted in these months to a secondary level if compared to the damage done by the different armies: the Germans retreated and the Bolsheviks and the Poles arrived, then again the Bolsheviks, the Poles and the Ukrainians, finally once again the Bolsheviks. The armies swept through the country many times, pillaging, violating and destroying not only each other, but also the civilians who happened to be in their path. In Ukraine, where social distinctions went hand in hand with nationality, the “class struggle” had the most fatal consequences for the Jews. This phase was depicted with considerable insight in the writings of Isaac Babel, who went as far as describing this Marxist revolution as a real Cossack uprising. To Babel, it was pure nonsense that the Red Army was any different to its enemies: in both cases, the troops were made up of soldiers of fortune and future usurpers of Cossack background. The people were waiting for liberators, the Jews for freedom, but who arrived instead? The Kuban Cossacks.41 The relief action suffered from this state of things. Until February 1920, George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 262. 40 Information about the 27 institutions under the control of the Committee for the Relief of Pogroms' Victims. In September 1919, this committee managed 7 schoolhouses, 8 orphan asylums, 6 kindergartens, 2 mixed homes, 1 quarantine, 3 children clubs with a total of 2,020 children: 80-90% of the orphans were children of pogrom sufferers, mostly escaped from Kiev in the villages in the district. The number of children in the institutions was variable, many left while other new ones arrived. These institutions were not certain as to their existence, they either closed for some time or barely maintained themselves, not having sufficient means, hence the children drifted away from them. 41 Isaac Babel, 1920 Diary, edited by Carol J. Avins, translated by H. T. Willetts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); H. Bloom, “A Jew Among the Cossacks”, New York Times, June 4, 1995.

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the EKOPO only managed to carry on its work in a semi-clandestine way. This activity was possible thanks to the loans made in exchange for guarantees that were supplied by JDC agents, who soon expressed doubts about the real capacity of the EKOPO and its financial management.42 The Petrograd philanthropists, for their part, lost the connection with most of the Russian provinces and were put under constant pressure by the authorities. In some territories, they were replaced by the emissaries who were sent by the JDC office in Warsaw. In the territories under the control of the Whites, for example in Siberia, the JDC sent some agents such as Rosenblatt. After a two year-long civil war, the Jewish leaders in New York realized that the Soviet regime would not be short-lived and that some sort of arrangement needed to be reached. With this precise objective, two JDC emissaries, the judge Harry Fisher and the trade-union leader Max Pine, set out for Moscow. The State Department granted permission for Fisher and Pine to enter Soviet Russia with the reservation that they were acting at their own risk, and Maxim Litvinov gave his consent as well. Max Pine was the first to enter Russia through Estonia; he stayed in Petrograd for several days and then went to Moscow, where he obtained a visa for Harry Fisher, who reached Moscow in late May. During the period of Pine and Fisher's mission, the Soviet authorities were launching their crusade against the Jewish organisations. On August 8, the government issued a decree suspending the activities of all Jewish communal councils, and placing their property under the jurisdiction of the commissaries of Jewish affairs. The bank accounts of those Jewish organizations that were suspected of speculative transactions were confiscated; the Hebrew institutions such as the theatre Habimoh of Moscow were closed on the grounds that Hebrew was a forbidden antirevolutionary language.43 Special attention was devoted to the zionist organizations in Petrograd. The Zionists were viewed as agents of British imperialism and were consequently subjected to rigid restrictions: the entire Zionist Central Committee was arrested in 1920 – seventy-five delegates and substitutes 42 The issue of Petrograd loans caused a controversy between JDC and EKOPO, partially owing to the rate of exchange and the reimbursement of the loans. In any case, to understand the question in detail, see. M. Beizer, Relief in Time of Need, pp. 48-51. 43 “Record of Events in 5680”, The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 22 (September 13, 1920, to October 2, 1921/5681), pp. 266 ff.

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from the All-Russian Zionist Congress - because of the alleged existence of compromising documents revealing close contacts with the Triple Entente. The same treatment was reserved for Genrikh Sliozberg, who in February 1920 was arrested by the Bolshevik authorities charged with having taken part in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. As well as other Jewish prisoners, he was released in April, after the authorities received numerous petitions from friends and other personalities. Fisher and Pine realized that without a solid legal basis no real assistance could be provided, and sought to work through a public committee, involving both the broad Jewish public and the JDC itself. In the same days that the Evkom (Jewish Commissariat) of the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities ordered the permanent dissolution of the democratically elected Jewish community boards, on June 17, 1920, Fisher and Pine, on behalf of the JDC, signed an agreement with the Soviet government in order to establish the Jewish Public Committee for Aid to Pogrom Victims (Evobshchestkom, also known in its Yiddish abbreviation as Idgeskom) under the direction of David Rabinovich. Fisher and Pine initiated a strategy of “humanitarian diplomacy”, which was to serve as a model for the Riga agreement, between the “Bolos” and the American Relief Administration on occasion of the famine in 1921. This followed the “proletarian” author Maxim Gorky's appeal to Western countries for help on behalf of the starving on July 13, 1921. Also in this case, the Soviet government allowed Russian public figures to form the All-Russian Committee for the Relief of the Starving (VK Pomgol), including some members of the 1917 provisional government.44 The control of Idgeskom nonetheless remained in the hands of the communists and their yes-men, who indeed held the majority on the committee, which at the insistence of Fisher and Pine, also incorporated members of the dissolved EKOPO, ORT, and OZE. The communists, however, obstructed the work of these veterans, and, in early 1921, the three organizations had to retire from Evobshchestkom. The OZE was 44 The agreement between the ARA and the Soviet government was conditioned by the release of American prisoners and by other clauses, for example the right of the ARA to recruit staff among the local population. M. Beizer, Relief in time of Need, pp. 141 ff. On the mission of the ARA, B. M. Weissman, Herbert Hoover and Famine Relief to Soviet Russia, 1921-1923 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Publications, 1974); B. M. Patenaude, The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

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liquidated and its institutions were transferred under the control of the corresponding state organs. On returning to the US, Max Pine severely criticized the management of Idgezkom and published a report in the Forward (November 25, 1920). He censured the rapid u-turn of the Bolshevik authorities, and especially the members of the Jewish section of the party, who failed to keep their promises and launched an anti-Jewish campaign in order to “poison public opinion by its persecution of the Jews”.45 Naturally, the Jewish apparatchiks did not share the same view and responded to Pine's statements. On January 7, 1921, Joseph Mandelberg (member of the central bureau of the Jewish section and president of the Jewish social committee for the relief of pogrom sufferers) and David Rabinovich (member of the presidium and secretary of the above relief committee) issued a strong protest, accusing Pine, who considered himself a “labor-leader”, of being an agent of capitalism, “a true well-fed bourgeois with his pocket full of dollars”. The agreement with Fisher and Pine was signed only because they represented the first official delegation from America, and because Russia wished to stop a long and “criminal” blockade. Fisher and Pine promised 35 million dollars but “all the golden promises proved illusory” and only one million - it was said - was available for Russia. In this letter, the Soviet Jewish leaders also explained their policy: in Soviet Russia there was no need for any social or philanthropic organization whatsoever. The government was doing everything necessary for the needy, and not in the form of charity but as an obligation. Exactly for this purpose, a People's Commissariat of Social Care was granting billions as well as vast quantities of clothing and food for the relief of all in need of aid.46 The relief effort was thus not entirely dependent on American aid, but obtained the necessary funds from the government: “Philanthropy is quite superfluous in Russia, the philanthropic organizations are dying a natural death, and no one regrets it except the professional philanthropists (klay kodesh) who hang on to them and under the guise of welfare work are carrying on all kinds of left-handed deals. If the remnants of these organisations still show signs of life and are tolerated, it is only because no importance is attached to them... under the Soviet regime they have absolutely nothing to do, because all their functions have been taken over by the respective government institutions. 45 Max Pine's reply, in Forward, March 9, 1921. Russia, Administration, JanuaryMarch 1921, item 232508. 46 Reply to Max Pine (Moscow, January 7, 1921). AJDC, Administration, January-March 1921, item 232432.

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Wind of Change: The Russian Jews and the Revolutions of 1917 Also the right-wings of different parties (Bund, United Jewish Socialist Labor Party) were insignificant in their counter-revolutionary attitude, they are hardly noticed... They are a handful of disappointed intellectuals”.47

Notwithstanding the reciprocal accusations, as illustrated in M. Beizer's book and testified by the JDC documents, the cooperation between the JDC and Bolshevik authorities continued in the following years, even amidst misunderstandings and further controversies regarding the distribution of the aids by the local committees - which was generally forbidden by the Soviet authorities - or the loss of money, food and clothes sent to Russia through the New York Office.48 In spite of these problems, in the years before Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) was to halt the government aid to Idgeskom, this assistance had a positive, though small, impact on the relief actions. It managed to distribute the food supplies sent by the JDC, but also support the refugees who were expelled by the Romanian authorities and sent back to Ukraine, to grant subventions to a number of child care organizations (57 until July 1921, 162 at the end of 1921), and to alleviate the conditions of the Jewish colonists, who “in the face of all perils” succeeded in sowing their fields “in a state of constant fear”.49 The main result of this rather peculiar American-Russian cooperation was represented by the colonization process that started in Ukraine, late in November 1921, when the 14 Jewish colonies of the province of Nikolaev were re-organized into a separate district under the jurisdiction of the 47 Ibidem. 48 The report “The People's Relief Committee, the Idgeskom, and Relief in Russia” resumed some articles of Zeit of November 1921. AJDC, NonGovernmental Organizations: All-Russian Jewish Public Committee (Idgeskom), item 311760. M. Beizer, Relief in Time of Need, cit. See also, Z. Szajkowski, The Mirage of American Jewish Aid in Soviet Russia, 1917-1939 (New York: Szajko Frydman, 1977). 49 In 1920, the JDC was the only foreign institution to subsidize Idgeskom, while in 1921 no subsidies were sent directly by the JDC, except 8,182 pods of clothes, 19,213 of food, 2,136 of medicaments and 519 classified as sundries. The American office of Idgeskom from New York sent $14,900 to Moscow plus 32,523 pods of clothing, 52,549 crates of food, 8,388 crates of various articles, 5,942 crates of medicaments and 3291 of sundries. Digest: summary of the report of the activity of the Idgeskom for the period August 1920-January 1, 1922December 13, 1922. AJDC, Russia, Non-Governmental Organizations, item 311777.

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Ukrainian Jewish Public Committee. Some 18,560 persons were working in these colonies, which were fostered by the moral support that the Jewish Public Committee gave after the end of the pogromschina, but were equally subjected to a grave crisis owing to the effect of the 1921 famine.50 As underlined by M. Beizer, the help of the ARA and, indirectly of the JDC, proved essential for Russia to emerge from this adverse phase. Perhaps the cooperation in the agricultural sector remains the most outstanding example of the positive effects of these initiatives. Thanks to the economic help arriving from this channel, the Agro-Joint was established in 1924 in order to support the projects of Jewish agricultural colonization. The 10th Party Congress recognized the Jews as one of the “fluid national groups and minorities” who were welded into compact majorities of different origin and were to be helped by the communist authorities to use the new opportunities for free development. In other words, coherently with the targets that Lenin and Stalin had drafted before the revolution, the nations were to disappear and were to be assimilated in a socialist environment. In this perspective, all concessions to Jewish, Muslim or whatever interests represented a tactical diversion, merely “temporary aberrations”.51 The Jewish section had no autonomous territory to administer and concentrated on extirpating the Jewish petty tradesmen, on combating the Jewish religion with brutal methods and on carrying out a real war against Hebrew and Zionism.52 If, on one hand, as stated by Budnitski, the Jews remaining in Soviet 50 Report on the activities of the representative of the All Ukrainian Jewish Public Committee in the colonies of the province of Nikolaev, from November 25, 1921, to April 1, 1922. AJDC, Ussr-Localities, item 356640. 51 E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. I (New York: Macmillan, 1951), pp. 276 ff. R. Suny, T. Martin (eds.), A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 52 A. A. Greenbaum, “Soviet Jewry during the Lenin-Stalin Period. I”, Soviet Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (April 1965), pp. 406-421; J. Veidlinger, “Let's Perform a Miracle: The Soviet Yiddish State Theater in the 1920s”, Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 372-397; See also Salo Baron, The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets (New York: MacMillan, 1976); A. Gleason, P. Kenez, R. Stites (eds.), Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); R. Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New YorkOxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

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Russia had found unprecedented opportunities, on the other, they lost much of their Jewish culture and identity in the trade-off. The anti-clerical doctrines of the regime meant transforming synagogues into working men's clubs, the liquidation of Jewish congregations and the fight against Jewish religious, cultural and philanthropic institutions. The Jewish section fairly much enjoyed a free hand in destroying the old order and did so, according to Gitelman, “with a zest that cannot be explained by enthusiasm for Bolshevism alone, but which probably drew just as much from pre-revolutionary cleavages and resentments within the Jewish community”. Revolutionizing the Jewish population meant Bolshevizing and reconstructing it so that it could become an integral part of the Soviet political and economic system.53 In general, the Bolshevik approach towards Russian Jews was ambiguous. The idea of a wholesale de-nationalization aiming at a total deathblow at the entire existence of Russian Jewry as a religious minority prevailed. Yet, as has been suggested, for example by Robert Weinberg, when the civil war had ended and the Kremlin began to seriously secularize Soviet Jewish society, the result was a sort of division between a “religious” Jewish faction and an assimilationist one, who took advantage of the opportunities the regime offered to non-religious Jews. The constitution of July 10, 1918, incorporated the principles of the rights of national minorities and organized the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic as a federation of Soviet national republics (art. 1), granting equal rights of all citizens, irrespective of their racial or national connections. According to the same document, however, 70% of Soviet Jews were deprived of their civil rights as lishentsy, for they were included in the categories of persons who used hired labor to obtain greater increase in profits, who had income without doing any work, or were merchants, trade and commercial brokers, or monks and clergy of all denominations (art. 4, chapter 13, 65). It might also be observed that though aiming towards the creation of the homo sovieticus, Lenin's nativization policy (korenizatsiia) meant the growth of a new Jewish culture. For some years, this permitted the birth of real cultural “miracles”, such as the creation of the Soviet Yiddish State Theatre, and tolerated the semi-clandestine existence of other institutions that were helpful to spread the new message of revolution among the Jews. 53 Zvi Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 14.

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Communist Russia, for example, permitted foreign institutions such as the JDC to continue operating, and adopted a strident official stance against any manifestation of popular antisemitism and anti-Jewish sentiments. The start of the colonization processes, with the Birobidzhan project and with the creation of Jewish national districts, were followed by the well-known Kalinin declaration, which recognized the persistence of antisemitic feelings and associated the preservation of Jewish nationality with the settlement of Jews as peasants in a continuous area.54 Jewishness could be admitted when compatible with the general strategy of the Soviet state, and when the normalization of Jews included their social and professional integration: the “productivization” of Jews through the shaping of what Jonathan Dekel-Chen called the “New Jew of the Agricultural Kind”.55 As an expression of traditional religious or national values, Judaism was not admitted by the regime. From this point of view, the Jewish section (Evsektsia) is largely remembered in the Jewish world for the fanatical persecution of the Hebrew language, religion and Zionism. The Soviet authorities “demonised” Judaism and to achieve their aim used “fantastic, esoteric, or even supernatural” antisemitic motifs in propaganda such as big noses, oversized ears, scraggly beards and hair.56 A decade later, Stalinism tragically completed this work of annihilating the Jewish religious and cultural sphere. But Stalin's principles had another disastrous consequence. They also destroyed the legacy of this first postwar compromise between the Reds and the JDC: the cooperation with 54 B. Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union, p. 72. 55 Jonathan Dekel-Chen, “New Jews of the Agricultural Kind: A Case of Soviet Interwar Propaganda”, The Russian Review, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Jul., 2007), pp. 424450; R. Weinberg, “Biology and the Jewish question after the revolution: one Soviet approach to the productivization of Jewish labor”, Jewish History, Vol. 21, No. 3/4 (2007), pp. 413-428; J. Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924-1941 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). 56 R. Weinberg, “Demonizing Judaism in the Soviet Union during the 1920s”, Slavic Review, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Spring 2008), pp. 122 ff. The notorious murders of Yiddish writers, the Prague trials and the Doctors' Plot, were only a few instances of Stalin's attempt to expunge the Soviet Union of “rootless” Jews until his death in 1953. A. A. Skerpan, “Aspects of Soviet Antisemitism”, The Antioch Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Autumn, 1952), pp. 287-328; J. Klier, “Traditional Russian Religious Antisemitism”, Jewish Quarterly, 46, No. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 30-31; J. L. Gibson, M. Morjé Howard, “Russian Anti-Semitism and the Scapegoating of Jews”, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr., 2007), pp. 193223; S. M. Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995).

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Russia was broken off and the Great Purges were to lead to the death of many JDC workers. As in other aspects of Soviet life, Stalinism put an end to the utopian and idealistic dreams of revolution and consecrated the idea of “Socialism in One Country”.㻌 㻌

CONCLUSIONS

The First World War was a momentous event for both world and Jewish history. The ambitious projects that accompanied the “war to end all wars” marked the passage from the former despotic and politically backward Europe of multinational empires, to a new Europe of nation states, which were deemed to become the vectors of equality, democracy “and justice for all”. When the conflict broke out, many Jewish communities throughout the world viewed the mission of Germany as a crusade or simply hoped that the alliance of Russia with France and Britain would put an end to the oppression of Russian Jews. But the war did not bring radical changes. It was a long period of brutality, chaos and despair for the people who found themselves caught up in the middle of the fight between the German and Russian armies. Furthermore, and to a great extent, the war consolidated the pervasive idea, widely accepted as axiomatic by the military staff, that the Jews were or could become a real danger, a fifth column needing to be eradicated. The Jews were the “scapegoats” of Tsarist military failure and were subjected to expulsions and evacuations that soon became a desperate “wandering” on both sides of the front. Worse again were the pogroms and persecutions, which intensified during the civil war. The 1917-18 collapse of Russia and the political fragmentation of the East-European multinational empires paved the way to chaos and destabilization. In the short term, this led to the indiscriminate slaughter of Jews, in Ukraine and in Polish Eastern Galicia. From a longue durée perspective, it meant the complete identification of Jews and Bolshevism. It mattered little that Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Sverdlov, Joffe and Radek regarded themselves as divorced from the Jewish people and as fierce opponents of Judaism and of Jewish nationalism. The general perception was that Soviet Russia was the centre of underhand Jewish imperialism. This phase saw countless crucial events that would inevitably condition Jewish life in Europe. The abolition of the Pale and of the legal restrictions in Russia was a first achievement that theoretically would bring some hope. The Russian Jews, on the contrary, were still to be affected by an unpredictable turn of events. The Bolshevik Revolution, the Balfour

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Declaration, the pogroms in Ukraine, the Nazi putsch in Bavaria and the highly restrictive immigration acts passed by the US Congress and by many other States were all to profoundly condition the years of peace: “Yet, it was generally assumed by 1921 that for the Jewish people the catastrophe lay behind, not ahead”. The new order was accompanied by optimism, utopianism and by a vision of national liberation for the oppressed people, the start of a new age of international peace and security. But as Poliakov suggested: “It was much better to be a minority of 6 million in one big empire, rather than a lot of little minorities in little states”. As a matter of fact, the sense that the Jews were too influential in the affairs of the Peace Conference and that they were exerting a wholly unwarranted interference in the sovereignty of the new states, represented a further cause of diffidence for the new nationalist governments of East-Central Europe.1 On this aspect, Jonathan Frankel pointed out that the newly emerging parameters of European and international societies soon proved to be as heavy, serious and challenging as the old ones. The Great War, in retrospect, put an end to a sort golden age in the history of the Jewish people, and introduced instead an era that has become known as “the age of genocide”, the age of extremes, the apogee of nationalism, the European Civil War, the second Thirty-Years War: “Prolonged internal peace and economic growth (barely touched by the few localized wars) had permitted the population in Eastern Europe to increase many times over. Liberal immigration laws had made it possible, in turn, for millions of Jews to find new homes overseas. Everywhere in Europe and the Western world – with the major exception of Russia and, in effect, Romania – Jews were granted equal rights before the law. Of course, this period also witnessed the emergence of Judeophobia in new, modern forms, but the specifically antisemitic parties in Germany and Austria showed signs of decline in the decade before the war; and even in Russia the Beilis trial of 1913 witnessed mass demonstrations in his favor and his eventual acquittal by the jury”.2

The demonization of Jews as an undesirable minority had been carried out for many centuries and would continue after the end of the conflict. The 1 Mark Levene, “Nationalism and its Alternatives in the International Arena: The Jewish Question at Paris, 1919”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 511-531. 2 J. Frankel, Crisis, Revolution and Russian Jews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 153.

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moment of emancipation had finally arrived but the gap between expectations and the harsh reality was immense. This would explain, as Frankel argues, the paradoxical politics of marginality: the paradox of World War I, which in Jewish eyes meant both tragic loss and unprecedented political achievement, destruction and opportunity, retrogression and development, real privations and virtual achievements. However improbable, the political underdevelopment of the Tsarist Empire with its open anti-Jewish discriminations, had permitted the Jews to preserve a certain level of autonomy and to live within the borders of a “small world” that was instead destroyed by the war. From then on, the expectations of the Jewish people, in Russia and abroad, diminished rapidly by the stream of events affecting Russia, on one side, and Europe as a whole, on the other. The myth of Judeo-Bolshevism and the unfortunate destiny of all those refugees who were to take on the role of contemporary “wandering Jews”, were merely the more tangible effects of a conflict that irremediably changed the history of Europe and of the Jews in particular. It has been estimated that about a million Jews had been made homeless by the end of 1915. But many more again were soon to be affected by the tragic outcomes of war, not directly but owing to the harrowing legacy that the conflict left for years to come.3 The concept of “diaspora” has always existed in Jewish history, but in this context it undoubtedly acquired immense significance. The problem of refugees became particularly evident and affected the fragile basis of the new order from its outset. Nonetheless, the war also meant cooperation and solidarity, and by virtue of the aid (money, food, clothing) collected by the Jewish groups all over the world for the victims of war, international politics finally recognized the importance of human rights as an unavoidable instrument of peace. The world was no more a set of separate countries, but a sphere where people, nations and ethnic groups were inextricably linked to one another. It has been estimated that during the years 1914-18 the JDC disbursed some $15 million in Eastern Europe and Palestine; $23 million was spent in the years 1919-20, and some $10.5 million privately transmitted during the period 1914-21.4 3 Salo W. Baron, The Russian Jew Under Tsars and Soviets (New York: Macmillan, 1964). 4 Moses A. Leavitt, The JDC Story, 1914–1952 (New York: American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1953), pp. 7-8.

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The generosity of international aid gave rise to vehement political disputes between the different Jewish movements, which frequently used the donations in the struggle for supremacy and not for the urgent needs of those in real need. At the same time, also the general perspective of American, European and Eastern European Jews differed, vacillating between idealism and pragmatism, solidarity and diffidence, laicism and orthodoxy. These humanitarian endeavours anticipated the successive convergence of the Jewish organizations in Europe and America to formulate a common policy for the peace conference and the League of Nations. Although an alliance was never accomplished and the distinctions between Zionists, non-Zionists, orthodox and assimilationists still remained, the “front” was sufficiently united to carry out a solid campaign in favour of Jewish minorities' rights.5 The treaties signed by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania and Greece in 1919-20, as well as the other acts stipulated in the early twenties, at long last decreed the emancipation of the Jews, while the Treaty of Sanremo and the system of mandates under the League consecrated the birth of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In practice, throughout their millenary history, the Jews have never obtained so many concessions in so few years. But Communism, Zionism, Nationalism, and Internationalism, all the different ideologies that emerged during the First World War, denoted a pronounced messianism that deeply conditioned the post-war society, its fragility and its ambiguity. After the creation of new frontiers, the Jews of Central-Eastern Europe had to opt for one nationality or another, and to choose between assimilation or the preservation of their Jewishness, repatriation or emigration. The war, with its atrocities, pogroms and refugees, made these options even more dramatic - to remain in Europe or to flee to Palestine - but at the same time determined the transformation of old myths into new ones: JudeoBolshevism, the stab in the back, the world conspiracy. These “formulas” were used by the antisemites and presented to the world through the alleged documentary evidence of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Jews were the first to endure the divide between the ideal creation of a 5 “The effectiveness of the Jewish political leadership’s quiet diplomacy cannot be denied at least up to a point. Jewish political power, however, was indeed paltry”. Yehuda Bauer, The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 58.

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lasting peace among nations and a fair world order, on one hand, and the traumatic reality that affected minorities and refugees, on the other. While international diplomacy was inaugurating a new age of peace and security under the auspices of the League of Nations, Heinrich Pudor published the pamphlet entitled Culture-Antisemitism or Pogrom-Antisemitism? (KulturAntisemitismus oder Pogrom-Antisemitismus?). Other publications supported the basic ideas of the Protocols and affirmed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks could only survive thanks to the “Talmudic Jewry”, that is to say owing to the financial support of Jacob Schiff and the Kuhn & Loeb bank. Once assimilated by the readers, these notions were hard to dispel from their collective imagination. Despite the fact that The Times and Herman Bernstein soon proved the Protocols to be a forgery, the same documents were translated into many languages. They garnered wide appeal thanks to the prevalent opinion that, though fabricated, the Protocols were nonetheless considered faithful to reality. Antisemitism was a persistent structure of hostility against the Jews as a collective group (Helen Fein), a variety of “demonopathy” (Judah Leib Pinsker) and as such remained. After the war, the multinational empires of Eastern Europe were replaced by Nation-States, and traditional anti-Judaism turned into contemporary antisemitism. The First World War did not prove to be the “war to end all wars”. The conference of Versailles was not “the peace without winners”. The conflict and the new political settlement, on the contrary, became a further source of strife, paving the way to a second even more tragic conflict that destroyed not only the spirit and the hopes, but annihilated Jewish life in Europe. In just a few years, the choice between the different political orientations - socialism, nationalism, zionism – became a real struggle for survival. Proof enough that the First World War did not represent the end of historical injustice, but rather the prelude to another war leading to the tragic end of the Shtetl and the destruction of European Jewry.

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