Anti-Jewish Rioters Enter Number 13

With an involuntary shudder we turned aside from this pool where blood was mixed with mortar, rubbish, and feathers.

Continuing A Russian Pogrom Against the Jews,
our selection from House No. 13 by Vladamir Korolenko published in . The selection is presented in 5.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in A Russian Pogrom Against the Jews.

Time: 1903
Place: Kishineff (modern Chișinău), Moldovia

“He ran past just here,” she said, sighing heavily, and pointing with her hand toward the shed and the pool of blood.

“The glazier, did you say?” queried my companion.

“Yes . . . the glazier … he ran past here, and he fell down just there . . . and that’s where they began to murder him. …”

With an involuntary shudder we turned aside from this pool where blood was mixed with mortar, rubbish, and feathers. Inside the house everything was destroyed as thoroughly as in the courtyard. The wall-papers were torn down, the doors broken from their hinges, the stoves smashed, and the partitions showed gaping holes. This extreme conscientiousness, shown in the midst of a scene of wild destruction, gave rise in the town to a story that before the massacres commenced a whole collection of crowbars and hooks was provided by some influential “anti-Semites” and a few of the less educated of the townspeople, for distribution among the rioters; and that these were collected afterward by “special agents.” It is difficult to say what truth there may be in this report, but it sounds extremely plausible. Anyhow, it was almost impossible to believe that ordinary, every-day life had been carried on in the spot only a short time ago, where now nothing existed but the ruin we were examining.

House No. 13 consisted of seven separate dwellings, in which crowded, as is their custom, eight Jewish families (about forty-five persons in all, including children). The landlord was Moses Macklin, a commission agent and the owner of a modest shop in the town. On the whole of his transactions, including his rents, his shop, and his agencies, he earned about 1,500 rubles a year. Among the inhabitants of the house he was naturally looked upon as a rich and very fortunate man. He did not live at No. 13, but one of the lodgings was inhabited by his daughter, with her husband and children. One of the most respected of the inhabitants was a small shopkeeper, Navtorili Serebrenik, whose shop was situated just at the corner of the house. It can still be recognized by the fragments of wooden boxes of which the counter was composed, lying about on the dirty floor between the wrecked walls. Besides these there lived in the house a draper’s assistant, Berlatsky, with his wife and four children; he earned forty-five rubles a month; also Nisensen, a man of about forty-six, an accountant, who kept tradesmen’s books in order and checked the accounts of neighbors; in this somewhat superior occupation he was paid by piece-work, and earned from twenty-five to thirty rubles a month. Gofsha Paskar served as a shop assistant and earned about thirty-five rubles a month; he had a wife, Ita, and two children. Isaac Gervitz was an attendant in a hospital, but latterly, having lost his situation, he had been out of employment and in trouble. Gofsha Turkenitsch had a carpenter’s shop in which he employed three assistants; and Bassia Barbasch kept a meat- stall. Finally, the glazier, Grienschpoun, went off every morning with his load of glass and returned in the evening with his earnings. These details are gathered from the accounts of the sufferers and from their relations. They go to prove by what “wealthy” people No. 13 was inhabited. Further, these particulars, having been given in a claim for damages, may fairly be looked upon as overestimating rather than as concealing facts and conditions.

Thus lived quietly and peacefully these little households till the 6th of April in the present year. Nisensen went from shop to shop, making up the owners’ books; Berlatsky and Gofsha Paskar sold things in other people’s shops; Navtorili Serebrenik traded with his neighbors, the Jews, the Moldavians, and the Russians; carrying on a little commerce of candles, soap, matches, oil, cheap calico, and cheap sweets. Isaac Gervitz searched for work, and the glazier, Grienschpoun, replaced broken panes of glass. No one foresaw what was so shortly to happen. On the 6th of April, the first day of the greatest Christian festival, riots broke out in the town. The news of what was going on spread, of course, to old Kishineff, and it is easy to understand that the Jews in the densely packed house No. 13 passed through some terribly anxious hours when they learned how things were going, and what was the attitude of the officials and of the Christian inhabitants toward the rioters. But the report ran that these excesses were due to the fact that the governor was awaiting some “order.” In the course of the night the “order” must surely come, and all would be quiet before the morning. Toward evening the riots died down, and the night passed in dread, but without further outrages.

What happened the next morning the survivors of No. 13 and their neighbors tell in the following words:

About ten in the morning came a policeman (No. 148), a man well known in the neighborhood, who, evidently anxious about the possible fate of the Jews, strongly advised them to hide themselves in their houses, and not to go out into the streets. The Jews naturally followed this advice, and the already crowded houses were soon filled with their terrified coreligionists. They barred up their doors, gates, and shutters. Soon the square in front of Asia Street appeared as quiet as the dead, waiting in breathless suspense. I have good reason to believe that this picture of closed shutters, empty streets, and breathless dread of what was coming was characteristic of all the Kishineff suburbs during the second day of the riots.

Policeman No. 148 having issued his friendly order, seated himself on the curbstone. There was evidently nothing more to do. People say that he sat there all the time, as if posing as a model for some sculptor who might desire to represent an emblematic figure of “The Greatest Christian Festival,” as understood in Kishineff. The whole tragedy in the Jewish hovels was played out with every horror of elemental savagery, within a few yards of this philosopher. The crowd arrived about eleven o’clock, accompanied by two patrols of soldiers, who unfortunately had “no orders,” either. It consisted of about fifty or sixty persons, among whom it was easy to recognize some of the good neighbors bearing Moldavian names.

Richard Gottheil began here. Vladamir Korolenko began here.

More information here and here, and below.

The Kishineff Pogrom of 1903 [IN HEBREW]

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history