Entering House Number 13

My desire is to place before my readers some reflection of the feeling of horror which overcame me during my short stay at Kishineff two months after the massacres.

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

“There is nothing hidden that shall not be made known.” It is quite possible that the hidden springs which put in motion this criminal attack will someday be disclosed, when the whole affair will be as plain as is the machinery of a clock that has been taken to pieces. But possibly there will even then remain circumstances difficult to explain in the light of certain known and attested facts. One of the problems that constantly obtrudes itself is, how an average, every day and fairly decent man, with whom intercourse under ordinary circumstances is not unpleasant, can be suddenly transformed into a wild beast, forming part of a crowd of other wild beasts? Much time and work, and very wide and careful study, would be needed in order to present a picture of what took place in all its fulness of color. It is not possible for me to accomplish this; and perhaps the time for doing so has not yet come. I wish I could hope that the Court of Inquiry would do it, but I have cause to fear that they will not. . . . My desire is to place before my readers some reflection of the feeling of horror which overcame me during my short stay at Kishineff two months after the massacres. In order to do this, I will endeavor to depict as calmly and as exactly as I can one single episode. It is the story of the house in Kishineff now become celebrated under the name of House No. 13.

House No. 13 is situated in the fourth district of Kishineff, in a by-street bearing the name of Asiasky, at its juncture with another by-street, Stavrisky; the names of these narrow and tortuous little streets are known but indifferently even to the inhabitants of Kishineff themselves. The Jewish cab-driver who drove us (many Jewish cab-drivers were among the killed and wounded) did not understand at first where we wanted to go. Thereupon my companion, who for the last three weeks had been breathing the air of Kishineff, and was able to find his way to all the principal places of interest connected with the massacres, explained to the driver, “House No. 13; where they killed!” “Ah! I know!” replied the driver, nod ding his head and whipping up a horse as dejected, as miser able, and as half -starved as himself. I could not see the man’s face, but I heard him mutter through his beard words that sounded like “Nisensen” and “the glazier.” Nisensen and the glazier were a short time ago living men. Now they are but symbols, representing the concentrated horrors of recent massacres. We drove for some time, passing through the wide, well-populated, and comparatively civilized streets of the new town, to the narrow and tortuous, but most original back streets of old Kishineff, where stones, tiles, and bricks and mortar choke the growth of the young trees planted among the flag-stones; and where shadows of the stories of olden days, — stories of feudal lords and of Turkish invasions — still seem to hover. The houses here are very small, and stone walls hide the entrances to the courtyards; many of the windows, too, are as narrow as the old lancet windows of the Middle Ages. At last we found ourselves in the street where the house was situated for which we were searching; it was low, and roofed like all the houses in the town with tiles; it stood in a prominent position at the corner of a small square, into which it projected in the shape of an obtuse angle. It was surrounded by similarly roofed houses, of smaller and more dejected appearance. These all showed signs of life. House No. 13 suggested nothing but death. It glared into the square with empty windows and broken, twisted window-frames. Its doorways had been hastily boarded up with broken fragments of wood.

One must do justice to the Kishineff police. Although they did little to stop the massacres, they have dealt ever since both energetically and promptly with the Jews in order to compel them to restore as quickly as possible their wrecked and ruined houses. But the owner of House No. 13 can no longer be called upon to obey police regulations! The courtyard still bears eloquent traces of the riots; it is covered with feathers and down from mattresses, fragments of furniture, bits of broken glass and crockery, and scraps of torn clothing. A mere glance suffices to call up a picture of unbridled destruction; the furniture lies in small splinters; the plates have been stamped under foot into a thousand pieces; the clothing has been ripped into shreds; here lies a torn sleeve, there a child’s pinafore. The window-frames have been torn out, and from some of the black, gaping openings still hang fragments of the woodwork swaying in the air like crushed hands. In one corner of the court, near a shed at the entrance to one of the dwellings, can still be seen a huge crimson patch, easily recognizable as dried blood, mixed with bits of glass, mortar, bricks, and feathers.

“Grienschpoun was killed on this spot,” said a strange, hollow voice from behind us. When we first entered the courtyard, death and emptiness seemed to be in sole possession; but now there stood by our side a girl of ten or twelve. We judged her age from her height and size, though on closer examination she appeared older. Her eyes had lost the glance of childhood. They had watched the deeds that but a short time ago took place here; and, henceforth, for her, this scene of destruction in the silent courtyard under the scorching rays of the sun was full of a never-to-be-forgotten dread. Many a time since those events had she lain down to rest, and rising again in the morning had fulfilled all her daily tasks; had thereby, perhaps, succeeded in “calming” herself; but the unchildlike terror which had once contorted her childish face had not disappeared. It had left behind permanent traces, an awful expression in her eyes, and a nervous twitch of the whole face. Her voice was hollow, and her words painful to listen to ; they were jerked out with an effort, like the tones of an automaton; and they dropped mechanically from her mouth so as to give the impression of a voice that has been extinguished.

Richard Gottheil began here. Vladamir Korolenko began here.

More information here and here, and below.

The Kishineff Pogrom of 1903 [IN HEBREW]

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