The Jews in the Eastern War Zone

by American Jewish Committee

2. When the Mayor of Petrograd congratulated the Jewish community upon the heroic conduct of a lad of 13, named Kaufman, the censor suppressed the fact that Kaufman was a Jew, and that the community referred to was the Jewish community.

3. Stories in the Russian press of the valor of Jews in the French armies are either suppressed or the Jewish names cut out.

4. A news item referring to the fact that General Semenov, whom Jewish soldiers had saved from capture by the Germans, was treating Jews kindly was suppressed by the censor.

5. Letters of regimental commanders to the parents of Jewish hussars congratulating them on the valor of their sons, or notifying them of medals of honor bestowed upon them, were suppressed by the censor.

6. The military censorship also suppressed news of an absolutely non-military nature, whenever it might in any manner have been construed as friendly to Jews. Thus, a news item referring to the non-sectarian activities of the National Relief Committee, headed by the Princess Tatyana, daughter of the Czar, was suppressed. A news item regarding the disapproval of the Council of Ministers of the policy of expelling Jews en masse and of wholesale charges of treachery was also suppressed.

7. Even the official declaration of Count Bobrinski, Military-Governor of Galicia, referring to the correctness of the conduct of the Jews of Galicia, was suppressed.

8. But—outrageously false items published in the notoriously anti-Semitic papers were generally passed by the censor without hesitation. The “Novoe Vremya,” the “Russkoe Znamya,” and other anti-Semitic organs, systematically published reports of wholesale Jewish desertions, treachery, spying, etc., without at any time producing an iota of evidence. Thus, “Russkoe Znamya,” declared that the loyalty of not a single Jewish soldier could be depended upon. The “Novoe Vremya” declared that the Jews were without exception embittered enemies of the Russian army, and that during the Japanese war 18,000 out of 27,000 soldiers voluntarily surrendered as prisoners to the Japanese. Stories without name, date or place to the effect that small Polish boys warned the Russian soldiers to take nothing from Jews because everything they would furnish was poisoned were passed by the censor, and made much of by the press. The notorious Kuzhi canard was not only passed by the censor and printed in the official and semi-official press of Russia, but the censors even hinted to that section of the press which hesitated to publish a tale so manifestly absurd that future relations with the censorship might be imperilled if the story were not given proper publicity. Editors received a continuous stream of circulars forbidding the touching of questions which had absolutely no relation to the war.

9. When the great writers and publicists of Russia decided that it would be desirable, for the honor of Russia, to speak a good word for the Jews and thereby indirectly deprecate before the world the merciless governmental policy, the pamphlet containing their symposium was suppressed by the military censor. Even the preliminary letter of inquiry sent out by these eminent Russians, soliciting information as to the participation of Jews in the war, was suppressed. The Jewish weekly, the “Novy Voskhod,” was fined 2,000 roubles and ultimately suppressed because of the publication of this letter.

In spite of these suspensions, however, the six million Jews of Russia still continued, in a measure, to inform themselves as to the conduct of their sons in the field, and as to matters of Jewish interest in general, through the half dozen, or more, Jewish newspapers, which managed to struggle on in spite of the repeated fines and suspensions imposed by the censor. But on July 5, 1915, the entire Jewish press was suppressed. Lately several papers have been revived in new form, but today the Jews of Russia are practically in the dark. They have no effective means of communicating with one another or with the Russian public. They can neither prevent the instigation of calumnies nor refute them when spread abroad. They live in a constant state of terror lest some new Kuzhi slander set the country aflame against them.