Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia

by Michael Davitt

The rioting began with the looting of the Jewish shops and the demolition of houses. The mob, finding the military not employed against them and the police witnessing the attacks sympathetically—many of the police taking part and participating in the looting—passed from murder and massacre to the violation of Jewish women and girls.

I have two detailed statements, carefully prepared by eye-witnesses of the scenes. One is a copy of the indictment of the authors of the massacres, which has been lodged with the Procureur; the other is a specially prepared statement by two Christian ladies, one Russian and one Russo-French, who investigated a certain class of outrages for my information. Here are a few instances of the worst crimes:

The Feldstein family is one of the most respectable in Kishineff. The mob attacked their saloon on the corner of Armenia Street at noon on the first day, Sunday, April 9. The police barracks are some forty paces away. The soldiers and police patrolled the street during the five hours occupied by the mob in demolishing the saloon and destroying fifteen thousand roubles’ worth of wines. A safe containing a large sum of money was also broken open and robbed. While that section of the mob was thus employed, the leader of the gang found in the kitchen of the family residence the meat for the family’s dinner. He put it on a stick, mounted to the roof of the saloon, which is of one story, and, addressing the mob, the police, and the military in the street, declared, “Here are the remains of a Christian child found in the house of the wealthy Jew, Feldstein.”

The members of the household were saved by a Russian employé of Feldstein and a humane gendarme, from the fury of the mob. On completing the destruction of the place, the leader drank to the health of Editor Kroushevan from the roof of the looted premises.

At No. 13 Asia Street in the Bender Rogatka quarter some of the worst outrages were perpetrated. Twelve families, all Jewish artisans, lived in the yard. A mob of Moldavians, some Russian workingmen, and a few Albanians attacked the occupants of the yard. The majority of the Jewish men escaped, while the women and girls, numbering sixteen, concealed themselves in a loft under the roof of a one-story house. Four Jewish men tried to defend the place, and were murdered. Their wives and daughters, with a dozen women and children, had taken refuge in a loft under the roof of No. 13. It was from some of these I obtained the facts here recorded.

One Mottel Greenspoon, a glazier, was stunned by a blow from a bludgeon, and the Albanians mutilated him while still alive. They then choked a child, two years old, and cut out its tongue, while alive.

The other three men were killed and then had feathers put on their faces. As an act of desecration of the dead, two drunken women, one Moldavian and one Bulgarian, trampled on the body of Greenspoon as it lay mutilated in the yard. The mob then found its way to the loft where the women were concealed, and remained several hours. All the women and girls were violated.

All this time the police and soldiers were patrolling the open space in front of the house where these fiendish crimes were committed. I saw blood spattered on the walls of the rooms and yard, and picked up a child’s schoolbook on which some murderer had wiped his hands.

At the household Foudyn, No. 33 Gostinna Street, four men and one woman were killed. Sixteen families lived in this yard, all those of artisans. The mob came the first day and demolished the windows and doors. It returned the next day for massacre. Sixteen women and eight children were concealed in the loft. The first killed was a boy of sixteen, who begged piteously for life, saying he had done no wrong, was a scholar of the state school, and wanted to live. His father, at the other end of the yard, heard the boy’s cries, but could not save his life. They killed him while the father lay stunned, unable to make an effort to save the boy’s life. It was Mr. Baranovitch, the father of the boy, a most intelligent and respectable man, who told me the story of his son’s murder. As at the house in Asia Street, the women and girls who had concealed themselves in the loft were discovered and violated by the mob. One married woman escaped through the roof, leaped to the ground, ran to the nearest police station, and implored help, but she was driven out by the officer, who said the Jews were only receiving what they deserved. Another married woman named Feya Katzap was bludgeoned to death in the yard of this house.

The scene of the most diabolical crimes and violations committed by the mob was the Skulanska Rogatka suburb, eighty per cent. of the population of which are Moldavians, the Jews forming the remainder. This is the residence of the poorer class of the workers of both races. The mob broke into the yard on the evening of the second day, Monday, April 20. Twenty-five persons, mostly women and children, hid themselves in a carpenter’s shed owned by one Grillspoon. The houses in the yard were demolished, and the mob was going away when the cry of a child in the shed indicated the place of concealment of the women. The shed was instantly attacked by Moldavians, led by a father and son, who were neighbours of the Jews. Grillspoon, the owner of the shed, was killed, together with four other artisans, who were defending the place, and one woman, the wife of the owner, was murdered after violation. The mob also found a pretty girl, named Feya Wouller, aged thirteen, and her fate is so awful that I can only state that after having been violated by more than a dozen of these Moldavians they fought for her body like famished wolves after life was extinct. When found the next morning by her relatives the body was seen to be literally torn in two.