Another woman and her child sought the house of a converted Jew for safety, after her home had been demolished. The “Christian” Jew holds a position under the City Government. He knew the frightened woman well, and had been on terms of the closest intimacy with her family before climbing into office as the reward of his “conversion.” He shut the door in the face of the terrified wife of his former friend.
What impressed one most painfully in Kishineff, after the narratives of outrage, was the seeming indifference of the mass of the Russian and Moldavian people over the whole infernal business. They had to recognise the great injury done to the city by the riots and their results. That was too patent to be ignored. But, with the exception of a comparatively small number of Christians, already alluded to, there appeared to be neither regret nor remorse among the citizens generally over the deeds which had riveted the world’s attention upon them as a community capable of perpetrating acts so base and inhuman. This callous bearing I attribute mainly to the tactics of the anti-Semitic press, combined with the amazing silence maintained by the Greek Church prelates and clergy in relation to these crimes.
The Bessarabetz and Znamya, the only papers circulating in Kishineff, audaciously blamed the Jews for what had occurred, and carefully abstained from reproducing the comments of foreign journals upon the rioting at Eastertide. By this means the people were prevented realising the extent and character of the external indignation aroused by the reports of the events of April, and they were left by these means, or by their own indifference, a community apparently unconcerned about the massacres and infamies which had found victims only among Jews.
As far as I could learn, there had not been a solitary word spoken or act done by any of the prominent ecclesiastical authorities of Kishineff which could be construed, even charitably, into a condemnation of the killing of harmless men and the ravishing of innocent girls beneath the shadows of the many Christian churches which adorn the capital of Bessarabia. The sufferers were only Jews.
Each evening during my stay in this soulless city large crowds gathered in the Royal Gardens to enjoy the music of the fine Dragoon Band which performed Polish polkas, and the Hungarian “Chardash” and Russian marches in faultless fashion. Throngs of gaily dressed ladies, under the escort of the young officers of the garrison, were always in evidence, along with students from the colleges and Seminarists supplied by the religious high schools of the city. It was fashionable Kishineff’s rendezvous for evening enjoyment, recreation, and social gossip, and the tables of the cafés rang with laughter when the groups of visitors were not drinking in the music of some operatic selection or of an inviting waltz from the band.
Not a single Jew had been seen in this place of popular resort since April 19th.
One evening my dragoman called my attention to a group of young Seminarists sitting at a table near to ours. They were boisterous in their merriment, and appeared to be enjoying the recital of some unusually piquant incident or adventure, amidst the smoke of their cigarettes and the relish of their coffee.
“That gang,” observed my dragoman, “judging from what I have heard some of them say, must have been among those who violated the girls and women in the loft of No. 11 Nicolaievskai Street, where Simme Zeytchik was outraged by a number of young students.”
It was only that morning we had seen this girl of sixteen at the Rabbi’s house, and heard her story.
The Mayor of Kishineff, M. Karl Schmidt, received me most courteously when I called upon him in the fine municipal buildings on the Alexandra boulevard. He has been burgomaster of the city for a quarter of a century, almost in unbroken succession. A man of some sixty summers, of tall and commanding appearance and of cultured manner, he impresses you at once with the feeling that you are in the presence of a strong, capable, and upright personality.