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

by Michael Davitt

There were many exceptions, however, among the police; the dictates of decent humanity asserting themselves where the connivance of their chief had outraged their sense of moral manhood. Among these was officer Sloutschevsky, of one of the Bender Rogatka streets, who with twelve men drove a mob of seventy out of his district. Several artillery officers off duty also helped to save families and women. These instances of Samaritan kindness were gratefully mentioned to me by both men and women who had witnessed such acts. Among the comparatively few Christians who were conspicuous in this humane service were the citizens Dorianov, Demtchenks, Dr. Doroschevsky, Dr. Wolsky, the pope Laschkov, and M. Georgior. Many Russian women also saved the girls of their Jewish neighbours by giving them shelter in their homes.

The mobs were composed mainly of Moldavian and Russian workingmen; the former being five-sevenths of the whole. The Albanian contingent has already been referred to. A few Macedonian refugees, and some Bulgarians, were also among the gangs. All the accounts given to me agreed in one particular—that the worst crimes were the work of the Moldavians. In the murders inside the carpenter’s shed in the Skulanska Rogatka suburb, all the assassins were Moldavians resident in the very district. The sister-in-law of little Feya Wouller[8] told me that the Moldavian father and son who led the mob in this work, and in the murder of her husband, who tried to save his little sister, were walking about free during my stay in Kishineff, having been released from prison after a few days’ detention.

A brace of other assassins, a car-driver and his son, who were concerned in no less than four murders, were pointed out to me in the streets!

One feature of the massacres is most significant, and is not mentioned by M. de Plehve in his official account, namely: All the Jews who were killed, with one exception, were workingmen, regular or casual; carpenters, masons, smiths, clerks, and a few very poor jobbing dealers. The exception was one Galantor, a cattle dealer, who was known to have fifteen thousand roubles in his possession. He was assassinated and robbed by the driver and his son alluded to above.

The women and girls who suffered were the wives and daughters of Jewish artisans. Those females who were killed were also, like the male victims, of the same class. A few young ladies of richer families suffered too, but their names, for obvious reasons, were not made known to their families. No rich Jews were killed or wounded.

The leaders of the gangs, in almost every instance, were Seminarists, disguised as workingmen. There were two students from Odessa, sons of wealthy Kishineff families, prominent among the captains of the mobs; but to the seminaries of the city belonged the shame and dishonour of having contributed mostly all the directors, guides, and active instigators of the two-days’ carnival of crime, lust, and looting. Employés of the post office and telegraph departments were along among the rioters, but chiefly for loot.

Among the organisers of the plot, but not in the actual execution of it, were a notary of the city, an engineer, a well-known wealthy citizen, two minor officers, two sons of a rich merchant, and members of the staff of the Bessarabetz.

None of these had been arrested when I left Kishineff, on the 30th of May last.

The question of official responsibility has been raised, and a circular alleged to have been issued by M. de Plehve has been published which would tend to connect the Minister of the Interior with an intimate knowledge of the intended outbreak. No one in Kishineff with whom I came in contact knew of any such circular. Charges of complicity were freely made against the Government by many leading Jews, but no proofs of any kind were adduced. These charges were entirely based upon the culpable inaction of Governor Von Raaben, and the all but active participation of the head of the City Police in the riots, along with the well-known anti-Semitic record and feeling of the Vice-Governor, Ostrogoff.

Official responsibility might be deduced from these facts, but I failed to discover any evidence, outside these circumstances, which could even indirectly bring home to the Government the charge of guilty connivance in the Bessarabetz plot.