Zolotwenski's house was the first to be attacked. Down crashed the door and a hundred excited brutes forced their way through the house. They seized his wife, whom they found in bed sick and helpless, and choked her into insensibility. They followed his two daughters to a room in the upper story in which they had locked themselves, and with threats of vengeance worse than death they broke open the door. The poor girls threw themselves from the window to the ground below.
In the meantime, the Rabbi, accompanied by a number of his congregation, again hastened to the Governor's palace and besought him to protect the innocent women and children. This time the appeal bore fruit. The Governor promised to call out the military, and an hour afterwards a detachment of soldiers appeared upon the scene. At first they stood by, amused spectators, cheering the mob whenever it broke into a dwelling, taunting the poor women who ran hither and thither in frantic endeavors to escape the wretches who pursued them; but later in the day the temptation to join the plunderers proved irresistible, and the soldiers became active participants in the outrages which continually increased in brutality. Indeed, the leaders of the soldiers soon assumed command of the mob, and, with a refinement of cruelty, incited the people to lust rather than to pillage.
A number of rioters and soldiers broke into the dwelling of an old man named Pelikoff. The poor fellow had carried his sixteen-year-old daughter to the attic and barricaded the door. In vain his resistance. The rusty lock yielded to the onslaught from without; twenty men precipitated themselves into the apartment, and twenty men threw themselves upon the trembling child.
"Kill me," cried Pelikoff, "but spare my innocent daughter!"
"To the devil with them both!" laughed the leader.
Pelikoff fought with desperation. With his bare fists he felled two of the stalwart soldiers to the ground, but he was no match against the overpowering numbers. They seized him in their arms, carried him to the roof, and hurled him over into the street below, while a dozen of the ruffians attacked the unfortunate girl. When sympathizing friends visited the house next day, they found the child dead, and Pelikoff a hopeless maniac.
Night brought a cessation of hostilities, but not a glimmer of hope.
With early dawn, the outrages recommenced. The synagogue now became the point of attack. Thither many of the women and children had fled for refuge, and the mob, actuated rather by lust than by love of plunder, proceeded to demolish the building, which they set on fire. The poor women, as they fled from the burning pile, were set upon and cruelly assaulted by the rioters. All that day and the next, the Hebrew quarter was at the mercy of the savages. What the ax did not crush, fire destroyed. Five hundred houses and over one hundred stores and shops were ransacked; whole streets were demolished; property to the value of two million roubles was destroyed, and upwards of twenty people lost their lives while defending their possessions or their honor.
Thus ended the first anti-semitic riot. The plans for General Drentell's vengeance, through Mikail the priest, were in a fair way of being realized.[20]