THE HOMELESS ONES
By S. YELPATYEVSKY
I
A party of Jews was brought to the province of Tavrida. Officially they are called "the deported"; the newspapers refer to them as "the homeless ones." At first came three thousand Jews from the province of Kovno. They were followed by Kurland Jews, and now about seven thousand Jews have been settled in the government of Tavrida. Other parties are expected....
They had wandered a long time before they reached their new place of residence. Obviously, the authorities who handled the deportation thought only of how to get rid of the Jews, and those on whom the newcomers were thrust had not been informed in time and did not know how to arrange to take care of them.
The first party, three thousand strong, stayed a while at Melitopol, then they were transported to Simferopol where they remained five days, and were finally distributed over the towns and townlets of northern Crimea.
It is told that one of the parties was assigned to Yekaterinoslav, but the authorities refused to accept the people and ordered them to proceed further. The local papers report that a group of deported Jews was transported from Pavlograd to Jankoy, then, according to an instruction from the Ministry of the Interior they were shipped to Voronezh....
There are many old men and women, many girls and mothers, and a large number of children in the party which has been brought here. All of them are miserable and exhausted, a number are ill, either because they had been sick when the catastrophe overtook them or because they fell ill on the way, and there are many pregnant women among them. As a result of their long wanderings, wives have lost their husbands and mothers their children and they eagerly question everybody about those dear to them.