Białystok pogrom
Encyclopedia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, now in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. During the pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
between 81 and 88 people were killed, and about 80 people were wounded.
The Białystok pogrom is often seen as one of the series of violent outbreaks against Jews between 1903 and 1908, including the Kishinev pogrom
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Chişinău, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire on April 6-7, 1903.-First pogrom:...
, the Odessa pogrom
Odessa pogrom
Odessa pogrom may refer to antisemitic communal violence in the city of Odessa . Such events took place in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881, 1886 and 1905...
, and the Kiev pogrom
Kiev Pogrom (1905)
The Kiev pogrom of October 18-October 20 came as a result of the collapse of the city hall meeting of October 18, 1905 in Kiev in the Russian Empire. Consequently, a mob was drawn into the streets...
.
Background
At the beginning of 20th century Białystok was city with a predominantly Jewish population. In 1895, the Jewish population numbered 47,783 (out of 62,993, or about 76%). Bialystok was primarily a city known for its textile manufacturing, commerce and industry. During the 1905 Russian Revolution the city was a center of the radical labour movement, with strong organisations of the Bund and the Polish Socialist PartyPolish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party was one of the most important Polish left-wing political parties from its inception in 1892 until 1948...
as well as the more radical anarchists of the Black Banner association.
In the summer of 1904, an eighteen-year-old anarchist, Nisan Farber, stabbed and seriously wounded Avraam Kogan, the owner of a spinning mill, as he walked to the synagogue on Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
. On October 6, Farber threw a bomb into a police station, injuring several policemen inside. Farber himself was killed by the explosion.
On February 21, 1905 the district's Chief of Police, Yelchin, was killed, and on June 8 the city's new Police Chief, Pelenkin, was wounded by another bomb blast. On July 1905 two police officers were wounded by a bomb, thrown by the Jewish anarchist Aron Elin (Gelinker). Furthermore, in 1905, police officers Mozger, Moneshko, Barancevich were killed and eight other policemen wounded.
As a consequence of the violence, martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
was declared in Białystok in September 1905, which lasted until March 1906. After martial law was lifted the series of assassinations and acts of terror began anew. On March 4, the police officer Kulchitsky was killed, followed by the killings of gendarme officer Rubansky, and NCO Syrolevich, who were killed on March 18. In May 1906 police officer Sheyman was killed by anarchists.
Later the policemen Zenevich and Alekseychuk were wounded, three privates of the Vladimir infantry regiment were wounded and the Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
Lopatin was killed.
These events led to a demoralization and disorganization of the police in the city. Between the years 1905-1906 there were seven police chiefs. The police did not enter Surazh street, which was considered a stronghold of anarchists.
On 11 June 1906 the Police Chief of Białystok, Derkacz, was murdered, most likely on the orders of the Russian commissar and fervent anti-semite Szeremietiev. Derkacz, who was Polish, was known for his liberal sympathies and opposition to anti-semitism; for this he was respected by both the Jewish Bund and the Polish Socialist Party
Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party was one of the most important Polish left-wing political parties from its inception in 1892 until 1948...
. On a previous occasion, when Russian soldiers attacked Jews in the marketplace, Derkacz had sent in his policemen to put down the violence and had declared that a pogrom against the Jews would occur “only over his dead body”. His murder was a foreboding of the violence to come, as people in the city noted that after Derkacz’s death Russian soldiers began preparing for a pogrom.
On 14 June, two Christian processions took place; a Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
one through the market square celebrating Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi (feast)
Corpus Christi is a Latin Rite solemnity, now designated the solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ . It is also celebrated in some Anglican, Lutheran and Old Catholic Churches. Like Trinity Sunday and the Solemnity of Christ the King, it does not commemorate a particular event in...
and an Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
one through Białystok’s New Town celebrating the founding of a cathedral. The Orthodox procession was followed by a unit of soldiers. A bomb was thrown at the Catholic procession and shots were fired at the Orthodox procession. A watchman of a local school, Stanislaw Milyusski, and three women Anna Demidyuk, Aleksandra Minkovskaya and Maria Kommisaryuk, were wounded. These incidents constituted signals for the beginning of the pogrom. Witnesses reported that simultaneously with the shots someone shouted “Beat the Jews!” After the pogrom, a peasant who was arrested for unrelated charges in the nearby town of Zabłudów confessed that he had been paid a substantial amount of money to fire on the Orthodox procession in order to provoke the pogrom. Russian authorities announced that Jews had fired on the Orthodox procession.
The violence
Once the shots were fired, the violence began immediately. Mobs of thugs, including members of the Black Hundreds, began looting Jewish owned stores and apartments on Nova-Linsk Street. Policemen and soldiers who had earlier followed the Orthodox procession either allowed the violence to happen or participated in it themselves. The first day of the pogrom was chaotic. While units of the Czarist army, brought to Białystok by Russian authorities, exchanged fire with Jewish paramilitary groups, thugs armed with knives and crowbars dispersed throughout the main areas of the city to continue the pogrom. Some Jewish sections of the city were protected by self-defense units, usually organized by the labor parties, which moved against the thugs and looters. They were in turn fired upon by Czarist dragoons. Thanks to the Jewish self-defense units several working class sections of the city were spared the violence and thousands of lives were saved.The following two days were not as violent, but the attacks on people and property were more systematic and directed, resembling a coordinated military action more than a spontaneous outbreak of violence. Marauding mobs and Russian soldiers broke into many Jewish homes and either killed people on the spot or dragged them outside to murder them. It was only at the end of the third day that Stolypin, the Minister of Internal Affairs, instructed regional governors and mayors to suppress the pogrom. The violence ended abruptly upon the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city.
Causes and effects
During the course of the pogrom 88 people were killed, including 82 Jews, although some sources list a higher number of 200. A total of 169 shops and houses had been plundered, among them the largest stores in the city. The pogrom was the subject matter of many news reports and articles, including a special manifesto issued by the Polish Socialist Party condemning the occurrence.Russian authorities tried to blame the pogrom on the local Polish population in order to stir up the hatred between two ethnic groups (both of which generally opposed the Tsar). However Jewish survivors of the violence reported that the local Polish population had in fact sheltered many Jews during the pogrom and did not participate in it. Apolinary Hartglas
Apolinary Hartglas
Maksymilian Apolinary Hartglas – a Zionist activist and one of the main political leaders of Polish Jews during the interwar period, a lawyer, a publicist, and a Sejm deputy from 1919 to 1930.-Early life and education:Hartglas was born into a lawyer family from Podlasie...
, a Polish Jewish
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
leader and later a member of the Polish Sejm, together with Ze'ev Jabotinsky, managed to obtain secret documents issued by Szeremietiev which showed that the pogrom had been organized well in advance by Russian authorities who had actually transported Russian railroad workers from deep within Russia to participate. A commission set up by the Duma
State Duma of the Russian Empire
The State Duma of the Russian Empire was a legislative assembly in the late Russian Empire, which met in the Taurida Palace in St. Petersburg. It was convened four times between 1906 and the collapse of the Empire in 1917.-History:...
charged with investigating the pogrom came to similar conclusions.
In 1908, on the initiative of Constitutional Democratic
Constitutional Democratic party
The Constitutional Democratic Party was a liberal political party in the Russian Empire. Party members were called Kadets, from the abbreviation K-D of the party name...
deputies in the Duma, some of the perpetrators of the violence were tried but the trial was widely criticized for handing out light sentences to those convicted and for failing to bring the real organizers of the pogrom to justice.
Monument to the victims
The victims of the pogrom were buried in a mass grave in the Bagnowka cemetery and a memorial obelisk was erected with a poem in HebrewHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
by Zalman Sznejur inscribed upon it. The poem begins with the words "Stand strong and be proud, you pillar of sorrow" and the monument came to be known as the Pillar of Sorrow. The monument survived through World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Holocaust
Holocaust in Poland
The Holocaust, also known as haShoah , was a genocide officially sanctioned and executed by the Third Reich during World War II. It took the lives of three million Polish Jews, destroying an entire civilization. Only a small percentage survived or managed to escape beyond the reach of the Nazis...
, and it still remains there, though one source falsely claims that it was destroyed after the war by unknown, possibly local Polish vandals.
See also
- Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907)
- Melech EpsteinMelech EpsteinMelech Epstein was a Jewish American journalist and historian. His two most famous books, Jewish labor in U.S.A. and The Jew and communism are considered standard works.- Early life :...
who fought in the pogrom as a member of the Jewish self defense force