On the Front Line in Lithuania in 1915

The previous publication on this theme¹ showed that readers are interested in archival documents². These documents are particularly important for genealogists and family historians, because they contain unique evidence about concrete persons, and facts sometimes not known to descendants. This paper continues that theme.

The documents in this instance we found in the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA): Fond 1546 “Jewish Committee for Aid to War Victims,” List 1, Act 236 “Petition from Jewish population about protection from pogroms.” The title is not accurate, since the Act does not contain a petition but rather the recorded narratives of Jewish eyewitnesses. The documents are handwritten without signatures. Dates are given without year. The Act itself has not been dated by the Archives. It is known, however, that the events described took place in 1915³. Judging by the registration sheet, the Act has not been published previously by researchers.

After the spring offensive by the German Army at Liepaja, Raseiniai and Siauliai, by order from the Russian Army Command dated 5 May 1915 all the Jews living to the west of the line Kaunas, Jonava, Ukmerge, Raguva, Ponevezys, Pasvalys, Salociai, Bauska were to be completely evacuated. They were directed to move to Ekaterinoslav and Poltava gubernias⁴. These gubernias were not in a position to receive all the evacuees. The governors of these gubernias sent telegrams to that effect. The trains with evacuees went to other gubernias, and some even turned back with their cargo.

A large number of the Jewish evacuees settled in Kaunas gubernia east of the designated border. Thus, in the middle of July about 200 evacuee families were living in the town of Trashkuny (now the city of Troskunai in Anyksciai region). Aid from the Jewish Committee to Aid War Victims (EKOPO [Evreiskii KOmitet POmoshchi zhertvam voiny]) was given to 1317 individuals in the town of Onikshty (now the city of Anyksciai), and 166 individuals in the town of Veshinty (now the village of Viesintos, Anyksciai region).

During the summer of 1915 the Germans continued the attack. The plenipotentiary of EKOPO, I. Rozengart, wrote to the Petrograd Committee on 20 September 1915:

“Before the Germans captured Troskunai and Anyksciai in this region, the excesses of the Cossacks reached colossal bounds: all Jewish property in the region was completely plundered, there were murders and rapes, etc. Cossack unruliness reached the point that in Troskunai they were about to raise on a pike the Red Cross doctor Tomarovsky, who was intervening on the behalf of those being plundered. The well-do-do, and even the rich, were impoverished within a few minutes. Furthermore, the commanders of some army units evacuated all the Jews in places under their jurisdiction, sometimes giving only 15-20 minutes to leave.”⁵

The following recorded narratives are dated 19 July (1915) and from internal evidence describe the expulsion of Jews from villages in Vilkomir [Ukmerge] uezd. The recording was done by someone working with EKOPO, possibly in the village of Utsiany (now the city of Utena). Given name and surname of each narrator are indicated, as well as brief information about them. Because such recordings are very rare, they are given below with practically no editing.

Salesman in a sewing machine shop, lived in Krakinovo⁷, from where he fled to the village of Viesintos.

For three months it had been peaceful, but on July 10th the soldiers appeared. The first two days the inhabitants of the village were busy preparing food for the soldiers and complete quiet reigned.

On Monday, everyone was in a panic of fear, the soldiers demanded that not one Jew remain in the village, and we began to abandon the village. They mocked us, and robbed and beat us.

We got carts and went to a nearby village of Dyzhulishki, so that we could return the next day and grab whatever we could from what was left of our belongings. But, alas! From six versts away we saw that our village was burning, and all of the property that we had acquired through hard work was being destroyed.

We went on in the direction of Dobeiky⁸. On the way, near the village of Andronishki⁹, the cart overturned. My wife and children (ages 15 months, 3 years and 5 years) ended up under the full weight of the loaded cart. Soldiers from the unbroken line of transport that stretched the entire road came to my aid and pulled the children from the muddy swamp. My wife somehow got up on her own. The soldiers took all of the food they could. The two youngest children were completely unconscious. It took an hour and a half of effort to revive them. I am powerless to describe what I went through during that period.

In Debeikai we found out that a commandant was there. I went to get a pass, but he said that we could travel further without a pass, and advised us to stop several versts from Debeikai.

We went one and a half versts. We heard the soldiers shout “Halt!” We stopped. They cursed us for not obeying the orders. They searched us and took everything we had: money, watches, etc. We all trembled. They didn’t spare the rifle-butts. Mine Priz and Tsirl Grinshtein particularly got them. The soldiers didn’t spare the rifle-butts.

On July 10th, when the lines of military transport carts stretched out, people got worried, but the early days were peaceful. On Monday a line of military transport carts passed, then swerved, and when they entered the village they began to steal. The whole square was occupied by soldiers. My shop was closed. I had been robbed four times that year. So I had fortified it, and so they could not plunder it right away. They tried to open it, to rip off the locks, but they couldn’t. They tore at the roof, and after a short while they got what they wanted, that is, the roof collapsed to a general shout of “Hurrah!” Some from the higher ranks took part, too. My goods were at the disposal of the soldiers. They stole groceries and fancy goods, some of which they gave to Christian villagers, while they loaded the iron goods onto carts and carried them away. Recently I had not been buying textiles¹¹, and I had sent what I did have with my daughter. In Andrioniskis the soldiers attacked again and wanted to cut up and destroy the crumbs (of cloth I had left), but three Jewish soldiers came to our aid. They started to scuffle. They seized one Jewish soldier for being a hindrance and threw him to the ground, but he jumped up and threatened to shoot if they didn’t stop the violence. The others were infuriated and left promising to settle the score that evening.

There were two other girls with my 22-year-old daughter Dina. In despair they went to the Jewish soldiers and begged them not to leave. It was late in the evening, the shops were closed and doors were locked. The three Jewish soldiers were lying down outside the doors. The others, as they had promised, came and broke the doors, shouted and cursed, but they weren’t able to get in. Clearly, here was God’s will that saved our daughters from violence and ignominious death.

But look at what had been done in our village: everything was at the disposal of various military ranks, mostly the lower ranks but there were even some from the higher ranks. They had taken everything down to the pillows from living quarters, plundered, destroyed, assaulted. The whole village moaned.

My tears are nothing in comparison to this horror. But without tears I cannot remember. Take my position as an example. A few days ago I had 12 or 13 thousand (rubles) of capital, and today I am a pauper, a complete pauper, and I must turn to others for aid.

The army appeared on July 10th. At the demand of the soldiers, the rabbi ordered Jews to bake bread for sale. They baked, the others paid, everything was peaceful. The next day, the 11th, the Cossack sargeant, in the name of the regimental commander, took the narrator, a rabbi, hostage and collected his passport. On Sunday the 12th, the rabbi wanted to leave and asked for his passport. They gave him the passport on Monday. He left the same day. He had sent his family away earlier. He lived on the second floor. He had barely left the house when he saw soldiers starting to plunder his living quarters. Then the soldiers went through the village. People began to flee. They plundered the whole village. While doing that, they beat people with whips and rifle butts. The smith (named Leiba) they beat to death and left the body on the floor. Tuesday evening they burned the village. Josel Joffe stayed to put out the fire at his house. They beat him up. The same with Motel Levin who also stayed. Girsh Birger hid with his family with a Christian. The soldiers found and took the seven-year-old boy Moishka, but the shouts and cries of his mother sobered the soldiers, and they took him back.

On the road to Anyksciai soldiers searched the narrator and wanted to take his watch, but a Jewish soldier (from Podolsk Gubernia) persuaded them not to steal it.

On Friday the military unit came. At first it was peaceful. On the 13th (Monday), the commandant left, and the unit with him. A second (unit) entered ordering an immediate departure. They stole my horse. I found another one and loaded my things. I wanted to lock up the living quarters, but the soldier on duty would not allow it. Four versts from the village I stopped and thought about returning, but the village was completely in flame. Six soldiers came out of the long line of military carts and demanded money. I didn’t want to give it. The money was in the pillows. They searched, found it, and took it, tearing up my insurance papers. Further along the road I met other refugees, nine carts in all. We hadn’t reached the village of Diabeikai (Wednesday July 15th, at 8 o’clock in the evening), when we were surrounded by about 15 soldiers. They asked what I was carrying: “It must be for the Germans.” Again they searched. They took a woman’s fur coat, watches and pulled pillows from beneath heads. The women cried, moaned and sobbed through all of this (the narrator is crying). It was terrible. The narrator managed to get away with his cart, and what happened to the other eight (carts) he doesn’t know.

65 years old, refugee from the village of Radzivilishki¹⁵, where he left his property.

I was living in Viesintos from May 1st. On Monday, July 13th, when the military began to plunder, we left at 5 pm. A storm forced us to make a stop. We went to a landowner acquaintance five versts from Viesintos, on the Virinsh estate. I hoped to go the next day into the village and retrieve the remainder of my property, but Cossacks and dragoons appeared after a short while, shouting “Hide here to greet the Germans! Everybody out!”

We proceeded on accompanied by soldiers, they drove us without rest. In villages, it was forbidden for Christians to give bread to Jews. They threatened to hold anyone accountable who disobeyed the order. I was hit in the back with a rifle butt and fell. My daughter, Mina, wanting to protect me, really got it. Her whole body was black and blue and she couldn’t move from pain. They took a small watch from my daughter, but she went to the highest-ranking soldier and he ordered them to return it. They ordered everyone they searched to be quiet: otherwise, we’ll shoot.

After the search, they took 15 rubles from me, 5 rubles from the shamus, and when the shamus’s wife tried to interfere, they grabbed her around the middle and threw her to the ground, she barely survived.

Leib Rozinkevich, smith, was defending his daughter Etel from rape. He was wounded in the head with a rifle butt, and his daughter was raped. What happened with them, I don’t know. They say that the daughter died, and the father was mortally wounded.

I went out of the village on Monday. No one stopped me. On the road, 16 versts from Viesintos, I met my 74-year-old neighbor, Enta Joselevich with her granddaughter, the daughter of her deceased son. The girl’s mother fled away from the soldiers who were pestering her, while grandmother and granddaughter took this road. The soldiers started to pester this 11-year-old girl, but the pleading of the grandmother evidently influenced them and they stopped. My neighbor Girsh Berger told me that soldiers or an officer, he couldn’t say which, took my 8-year-old son for ransom near the village of Shimantsy¹⁷, to get money from me that I didn’t have. They took him to a village two versts away, then sent him back. Clearly, they wanted to threaten us, and I shook like a leaf for the life of my boy. The synagogue worker, the shamus, had 5 rubles, which they took in the search. It is difficult to paint a picture of the terror of the women and children during all this. I can’t think of it without crying.

To tell you what happened in the village is hard. Everyone feared for his life. I sent my daughter Raikhel with some things to Anyksciai. When she got there, the things were put in an acquaintance’s cellar. The soldiers appeared and began to plunder. They ruined or destroyed or took what they could. Raikhel fell to the feet of one officer and begged him to save her things. But the answer was: “You mangy Jews, don’t get near me!” She fled 21 versts without stopping. She met three Jewish soldiers. She told them the whole story. They all four cried. They accompanied her back to Anyksciai. But she couldn’t find any of her things. It is painful. They called in my only son in January. They sent him to where the military was and killed him. I have to lie down now. I have to rest this old head. The house burned. Our property, valued at 1200 rubles, went up in dust. My soul is ripped to shreds.

The army entered the village during morning prayers on July 9th. Everyone ran out of the synagogue in panic. They started to punish everyone. They went into every house, plundered, broke open cellars, pantries, they scattered everything around, they stomped on everything, they gave our goods to Christians, and some carried our goods away on carts. Anyone who showed resistance was threatened with death. Several lines of military transport stretched through the village. The ugliness just got worse. On Monday, July 13th, they broke into the living quarters of Shmit²¹, demanded money, took him out on the street and wanted to shoot him. He begged for mercy for his young children, gave them all his money. Soldiers spent a long time breaking into cellars. They destroyed the pharmacist’s shop and gave everything to Christians. From one Jew they took fine goods valued at 600 to 800 rubles. The Jews went to the commandant. The latter ordered the police to find the offenders. The plundering continued until the Jews had almost completely left the village. Those who had destroyed things were not found.

They broke into Ber-Mendel Shmit’s place at 1 am on July 8th and wanted to shoot him, and they took his money. They beat Girsh Segal with whips. They robbed the grocery store of Khaim Palev, and also Mikhel Bak and Fintel²³.

The military unit appeared on July 11, on Saturday. The rabbi gave the order, notwithstanding that it was Saturday, to carry out the orders of the military authorities. Jews baked bread, cooked, and so forth. At first it was quiet among the soldiers. They went into some places (the shopkeeper Lin) and took some things without paying. On Tuesday, July 14, the last unit to leave began to plunder. They broke into living quarters, destroyed and stole what they could. From the narrator, the rabbi of Seiminiskiai, they took five silver goblets, two teaspoons, a gold watch, bracelet, muff, four dresses, linens and bedclothes. They also took everything from the cellar. That was at 1 am. Afterwards the owners went to bed but got up when they heard someone breaking into the barn where there was the horse of an acquaintance who had fled from a nearby village together with a box of his belongings. They took all of that, too.

The narrator woke up the owner (of the horse). The owner’s wife begged them to leave the horse. Her tears had their effect and the soldiers returned the horse. For telling the owner of the horse, the soldiers punished the rabbi by breaking into his cellar again. When his wife protested, they tried to smother her. The rabbi called for help. His wife, left by the soldiers, was unconscious for quite a while.

From the widow Kh.-E. Khoruts, whose husband had been killed by three thieves (one of them a reserve soldier), they took a cow. They took all of her property while she was gone. They searched Riva Leibovich and took 37 rubles. Lesha Shif, 30 years old, the daughter of the owner of the house where the rabbi lived, Feiga Bond and Enta Zagef fled into the forest to escape pursuing Cossacks on Tuesday morning. The latter two, who were younger, broke away, but the first was tortured, we found her dead in the forest.

They took from Mikhal Defanovich his two-year-old child as ransom hostage for all the bedclothes. They later returned the child when they had gotten all they had demanded. Izrail Leizer Ogand, 70 years old, baker, left the village later than the rest. They beat him half to death.

The army came on July 9th, but it was peaceful until Sunday, July 12th. On Sunday two Cossacks came to the house and we fed them; they warned us to gather our belongings and leave. The rabbi ordered carts to carry 36 torahs. After they were packed, at 2 A.M., the last military unit entered the village, and at 5 A.M. they started plundering. The rabbi and his son saved themselves by going out the window, grabbing a bag of silver. They hid the bag in the synagogue in the “bima.”²⁶ They thought the property would be safe here, but at 10 A.M. soldiers searched the synagogue and took everything. They threw the books about and stomped on them with their feet. Near the synagogue, in the house where the rabbi Meer Feldberg, a refugee from Surviliskis, lived, Cossacks broke in, searched the rabbi and took his watch. He gave them 20 kopecks for further mercy and made haste to leave, as a person not completely healthy, while his wife remained to save the household.

The soldiers came in and unpacked everything. They divided the loot among themselves and the Christian villagers, they lined the torahs up on the ground, breaking the tips of the scrolls. They searched the wife. To a request to leave a pillow, the soldiers answered that they suffered more than they (the Jews). Two Jewish soldiers saved two feather-beds, supposedly taking them, but returning them later. The soldiers would not allow the torahs to be taken on the cart. At the last moment they arrested everyone and sent them under guard to Anyksciai. But on the way the Jews found the cart. The narrator wanted to send the sick out of Troskunai at 10 A.M. He started to help the wounded soldier Berel Skudovich sit (he had been in the Petrograd military hospital, a holder of the St. George’s Medal). The soldiers continued to interfere and beat the rabbi with whips. It wasn’t possible to take belongings. The soldiers promised to send them to Petrograd.

They grabbed the Bageiler girl, 25 years old. She ran away. Naftol wanted to protect (her), and for that was beaten. Zalk, 80 years old, says that they shot Simon from Rogovo and hanged a mentally ill person. Etel Muler, 70 years old, was shot. The butcher Elia, who is mentally ill, they executed, they shot Kopel Shirman. But these reports are based on the stories of neighbors.

39 years old, working in the emigration bureau of the city of Ponevezys, then the town of Troskunai.

It was peaceful up to July 12th. On Sunday, July 12th, the retreating army occupied the entire town. There was panic. Plundering, devastation and rape did not bypass Troskunai. The residents began to leave town. Many went to Anyksciai. I hoped to return the next day from Anyksciai to Troskunai, to get at least some of my property. But, alas, when I entered back into Troskunai I met an officer who asked me where I was going. I answered that I was going to get my belongings. He politely hurried me along and said that it was impossible to stay for long in town because the army was retreating. Not far from my house a Cossack officer stopped me and took me into a yard. Soon two other officers appeared. One of them, without a word, pulled a thick picket from the fence and started to hit me. He hit my left arm and made a wound, he hit me on the left side of the small of my back with the same result. I couldn’t touch my body even lightly from the pain. They beat me until they broke the picket. Then the same officer that ordered them to beat me called a Cossack and ordered him to tie me to a horse so I would have to keep up with her, and sent me to the commandant in that manner. The Cossack rode full speed around town and I, tied to the horse, ran after him. Only at the town boundary did the Cossack take pity on me, untied me, and I freely walked after him. The commandant greeted the Cossack with the words: “What spy did you catch? Who sent him?” “ Prince Pushkin,” I think the Cossack answered. I can’t swear to the exact surname. The commandant, lacking evidence from the Cossack officer, didn’t know how to punish me. At the same time, he was in a hurry to retreat, which saved me, as it was intimated to me, from lashes with the birch. They gave me to another soldier, who rushed about looking for “Prince Pushkin.” When he returned, they searched me, took what they could, even my socks.

Then they let me go, and sent me, together with other Jews, out of town under guard. They drove us unmercifully. Long trains of military carts stretched along the road. The wagons of refugees were pushed off the road. Several times wagons were overturned. Fainting by children and women were normal events for us. How we got to Anyksciai alive I don’t know.

On the 1st of May I fled to Troskunai, but was chased out by the police and went to Anyksciai, where I stayed peacefully until July 8th. On Monday, July 13th, the army came. One officer announced that he hadn’t seen Jews in a long time, and another one added that today would be the end for them. The soldiers were ordered to clear out the town. We left. We stopped a few versts away and spent two days hiding in a clay pit. We saw them destroy the bridge (between the stations of Anyksciai and Trombolishki), and some of the children fainted from fear and the noise, and even now they often faint. We stopped in the village of Modvenishki. The day after the army arrived at that village, they began to raise Cain there, too. They beat with whips even the sick and small children, and many of them barely survived. In Skemiany³⁰ we again met soldiers. There they took our last remaining belongings, and so we went to Utena with absolutely nothing.

1. Anatolij Chayesh. “V prifrontovoi Litve 1915 goda. Rasskazy evreev-ochevidtsev,” Evreiskaia starina, no. 10, 10 September 2003 [Translated by Gordon McDaniel “On the Front in Lithuania, 1915. Stories of Jewish Eyewitnesses” LitvakSIG Online Journal, August 2001]

2. “Zametki po evreiskoi istorii. Otzyvy (Notes on Jewish History. Opinions)”. See, for example, simulacrum, Monday, August 23, 2004 at 13:35:33 (PDT).

3. Rossiiskaia evreiskaia entsiklopediia (Russian Jewish Encyclopedia). Moscow, 2000, v. 4, p. 47, 237, 241.

4. Anatolij Chayesh. “Vyselenie evreev iz Litvy vesnoi 1915 goda : na primere mestechka Zheimeli,” Evreiskaia starina no. 12, 19 December 2003. [Translated by Gordon McDaniel “Evacuation of the Jews from Lithuanian in the Spring of 1915: the example of the town of Zeimelis,” LitvakSIG Online Journal, February 2000]

21. In the source it reads “Shmita,” obviously a slip of the pen, see below.

23. The second, third and fourth letters of the surname are illegible in the source.

26. Bima, a raised place in the synagogue for the reading of the Torah, sermons and singing of the cantor.

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On the Front Line in Lithuania in 1915

В прифронтовой Литве 1915 года

Narratives of Jewish Eyewitnesses
Рассказы евреев-очевидцев

Second Publication

Публикация вторая

On the Front Line in Lithuania in 1915

В прифронтовой Литве 1915 года

Narratives of Jewish Eyewitnesses Рассказы евреев-очевидцев

Second Publication

Публикация вторая

Narratives of Jewish Eyewitnesses
Рассказы евреев-очевидцев