[Page 89]

The Exile of the Lithuanian Jews during the Fervor
of the First World War (1914-1918)

Louis Stein

Translated by Judie Goldstein

1. Outbreak of the World War

The eastern front cut through the Jewish pale of settlement. The evacuation of local industrial enterprises to the Russian interior created large unemployment and made the economic situation worse for Jews in the war zone. Towns and villages vanished entirely in the battles and thousands of Jewish families were ruined as a result of fires and bombs.

A large part of the Jewish population was without any means and was forced to seek community relief. The Jewish families of the mobilized reservists were without a breadwinner. Thousands of families that lived on money sent from relatives overseas (America, South Africa, Australia, etc.), were without bread.

The Jews in Russia showed great loyalty to their fatherland. They tied their fate to the strength of the country and together with all Russians hoped that Russia's victory would bring freedom for all the people, including the Jews.

The Vilna community held a patriotic banquet, where among other things this was said: “In our dear, birth country, Russia was thrust into a difficult, savage war…our brothers, Jews throughout Russia, are ready to do their duty as citizens and many volunteered to fight on the battlefields.

Right now victims are claimed by our side, from among us, those of us who were given the opportunity to take part directly in the fight. Our goal is to give help everywhere we can, to the families left behind by those mobilized and to care for the sick and wounded soldiers…the history of wars in the past and this
century from 1812 until today, demonstrated that our Jewish brothers always fulfilled their duty as sincere citizens, with great feeling and were always ready to sacrifice their lives on the altar of their fatherland.

At this important moment for our dear fatherland we, the elected heads of the Vilna community – one of the oldest Jewish communities in Russia and the largest community closest to the front – would like to take this opportunity to ask our Jewish brothers to help wherever possible with the wounded and the families of the mobilized reserves.

Without regard to religion or nationality we will take care of all soldiers of the mighty Russian Army”.²).

        At the beginning of the war Lithuania became a military camp for the Russian Army. Among the Christian population there were those who agitated against the Jews. But from the start of the war, the local authorities had not wanted an outbreak against the Jews. The military staff commander sent out a warning to the population that spreading false rumors or false accusations and inciting hatred towards the minorities would be punished with the entire strength of wartime law. In Yanove the commandant announced to the population that “here there are no Jews and no Lithuanians, only Russian citizens”.

In Ponevezh the local authorities warned the pogrom instigators that if they provoked a Jewish pogrom, they would be punished according to military wartime law.

Similar warnings were issued in many places in Kovno Gubernia [Province] and elsewhere, by civilian and military officials.

The inciting poison against the Jews came from above. The Commander in Chief of the entire Russian army was the great leader Nikolai Nikolaievitch who was a stubborn reactionary and so much like Tsar Nikolai I. The army Chief of Staff, General Yanushkevitch was definitely no small problem for the Jews.

Yanushkevitch had fought for a long time, with all his might, to expel the Jews from the army so that they would never annoy the Russian people again. The fight played into the hands of those who devour Jews. Soon after the start of the war they began provoking the backward elements, that the Jews wanted to see Russia defeated. They convinced the rabble that Jews were spying for the enemy and called for revenge again the “Zhid [derogatory term for a Jew] traitors”.

The Jew-baiters spread insane rumors: “Jews wore telephone apparatus in their beards in order to send war secrets to the Germans. Jews stuffed geese with money and sent them over to the adversary”.

When the Germans captured the city Rasayn, the anti-Semitic “Novoije Vremja” [“New Times”] rejoiced that the former capitol of Zamet, that was full of “Zhids”, fell to the enemy.

The second Jew devouring newspaper “Groza” [“Storm”] wrote: “Now is the right time, once and for all time, to put an end to the accursed “Jewish question”. All the Jews should be gathered together in one place, that is expected to quickly fall to the enemy and forever expelled from Russian soil. Later when our military takes back this place, the “Zhids” can easily be expelled across the border as “foreigners”. The army commanders, from Yanushkvitch on down – thirsted for Jewish blood in order to cover their ineffectiveness and defeats at the front. Ignorance, laziness and thievery ruled the high command. Industry and transport were continually behind in fulfilling the requirements of a nation at war.

The defeat at the Mazur marshes, in Eastern Prussia, the Tsarist army suffered under the command of General Renencampf was a great embarrassment to the honor of the Tsarist military. They had to find a guilty party, a scapegoat and the staff officers figured out a devilish plan, that they should blame the Russian defeat on the Jews. Through their “Jewish betrayal” the Jews brought the Germans to Russian territory. The plan was ripe and successful. The reactionary anti-Semitic Russian press informed the many millions of Russians that the “Zhids” were to blame for the untimely death of thousands of Russian soldiers – fathers, sons and brothers of simple Russian people. They fell “in vain” on the battlefields because of the secret knowledge and signals sent to the enemy by the “Zhids”, who populate the front lines. Secret undercover telephone wires were built into Jewish houses, synagogues…they spoke Yiddish German: the enemy's language. Even in the residential city (Petrograd) counter espionage agents invaded the main synagogue and searched for wires that connected to the enemy. For the clumsiness of the Russian war leader, who was not capable of insuring a victory, they would blame the Jews. Because of the Jewish traitors the Russian military preparations were ruined.

It was also said that the Jewish contractors supplied spoiled meat and perished canned goods to the Russian military that poisoned thousands of Russian soldiers. Another false accusation was that Jewish soldiers deserted their posts and sold the locations of Russian strongholds to the Germans. The reactionary Russian press picked up on it and thought up various other false accusations against Jewish soldiers. Truly, some progressive Russian newspapers wanted to disclose the falsehood of these accusations made against the Jewish soldiers. Boris Smoliar said that at that time he was sent to the front by a Russian newspaper to gather material showing that the Jews fought in the army as heroically as the Russians and that the stories about Jewish traitors and Jewish espionage were nothing more than anti-Semitic old wives tales³.

Nikolai Nikolaievitch and General Yanushkevitch ordered all the army commanders to use the Jewish soldiers as spearheads for every attack against the adversary. During a retreat the Jewish soldiers were to be in the last row. This way they would be first to take fire from the enemy chasing the retreating Russian military.

The false accusations against the Jewish soldiers came at a time when “the streets of the largest Jewish centers in the former Jewish pale of settlement, such as Vilna, Minsk and others – had already received information about the first Jewish Georgievski Cavalry with their shot off hands and feet. They went around with their George's crosses on their ruined chests not like free-loaders and beggars to look for pity, but as heroes and Maccabees [Jewish warriors who retook Jerusalem and the Temple from the Syrians] who also fought on the bloody battlefields not only for the “Tsar and Fatherland” but also “for the respect and honor of the Jewish people!” Therefore the enemies of Israel would see that Jews were not cowards, that Jews were not spies and that the Jewish soldiers at the front were no less heroes and often more heroic than the non-Jewish solders.”⁴

The commander in chief gave an order to expel two and a half thousand Jewish soldiers from the Kovno fortress. He was “convinced” that the Jewish soldiers wanted to give up the fortress to the Germans…In any case, a couple of days later the Germans took the Kovno fortress, because of the traitors under Russian Commandant Grigoriev.

Jewish doctors – it was often written – cannot be trusted to heal wounded Russian soldiers, because they can kill them.⁵

The Jewish press was forbidden, by the military authorities, to say anything about the “wise heads” in the “high windows” as the “Jewish press” was also guilty in the continual defeats of the Tsarist army.

The anti-Semitic objective was not only stuck in the brains of the army commanders, but also in the entire army. On all fronts the ignorant Russian soldiers were always being told about the horrible “Jewish betrayal”.

2. The Night Before the Lithuanian Expulsion

The taking of Jews “as live hostages” who must bear full responsibility for the loyalty of the local Jewish population in case of “Jewish betrayal”, did not cost the Jews less blood than the battlefront. By leaving a city several “hostages” would soon be shot to death or hung. Seldom would it be possible to get those victims released alive from the murderous hands.

At first the military used one expulsion in Russia-Poland, but it was followed by the order given by General Rozhski, the 25^th of January 1915, to carry out the first mass expulsion from 40 places at the same time in Plotsk Gubernia. This order created such a tumult with the civil administration. The Plotsk Governor made an inquiry and the General answered immediately that “the expulsion must be carried out because of the possibility of espionage”. Luckily this order never went into effect as the Russian military had to hastily retreat to new positions.

In Lithuania the first case of Jewish expulsion came in March 1915, in the shtetl Botki, near Tavrik. The Jewish population of 50 families was expelled within a half-hour because of a false accusation that the Jews had thrown a cat in the town's community well in order to poison the Christian population.

The conscience of nearly all the liberal press in Russia and foreign countries was aroused over the oppressions and false accusations against the Jews. Also expressed was fear that the Jewish expulsions could hurt the future victory of Russia. But this did not stop the high command of the Russian military from furthering incitement against the Jews.

The “tall staff (pole) with the skinny feet”, as the Jews called Nikolai Nikolaievitch, was not concerned about the thousands of destroyed homes in Jewish cities and towns or with the blood of hung, tortured and banished Jews – on all roads where the beaten Russian army marched.

3. The “Kuzshi-False Accusation” and Expulsion of the Lithuanian Jews

The telegraphed order that was addressed to Ponevezh bailiff: “According to the decree of the Commander of the Army, all the Jews who live on the west side of the rail line Kovno, Yanove, Vilkomir, Ragove, Ponovezh, Posval, Salant and Boisk must be expelled. The enumeration of these places is to be included in the total number of places, from which the Jews must be expelled. In regard to the Jews who live in places that are now occupied by the German military, this order must be carried out as soon as the enemy is cleared out from these places and they are taken over by our military.

These exiled Jews must settle in the following districts: Vakhmuter, Mariampole, Slovinoserbia in Yekaterinoslav Province; in Poltava, Godiatscher, Zenkova, Kobeliak, Konstantinograd, Lakhovitz, Kiuben, Mirgoroda, Romne and Kharale in Poltava Province. The deadline for the Jewish expulsion is the 5^th of this month, May 1915. After the deadline, the Jews remaining on the west side of the aforementioned line will be punished according to wartime law. The police officials who do not take all effective means to carry out the above mentioned order will be dismissed from their posts and put on trial.

At the end of the general expulsion of the Jews behind the district borders, which has been entrusted to you, communicate with me by telegraph until midnight the 5^th May. About the expulsion of Jews from areas now in enemy hands, we will communicate accordingly when the enemy has been driven out”. (signature).⁶

With one stroke of a pen, this terrible decree uprooted from settled areas a Jewish population of about two hundred thousand souls and left them without possessions. A sea of trouble had suddenly poured down on the Lithuanian Jews. But, at the same time as the decree about the expulsion of the Lithuanian Jews the fabricated “Kuzshi story” was also published in the newspapers. The Kuzshi-false accusation aimed at creating the necessary mood in the country in order that the mass expulsion of the Lithuanian Jews seemed a necessity.

First – the 30^th of April 1915 –this “evil story” Kuzshi was published in a military report by Corps Commander Fedotov to the military who were “obliged to know” all the details of the large “Jewish betrayal”.

The 5^th May the following “terrible occurrence” was in the official army paper from the northern military “Nash Vyestnik” [“Our News”]. This is how
the “Kuzshi story” was described according to the official report:

“During the night of 28 April 1915 the Germans attacked the village of Kuzshi, located on the north-west side of the Shavl, not far from Kurshan. There were several detachments of the 131^st Piatogorski infantry in the village at the time.

An event occurred that revealed the terrible betrayal of our military by the “Zhids”. While our military had retaken the village from the Germans, the “Zhids” hid German soldiers, who had been left behind, in their cellars and by shooting, set fire to the village. This served as a signal to the enemy. Soon the Germans came out of their hiding places in the cellars and began shooting at the house where Colonel Dovilev was quartered.

This unfortunate case proves how necessary it is to be careful in places that have already been occupied by the enemy and where the majority of the population is – Jewish.”

This clumsy “false accusation” was soon published in the official government paper “Pravitelstveny Vyestnik” [“Government News”] and the “Petrograd Telegraph Agency” provided the rest and sent this bit of news to all the newspapers the length and breadth of the Russian Empire. In the larger centers the news was put up on walls in various locations, just as they would do with a communication about an important victory at the front. One newspaper's editors that did not want to print the provocative false accusation in their newspaper were coerced to publish it by threats from the Governor.

The Kuzshi false accusation was aimed at inciting the ignorant masses against the Jews throughout Russia. In Tashkent, for example, a large, agitated mob gathered in front of the Governor's palace to pray to their G_d, that he should release the Russian military from the hands of the “Jewish betrayers”. The “Kuzshi fall accusation” had already spread a long way so the more honest Christians could be silenced. A commission from the Fourth Duma [Russian parliament] headed by the radical Duma Deputy Aleksander Kerenski had already been sent to Kuzshi in order to properly investigate the entire affair.

After a productive inquiry, Kerensky determined that the entire story was a fabrication by the general staff – from beginning to end – it was nothing more than a frame up. The investigation also revealed that a total of 6 Jewish families lived in Kuzshi. There were only 8 Germans from a reconnaisance detachment in Kuzshi. They requisitioned all the food in the village as well as other products and left. A little later a detachments of Pyatigorski infantry arrived and the officers were quartered in the Jew Kibart's house. The Jew had warned the Russian officers that the Germans had left only moments ago and must still be close to Kuzshi. But the officers ignored what he had to say. At nightfall the Germans began shooting at the village and Kibart's house burned. The officers and soldiers helped Kibart save some of his belongings from the flames. In the middle of the night, Kibart and the other Jewish families, with their rescued bundles, were accompanied from Kuzshi under military guard. Soon after the Russian military lost Kuzshi. When the Germans arrived, for the second time, in the burned village the next morning, they did not find a living soul.

The “Kuzshi false accusation” served the Russian government as the reason for the expulsion of the Lithuanian Jews.

The Russian government and the army high command found it unbearable that Jews and Lithuanians were happy living together. Yet even the Russian state officials there, on Lithuanian ground, were very friendly with the Jewish population. It was especially obvious in the smaller villages where they constantly came into contact with the Jews and even knew every Jew by name. The military headquarters sought to create a rift between the Jews and the Lithuanian state officials and they soon succeeded. The local officials carried out the government's expulsion order with great exactitude. No appeals, no pleading and no tears in the name of justice and fairness helped.

In Kovno Gubernia alone, this murderous expulsion up rooted about one hundred sixty thousand Jewish souls. All the Jews, even old people, women and children were suddenly considered to be, by the previously entirely friendly Christian population, “a bunch of spies and traitors”.

The fate of the Lithuanian Jews was to be even more difficult than that of their expelled brothers from Russia-Poland. The latter were able to travel freely where they wanted. But the Lithuanian Jews were crowned by the state with the name “viselentsi “ (dispatched) in order to differentiate between them and the “refugees” who ran away voluntarily from the terrors of war. The majority of Lithuanian Jews were not able to travel where they wanted to. They, "the viselentses" were given a paper certificate that allowed them to settle only in a few provinces. All Russia would know from the certificate that they were suspected “traitors” and because of them the Russian military suffered defeats. The authorities in the place of expulsion, and ordinary local Christians, mostly Russians, were suspicious of every Jew. Since the Jews want to barter away Russia to the enemy, one must quickly be free of them and send them far away.

Among the Jews forced out of Lithuania were a large number of women and children. From the Jewish cities and towns in Lithuania before the war married men and young bachelors left as emigrants for the United States or South Africa leaving behind a large number of wives and children, old people, weak and sick. The banished had to travel with the elderly from the old people's homes, the sick from the hospital, or the bedridden in their own homes, even those who were dying.

In the Ponovezh old people's home, for example, there were 43 old people. The youngest was an octogenarian and the oldest 99 years old. In Vilkia a dying Jewish woman, Vilentschik, was laid in a wagon and a couple of later she died on the road. The husband of another dying woman, Pesye Fishelevitch went to beg the police to allow him to stay with his wife until her last breath, but the police commissioner expelled him and his terminally ill wife was left alone in the shtetl to die.

The Jews of Shavl were given eight hours. The Jews from other places (Vikomir, Ponevezh, Rogove, Posvol and other towns) were given 24 hours to leave their towns. In Shavl a couple of days before the expulsion all the young and healthy Jewish men were taken to forced labor, to dig trenches several versts [Russian measurement of distance equal to about .66 of a mile] outside the city. While the expulsion was going on the officials intentionally did not let the Jewish forced laborers know about the evil decree. When the Jewish forced laborers returned to the city, they could not find their loved ones. Therefore, a number of Jewish Shavl families were separated for many years.

The writer of these lines remembers what happened in his birth shtetl, Rogove on the day of the expulsion. It was erev Shvues {the eve of the holiday Pentecost,occuring in early summer], the Jewish population in the shtetl was prepared to greet the yontif [holy day, or holiday]. However the day before, notices were posted in the market place by the state announcing the terrible, evil decree. Without argument, we were to be sent away to certain places in Poltava, Yekaterinoslaw and Mavritchesk Provinces. The turmoil and mood of everyone defies description. Packing was done the entire eve of the holiday and peasant wagons were rented to leave the shtetl in a hurry, before nightfall. My grandfather, the sexton in the old Rogove synagogue ran to the shul [synagogue], wrapped the Torah scrolls and packed them in boxes that he had brought with him. He did the same with the Torah scrolls from the besmedresh [study house, synagogue, also used as a meeting hall]. After that he went in search of special wagon to drive them away. A terrible panic ruled our house. My two small sisters were sick in bed with high fevers and we had to get them up. My mother wrung her hands and there was a lament in the house. But laments carried from every house. Our family stayed over Shvues [the holiday Shavuos] in Trashkin with relatives in their house. After yontif we left for Aniktch and stayed there until the end of summer - until a military pogrom against the Aniktch Jews. My two little sisters, two and three years old, during our wandering in shocking, unsanitary conditions and without medical treatment, died as soon as we dragged ourselves further to the city of Penza.

In one place in Lithuania the local government held the order to expel the Jews as late as the 4^th and even the 5^th May in the morning. The Jews were driven out by force, with great cruelty.

In Velyun, for example, the local police were in a fury. “Zhids, hurry up and leave this shtetl, in two hours time there must be no sign left of you, if not you will all hang”. In Vilki the police took bribes from the Jews so that they could leave the shtetl on the 5^th of May at night. This way they could take more things with them. In various places the police treated the exiles with horrible mockery and contempt, as if one hundred percent were spies and traitors.

In Kaydan the local government incited the Christian wagon drivers so they would skin the flesh from the banished “Zhids” to drive them to the nearest place. In Rumshishek the police warned the peasants in general not to rent any wagons to the Jews. Some Jews were successful in obtaining peasants with wagons. When the Jewish women, children, old and sick were already sitting in the wagons, a murderous police official arrived and began to curse the peasants for daring to drive the “Zhid betrayers”. The unfortunate Jews had to get out of the wagons and leave the shtetl on foot.

The 5^th of May 1915 the eve of Shvues, 5675, at midnight, there was not even one Jew remaining at the border of the entire area that was set to be empty of Jews by order of the Tsarist “High Command”. A lot of banished Lithuanian Jews were not able to travel by wagon. They dragged themselves on foot until beaten, hungry and exhausted they reached a train station, or a larger Jewish center in the Jewish pale of settlement such as Vilna. Announcements of Jewish refugees searching for lost children and relatives were not published in the Russian newspapers. The censor did not want the sad, true situation of the exiled Jews to be brought out into the open, because this would compromise the government and the military staff in the eyes of the world at large.

Anti-Semitic officials, ordinarily enemies of the Jews, already knew no shame and just the opposite sought to demonstrate their Jewish hatred. Christian “sisters of mercy” stood at the railroad stations with crossed hands and in cold blood looked on as nauseating hands carried the sick and dying Jewish souls onto the train.

The exiles were not even allowed to stay on the roads. Scoundrels would throw stones at them. Diverse hooligans derided the Jews. Some of the wandering families had there saved “poverty” plundered by village thieves.

The abandoned dwellings and Jewish belongings in all the cities and towns remained without owners. It is true, there were cases where the police assured that the property left behind by the exiled was not allowed to be robbed. I know of such a case in Vilkomir. But that was an exception to the rule.

4. The Repercussions of the Expulsion and New Expulsions

Even the military was in a quandary. The majority of the contractors who used to supply their food were Jewish and they were banished. The military authorities soon caught on to their mistake and allowed the Jewish contractors to return to their prior places.

The devastation of the Jewish communities in Kovno Gubernia stirred up the large Russian “kuptses” [merchants] and manufacturers in White Russia. It was brought to the attention of the government (the Finance Minister) that the expulsion of the Lithuanian Jews brought economic hardship to the entire country. The Finance Minister turned to the Minister of War, to the highest military command (which during wartime had power over the country). The exiled Lithuanian Jews should be allowed to return to their places. But for the military clique it was not worthwhile to suspend “drums” among the dark rabble, as Jews were “traitors and spies” and therefore we suffered defeats. The intervention of the Finance Ministers did not have any effect.

The 10^th of May 1915 about 5 days after the expulsion, the Commander in Chief, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, gave the military authorities to understand that mass expulsions of Jews were no longer desired because the results could endanger the welfare of the general population. He proposed that Jews should be expelled only from one place at a time, where it was “necessary”. Therefore the despicable “benefactor” demanded that the Jews, who were allowed to return to their homes should leave hostages with the local authorities. The hostages had to be chosen from respected fellow townsmen, religious leaders or community workers who would answer with their lives for the loyalty of their entire community. If the Jews will “betray”, the “hostages” will be hung.

This “favor” from the Commander in Chief provoked a violent protest on the part of the Jewish population. The Jewish Deputy from Kovno Gubernia in the 4^th Duma, the Ponvezh lawyer Naftali Friedman, wrote the following in a letter addressed to the Prime Minister of Russia. “As a Deputy for the City of Kovno where I was expelled from, together with my Jewish brothers and sisters, I consider it my duty to report the following to his Excellency. According to the last military authority decree, the banished Jews will be allowed to return to their homes, (later it became know that the “permission” was no more than a falsely spread rumor), on the condition that Jews in every residential area will give hostages to the local authorities.

Be sure that the Lithuanian Jews will never agree to such shameful conditions that the government demands from them. They would rather continue their wandering on the highways and in the “teplushkes” [freight cars] and die from hunger rather than fulfill a demand that demeans their national and civil honor. The Jews have fulfilled their duty to the fatherland and will continue to do so. They will not be the victims of intimidation and no persecution will lead them astray.

[photograph: Naftali Friedman,1863-1921]

We Jews are considered more suspect of treason than anyone else. The condition to turn over “live hostages” to the authorities is against our national honor and we will not accept such a "favor". So it is understood by all Jewish subjects and so also by myself”.

The rumors about permits to return home lead to turmoil among the exiles and homeless in all the places where they had wandered. But soon it became clear that not only would the exiles not be able to return, but that expulsions and more expulsions of Lithuanian Jews were still taking place.

On the 10^th of May all the Jews of Tirksle were expelled in three hours and at the end of May – from Nay-Oran. At the end of July 1915 all the Jews in Maliat (Vilna Gubernia) were given 4 hours to leave and like prisoners were sent in sealed freight cars to Penza.

5. The “Yekapo” Come to Help the Unfortunate Wanderers

The railroad officials had been informed that those traveling were not refugees, only “spies”. In a lot of stations the trains were not even allowed to stop, only to continue on deeper into the interior. The railroad administration laughed at the Jews. The exiled Jews from the shtetl Pasval were barred 10 days in locked freight cars until the train reached Chernigov Gubernia. When the cars were opened, everyone had fainted. Sixteen of them were sick with scarlet fever and one with spotted typhus. The 12^th of May this “prison on wheels” arrived in Zalatanashe (Poltava Gubernia), and they were ordered to get out with their baggage onto the platform of the railroad station. But the “city fathers” refused to allow them to stay. The Jews had to get back onto the train with their bundles, in the same dark freight cars and they went back towards Kovno. Then the rumor spread among the “bezshentses” [exiles] that the exiles were allowed to return to their homes. In Novovilaysk the train was stopped, turned around and sent off its previous route. This time they were brought to Tavritchesk Gubernia.

From many places, where the Jews were exiled, protests began, as their cities were over full and they were not able to take the “exiles”. Train cars full of unfortunate Jewish families from Lithuania were sent around, there and back, from one place to another. In the middle of June 1915, two new gubernias opened for the Jews: Tambov and Penze.

The train on which the writer of these lines, along with his family, traveled was first sent to Romny (Poltava Gubernia). But the city administration did not allow us to stay. We were sent to Poltava. Also there we were not allowed to stay. Representatives of “Yekapo”, (“Yevreiski Comitet Pomoshtchi Postradowshim ot Voiny” – Jewish Committee for War Sufferers) headed by the Poltava rabbi, the famous Rabbi Akiva Rrabinovitch zts'l [may his righteous memory be blessed], met our train. They arranged for us to be able, for the first time during the journey, to get off the train and onto the station platform. There the committee distributed water and something to eat. Then we were sent to Kharkov, until finally we were able to go to Penza.

The harried and tormented Lithuanian Jews from the trains would then die on the roads of spacious Russia when the “Yekapo” could not provide food and drink at the stations.

The railroad officials often did not allow the “Yekapo” delegates to get near the trains at the stations when they would stop. Railroad detectives would feel and search the food products that the ”committees” brought to distribute, in case “secret orders” were hidden in them.

Black hundred⁷ sent by the government would travel around over the villages that lay close to the train stations and incite the ignorant peasants against the exiled Jews.

Many hooligans were placed to wait for the trains with the “Jewish Traitors” so they could throw stones into the open doors of the freight cars. There were cases when an agitated village rabble attacked a train and robbed the Jews.

In Potchep and Starodov (Chernigov Gubernia), when a number of Lithuanian Jews had been sent, the Christian population did not want to rent lodgings to the Jews, but after they arrived attacked and robbed them.

6. The Pogroms Against the Lithuanian Jews who Avoided Expulsion

The wild Don and Kuban Cossacks had special distinctions with their cruelties and barbaric anti-Semitism. The “botkes”, the Ataman of the Cossacks would become very angry with any Cossacks who paid for products in Jewish stores. The encouraged the Cossacks to steal and take everything. Military pogroms spread like a wild fire in the forest. In Kovno Gubernia during July Jewish communities suffered pogroms.

The 10^th of July 1915, when the Cossack pogromniks arrived in Subotch, the Jews left the shtetl running. But they met a band of wild Dragoons and they beat the running Jews with murderous blows and kicked them with their feet. Only several Jews, who had large sums of money, bought themselves out of the blows. The only Jewish family who remained in Subotch was locked in the local jail. The father of the family was beaten badly and tortured.

The Cossacks destroyed the shtetl Vobolnik and they violated the women and robbed. A large number of Jewish families, even the rich, had to soon depend on charity.

The 13^th of July the Cossacks carried out a dreadful pogrom in Trashkun. There was not one whole windowpane left in the Jewish houses, not one Jewish store that was not robbed. Also there the women were violated. The Jews fell at the feet of the Cossack Ataman and pleaded for him to stop the pogrom. But he coldly answered that his Cossacks will not listen to him. After the wild Cossacks had removed everything, they forced the Jews to leave Trashkun. The unfortunate Jews wandered around on the roads and through the villages and slept in the open. The peasants were sharply told that they should not allow any Jews in their houses, not show any pity for the “Zhids”.

The shtetl Vishinte, not far from Trashkun, did not escape destruction. There the Cossacks, after robbing the Jews of their belongings and goods, also set fire to the Jewish houses and left amid the smoke. Soldiers, in the company of their officers, went from house to house and doused them with kerosene and gasoline and then lit the fire. A legend has it that soldiers had lit the fire at the besmedresh twice, but it did not burn and went out. Only on the third try did the fire take and the only besmedresh in Vishinte went up in flames.

The 14^th July there was a pogrom in Aniksht by an infantry regiment detachment that arrived in the city, turning to persecute the enemy. Not only did their commandant not calm down the soldiers he captured two Jews in the street. He horribly beat one of them and after ordered a torturous beating for the second Jew, an old man of 65. When the beaten Jew refused to carry out the order and would not lift his hand against the second Jew, the Commandant ordered his soldiers to take them both away and execute them. Also, Jewish women were violated who they searched for in the cellars and attics when the women had hidden.

Outside Aniksht the Jewish miller was murdered for wanting to protect his wife and daughter.

That same 14^th of July the military pogromniks destroyed the Jewish shtetl Dobeyk. They broke into the besmedresh, broke the almemar and tore open the Holy Ark. The dragged out the Torah scrolls and ran them through with swords. They spread the cut up pieces over the floor and used them as a toilet.

In Rakishek the pogrom began on the 27^th of July. The majority of Jews had already left the shtetl, prior to this – on the advice of the local police commissar who had found out that a pogrom was in the offing. The wealthy Jews of the shtetl hid their most valuable articles (gold, silver and better utensils) in a courtyard cellar of the local priest. They also hid all the Torah scrolls there. But the Cossacks found the hiding place (indicated to them by the priest's servants), stole the valuables, violated the Torah scrolls and destroyed them.

The 23^rd of July the pogrom storm was carried out in Valnik. There the wild Dragoons caught and violated a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl.

In Shimantz the military threatened the peasants not to hide any “Zhids” in their houses. Those who ignore the prohibition, will have their houses burned as punishment.

In Vidz there remained about 65 Jewish families in a poor state. Due to their fear of the butchers, all the remaining Jews locked themselves in the school. Around three o'clock in the morning the Cossacks broke into the school, took all the men out naked and murderously beat them. The women, young and old, were violated in front of their husbands.

The famous Jewish lawyer in Russia, the late Oskar Gruzenberg wrote in his memoirs about the First World War: “The Jews were placed outside the law: killed, robbed and had false accusations made again them – for this there was no absence of punishment! A characteristic case: In the Baltic region Jewish parents turned to one of the Russian high-commanders with the direct accusation that this and that person had violated Jewish daughters. He gave them this insulting answer: “so, now all the old Jewish prostitutes throw the blame for their sins on the army!”⁸

7. The Plight of the Refugees

“…After the fall of Kovno in 1915, the entire northwestern region of Russian presented a savage picture of “blood and fire and pillars of smoke” [Joel 3:3] The Russians pressed the retreating Russian troupes. The last to retreat stopped only for short periods in order to make it possible to retreat in an orderly manner. The population carried on digging trenches. Although they were retreating, in a lot of places they still ordered everyone to leave. People took whatever was possible with them so that nothing would remain for the Germans in the way of food and housing for the winter. Therefore the Russian retreat was accompanied by burning communities, villages and even large towns.

Generally, at night the images were terrifying the sky was red everywhere. The refugees with only a few wagons, packed with bundles and various household articles were planted among the Russian military.

A lot had cattle with them and they were screaming with hunger. The entirety created a devilish music, mixed with the thunder of cannon fire, rifle shots and laments from people, mainly from children and women.

…Nobody had the faintest idea where to go and what to do. At first people thought, that they could hideout “on the side” in the marshes, fields and valleys. Therefore when both armies would have passed through, they could turn around and go back home. But this was a great mistake because even to turn a corner, where in the best of times people could not drive through or walk through, became arenas for the most stubborn battles.

…The population came off the bridge in water…and so they formed three camps, two organizations – Germans and Russians and the third for the homeless who were waiting everywhere, not knowing what to do and where to go.

…At night, although not always, people would stop in fields, meadows and forests to dig potatoes. Unfortunately then it was pouring rain. It was rare that they were under a roof. Even infants would be wet through to their bodies. Diseases began to spread, although it is worth a psychological-physical phenomenon: sick people forgot about their illness and would “with stops” not feeling the great distances, go on foot, eat everything (there should only something!)”

Among the wandering masses were Jews and non-Jews and Abramovitch said: “the air around the Jews was full of danger. Accused of “espionage” and “friendship with Germans”, the Jews were constantly persecuted. Rumors started that the Cossacks would cause the greatest torture rack for the Jews. Reality gave enough evidence of it. The Christians shunned the Jews on the road, even good acquaintances. They did this, they claimed, because if a Jew were to be found together with a Christian, they would all be “shot immediately”. It was very difficult for Jews to obtain a night's rest at a peasant's in a village. The Jews stopped separately in the fields and meadows. It must be stated that there were exceptions. Other Christians were very friendly to the Jewish refugees.”

Abramovitch brings up an interesting case that he knew about: “The Jews from the shtetl Visoki-Dvor, at the beginning of the war, sent a “humble” telegram to the Tsar about “to present a victory over the enemy”. The rabbi received, through the governor, a thank you in the form of an official paper. The rabbi framed it and hung it on the wall. Later, when officers came to the rabbi and took his lodgings, the rabbi pleaded with them not to take one of the rooms. For having such “gall”, they wanted a hard punishment for him. But when it became clear that the rabbi would deliver the room, where the governor's letter hung, the rabbi's request was granted. The Jews had not yet been for to leave Visoki-Dvor, as was first ordered”. (In any case, the Jews had to leave the shtetl quickly and the paper once more helped the Jews when they were ordered to take to the roads).

…It was a sad situation for the Jews who had already been exiled once and would be expelled a second time from the villages where they had settled. Some had brought wagons with merchandise to the neighboring villages and household goods. Running for the second time they were not able to take everything with them and they concealed merchandise and better articles in cellars or buried them. This caused some agitation: “It is being hidden for the Germans”.

…The last hours before an army leaves becomes entirely lawless and no government in the world can stop the marauding, even with the best will, especially when it concerns Jews. Without the “Jewish enemies of the fatherland” it was still a good deed to take revenge on them…”

…In a shtetl was a brick cellar. The things that the refugees were not able to take with them were thrown together. Also hidden there were Jewish souls who stayed. It was Saturday [the Sabbath]. The Germans were outside the shtetl…shooting started…The Jews wanted to have a minion [ten men that form a prayer quorum]. One went out to search for a tenth for the minion. But noticing this a Cossack found the cellar with the hidden things and with living Jews!… Aha, a gang of Jews who prepared all this to welcome the Germans. The things were quickly loaded onto military wagons and the Jews were dragged out from the cellar and taken outside the shtetl to be shot. Their hands were bound and they were already saying confession. Suddenly - – heavy assault by the enemy. The Cossacks decided not to carry out their sentence. They threw bag and baggage and ran off…the Jews thanked G_d for escaping under the hail of bullets”.

A large number of Jews from the towns who reached Vilna, wandered in the community buildings for many moths or at acquaintances and relatives, where one could not rest a head.

The Germans arrived in Vilna the 18^th of Sept, Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement, High Holy Day] 1915. Abramovitch relates that on the second day after the Germans arrived, a multitude of refugees began to run to Lukishker Square where travel passes were being given out to go back home. The tens of thousands of people could not be satisfied in a day or two. People were pushing and shoving. The newly formed militia was not able to restore order. A lot gave up hope of getting the passes and began to travel to their destroyed homes without a permit.

On the certificates that were obtained it was indicated that one must not requisition horses and the things from the homeless.

The roads were inundated with German troops who were setting off after the Russians. “The German horses were through the endless rapid marches exhausted to the last degree (for the population these were great wonders after the appearance of the well fed horses of the Russian military). On the road the Germans “”exchanged” horses with those wandering back and in return gave them carcasses, or simply took them.

“…Those killed lay on the roads and in the fields, soldiers not buried. Their appearance threw a fright into those returning home. The villages – burned, robbed. The fields trampled. Only a few potatoes remained in the fields. That year there was even an abundance of potatoes and with potatoes they lived on the way and after returning home.”

The Jews wandered past larger or smaller landowner's courts, that the owners had abandoned together with cattle and fowl stables. But returnees found whole heaps of bones. The Germans, stopping to fight the Russians, ate up everything. In the courtyards and inns, “where the houses had not been burned, there were often without windows and doors. The furniture burned”⁹

What had the Jews found in their towns? How did they feel under the difficult German occupation? A dwelling, a shelter, where to settle was easily found in the towns. The towns were so empty! Each one sought his hearth. Want seemed to endure without end. The Germans dragged people to forced labor. German commanders lay their paws on everything and for everything one needed permission. Jews struggled tooth and nail against insults. The German meant to stay and rule there. Germany wanted the friendship of the Lithuanians and Jews and proclaimed they were salvation for both of them. The German came to Lithuania with the slogan, free Lithuania, but he requisitioned everything possible in the peasant villages. In the desolate cities and towns he took everything from the Jews – down to the doorknobs. The small number of Jewish returnees lived in want and fear – so one is still in the hands of the enemy.

8. The Lithuanian Jews Away From Home

Soon after the homeless arrived, an authorized representative of the “Hevra Mfitzi Haskalah” [Society for Spreading Enlightenment] arranged a public school, a kindergarten. At the end of 1915, there was virtually no city or town that did not have a Jewish public school. In a city such as Penza (around the Volga region), previously a newly arrived Jew would immediately be taken from the station, without baggage, to jail. (Penza was outside the Jewish pale of settlement), possessed a Jewish Homeless population of twelve thousand souls with three public schools, a kindergarten, a dormitory for orphans, courses for grown-ups, teaching workshops.”¹⁰

The well known Jewish education Moshe Krol wrote: “At the beginning of the World War waves of Jewish refugees who had been expelled from their old homes on the western front, financially ruined and spiritually broken, reached the Irkutsk Province (in Siberia). There were thousands of innocent people – old, women with children – who “were suspected of espionage”. Something had to be done for these unfortunate, sick, half-crazy people. They had to be clothed, not left to die of hunger.

Their needs were so great that naturally it was impossible to send all of them away. But the Irkutsk Jews achieved more than they knew. Kitchens were organized on Irkutsk proper and on all the roads the unfortunates used to reach their destination. Medical help was organized. Warm clothes were supplied for the exiles because it was already winter and in Irkutsk Province it was very cold. The Irkutsk Jewish youth gave heart and soul to this work. The “Yekapo” Society did not stop working for a minute, to ease the suffering and need of these unfortunates who arrived in large groups”.¹¹

Also Moscow, the “Holy Church” Moscow was then a whirlpool of Jewish refugees from the entire former Russia.

The arrival of “bezshentses” [refugees] here did not meet with a hostile atmosphere among the Russians. Just the opposite, but unfortunately, the places of the Moscow “privileged” Jews, were as Jewish “merchants” of the first guild. The Jewish “gildene fone” [guild Russian; fone is Yiddish slang for Russian] in Moscow, as told to us by the writer Daniel Charny – did not have any money to spare for the Jewish “bezshentses” – so they should be sent quickly to the central provinces of the Volga region.

“…But however more Jewish refugees were successful in staying in Moscow. They had by themselves banded together in the very poorest and already more or less Jewish quarter.

The privileged Jewish residents of Moscow had already begun to fear a new Moscow expulsion, but the refugee element by then was so strong that even the Tsarist government was not able to keep them in check or regulate them. By the way, among the “bezshentses” were also people of means who were not a burden to any relief committee”.¹²

The writer of these lines turned up with his family in the city of Penza. I can tell you that thousands of Lithuanian Jews settled in a building of a former Jewish public school and in several unfinished barracks outside the city limit. All of the buildings were scarcely heated. To get meals it was necessary to go as a group somewhere far across the city to a public kitchen that the Penza “Yekapo” committee had opened.

The crowding and the dirt in the barracks drove hundreds of Jewish Lithuanian families to leave Penza and were banished to the Ural region. Some where sent even further – to Siberian cities. The Siberians, by the way, were kind to the Jewish refugees and arrangements had already been made for them by the local naturalized Jews.

Epidemics broke out in Penza among the unfortunate refugees. The difficult winter of 1915-16 had filled the new Jewish cemetery. The angel of death had reaped left and right. There was hardly a family from which death had not stolen one or more members.

Later, when a large part of the refugees had learned better Russian and found employment, the situation improved. The barracks lay empty because the refugees had, little by little, settled down and were earning – some through the state and some through commerce. They began to get together in private homes. Artisans opened workshops and took Jewish boys and girls as apprentices. Just like in the good old days in the cozy Lithuanian towns. The live of “former” homeless had stabilized and became more normal. Besides the material improvement, there was also an large improvement in the cultural and community domain. Like mushrooms after a rain, clubs were founded, mainly among the Zionist groups – from left and right. Libraries, reading halls, dramatic circles were opened. Couples got married. But, they still felt under pressure, although they had begun to forget a bit the wandering and trouble that they had gone through. They only waited for a time when peace would come.

9. The February Revolution of 1917

On Jewish streets, old conflicts were renewed and debates started among the various revived parties and between their leaders. It reawakened past party ambitions and party passions. “For Jewish culture and community activists, as well as for most former party leaders was the new prospect of a future Jewish national autonomy that was the new ideal of the public intellectuals. People were simply drunk with the possibility of being able to freely move around over all of Russia and carry culture to the Jewish masses from one corner of Russia to the next.

“Also for Lithuanian Jews in the cities around the Volga the prospect of better times opened. People started to bake and sell Jewish challahs [a braided egg loaf eaten on the Sabbath] and kitkes [twisted loaves]. They began frying Lithuanian Jewish teyglakh [little pieces of hard dough cooked in honey, ginger and nuts] and monelach [poppy seed cake]. They started stuffing fish and blessing the candles, celebrating circumcisions and to propose Jewish cemeteries, made minions, opened Jewish libraries, to bless the new moon and to celebrate tashlikh¹³ on the banks of “mother Volga”.¹⁴

All of this happened during the so-called honeymoon of the February Revolution. But as fate would have it this joyous atmosphere would not last long. Quickly new men filled the air, complaints from the exhausted, hungry masses demanding their due bread and peace. The slogan appealed to millions of soldiers and civilians weary of the war. The Kerenski régime was cunning throughout the hot and bloody struggle with the Bolsheviks, during the “ten days that shook the world”. The new Bolshevik régime “made real” the promised peace through the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

A large part of the homeless Jews in Russia suffered through the entire horror of the civil war years 1918, 1919 and 1920. Many were killed in the epidemics that broke out in the difficult and cold winter of 1919. Hunger ruled over the country. A lot of Jews were killed by the sword of various White Guard gangs operating against “Jewish Bolshevism” in the heavily Jewish populated Jewish southern Russia. A significant number of Lithuanian Jews were located there.

10. The Return Home (Return to Lithuania)

The 12^th of July 1920 peace between the Lithuanian republic and the Soviet government was concluded. A clause in the peace accord was (due to the intervention of the Jewish National Council in Lithuania) that the Soviet government was obligated to transport all those who stated they were citizens of the Lithuanian republic and reported ready to return to their old residences, to the Lithuanian border at Soviet expense.

In August 1920, long trains left with Lithuanian Jews on their way back to their old, new homeland, Lithuania. Long before this, a lot of Lithuanian Jews, by various means, had already reached Lithuania. But these were only individuals who set off in G_d's care, on their own and some illegally. It happened that some were caught at the border and they were sent back into exile.

A part of the generation that grew up during the war and revolution years remained in the U.S.S.R. Other Lithuanian Jews had settled down in Russia and were afraid to leave, to wander anew, in order to return to destroyed and ravaged towns, overgrown with grass. Still, a lot longed for their own house and garden and old, cozy lifestyle. The thought of traveling in a democratic Lithuania brought joy and courage to the refugees. They would help to build a Jewish national autonomy.

A hundred thousand Lithuanian Jews returned from the Soviet Union. Together with the Jews who were already in independent Lithuania, there was a community of a hundred sixty thousand Jews.

Baltimore, December, 1941

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