As soon as the news about the approaching refugees was heard, the community's activists and workers organized a board for helping them (Alexander Frishberg, Dr. Arye Landsberg, Yitskhak Polturk, Mrs. Perlmuter, and others), and young people from among the refugees had joined them. The main concern was feeding the people, even before their arrival in town. The board appealed to the "Red Cross", and they sent field-kitchens to the forests where the refugees were roaming. And the provisions were handed to the board that saw to give the kosher food. From Radzivilov alone came about 3000 refugees, and with those from the other towns the numbers swelled to about 5000 people. At the same time the need for shelter was being taken care of. As soon as the refugees started to arrive in town they were placed in the assorted buildings of the community's institutions and in private homes, with relatives, and others. The "Talmud-Torah" building that previously was used as the Russian army's horse-stables, and was a semi-ruin by now, was the main shelter. It was very crowded, 10 persons in a windowless, doorless room. The buildings of the Christian Seminary easily could have housed most of the refugees, but they stayed empty, not offered for them. It was allowed, though, to set up the "Red Cross" kitchen in its spacious yard.

Some tens of the city's youth, mainly from the Zionist movements, organized in a group to help the refugees, for some reason calling itself a "market-statistics council", at its head stood the young and enthusiastic Bozya Landsberg. In reality, this council was the one that took on the responsibility of caring for the refugees, developed an active and widespread activity in many fields, and thanks to their devotion, a physical and emotional degeneration was avoided. First thing to be done was a detailed registration of the refugees, according to "Red-Cross" regulations (from this came the name of the council). They organized real market help, seeing to identity documents and such. Financing for the assistance came from three large organizations that worked in this field at that time in Russia: the "Red-Cross", the "united councils of cities", and the "united zemstvos". An oversight board, made up of representatives from the three organizations was formed, and the youth council worked with them as their implementing group.

[Translator's Note: Zemstvos refers to an elective council responsible for the local administration of a provincial district in czarist Russia]

The Youth Committee for Helping the Refugees, 1916

Because of the general situation in the city, it was not possible to provide jobs for the refugees, so some of them moved, eventually, to other places in Ukraine and Russia, but the majority stayed in our city and were in need of public support and care for a long period.

A special branch of the young council took care that education would be given to the children of the refugees. Temporary schools were formed, where some of those young volunteers served as teachers. Eventually those temporary institutions became permanent regular schools, where the town's children together with refugees' children were educated. Much effort, enthusiasm, and endless devotion were invested in this generous and blessed project. Thousands were saved from starvation. Many of the young people, who with the fervor of youth were carried away with this work, found in it the way to the masses of the nation. Later some of them were good social workers, educators and public functionaries.



[Page 63]

Is that believable? Finally, even us, the Jews, would not be singled out for discrimination, but we would be citizens with equal rights as the rest of Russia's nations. Joy and merriment! Every face is radiant. The masses are streaming to the Great Synagogue for a public meeting. Young members of the freedom movement are coming out with exciting speeches. The gathering thousands decide to elect a Jewish community board, and on the spot the young people elect young Fritz Aydis as head of the community. Later it was seen that this was a hasty move… the era demanded injecting young blood into the community's life. After some time a community board of representatives from the different political factions was elected, and I was chosen as the board's secretary. The members worked on a voluntary basis, each willingly donating his time and efforts on behalf of the Jewish community in our town.

Until that time, the authorities appointed the members of the city council, and under the Czarist regime the council included Christians, and one Jew only. This was M.D. Shumski. As it happen, the city fathers never considered the needs of the Jewish community, and more than once Mr. Shumski had to take on the battle single-handed. Though he fought his war with wisdom and dedication, he never succeeded. Jews were about 40%of the thirty thousand citizens of our town. We decided then, to bring about a drastic change in the ratio of powers and representation in the city's council. When a new election law for city council was announced, we started with a fierce campaign, and successfully elected a city council with 50% of its members Jewish, elected from different circles and factions. These were M.D. Shumski, Avraham Verthaym, Meir Goldring, Moshe Aydis, M. Sturozh, Konya Segal, Sh. Fingerhut, Krozman, and this writer.

After the election for a new city mayor, the city council and its assorted committees, we set a goal for ourselves: to improve, as soon as possible, the poor condition of our public institutions like the hospital, the old-age home, "Talmud Tora", etc. The city offices that had not employed Jewish clerks previously – in spite of the fact that about 75% of the levied taxes came from Jewish residents – now employed quite a few. Availability of supplies for the population was very poor; these were days of shortage and scarcity in flour, sugar, salt, fuel, soap, etc. At one of the city council meetings, it was decided to establish a department of supplies, with Meir Goldring at its head, and me as his assistant. After many negotiations and much travel to the county seat of Zhitomir, we managed to acquire essential consumer goods. City stores were opened where supplies were distributed according to ration cards. Slowly, every day matters were brought up to acceptable levels, but then the political situation worsened and with it economic conditions. A separatism movement started in Ukraine, and thanks to encouragement from the Germans, it yielded fruit in a short time. Ukraine declared itself as an independent country, Skoropedski was declared as the head of free Ukraine.


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This, a regime of "fist and whip" policy, was felt most among the Jews. A time of beatings and arrests of the progressive members in city councils and public institutions had started. In our town, arrested and jailed were Bozya Landsberg, Fritz Aydis, the Ukrainian socialist Koval, Tsiperfin the wretch (the poor man was so depressed by his arrest, that he died shortly after his release) and I. Meir Goldring managed to escape from arrest at the last moment. We were kept in jail without investigation or trial for 99 days until our release. A few days before that, we had declared a hunger strike and demanded that each of us be given a notice of charges. This was denied and instead, the warden in charge, a veteran clerk from the Czarist days, came to our cell (we were all incarcerated in the same cell), and addressed us so:

– Gentlemen, please stop this hunger strike, tell me what you want for the evening meal and I will order immediately that a samovar should be heated for you, and I'll send someone to buy fresh sausage and white bread. This jailhouse is the best place for you; if you were free now, who knows how many of you would have been alive by now… Indeed, his words were almost true; waves of rioters ran rampaging against the Jews all over Ukraine. But we did not stop our hunger strike until the next day, after we received a secret note from a young Jew, not to worry, that on the next day he will be coming at the head of a detachment from Petliura's army, and will free the city. And so it was. The young man came riding on a white horse, conquered the town and sent his soldiers to release us. When the gate opened and we saw who were the ones to release us, we preferred to stay in our jail cell; so terrible did our saviors seem to us. Eventually we left the jail and dispersed, each to his home.

We hardly spent a few days at home and a new trouble came: the Petliurans were chased away and new rulers arrived, more correctly: chaos reigned and no rule. The Bolsheviks came, stayed a few days in town, "purified" the bourgeois a little, and went away. Rumors spread that the Polish armies were nearing the city, but until they did our town suffered few hours of horror.

The farmers from Shumsk and the nearby villages found out that the city of Kremenets was left abandoned, without anyone in charge, and they decided to "take the law in their own hands". The gang arrived in town with sacks on their backs, because their leaders had promised them that they would be given permission to ransack and loot the Jewish settlement to their heart's desire. Visotski, who previously was an officer in the Czarist army, who was in town at that time, saved the community from a total pogrom. He succeeded in approaching the Polish army's posts and getting them to hasten their entrance to the city. At their arrival the Shumsk gang escaped with their lives. This reign, too, was short-lived; The Poles retreated under pressure from Marshal Budyoni's troops. Again the authorities changed and our city went from hand to hand, until the Bolshevist army retreated from the Warsaw's vicinity, and the Poles recaptured our town and ruled it until September of 1939.

Many hardships were visited on Kremenets in the years 1917-1918, but the town's Jewish representatives stood guard in the interests of its citizens, in spite all the vagaries of the time.



[Page 65]

This activity focused on three aspects:

1. Preparedness for immigration to Israel,
2. Cultural activities,
3. Attainment of equal-rights for Jews in law and in practice.

Five representatives of the Jewish community of Kremenets were elected to Kremenets' city council, headed by the liberal and likeable Judge Pokrovski. For the first time, the Jewish community got organized in a framework of intrinsic national autonomy, which kept a constant link with the Center for Jewish communities in Petrograd.

Te excitement and elation lasted just a few months; all our achievements in the life of the country's renewal and the local authorities, were large and important – and then heavy blows landed on our heads, from the national movement under the leadership of Petliura. The situation worsened with the disintegration of the Russian army. Every day Ukrainian and Russian deserters showed up in town, extorting, robbing, and terrorizing. How could the police use weapons against hungry and embittered soldiers? The atmosphere was permeated with dread and horror, particularly in the Jewish section. In one of the alleys a young Jew was killed after refusing to take off his shoes and hand them over to an extorting deserter.

It is hard to bring up memories from our youth; it seems that our feelings are similar to those of an amputee who feels a pain in an amputated foot …

[Editor's Note: The Polish government era, 1920-1939, is covered extensively in the next sections: "Public Life", "Education and Culture", and "Zionism and Immigration".]

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