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The Conspiratorial Activities of the Bund

Because of the newly developed situation, the organization was compelled to provide a secret apartment. One of the Bundists–Meir Vica–had rented a dwelling, a room with a kitchen, on a roof from the homeowner Mendel Liverant. The house was located on Pzhechadniya Street, across from the police station. Furthermore, the house had a second advantage: the courtyard cut through to another street, Pienkne Street. They figured that in case of a search, people could escape through the back street. In order not to attract the attention of the neighbors, they brought into the dwelling a few poor furnishings, like the furniture of a new tenant, and in front they put a sign for a book bindery–Meir Vica's profession.

In this apartment, the leadership of the Bund met to arrange the organizational work. Most of the members of the Bund had no knowledge of the existence of this secret apartment, in which the activists gathered late at night. There was an agreed–upon way to knock on the door. Before the door would be opened, one had to say the password.

The Bundists had to consider the question of their proclamations and literature. They decided to use hectography for their announcements. The assignment was given to three members of the Bund: Zalmen Burshteyn (Fritzl), Yakov Liverant, and the already mentioned Ratinyevitsch. They worked in the stamping factory of Yakov Lerner. When Lerner was occupied in the city, the three journeymen prepared a hectograph and carefully took it to the secret apartment. There they copied proclamations that were distributed among the workers. The proclamations clarified the crushing economic conditions of the workers, their lack of political rights, and their lost freedom. The workers were called on to struggle under the banner of the Bund. The hectograph was fully in use, since they published not only leaflets but also brochures that were bound in oilcloth

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covers and passed from hand to hand. The workers would devour this material thirstily. They believed that this propaganda material came from Warsaw.

A characteristic story involves the party member Yakov Liverant, who was called “Pentak.” He was the custodian of the party's literature, which he hid in a recess in his parents' home. On the first of May there was an alarm in the city that the police were conducting searches. Liverant's father, knowing that in the recess there was illegal Bundist literature, took it out and burned it. Shortly thereafter, Liverant went to find the published material, for which he had risked his life, but he found nothing. He went angrily to his father in the smoking room and demanded the material. His father told him that for his sake, and for the sake of the whole organization, he had destroyed the material. Pentak did not want to hear this, stood his ground and again demanded the literature. Then he invoked “sanctions” against his father: he stood in the shop and interfered with business. When a customer came to buy cigarettes, he would denigrate the product. The conclusion was thus: Moyshe Yehoshua Liverant went to the Bund and pleaded with them to intercede with his son. The organization's judgment was that he should pay a fine, which he paid to the Bund out of shame.

In Y. Lerner's stamping factory they also secretly made the party stamp, which was a globe with the words “General Jewish Bund of Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, Siedlce.” In the center of the stamp–two hands giving shalom Aleichem–the symbol of unity.

The organization continued to grow, so that Mendel Liverant's room was too small. People could not go to the “People's Tearoom” because of police tricks, so the organization created an “exchange.” The organization was divided into groups of five to ten members. At appointed times–particularly Shabbos afternoon–people went out into the street, into Warsaw Street–the section

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from the hospital to the military square. There the members of the Bund gathered. They walked here and there. Literature was distributed there and the organizer of the group would enlighten the members about the status of the worker class and its duty to fight for a better life. These walks ended with the posing of questions, which the agitator tried to answer. Some of the agitators had the great confidence of the members, and what they said was taken as the ultimate truth. Such agitation finally gave rise to the first strike in the city.

As a result of socialist propaganda, whether from the Bund or from the P.P.S., intense relations developed between the owners and the workers, merchants and employees. In addition, the maidservants were taken up by the agitation that had promised to free the working men from a foreign yoke.

There was a heavy influx to the Bund from the building trades, among which was also the carpentry trade. Among the Bund activists were two carpentry workers–Meirl and Liess. Also Avraham Yablom, the founder of the Bund in Siedlce, was a carpenter, and although he worked in Warsaw, he had great authority in Siedlce. He would often visit his home town and locate among his fellow tradesmen zealous and spiritual Chasidim, such as: Itsche “Kepl” (Gelbard), the sons of Chevel (Glazman), Alter Shmuel Yoseles (Yablon), Avraham's cousin), Yishayahu Brenovitski, Leibush “Kop”, Leibl “Kozeh” (Sheynboym), Yankel Marcusfeld, Dovid Tchutchikel,(Maltchinski) and Alter Malach (Zilberboym). Carpenters active in the Bund were: Noah Skolker, Chaim Mordechai Stankevitsch, Mattis, and others.

The workers' experiences among the building trades were the same as among the shoemakers: they worked for eighteen hours a day. On Thursdays and the days before holidays they worked the whole night, and in wintry conditions. When Shabbos was over they immediately after havdalah went back to work. The situation was such that the carpenters were the first to go on strike.

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Organized and methodical were the preparations for the strike. The organization had planned meetings of ten to fifteen people at which the significance of the strike was explained. Then it was put to a vote. Almost everyone favored the strike. The last meeting, which was held on the second day of Pesach, was conducted in the same way as all the others: passwords and patrols from the city along the way to the meeting–in the hall of the “Piaskes,” on Lukaver Way. There all the workers from the carpentry trades, after speeches from the leaders, unanimously voted to declare a strike of all the carpentry workers in Siedlce.

During chol ha–moed, the workers used to come to the bosses to figure out the prospects for the whole season and to discuss work for the coming season. This time, the carpentry workers gave no clear answer to the bosses about further work. In the city people had already talked about the coming strike and soon after Pesach the bosses of those trades received the following demands: 1) a twelve–hour workday; 2) an hour and a half for lunch and an half hour for breakfast ; 3) work from hour to hour; 4) better conditions. These demands, topped by the Bund's stamp, ended with a comment that no worker would show up for work if the demands were not subscribed to. And there were separate demands for the apprentices: not being required to do housework, not to be insulted, learning the trade, and others.

At first the bosses belittled the whole thing: “Do I know what's going on? Those guys are being foolish, sending summonses, threatening with ‘srikes’ [sic]. Who asked them?” The bosses agreed that none should submit to the demands. But the season was looming, and the workshops stood empty. Some of the bosses dealt with the leaders of the organization and accepted the demands. For others, the strike went on. There was a bloody battle with some tough guys from the trade who were strikebreakers, but their strength did not help. The first strike

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of Siedlce's workers ended in victory. It was hard for the bosses to get used to the idea that the workers could have an opinion about the workshops. After the strike, there were still conflicts and fights. For calling out at work, “Lunch, comrade,” a carpentry boss threw a plane [woodworking tool] at the worker Yehoshua Hablen and broke his nose. The workers made a judgment against him and he was forced to pay a fine to the organization. Hablen ended up with a crooked nose, of which he was as proud as he would have been of a war wound.

The successful strike of the carpenters greatly increased the prestige of the organization. It attracted sympathizers and adherents. It was already too crowded in the secret apartment of the Bund. The overflow went out to the street, from the hospital corner to the military square. The agitators came there and explained to the workers their economic and political situation.

The agitation worked. There were new strikes. The painters went on strike. Because that trade included Poles, the strike was led by the P.P.S. and the Bund. After the painters, the leather and needle workers went on strike. The strikes ended with victory for the workers. In Siedlce people began to work a 12–hour day with a break for lunch. Also, earnings went up. The Bundist organization became prominent in the city. But the czarist secret police also became interested.

It did not last long, The government followed the clues to the “conspiratorial apartment” of the Bund. This came a short time after the carpenter's strike in the spring of 1903. In the middle of the night, the gendarmes came, led by Ratmistzh Bialapoldski, with police led by the police chief Shedever, and secretly entered the dwelling and conducted a thorough search.

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The czarist police dismantled the floor and there found the whole archive, which consisted of illegal literature and a hectograph. The owners of the house, the “master bookbinder” Meirl Liebfreund” with his “apprentice” Tuviehleh Kagan, were arrested and taken to the well–known Siedlce prison.

After the first political arrests cam more arrests. In the course of a single week, these members of the Bund were arrested: Yankel the “Bubbe's” (Ratiinievitsch), Max (Shoyme Stolovey), Moyshe Liess, and the “Langer Kiveh.” At Moyshe Liess' place they found illegal literature. The hiding place of the literature was revealed by an informer. After being confined for a year, Moyshe Liess was released. He arrived home sick with the final stages of tuberculosis, and he died shortly after. His death called forth a great outpouring in the city. All the parties took part in the funeral. The comrades honored his parents' request that there not be songs nor speeches. Everyone expressed his honor for the deceased in a different way: when the wagon arrived, the comrades unharnessed the horses and themselves pulled the wagon to the cemetery. At the grave, delegates from each party laid garlands of flowers.

The Siedlce prison where the political prisoners were confined had a reputation in the criminal world. At that time, on the eve of the Revolution of 1905, there was a special section for political criminals. Thirty–some persons were imprisoned there, including well–known political prisoners from Russia. Even Dzherzhinsky, who later led the G.P.O. [known in the West as OGPU] is supposed to have been confined there. The regime there was easy. The political prisoners enjoyed privileges. Those from the intelligentsia gave talks to the general population and created new activists. Those who left the prison were educated.

The arrests of the real Bundist leaders in Siedlce did not hinder the movement. Instead it soon called forth new strong leaders: Esther Mastboym, the sister of the writer Yoel Mastboym, Itshele Stalav (a stamp worker), Yehudit Liverant (a milliner),

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Herschel Liverant (a baker), Yehoshua Shpiegelman (an upholsterer), and Yisroell Chrushtshel.

Thus the movement grew, and so it needed a leader. The Warsaw committee of the Bund sent to Siedlce a representative named Boris. Boris, a tailor, settled in Siedlce and became the leader of the Jewish workers. He was a type of everyday person who became prominent at that time, with little education but with an extraordinary understanding of political matters. He led the larger and smaller meetings of the party. Belonging to the political circle that formed in Siedlce were: “Kostek” (Chaim Shleiffer), Goldenberg, “Max” (Mordechai Yedvob, a locksmith), “Yntchek” (Avraham Vaynapple, a painter), Bobek (Moyshe Dovid Grossman, a tailor), Chaim Zishele (Ratinovitsch), Matisyahu Shlifki (carpenter), Ruzhke Srevrenik (seamstress), Reizele Friedman, Freida Zhelekhovska,(sewer), tall Rivkeh dark Yehudit (Felicia), the “Skinny Shaya” (Khrenovitzki, a carpenter), and old “Malach” (Zigelboym).

The political circles met in the private dwellings of the Bundists. The larger assemblies gathered in a field outside the city or in Alter Bultz's orchard. Alter Bultz was an older man, a tailor with a long, old–fashioned beard. In winter he worked as a tailor and in summer he kept an orchard, and consequently he was always in need. He was one of the truest and most devoted comrades of the Bund. He did all the party's errands and considered himself the sexton of the Bund. When there were gatherings of the Bund in his orchard, he stood on guard, and if he heard something, he bade everyone to get away quietly. He alone would stand by the exit to the orchard and not run away.

In the winter of 1904, larger meetings were held openly in the synagogue or the beis–medresh. The workers would take over the houses of prayer and hold their meeting. Often fights would break out with those who were praying or with the gabbais, who did not want to give in to those meetings.

Aside from the already mentioned workers who directed

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the activities of the organization, there were also in Siedlce so–called “cabinet–socialists,” intelligent sympathizers who supported the Bund with money and organized the “red cross” (a committee to help political detainees). Among these sympathizers, a special place was held by an esteemed bookkeeper who was employed by the wealthy firm “S.B. Mintz.” This bookkeeper had gathered around himself a circle of sympathizers and adherents of the Jewish–Socialist movement. These intelligent, middle–class young people in capes, most of them bookkeepers wearing pince–nez on their noses, made quite an impression on the city. It is appropriate to give their names: Yankele “Diplomat” Goldshtern was an assistant bookkeeper at the Mintz firm; Avraham Ziglvachs, an employee at a manufacturing business. He came to Siedlce from Lublin. To this group also belonged the “B'nei Slushneh”–Meir Alter's and Meir Avrahaml's, who was a perpetual student. Meir Alter's was a singer, an amateur, and had a bicycle shop that employed Polish workers. Because of his Polish workers, in addition to the Bund, he sympathized with the P.P.S and wrote documents for the Jewish P.P.S.

By the first of May in 1904, Siedlce had a broadly developed workers' movement with different parties and directions that had already aped in the city. The Zionists had also assumed a visible position. Siedlce had become “a city with a name.” All the parties sent speakers and agitators: Zionists who spoke Hebrew and Bundists who wore shirts with tassels. At the Bundist center every day was lively. People conducted heated discussions on various issues and agreed to celebrate the first of May with a demonstration.

The police heard about these plans and arrested the leader Damanski with his son and his assistant Stempinski; from the Bund–George and Fritzl “Pentak.” Despite this repression, the parties were not stopped from celebrating the first of May with a demonstration.

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The First of May Demonstration and the Bloody Gathering in the Woods

On the first of May, early in the morning, groups of workers appeared in different streets with red markers in their lapels. They ordered the shopkeepers to close their stores, for their own sakes. The shopkeepers understood what was meant and shut up shop. In the workshops, too, people put aside their work. In the streets, military patrols soon appeared with rifles and bayonets. The military ordered the stores to reopen. At noon the street became silent. The military patrols left. The party organizers took advantage and at that moment brought everyone out. Soon Warsaw Street was filled with a world of colorful workers. Red flags flew, and the street was filled with workers' songs and slogans. First came the P.P.S., which was made up of workers, peasants, Jewish youth from Chasidic homes, and the slaughterhouse workers. The procession went through a number of streets. It was the first time Siedlce had seen such a strange picture. The cavalry showed up and with drawn swords dispersed the demonstration. There were no deaths. The effect on the city was extraordinary.

In the summer of 1904, the Bund declared a “May walk” in the historical Igon Woods. The Bundists secretly gathered in the woods, where, in 1831, the Polish rebels had fought the czarist army. For the simple workers, there was called a May walk. When everyone had gathered, Avraham Yablon declared that they had come together to consider the difficult workers' situation and the remedies that should be adopted in order to better the lives of the proletariat. Later, a “Litvak” spoke about the political situation in relation to the Russian–Japanese War.

Two soldiers who happened to be passing near the woods noticed the gathering and notified the authorities. It was not long before the organization's “patrols” notified the people that

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the dragoons were on the way. (Dragoons were a special unit of the czarist cavalry.) The dragoons surrounded the woods, as strategy dictated.

At first there was panic among those gathered there, but soon Yablon quieted them down, calling on them to search their pockets to be sure they had nothing suspect and then to remain quiet while awaiting the enemy. The foreign agitator fled through side paths, while the mass of people waited peacefully for the outcome. The army approached. The commander of the cavalry, Kosakov, approached the group with a drawn revolver, drawing forth curses and cries. One bold woman went up to the officer and announced that this was not a political gathering but just a May celebration. The officer seemed to quiet down and ordered the cavalry to encircle the crowd with a chain, but soon came the following orders: “Swords out! Strike them on the head.” There was terrible chaos. If one could run away, one did. But they were surrounded by the horsemen, who struck their victims with their swords, accompanied by Russian curses.

Then the city's police chief, Shedever, arrived with a company of policemen. A large group of the assembled, including the injured, were seized. Under a double cordon of police and cavalry, the arrested were led to the prison–the wounded to the prison hospital. At the prison gate, the arrested were beaten mercilessly. Before the arrested were brought to the prison, an alarm went through the city that all those in the forest had been seized, so thousands of Siedlce's Jews gathered at the prison, desiring to see the prisoners.

On the same day, a long table was placed in the prison yard, around which were seated: the gendarme's legal advisor V. Bilitsh, Vice–Governor Voikov, Prosecutor Skariatin, Police Chief Shedever, who was known in the city as “Avrahamkele Goy,” the city doctor Savitzky, the city surgeon Dovid Schwartz, and the dozor Avraham Kaminski. Around them loitered secret agents and police. Each of the prisoners was summoned

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to the table and examined. All of them gave the same answer about the gathering: “It was not a political meeting, only a May celebration.” Dozor Kaminski stated that everyone from Siedlce should immediately be free to leave. But the outsiders, from the surrounding towns, those without proper documents, were held. The wounded were taken to the hospital.

The following were victims of the military ambush of the gathering: 1) “Yellow Stellman”–a young man from Lukow, who received a sword cut on the palm of his hand;2) Grishke Ish–a student from the government gymnasium, who received a severe wound from a sword on his neck and that reached his tongue. The best Siedlce doctors treated him with utmost care. Finally they were able to save him; 3) A young woman's ear was severed; 40 Golde Ette Sima's, a young party member, was stomped by a horse and wounded on her head and chest. For years after that she was ill and then died of cancer. Aside from the sword wounds, there were scores of lesser wounds. All received medical treatment at the Jewish hospital.

The events in the Igon Woods upset the whole Jewish population of Siedlce. The brutalities of the czarist government created sympathy for the revolutionaries. Respectable Jews helped the wounded. People gathered funds and equipment for them. Good–hearted wealthy women visited the hospital and brought gifts. The following people took special care of the wounded: the hospital director, Yitzchak Nachum Vaintroyb; the adjutant Dr. M Shteyn; his assistant, the student Abramovitsh; and the surgeon Aaron Gron.

In the city, the esteem of the Bundist organization grew stronger. People began to reckon with them at all levels. The strikers from different crafts took strength

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from the party and people began to respect them. The party organization became the deciding factor in all community and private disputes. In addition, the czarist government began to take the organization into account as a strong factor. They began to “look through their fingers” at their activities and to avoid provoking the masses. The organization became a second government in the city. People came to them with accusations of injustices, thefts, and different personal quarrels. The party conducted courts, recovered stolen goods, and even reconciled quarrelling husbands and wives.

People from nearby towns often came to the Siedlce Bund, asking them to intervene in private disputes. The comrades guarded their organization's reputation and did not allow the Bund to be involved with private matters. In the summer of 1905, people began to speak forcefully about a pogrom against Jews that was being prepared by the “Katzapes” [the Russians]. In Siedlce, self–defense measures were taken by different factions working together. People said that the self–defense brought together cold people and hot weapons, such as: switch–blade–knives, brass knuckles, clubs with “wire–souls,” and so on.

Early one morning in the summer of 1904, a delegation came to Siedlce from the shtetls of Partchev and said that in the shtetl a demonstration was being prepared, to which all the peasants from the surrounding towns would come. They were expecting a pogrom. A group of comrades from the self–defense group decided that they were prepared to travel to Partchev in order to protect the Jews from a pogrom. Also Jewish members of the P.P.S. declared their readiness to defend the Jews in small towns.

The Siedlce self–defense group arrived in the shtetl. Everyone flocked around at news that these new guests had arrived. These defenders were accommodated behind the village with the horse dealers. The young men could not understand how they came to be with the horse dealers, but on the next day the matter became clear.

A lawyer lived in the shtetl–Adler. He invited the young men and began to talk with them. The lawyer indicated his satisfaction that these

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young men were prepared to protect Jewish honor and life. “But in Partchev there is no danger of a pogrom, because the peasants in the surrounding villages live at peace with the Jews”–so Adler explained to the defenders. From his continuing speech it was clear that they were involved in a dispute that had broken out between the horse dealers and the peasants. The dealers had acquired horses in an unkosher way from the peasants, who wanted to get even with these “merchants.” The lawyer advised that they not get mixed up in such an affair, because it could bring no honor and the Jews would reap trouble.

The defenders returned to Siedlce. There was an uproar in the organization over the matter. They initiated an investigation into who had led the defenders into such dangerous territory. It appeared that this bit of work had been led by a son of a horse dealer, a member of the organization. He was quickly expelled from the party. Some wanted also to reckon with the horse dealers, but the party preferred to avoid a fight.

The battle that the organization waged against the underworld took on a more serious character. At that time, in all the larger worker centers, a battle began between the organized workers and the underworld (procurers, thieves, etc.).

Siedlce also had an underworld gang. There was no lack there of brothels and procurers with “brides.” From time to time would come travelling gamblers and housebreakers from the Minsk area (Novominsk). The organized workers, like warriors for the right, saw in the underworld activities a huge transgression against humanity and massed to get rid of this social filth.

In Siedlce, the war against the underworld began in the following conditions:

In the town there were preparations for a Catholic celebration to lay the foundation stone for a new church. Noblemen and rich peasants from the area came; so, too, did thieves and housebreakers from Minsk. The organization knew of this matter and undertook a battle with the underworld.

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A certain Yossele “the Prince,” who had picked the pocket of a nobleman, was detained by the organized workers. A fight ensued, and Yossele was so battered that he had to be hospitalized.

After this victory over the underworld hero, the workers went after the secret brothels, expelled the women, and destroyed the houses. There was a brothel in Siedlce that was called “Moscow House.” It got this name because the owner was a retired soldier. His house, which existed legally, served the officers of the local garrison. The workers left this house going up in smoke.

In Siedlce itself, the underworld gang was too weak to fight with the workers, but the punks sought vengeance against the Siedlce workers, who came into the little shtetls. A Siedlce craftsman could not be sure about his life. The Siedlce organization, for its part, sought vengeance against the merchants from the small shtetls, who had to come into the government city. The streets were watched by the workers, and the merchants were not allowed into the city. Finally a delegation from the little shtetls came to the Siedlce organization and they came to an agreement.

The organized workers also tried to reform members of the underworld and set them on a virtuous path. Women workers struck up acquaintanceships with prostitutes and tried to convince them to leave their filthy way of life. They offered them more moral work. Some of the underworld figures threw off their ugly occupations and became adherents of the “do–gooders,” as the punks called the organized workers. The battle between the workers and the underworld took on a whole new complexion at the time of the strike in the mechanized shoe factory of the Seber brothers, which was called “Koshetzes.”

“Koshetzes” is what people in Siedlce called a certain category of market merchant who were considered worthless. They knew how to curse, insult, and hit you over the head. (The nickname “Koshetz” actually comes from the Polish word “Kosh,” a basket that one stands with in the market.) The Seber brothers had a mechanical

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shoe factory which employed a couple score workers. People in the Bund had long discussed whether there should be a strike in this factory. They were simply afraid of the consequences, knowing the brutal recklessness of the Koshetzes. Finally the party leaders decided, and they sent demands to the Seber brothers–owners of the mechanized shoe factory. The shoe manufacturers responded to the demands with vulgar threats. The organization decided to get into it with the “Koshetzes.”

They had let the Warsaw section of the Bund know that one of the Seber brothers was travelling to Warsaw on business. The Warsaw workers met the shoe manufacturer and executed a sentence on him. The “Koshetzes” in Siedlce therefore decided to break up the workers. They went out into the street and happened upon two leaders of the Bund, “Kostek” (Chaim Goldenberg) and Fritzl (Zalmen Burshteyn) and attacked them murderously. Fritzl was taken to the workers' headquarters with a bloody head. Kostek managed to escape. To help the Siedlce Bund, comrades from Kalushin arrived. A great battle ensued. The Koshetzes saw that they were dealing with a much stronger force. They entered into negotiation with the organization of the Bund and they came to terms. The Seber brothers accepted the demands and the war with the underworld came to a halt.

In the eyes of the populace, the organization had done a lot. The battle with the underworld, the clearing out of theft, robbery, and prostitution strongly improved the image of the workers' movement, which gained many followers. The Bund and the P.P.S. became bolder in their actions and revolutionized Siedlce.

The revolutionary year 1905 entirely changed the character of the workers' movement in Siedlce. On the ninth of January (the twenty–second, according to the European calendar) in Petersburg, under

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the leadership of the priest Gapon, who later appeared to be a provacateur in Petersburg, a demonstration was held with holy pictures [icons] to the Czar's Winter Palace. Their slogans were very tame–“Work and bread” for the great number of unemployed who lived in the czarist capital.

The demonstration was met with a fusillade from rifles and guns and ended with hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded. This bloodbath that the czarist rulers caused among the workers, called forth in all of Russia a powerful revolutionary wave. The workers' movement in Siedlce was also moved to take action against the czarist government. The battle group of the P.P.S. (“Boyavka”), on the advice of its central committee and on the vote of its local organization, undertook to commit assassinations against czarist operatives.

The first assassination, an unsuccessful one, happened just before Shabbos, in May, 1905. The already mentioned Mendel Radzinski and Michael Agresboym “Chasid” attacked an officer near Prezeh's Orchard. The victim escaped with a slight wound to his hand, but the attackers were captured. “Chasid” was sent to Siberia and was killed there. After this unsuccessful attack there was a whole series of assassinations of gendarmes and police leaders. In the center of the city, on what was then known as Warsaw Street, a gendarme was killed by several revolver shots. At the same time, May 23, 1905, near the city club, a bomb was thrown at the aforementioned police chief Shedever. He was lightly wounded. Unlike the first attack, when Radzinski and Agresboym were captured immediately, in subsequent assassinations there was no evidence that Jews were involved.

Quiet reigned for a short time. One Shabbos night in November of 1905, a czarist policeman was shot.

There was another half year of relative quiet, and then on May 30, 1906, the city was shocked by an attack which was simultaneously conducted against

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President Morovitsch, Council Member Chveshtshenko, and Police Secretary Moravski. They were set upon by several unknown persons, who shot them. Morovitsch was killed and the other wounded, Chveshtshenko seriously.

The climax of the assassinations was the bloody attack on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Elul, 1906 against the police chief Galtzev, who had assumed the position after the murdered Shedever. Galtzev had participated in a commission on sanitation together with the Polish doctor Savitzky nad the Jewish surgeon Schwartz. They had gone on an inspection to the soda water factory of Shmuel Yoysef Goldshtern. As they were leaving the factory, which was on Pienke Street–a totally Jewish neighborhood–a bomb was thrown. The police chief was blown apart on the spot. The Jewish surgeon Schwartz was wounded and died several days later. Only the Polish doctor Savitzky survived. This time, too, the leaders of the bomb attack were not captured. At the inquiry, the surviving doctor said that as they were leaving the factory, a short while before the explosion, someone came up to him and said in Polish that he should quickly take cover.

Galtzev was a liberal person and more than once had convinced the governor to work for the good of the Jews.

After the assassination, an old tailor named Ch. M. Friedman, was arrested. He lived on the second floor of the house where the attack was planned. The suspect spent a long time in prison. Eventually he was freed. In all probability, no Jews were involved in this attack.

Shortly after this murder, soldiers appeared on the streets of Siedlce, dragoons from the Lubavitsch regiment who were quartered in Siedlce. Infuriatingly, they opened a “blind” volley right in the Jewish streets. Six Jews were killed, four men and two women: Shloyme Zalmen Goldshtern, Itta Miriam Matshelinski, Yitzhak Milgroym, Dovid Matselinski, Mrs. Suknevitsch, and Baruch Mordechai Morgenshtern. About forty other Jews were either slightly or

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severely wounded. This bloody reckoning with the Jews of Siedlce was not the first. The czarist army had, before this bloody shooting on erev Rosh Chodesh Ellul, 1906, more than once dared to terrorize the Jewish populace, with the excuse that they were acting against the revolutionaries.

Thus, for example, the Jews of Siedlce had survived two bloody days–Thursday, August 11, and Tuesday, August 16, 1905. The army had surrounded the Jewish quarter and shot, allegedly, at the “revolutionaries” and “socialists.” The Bundist activist Yakov Yablon was shot. Eyewitnesses said that the attack of the army began before night, while Jews filled the beis–medresh to say the afternoon prayers. Several Jews who had been frightened by the shooting went into the beis–medresh for protection. The murderously aroused soldiers broke into the beis–medresh and with the butts of their rifles struck right and left. Finished with this bloody piece of work, they exited and then fired through the windows into the beis–medresh–sixty Jews were wounded. After this bloody event, iron shutter were made for the beis–medresh to provide protection against shooting through the windows.

The governor of Siedlce, Volozhin, had demanded from the leaders of the Jewish community, from the dozors (Y.N. Vayntroib, Hershke Zelnick, and Moyshe Temkin) who had come to ask for protection for the Jewish population–had demanded that they should give him, the governor, a list with the addresses of the revolutionaries. In his conversation with the dozors, the representative of the czar treated them condescendingly and adopted a despotic tone. Y.N. Vayntroyb says in his memoirs that the governor warned that he had prepared threatening letters so that if anything happened to him, to the governor, not a single person would remain alive in Siedlce. That is why the threatening regiment had been brought by Volozhin to Siedlce. The governor gave the delegation a little time in order to call a meeting in the home of the rabbi so they could decide about betraying the revolutionaries.

After the three dozors had communicated with the rabbi of the time,

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Rabbi Shimon Dov Analik, a larger gathering was called of the prominent members of the community, who sought a way to escape their predicament without betraying any Jews. The result of the meeting Vayntroib later delivered to Volozhin, that no one in the Jewish community knew who the revolutionaries were and if any of them were in Siedlce. Truly, he said, there had been assassinations, but the attackers were, it appeared, outsiders and probably not Jews, who had come to Siedlce and, did their deeds, and fled. No one knew who these people were. Understandably, this answer did not please the governor.

After the assassination of Galtzev, the atmosphere in the city became more suffocating. It felt as if something stirring. Military patrols with bayonets on their rifles traversed the city. The stores, which used to be open until late into the night, had to close their doors at eight o'clock, according to an ordinance. In the Orthodox Church they held memorial services for the dead and preached sermons against the revolutionaries. It was often said that the Jews were the only revolutionaries. It was no longer a secret that people were preparing for a pogrom against the Jews.

The word among the Jewish populace became more oppressive when changes from the administrative power became known. Among other things, Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky was named as head of what was then unhappily known as the “Okhrana.”

Tichinovsky had belonged to the Black Hundreds of the “true Russian people,” who were involved everywhere in organizing pogroms against Jews. He was an old Russian officer who had taken part in the Russo–Japanese War in 1904 and had become a lieutenant colonel. His hatred for Jews and for revolutionaries was all–consuming. At that time he published a pamphlet called “How to Put Down the Revolution,” in which he advocated using the army to subdue the revolution.

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Because the pamphlet was written in such a brutal style, it was confiscated by the Russian government.

This member of the Black Hundreds lived well with Jews. He had “his Jews, who lent him money on interest…”

This Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky was the chief organizer of the pogrom in Siedlce in 1906, which only became known later, when the secret report about the Siedlce pogrom to the Governor General in Warsaw was made public.

Tichinovsky

On Friday, the seventh of September (the seventeenth of Elul, 5666), the tenor of the town became more oppressive. The patrols with their rifles at the ready were strengthened. Jews hesitated to show themselves in the streets. It was the same the next morning, on Shabbos. Few Jewish stores opened up on Saturday evening. Police roamed the streets and made it known that the government permitted stores to stay open until eleven.

At nine in the evening, a volley of rifle fire was heard, and from time to time was heard again. People who lived near the new city hall, known as the “City Clock Tower”–said that they saw a red flag unfurled from a tower of the city hall. This served as a signal that the pogrom should begin. And truly, at that moment it began. People who survived those bloody days and who during the pogrom watched through cracks in their

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shutters later related that they noticed soldiers stationed on all the streets, posted at equal distances from each other. They shot into the windows of Jewish homes. This shooting was accompanied by noise,

The City Clock Tower

The shooting lasted throughout Saturday night.

At about midnight, Tichinovsky had the police summon the city rabbi, Rabbi Sh. D. Analik, and the two dozors, Y.N. Vayntroib and Moyshe Temkin. Temkin arrived with a bruised face, thanks to being murderously attacked by an officer. Temkin had been saying Psalms when the shooting began.

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The officer stormed into his house with a group of soldiers and claimed that people in the house were shooting at the military patrols–and then viciously beat him. The Jewish representatives who were brought to the police building beheld a dreadful scene: at tables loaded with food and drink that had been stolen from Jewish businesses and homes sat Tichinovsky with his staff. He was drunk as he gave orders about which streets should be taken. Between orders, they guzzled wine and sang the czarist hymn “God Save the Czar.”

Soldiers receiving orders to fire

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The commander addressed the delegation in a brutal, insulting tone. He said that if the revolutionaries were not turned over to him, he would wipe out the whole Jewish population in the city, and first–he said–he would should the delegation

People burglarized the Jewish houses

Tichinovksi agreed to give the delegation two hours only. After this time they must–he ordered–provide a list of revolutionaries.

With heavy hearts the Jews left the police station;

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having nothing substantial to give to the murderous Tichinovsky–they did not hurry to return.

When Tichinovksi became aware that more than three hours had passed and the Jews had not come to him, he sent the police to bring them in. The representatives came to Tichinovsky with broken hearts. On the whole way back to the station, they saw how Jewish businesses had been broken into by the unruly soldiers, who stole goods and got drunk on the liquor. The sidewalks and walls were sprinkled with blood. Sofas were placed on the streets, and on them sat drunken officers who gave orders to steal and murder.

Tichinovsky, seeing Wayntroyb and Temkin, shouted bitterly, asking why they had taken more than their two hours. When he heard that they still had not brought a list of revolutionaries, the lieutenant colonel, he drew out his gold watch and warned that if in a half hour they had not satisfied his demand, he would kill all the Jews.

Y.N. Wayntroyb worked up his courage and asked: whether the chief of the “Okhrana” would be satisfied with a list of only Jewish revolutionaries or whether it should include Poles. Tichinovsky understandably answered that he wanted the Poles as well. To this the Jewish representatives responded that they did not know the Polish community and they did not know who the Polish revolutionaries were, so that this was actually a matter for the leaders of the Polish community. Tichinovsky then ordered that to the four Jews–Rabbi Sh. D. Analik, Y.N. Wayntroyb, M. Temkin, and the community secretary Tchotchkes, should be added the city–president, the churchman Stsipia–del–Campo, and three prominent Poles. These people would be responsible for indicating the revolutionaries who “were shooting” at the czarist army.”

The Jewish delegation left Tichinovsky and went to the city rabbi to report what was happening in the city and about the crazy order from the chief of the “Okhrana.” The rabbi received the Jewish representatives with shock, and with sorrow he listened to their report of the bloodbath that had been organized by the government itself.

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The rabbi, Rabbi Shimon Dov Analik, was a great personality and strongly gave his advice. He regarded all of Yisroel as being of the highest rank. Before he had arrived in Siedlce he had been the rabbi in Sharky, Ostrow, and Tiktin. He had a firm character and his conscience was crystal clear. Thanks to these qualities, the rabbi of Siedlce was greatly beloved and respected by the community. He was a great scholar and a sharp misnagid, but even so he tolerated the Chasidim, who also showed him great honor. He had written two books: “The Sayings of Rashad,” which contained all sorts of notes and sermons and touched upon the rules of Hebrew grammar, was published in Warsaw in 1912. There was also his composition “Oreach Mishpat.” a commentary on the “Choshen Mishpat.” When he died, other manuscripts were found. The leader of the Jews of Siedlce saw how his community would be slaughtered by the barbaric czarist soldiers, who received their orders from higher up. And he, the rabbi, the fearer of Heaven, the man of influence, could not help his unhappy community. Rabbi Analik felt all this so deeply that he passed away several months after the pogrom.

When the rabbi heard the tragic report that Y.N. Wayntroyb had delivered, he was completely broken. After consulting with the dozors, it was decided that those present should go to General Engelky, the representative of the governor, and report the bloodbath that had been arranged to him. The community leaders, together with the rabbi, believed that the representative of the czar in Siedlce, the governor, would be embarrassed by the actions of the pogromist Tichinovsky.

On Sunday morning, the delegation made its way to General Engelky. After they reported on the conditions in the city and recounted the actions of the Russian army, branding them as anti–Semitic, the general became furious and ordered that he was arresting the Jewish delegation because they were…spies.

General Engelky declared further that after such “chuzpadik” behavior on the side of the Jews, they deserved to be shot. He ordered the arrest of the Jewish delegation

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He immediately notified Tichinovsky that the leaders of Jewish Siedlce had come to complain about him. In order to terrify the Jewish delegation even further, Engelky permitted the representatives, at their request, to write farewell letters to their families, on the condition that the letters be brief.

After the Jews had written their letters, they were taken under a strict guard to the police, where they found Tichinovsky. The hero of the pogrom approached the prisoners wrathfully and yelled: “Instead of going to find the revolutionaries, you went to the general to report on me. Soon you'll be shot as spies.” The delegates were led to the wall of the police building, with the soldiers lined up before them–one for each representative–a soldier holding a rifle. It appears that this was a species of bestial play by the pogrom leader, the chief of the czarist Okhrana. He did not give the order to shoot, and instead he said to the Jews that he would free them on condition that they should compile over the next several hours the desired list.

Meanwhile, it was Sunday night. The shooting died down. However, fires broke out in all corners of the Jewish quarter. The czarist soldiers thus destroyed Jewish houses. Five houses on Prospect Street were burned, five houses on Sokolov Way, four houses on Yatke Street, ten hospital stores and the shops of Shmuel Solarsz and Berl Rosen.

On Monday morning, cannon shots were heard. This was the Rembertov Artillery, which had been specially brought to the city. They shot the houses of Breina Tshistaka (47 Pienke), Rochel Grach (75 Pienke), Moyshe Eliyahu Salnitze (91 Pienke), and the house of Esther Ratinovitsh (34 Alene). The same day, at six in the morning, they sent out a military patrol to bring the rabbi, Wayntroyb, Temkin, and the community secretary Tchotchkes. The same scene repeated itself. The drunken Tichinovsky addressed them despotically: “See!” he growled. “I've already brought in cannon. If I need more, I'll bring them from Rembertov.

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If I don't hand over the revolutionaries, I'll make a ruin of Siedlce.”

The community heads could no longer be dominated. They sprang up, saying that it was a calumny when the chief said that there were Jewish revolutionaries in the city. When the army had searched all the Jewish houses, aside from distraught citizens, with their wives and children, no revolutionaries had been found. If you want, you can shoot us. One of the delegates ripped off his caftan and showed that he was prepared to be shot. This bold gesture worked somewhat. The murderer Tichinovsky retreated a bit and responded that he was giving the Jewish representatives some soldiers and they would together go to seek out possible revolutionaries.

A house on Pienke Street shot through by a cannon

After being in the city for several hours, the delegation returned to the commandant and reported that they could not discover any revolutionaries. The pogrom–commander blew up again and ordered the Jewish representatives to be lined up against the wall and finally shot. At that very moment, in came the officer Stoyanov, whom the commander of the Dubnow Regiment had sent to discover the cause of the shooting. Stoyanov went up to Tichinovsky, spoke to him softly, and asked what was going on. Tichinovsky explained the purpose of the “action,” which was “to uncover the revolutionaries and put down the revolution.” One of the delegates, who heard the words of the officers,, called out in a loud voice that over the course of several hours they had combed the city looking for revolutionaries, but they had found none. Stoyanov recognized that something bad was afoot and announced that he was prepared to go out with the delegation to find revolutionaries.

About Stoyanov it was said that he was interested in political questions, that he was highly esteemed in the regiment. When the regiment went out on summer maneuvers, he left the lieutenant colonel in charge. At the time of the pogrom, Stoyanov spent a whole day going through the streets and silently and intently observing everything. In several cases he saved Jews from death. Later on there arose about him a variety of legends. For instance, Jews said that during the pogrom he rode a white horse through the streets and shouted at the soldiers: “Don't kill–or you'll be court–martialed”^[64].

While the delegation, with Stoyanov, were in the streets, a shot was heard from a nearby house. The officer and then the delegation went quickly into the house and began to search. Aside from starving and shocked Jews, they found nothing. They went up to the attic and there they found a Russian in civilian clothing. He lay by a window and shot into

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the street. As it later came out, in the special inquiry that the officer conducted, the shooter was a policeman decked out in the civilian clothing of a Jew. He was stationed in the attic of a Jewish house and shot his rifle as a provocation. Styoyanov, in front of the delegation, expressed his irritation with the military commander who had arranged the provocation. The officer arrested the Russian and turned him over to the police. But people regarded the whole incident with indifference. The officer Stoyanov then went with the delegation and discovered several similar situations. Then he expressed his opinion that the whole thing had truly been a type of provocation.

After the officer had communicated with the commandant of the Dubnow Regiment and had given a detailed report, the commandant, Ultimativ, ordered Tichonovsky that if he did not put an end to the murders, his regiment would attack Tichinovsky's pogromists. Tichinovsky was afraid and ordered an end to the shooting.

On Monday night, September 11 (1906), the mass shooting stopped, but isolated rifle shots continued. Tichinovsky never stopped boasting that he had put down the “revolution.” At the same time, he regretted that the number of murdered was only thirty–one Jews rather than hundreds. His desire to bring in the army to help, in order to raise the pogrom to a whole new level–came to nothing, thanks to the intervention of the officer from the Dubnow Regiment. The commandant of the Dubnow Regiment sent patrols into the streets to stop the shooting of Jews, thanks to which the shooting ceased.

That same evening, Wayntroyb was again called to Tichinovsky. As the Jewish leader later conveyed in his memoir, he found the lieutenant colonel in a half–crazy state. In his dwelling at 14 Oleyna Street, he was running around in his socks and yelling: “I have completed my work. If you want to escape from the city, show it by giving me the names and addresses of all the revolutionaries. If not, I'll bring in more cannon and all the Jews will be shot.”

The proud and fine leader, Y.N. Wayntroib, answered the bloodstained murderer: “You should be sorry for having spilled so much innocent blood, after having killed so many innocent people.” After that, Wayntroib left Tichinovski's home. That day the rabbi had telephoned the governor and asked permission to bury the dead. Permission was given on condition that there should not be mass participation at the burial and there should be no eulogies. Jews began to emerge from their hiding places. They encountered a fearful pogrom landscape: more than a score of dead and hundreds of wounded, destroyed houses, vandalized businesses.

Some of the wounded from the pogrom

1. Meir Wolf, 33, killed by the officer Balechov on Sunday morning, the second

day of the pogrom. Balechov actually wanted to murder Meir Slushny, a bicycle maker who lived in the same house, but when he encountered Meir Wolf, he killed him.
2. Nahum Slushny, 18. He was killed by the same Balechov. When the officer saw that he had not killed the man he had intended, he began to search for Meir Slushny. Because that man was out of the city, he found a different Slushny and murdered him.
3. Avraham Miltshak, 19, shot on his way to the the police.
4. Yitzchak Weinberg, 45, first beaten up and then shot on Pienke Street.
5. Yehoshua Rosen, 3. The child was killed in the hands of his mother, while his parents were being led to jail. On the way, the child was struck by a soldier and later died.
6. Yehuda Lifshitz, 18. First he was wounded as he stood by his parents in their store. He was taken to the hospital. On Sunday night, as he sat in his bed, a bullet came through the window and wounded him severely. He died several days later in Warsaw.
7. Sholem Dov Feder, 76. When the pogrom broke out on Saturday evening, the old man headed for his home. Soldiers in the street split open his head.
8. Sarah Solarsz, 70. Killed by a bullet that came through the window of her dwelling. The child whose hand she was holding was wounded.
9. Blume Burshteyn, 40. She was taken from her dwelling on Sokolov Street and shot in the courtyard.
10. Avraham Rafal, 22. A Jewish soldier home on leave. He stationed himself in front of his parents when soldiers entered their house, so the soldiers shot him.

11. Yehoshua Stochowski, 19. First the killers wounded him, then shot him.
12. Stochoweiski, a child, died of wounds.
13. Moyshe Zalman Dietent, 45.
14. Dov Matchelinski, 25.
15. Yoysef Goldshteyn, murdered, 30. Was a guest of a Siedlce family.
16. Gavriel Sonnshein, 20. Wounded earlier. When he was being brought to the hospital, a patrol shot him.
17. Mendel Teyblum, 34. First the soldiers put out his eyes, then shot him.
18. Mordechai Yoysef Miller, 40. A teacher. He was cut into pieces by swords and bayonets.
19. Tov Shlarsz, 30.
20. Dvorah Feygnboym, 17.
21. Shvientzientziantzikamien [??] 18. Both fell at Dvorah Feygenboym's house.
22. Sheindl Weynshteyn, 34. Murdered in her shop in the hospital building.
23. 23–24 Chaim Yakov Liberman, 30, and Channah Liberman, 52. A mother–in–law and son–in–law shot together by soldiers.
25. Shraga Ratinievitsch, 22.
26. Jan Baritz (Christian). Watchman at the hospital, struck and killed by a bullet.

The pogrom in Siedlce was the last in a series of pogroms after the publication of the October Manifesto of the last Russian czar, Nicholas II. The Manifesto of October 17 (the 29th, according to the European date), had promised freedom and equality for Russian citizens, and for the Jews it brought pogroms that flowed like bloody waves over almost all Jewish

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settlements in czarist Russia, and in Poland reached Bialystok and Siedlce.

Victims of the pogrom

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parliament, the Duma, had become active. The czarist government was therefore interested in immediately coming up with a justification for the murderous events in Siedlce.

This justification found its expression in the lying report about the events in Siedlce which was presented by the general governor Skalon to the war minister. The report states:

On September 8 (Old Style), on a variety of streets in Siedlce were heard simultaneous revolver shots coming from revolutionaries directed at patrols, pedestrians, and riders. The alarmed army began to fire back at the houses from which the shooting had come. The shooting had lasted all night and began again at two in the afternoon on the ninth, becoming more intense in the evening. On Sunday the garrison was strengthened by the arrival of the Dubnow Regiment and the 48th Cadre Battery. Because of the persistent from the attics, which lasted until the morning of the tenth, six cannon shell were shot at the houses. Then the shooting of the revolutionaries ceased and the army returned to making searches.

This fallacious report from the highest levels of the czarist government in Poland–Governor–General Skalon–was issued after the governor general had in his hands the true report, which told how the czarist government in Siedlce had organized and prepared the pogrom against Jews. This secret report would perhaps never have seen the light of day, except for a fortunate accident, which was that at that time the secret agent and collaborator with the Warsaw “Okhrana”–Bakai–had gone to the side of the revolutionaries.

Bakai, who had been brought into the revolutionary movement by the social–revolutionary activist Burtzev, was in the chancellery of Governor–General Skala\on when a special messenger from the Siedlce Ohrana brought in the accurate report on the pogrom in Siedlce. The messenger trustingly told Bakai that he had been ordered to hand over the report to a trusted member of the governor general's chancellery

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Bakai convinced the messenger that he–Bakai–was actually the “Okhranik” on duty in the governor's chancellery to whom the secret document should be given.

As soon as Bakai had the report in his hands, he made a copy, which he turned over to the social–democratic faction in the Duma. Soon after, Bakai disappeared from Russia. The representatives of the revolutionary camp thus received the document, on the basis of which they could openly identify the murderous deed of the czarist government.

The secret document that was given to Governor General Skalon contained a report from the Siedlce gendarme Rotmistch Pietochov about the events in Siedlce on the 8th, ninth, and 10th of the September (Old Style) of 1906.

For the first time in the history of czarist Russia that contained so many anti–Jewish pogroms organized by the government, it was officially established that the pogrom was organized by government officials and not by the crowd, which had been the official government version of pogroms.

The report, dated the 22^nd of September 1906, covered five sheets.

Pietochov said^[65]:

On the 11^th of August 1906, I was called to the police committee, where I found Police Colonel Virgalitsch, Captain Pototski, Alec Grigorov, the representative of the Siedlce police captain Protopopov and the head of the “Okhrana,” Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky. It was a conference about how to conduct in Siedlce mass house searches. Such searches had been ordered in a telegram by the ruler of the area. Lieutenant Colonel Tichanovsky ordered that people should single out several important people from the city, even if they themselves played no part in the revolutionary movement, except that they would not give the government names and addresses of revolutionaries. Tikhanovsky proclaimed that he intended to put them in prison as “hostages” and to let them know: if an assassination would be carried out

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against anyone that they knew, the detained would pay with their lives. He also said that he would take on all responsibility. To the question of how the condemned would be killed, Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky posed a question to the police chief, asking whether he could point out a policeman who would agree to pose as a madman and shoot or poison those confined in the prison.

“We must answer the terror of the revolution with stronger terror”–he declared.

At the same time, we assembled again–so says Pietochov in his report–the district gendarme committee, where they devised the plan to encircle the whole city and conduct house–to–house searches, and while the searches were underway, firemen should be prepared and doctors should be stationed in the hospitals. This was Tichinovsky's request. He undertook to notify the hospitals. When asked the purpose of these preparations, Tichinovsky explained that there would surely be dead and wounded, because no mercy would be shown and arms would be employed.

The dragoon officers, when they heard these intentions, rubbed their hands together with joy and openly said: “We'll make a little pogrom and show no mercy.” There was soon such talk among the soldiers. It was clear to us that Tichinovsky and the dragoon officers would create a bloodbath on all of Siedlce's Jews. All attempts to restrain Tichinovsky and his followers were of no use. He, Pietochov, and Colonel Wirgalitsch went several times to the governor to warn him of the danger. In a conversation with the police chief, Tichinovsky said: “Captain Pietochov does not intend that we will arrest people. Those who are known for their revolutionary activities will surely not be found among the arrested.”

The first night, September 8, when the first shooting erupted in Siedlce, Tichinovsky, in order to encourage the army, called out a group of trumpeters and the singers of the regiment, and while the guns were shooting, when human blood was flowing, when houses were in flames, the singing of the soldiers could be heard. When alarms spread that Tichinovsky

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might be targeted for killing, he went to his squadron so that they could make for him a proper “memorial service” and bathe him in blood up to ears.

Pietochov tells further how the pogrom progressed. He also blames together with Tichinovsky the current Governor–General Engelik and also Governor Volozhin, since they were in charge of the district.

From all the materials and documents that were revealed soon after the pogrom in Siedlce, it became clear that the bloodbath visited on the Jews of Siedlce, like the pogroms in other cities and towns in czarist Russia, was systematically prepared by the army and led by the local army representatives, as in Siedlce it was led by the almighty leader of the “Okhrana,” Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky.

Just before the outbreak of the pogrom, in a designated area, notices were distributed that were signed by the “Society for a Reformed Order, also known as Saint Nicholas.” Hundreds and thousands of these notices were distributed^[66]. So, too, in Siedlice these incendiary notices were distributed with their well–known nonsense from the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” with the secret talks of the leading rabbis of the Jewish people and their overall plan to exterminate the Christian world.

Here is [some of] what these rabbis of the Jewish people are supposed to have said:

It is now nineteen hundred years that we have been fighting against the Cross, and our people will not falter or stop. If we are scattered throughout the world, that is so that we can rule the whole world. Our power grows from day to day. At our disposal is now the Golden Calf that Aaron the priest made in the desert, and it is the true god of our time. Only when we have sole control of gold will we assume domination.

The “Berliner Tageblatt,” which published the notice and condemned its contents, wrote that the incendiary notice was the work of ultra–Slavic clergy who supported the Black Hundred “Union of the

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True Russian People.” Such notices were distributed in the army in the area around Siedlce and in Siedlce itself. Thus was the ground prepared for the pogrom, and the army undertook to organize it in Bialystok style, but in a different form–only with the participation of the government and without assistance from the civilian mob, from thieves and robbers.

The city was divided into districts, at the head of which wee placed the officers of the dragoons, who were known for their as pogromists, Black Hundreds. The most successful and honest officer in the regiment was Baron von Kleist. He had a positive attitude toward Jews and even sympathized with the Zionist movement; and, as we have mentioned, he donated a large number of books to the library in Siedlce. But this baron did nothing to prevent the pogrom.

The leaders of the precincts were the officers: Balichov, Vestolov, Alexandrov, Musaratov, Baron Bialer, the aforementioned Baron von Kleist, and Sumarakov.

When the czarist bandits had finished their bloodbath, at which they were so good, and when the lying report was made public, people in government circles began to consider how to disguise the outrageous action of murdering and robbing innocent Jews. The government thought the best way out was to make the victims their scapegoat, to put the “guilty” Jews before a court and judge them according to “objective” standards. Before, during, and after the pogrom, the police had arrested six hundred Jews. In the course of time, a large number of the detainees had been freed, but nearly four hundred remained under detention. The local government intended to initiate a trial against these Jews for treason.

According to “Die Welt” of September 19, 1906, the Zionist Action Committee went to the Russian Minister of the Interior

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Stolyopin, to the Minister of War Rediges, and to the Minister of Justice, Shtsheglovitov, Count Von Baden, and to the kings of England and Italy–with a request to intervene so that the detainees would not be put before a court martial, which was known to condemn innocent people to death.

The London “Times” reported that the Vice Foreign Minister of England had met with a Jewish delegation, which gave him details about the Siedlce pogrom and raised horror about its outcome. The British Vice–Minister consulted with his ambassador in Petersburg and asked him to work for the good of the detainees.

After all of these interventions, nearly 250 of the detainees were released, but more than a hundred and fifty Jews remained in prison. The government declared that these Jews had shot at the army patrols. These unfortunates had to appear before a military court martial. Then the community turned to Baron David Ginzburg of Petersburg. They received a response that said the baron had visited Prime Minister Stolyopin, who had authorized him to send an order to the army in Siedlce that justice should be ensured. According to this report–Ginzburg shared–it turned out that there would be no court martial, though some of the detainees would be sent to Siberia.

Soon an “Aid Committee for the Victims of the Disorders in Siedlce” was created. (The government did not permit the committee to be called by its rightful name: “Victims of the Pogrom.”) Sympathetic telegrams arrived from all over. The Polish community and press responded with particular warmth. All of the Polish newspapers took up collections. Some of those papers collected large sums of money. The committee was also associated with the YIKO in Petersburg and “Alliance” in Paris.

From a report^[67], we see that according to the material that the Aid Committee gathered, the suffering from the Siedlce pogrom affected 440 craftsmen's families, 416 merchant families, 380

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workers' families, 130 families of independent professions, and 186 families without stated professions. In total, 1502 families numbering 7306 individuals. The damage amounted to 344,584 rubles. The money that was raised amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand rubles.

Poles were also represented on the committee. Its members were: lawyer St. Zonderland–chair, A.D. Tchotchkes–secretary, Rabbi D.B. Analik, Y.N. Wayntroyb, Father Szipia–Del–Campo, M. Mintz, lawyer, Alexei Chzhnovski, Asher Arszel, city mayor Karsak, and N.D. Glicksberg.

A few days later the committee received a telegram from Baron Ginsburg, Feinberg, and lawyer Shlozberg asking for the appointment of a couple of people to deliver a report about the process of the pogrom, about the court martial, and about the detainees to Stolypin, and also to assign responsibility to the guilty.

The following delegation traveled to Petersburg and held meetings on these issues: lawyer Winaver, lawyer Schlossberg, lawyer Warshavsky, lawyer Sheftel, Feinberg, Vovelberg, Fishbeim, and the Siedlce deputy in the Russian Duma Dimsha (a Pole). On the agenda were two questions: 1) aid for the victims, and 2) a memorandum to the government. The memorandum was put together by lawyers Fishbein, Luria, Warshavsky and was sent to Minister of the Interior Stolypin, with a copy to Baron Ginsburg, who quickly intervened with Baron Knal, who was Stolypin's closest aide. Baron Ginzburg requested that the Minister of the Interior would meet with a delegation of Jews from Siedlce. This audience took place. Stolypin had already read the memorandum and his conclusion was: he could not believe that the army had carried out the pogrom. He promised: to carry out a quick investigation, no court martial would be held, and the hundred and fifty Jews would be released.

Premier Stolypin was given the following memorandum by the delegates of the “Citizens of Siedlce:

Excellency,

We approach you on the issue of the events in Siedlce on the days of September 8–10, 1906. We do not wish to describe the horror or indicate the names of the perpetrators and complain about them. We wish only to establish the facts that cannot be denied, so that His Excellence can prepare the appropriate consequences:

On the 21^st of August, an unknown person threw a bomb at Commandant Galtzev, which caused, to the great sorrow of the whole community, his death. After that, the military garrison began to torment the inhabitants. Soon after the assassination of the police chief, an order was given to shoot into crowds, which caused the death of many innocent people. Two hundred people were arrested, but the assassins were not taken. After these events, the military patrols tormented the citizens so much that they trembled before the military and hesitated to be seen in the streets.

Living conditions became increasingly bad. Representatives of the inhabitants went to the mayor and complained about the bad behavior of the army, but total silence dominated in the streets. The governmental administration responded, “Be prepared.” Truly, preparations were made to preserve order in the future, as appears in the following facts:

1. The governor gave command of the city into the hands of the lieutenant colonel of the 39th Lubovsk Norwegian Regiment, Tichinovsky.
2. Several days before the misfortune, a staff was raised over the clock tower, which served, as we saw later, as a signal for the beginning of the pogrom.

3. The military officers openly collected information about the city plan, its streets and houses.
4. The Siedlce garrison–according to the semi–official governmental organ “Warshavski Dnievnik”–prepared a plan for besieging the city and realized the plan.

Excellency,

We ask permission to indicate to you that if there was indeed a revolution in preparation, the local government had at its disposal a garrison of five thousand soldiers that could have prevented an uprising through searches and stronger surveillance of strangers, very few of whom were in Siedlce. But according to the announcement of the garrison commandant, the outbreak of the citizen uprising came first and was followed by the uproar in the city caused by the army. According to the official announcement, the so–called “revolutionaries” actively opposed the army for 36 hours, so that the Siedlce garrison had to call for help to the Dubnow Regiment and the 48^th Artillery Battalion.

When, on the morning of September 9, a delegation appeared before the commandant at his command, together with the city president, members of the city council, and the gentlemen lawyer Zanderland, Tortshinski, Farminski, Dr. Shavelski, and others, the commandant announced that he would reduce Siedlce to a shambles if by one o'clock the revolutionaries and their arms were not turned over to him. Clearly stated: he proclaimed a destructive war against the inhabitants. It was impossible to satisfy his demands. They could not comply

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because what he demanded could not be found. When the delegation went to the governor, he was incapable of giving a definitive response. Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky at the same time repeated again his threats and without cause arrested the whole delegation. On the declaration by the delegation that they did not know who had shot and from where the shots had come, Tichinovsky pointed to several houses and permitted members of the delegation to search the houses so they could see the “revolutionaries” for themselves. In these particular houses, they found only an old man and two women. This was conveyed to the commandant. He had not counted on this, and the shooting continued. Finally the poor houses were shot to pieces.

During this whole time that these war activities continued, the city was cut off from the world. No one was allowed to enter Siedlce. Permanent residents who had left the city in anticipation of the misfortunes and wanting to return, uneasy about the fate of their families, were forced to remain in the train station. The telegraph office was closed to the community.

And what appear to be the losses of these 36 hours of “war”? According to the official count, the army suffered no wounded or killed. On the side of the populace, 31 were brought for burial in the Jewish cemetery and 3 to 5 in the Christian cemetery. According to official news, 150 people were injured and according to other accounts–300. Two hundred were arrested, though none were guilty of revolution, because none of them were armed. A check on the dead and injured showed that the wounds came from rifle butts and bayonets. Since people had not dared to leave their homes, one must conclude that the soldiers had broken into dwellings.

During the shooting, soldiers would attack Jewish homes, and in each when the door was not opened, it was broken down with the help of iron bars. Immediately after breaking into a dwelling, the soldiers ordered the inhabitants

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to turn over revolutionaries, and thereby they extracted greater or lesser amounts of money. Anyone who was bold enough to stand up to them was beaten unmercifully. During the searches, those in the houses were tormented with all sorts of beastly, inhuman actions by the soldiers. We will describe only a single case:

A young Jew, the father of six children, Meir Wolf, was assaulted in his apartment while he was praying. In the presence of an officer he was tortured–he was thrown from wall to wall until he had no strength left. We should note that no weapons were found, neither on the victim nor in his dwelling.

Of the 1025 houses in the city, several hundred were shot up. The Jewish hospital was also shot up. In the whole city there was not a single house that was not struck by bullets. If one added up all of the bullets that were fired, one would see that the number was greater than the number of inhabitants. These facts speak for themselves. But the garrison was not satisfied with that and called in reinforcements: cannon! Why was this necessary? It appears that this was a penalty for the sins that had not been committed. The government tormented the populace, whose suffering was like that of a man who is condemned to death though he is free of sin, though he never lifted a finger. The soldiers went wild, murdered unarmed men, raped women, stole property, and burned houses.

The version that the arsons and the robberies were carried out by civilians–Is totally wrong. It is impossible to believe that during these events civilians could be seen on the streets. The idea that civilians burned the destroyed houses is also unbelievable. If there were activities by a foreign enemy, the army should have stood up to such an enemy and not allowed a pogrom.

Altogether 59 stores were robbed, 11 houses and 12 buildings were destroyed by fire. Numberless private apartments were robbed and destroyed. The losses in property and money

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amount to over a million rubles. The tragedy of the event is the destruction of the rights of people and the triumph of injustice.

In the time since our journey from Siedlce to Petersburg, both the Jewish and Christian people of the city live in trembling over the next day. From you, Excellency, we await actions that will calm down the unfortunate people of Siedlce.

Excellency: Basing ourselves on your letter, we come not to beg for mercy but for the re–establishment of truth and rectitude.

Signed–

Alexei Brzhanovsky
Dovid Tchatchkes
Stanislaw Zonderland^[68].

It is appropriate to note who the signers were of this bold memorandum to the all powerful Stolypin. The first–Alexei Brzhanovsky, was a member of the community committee to help the victims of the pogrom. He was a Pole, a man of education and high ethics, an aesthete and a great Polish patriot. He loved truth and fought for what was right. Dovid Tchatchkes was the secretary of the Siedlce Jewish community. The last signer–Stanislaw Zonderland, was a lawyer, a converted Jew, who was always found among Jews. Zonderland had converted so he could pursue a juridical career. He was from that type of convert who did not want to lose contact with Jews. Every Pesach he would give “Ma'os Chitim” [Passover charity] and secretly he gave charitable donations to the Jewish poor. He cherished a Tanach that was written on parchment and that he had inherited from his grandfather. More than once had he lobbied for Jews, because he was not simply satisfied with his wealth.

A short time after the delegation had submitted the memorandum [The Yiddish says “the memorial”], after the audience with Stolypin, an inquest commission came to Siedlce and called witnesses.

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Both Jews and Poles were called as witnesses, and they described the murders by the army; widows and orphans testified against individuals who had murdered their husbands and children. After two weeks in Siedlce, the commission returned to Petersburg.

It appears that people at high levels of the czarist bureaucracy were not too happy with the results of the commission's work, because soon a second inquest commission was sent. Again there was a process of witness testimony and confirmation. While the commission was at work, the government began to release the arrested Jews, who were still in prison, so that before Chanukah in 1907 all the detainees had been freed, with the exception of one or two whom the government held as confirmed revolutionaries. The liberation of the detainees was the only satisfactory outcome of the bloody pogrom.

Since the findings of the inquest commissions were dismissed, Y. N. Wayntroib was sent to Petersburg. Again Baron Ginzburg intended that this representative should have an audience with Stolypin. Thus Wayntroib and the baron were taken together to Stolypin. The premier listened to Wayntroib's speech and, according to the account in the “Tiedzhen Polski,” responded:

From the perspective of the government and community interests, as well as because of questions raised in Europe, we have developed a desire for detailed knowledge of the matter. Thanks to both official and private information, he will arrive at the naked truth. Because current knowledge is disjointed, he must, in order to make a firm decision, await the final report of the inquest.

Stolypin affirmed in a later declaration that, according to the most up–to–date information that he had received, people in the days in question had used to many weapons and that the arrests of the delegation by the “Ohrana”–chief was simply and undoubtedly incorrect. The guilty parties should be punished. As for the army, men had indeed stolen–

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so said the czarist premier–although according to the official reports, it did not seem so widespread as reported in private sources. According to these reports, the robberies were limited to trivial things, for example: pieces of soap, cigarettes, etc. The bestial behavior of the army toward the populace should be ascribed to the provocation toward the soldiers that was caused by revolutionary activities. As in all of Poland, there existed without doubt in Siedlce revolutionary parties. According to the reports, the number of revolutionary shots aimed at the military certainly amounted to at least a thousand. The fact that no revolutionaries with weapons had been captured could be explained by saying that the revolutionary activists had hidden themselves at the appropriate time. Thus did Stolypin excuse the pogrom activities of his subordinates.

The facts that would demonstrate the intentional preparations for the pogrom he ignored–these were military matters that were practiced everywhere in case of the outbreak of disorder. Such steps were taken in Petersburg.

Over all–so Stolypin concluded–the state of war could not be separated from the revolutionary activities. But he would try to ameliorate the state of war by imposing more supervision of soldiers by officers. He, the minister, knows the Poles and believes that they can live together. He believes that it is necessary to create certain reforms with the aim of coming to an understanding^[69].

The already mentioned lawyer St. Zonderland, who was at that time a deputy in the second Russian Duma, did not rest until he had introduced an interpolation, which was devised by the legal commission of the Siedlce Aid Committee and subscribed to by the Polish “Kolo,” into the Russian Duma. In the meantime, the second Duma was dissolved, and the interpolation was not

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considered. But it ended up being good propaganda. Each deputy received a copy. Although the interpolation had the same contents as the earlier cited memorandum, we present the full text because of its historical significance:

On the basis of paragraphs 33, 58, and 59 of the rules of the Imperial “Duma,” we have the honor to request the introduction to the assembly of the “Duma” the following declaration:

The last two years have been punctuated by serious events carried out particularly against the Jewish population, as also against students and against the general intelligentsia. In Kingdom Poland, such events have not been lacking, but suddenly in the last days of August (8–10–Old Style) came terrible excesses–the well–known “Siedlce Pogrom,” which differed markedly from similar occurrences that went by the same name. The city of Siedlce, which has a population of 25 thousand with a large percentage of Jews, was in 1906 administered by then–Governor General Engelky. On August 8 (O.S.), 1906, the police chief Galtzev was suddenly murdered. The murdered man had shown sympathy for the local Jewish population and one should therefore dismiss the idea the Galtzev's killer, who was not discovered, came from the Jewish sector.

On the day of the assassination, the army conducted a “small pogrom,” that cost the lives of six people and affected scores of buildings. Because of the murder of Police Chief Galtzev, Siedlce was put under a special guard (“Ohrana”), at the head of which was Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky.

Foot patrols and horse patrols filled the streets. People were ordered to close up their businesses and homes at 8 in the evening. After that hour, people were forbidden to show themselves in the streets, etc. The city was seized by a terrible panic. On the 22^nd of August, several citizens and representatives made their way to Governor General Engelke with a request to make conditions easier in the city, which he

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promised to do, but at the same time a high beam was raised over the building of the police commission, though no one understood its purpose. But it's purpose was to raise an alarm, to serve as a military signal for an alarm.

Early on the 26^th of August 1906, the foot– and horse–patrols (without any cause from the inhabitants) were reinforced and held up their provocations. The horse patrols rode with loaded rifles and unsheathed swords, but at the same time the patrols, in the evening, began to assure the merchants that from that day on they were permitted to stay open later than 8. Nevertheless the streets in the evening remained empty and the inhabitants stayed, as they had been doing, at home. That same evening, according to an order from the leader of the “Okhrana,” the city was besieged by the army. No one was allowed in or out. Telegraphic communication was also prevented. According, in all probability, to already prepared orders, around 9 in the evening revolver shots were heard in the city center, near the main patrol. After these shots, which were repeated in other parts of the town, military volleys began to thunder from the 29^th dragoon regiment and from the Lubow infantry regiment. This shooting spread to all the major and minor streets and lasted almost without a break for three nights and two days, that is, the 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th of September in 1906 and ended with a large number of cannon shots. An eyewitness of these events, one of the signatories of this interpolation, can [trans. note: the text says “cannot,” but that makes no sense] surely testify to the horror, pain, murders, terror, and the sea of suffering that befell the peaceful and guiltless population of Siedlce during those 48 hours. The whole population remained without bread and water, staring every minute at death, hiding from the bullets in their cellars or, if they were able to get there, in the towers of the city jail. The whole time, the savage military burned and robbed. The details of this pogrom, which caught the amazed attention of people not only in our country, in our kingdom, but also in other countries, received full confirmation in the original

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in the report of Police Captain Pietochov was sent there by the Governor General of Warsaw on 27^th September 1906. (A copy is attached.)

It is impossible to recount every aspect of the horrible pogrom. We must therefore present a number of facts and try to sum up the whole of the pogrom in Siedlce:

The soldiers, many of them led by officers, broke into private dwellings and businesses and, threatening beatings and shootings, carried out their plunder. Anyone who put up the least resistance, the soldiers beat unmercifully. They killed and wounded men, women, children, and the aged. Thus they killed Meir Wolf, the father of six children, whom the soldiers, with officer Balichov in charge, found praying in his dwelling. They tortured the children, dragging them through around the rooms, hitting them with the butts of their rifles. Chana Liebhaber, 50 years old, and Chaim Lieberman, 28, who refused to give ransom, were harmed by the officers and the soldiers, who, taking the injured to hospital, simply killed them. Ratinievitsch, who emerged injured from his burning house, the soldiers brought to the hospital, where, seeing that he was still alive, they killed him with a rifle. The director of the Jewish hospital Jan Baritsch, was killed in the hospital courtyard while carrying out his duty, caring for the wounded and the murdered. Mendel Tayblum, 34–forced out of his home on Warsaw Street, had his eyes put out and was later shot. Mordechai Miller, 40–taken from his home, he had no money to redeem himself–was hacked to death by sword. In the same way 32 other people of various ages were killed, from age 4 to 76, including 7 women, 15 heads of household, and children, not one of whom died accidentally in the street. All were shot, stabbed, slashed with swords in their homes or while they were being taken to the hospital. Eighty people, including seven women, severely wounded by bullets, swords, and rifles, were taken to the hospital. This does not include the slightly wounded. Hundreds of people were left without a roof over their heads and without what was needed to survive even for a day with small children.

Together with the bloodletting, the savagery of the

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drunken soldiers showed itself in the burned out houses and businesses and the destroyed, ruined possessions. The homes and businesses of Greenberg, Rosen, Solarzh, Liverant, Stoloveh and others were burned and looted, as wee all the businesses in the market. According to the report of Captain Pietochov, and also according to other witnesses, the soldiers used for their destructive work kerosene that they were given. Cannon fire severely damaged the houses of Ratinievitsch, Grad, Rosenberg, Tchistaaka, and others. Also, hundreds of houses on all the major and minor streets were damaged by rifle fire.

In the walls of many dwellings (for example, at Rabbi Analik's, Dr. Bichovski's, Dr. Dayanovski's, and others) scores of bullets could be found. The soldiers shot not only private buildings but also community buildings like the Catholic church, the Jewish school and beis–medresh, the building of the Polish school, the landworkers' credit organization, the Jewish hospital, and others. In front of the hospital were wounded the surgeons Maria Glazavska and Yehuda Lifshutz, who died a few days later from his wounds.

It is impossible to count up the cases of robbery. Many businesses and private homes were robbed. One can form an idea of the thieves from the report of Captain Pietochov. He provides a decree from the Siedlce garrison on September 30, 1906, number 97, on which is written “not for publication.” In this decree, all section leaders were ordered to conduct thorough searches of the entire garrison and to confiscate stolen items.

Altogether, the savagery of the excesses can be illustrated by the fact that the soldiers used thirty thousand bullets. “They didn't economize on bullets.” The strength of the wasted energy was so great that after the 24th of September (O.S.), that is, well after the pogrom, on Stadalne Street, Victoria Radzhikovska was shot without provocation while she was sitting quietly by her table in her own home. One of the signers of this interpolation, Zonderland, with another prominent citizen, on the 5th of October, at 6 in the evening (well after the pogrom) was pursuing an important matter when a military patrol encountered us,

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They drew their swords and took us prisoner. By a miracle, along came an officer whom we knew and who saved us from certain death.

All of these facts are enough to show that Siedlce had become the victim of an organized pogrom without the least provocation by the people of the city. A pogrom that was conducted in collaboration with the civil government. The organizers of the pogrom had to find a pretext in order to justify their actions. This pretext, which was fabricated and had nothing to do with fact, was that Siedlce was full of armed revolutionaries who were preparing an uprising. These revolutionaries shot at the army and actually–on August 26 they shot at a military patrol at the central command. All of these arguments were undercut by the facts. If the siege of the city with the help of two artillery divisions lasting 48 hours, the cutting of the telegraphic communications, and the searches throughout the entire city did not uncover a single arms cache and not a single revolutionary and not a single armed civilian–this was clear evidence that there was not a single revolutionary in the city; and if there was not a single killed or wounded soldier, it is clear that no one was shooting at the army.

Moreover, the local investigation demonstrated that no one shot, not at the patrols and not at the command center, because the traces of bullets in the walls and windows of the command center could not have come from external shots. Thus those first random shots were, undoubtedly, a provocation. That the military–organs had not the least factual basis for maintaining that there were armed revolutionaries in Siedlce is shown by the following:

On the morning of September 9, Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky called in several prominent citizens, among whom was one of the undersigned, Dep. Zonderland, and he ordered them to give him within two hours the arms and the revolutionaries or he would destroy the city. All attempts to convince him that it was impossible to fulfill his command proved fruitless. Then

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those who had been summoned, watched over by guards, amid the unceasing shooting, made their way to Governor–General Engelky with the request that the shooting should cease and women and children should be allowed to leave the city. The governor–general refused to give a prompt answer. Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky responded, “Then I will do all that I promised.” Soon Tichinovsky and Engelky spoke on the telephone. Officer Grabowsky appeared in Engelsky's courtyard with a contingent of soldiers and announced to the delegation that according to the orders of the “Okhrana” they were being arrested. He led them back to Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky. In front of police headquarters Tichinovsky awaited us together with his retinue and gave us a “fair welcome”: “Instead of going to search for revolutionaries”–he ground his teeth–“you went to interfere with General Engelky. In less than five minutes, not one of you will remain alive.”

They lined us up by the wall. Before each of us stood a soldier with a rifle at the ready pointing at our hearts, waiting for the order from the “Okhrana.” Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky repeated his prior order concerning uncovering weapons and revolutionaries, pointing to the houses on Pienkne Street, from which people had allegedly been shooting. Then the detainees, under guard, were taken to the indicated houses, in which they, along with the officers and soldiers, found nothing aside from two old men. All of these events lead to the conclusion that everything that happened was organized by the Siedlce military and civil powers, as indicated in Pietochov's report and also in the reporting of the “Warshawski Dnievnik”^[70].

Soon after the pogrom, on September 12, the inquiry began. All of the citizen witnesses and also Deputy Zonderland were examined five times, namely: by the Warsaw assistant governor–general, by representatives named by the minister of the interior, by those appointed for extraordinary events by the Warsaw governor general, and by civilian and military inquest judges. The failure of these inquests to believe the populace convinced several residents, among them

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Dep. Zonderland to make two visits to the Minister of the Interior with a report (a copy is attached). The minister, acknowledging the particular truths of the matter, assured the deputation “that the guilty would not escape punishment.” But the result was quite otherwise: instead of punishment, for their activities the guilty–Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky–received a letter of thanks (published in the newspapers) from the Warsaw governor general. In this way, the punishment–worthy injustice aroused no opposition. Only one military policeman was punished by a military court for robbery, but for their terrible overstepping of military discipline, for their clear passivity in tolerating crimes, and for not assuming responsibility on the basis of paragraphs 345 and 346 of the penal code–neither Lieutenant Colonel Tichinovsky nor Governor General Volozhin received punishment.

Thus we propose that the Duma should inquire from the Ministers of the Interior, of War, and of Justice:

1. Whether they have taken steps, and what they may be, for those who are guilty in the described events to take responsibility;
2. Whether they have taken preventative measures, and what they may be, so that civil and military powers will not allow pogroms, whether through activities or passivity, against the general population and particularly pogroms conducted by the military.

From the bloody pogrom events in czarist Russia shines out one sterling word–self–defense: the self–protection of the Jewish people against the murderous actions of the czarist government. Understandably, self–defense became a valuable activity in the affairs of the Jewish revolutionary parties in the revolution of

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of 1905. But not less was the effect of Bialik's fiery words concerning passivity and allowing oneself to be slaughtered that the great writer had presented in the publication of his “B'ir ha–harugah.”

Had the Jews of Siedlce prepared a self–defense? Had self–defense been ready at the moment it was needed?

We know that self–defense existed and just before the pogrom it had been revived under the leadership of Hersh Chaim Geliebter. Those belonging to the self–defense group were: Boyarski, Yudel Mastboym, Yosef Smaleh, Elphraim Vilk, Avraham Sarnatzki, Yakov Brenner, Mottel Wisotski, Yakov Stalovi, Aybkorn, Berek Shtandman, Yakov Moyshe Krasitzki, Chaim Dembowitsch, Meir Saltzman, Yakov Salarzh, Yablon, and Wishnieh.

Eyewitnesses testify that the self–defense group showed no activity. Before the pogrom they disappeared and were not visible in the city. But it was clear that the group did not know what to do, because the pogrom was not made up of gangs but was a military operation of trained soldiers, well–armed with rifles and cannon.

What was the attitude of this self–defense organization after the experience of the pogrom?

The organization “Ha–t'hiyah”, which taught the democratic popular wing of the Zionist movement, made a point in its program about active participation in political life (the fight against czarism, self–defense activities). In Siedlce, “Hat'hiyah” was one of the strongest organization of the province. With the help of “Ha–t'hiya” members and members of “Dvorah” (an academic women's organization, mostly students from the women's classes in Warsaw University and students from the dental school), weapons were smuggled from Warsaw to Siedlce when they thought a pogrom was being prepared^[71].

From the memoirs of the Bundist activist A. Litvak we know that at the end of June, 1906, in an issue of the “Volkszeitung” there was a meeting of the Bund's central committee. On the agenda

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was the question of self–defense. A. Litvak explains:

Self–defense at that time was at an impasse. This was just after the pogrom in Bialystok, in which the soldiers from the local garrison had participated. Thus had begun a new round of pogroms, all with the army's participation, just as in Bialystok. The Siedlce pogrom, which broke out a couple of months later, was entirely conducted by the army. What can a civilian self–defense corps do in such pogroms? When pogroms were conducted by a mass of hooligans, even by the half–organized Black Hundreds, our self–defense corps could have an effect. Sometimes they could forestall a pogrom, so it would not even begin. Sometimes, by keeping it from spreading as it usually did, they could minimize its bloodiness. But what could our self–defense corps do against the army that carried out its bloody work under orders? To stand up like accidental revolutionaries against disciplined and organized riflemen would only bring unnecessary sacrifices. And if they had to do something…what was their alternative?

In the discussion, a proposal emerged: The Bund should issue a proclamation with a clear warning, that in case of a military pogrom, they would use dynamite to blow up the city. Before such a catastrophe, even the army commanders would pause. Who made this proposal I do not know, perhaps I myself. In any case, I strongly supported it.

Many of our comrades argued against it, from a practical standpoint: we could not carry out such a thing. It would make us look laughable and would prompt severe repression. Lieber raised political motives against it: with such a tactic, he said, we would arose the whole non–Jewish population against us. Even those who are currently opposed to the pogrom, or hold themselves neutral, would tomorrow become our bitter enemies. The only victors would be the czarists, who themselves would not spare the non–Jews. They would even provoke us, so that in this or that city hundreds or thousands of innocent Christians would suffer, with the result that there would arise the bitterest war between Christians and Jews that they could inspire. If we should insist on this course of action

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that has been set before us, our area would repeat what had happened in the Caucusus, where the czarists had inflamed the Tartars and the Armenians against each other. They shot at each other while the czarists enjoyed the carnage from a distance…

Lieber's reasoning made a strong impression on all of us. But I did not withdraw entirely. I proposed that we should not blow up the whole city, only the governmental buildings, and we should do it so that no civilians should be harmed. I was also not supported in this proposal–who knew if an explosion could be so localized. The situation was quite difficult, and in my mind I wondered: should we allow ourselves to be slaughtered without resistance?…

No proposal was put up for a vote, and the question remained formally open. Several weeks later, I published in an issue of “Glock” (the illegal journal of our Warsaw committee, in the summer and fall of 1906–in all, their were three issues) under the name of Levy, an article in which were several subtle defenses of my second proposal. No one paid attention to my article: the Siedlce pogrom was the last in that period and the whole question soon became irrelevant^[72].

Y. Greenboym, considering this period of pogroms, asserts:

In Siedlce there was no attempt, and would be no attempt, made at self–defense. One shot in self–defense would have brought forth a crescendo of shooting against the city.

The events in Siedlce did not create Jewish confidence in self–defense. All of the youth circles of Poland gave up on the idea of self–defense^[73].

In Jewish circles in Siedlce a report went around about the wife of the Russian officer Uriel. People said that she was a member of the social revolutionary party and she had organized in her home a gathering of the terror groups where they discussed the question of transforming themselves into self–defense forces^[74].

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