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General view of the Lubart fortress

The fortress plan

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The First Battle
(18^th July – to the end of August 1914)

The city of Lutsk felt the World War a day before the “day ready for calamity,” Tisha b'Av 5674 [1^st of August 1914].

Because of the fear that the Austrian military would suddenly invade the city, the strategists from the Russian military made the first move, hastily burning the bridges in the suburb Nidev.

The speed of with which the destruction was carried out did not allow the neighboring residents to save their possessions. This brought extraordinary fear and confusion to the entire Lutsk population.

All nearby Jewish houses with their entire contents went up in flames.

The confusion in the military and in all government institutions was great. The city acquired the appearance of a war site.

We anticipated with pounding hearts that an embittered fight would flare up near the city, that provoked and rampaging Austrian soldiers would invade the city to loot and murder.

The Austrian military divisions did not accomplish this. Up to 20 verst [a verst equals 0.66 miles or 1.1 kilometers] from Lutsk, they encountered a Russian battalion that arrived from Proskurov and Kamenetz- Podolsk [Kamianets-Podilskyi]. The first battle took place near Lutsk and the first Austrian prisoners were brought to the city.

The Russian regiments that were designated to help the army in the fight against the center, on the road to Lemberg, stormed through Lutsk.

The soldiers filled every house. The first left for the front and the others arrived from deep Russia. The city was in turmoil. The soldiers did not appear to feel at home with the population.

The hate that reigned in the high spheres to outsiders in general and to Jews in particular penetrated deep into the hearts of the broad masses and particularly in the army. The soldiers were embittered. They thought of themselves as candidates for certain death and therefore everything was permitted. They were permitted to cause devastation for the Jewish population as they wished and as the hate propaganda prompted them.

However, a situation was created similar to one of which King David said: “You put gladness in my heart that is greater than theirs at the time that their grain and wine abound.” (I rejoiced even more than when my enemy, the wicked, [rejoiced when] he had increased his harvest of grain and wine). The Russian Army was victorious on the southwest front; they gave the Austrians a severe beating and drove them very deep into Austria. The Russians penetrated deep into Galicia up to the Carpathian Mountains – and Lutsk remained far from the actual war operations and from the soldiers who were going into battle.

Over nine months, when the Russians fought in the Carpathians, Lutsk was quiet and we did not experience any fear. The military very rarely marched through the city and when it did it consisted of the so-called zapas [reserves], an older and a quieter element, fathers of children and families, who themselves felt the tragedy of being taken away from their homes because of the misfortune of war. When they were stationed in the city, they grew to feel at home with the truly amicable and compassionate Jewish population and became friends joined in acquaintanceship and friendship with it.

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Together with other cities on the same line, Lutsk was the first point in Russia to supply Russian goods (mainly food products) to Galicia and Galitzianer goods (mainly factory manufacturing) for Russia. The city was full of military and merchants from Russia and Galicia; commerce blossomed and the population earned a profitable income.

After receiving a great blow, the Russians began to run from the Carpathians. They remained for three more months near the city of Sokol and other cities on the line, a distance of 80 versts [about 85 kilometers or 53 miles] from Lutsk. However, with the arrival of the Germans to aid the Austrians at the front sector, the Russians began to suffer defeat after defeat until they gave up Galicia for lost and even a large part of Volyn.

The defeats on the battlefield were a result of the criminal behavior of the high and low officers in the army. The high government ministers were mindful of their desires and interests. Many simply for money or with debauchery and drunkenness sold and gave away military secrets and plans. Certainly not everything was permitted to be made public. But what we already saw was enough. A high leader, a colonel or even a general, [Sergei] Myasoedov, was sentenced for treason – and actually killed. An anecdote was told in the city, which was an actual fact: From the Krasner side, that is, from the front, an automobile flew like an arrow. Sitting in it, was a nervous, distracted officer. It was thought that an important secret was being carried from the front to the main headquarters. The officer at a noisy pace flew through the main street, jumped out at Kaznaczajstvo, quickly bought several packs of cards and returned to the front!

However, for the world and mainly for the duped soldiers, one had to find another pretext for all the defeats.

So they accused the Jews! The commanders and their collaborators spread foolish legends among the soldiers and the masses about the devotion of the Jews to Austria and to the Germans. They would designate the German military divisions as Zydovskoya Voyska [Jewish troops]. The sinister soldiers would say that the Germans speak a “real language” that is similar to Yiddish. They suspected that the usual wagons of goods and food, which naïve merchants took to sell in Galicia, which still belonged to the Russians, were not sacks of salt, but sacks filled with gold and silver and the Jews were taking them to the detested army, the Austrians or to the Germans. In the living geese that the Jews took to trade, the obtuse Russian Jew-haters in their hatred saw gold and diamonds. Among the sinister Russian masses stories were spread that the Jews had buried telephones in the ground and through the ground telephones they showed their nepriyatiye (hostility) by sending secrets about the [Russian] Army to Vienna and Berlin. Such Jewish “traitorous” telephones were even suspected of being in the thick Jewish beards; they claimed that the hairs were disguised wires…

The deluded, embarrassed, broken and wounded Russian soldiers saw in the Jews their murderers, those guilty for the defeat of the Russian “victorious army” and for the death of the Russian soldiers.

From time to time, the highest Russian commandants issued decrees to drive out the Jewish residents from the war areas and from the fortress cities. And although, when the Russians escaped from the Austrians and Germans in fear, the edict of expulsion had long been voided (many areas already were then simply not in Russian hands), the edicts appeared to affect and discredit the Jews in the eyes of the masses who held that Jews must not be believed, that Jews were enemies of the Russian people and of Matushka Rossiya [Mother Russia] – and, therefore, the Russian peasants and soldiers could take revenge on the Jews with their own hands…

And in the future, when the army and the raw masses had been poisoned with hate for the Jews, all of the refugees from the Russian masses, had to pass at a run through Lutsk with the crippled, with the military hospitals, with all of the military loneliness and need. The peasants from Volyn and Galicia whom the Russian military had torn from their homes with their wives and children and their livestock and pigs [were taken] with them by the escaping [Russian] army so as to not leave so many workhands for the aggressive Germans and Austrians [as the area] changed hands.

All of the people, embittered at all the hostility that they encountered – one on the battlefield, another in his village – were ready to take revenge against the Jews, who “were guilty of everything” and who remained on their long-inhabited lands.

The situation became more terrible from minute to minute; the Austrian troops and their weapons of mass destruction strode energetically and drove out the Russians; for several days without stop the Russians ran through the

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city without any order, with great fear of the arriving Austrians and in anger at the Jewish population.

In the width of the street ran the confused in clusters – soldiers with oboz [military transport], cannons with swine. Everything turned in a magic dance in many places. There was no equal to the noise of the soldiers, the crying of the peasants' wives and children, the whinnies from horses, the banging of the cannons and iron wheel rims on the highway stones.

The hearts of the Jews gaped at the sight of the indescribable chaos and of the grey, twisted fury on the faces of the soldiers and peasants who were running from death.

The chaotic running lasted three days and at night, after burning the train station and several of the barracks, and after wrecking the electricity station, the Russians left the city.

The city was sunk in a frightening darkness. The blazes from the celebrations breaking out hellishly lit the empty, dead city. Choking, despairing voices began to be heard from here and there. Marauding soldiers, murderers remaining from the escaping army with the Russian civilians from the underworld began to break open Jewish shops, to loot them and to make a ruin of whatever came into their hands and to murder everyone who, by chance, they found in the street or in the shops they had broken open.

The population hid in the rooms deep in their houses. No candles were lit; the entire family curled up close together under rags, furniture and waited in deadly fear for the murderers whose wild voices could be heard from the nearby houses.

However, as was discussed previously, hardened, determined pale faces began to appear in the streets – small groups of young Jews with stronger character. They took upon themselves the defense of the lives and the honor of their wives and daughters and to avoid the destruction of years of Jewish efforts. Armed with sticks and iron tools, but even more, with heroism and devotion, they ran unafraid under the bullets of the looters, against them. They disarmed the looters, chased several of them and the looting ceased that same night.

In the morning, the city was abandoned, without a government. The Russians were no longer here; the Austrians had not yet entered. Out of fear that the looting would repeat itself at night in a more organized form, the Jews did as their father Jacob had done before his meeting with his brother Esau. Lutsk Jews prepared both for prayer and war. Firstly, the Jews had improvised so-called “pitatel'nyye point,” nourishment locations in several places in the city where every passing soldier or Cossack would receive, without any payment, a roll and tea to satiation. Secondly, every Jew perhaps said a prayer in his heart that the crisis would pass peacefully and made up his mind that they would not be offended nor insulted and would be quiet at an insult from a soldier, a malcontent, so, God forbid, not to provoke someone.

And, thirdly, and this was the strongest argument, the Jews had prepared for war. Yes, for war! They, with the permission of a Russian officer, who in a wonderous way because of some kind of extraordinary mission, appeared for an hour's time in anarchistic Lutsk – founded a civil militia with regulations and with discipline. White armbands with the Russian words, gorodskaya militsiya [urban militia] appeared on arms. Instantly, iron rods, all of the same kind, were found in the hands of Jews. The two so-called symbols of power gave courage to the young Jews to stroll in the streets, to welcome the soldiers and Cossacks on horses and motion to them exaltingly – with slaps and with fists – to have respect for the Jewish militia and that they should – on the horses, with weapons – take to their heels and run away.

Thus passed a day and a night. The last Russian soldiers went through the empty streets in the darkness and from the formation they berated and cursed the Jewish militiamen who correctly, but firmly, were stationed at their posts.

In the morning, the first echoes of the Austrian batteries very close to the city were heard.

Two Russian soldiers emerged from their hiding place. They were designated to set fire to the bridge that led from the suburb of Krasne into the city. They carried out their task and immediately escaped – riding together on one flying horse. In the extraordinary environment, it appeared like a fantastic creature from a ballad from an ancient Russian poet…

The city remained between the two battling sides. From both sides of the city, the Austrians fired shells over the city at the escaping Russian Army. Over the

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city flew and exploded shrapnel with various clamor and whistling. Several had a joyous, impudent reverberation, like the laughing of easy women; others roared like angry, bad old people. This all was accompanied by the fine voices of the rifles and machine guns; everything together was the devil-music at the wedding of Asmodeus and Lilith…

Every minute, hundreds of young, human lives in the army died. The population ran into the cellars. Under a hail of bullets, several strong men brought families of women and children to more secure places. They were busy with wounded civilians and they gave first aid. In the morning, there were two killed and more wounded.

The shooting lasted until the afternoon and then military divisions of burned, darkened and sweating Austrians entered the city.

The Jews breathed easier. They went out of the houses into the street. The Austrians were very friendly to the Jews. Jews were considered as a good loyal, bourgeois element and they quickly proposed to the Jews that they organize the management of the business of the city.

Quickly, erev [eve of] Yom Kippur 5676 [1916], the Austrians “provisionally,” as with a plaything, began to leave the city to the Russians who were fortified near Klevan and tried to attack the Austrians from there. The sorrow among the Jews was great, first they were afraid, in general, of the transfer process from one regime to the other. And secondly, they trembled particularly about the return of the Russian government of evil. Many pious Jews were forced to desecrate the holy day and escape from the front lines in wagons to avoid mortal danger. At night on Yom Kippur in the synagogues, the Jews emphasized with great longing the words of the Psalm [4:9]: In peace, in harmony, I lie down and sleep. Sleeping calmly in peace and not being afraid of death from the rampaging soldiers of all kinds appeared like a fantasy in these crazy times.

The chaotic withdrawal of the Austrians lasted for several days and at night erev Sukkous [Feast of Tabernacles] shrapnel began to fall from the Russian side.

Sukkous morning – gut yontef [happy holiday]! The Russians had returned to the city. However, it was apparent that to them Lutsk was no more than a sukkah [temporary structure in which meals are eaten during the days of Sukkous], a temporary dwelling. They had not considered arranging all of their belongings in Lutsk. The Austrians had not withdrawn from Lutsk. They had only left the city, but they remained in the small village of Malianik, 5 or 6 verst [about 3 to 4 miles or 5 to 6 kilometers] from Lutsk. From there they placed their batteries even with the city and even against the high walls, where according to their hypothesis, the commanders were lodged. The city was transformed into a [fighting] position. The Russians dug trenches in many places between the houses and from there shot at the Austrians. On the shore of the Glushec River batteries were placed behind the county court building, which with their serious bass language spoke to Malianik, to the Austrians. The others were not innocent. Over the course of three months, they made such nanium [the motion made shaking palm fonds on Sukkous], actually threatening to make a ruin of the city.

A few hundred souls from the civilian population perished and were wounded. Many houses were damaged. The people already were accustomed to such a life, which hung by a thread. During the short pauses between the shooting, they crawled out of their hiding places into the streets and each time they learned about the deaths of their own and of acquaintances with great pain and, therefore, awaited even worse.

The battery was welcomed with music. The Russian soldiers improvised platforms. They good naturedly pulled tables, chairs, old crates from rooms out of the houses and bands played music in the middle of the empty streets.

On the second day of khol hamoed [the intervening days of Sukkous], early in the morning the Austrians already were back in the city.

It was demanded of the Jews that they go outside the city and help to create a little order: clear away the dead soldiers from the Russian Army. First here, the Jews, peaceful by nature and brought up with a feeling of mercy for every human being created in God's image, with alarm saw the sad harvest of the shooting that had occurred at daybreak. The dead people “sat” in the trenches in various poses and with various expressions on their faces. Near one, right near his right hand, which still held the trigger of the rifle, lay a New Testament; near another one, a cross. Near another, a picture of an older woman with a shawl over her head, apparently a mother; or a picture of a young woman, perhaps a bride; near someone else, a picture of a small nursing child; near a Jew from Kishinev [Chişinău] lay a Siddur [prayer book] opened to the krisme [Krias Shema – profession of faith].

And just as with almost all of the dead, both Jews and Christians, there was a sort of nobility on the faces of the dead, a sort of spiritual appraisal at the last minute of their life – while the living Austrian soldiers working around the dead appeared exactly the opposite. They appeared like “a fish in the sea – the big one that swallows the small one.” It was notable, without anger and without hatred, but they were so at ease, even with a kind of collegiality, as they related to the dead soldiers and comrades and with a kind of gratitude, that it was he that was dead… So, for example without any shame for us Jews, an

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Austrian began to take off the beautiful boots from a dead Russian for himself and laid his torn rotten “[foot] wrappings” near the dead one. Another one crept with his hands into the pockets of [the dead one's] Russian comrade and emptied them.

And the corpse moved its head when the marauder's hands were searching him. The eyes were open and stared as if they were asking in wonderment: is it possible?...

After their recent entrance into the city, the Austrians were more tenacious; they related to the population on a regular basis, without ceremony and sentiment. First, they began to harass us, so that in the three days, when the Russians were in the city, the Jews, of course, gave them secrets about the Austrian Army and, in general, they helped with everything that was necessary. It is true that individual Jews intervened among the Russian higher officers so that calm would reign in the city. However, this had nothing to do with treason. However, during the emergency, this was blown out of proportion by enemies as treason – and 20 innocent Jews were arrested and were taken to Ludmir, where – according to what they were told in route – they would be no less than hanged… On the way, they met the chief commander of the Fourth Army, Josef Ferdinand, one of Kaiser Franz Josef's sons, and, quickly investigating the entire event, he found out that they were innocent. He ordered Ludmir that they [the 20 Jews] should be freed from there. In general, there now developed a different relationship from our Jewish population in relation to their loyalty.

The headquarters of the Fourth Army settled in Lutsk. They brought in a military [regime] and a strict regime. Each resident felt a secret surveillance, spying on him. It was forbidden to be in the street after eight in the evening. One was interned deep in the country for [doing nothing]. For such a sin as not giving respect to the military, for not raising a hat to an officer, one could receive a lashing, have half of one's beard shaved, having one's hand tied behind his back and the like. The Austrians, in the course of their time in Lutsk, hanged three people, True, these were not Lutsk residents. One, a Russian soldier was from Bessarabia, the second – a peasant from a village near Koval, and the third – a Jew, an Austrian soldier.

The Austrians arranged the executions with great fanfare: For they will hear and see [for the sake of learning]; it should have an “educational” significance… This was carried out in the center of the city outside the district garden that we would call the old boulevard. This would be announced in advance and the entire city went to watch and receive the “moral lesson.”

About the “moral lesson” – it must be said here that all of the enemies of the Jews needed to receive a moral lesson just from the peasant from near Koval, the hanged Masajszuk. A version went through the town at that time that before his death Masajszuk said that despite the sin that the Austrian military regime attributed to him, he was pure and innocent. However, he earned this “rope” very honestly, for his good deeds of a few years earlier. Namely, he was a loyal member of the Russian Black Army [Makhnovisti], of the union of “Russian People” and, in his village, he was the first to agitate against the Jews in peaceful Volyn and also organized pogroms against the Jews in Volyn.

The severe Austrian related to the peaceful population as to enemies from whom they needed to makes demands with insolence and they took from the population as if they were doing them a favor and they were carrying on a milkhemet mitzvah [war by commandment]. They searched the houses for brass and copper and took it. Demanded workers (without pay) to dig trenches and for other hard labor. They grabbed the noblest people, learned, intelligent and dragged them to work with derision and mockery.

The economy was also severely weakened. There was no income. The regime devised various taxes: for the least permission for a shop, or to travel to Austria for goods and taking money away, they demanded that they be given Russian rubles and gold.

The attitudes improved little by little. The regime noticed the quiet Jewish element and began to relate to it with more justice and respect. The corporal punishments were canceled and in their place came monetary penalties. From the start, the fines went to the state treasury, but then they began to be used in the city itself for the newly created Aid for the Poor Committee. A so-called Workers Committee was also organized to create work for those who had need of it and to receive workers for those who required them. Thus, the question of workers to dig the trenches was regulated and men were no longer grabbed for the work.

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Great changes also came to the municipal economy. The management consisted, mainly, of Jews. This had a good effect even on the relationship of Christians to Jews. Jews received more esteem and respect from the Christian population.

The regime trusted Jewish consistency and loyalty so much that it began to give hints that the Jews would receive autonomy.

There was a revival of trade. It was relatively easy to obtain “passes” to willingly travel deep into Austria. The economic situation was very good. The population began to carry on various communal improvements. The aid committee expanded its activities and would give out various grants for other purposes of 4,000 rubles a week.

The regime issued orders about sanitary advances. Bathhouses were created, just as vaccination against small pox and other hygienic, sanitary institutions. The population adapted well to all of these justifications for enacting stricter laws and believed that the regime deserved thanks.

However, another hardship began: a lack of food, an extraordinary scarcity of raw materials.

The regime had to adopt repressive means against this. It became forbidden for private people to trade in grains, flour and other agricultural products and a card system was introduced for bread and sugar, which were sold in especially designated stores.

The city was under Austrian authority for eight months – entirely separated from the Russian area, a separate world. The border was near Lutsk. We had no concept of what was happening across the border. Rovno [Rivne] seemed to us as veiled in a fog of fantasy, like the world on Mars. Yes, we remembered the city of Rovno with its familiar Jews, but this was somewhere I did not know with the “Russians,” behind the Mountain of Darkness, behind the secret piece of earth which is the border of life and death…

During the eight months, Lutsk had the opportunity to be visited by Karl, the heir to the throne, who became the Kaiser of Austria after the death of Franz Josef. Several times, great military geniuses spent time in Lutsk. Among them the Turk, Enver-Bey [Pasha Ismail Enver], and the German [Field Marshal August von] Makenzon, who with his speeches wanted to breathe new life into the Austrian officers with a feeling of heroism and strength.

Very “high” guests, Russian airplanes, visited the city three times and “strolled through” it. They, God forbid, did not do anything bad, only once they dropped some bombs that, by the way, did not harm any people. They exploded with great noise and made a racket at the shores of the River Styr, in the Nidev part of the city.

This was supposed to be a “memento” – remember where you are, it is not yet peace, it is war!

The Jews languished during the time of Austrian rule in Lutsk, occupying themselves by looking for income and in thinking about bettering things in the city and other such matters – while the Russian and Austrian armies carried on bitter struggles about 30 verst [almost 20 miles or 32 kilometers] from Lutsk on the road to Kovel. In the city, shooting was heard all day from both sides. In the evening, in the distance, tracer shells from cannons were even seen. One would see how suddenly a piece of heaven was illuminated – this was from a Russian searchlight that would crawl and occupy even more area like a fantastic living animal. And very high above, in airplanes under the clouds sat “invisible men” studying the illuminated area and considering how to make a ruin of it…

The consequence of the games of [hide and seek] was that erev [the eve of] Shavous [the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people] 5676 [1916], the Austrians were beaten without mercy. General [Aleksei] Brusilov's army came with sound and lightning and broke through the Austrian front in many places. The Austrians found themselves in a terrible situation. They were threatened with not only losing Lutsk and its surrounding – they could be surrounded on all sides by the Russian regiments and remain in captivity with all of their multitudes, completely. They actually [were lucky] and withdrew from the city and from the entire area to a distance of 50 verst [about 33 miles or 53 kilometers] across the entire southwestern line.

With great sorrow, the Jews perceived the escape of the Austrians, who recently, with their equal treatment of all nationalities, received the sympathy of the Jews. Now the Jews waited for the transfer from one regime to another. In addition, a transfer to the hated Fonye [Russia].

For the fourth time, the Jews had to hide in the cellars and pits and this time there were a few young Jews, as if they meant nothing by it, who walked through the houses (in other words, cellars and holes) and took small amounts of money to buy bread and cigarettes to [welcome] the arriving Russian soldiers.

The entire second night of Shavous, the Jews in the cellars heard the hordes in the street. Hand-to-hand combat between the soldiers on each side took place in the city itself.

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However, this time the transition took place without victims from the civilian population.

In the morning of the second day of Shavous, the city was occupied by Russian soldiers and the coarse but artless good brotherly greeting zdravstvuy brat [hello, brother] could be heard again.

The headquarters of the Eighth Army settled in the city. This was the army that carried out the last victory in the entire front sector.

The regime became significantly more relaxed in comparison with what we had remembered from previous times. The military regime, mainly the military itself, showed (with very few exceptions) a good relationship to the population. On the day of the arrival of the Russian commanding officer, seeing the Jews' trade contacts, he created for them the opportunity that the Jews would be the suppliers of provisions for the military.

Jews were given the opportunity to join the Union of All Russian Counties, the Union of the Cities. Many Jews took respected posts in the Unions, which were government institutions.

Food products, which the Austrians lacked and which Russia had in abundance, were cheap and the life of the common people became easier.

However, Jews began to experience a special oppression, an oppression that was directed only at Jews and that came completely from another side, from the administrative regime.

However paradoxical this may appear at first glance, it was a fact: the army and the army regime were more liberal and humane than the civilian regime. And when we thought about it, we even found a certain enlightenment from the phenomenon. The army, fighting against the central European armies, came in a kind of close contact with them and learned somewhat from them in relation to their attitude toward the citizens. The army often lived together with the population of the occupied areas and heard many songs of praise about the courteous relationship to the citizens and this had an effect. More liberal breezes began to blow among the Russians, the conquerors. It is certain that kernels of other ideas that over the course of nine months produced fruits began to infiltrate. As a result, the military regime became so settled and it was almost unnoticed that it became well deposed to the Jews.

The administrative regime and the police were different. The local regime organs always remained in the city, not sticking their noses outside – and they were so old that they were unaware of any “heretical” breezes.

The functionaries from the administration and the police – all the same as before – returned to the city, from the district police chief, the still stubborn, angry “Mikhalke” to the town policeman, the pock-marked, indulgent “Halasiuk.” In their envy toward the Jews who had been “lucky” under the civilized Austrians for almost nine months, they took their revenge with particular hatred. For the smallest transgression, one was punished with a fine of 3,000 rubles or three months in prison. It would happen that walking past a shop, the police chief ordered one to gather the garbage and horse dung on the highway, bring it into the shop and lay it on the table…

The police were given the task to provide people for work at the war positions. They grabbed people in the street, came to search for them in their houses. And they sent them to the villages around Lutsk, such as Zhydychyn and Nebizhka, to dig trenches, build trenches and so on. Unprotected people were placed in the greatest danger. Austrian and German airplanes rained bombs or machine gun bullets over their unprotected heads. The airplanes strolled over the city several times a day over the course of several weeks. The bombs found the gasoline reservoir and the gun powder warehouse. Many people perished during these weeks. No business was carried out. There was no income and the scarcity of food grew.

But life was made worse for the Jews by the chinovnikes [officials]. In addition to their own cruelty, from the higher spheres came a wink to persecute the Jews. They literally bathed in the blood of the Jewish population and arbitrarily punished with monetary fines and lashes and if one deigned to bribe someone, they were asked to give such sums of which no one could ever dream.

However, help then came for the Lutsker Jews not in some sort of accidental small change on a local large scale to which we were accustomed until then. Lutsker Jews became a ring in a larger chain of events which changed the shape of all of Tsarist Russia with all of its subjugated lands.

The great upheaval that took place in the country after the Russian people became tired of suffering disorder, chaos, arbitrariness and theft, the overthrow [of the tsar] filled Lutsk with more strength because of its nearness to the war front.

The army at the front and the garrison in the city were reorganized by the provisional government that was designated by the revolution.

It appeared that God in heaven had during the

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night taken the earth with its jealousy and emnity of one nation to another and of fear of death by one homicidal murderer over another – and planted an idea in the zodiac, one of His many million other armies of heaven, a kind of brilliant planet, a planet of a new world to come, a world of the prophetic, at the end of days – of freedom and brotherhood, of love between man and man…

On the 10^th of March 1917 the soldiers organized a demonstration in honor of the revolution that had occurred; every division went through the city in rows with its commander, with music and song. The courtyard of the Russian cathedral was filled from the steps downward. They gave speeches to the thousand-headed crowd from all ethnic groups for freedom, equality and brotherhood between all citizens in Russia, without distinction because of belief. The crowd was so carried away by the speech by one speaker, a Jewish soldier Rozenberg, that soldiers and officers wrapped Rozenberg in a fire-red cloth and carried him high above the heads of the crowd, with great praise for the freedom fighters and freedom-thirsty Jews.

Airplanes with long, red flags waving [flew] not very high over the sea of heads as if they wanted to symbolically protect the people.

Autos decorated in red drove around the city the entire day. Soldiers, officers and civilians from all nations stood in them arm in arm. They sang and greeted the people for the great victory of freedom over slavery, of humanity over barbarism; there was no limit to their enthusiasm.

The Russian military finally was persuaded as to who was guilty for all of the misfortunes in the country and at the front, that the Jews were being made the scapegoat and it was unjustified – when the lock was removed from their mouths and everyone could speak according to their understanding, the boundaries in the country between citizen and citizen were removed.

Accompanying the revolutionary celebrations, freedom in life also began to be realized. The regime was transferred to the people. A commissar came to the city who was supposed to be the representative of the provisional government at the municipal and communal institutions. Representatives from ethnic groups were elected to the commissariat. Two delegates from the Jews also were elected to it: Avraham Gliklich and Khaykl Vajc.

Among others, 12 Jews were elected to the city managing committee.

The Jews in Lutsk were not organized. It felt like a necessity to create such a Jewish organization, such a center, that would direct all communal matters and would have the necessary authority among the Jewish masses and also serve as a deliberating organ for the Jewish community to examine and consider all questions.

It was decided at the large people's meeting that a certain percentage of members would be elected from every synagogue. One hundred and thirty people were elected. Forty people were chosen from them – the so-called Yevreyski Norodny Komitet [Jewish People's Committee], which set as its task to be watchful of Jewish interests in Lutsk.

Several days before Passover, there arose fear of a pogrom that was being prepared by sinister forces, based on what was being heard. A meeting was called of all 130 people and in agreement with the Russians, a committee was chosen that worked out a plan to stave off the danger. It was determined that the most formidable cause of the pogrom was the illegal sale of alcohol. The members of the committee through various means fought against the sale of alcohol: with propaganda in the synagogues and in other places; as was needed, they went to the secret places, sealed the boxes of whiskey or completely confiscated them. Drunk soldiers were stopped in the street and it was learned from them where the whiskey sellers were located; the soldiers also worked to bring calm and there was no pogrom.

The Jews began to organize in various groupings and unions. Several Zionists proposed a group initiative and called for gatherings and meetings. A Zionist organization was founded and premises where Zionists and Zionist sympathizers could gather were arranged. There also were created: the central office of the Professional Union, the Organization of Jewish Artisans (employers), a Profession Union of Workers – Jews and non-Jews – groups of the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

The various groupings did not fight each other. Under the influence of the liberation, they lived with each other in peace and comradeship. Their activities were expressed more in acts of a demonstrative character, in represention at their various events.

Those less skilled at understanding political distinctions together with their almost amateurish negotiations regarding party membership created attitudes that could not exist at the same time that the laws of the party and its program were strongly followed.

On the 1^st of May 1917, a great freedom holiday was declared in which the Lutsk population took part without distinction as to religion and social position. There were red flags with general freedom slogans,

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yellow-blue [flags] of the Ukrainian people, many-colored [flags] of the Polish people. The members of the Jewish People's Committee in which the majority of the bourgeois Jewish element had grouped itself carried a white-blue flag with a Mogen Dovid [Shield of David, the Jewish star] and a slogan, “Long live the freedom of the nationalities.” The more nationalistic carried a flag of white-blue silk with the inscription, “Long live the Hebrew people.”

The military and non-Jewish population with their flags concentrated at the square in front of Lubart's Castle and the cathedral; the Jews gathered at the square of the large municipal synagogue. At a previously designated hour, the procession of the flags and various songs began. Several groupings sang the Marseillaise, others, their national hymns. The Jews sang Zionist songs and the Hatikvah [The Hope – now the national anthem of Israel]. Groups from various organizations and institutions joined the procession on the way. [People] often greeted speakers of various nationalities from the balconies along the entire route.

An event that awoke joy accompanied with deep sadness took place at that moment when the joyfully singing demonstration [of people] dressed for a holiday and decorated with flowers accidentally came alongside a division of Russian soldiers, dusty from the road, unshaven, who had just gone through the city of Lutsk on its way to the front. The two groups crossed on the road.

The singing holiday demonstration greeted the soldiers: “Long live the free Russian Army!” The soldiers, who still were going to their deaths, shouted with enthusiasm and love: “Long live all nations that live in free Russia!” And they waved their military hats.

The demonstration stopped at the city hall. The balcony was decorated with red flags, with a Ukrainian flag and with the Jewish flag of white and blue with a Mogen Dovid. The chairman and the councilmen greeted every ethnic group separately.

The parade went on the Uzhendnicha camp field. From a dais, the speakers preached about freedom, equality and brotherhood for all ethnic groups that live in the area of Russia. There was no limit to the elevation of the mood.

The Jews actually were free citizens. The city hall consisted of almost only Jews. Life began to reveal wide differences of opinion among the various groupings on many questions – economic, political, religious and national. The elections to the Jewish People's Committee did not satisfy the general public: secret, direct and so on. The elections did not agree with its mission and it disintegrated. The Jewish groupings began to crystalize and presented their own demands. The Jewish community took part in the main groupings: Zionist organizations, professional unions of artisans (employers) and professional unions of workers. In the latter, there were many non-Jewish members.

A decree was published around June or July to organize a city duma [representative assembly] based on new democratic precepts. An election fight flared up. The Zionists obstructed the artisans' professional union and thus expected to block them also in the voting to the future all-Russian founding meeting.

The differences of opinion in the city duma convinced people that the match of the Zionists with the other unions was not successful. After the publication of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionists succeeded in popularizing the Zionist idea and therefore the Zionists decided hereafter to go with a different list [of candidates] – purely Zionists, without a mixture of other elements. They took the first independent step at the elections to the provisional government.

After their victory in the elections, the Zionists felt their power and their material influence over the Jewish masses. They declared a struggle for the Hebrew language, which was considered a luxury and chauvinism among the more leftist element. The Zionists then founded a branch of the Tarbut Society [Tarbut ran Hebrew language secular schools]; they worked out a plan for an organization of teachers and sympathizers of Hebrew; they founded a school and so on.

The Zionists did not limit their activity to special Zionist matters, and they were the first to take an active part in everything that concerned the larger Jewish community. When it was learned in Lutsk about the great need and poverty among the Jews in then- Poland and Lithuania, the Zionist Committee arranged a giant meeting with the purpose of carrying out a collection of money for those suffering.

The gathered money could not be sent to the areas because of a new upheaval and remained in trusted, honest hands until Passover. And then a Passover kitchen for the soldiers who originated in Poland and Lithuania was organized using the money.

* * *

This ended the epoch in Jewish Lutsk – the time of the Russian regime – war, on the eve of the revolution and during the revolution.

Lutsk, 1938

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