| Kiev Pogroms | |
|---|---|
Pogrom victims in Alexandrov Hospital, Kiev, 1919. Credit: Elias Tcherikower |
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| Location | Kiev, Ukraine |
| Date | 1919 |
| Target | Primarily Jews |
| Attack type | Decapitation, Burning, Stabbing, Shooting |
| Deaths | unspecified number |
| Injured | unspecified number |
| Perpetrator(s) | Cossacks and the White Armies |
The Kiev pogroms of 1919 refers to a series of Jewish pogroms in various places around Kiev carried out by Cossacks, the White Armies, and the small percentage of Bolsheviks.[1] The series of events concern the following districts:
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The leaders of the White Army issued orders condemning the pogroms, but these were largely unheeded due to widespread anti-Semitism.[1] Lenin had spoken out against pogroms in March, and in June, the Bolsheviks assigned some funds for victims of pogroms. However, the events received little coverage in the Bolshevik press.[1]
The Kiev pogroms of 1919 proved the first of many such events.[4] It is estimated that a total of 1,326 - or up to 2,000 - pogroms took place across Ukraine around that time, in which between 30,000 and 70,000 Jews were massacred. The pogroms were marked by utmost cruelty and face-to-face brutality. Thousands of women were raped. Hundreds of shtetlekh were pillaged, and Jewish neighborhoods were left in ruins. According to some estimates, overall, in the pogroms of 1918-1921, half a million Jews were left homeless.[5] According to historian Manus I. Midlarsky, between 1918 and 1920, an estimated 150,000 Jews were killed in pogroms; of these 53.7% were committed by Petlura's Ukrainian nationalists, 17% by Denikin's Volunteer Army, and 2.3% by Bolshevik armies. The remainder were victims of local bands of renegade soldiers and other anti-Semites. These estimates include deaths due to massacre-induced disease or starvation. More recent estimates based on newly available Russian records judge the percentage killed by the Volunteer Army to be much higher, perhaps as high as 50 percent." [4][6]
The pogroms which erupted in January 1919 in the northwest province of Volhynia spread during February and March to the cities, towns, and villages of many other regions of Ukraine.[7] After Sarny it was the turn of Ovruc, northwest of Kiev. In Tetiev on March 25, approximately 4,000 Jews were murdered, half in a synagogue set ablaze by Cossack troops under Colonels Kurovsky, Cherkowsy, and Shliatoshenko.[8] Then Vashilkov (April 6 and 7).[9] In Dubovo (June 17) 800 Jews were decapitated in assembly-line fashion.[7] According to David A. Chapin, the town of Proskurov (later Khmelnitsky), near the city of Sudilkov, “was the site of the worst atrocity committed against Jews this century before the Nazis.” Massive pogroms continued until 1921.[10] In 1921, a large number of Russian Jews emigrated to Poland, as they were entitled by a peace treaty in Riga to choose the country they preferred. Several hundred thousand joined the already numerous Jewish minority of the Polish Second Republic (see History of the Jews in Russia).
On the February 15, 1919, during the Ukrainian-Soviet war, Otaman (General) Semesenko exterminated a large percentage of the Jewish district of Proskurov, where Jews were massacred on Shabbat (parashah Tesaveh) from three p.m. till next Sunday (?Saturday). Semesenko refused twice to follow orders to bring his troops onto the front-lines against the advancing Bolsheviks explaining that he anticipated a local Bolshevik Uprising. The Uprising really took place on November 14 which was not extinguished by the Semesenko, instead he marched into the city during a night afterward. Some Russian researcher Y.Petrovskiy claims the number to be of more than 10,000.[11][12]
Yet in the interview to the New-York Times that was published on September 14, 1919 the former Jewish Minister of Ukraine told that it was approximately 3,000. He said that the number was given to him by the Elder of the Jewish Community of Proskurov, Dr. Lisser, and was confirmed by the President of the local Poale Zion party, Dr. Greenfield. He also mentioned that unlike the old-fashioned pogroms that one did not involve pillaging, but rather was pure slaughtering as not much damage was done to any property. The Semesenko's troops left the city a week later without any reports. Soon after that pogrom numerous other took place in Balta, Golta, Vasilkov, and Khristinovka. Sometime after that Semesenko made another pogrom in Felshtin (near Proskurov) involving 600 or so dead. The minister also pointed to the political situation in the region mentioning of the Bolshevik's anti-Semitic pogroms on the newly occupied territories. He told the newspaper that Bolsheviks almost annihilated the city of Berdichev, heavily populated by Jews, by the artillery fire. (see Berditchev (Hasidic dynasty))
According to the official chronicles and local archives 1,200 that perished were stabbed to death by the Cossack shashkas while 600 were heavily wounded with less than 300 surviving it. Two weeks later the Order 131 was published in the central newspaper by the head of Directorate of Ukraine. In it Symon Petliura denounced such actions and eventually executed that Otaman by fire-squad in November 1920. This event is especially remarkable for being used to justify Schwartzbard for assassination of the Ukrainian leader in 1926. Although no facts of Petliura's direct involvement was ever proven, Schwartzbard was acquitted in light of revenge.