Pogroms in Odessa

 

We saw a procession of peasants and townspeople, led by priests, carrying crosses and banners and images. We lived in fear till the end of the day, knowing that the least disturbance might start a riot, and a riot led to a pogrom.

Mary Antin (1881–1949)

 

The Russian word pogrom literally means ‘an outbreak of mass violence directed against a minority religious, ethnic or social group’. The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the word on March 17, 1882, when the Times stated ‘That the Pogromen [riots against the Jews] must be stopped . . .’ and gave the full definition as ‘an organized massacre in Russia for the destruction or annihilation of any body or class: orig. and esp. applied to those direction against the Jews’.

Before 1881 anti-Jewish violence in the Russian Empire was hardly ever heard of, being confined largely to the ever-expanding area of Odessa. In Odessa, two rival ethnic communities, the Greeks and the Jews, lived side by side and it was obvious that it wouldn’t be long before there would be some form of friction.

It was the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 that threw the Russian government into chaos and directly preceded the first major outbreak of pogroms. The first pogrom flared up in Elizavetgrad when the new Tsar Alexander III blamed the Jews for having murdered his father. He issued a decree instructing the people to beat and plunder the Jews. Thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, many families were reduced to exceptional poverty, women were sexually assaulted, and many men, women and children were injured in the frenzied attacks. After Elizavetgrad, a wave of pogroms spread throughout the southwestern regions, and in the first year there were at least 200 such riots.

The authorities turned a blind eye to the pogroms, feeling that the pogromists were justified in their actions, and the riots continued for more than three years. It was widely believed by many of the Jewish contemporaries that the pogroms could possibly have been organized or directed by the government itself, given their wide range and duration. However, in 1882 the new tsar, believing that the pogroms were not the result of revolutionary fervour but the action of the Jews themselves, issued a series of harsh restrictions on the Jewish community. These laws prohibited new Jewish settlement outside towns, or shtetles, prohibited Jews from buying property in the country, and also banned Jews from trading on Sundays or any Christian holidays. These new laws, instead of preventing further pogroms, instigated a new spread of violence and regular pogrom outbreaks lasted until June 7, 1884, culminating in a particularly vicious one in Nizhnii Novgorod, where the victims were killed with axes and thrown from the rooftops.

Situated at the centre of Odessa was the marketplace, and it was here that the pogroms of 1871 and 1881 took place. Throughout the market, Jewish stallholders were beaten, their stalls, stands and shops raided, and their goods were either stolen or destroyed. The pogrom spread to other parts of the city where the Jews were known to live or where they had businesses, schools and synagogues. The rioters broke into their houses, smashing windows, forcing doors open, destroying furniture and ripping open feather pillows and mattresses, a somewhat traditional, if pointless, element of the pogroms. Once again the government seemed to turn their backs on these outbursts, and only occasionally did they send an army in to dampen down the hostility.

An even worse wave of pogroms broke out during the years 1903–06, in which an estimated 2,000 Jews were killed and many more wounded. The New York Times described the first Kishinev pogrom that took place during Easter 1903 in the following way:

 

The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, ‘Kill the Jews’, was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 [Note: the actual number of dead was 47–48] and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzies and blood-thirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.

 

The worst pogrom in the history of Jewish Odessa took place in October 1905, after Tsar Nicholas II was forced to sign the October Manifesto, which created a constitutional monarchy. At this time there were an estimated 175,000 Jews living inside the city of Odessa. The pogram enveloped the whole of the city and spread from the central streets to the outlying districts, predominantly Moldovanka, which was known to have a large and impoverished Jewish population. The riot lasted for three days and nights, and the frenzied crowds robbed shops, destroyed houses, tortured and killed Jews with knives, daggers and firearms, in fact nobody was spared, not even the women, elderly or children. This pogrom took 299 victims, the youngest of whom was one year old and the eldest 85. Thousands managed to escape to the city’s hospital, which was surrounded by solid stone walls, and this was where the wounded were brought for treatment. Following this last pogrom there was a considerable increase in the emigration of Jews out of Odessa.

Pogroms continued during the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, and it is estimated that a further 70,000 to 250,000 Jewish civilians were slaughtered in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire. After the Civil War pogroms slowly died out, but anti-Semitism still persists in certain areas to this very day.

 

Lasting Effect

 

The horrendous pogroms of the 1880s caused public outcry throughout the world and, along with the harsh laws that had been imposed, they were instrumental in the mass emigration of Jews. Around two million Jews fled the Russian Empire between the years 1880 and 1914, many of whom made the United States their home. Also as a result of the pogroms, Jews became more politically active. The Bund, otherwise known as the General Jewish Labour Union, and the Jewish participation in the Bolshevik movements were a direct repercussion to the riots. Pogroms were also instrumental in the forming of Hibbat Zion, a pre-Zionist movement advocating the revival of Jewish life in the Land of Israel. Its adherents worked towards the physical development of the land and founded agricultural settlements in Palestine. By the time the First Zionist Congress met in 1897, they had already begun to transform the face of the Holy Land.