Another Page from Kishinev’s Story: Horrors of the Massacre Told by One of the Survivors

“Another Page from Kishinev’s Story: Horrors of the Massacre Told by One of the Survivors,” Washington Times (Washington, DC), June 14, 1903. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1903-06-14/ed-1/seq-6/

ANOTHER PAGE FROM KISHINEV’S STORY

Horrors of the Massacre Told by One of the Survivors

    The following letter received by a resident of Washington, and translated by Rabbi J. T. Loeb, has been sent by him to The Times:

N. Bernstein, 1526 Fourteenth Street northwest, Washington, D. C.

    Dear Cousin: How shall I begin my writing to you. My head is still turning from the storm and torture of the “pogrom” we have undergone. You ought to know the particulars of the misfortune from the newspapers. The atrocities we have endured here have not their equal in the world’s history. During the two days of the 6th and 7th of last April our people were plundered and butchered in an indescribable manner, while the police stood by and looked at the spectacle with evident satisfaction. Three-quarters of the city have been destroyed, fifty Jews were killed outright, while hundreds were fatally injured. Our homes were pillaged of all they had contained. Like a deep snow the feathers that were let loose had covered the entire city. Everything which was not plundered was broken, shattered and smashed into bits. Our houses of worship were desecrated in a most barbarian manner. The Holy Scrolls were rent asunder, and upon the spread of their parchment were committed the most foul and disgraceful crimes. * * * A sexton in one of the synagogues attempted to protect the Torahs when he was brutally felled to the ground and murdered. Numerous women were outraged in a most horrible manner. A tragic scene I have witnessed at the “holy ground,” when forty victims were interred. The cry of the orphans and the widows then rent the heavens. Later, another ten were carried to their graves. Day by day people die as a result of the injuries and horrors. My wife gave premature birth to a dead child and has been sick ever since. 

    What will be in days to come? This, only God knows. A Jewish deputation was sent to St. Petersburg, and the minister of the interior has assured them of protection for the future. Meanwhile the governor and the chief of police were dismissed. 

    Thursday, May 9, we have had here a day of fasting and general lamentation. By order of the rabbis our community has all abstained from eating and drinking, assembling in the houses of prayer and chanting the psalms, going to the “fields” and praying for the souls of the martyrs; weeping and wailing and crying so piteously that the voice must have been heard on high. 

    Now let me inform you about ourselves: Your Uncle Hyman, Aunt Celia, and their children, so also Uncle Meyer and his wife and children, Aunt Jochebed and children, and myself and wife—all of us, thank Heaven—have been saved alive. But our effects have been robbed and spoiled, the pillows all torn, and everything destroyed. Only a few things that I hid in the cellar were saved. But Aunt Jochebed and her son Isaac were utterly ruined. They were left even as naked as they were born, and they had barely escaped with their lives. The old woman’s husband, Archie, her son Nathan, and youngest son Solomon, are all dead. Her eighteen-year-old girl was outraged. * * * They handed in a petition to the committee for 600 rubles indemnity, but 50 rubles were all that was granted, and they are literally without food and without cover. 

    We ourselves have been left destitute and in misery and without any prospects for a living, but the poor old woman’s misfortune is the worst. She has not even the means for one day’s support. And then her girl. Uncle Meyer, thank God, has escaped without injury. Leah, another daughter of Aunt Jochebed, and her husband Alex, are also safe, but without means of subsistence. 

    Dear cousin, if it be possible for you to afford us some aid, especially to Aunt Jochebed, you will do the greatest act of charity you have done in your life. Although money is being sent to Kishinev from all parts of the world they do not give it out until Succoth (Feast of Tabernacles) when arrangements will be made for our people here to immigrate to Palestine. In dread of a renewal of “pogroms” we are every day. 

    Now, I can write to you all I know about your wife’s relatives: Hannah, Cyril, Isaac, and the rest of the children are alive, but Lazer and Uncle Yudel of the Bridge are dead. As to the rest of the family I shall find out and write to you immediately. 

    I beg of you to please write us how things are in America, what they say there as regards the Kishinev massacre. 

    Your cousin, 

    NATHAN BERNSTEIN.

N. 21 Minkovskaya Ul., Kishinev, Russia.

    P. S.—Greetings from father, mother, Uncle Meyer and wife and children, Aunt Jochebed, Leah and Alex. Our regards to your wife and children. Oh, how we all long to be with you in America and have escaped from this land, where our lives are in peril every day!