Pogroms: A Documentary History

From the 1880s to the 1940s, an upsurge of explosive pogroms caused much pain and suffering across the eastern borderlands of Europe. Rioters attacked Jewish property and caused physical harm to women and children. During World War I and the Russian Civil War, pogrom violence turned into full-blown military actions. In some cases, pogroms wiped out of existence entire Jewish communities. More generally, they were part of a larger story of destruction, ethnic purification, and coexistence that played out in the region over a span of some six decades.Pogroms: A Documentary History surveys the complex history of anti-Jewish violence by bringing together archival and published sources--many appearing for the first time in English translation. The documents assembled here include eyewitness testimony, oral histories, diary excerpts, literary works, trial records, and press coverage. They also include memos and field reports authored by army officials, investigative commissions, humanitarian organizations, and government officials. This landmark volume and its distinguished roster of scholars provides an unprecedented view of the history of pogroms.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Pogroms: An Introduction // Eugene M. Avrutin and Elissa Bemporad Chapter 1 Pogroms in Russia's Borderlands, 1881-1884 // Eugene M. Avrutin 1.1 Pogrom in Smela, Kiev Province [1881] 1.2 Leaflets Dropped around Kharkov Inviting People to Commit Anti-Jewish Violence [1881] 1.3 Telegram to the Minister of Internal Affairs from Prince Donbukov (1881) 1.4 Telegram Sent to the Ministry of the Interior from the Rovno Jewish Community (1881) 1.5 Circular Distributed by E. I. Totleben, the Governor-General of Vil'na, to His Subordinates (1881) 1.6 Observations Made by a Nameless Doctor [1881 or 1882] 1.7 Secret Memo by the Deputy Chief of the Gendarme Department in Chernigov Province (1881) 1.8 Memo Written by the Ekaterinoslav Governor to the Ministry of the Interior (1881) 1.9 The Russo-Jewish Question. A Special Correspondent of the Jewish World (1881) Chapter 2 The 1898 Anti-Jewish Violence in Habsburg Galicia // Daniel Unowsky 2.1 Pamphlet Widely Disseminated in Western Galicia: Jewish Secrets (1898) 2.2 Election Campaign Promotion from Wieniec Pszczólka (1898) 2.3 Report from the Kalwaria Zebrzydowska District Captain (1898) 2.4 Anti-Jewish Flyers (1898) 2.5 The Lutcza Indictment (1899) 2.6 Three Trial Excerpts (1898) Chapter 3 Kishinev Pogrom // Steven J. Zipperstein 3.1 On Hayim Nahman Bialik's "City of Killing" (1935) 3.2 Hayim Nahman Bialik, "City of Killing" (1903) 3.3 Testimony of Israel Rossman (1903) 3.4 The Kishinev Pogroms, by Jacob Bernstein-Kogan (1946) 3.5 Solzhenitsyn on the Kishinev Pogrom (2001) 3.6 Pavel Krushevan's Description of Sordid Jewish Economic Activity (1903) 3.7 Pogroms and Lynching (1903) Chapter 4 1905: Russia's Encounter with Revolution and Pogroms // Robert Weinberg 4.1 Government Inquiry Links Pogrom to Civil Unrest [1906] 4.2 Students, Workers, and Revolutionaries Clash with Soldiers [1906] 4.3 Calm before the Storm [1906] 4.4 The Pogrom Begins [1906] 4.5 Military Commander Describes the Outbreak of Violence [1905] 4.6 The Western Press Describes the Pogrom [1905] 4.7 Eyewitness Accounts of the Odessa Pogrom [1906] 4.8 Government Inquiry Accuses Jews of Inciting the Violence [1906] 4.9 Government Inquiry Accuses City Governor of Malfeasance [1906] 4.10 Testimony Given by Witness Teplitskii to Senator Kuzminskii (1905) Chapter 5 Pogroms in World War I Russia // Polly Zavadivker 5.1 A Jewish Military Doctor's Account from Galicia (1915) 5.2 S. An-sky Describes the Radivilov Pogrom (1915) 5.3 S. An-sky Witnesses the Aftermath of the Sokal Pogrom and Flight of Jews (1915) 5.4 Causes of the Anti-German Pogrom in Moscow (1915) 5.5 Russian Military Pogroms in Kovno, Vilna, and Minsk Provinces (1915) 5.6 The Rape of Jewish Women during Russian Military Pogroms (1915) 5.7 A Russian Jewish Politician Accuses the Russian Government of Complicity in the Incitement of Pogroms (1915) 5.8 A Russian Nurse's Notes from the Front [1915 and 1916] 5.9 The Kafafov Circular (1916) 5.10 The First Jewish Pogrom in Siberia (1916) 5.11 A Jewish Soldier Witnesses a Pogrom in Buczacz [1916] Chapter 6 Anti-Jewish Violence in the Russian Civil War // Jeffrey Veidlinger 6.1 The Proskuriv Pogrom (1919) Chapter 7 The Female Dimension of Pogrom Violence, 1917-1921 // Elissa Bemporad 7.1 Looting and Rape in Pechora (1919) 7.2 Looting and Rape in Smila (1919) 7.3 Denikin's Forces Depart from Smila (1919) 7.4 The Doctors Speak (1919) 7.5 Malka Lee's Through the Eyes of a Child (1919) 7.6 Rokhl Faygnberg's A Writer's Calling (1929) 7.7 Rokhl Faygnberg's The Destruction of Dubovo: the Chronicle of a Dead City (1921) 7.8 Women as Agents of Violence (1919) Chapter 8 Documentary Fiction of the Pogroms of the Civil War // Harriet Murav 8.1 Itsik Kipnis's Months and Days (1926) Chapter 9 Pogroms in Modern Poland, 1918-1946 // Anna Cichopek-Gajraj and Glenn Dynner 9.1 Police Report about the Incidents Involving Policemen in Kraków (1918) 9.2 "The Lemberg Horrors," by Joseph Bendrow (1918) 9.3 Testimony from the Vilna Pogrom (1919) 9.4 Report about the Incidents in Przytyk (1936) 9.5 Prohibition against Making Arrests at Fairs, Markets, and the Like Where the Crowd May Prevent Them (1936) 9.6 The Pogrom in Minsk Mazowiecki (1936) 9.7 Interpolation of Deputy Dr. Emil Sommerstein after Brest on Bug Pogrom (1937) 9.8 Article from the Anticommunist Underground Journal Honor and Fatherland (1946) For Further Reading Contributors

About the Author :
Eugene M. Avrutin is the Tobor Family Endowed Professor of Modern European Jewish History at the University of Illinois. He is the author and coeditor of seven books, including The Velizh Affair: Blood Libel in a Russian Town. Elissa Bemporad is the Jerry and William Ungar Professor of History at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk, and most recently of Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets.

Review :
A terrifying but necessary account of the innumerable instances of violence against Jews in eastern Europe. Carefully selected by leading experts, a multitude of voices speaks to us: voices of victims who often suffered unspeakable horrors; hateful voices of those who incited the violence; sympathetic and often helpless voices of journalists, writers, physicians, officials trying to find words encompassing the suffering. Eugene Avrutin and Elissa Bemporad have done an enormous service by making this varied set of sources on pogroms available to an English-speaking audience. The selection of documents and arrangements of topics opens new vistas on this horrifying issue. The book guides the reader through thorny problems of definition and explanation in clear, interesting, and non-polemical ways, making it a perfect introduction and teaching resource. The volume offers a useful addition to university teaching on pogroms and anti-Semitism. While there is extensive research literature on the subject in German and English, sources, insofar as they have been published, are usually only available in Eastern European or Jewish languages. This volume now makes additional sources available in English.