"Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;"
Thus begins the "The City of Slaughter" written by Haim Nahman Bialik, a poem about the victims of the 1903 pogrom in Kishinev.
The town of Kishinev is now called Chisinau and is in the country of Moldova. It is located on the western border of Russia, about 50 miles northwest of Odessa.
In April, 1903 there was a major pogrom in Kishinev. A pogrom is an attack aimed at persecuting a particular group, often Jews. During the late 19th century and the early 20th century there was a wave of pogroms against the Jews. The 1903 pogrom in Kishinev made international news, which meant that the world could no longer turn a blind eye to this kind of atrocity.
The 1903 Kishinev Pogrom was started after a boy was murdered in a nearby town. 47 Jews were murdered, 92 were severely injured, 500 were slightly injured, and numerous stores and houses were destroyed. "It had been proved that the riots were permitted by the authorities, and that previous to Easter Day agents of the police had informed the populace that during three days the Jews were to be massacred."
The Jews were accused of the murder in the mistaken belief that Jews used the blood for ritual purposes, especially during the holiday of Passover. The murder may have triggered the pogrom, but the government had pre-planned the crime and arranged the massacre. It was later discovered that a family member had committed the murder.
A report of the pogrom was written by Vladimir Korolenko, a Russian short-story writer and journalist. Korolenko visited the town 2 months after the massacre, and heard first person accounts of what had occurred. "My desire is to place before my readers some reflection of the feeling of horror which overcame me during my short stay at Kishineff two months after the massacres."
To illustrate the incident, Korolenko wrote about one particular home, house number 13. "The courtyard still bears eloquent traces of the riots; it is covered with feathers and down from mattresses, fragments of furniture, bits of broken glass and crockery, and scraps of torn clothing. A mere glance suffices to call up a picture of unbridled destruction; the furniture lies in small splinters; the plates have been stamped under foot into a thousand pieces; the clothing has been ripped into shreds; here lies a torn sleeve, there a child's pinafore."
The Jews were told of the impending action by a policeman who advised the Jews to stay inside and hide themselves. The policemen then sat on a curbstone and watched the horrors while waiting for the orders to stop the riots.
In "Fiddler on the Roof" there is a pogrom similar to the one in Kishinev. The constable warns the people, he waits while it is taking place, and there is reference to feather pillows being torn.
Many Jews left Eastern Europe after the Kishinev Pogrom. It was an horrific incident that made them feel unsafe. The irony is that the pogrom indirectly saved their lives - most of those that didn't leave, perished in the Holocaust.