The Fastov pogrom ( Jewish pogrom in the town of Fastov ) is a Jewish pogrom made by Cossack and partisan units of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia , against the Jewish population of the city of Fastov in August-September 1919 . He became one of the largest Jewish pogroms during the years of the Civil War in Russia and the largest Jewish pogrom produced by units of the White armies .
Content
Background
Fastov was a small town of Vasilkovsky district of the Kiev province with a mixed Ukrainian- Jewish- Russian- Polish-speaking population (in order of prevalence) [1] . At the end of the XIX century, the population exceeded 10,000 persons of both sexes [2] .
Like the whole of Ukraine during the Civil War, Fastov experienced a period of extremely frequent change of power, many of which were accompanied by Jewish pogroms. During the years of the civil war, there were 12 pogroms in Fastov, the total of which were about 1,500 victims [3] .
In August 1919, quite peacefully, in Fastov, the establishment of the VSYuR power took place, since before the Fastov included, following the retreating Soviet units, the units of the UPR Army left the city without a fight before the Armed Forces of Southern Russia approached, fulfilling the political decision of their command [ 4] .
Stay volunteers in the early days (before the reds break into the city)
The “silent” pogrom (the plundering of Jewish property with isolated cases of physical violence) began on August 24 ( September 6 ) of 1919 and lasted until early September, despite the fact that the Jewish population initially greeted the volunteers, as carriers, as local people state power, which finally will free them "from ataman and commissar lawlessness" [5] .
Mayhem
As a result, the attacks of the Red Army Fastov on one day, 9 (22) September 1919, again came under its control. White with the battle were knocked out of the city. During the occupation of the city by the red from the city station, shouts of “Hurray!” Were heard, which were regarded by some as cheers from the local population (the survivors of the pogrom later explained that the local army could not welcome the Red Army, since fleeing from the battle, the entire population hid in secluded places and on the street did not go) [6] .
On September 10 (23), 1919, the units of the Kyiv region VSYUR troops , represented by the Terek Cossack units ( 2nd Tera Plastun Brigade under the command of the General Staff of Colonel V.F. Belgorodtsev [7] (joined the command only after 24 August 6 ( September 6 ), 1919, as its predecessor, General Khazov, was removed from the command of May-Mayevsky with "publishing the corresponding order" for the massacre in Smelya ) [3] ) and the Volchansk partisan detachment . The Reds were knocked out of the Irpen River. Fighting started, the city was intensively bombarded with red guns and machine guns, whites responded from the city with the same. The fighting went on until September 13 (26), 1919 , after which the Reds were finally beaten off [6] .
The Jews were accused of aiding the Bolsheviks and on the very first day of the fighting a pogrom began, which took on an unusually brutal character because of the military situation that prevented the command from establishing proper order in the city. In the first two days, the Cossacks and partisans engaged in day and night robberies of the Jewish population with rare cases of murder and violence. However, on September 12 (25), 1919, the real massacre of the Jewish population began, lasting until September 13 (26) or even September 14 (27) . Many victims were pre-raped (this applied to both women and teenage girls and old women). Often raped in front of relatives. All the buildings belonging to the Jews were almost completely destroyed by fire. The religious feelings of the Jews were offended [5] . According to a local nurse from the Red Cross , stationed at the Fastovsky railway station under the guidance of the doctor of the 2nd Terek Plastun brigade Snisarenko, Christian AO Nikolidi, “robbery, beatings and murders and helping the wounded continued in conditions of incessant hostilities when over the town shells exploded and machine guns cracked. ” As a result of the four-day battles, with the transfer of the city from hand to hand, there must have been civilian casualties [6] .
In the last days of the pogrom, rioters massively staged arsons, trying to hide the traces of the pogrom, including its early days (from this fact, researcher A. A. Nemirovsky concluded that the rioters did not doubt their command’s negative attitude to the pogrom). Later, the rioters tried to explain the fact of mass fires by military actions in the city, but a reasonable question arose: why then didn’t the Christian quarters miraculously suffer from these actions? [6] The local peasant population took an active part in the pogrom; for removal of stolen property to Fastov, hundreds of carts poured from the surrounding villages. The peasants bought the loot from the servicemen and themselves collected what remained valuable after the pogromists.
The Fastov pogrom theme was actively used as a means of agitation in both the Soviet and Petlura press [5] .
The further fate of the military units who organized the fastov pogrom
After the pogrom produced, the 2nd Terskaya Plastun Brigade, during its stay in Ukraine, had already taken part in the pogroms in Cherkasy , Smela , Rossava , Korsun , Grebyonka and, apparently, in Gorodishche , was disbanded. For all the time of the pogroms, the brigade killed about 850 Jews, which, according to the calculations of researcher A. A. Nemirovsky, makes up to 50% of the total number of victims of units of the Armed Forces in southern Russia [3] .
The Volchansky partisan detachment continued its atrocities in Kiev , where seven of its servicemen were sentenced by General A. M. Dragomirov to the head of the region for Jewish pogroms. During the autumnal retreat of whites from Kiev, lupus erected an unprecedented Jewish pogrom in Curve Lake , in which up to 500 people also died [3] .
Estimates of the number of victims of the pogrom
Data on the number of victims of the pogrom is very controversial. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the fact of the conduct of hostilities in the city, the number of victims of which among the civilian population was never taken into account, and all those who died and were buried at the fastovsky Jewish cemetery from September 9 (22) to September 18 ( October 1 ), 1919 (in the amount of about 550 people) were counted as pogrom victims [6] .
Immediately after the pogrom, information about its victims began to be collected by the Central Committee for the assistance of pogroms , located in Kiev, or rather its Editorial Board, whose task was to collect materials about the pogroms. After the Fastov pogrom, this Editorial Board commanded to Fastov to collect materials about the pogrom by a sworn attorney Ivan Derevny. Rustic arrived in Fastov on September 17 (30) and departed on September 19 ( October 2 ), 1919 . The village collected the testimony of the above-mentioned nurse A. A. Nikolaidi, the memories of the fastovsky Jew I. Ya. Berland, and the message of a certain Iona Leychenko [6] .
In the very first book, telling about this pogrom and prepared as early as 1920, researcher N. I. Shtif, referring to data from the Village Report, cited the number of victims of the pogrom pogrom defined as “at least 600 killed and burned Jews” [6] .
The biographer of A. I. Denikin, G. M. Ippolitov, published a report on the Jewish pogroms specially prepared for the Commander-in-Chief of the Vyvir for September 1919, according to which, for the entire September, 138 Jewish women were raped, including girls 10–12 years old, and killed 224 Jews. This number includes those recorded by the whites themselves who were killed in Fastov (which should have been the majority of these 224 victims, since all the other September pogroms didn’t compare with the Fastov riots). The report was secret and was not intended for publication in open sources, therefore, as researcher A. A. Nemirovsky believed, the report’s figures can be trusted, and the difference in the number of the sworn attorney Derevnyi and the author of this report is probably due to the fact that whites considered only indisputable victims pogromists, excluding victims of hostilities [6] .
In 1922, the work of S. I. Gusev-Orenburg , who worked for a time in the Kiev branch of the Russian Red Cross Society, “The Crimson Book. Pogroms of 1919-1920 in Ukraine ”, in which the author used information from the Kiev Echo newspaper to describe the Fastov pogrom (this newspaper was distinguished by its irreconcilable attitude towards anti-Semitism). In one place of the book, the number of victims of the pogrom is indicated as “about 2,000 people”, in another place it is twice less - 1 thousand people [6] .
In the book-album of Z. S. Ostrovsky “The Jewish Pogroms of 1918-1921”, prepared in 1923 by the European Social Committee (Jewish Public Committee for Assistance to Victims of Pogroms) and published in Moscow in 1926, the total number of victims of the fastov pogrom was estimated at 1800 people . This figure is striking, since the same organization reported that Fastov survived 12 pogroms during the entire period of the Civil War, during which a total of 1,500 people died [6] .
In the capital work of I. B. Shechtman (edited by N. Yu. Gergel and I. M. Cherikover) “The History of the Pogrom Movement in Ukraine”, published in 1932 and referring to the extensive body of the above-mentioned primary sources, the number of victims of the fastov pogrom It was determined to be 1300-1500 people, and with those who died from wounds and other consequences of the pogrom, 3,000 people, but it was not explained how such figures were obtained [6] .
The memoirs of a certain Jew who visited Fastov a year later - in the summer of 1920, set forth his conversation with Jewish fastovtsy, eyewitnesses, and pogrom victims who survived him. The number of victims was 13 thousand (10 thousand were killed, 3 thousand died from wounds and deprivations), and the duration of the pogrom increased to eight days instead of the actual four [6] .
Ukrainian researchers of the Jewish history of the 2000s O.V. Kozerod and S.Ya. Briman argued that “more than 600 people” died as a result of the pogrom pogrom [6] .
The book by historian O. V. Budnitsky “Russian Jews between Reds and Whites (1917–1920)”, published in 2005, copied data on the number of victims of the Fastov pogrom from the above-mentioned book by I. B. Shechtman [6] .
Researcher A. A. Nemirovsky estimated the number of victims of the pogrom to be 500–600 people [3] .
See also
- Kiev pogrom (1919)
Notes
- ↑ The first general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897. Distribution of the population by native language and districts of 50 provinces of European Russia. Vasilkovsky district without a city.
- ↑ Andreev, P. An Illustrated Guide to the South-Western Railway . - 1898. - p. 127. - 560 p.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Nemirovsky, A. A. Unlawful killings of Jews in the power zone of the Volunteer armies of Southern Russia (Rus.) // Destination of Mogultaya.
- ↑ Ryabuha, Y. Military conflict between the Armed Forces of the South of Russia and Ukraine in the autumn of 1919 - Kharkov, 2008 (inaccessible link)
- ↑ 1 2 3 Puchenkov, A.S. The national question in the ideology and politics of the South Russian White movement during the Civil War. 1917-1919 // From the funds of the Russian State Library: Ph.D. dissertation. ist sciences. Specialty 07.00.02. - National history. - 2005.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Nemirovsky, A. A. To the question about the number of victims of the pogroms in Fastov and in Kiev (autumn 1919) (Rus.) // New Historical Herald: Journal . - 2006. - V. 14 , № 1 .
- ↑ Norman Kohn . Blessing on genocide. The myth of the worldwide conspiracy of the Jews and the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" = Warrant for the Genocide and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. - 1st. - M .: Progress, 1990.
Literature
Primary
- Ostrovsky, ZS. Jewish pogroms of 1918-1921 . - 1st. - M .: Akts. Society "School and Book", 1926. - 5000 copies.
- The book of pogroms. Document No. 90. From a letter from the head of the Fastiv Committee for Assisting Pogroms E. Gurtovy to Committee Member L. Godik about a pogrom in the metro Fastov of the Kiev Province. in August — September 1919 (The letter in the case is incomplete.) . Skepsis is a scientific and educational journal. The appeal date was December 29, 2011. Archived May 18, 2012.
- The book of pogroms. Document No. 91. Order of the military commandant's office of the VYVR in the town of Fastov, Kiev Province. Skepsis is a scientific and educational journal. The appeal date was December 29, 2011. Archived May 18, 2012.
- The book of pogroms. Document No. 92. Message from the representative of the Department of Assistance to Pogroms at the ASC in Ukraine G.I. Rabinovich of the Editorial Board on the consequences of the pogrom in the metro station Fastov, Kiev Province. in September 1919 . Skepsis is a scientific and educational journal. The appeal date was December 29, 2011. Archived May 18, 2012.
Scientific Research
- Budnitsky O.V. Russian Jews between Red and White (1917-1920). - M .: Russian political encyclopedia, 2005. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-8243-0666-4 .
- Kostyrchenko, G. V. Choice. About Oleg Budnitsky's book “Russian Jews between white and red (1917–1920)” (rus.) // Lechaim: Journal. - 2006. - T. 172 , № 8 .
- Nemirovsky, A. A. Lawless murders of Jews in the zone of authority of the Volunteer armies of Southern Russia (rus.) // Udel Mogultaya.
- Nemirovsky, A. A. On the question of the number of victims of the pogroms in Fastov and in Kiev (autumn 1919) (Rus.) // New Historical Gazette: Journal. - 2006. - V. 14 , № 1 .
- Shechtman I. B. The history of the pogrom movement in Ukraine. Volume 2. Pogroms of the Volunteer Army in Ukraine . - 1932. - 394 s. Archived copy January 6, 2009 on Wayback Machine
Links
- Civil war and the Jews: the attitude of the warring parties to the Jews, the participation of Jews in the civil war and in political life - an article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
- Vladimir Tolts. Jewish pogroms during the civil war . Radio programs / documents of the past . Radio Liberty (November 26, 2006). The appeal date was December 29, 2011. Archived May 18, 2012.