Accounts of People Injured in the Siedlce Pogrom
1906 - 1907
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In 1906, the U.S. Government sent immigration inspector Philip Cowen on an undercover mission to the Pale of Settlement in Russia (St. Petersburg, Kief, and Odessa) to discover the cause of increased Jewish immigration from Russia to the United States.
His findings revealed appalling and unremitting persecution of Russian Jews. Since 1882, the May Laws forced Jews out of their homes and required them all to live in the Pale of Settlement. Crowded into this small area of Russia, the Jews struggled to find jobs and pay rising rent prices.
Most tragic of all is Cowen’s description of the 637 pogroms—targeted attacks on Jews—committed against the Russian Jews. Entire Jewish cities were ransacked and destroyed while hundreds of Jews were brutally murdered. This is one section of
Cowen’s report. It includes extracts from an inquiry made into the
Siedlce pogrom of 1906, with stories shared by people who were injured.
Additional sections of the report use poignant pictures and narration, to tell about difficult living conditions and economic hardship for Jews in Russia, and describe other pogroms. To escape such persecution, Jews sought to immigrate to America. But by accompanying Jewish immigrants on their journey to escape Russia, Cowen found out that Jewish persecution did not end with their departure. Jews were repeatedly charged double or triple the cost of passports and boat tickets to America.
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EXHIBIT 12
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Extracts from an Inquiry made under Oath of People injured in the Pogrom of Siedlce. The Investigation was made the Week following the Pogrom.
X CHxxxxLXxxxx [underlined]
1 Chana Lewin [underlined], 27 Penknia St. As my sister Sura and a daughter of the landlady hid themselves from the rifle shots, a shot came from Ogrodevvi St. and one shot killed my sister and Miss Feigenbaum. Half an hour later there came soldiers with an officer of dragoons in order to search the house. I told them the misfortune that had happened and received for answer "We shot because shots were fired out of this house". As with tears in my eyes I assured them that there was no one in the house that could shoot, and bade them to save us ( I lived with my mother and have small children), he shouted at me "And you too will be killed in two hours. We will shoot off your head". Then we were examined and searched and they took fifty roubles of money, tore the earrings out of my ear. On my begging for a few kopeks for bread the soldier impatiently shouted at me "Silence or I'll kill you". The next day at o'clock came another officer of dragoons. I implored him to take us out of the city, and he gave us a guard to accompany us. In the neighborhood of the prison a soldier stopped us with the demand "Give me money." They searched us and found four roubles. I gave him three roubles and kept the other one back for carfare. For two days and nights my children hungered and thirsted. I gave them to drink the dirty rain water that gathered in the cellar for six or seven days, as we
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had hid in the cellar.
1 Moschka Pi. Srebrnik [underlined], 49 Penknia St, is a watchmaker, has a store; on Sept. 8th at 8 o'clock at night, as I wished to close my store three dragoons came and called in to me "Why do you close your business? Today it is permitted to deal to ten o'clock." Before this all business had to be closed at 7 o'clock and if anyone failed to do this the dragoons compelled him to. Believing them, I left my store open. About half-past 8 o'clock, as I stood at the door of my shop I heard two revolver shots, and immediately thereafter, in fact accompanying them, shooting began over the whole city. You could hear the salvos of rifles, and also individual shots. I hurried to close my store, extinguished the fire and hid myself with the children and my mother and my neighbor Grinspan and his wife in our cellar. My sotre had already been plundered of a few hundred roubles worth of goods at the riot following the murder of Police Captain Holzew. My neighbor was also robbed of 500 roubles at that time. We sat in the cellar and listened. After a few minutes my store was broken open and I could plainly hear the battering of heavy things against the store, and the robbery began. Then Grinspan and I went upstairs, opened the door that led from the kitchen to the store, lit the lamp and said "We are the owners; what do you want in our store?" A side of my store, my accommodations consisted of one room and kitchen, which was entered through the store. These rooms were crowded by more than fifty soldiers. Among them was a sergeant. The soldiers were of the Libau regiment. We were searched, taken to
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the street and the plundering continued. In the street I turned towards Tichanowsky and bade him to protect me. "Were they searched?" he asked of the sergeant. "Searched, but nothing found" he replied. I was then let go and we went again to Tichanowsky with the inquiry why we were arrested and why we were robbed. For answer the Chief of City protection Tichanowsky struck Grinspan with a loaded whip upon the back several times, and me three or four times upon the head, and directed the police to punish us further and to take us to prison. On the way there the dragoons tortured us still further, hitting me with their muskets on the left side, that is the soldiers did while the dragoons struck me on the head with the hilts of their sabers. My eyes were blackened and my head covered with wounds. From the police station we were again taken to Tichanowsky. We declines to go there, but went because we were in fear of death, as the soldiers forced us to go. We were again abused. I don't know how I ever retained my life. Then we were taken again to the police, where we were again struck with the rifles and saber hilts. One officer present apparently could not stand this sort of thing and went out. It was only because there was a policeman there whom I happened to know by name, Nowitzkj, that our live was saved [handwritten, added later], we begged him to arrest us so as to free us from our agony. We were arrested for three hours and after that taken to the hospital.
3 David Granburg [underlined]. I was at home with my parents Saturday night; at half-past nine twenty or thirty soldiers came with two or three officers and demanded that we all go downstairs. We were searched and then they demanded
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money. I had nine roubles, which I said I would give them if they took me to the police station. A soldier came up to me, cursed me, threatened me that he would shoot if I didn't listen to them, took the moneybag from me and put it into his pocket. The family consisted of father, mother, sister, brother and a grandmother of 90 years. She is in the hospital, severely wounded in the hands. They dragged me to the police station and struck me with a saber hilt on the head. In the police station
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I begged the protection of Chief Tichanowsky, but he replied "It's all the same; we will kill you anyhow. The end of the Jews has come now". It was clear that he was drunken. After that I was badly punished by dragoons and the Libau soldiers, who hit me horribly. I lost power over myself, but they did not stop their abuse. I fainted, fell to the ground and heard as the soldiers shouted 'He is already dead". I was thrown in a pit in the garden adjoining the Police station. Several officers came and as they saw me they asked "What is he here for if he is dead? Throw him over the fence". The soldiers did so, and there I lay for half an hour without the power of movement. Immediately thereafter someone else was thrown in. As I finally came to myself and asked "Who is there?" I heard a familiar voice. It was my comrade, Motel Goldberg, "Save me, brother!" he said, turning to me. He could scarcely talk. I gathered my strength together, raised myself, took Goldberg's matchbox out of his pocket, struck a light and saw open wounds upon his breast from which the blood was streaming. As I recovered a bit more I took off my coat, wrapped it about
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him so as to stop the flow of blood. As soon as I could, I tried to raise him xx and do not know how I has the strength to do so. After a short time I managed to get him in another position in the adjoining courtyard. Here I got water by Anna Podolsky, gave him drink, washed his wounds and so we spent Monday as well as the previous Sunday in the garden of this house. He still lived. The Podolsky can prove all this. Monday I began to think "What shall we do now?" Goldberg was in great agony and bade me give him over to a policeman. Naturally I dissuaded him from such a course, but I could no longer watch the agony he was suffering, so I determined that I would bring him out to the door, and then I would try to save myself. I stepped over the fence and found shelter xx at the baker Farbiarge's. My comrade was taken into a house, put to bed and as the bandage fell from him the blood streamed over the bed. Then he crawled into the street. At the command of the police chief was taken xx xxx not to the hospital but to the prison, and there he died.
4 Mendel Milgron. [underlined] I was wounded the day that the Chief of Police Holzew was killed, and since then have been with the hospital. As I was there I saw brought in Ratinewitz, who was severely wounded. As their house was cannonaded he ran into the street and here he was severely wounded, and two dragoons brought him to the hospital. "Take this wounded man in", called one of them to the porter of the hospital, and I went out in order to bring Ratinewitz into the house. As we wanted to take his he moved. Then one of the soldiers cried "He is still alive", and the other soldier hit him in the head. Ratinewitz without recovering his consciousness died from this blow.
5. Sura Liebermann. [underlined] The printing office of Lichtensacht is opposite our house. It is continually watched by the police. We hid ourselves during the shooting I, my husband and two children, and spent the night in the rear of the house. On the morning of the 9th, as the shooting stopped, my neighbor Bluma went on the street and begged the dragoons to take her and her family anywhere out of the city; as she spoke Russian badly my husband translated what she said to the dragoons, and asked why they were shooting during the night, whereupon he replied that shots were fired out of our house. My husband was astonished and said nome of us knew how to shoot. The soldiers nevertheless would not believe us, and in the presence of my husband they shot in the air. As a reply to this shot, rifles were head all over Warshawer street. Immediately thereafter, soldiers came into the house, demanded the keys of the drawers, took everything that they could find and 30 roubles. The soldiers want from us to our neighbor. As my husband recovered from the shock and thought that we had nothing to fear, as the soldiers had shot in the air, he went into the corridor and opened the locked door leading to the court.
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a shot at that moment from over the way wounded my husband, I have paid a soldier 1 1/2 roubles to take him to my fathers house, there he demanded more money & my father gave him another rouble. Dissatisfied, he fired three shots at my husband, (crossed out: father,) wounding him so badly that he died. my mother also died from wounds. My father, at Command of Liehaususky was arrested for insolence, tortured, put in jail, & kept there for four days when he was released through influence
[Bottom margin, 60 handwritten]This primary source comes from the Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
National Archives Identifier:
602984Full Citation: Cowen Report - European Investigation Entry No. 9; 1906 - 1907; File No. 51411/056; Subject and Policy Files, 1893 - 1957; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85; National Archives Building, Washington, DC. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/injured-siedlce-pogrom, March 29, 2024]