He proved
that the Poles of the town themselves had supported the Austrians and
that even a telephone connection with Lemberg could be found. The seven
Jews were then set free; five had already been hanged.
In the town of Jusefow, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the
wells through which hundreds of Cossacks had lost their lives.
Seventy-eight Jews were killed, many women were ravished, and houses and
shops plundered.
Similar events happened and still happen daily by hundreds. Greater or
smaller pogroms with murder, rape, and plunder have thus taken place in
the districts of Warsaw, Random, Petrikow, and Kelts.
Only a few Russian Governors, such as Korff, in Warsaw; Kelepowski, in
Lublin, and the Governors of Wilna, Petrikow, and Grodno have spoken,
although too late, against the pogroms, but neither the Government nor
the Poles take these warnings seriously.
Eyewitnesses have told me about Jewish soldiers in the different
lazarets who have turned mad, not through the unavoidable horrors of the
war, but because of the pogroms they have witnessed in the towns they
have passed. They mistake those they have seen murdered for their own
relations; they imagine they see their own mothers, sisters, or beloved
ones in that plight. They are always raving about the same thing.
The pursuit of the Jews by the Russian-Polish anti-Semites is the more
invidious under these circumstances, as 300,000 Jewish soldiers, among
them many volunteers, are serving in the Russian Army, and as the
self-sacrifice of the army and the Red Cross hitherto has been
immeasurable.
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