Page 21 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

A birth and a pogrom

Time and space rule the universe, said Schopenhauer. The time
and place of a man’s birth and early youth leave a deep mark and
influence upon his character and the deeds of his maturity. Those
who happen to be born in periods of revolution, stress, fear, and
anguish carry the mark of that time in their minds all their lives. I was
born at the beginning of the pogrom period in Russian Poland.
Pogroms had not been tolerated by the government since the days of
Mazepa and the Cossack Chmielnicki in the seventeenth century,
although persecutions of all types were policy—including exclusion
from education and ownership of land, restriction on trade, and exile.
The first pogrom in modern times to take place in the Russian
Empire occurred in Warsaw, Poland at the time of my birth.
The Jews, who had lived in Poland for hundreds of years as
peaceful citizens and had participated in the fight for Polish
independence, were oppressed by the Russians and despised by the
Poles. Whenever the Russian government felt any unrest among the
Poles—who always hoped to free themselves from Russian rule—the
Russians had their agents in Poland instigate the Poles against the
Jews. In later years, pogroms were carried out in the Ukraine, but at
the time of my birth it was the Poles who were the hooligans. In that
year, some Catholic priests in their churches on Sundays had
preached hatred against the Jews. The Poles who went to church on
Sunday morning, and then at noon when the stores opened bought
liquor, got drunk and fought, were easily incited to riot, murder, and
pillage. On a Sunday afternoon in the beginning of February 1882 a
great mass of people worshipping at the Three Crosses church in
Warsaw near the statue of Copernicus were told by a priest to destroy
the Jews: then Poland would have its kings as of old, and of course
the Church would reign supreme. The mob burst out en masse into
the streets and began pillaging Jewish homes and businesses and
beating and killing Jews. For several hours they rioted over the whole
Jewish section without interference by the police. Stores and houses
were broken into. Furniture was thrown down from the upper

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