_Escaped from the land of the Tsar--What they learn--Robbed at the
frontier--How they reached London--The terrors of rejection--How some
outcasts get on._
|IT is six o'clock on Sunday evening. It has been a wild, wet, February
day, but with the twilight the rain has ceased, and a mist has come up
from the river, wrapping the East End in a cold grey gloom.
Outside the newspaper shops in Aldgate flaring placards announce the
latest disaster to the Russian army at the seat of war, and the internal
troubles with which the empire of the Tsar is faced.
Looking at the placards, the war seems far away. The unfamiliar--to our
eyes and ears almost barbarous--names of the Manchurian towns and rivers
suggest illimitable space between the East in which we find ourself and
the Far East where a yellow and a white race are writing history with
swords for pens and seas of blood for ink, and are punctuating the pages
with shot and shell.
Yet only a stone's-throw from where we stand in High Street, Aldgate,
we may study real flesh and blood pages torn from the story of the war
between Russia and Japan.
Thousands of Londoners pass daily along the great East End highway, and
have not the faintest shadow of suspicion that within a few yards
of them are hundreds of soldiers--men who have fought in the present
war--men who have been in Japanese hospitals--men who have fled to
escape further service, who have endured the most terrible hardships,
who have, some of them, seen their comrades shot down by their
side--Russian soldiers killed by Russian soldiers.
If we turn off the main road and strike down Leman Street, we shall
come to a large private house, on the door-plate of which the words "The
Jews' Free Shelter" are inscribed.
A few strange-looking men in sea-stained coats and high boots are
standing about on the pavement, silent and solemn, with a dull, anxious
look in their eyes.
We recognize the Jewish Shelter, look at the little groups, say to
ourselves, "More alien immigrants," and perhaps pass on.
But if we go round to the back of the house we find ourselves in a
narrow street which ends in a dead wall. And in this street, standing
four deep in a line that stretches right away to the wall itself, are
hundreds of the soldiers of the Tsar. They are all Jews, they have all
escaped from Russia at the risk of their lives. Most of them had only a
few roubles in their pockets. But they have come from Russia--some even
from Manchuria--and they are here to-night in the quiet, deserted London
street waiting their turn to go before the committee which is sitting in
the big room of the Shelter to hear their stories, and see what can be
done to help them to make a new home thousands of miles away across the
seas.
Two London policemen and an inspector are standing in the roadway. They
are there to preserve order among these six or seven hundred Russian
reservists. But their office is a sinecure. These hunted men, fresh
from a land of tyranny, are silent, cowed, incapable of anything but the
blindest obedience to the authority of the land to which they have fled
seeking a City of Refuge.
There is no need for the policemen to speak to them. If they did, no
one in the thickly packed mob of men would understand them. None of the
refugees speak a word of English; Yiddish--the German-Jewish jargon--is
their mother tongue; but most of them, having been in the army, speak a
little Russian.
The inspector, finding that the crowd is spreading over into the
roadway, makes a motion with his hand, and the men press closer
together. They understand the gesture, and obey it as quickly as they
would obey the upraised whip of the Cossack.
They have not yet learnt that in England no one in authority will knock
them about or kick them. If they were so used they would not show any
resentment. It is the way in which they have been habitually treated in
Russia. Sometimes one of their own number, placed in temporary authority
to assist the staff of the Shelter, clears a way for someone to pass
by, thrusting his compatriots back with a little violence. He does not
understand that there is anything unusual in this method of giving an
order. When it is explained to him that in England we don't lay hands
upon peaceable people in this way, he is astonished. What a wonderful
country! The great people don't knock a poor Jew off the footpath! They
speak to him civilly! It takes a newly arrived Russian Jew many days to
understand that he is going to be treated like a human being, and
that even the police will not kick him or hit him on the head if he is
unfortunate enough to be in the way.
This Sunday evening there are more than six hundred refugees waiting to
enter the doors of the Shelter and go before the committee. During the
week over a thousand have arrived. They are mostly the reservists who
have been called up and have fled to avoid further service. They
have served once--many of them have only just finished their time
and returned to their wives and families. They don't want to go to
Manchuria. They are Jews; and the Jew serves the Tsar under grievous
disabilities. He cannot rise in rank. If he is killed, no information
is forwarded to his relatives. In Russia, a Jew is outside the pale of
humanity.
Let us pass into the building. We have left a packed army of men
standing dumb and motionless outside. Here in a kind of courtyard is
another silent and motionless crowd. Two hundred men at least are
crowded together, and not a sound comes from their lips. They look like
statues of despair. Their one feeling is of relief that they are now
inside the Shelter, and so their chance of getting before the committee
to-night is better.
We pass from this courtyard to an inner room. It is packed. We have seen
already nearly a thousand deserters from the Tsar's army. The Shelter
cannot provide accommodation for a tenth of this vast army of fugitives.
But every one will get a ticket that will give him food and a lodging.
So much these unhappy immigrants know. What they do not know is whether
they will be helped to America, to Canada, to the Argentine, to any of
the lands where there are Jewish colonies, and where they will be able
to toil and save, and in time send for the wives and children left
behind in Russia to join them.
All of them have paid the fare to London. Some of them have hidden about
them the fare to America or Canada. But others are penniless. They have
been robbed at the Russian frontier. They have had to part with every
rouble to pass the officials. Sometimes they have given up everything to
the sentries to save themselves from being shot down.
It is a peaceful Sunday evening in London, but here are all the
horrors of war. And of all London's myriad people, only a few active
sympathizers in the Jewish community know of this human tragedy working
itself out in London's heart.
Let us leave these unhappy ones massed together in quiet street, in
crowded yard, and in the packed room, and pass into another room in
which the committee are now sitting, as they will sit on far into the
night, examining every man in turn as to his trade, his means, and his
prospect of earning a living if room is found for him in one of the
ships which the sympathy and philanthropy of their co-religionists have
secured for these poor wandering Jews.
Let us sit at one of the long deal tables at which members of
the committee are cross-examining the applicants for guidance and
assistance, receiving money, making out tickets, and dispatching the
refugees to various parts of the world.
A squarely built man of about thirty, pale, haggard, and with a hunted
look in his eyes, comes forward. He tells his story. He is a builder of
wooden houses. He had served his time, and had been home but for a few
weeks, when he was ordered to rejoin. He talked the matter over with
some fellow-reservists. They made up their minds to escape. They sold
their possessions, got together a little money from their friends,
and started. There were six of them, and they got into a train. After
travelling a long time they came to a station, at which the carriage was
entered by soldiers, who dragged four of the company out. The men were
charged with being deserters. Two of the company remained in the train;
the man standing now at the table was one of them. But they knew their
turn would come, so they scrambled out on the other side of the line and
ran for their lives across the country.
A party of soldiers started in pursuit. The men reached a river and
leapt in. The soldiers fired and killed one. The man at the table swam
to the opposite bank and made good his escape. For many hours he went on
and on in his wet clothes, shivering with cold, his limbs benumbed.
He endured the most terrible privations; but at last he reached the
frontier, got into Germany, and with the money concealed about him
purchased a ticket to London.
He stands before us in London to-night, waiting to know where the
committee can send him for the roubles which he still has left. He
receives a ticket for a ship leaving for Canada, drops a knee in the
Russian manner of salutation, and goes forth gleefully into the street
to think out the future in the London lamplight.
The man who takes his place is a fine-looking young fellow. Where has he
come from? When he is asked, he answers, "Mukden."
Everyone at the table looks up at that. Is it possible that a Russian
deserter has made his way from Mukden to Whitechapel? Yes. Here are the
facts vouched for, proved beyond dispute.
This man had been serving a year in the Mukden garrison. During a sortie
he, with some hundreds of other Russian soldiers, was forced on to a
frozen river. The ice gave way, and they all fell in, the Japs firing
at them from the bank. An officer in the same regiment as the Jewish
soldier was wounded in the head, and was sinking, when the Jew got
hold of him and swam with him to the bank. The officer was taken to the
hospital, and the Jewish soldier followed him there shortly afterwards,
suffering from pneumonia.
The Jew got well, but the officer died after lingering some weeks.
Before his death he got the Jew called to him, and said, "You've been
good to me--here, take these three hundred roubles--all I have--and get
out of this hell as soon as you."
The Jew managed to escape, got rid of his uniform, and made his way
across Siberia, now tramping, now travelling by chance conveyances.
He reached Moscow in ten weeks. Thence he came to the Shelter in
Whitechapel.
Here is a well-set-up young fellow; he is six feet, a height not common
among Russian Jews. He wants to go to America, where he has friends.
This is the story he tells. Again it shows the Russian officer in a new
light. I will call the man Marcovitch. Even in these pages it would not
be wise to give his real name, for the agents of the Tsar have keen eyes
and are everywhere.
He was orderly to the colonel of the regiment. When the regiment was
about to leave on active service, the colonel thought that Marcovitch
was too good to go out and get shot. He did not, however, like to tell
him in so many words to desert, so this is what he did. The regiment was
stationed on the German frontier, so the colonel told Marcovitch he
wanted him to cross over into the nearest German town to make some
purchases for him there. At the same time he gave him two sealed
envelopes, which Marcovitch was not to open till he got into German
territory. When he opened them he found that one contained instructions
how to get to England, and the other rouble notes for £10. Marcovitch
took the hint and the money, and arrived safely in Whitechapel.
These are exceptional cases. Most of the stories that are told are tales
of misery and despair, of homes broken up, of wives and children
left behind, of terrible journeys and hairbreadth escapes, of freedom
purchased at a price almost as terrible as death itself.
Almost every man of the hundreds thronging the Shelter and its annexes
to-night has served his time with the colours. Hardly any are recruits.
Most of the men have left dear ones behind them--dear ones who are still
ignorant of the fate that may have befallen the fugitive. And all of
them are prepared to go anywhere--to the most distant parts of the
earth--if only they can be free to work and make a new home for their
kindred in some land of liberty.
All, before they are sent away, even though they have the money to pay
their passage, will have to pass a medical examination. If they are
suffering from certain forms of disease they will be refused on the
other side. The victims of persecution in Russia and Roumania have ere
this made the journey of thousands of miles to the New World only to be
refused admittance, and to be sent back again across the sea. It is a
terrible picture to dwell upon--a miserable fellow-creature, ill, weak,
despairing, refused a foothold everywhere--a storm-tossed human waif,
whose one crime is that he dared to cling to the faith of his fathers in
the land of the Great White Tsar.
Those who cannot hope to be received in America or Canada, or who are
unfit to be sent to the Jewish colonies, are told so plainly, and at
once. Every effort is made to get them out of London, and they are
kindly treated.
But these Jewish immigrants are never utterly disheartened.
Self-preservation is an instinct of the race.
I saw a man turned away regretfully by the committee one night. He had
but a few shillings in his pocket. A week later I saw the same man with
a basket in the Lane selling stockings at a shilling a pair. A fortnight
later he had a little barrow with goods for sale on it. When I heard
from him last, he had sent to Russia for his wife, and had opened a
little shop in the Ghetto.
There are men in the city of London engaged in large businesses, and
employing hundreds of Christian hands in manufactures not previously
carried on in England, and these men came from Russia and Poland poor
persecuted Jews, with but a few shillings in the world to call their
own. If I were to make a list of the big Jewish manufacturers and
tradesmen, and Jewish men of learning and of science, who came to this
country poor alien immigrants, the revelation would be an astounding
one.
But we must not stay now to look back or to look forward. The people to
whose stories we are listening to-day have left the past behind them,
and their future is an unknown quantity. The present is to them a
problem which shuts out all other considerations.
Here is a refugee who fled from a city of massacre. He had been wounded
in a riot at Ekaterinoslav. During the riot his brother disappeared,
and it was supposed that he had been killed and quietly buried by the
authorities.
When this man gives his name it is a peculiar one. A member of the
committee remembers that some time previously a man with a similar name
had come to the Shelter from Russia, and had been sent to America. The
books are referred to, and a full description of the man is found.
It is the brother who was supposed to be dead. The poor applicant is
overjoyed. He receives his ticket for America, and goes from the room
almost hysterical with joy. He is going across the seas to find in the
new land the brother whom he had mourned as dead.
A young woman comes before the committee with tears in her eyes. She has
her ticket for the Argentine. What does she want?
She tells a pathetic little story. Five years ago her only sister left
Russia and came to London. She sent her address to her relatives. The
girl who is now before the committee has accompanied her husband, a
reservist. When she left home she took her sister's last letter with
the address on it and put it with her few belongings. She has lost the
letter. She has been all day tramping about trying to find anyone who
can tell her where her sister is living. To-morrow she will have to
leave London for the Argentine. She may be quite close to her sister at
this very moment--the sister she loves--but she must go away to-morrow,
and in all human probability they will never meet again.
What can be done? Nothing. To find a certain woman in London, who left
Russia five years ago, is beyond the power of the committee. They can
only offer the weeping girl their sympathy.
Here is a boy of fourteen--a sturdy little fellow. He steps up boldly
to the table. Where are his parents? He has none. His father and mother
were killed in the massacre of Kischineff. He has obtained enough money
of friends and sympathizers in Kischineff to make his way to England. He
has come alone from Kischineff to London, and he asks the committee to
help him. The boy's story is a pitiful one. The committee investigate
his case, and it is decided to send the lonely little voyager to the
Jewish Orphanage at Jerusalem.
*****
The quiet of the Christian Sabbath night has settled on London as we
make our way from the Jewish Shelter to the wide thoroughfare that leads
to the deserted and silent streets of the City.
But outside the Shelter in that grey back street a serried mass of
silent suffering still waits dumbly, patiently, for the dawn of a new
life.
Far away in the Pales of Settlement women and children are wondering and
weeping--wondering if the husband, the father, is alive or dead, if he
has reached the City of Refuge or been captured as he fled--if he has
died by the way, or been shot down by the soldiers of the Tsar.
They will hear in time. Letters and cards are on the way to them bearing
the London post-mark and the unfamiliar stamp with the head of King
Edward VII of England upon it.