Then came the war. The Jews saw therein an opportunity to show the
Christian population that in spite of all the persecutions of the
past they were ready to forget their tragic history and to begin life
anew in a united and regenerated Russia. Thousands of Jewish young
men who had been forced to leave Russia to secure the education which
their own country denied them returned voluntarily to the colors even
though they knew that all hope of preferment and promotion was closed
to them. On the field of battle the Jewish soldiers displayed courage
and intelligence which won the respect of their fighting comrades and
gained for hundreds of them the much desired cross of St. George,
granted for distinguished valor in the face of the enemy; while those
who remained at home opened and equipped hospitals for wounded soldiers
without distinction of race or creed, contributed generously to all
public funds, and, in brief, gave themselves and their possessions
unsparingly to the Russian cause.
It appeared at first as though the long desired union with the Russian
people was about to be realized. But it soon developed that the chains
which bound the Jews of Russia to their past could not be broken.
Forces which they could not possibly control doomed them to the
greatest tragedy in their history. The Pale in which they lived was
Polish in origin and population. Poles and Jews were fellow victims of
the Russian oppressor; but instead of being united by the common bond
of suffering, they were separated by religious and racial differences
and above all by dissension deliberately fostered among them by the
Russian rulers until it developed into uncontrollable hate.