_NOTE.—The following report was issued by the (Russian) Jewish
Committee for the Relief of Sufferers from the War, to its members
in Russia, in May, 1915, since when conditions in Russia and Poland
have steadily grown worse. The authoritativeness of the report is
guaranteed by the personnel of the committee, numbering among its
membership the foremost Jews of Russia, among whom may be named: Baron
A. de Gunzberg, H. Sliosberg, M. Ginsburg and B. Kamenka, chairman of
the Executive Committee; M. A. Warschavsky, chairman of the Organizing
Committee; and D. Feinberg, L. Bramson and M. Kreinin, Secretaries._
=Terrible disaster has befallen the Jewish population of the Pale of
Settlement and of Poland. Hunger and thirst and disease and death, and
moral sufferings beyond the power of human pen to describe are the lot
of hundred thousands of Jewish men, women and children whom the war has
driven from their homes, whose houses and hearths have been plundered
and destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of our unfortunate brethren are
staring in hopeless despair into a future that seems to spell nothing
but new tears and sufferings....=
According to the data collected by the General Polish Relief Committee,
=in Poland, alone there are at least 200 towns and about 9,000
townlets and villages that have suffered from the war, the material
damage amounting to the gigantic figure of over a milliard roubles
($500,000,000).= Besides the terrible losses sustained by the rural
population, the whole industrial production, amounting to nearly
800 million roubles a year, has been ruined. About three million
townspeople are destitute, and of these three million at least half,
i. e., 1,500,000, are Jews. To this number of unfortunate victims we
have to add the population of the provinces of Kovno and Grodno in the
northwestern region of the Pale, the provinces of Bessarabia, Podolia
and Volynia in the southern and southwestern regions. These provinces,
bordering upon Germany and Austria, have a Jewish population of at
least 500,000 people. =Thus the total number of Jews that have, in one
way or another, suffered immediately from the conditions of warfare
equals over two million people, representing one-third, of the total
Jewish population of Russia.=
Besides, there are hundred thousands of destitute Jews in Galicia
(within Russian occupation) looking forward to relief from this country.
To the utter ruin of their material welfare there are added the
unspeakable sufferings that the population of the war area has to
endure. In the most favorable of cases the inhabitants of the border
places escape from the zone of fire, taking refuge in the inner parts
of the country; while a large proportion of those unfortunate Jewish
families have remained in the ruined places, facing the phantoms of
starvation and disease that gather a rich harvest among them.
Such is the devotion and love of the Jews to their native places, to
their own corner, that they prefer to stay in the devastated towns
and townlets and villages, if only permitted to do so. And those who
have fled from their homes take the first opportunity of returning,
heedless of the terrible disasters lying in store for them. A vivid
example, typical of many other instances, is given by the Jews in the
villages of Vissiltsy, District Busak, province Kielce. Our delegate
found the place razed by hostile shells. The population—mostly Jews—for
over three months had been huddling together in cellars, where they had
taken refuge. They were not to leave their shelter by day; no food was
to be cooked, no fire lighted at night—such were the stringent orders
from military quarters. A humane military chief permitted them to
crawl out of their dingy holes by night and feed out of the soldiers’
cauldron. But soon another chief took his place and the unfortunate
Jews were left to starve in their cellars. =Those that succumbed were
buried in holes that the survivors dug for them in the very same
cellars....=
Infinitely tragic too is the fate of those Jews who, by rigorous
orders of the military authorities at a notice of from three to
twenty-four hours are expelled from whole provinces of Poland, their
presence near the area of hostilities being considered “a danger to
the safety of the Russian arms.” Leaving their homes and belongings,
the fruit of years of hard toil, an open prey, the unfortunate exiles
by the thousands wend their weary way to towns and villages, thirty or
more miles distant, that have not yet come within the decrees of the
military authorities. Old men, sick women, clasping little children in
their arms, carrying bundles with some scanty belongings that they had
snatched up in haste, fill the silent roads with the sound of their
moans and sobs. Here an old man breaks down, breathing his last sigh in
the middle of the road. There a woman kneels by the roadside staring
in despair too deep for tears, at the child that lies dead in her
arms.... Many are those who succumb on their way; indescribable are the
sufferings of those who survive. Scarcely have they found shelter in a
hospitable town or townlet when—alas! too frequently—the prohibition
of the authorities is a few days later extended also to these places,
and again the Jewish population must start upon its weary pilgrimage....
The total number of refugees from the war zone and of exiles can
scarcely be calculated with precision because large numbers have
made their way to numerous small townlets throughout the Pale, thus
frustrating systematic registration, while, at the same time, the
progress of the war tends to swell the host of refugees daily.
Some idea of their number is given by the following approximate figures:
Warsaw 75,000 people Radom 2,000 people
Vilna 12,000 people Gussiatin 1,000 people
Kielce 3,000 people Shakvi (Suvalki) 1,500 people[56]
Konsk 4,000 people Lomzha 5,000 people
Minsk 2,000 people Khmelnik
Prassnysh 1,500 people (Prov. Kielce) 1,500 people
And yet these figures only show the number of refugees who have applied
for assistance; hundreds of thousands of others are meanwhile living
upon their savings and do not come under the registration. But they
also will be at the end of their scant resources one of these days and
will join the ranks of the destitute.... Thus, for the above-named
places and for many other dozens of towns and townlets the number of
refugees within their walls may be doubled without fear of exaggeration.
While numerous towns and townlets have, in generous hospitality, opened
their gates to the unfortunate refugees and exiles from the war area,
the native Jewish population of these places is itself suffering a
severe economic crisis, an acute attack of unemployment, which as a
matter of fact, is further intensified by the influx of refugees eager
to offer their services, for the smallest remuneration. Thus poverty
and misery are growing in these places too, the burden of relief
becoming too heavy for the local community to bear.
We have already stated that the industrial life of Poland and in a
large part of the Pale has been laid waste as a consequence of the
war. Hundreds of factories have been destroyed, hundreds others have
had to stop work for want of capital, raw material, fuel and—first and
foremost—for want of a market for their articles of production. Many
thousands of workmen who were formerly employed by these factories have
remained without bread.
Whole branches of trade have been shattered, burying the welfare of the
artisans under their ruins. The tailors, weavers, bootmakers, builders,
trades, normally sustaining a large percentage of Jews in Poland and in
the Pale, are dead; the artisans are left to starve, unless something
can be done to save them.
Commercial life also has been laid waste. The merchants—great and
small—are ruined; hundreds of merchant’s clerks are thrown out of work
and have to apply to public charity.
There is yet another class of sufferers whose wants and needs have
to be attended to. About 300,000 Jews are fighting in the ranks of
the Russian army. Their mothers, wives and children are receiving but
scanty support (about 2 roubles a head) from the Government. About
half of them, however, are not getting any Government aid at all,
their marriages, although legally solemnized, not having been entered
in the official marriage registers. (It is a well known fact that the
uneducated Jews of Poland and in the Pale frequently omit to have
their marriages registered, failing to realize the full importance
of this formality.) Rent and food having become considerably dearer
with the outbreak of the war, the soldiers’ families often suffer
acute want, which necessitates immediate help lest these people become
charges on their community. Many of the soldiers will never return from
the battlefields; others will come back as cripples, unfit to support
themselves or their families. They will all want support of some kind
or another....
It is a boundless sea of troubles that has to be coped with and the
full weight of the task is falling upon Jewish shoulders. The gulf
dividing the bulk of Russian society from Jewish life and needs and
sorrows has not been bridged over by the horrors of war. Though now
and again a voice of sympathy is heard from Russian quarters, here
and there a Russian hand is extended to feed a starving Jewish child,
both moral and material assistance offered by non-Jews to our stricken
people is but infinitesimal as compared with the magnitude of the
distress.
Nor do we now wish to dwell specifically on Polish-Jewish relations,
it being too well known to what extent they have become pointed during
the recent months, bearing in their train infinite, yea, unbearable
sufferings for our Jewish brethren.
In order to unite the efforts of Jewish society towards the relief of
the Jewish sufferers from the war, at the very outbreak of the European
conflagration there was formed at Petrograd a General Jewish Relief
Committee, with the sanction of the Russian authorities, to act as a
center for the collection and distribution of funds to the destitute
and needy Jews. At the very beginning of its activity the General
Committee issued an appeal to the Jewish public calling it to its duty
to the unfortunate sufferers, just as the Jewish soldiers fighting and
distinguishing themselves in the ranks of the Russian army are doing
their duty by their mother country.
Jewish society at large has shown its usual responsiveness and material
support has been forthcoming in as large a measure as individual means
and circumstances would permit.
Committees, similar to the General Committee, working on the same lines
and in close unity with it have since been organized in prominent
centers of the stricken area and outside of it—e. g., in Warsaw,
Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, and in addition the existing Jewish
organizations, such as the Central Committee of the Jewish Colonization
Association, the Society for the Promotion of Education in Russia,
the Jewish Health Society, the Society for the Promotion of Trade and
Industry among Russian Jews, etc., etc., are taking active part in the
relief work. Representatives of the various committees and societies
working in the war zone and outside it meet periodically in order to
discuss new measures and schemes for the alleviation of the terrible
distress.
The conditions and extent of distress in towns, townlets and villages
of Poland and of the Pale are being ascertained through delegates of
the General Relief Committee working actively and energetically towards
the organization of various forms of relief in the several districts.
In a number of places the local Jewish community has readily joined in
the relief work, doing its utmost to meet the demand for food, shelter,
clothing; the local philanthropic and communal Jewish institutions
thus becoming valuable agencies of the General Relief Committee. On
the whole, however—particularly as far as Poland is concerned:—=the
organization of assistance to the war sufferers is meeting with endless
difficulties, due largely to the fact that the suffering population is
in such a state of frantic terror, that many Jews do not even dream of
applying to anyone for assistance. In many instances the first terror
has given way to complete apathy.=
Often our representatives have to seek these people out in their hiding
places, to rouse them from their lethargy, to exercise moral pressure
on the more prominent members of the community, before anything
can be done for the sufferers. This attitude of the people becomes
intelligible when we consider the conditions that they live in under
ordinary circumstances—their poverty, their lack of education, the
contempt they are accustomed to meet with on the part of the non-Jewish
population.
Similar conditions prevail in the Galician Provinces within Russian
occupation:
=“I found them huddling together in damp and dark cellars, half-naked,
sick and starving”=—these are the words of one of our representatives
who visited some of the places that had witnessed all the horrors of
the war. =“They showed complete apathy, appeared to be in a trance
of terror. Only a madman—he had become insane because of superhuman
suffering—followed me into the street, shrieking for bread. I handed
him a coin, but he threw it down and clamored for bread....”=
The ever changing conditions of war, that open up new regions for
relief work today, and close other districts tomorrow, that throw ever
new crowds of sufferers upon public charity—these, to a large extent
baffle all our efforts towards relief, destroying today what was
organized yesterday. Add to this the peculiar circumstances of Jewish
life in Russia, the unfavorable attitude of the authorities towards
the Jewish population in the war area—and the difficulties that the
organization of relief has to cope with will stand out in their full
significance.
Owing to these and other conditions the General Relief Committee up
till now has had to concentrate largely on extending “first aid,”
this term being here used to comprise feeding and sheltering of the
sufferers. Distribution of food (at low rates or free of charge), of
fuel, clothes, foot-wear; organization of feeding centres, amelioration
of sheltering and housing conditions, of sanitation and hygiene among
the war sufferers—are the chief forms relief has taken so far.
At the present moment there are being equipped by the General Relief
Committee two so-called “sanitary and feeding expeditions” whose
object it will be to offer medical assistance and provide free food
to the sufferers in the war area of Poland, irrespective of religious
denomination. (The money for this purpose has been received from London
with the express condition that no distinction be made between Jews and
non-Jews).
Moreover, insofar as this has been possible, efforts have been made
to secure work for the refugees and for those who have lost their
employment as a result of the war. Thus in Warsaw there has been
opened a workshop where refugees are employed in manufacturing various
articles of underclothing for distribution among the war sufferers.
In Vilna there has been established a workshop for bootmakers who are
filling Government orders for army boots. Similar workshops have been
organized at Dvinsk, Fastov, etc. Further, there has been opened at
Warsaw a labor-bureau which is obtaining work for a considerable number
of artisans.
A large number of small merchants and artisans being in urgent need
of credit to enable them to re-establish and operate their business
and to prevent them from lapsing into utter destitution, credit is
being afforded them through the medium of the Jewish cooperative
credit societies that are working throughout the Pale of Settlement
and Poland. So far, by way of experiment, about 23,000 roubles have
been invested in this operation; however, should this useful form of
assistance be enlarged, considerable means will be required for the
purpose.
At the present moment the General Relief Committee, working in close
cooperation with the committees in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, is
extending relief to over 300 centres of population situated in the
following provinces:
Approximate Number
=Poland—= of Populated Centers
Province Warsaw (including city of
Warsaw where a large number of
refugees are concentrated) 46
Province Vilna 18
Province Kovno 40
Province Suvalki 20
Province Liublin (only part of it
being accessible to relief work) 25
Province Kielce (only part of it
being accessible to relief work) 12
Province Radom 15
Province Grodno (now included in
sphere of activity of Moscow
Committee) 5
Province Lomzha (now included in
sphere of activity of Moscow
Committee) 10
Province Plotsk (now included in
sphere of activity of Moscow
Committee) 8
Province Kholm (now within activity
of Kiev and Odessa Committee) 10
=Southwestern Province—=
Province: Podolia, Bessarabia and
Volynia (Border districts) 10
=Galicia—=
Petrograd Committee (cooperating
with Kiev and Odessa Committee) 75
=Outside War Area= 10
———
=Total= 304
Some idea of the expenditures of the General Relief Committee in
Petrograd is given by the following figures: