Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Pogroms: Cause for Leaving Russia
Let me recount what Mary Antin wrote in 1911about the horrors inflicted upon the Jews in Russia as they celebrated the festival of liberty in the Exodus story during the festive Seder meal. Ms. Antin wrote of what routinely took place at Passover and of how Russian neighbors reminded the Jews that for them it was another Egypt: from Victor Sharpe.
“… in Russian cities and even more in country districts, where Jewish families lived scattered, the stupid peasants would hear lies about the Jews, fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill their Jewish neighbors.
“They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them and burned their houses. This was called a pogrom.
“Jews who escaped the pogroms came with wounds on them and horrible, horrible, stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and choke with pain.
“People who saw such things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived and sometimes their hair turned white in a day and others went insane.”
My cousin and I wonder if this isn't the reason that our grandmother, Hattie Jermulowske had had her legs broken. She was short to begin with, and this disability made her even shorter.
“… in Russian cities and even more in country districts, where Jewish families lived scattered, the stupid peasants would hear lies about the Jews, fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill their Jewish neighbors.
“They attacked them with knives and clubs and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them and burned their houses. This was called a pogrom.
“Jews who escaped the pogroms came with wounds on them and horrible, horrible, stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and choke with pain.
“People who saw such things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived and sometimes their hair turned white in a day and others went insane.”
My cousin and I wonder if this isn't the reason that our grandmother, Hattie Jermulowske had had her legs broken. She was short to begin with, and this disability made her even shorter.
Labels: immigration, Pogrom, Russia
