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In spring 1919 the most dramatic Jewish pogrom in Novomirgorod took place. It became one of the strongest shocks in my father’s life. My father said that this pogrom was made by the ‘black hundred’ [15] units. On 18 May crowds began to gather in Novomirgorod. From behind the closed shutters of his house my father watched how they broke into the house of Rabinovich, sales agent of Singer sewing machines. They broke doors and windows and dough flew out of the windows. In the evening rumors about the massacre spread. My father’s neighbors, the Christian family of Berest who was a shop assistant in my father’s shop, offered shelter to my grandfather’s family. On the night of 19 May grandmother and my father’s younger brothers David and Anatoli hid in Mr. Berest’s house and grandfather with Grisha, my father and Yakov hid in their hayloft. The Berests put icons in front of their house and drew red crosses in chalk on the gates like all other Christian families in the town. The pogrom began at dawn. Throng of brutal townsfolk began to smite Jewish houses breaking crockery and furniture and cutting mattresses and pillows.
Grandfather Mordko decided to try to get home to see what was happening there despite his son’s requests to stay. There was a group of bandits in the yard of his house. My grandfather ran to the river across the garden, but a bullet reached him. He was wounded, but he managed to sail across the river and hide in the stables at a farm. The owner ordered his laborers to throw him out into the street where my grandfather died. The pogromists took the remaining Jews to the town prison where my father and his family stayed three days. Somebody arranged for water delivery into prison. They also brought pieces of pork on iron griddles as if to ridicule Jews. There were talks in prison that dean of the town cathedral Reverend Georgi Kovalevski, a decent and sympathizing man, went out to meet the pogromists and talk them into stopping their brutalities, but it didn’t work. Four days later a Soviet bandit-fighting unit came into town. My father’s family returned home. There were pieces of broken furniture, crockery and feathers from pillows on the floors. There was also a portrait of my grandmother’s brother Yitzchok with his eyes put out.
They buried victims of this pogrom in two common graves in the Jewish cemetery in Novomirgorod. Religious Jews recited the mourning prayers. They placed two huge granite gravestones on the graves. In 1938, when my father visited Novomirgorod for the last time he saw cows and goats walking in the cemetery. The granite gravestones were lost in grass and it was hard to discover them. In the 1960s my father’s acquaintance Israel Radkovski visited Novomirgorod. He didn’t find the cemetery since it was ploughed over.
Grandfather Mordko decided to try to get home to see what was happening there despite his son’s requests to stay. There was a group of bandits in the yard of his house. My grandfather ran to the river across the garden, but a bullet reached him. He was wounded, but he managed to sail across the river and hide in the stables at a farm. The owner ordered his laborers to throw him out into the street where my grandfather died. The pogromists took the remaining Jews to the town prison where my father and his family stayed three days. Somebody arranged for water delivery into prison. They also brought pieces of pork on iron griddles as if to ridicule Jews. There were talks in prison that dean of the town cathedral Reverend Georgi Kovalevski, a decent and sympathizing man, went out to meet the pogromists and talk them into stopping their brutalities, but it didn’t work. Four days later a Soviet bandit-fighting unit came into town. My father’s family returned home. There were pieces of broken furniture, crockery and feathers from pillows on the floors. There was also a portrait of my grandmother’s brother Yitzchok with his eyes put out.
They buried victims of this pogrom in two common graves in the Jewish cemetery in Novomirgorod. Religious Jews recited the mourning prayers. They placed two huge granite gravestones on the graves. In 1938, when my father visited Novomirgorod for the last time he saw cows and goats walking in the cemetery. The granite gravestones were lost in grass and it was hard to discover them. In the 1960s my father’s acquaintance Israel Radkovski visited Novomirgorod. He didn’t find the cemetery since it was ploughed over.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Remma Kogan