Quite different was the attitude of Colonel Petrov, chief of the garrison. When the delegation greeted him on the steps of the Hotel Frankreich, he said, "Ah, this is the Jewish Commission, I have nothing to say to you/' When it was explained to him that the delegation consisted of members of the Commission confirmed by the Directory, Colonel Petrov invited the members of the delegation to his room. During the conversation Colonel Petrov said among other things, "We march under the banner, 'Cut down the Jews, and cut down the Bolsheviki!' Can you hold two thousand minor children responsible if, meeting the Jews who were advancing against them together with the Bolsheviki, they killed a few of the former?" He said further that the pogrom broke out with such elemental force that even the students in the military schools were unable to resist it, so much so that in the few days of the pogrom he had to send the members of the Yunatsk School to the front. If some soldier took a shirt away from a Jew, he must not, according to Petrov, be held responsible for it. If the soldiers are to be held responsible, he can justify their acts fourfold. When a member of the Commission again pointed out that the Commission was confirmed by the Directory, Colonel Petrov said that the Directory was a puppet in the hands of the diplomats, most ofi whom were Jews. If the Directory appointed a commission to investigate the matter of pogroms, it was merely to make a show before public opinion that such things as pogroms do not remain unpunished. The delegation received the impression that Colonel Petrov was favorable to the existence of the Commission but not to their activity. The sense of his reply was that the soldiers should remain undisturbed, but private plunderers should be made responsible, for these would be shot by the Government. At the end of the conversation, when the delegates again pointed out emphatically that they were acting according to instruc-
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tions confirmed by the Directory, the chief of the garrison promised to see to it that the Commandant Vosny and the Hetman Bogatzky should lend their support to the Commission.
On a second visit to Sumkevich, the delegation informed him of their conversation with Colonel Petrov, which displeased the commissar very much. He asked them not to do anything until his return from Rovno, where he wanted to talk the matter over with the members of the Directory. At his request the delegation handed over to him a memoir concerning the delivery of the documents of the second pogrom to the Commission, which memoir he took along with him.
The Commission resolved as follows: "That part of the Protocol of the meeting which concerns the conversations with Colonel Petrov shall be laid before the Directory after the return of the Government commissar from Rovno," and they requested at the same time that the delegation chosen on the 3rd of April be sent to hold a conversation with him.
The original of the protocol is signed by all of the members of the Commission.
The reply of the Directory to the communication sent to them about Petrov's talents as a pogrom maker was his appointment as minister of war of the Directory.
After the month of March the pogroms instituted by the military associations of the Directory cross the path of those organized by the insurrectionary bands of the inner anti-Bolshevist front, of which more is said below in the chapter entitled, "The Batko."
On the loth of April a group of Petlura's followers, who retired from Olevsk to Novograd-Volynsk, destroyed the town of Emilchino.
In May Petlura's troops instituted the following pogroms on their front in the governments of Volhynia and Podolia; in Voronovitsy, on the gth of May; in Rovno, on the I4th and 2Qth of May; in Kremenetz, on the 22nd of May; in Litin, on the I4th and the 28th; in Kodyma and other places (precise dates not yet established).
In June, as a result of the varying fortunes on the outer front, there were 'pogroms and murders in Derashna, during the time between the 7th and I7th of June, in Khmelnik, Strishanya, Starye Siniavka, and other places.
In the enormous number of pogroms instituted in July, which broke the record in the annals of terror and death, portions of Petlura's troops were active in the governments of Volhynia and Podolia in addition to the insurrectionary troops of freebooters. At this time it is extremely difficult to distinguish between the former and the insurgent bands. The extreme measures, namely the Jewish pogroms, which the military leaders took for the purpose of welding together the different portions of their troops, brought about their final dissolution and changed them into robber bands.