* Twice they appealed to the government in vain. It would not listen to them.
UKRAINE
put an end at once to the destruction of the economic life." The frightful pogrom then ceased. During the pogroms a few representatives of the Christian intellectuals attempted to give protection.
In Novo-Mirgorod the local clergy had a procession which marched to the pogromists while they were making their gruesome preparations for the pogrom (they were digging graves for the future victims, who hid themselves and awaited in despair their inevitable death) and tried to intercede with them, but in vain. The bandits would not listen to their admonition. To diminish the number of Jewish victims the executive committee of the "Volost" had a great number of the Jews arrested together with their families (about 1,300 persons) and kept them in custody 89 days. This saved them from death. In Matusovo (Government of Kiev) the pogrom due to the reactionary agitation of the local intellectuals began with the watchword, "How long will you Jews continue to rule us?" In the communal assembly the question of continuing the pogrom was discussed. Two teachers spoke energetically in favor of protecting the Jews, pointing out that the power of the Jews had already been removed for the time being and that the survivors were poor unfortunate creatures. At first they were not allowed to speak. Even their colleagues turned against them and threatened to get even with them. But tne peasants who had become sobered heard them and the pogroms were stopped. The active interference for defense by the Christian population caused the cessation of the pogroms even in those cases in which the massacres were organized by disciplined military forces who could be depended upon by the military authorities. This was the situation in Proskurov. The request of a group of city deputies that the commandant put a stop to the pogrom had no effect. A session was called of the city Duma (a Jewish deputy was the only one who succeeded in having this done). The chief culprits, Semosenko and Kiverchuk, participated in the meeting. Semosenko maintained that the Jews alone were responsible for what was going on; that being mostly Bolsheviki, their purpose was to kill off the Gaidamaks and the other Cossacks. He said that he would continue to act in the future as he had done in the past, as he considered it his sacred duty. Kiverchuk spoke to the same effect. The city deputy Verkhola replied to them. He addressed the Duma in a long speech in which he brought out that the things that happened in Proskurov were a disgrace to the Ukraine. He spoke of the meritorious deeds of the Cossacks in the past and pointed out that in the present case Semosenko had put robbers in Cossack clothes and made himself their captain. Turning to Semosenko, he said, "You are fighting against the Bolshevists, but were the old men and children whom your Gaidamaks massacred, Bolshevists? You insist that only Jews are Bolshevists. Do you not know that there are Bolshevists among the other peoples too, even among the Ukrainians?" After the session of the city Duma there were no repetitions of massacres on a large scale. Semosenko gave an order to that effect, although according to the original plan the massacres were to last three more days. Thanks to the efforts of Verkhola, who actually saved the Jews of Proskurov from complete destruction, Semosenko was recalled from Proskurov.*
* Concerning the personality of Verkhola, who played so important a role in defending the Jews of Proskurov, see Appendix, p. 214.
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
The Jews therefore were not alone in their fight for life in the midst of a raging sea. Many of the Christian population were on their side. Not only in the first period of the pogroms, during the military pogroms of Petlura and the so-called "Batkovschina," but also in the pogroms of Denikin, the best Christian elements among the intellectuals as well as among the workmen took the part of the Jews, often risking their own lives in doing so. Hence that fearful hate in the above mentioned articles of Shulgin against the League to Combat Anti-Semitism, which was active in the Ukraine and gathered to itself the best Russian- Ukrainian intellectuals. There we saw clergy, professors, teachers and representatives of the liberal professions and of the working people.
The assistance of the Christian population often led, as we have seen, to a pogrom being checked; in many cases, too, it had no effect at all; still it had an enormous moral 'significance for the Jews, who felt that they were not altogether alone and abandoned in their mortal terror before the approaching pogrom wave.
CHAPTER V — A FEW EPISODES