Once, as I was coming home, I heard Strukists asking the peasants, "Where does the spy Gusovsky live here?" I understood what this meant. I hid in a peasant's barn. At night I returned home. They had wounded my wife, and completely plundered my household goods. Everything had vanished; they had taken the feathers out of the pillows. My wife told me that the bandits had come looking for me, and said they would come again. I understood that it was impossible to stay in the village any more, and with my wife and children left the place, carefully creeping through fences.
(Signature)
II. P AND OTHERS
YELISAVETGRAD ( F KHERSON) Pogrom of May 15-17, 1919
On May 15, 16 and 17 of this year a pogrom of which I was an eye-witness occurred in Yelisavetgrad, Government of Kherson.
The Soviet forces, which, under the leadership of the ataman Grigoriev, had taken Nikolaiev, Kherson and Odessa, after the taking of Odessa, disposed themselves on the line Voznesensk- Pomoschnaia-Yelisavetgrad-Znamenka-Kremenchug, and Znamenka-Korystovka-Piatikhatki. Among these guerrilla forces, consisting exclusively of the dregs of the peasant population of the Kherson government, there were very many criminals, who poured into the divisions of Grigoriev during their occupation of the towns, since upon the transfer of the towns to the Petlura-Grigoriev regime all the criminals were released from prison, and part of them entered Grigoriev's ranks. The frame
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of mind of the Grigoriev forces was always hostile to the Jews, and when these forces, after the taking of Odessa, freed from military activities, began to stretch out in squadrons along the line of the railroad, the pogrom agitation began to increase among them and speeches began to be delivered ever more frequently on the theme of "the injuriousness of Jews and communists."
Two days before a Jewish pogrom had been carried out by the Grigoriev troops in Znamenka (36 versts from Yelisavetgrad), and the Grigoriev squadrons from there began to arrive in Yelisavetgrad. Great agitation arose in the city. The stores did not open; attacks on dwellings began; on all the streets groups of soldiers went about questioning passers-by _ whether they were not communists. On the tenth there appeared on the streets of the city a manifesto ("Universal") with the signature of the ataman Grigoriev, calling for the overthrow of the Soviet regime, which, according to the manifesto, consisted of foreigners from "Moscow and the country where they crucified Christ." The Soviet institutions were destroyed, the militia units broken up; the city remained without protection. Throughout the city there began to pop up everywhere hooligans, dwellers in the outskirts, tramps from the market place, and educated black-hundreders and members of the Union of the Russian People. They carried on open agitation and called for the destruction of the Jews. To arouse the masses of the people against the Jews the genuine Russians disinterred the bodies of the well-known local bandit, Petka Smely, and the former mayor, Verischagin, who had been shot by the bolsheviks immediately upon the withdrawal of the Petlurists, and held a solemn funeral. Unofficial and isolated attacks on Jewish houses continued for about a week. On the tenth of May there approached the city from the direction of Odessa a small detachment of Soviet forces that had been despatched; it consisted of Georgians and sailors. The Grigorievists hastily left the city towards the station of Znamenka. The town went over to the previous regime, but not for long. For the ataman Grigoriev, learning that the number of the detachment sent out was not large, again attacked the city, and on the night of the 14th a battle took place near Yelisavetgrad between several thousand Grigorievists and the Soviet detachment.
When the sailors and bolsheviks drove the Grigorievists out of the city, the latter threatened to return and massacre all Jews, so that the Jewish population knew that if the city was taken this time there was no escape from a pogrom. The Soviet
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detachment of Georgians and sailors resisted for only some hours. Seeing that the enemy was superior, the Georgians retreated and succeeded in escaping towards Odessa, while the sailors went over to Grigoriev's side and together with him entered the city on the morning of May 15. Immediately the Grigoriev forces opened the prison, let out all the prisoners, and then dispersed about the city in groups of five or ten and began to smash shops and houses. They were soon joined by Russian inhabitants of the outskirts, market women, tramps and hooligans, and also educated black-hundreders. In the mass of excited people you could find officials, teachers, etc. The local Social-Democratic newspaper "Our Life" (Nasha Zhizn) a few days after the pogrom came out openly reproaching the workmen for the fact that even they took part in the pogrom. Compatriots who hid in the cellar of the house where I live heard some one playing excellently on the piano for more than an hour while the house was being wrecked.