should not hinder them from dealing with the Jews as they might see fit. And when he asked me whether I consented to this, I replied: 'I haven't the power to oppose you, and I shall not interfere with you.' " Further he communicated the facts about the massacre that had taken place in the town, and stated that the number of killed was about 500. "Before leaving the place," he said, "the same ataman said to me: 'Don't interfere with the peasants; let them do what they think best. Let them take that which the Jews have sucked out of the people for such a long time.' " And, in fact, the peasants did come with carts, and plundered the property of the Jews.
At Felshtin there were gathered several hundreds of Gaidamaks; that is, apparently, all the Gaidamaks who were in Proskurov, since the whole third Gaidamak regiment consisted of only several hundreds all told.
It is characteristic that some of the Gaidamaks who arrived at Felshtin on Monday evening went to Jewish homes and asked for lodgings. They were not only furnished with lodgings, but fed an abundant supper with sweetmeats. These Gaidamaks behaved themselves very decently and even respectfully. They declared that they had come to Felshtin without any evil intentions, and that they would go back the next day. However, in the morning, after the signal-horn, those same Gaidamaks cut down the very same Jews who had entertained them.
The question has arisen how to reconcile the massacre in Felshtin with the promise, which, according to Verkhola and others, Semosenko gave on Sunday to the session of the council, namely, to call the Gaidamaks back from Felshtin. The Jews of Felshtin declare that Semosenko gave orders to this effect by telegraph, but that the telegram was hidden by the head of the post and telegraph bureau. This rests on an evident misunderstanding. The distance from Proskurov to Felshtin is only 25 versts in all, and the Gaidamaks who came to Felshtin Monday evening unquestionably left Proskurov on the morning of the same day. It is clear that what was needed was not for Semosenko to recall the Cossacks from Felshtin, but simply not to send them there. But it is possible that it was no longer in Semosenko's power to keep them in Proskurov.
We must remember that the Gaidamaks had been promised bloody sport with the Jews in Proskurov for three days. But the experience of the first day, Saturday, surpassed the expectations, apparently, of Semosenko and Kiverchuk themselves. It was therefore decided to stop the massacre in Proskurov.
FELSHTIN:
But at the same time the Gaidamaks, having tasted Jewish blood, got a liking for it, and showed a desire for further slaughter. It was not so easy, apparently, to stop them. Besides this, the telegrams sent out all over the canton by Kiverchuk, of which mention has been made, stirred up the entire canton. From Kiverchuk's point of view, after what had happened in Proskurov, the capital of the canton, it would have been unjust, perhaps insulting, to the rest of the canton, to leave it entirely without Jewish blood. However this may be, at any rate, the Gaidamaks received permission to go out into the canton. Moreover we must remember that they were afforded freedom to act on their own responsibility. It depended on them to act in this way or that. This explains the fact that in Yarmolintsy, where the bolsheviki had also been, they contented themselves with a considerable sum of money. The local Jews went out of the town to meet them and furnished this sum to them; and they did not start a massacre. But when they came to Felshtin they found a pogrom-like frame of mind already prepared there. This frame of mind had been created by the guard from Porichie, which the militia commander had summoned, and also by the commander of militia himself, who, according to all the evidence,.sympathized and co-operated with the pogrom. Even his eighty-year-old father, during the massacre, took a stout board in his hands and finished killing wounded Jews, as is confirmed by several witnesses who saw it from the garret where they were hiding. This pogrom-like frame of mind was also helped on by the head of the post and telegraph bureau, who was informed of everything, but not only did nothing to avert the pogrom, but did not even try to mitigate it. This b made sufficiently clear from the testimony of the witness Schneider. Under the influence of this pogrom-like frame of mind, the debauch of the Gaidamak horde in Felshtin was irrestrainable.
The pogrom in Felshtin lasted several hours. There were 485 people killed, and 180 wounded. Of the wounded more than a hundred died of their wounds. Thus the killed amounted in all to 600 people, which amounts to nearly a third of the Jewish population in the town; it contained in all about 1,900 Jewish inhabitants.