III. To the Commission for Furnishing Aid to Persons Who Have Suffered from the Counter-Revolution (Central Section of Aid to Victims of Pogroms}: Note of Report of the Members of the Zlatopol Executive Committee
The pogrom in Zlatopol began on May 3 and continued almost uninterruptedly during the space of four weeks. Two months before the pogrom the Executive Committee knew that if special measures were not taken, a pogrom in Zlatopol was unavoidable. All the guerrilla detachments of the canton of Chigirin, when they arrived at Zlatopol or passed by Zlatopol, introduced a special anti-Semitic atmosphere. In this respect the detachment commanded by Lopata was especially distinguished. He openly agitated in the volost assemblies and in the villages, and roused the peasants to pogroms. This was early in April, 1919. Lopata with his detachment from Chigirin went to Lebedin, and thence via the villages of Lipianko, Turlo and others headed for Zlatopol. Even before his arrival peasants from the villages came to us in the Executive Committee and reported that Lopata in his speeches at the assemblies was urging them to pogroms. Upon Lopata's arrival in Zlatopol, on April 5, or a few days earlier, the air of the place reeked with pogrom sentiment. Lopata did not conceal his views and openly declared before the Executive Committee that the Jews ought to be cut down. Then the Executive Committee had to summon an armed detachment from Yelisavetgrad to prevent a massacre; and Lopata's detachment was destroyed. The Executive Committee had recourse to this extreme measure only when several members of the committee had been arrested, and when Lopata declared a state of siege in the town and demanded that within 24 hours the population pay the arrears of national taxes reckoned against them. In his order on this subject he stated that failure to pay the arrears in the time allotted would result in repressive measures even to the point of bombarding the place. After this incident a delegation went to Kiev to report. From Kiev an extraordinary prosecutor was sent to Zlatopol, who collected a mass of documentary evidence implicating Lopata, the members of the Chigirin Extraordinary Commission, and others. The prosecutor left Zlatopol on April 23, and stated that he was going to Kiev for a detachment, and that he would go with the detachment to Chigirin and would take all measures to put a stop to the criminal activities of the Chigirin "workers" and to clear the whole canton of Chigirin of bandits. But from that time the Executive Committee has received no information as to the results of the investigation, while it is reliably known that Lopata and the others are at liberty in Chigirin to this very day. Two days after the beginning of the pogrom in Zlatopol, on May 4, a detachment arrived there from Chigirin under the command of Kotzyr the younger, but this detachment only served to make the pogrom more violent, since the bandits felt complete impunity and even support from the soldiers and the commander of the detachment. Of the activities of these gentry details arc set forth in the report of A. Khromchenko. At present the situation in the town is tragic. The Jewish population is literally dying of hunger. The whole population is left without any means — both the merchants, who were well-to-do before the pogrom, and the artisans, who have lost their instruments and materials. Famine typhus is raging in the town. The Executive
UKRAINE
Committee considers that the sum of 300,000 rubles, released by the governmental section for furnishing aid to Zlatopol, is entirely insufficient, since with present high prices such a sum can only serve for very temporary aid, and it is far from possible by such means to render assistance to the artisans, to get them the instruments of production and to provide for the collective shops. It is necessary also to consider that the Jewish Loan and Savings Association, and the co-operative "Self-aid," which supplied the Jewish poor people with their supplies of provisions, have been left without means and until now have not begun to function. These enterprises served eight thousand of the Jewish population, and this population cannot get along without them. They must be subsidized extensively in order that they may begin to operate again. It is also necessary to organize the issuance to the population of long-time loans without interest, in order that they may again engage in their occupations, and not be turned into chronic beggars.
In conclusion we solicit for Zlatopol a sum of several million rubles. Only in that case can it be hoped that in time the population will be able to get out of its tragic situation.
President of the Executive Committee (Signature). Assistant to the President (Signature).
MATUSOVO ( F KIEV)
Pogrom of May 13-14, 1919 Communication of Kummelman