This band, beginning in March, several times broke into the city and perpetrated pogroms, but they were comparatively trifling and were limited to pillaging and extortions. In May it was driven out by a Soviet detachment, after which the Soviet regime lasted about a month in Tarascha. But in the middle of June the band again approached the city in larger numbers (about 800 men). The garrison numbered not more than a hundred men and therefore withdrew. The band seized the town. It consisted of Yatzenko's men and some remnants of Grigorievists under Col. Nechai. Immediately plundering began and devastation, which lasted two days. The local bourgeoisie took no active part in this pillaging. A contribution of a million rubles was levied on the Jewish population. They succeeded in getting 300,000, and -announced that if the rest were not furnished they would massacre everybody, At this point the sixth Soviet regiment arrived and the band departed. The Soviet regiment put a stop to the plundering of the city.
All the shops were smashed and plundered. The losses were more than ten millions. Two persons were killed.
Approximately on June 20 the rumor went around that the "villagers" ("village- workers") were again attacking the city. The Soviet regiment withdrew, and with it departed almost the whole Jewish population. Four thousand Jews went to the town of Rakitnoe. The rumor proved untrue, but not more than fifteen Jewish families remained in the city.
LEBEDIN ( F KIEV) Pogrom of M,ay 5, 1919
Testimony of L. Dashevsky, Emissary of the Authorised
Investigator Tzifrinovich
Lebedin is located several versts from Zlatopol, near the boundary of the government of Kherson. All the winter of 1918-19 the Jews of Lebedin suffered from the attacks of local bandits, who terrorized the Jewish population beyond all measure and very often indulged in pillaging. The frightened Jewish population hastened to leave Lebedin, and about sixty families
LEBEDIN:
left the place. Those who remained were chiefly Jewish paupers and the operatives of a sugar- factory; about forty or fifty families.
The pogrom took place on Monday, May 5. During the day before the Jews learned of the approach of the rebels, and began in large numbers to leave for Shpola, ten versts from Lebedin. The pogrom was perpetrated not by Grigorievists but by local bandits, who were egged on by the local intellectuals. On Monday morning the bandits broke into the office of the sugarfactory, drove out all Jewish employees and immediately replaced them with non-Jews. At the same time there began in the market-place in the center of the town a shooting in which four Jews fell. There were instances of torture and barbarities.
On the next day an armed force of bolshevists from Shpola went and collected the Hebrews who remained alive, and who were hiding in cellars, and took them away to Shpola, abandoning Lebedin to the will of the bandits. Now there is not a single Jew in Lebedin. The Jewish houses have been broken open and robbed bare. Some have been burned. The bandits, having no more Jews to rob, are killing rich peasants.
DIRECTION OF SUGAR PRODUCTION TO THE KIEV PROVINCIAL FROM THE STATION OF ZNAMENKA
From the Jewish Employees of the Refined Sugar Factory of
Lebedin, Who Were Victims of the Pogrom in Lebedin and at the Factory
PETITION
On May 5 of this year the Jewish employees were informed by telephone that within 24 minutes not a single Jew must remain in the factory. Many fled from the factory to the nearest towns of Matusovo and Shpola. But before they got out of the region of the factory they were met with volleys of shots by bandits lying in wait near by, and four employees were killed on the spot.
From this time there began to operate here a small band of local bandits, who by their onslaughts and pillaging brought alarm and terror to the Jewish population. The local administration of the factory and the authorities took no steps to stop the pillaging and murders. The slaying was accompanied by cruel torments and violations. What the bandits could not take with them, they destroyed and burned. And then the wave of bloodshed poured into the territory of the factory even. The
UKRAINE