ing of the population began in the city, carried on en masse, mainly among the Jews. In some places and on some days it assumed the character of an outright pogrom. Armed men with red ribbons, and red scarfs and belts, mounted on horses decked in red ribbons, with whips, revolvers, sabres, rifles, and in many instances even with machine guns, rushed into homes, and, starting with or without a pretext, sacked and robbed the whole of the property, demanding money and taking away all valuables. (Appendix 14.) The whole population of the city declares that among the looters were professional thieves and criminals, who had mostly served sentences in prison, in chain-gangs, and at hard labor, and who enrolled in the 8th Soviet regiment as volunteers. The robbery and plunder of the people's property, accompanied in many cases by beatings, maltreatment, and even torture, and in four or five cases by murder, did not stop up to the last day of the presence of the 8th regiment in Uman, July 3. (Appendix 15.) In the course of more than six weeks the entire population of Uman, especially the Jewish, was in the power of organized and well-armed detachments of bandits and pogromists, with whom the higher military authorities could not cope. Many homes of both Jewish and Christian inhabitants were plundered several times, and literally everything that was in them was taken out, including pillows, bed-covers, and even dirty linen. No protection, with very insignificant exceptions, was afforded the inhabitants by anyone. There were, to be sure, some ten cases of shooting of bandits, but they were mostly bandits of the second order of dangerousness, not belonging to the membership of the 8th regiment. The chief organizers of pogroms remained quite unpunished, though very well known to the higher powers, who were powerless to take any measures against them through fear of arousing opposition and resentment among the large armed groups of their fellows. Moreover the frame of mind of very many of the soldiers of the 8th regiment was distinctly anti-Semitic, and cases of furnishing protection to Jews aroused in them resentment and anger at both the protectors and the protected. (Appendix 17.) Therefore the struggle with banditry, in so far as it was carried on at all, was limited to the repeated issuance of printed orders in which bandits were threatened with shooting on the spot, and to occasional repressive measures against bandits of minor importance. Evidently conscious of their security from punishment, the bandits performed tens and hundreds of acts of violence, which, in their way, surpassed the horrors of the pogrom. Thus, for instance, cases are recorded in which
UKRAINE
the bandits, in broad daylight, on the street, in the presence of many armed men, stripped private persons naked, both men and women, violating the latter almost on the street, in the sight of passers-by, who were powerless to do anything. (Appendix 16.) Beatings, lootings, drunken scandals, maltreatments, and shootings became the most ordinary events, at which no one even lodged complaints. Armed men, decorated with huge red scarfs and ribbons, would stop the Jews who at rare intervals went through the streets, with the question, "Are you a Jew?" and when convinced of the fact either from the reply or from their own impressions, would beat them half to death with whips. Hostility to Jews and anti-Semitism was the most marked characteristic of the majority of the armed men in red scarfs and ribbons. They constantly threatened to "cut the throats of all the Jews" and became enraged at contact with anyone who had any dealings with Jews. Thus cases are on record of armed men in red ribbons who refused to buy seeds of poor Christian women whom they suspected of being Jewesses, and who refused to give alms to a beggar-boy suspected of being a Jew. At the same time a rather large number of Jewish volunteers was in the 8th regiment, part of whom consisted of local criminals, Jewish thieves, who, if they did not themselves plunder, directed attention to the rich booty of the dwellings of the well-to-do inhabitants of Uman, which they knew very well. (Appendix 18.) The above-mentioned facts indicate that all commercial and productive life, and any other life in the city, was completely paralyzed in the town and the canton. Foodstuffs rose in price incredibly, because the peasants did not bring any in, since they risked violence from two directions — on the part of the rebels in the country, and on the part of the bandits who robbed the peasants in the city.