The stores and workshops, in spite of all orders, remained closed for two months, and the streets even by day were painfully vacant. By 5 P.M. only armed men were visible on the streets, mostly drunk, riding over the sidewalks, making the air resound with drunken songs, obscenities, and shots in the air. All this took place, for that matter, all day long.
The Jewish population of the city, beggared and deprived of the little property that remained after the pogrom of the rebels, frequently left without breadwinners (killed in- the pogrom) and without any means of subsistence, terrorized by the anti-Semitically-inclined gangs in red ribbons, on the one hand, and the unceasing danger of a new attack of the rebels on the other, lived through indescribably fearful days of nightmare. In the eyes of many life became something of no great importance. They longed only for any sort of relief from the bandits who tormented them — whether rebels, unionists, or any others. The passionate longing for relief produced a number of fantastic, imaginary facts, such as a treaty between the Entente and Germany regarding the protection of the remaining Jews in Ukraine, and also the report that some sort of Jewish- American detachment was moving to the aid of the perishing Jews of Ukraine, and was to arrive in Uman on a definitely named date. The awful longing for relief from this insufferable position, at any price whatever, became universal. But relief, in the shape of the arrival of another Soviet detachment, did not come until the first days of July, in spite of repeated entreaties and categorical demands from the representatives of the Uman government, presented by letter and verbally by delegates to Kiev. The change could not take place on account of the critical situation on the front both within and without Ukraine, and also because, for the war against the rebels of Uman, the military authorities had deliberately reserved the 8th regiment, which was considered a strong fighting unit. And it is indeed true that in defending the city from the rebels, who all this time kept forming groups in the canton and repeatedly tried to take Uman again, the 8th regiment showed itself a fighting force dangerous to the rebels. In several fights it completely destroyed the detachments of the atamans Tiutiunik, Popov, and Klimenko, and seized all their arms and articles of outfit and equipment. A second occupation of Uman by the rebels, which might have been possible under other circumstances, and might have been accompanied by a repetition of the first pogrom, was excluded by the presence of the 8th regiment.
In the first days of July there arrived in Uman the first Ukrainian Soviet regiment, a cavalry regiment under the command of Gribenko, which remained in Uman five days. Two days after the arrival of the first regiment, the 8th regiment left Uman for Nikolaiev. Immediately the looting and violence ceased almost completely. As regards the attitude of the first cavalry regiment to the Jewish population, it is proper to say that while it was in general very much better than that of the 8th regiment, it was also in some instances malevolent. Thus, for instance, on Stolypinskaya, Zagorodnaya, and other neighboring streets, which adjoined the soldiers' quarters, armed men on horseback would plunder the apartments and beat up passersby, declaring at the same time that they were against "Jews and communists." According to the testimony of Talabaniuk,
UKRAINE
a member of the Executive Committee who was sent as organizer and agitator to the villages of Verkhniachka and Dobrov, a detachment of cavalrymen of the first regiment rode into those villages for some reason or other and committed a number of disorderly acts against the peasants, demanding, among other things, that they surrender "Jews and communists." In one of the villages they almost killed a Jewish girl because in their opinion she "upset the men" by her beauty. In general, however, the first cavalry regiment, consisting as it did mainly of Ukrainian guerrilla fighters, and though undoubtedly inclined, like the 8th Soviet regiment, to be very hostile to the Jewish population, showed itself in no way especially aggressive during the time of its short stay in Uman, except for the series of cases noted.