For about two months the Jews lay in cellars and bathhouses. They did not hide in synagogues, because there had been a case in which the Petlurists had plundered Jews who were hiding in a synagogue. The Jewish Community was functioning officially, but was not active, because on the first day of the arrivaj of the Petlurists its president, Holtzmann, was arrested and shot. Small bands of five or ten men rode into the town, and, not finding the inhabitants, would look in cellars and in the cemetery and other places, and if they found inhabitants would take them home and demand that they show them the places where their property and money were hidden. If they were not shown and were not given money, they would kill them. Contributions were imposed almost every day. At first they would impose levies of a hundred or fifty thousand; but later, when the resources of the place ran out and many of the inhabitants had been killed, they took three thousand or even only one thousand each time. Besides money they took clothing, pillows, samovars. In a word, they robbed the town
ANNOPOL:
of a sum amounting to three or four millions. The dead amount to fifteen, among them a girl of sixteen, shot on the street without any reason. The Petlurists ran around the streets shouting, "Kill the Jews, even the Jewish children." At a meeting which took place in the town the Petlurist officers appeared and cried shame on each other because the Jews had driven them out of Berdichev. The Christian population did not move a finger to help the Jews. They took from the Jews not only money, but even fodder for the horses, and the Jews had to buy of the Christian population everything that the Petlurists needed, even tallow. After the Petlurists left, the population looked to the bolsheviki as saviors, but were disappointed in their expectations, since the bolsheviki also made themselves felt. The units which came looted the population, and what the Petlurists didn't take the bolshevik units took. The actions of the Taraschan regiment may serve as an example. When the Taraschan regiment was transported to Rovno, they stopped for the night in Annopol, and all night long plundered the place, so that on the next day they carried away the loot in carts. But more than that, fifteen men of this same regiment remained as garrison. They opened the shops and scattered abroad the goods which the Petlurists had left. There was a case in which the head of the detachment imposed a levy of 15,000 rubles, of which 11,000 was paid. But in spite of the levies and improper requisitions without the issuance of revolutionary orders, nevertheless the population remained content with the bolshevist regiments, because at least they did not kill. The "Kombed" (Committee of the Poor), which was organized after the departure of the Petlurists, made every effort to aid the hundred and fifty families who had lost all. For this purpose it started a mill going, which belonged to a land-owner Ivkov, and it is distributing among the poorest population what is received for the grinding of flour. But this is a drop in the bucket. There is no clothing, and very little medical aid (there is a hospital), while in the town and the surrounding district typhus is raging, so that the situation is desperate. The Committee of the Poor also distributes salt to the population, but in very small quantities; a pound of salt costs 30 to 35 rubles and there is none to be had in town. Medicines are distributed free, but many drugs are not to be had in town. There are no longer either rich or poor, so that there are no means -for furnishing medicines. The population is reckoned at 6,0(50, and of these 150 families are entirely without means, while the remaining six or seven hundred families are living from hand to mouth.
UKRAINE