In all the crimes in Slovechno a small group of peasants from nearby villages took part, with Kosenko at their head. They were poorly armed and it would have been very easy to disarm them. At the head of the pogrom-outbreak was the commander of militia, who first took money from us, as if to protect us, but afterwards summoned the bandits by signal and began the pogrom, handing over to the pogromists the weapons which were entrusted to him.
(Signature)
V. Testimony of Moishe Feldman, Aged 19, from Slovechno; Employee of the Forest Department
The pogrom began with us Tuesday night. The first looting took place then. On the next morning we learned that six were slain. The whole day of Wednesday robberies continued in the town. On Thursday again five or six people were killed, but the most terrible day for our town was Friday, when the most fiendish murders and atrocities took place. On Friday morning we came out of our house and fled wherever our legs took us. Wherever we went we were met with shots. The peasants encompassed the town with firing and drove the fleeing Jews into one place. Several hundred of us found ourselves in the house of Avrum-Ber Portny, and there we were all piled and heaped up on one another. It was close in the house, and terror and anguish reigned among us. When a certain peasant (Kosenko, from Slovechno) appeared and declared that he was the head •f the insurgent forces, we began to entreat him and offered lim money. He answered, that since we had disobeyed his >rders to leave the town, he had decided to kill us all. Imnediately the firing began through the windows of the place where we were gathered. Then the peasants began to beat us ip; they beat us with whatever came handy, trampled on us with their feet, and threw bombs. How many were killed, it is lard to be sure at present, but very many. Apparently they yould have killed all, but deadly weapons failed the bandits. i myself pretended to be dead and lay thus four or five hours. The bandits investigated me to see if I was alive, and struck me on the leg (my leg swelled up from that); then the murierer began to draw off my shoes as from a dead man. The beasts occupied themselves with me and examined me for a whole hour. Feeling the breathing of these people on ne, I pretended to be quite dead. I lay there until people came ifter the bodies of the slain. Under me flowed a stream of Jewish blood; my leg ached. I got up and went with someone else to another house; they pursued us thither and wanted to kill us. Then I went to the cemetery, where they were burying six dead. On the way peasants met us and demanded that we should bury all the slain, "and then we will kill you and will bury you ourselves; we've had plenty enough work with you." "But if you want to live, then go to the priest and ask him to baptize all your sins out of you." Until evening we were busy at the cemetery. We didn't bury all. Many corpses remained at home and in the streets. The summer heat caused a stench of putrefaction from the bodies. Everywhere were pools of human blood. At evening we hid again, since looting and killing were still going on. All the Jews hid, and cowering each in his hole in a cellar or garret or in the bushes, expected death. The town presented a picture of desolation. The pogrom was char-
UKRAINE
acterized not only by looting but particularly by destruction of property. In the houses they smashed everything: windows, doors, furniture, table service; sometimes they destroyed the walls. Now there is not a house where the windows and doors are uninjured; they opened up the ceilings and floors; they carried off the domestic animals, all the goods of the Jews. The night of Friday I spent hidden in the grass near a storehouse, and on Saturday morning I left the town.
(Signature)
F SHERSHNI ( F VOLHYNIA)
I. Testimony of Jos. Gines, Former Merchant of the Village of Shershni
I am an inhabitant of the village of Shershni. My family has lived there a long time — my father and grandfather. I was engaged in trade; had a shop in the village. There were five Jewish families altogether in the village, all inhabitants of the place for a long time, so to speak, well-rooted inhabitants. The pogrom, or rather devastation, took place with us before Easter. It was Petlurists who perpetrated it — bands who came to us and looted. Up to the latest time there were no murders. The Jews in our place were of moderate means. In former times there were never any special clashes with the peasants. Only lately, in connection with the resentment of the peasants against the "commune," the peasants began to talk about the followers of Sokolovsky and to say that if they appeared everybody ought to join them.