UKRAINE
Jews but to fight the commune, and that if the Jews would cooperate with them in this fight, all would be well. At the same time the rebels warned the Jews not to assemble for the impending mobilization declared by the bolsheviki. The same thing happened in several other places, where the Jews even announced to the government that they could go to the rallying-point (for military service) only in case the peasants went, too. But if such idylls of the civil war did take place, they took place only in a few towns and villages, where the insurgents were local peasants who saw before them only "their own" Jews, in whom they did not suspect "communism" in the least.
But the capital of the district, Iskorost, was apparently considered by the peasants a citadel of communism, and the peasants watched everything that went on there very closely. And when I arrived in Korosten and started to organize a dininghall and to arrange a kettle, that same awful "common kettle" with which the agitators frighten the peasants, that authentic symbol of a "commune"; and when the report of this "kettle" came to another town, Ushomir, they began to say that in Korosten "the Jews are already establishing a commune, the kettle has already been seen"... In Ushomir the peasants said to the Jews: "Go to Korosten, there the kettle is all ready!" The Jews of Ushomir were frightened, fearing that they would be accused of founding a "commune," and begged me not to start a dining-hall in Ushomir like that in Korosten, lest it bring upon them the charge of— communism! Thus amid tragic and tragi-comic incidents and occurrences passed the first days of work in the district, from June 24 to July 5. This was the first period of the insurrection; a period of attempts at rebellion, cautious and timid as yet, and scattered outbreaks among the peasants.
T ( F VOLHYNIA) Pogrom of July 16-19, 1919
I. Testimony of Isaac Goldberg, Aged 23, Teacher and Man of Letters
Until the recent nightmare-experiences there was no danger in Slovechno for the Jewish population.
The Jewish population of Slovechno consists of forty per cent laboring element, workmen; the rest of the Jewish population consists of petty merchants, an insignificant number being large merchants and tanners. The peasants live intermingled wth the Jews— first a peasant's hut, then a Jew's. Only the center of the town is inhabited mainly by Jews. The Russian population of the town is mostly poor; they have little land and are mainly hired laborers. In recent times the peasants have been working for Jews and thus had dealings with them. Often the peasants furnished hides to Jewish tanners to be worked over. Destitution is great among the peasants of Slovechno; many have no bread. The relations between the peasants and the Jews have been those of good neighbors until the most recent times. The Jews in their economic position were not sharply distinguished from the peasants; there was no striking differentiation as to wealth. The Jews worked just like the peasants; they walked bent over, and were tattered and oppressed. When there were attacks of bandits in other places, the Jews of the town (the well-to-do ones, of course) bought themselves off by paying money to certain well-known and noisy, murderous leaders.
From the time when exportation of wares from the town ceased (by regulation of the government), speculation also ceased and many of the peasants were deprived of their earnings, and began to hunt for something to earn so as to make a living. This was of significance in the further development of bandit tendencies. Last winter a "Union of Workmen" was formed in the town. When this Union got hold of the power, it began to be avenged for its previous position. The laboring Jews are the most downtrodden element among the Jews. And when it came about that these people got the chance themselves to run factory and government, they revenged themselves by imposing a contribution on the town. The workmen were Jews and the contribution was imposed also on Jews (tanners). Of course it was Jews who disliked the activities of the Union of Workmen; and yet afterwards, when the Petlurists came to the town, the peasants reproached the Jews for not surrendering "their own people" who were responsible for disorders. Thus quarrels of a political nature were started. At first, however, this bore no consequences for the Jewish population. All the time that pogroms were going on in the surrounding towns, Slovechno experienced no alarm, and the Jews of Ovruch in their time even found a safe refuge there.