It is our opinion that, if at any moment during the course of this criminal butchery rat « hich the world has passively looked on the public opinion of the civilized world and the Governments had expressed strongly its firm determination to put a stop tn this Btate of things, the massacres would, in spite of all, have ceased. During the most disordered days, when it seems that no regular authority any longer exists, nevertheless there are some amongst the leaders of these savage bands who would listen to the cries of horror and indignation ccmiing from the West, and would give way before a determined and authoritative protest.
The Committee thinks that the same will be true in the f\iture. The extermination of the.lewish people will become impossible from the moment when order is restored and the League of Nations malccs its voice heard. The principal murderers and the guilty ones are at the present moment in full liberty and go entirely unpunished, since most, if not all of them, have gone tu countries within the sphere of influence of the League of Nations. We demand that an exemplary punishment should be visited upon them, convinced as we are that this will give a determined and undeniable proof of the formal «ill of the peoples of the West to put an end to these massacres.
At the bar of the civilized world, at the bar of the League of Nations, which is the largest representative international body which has ever been brought into existence, we denounce as murderers the following persons: the Hctman Strouk, who at the head of his men, massacred a thousand Jews, in 41 places in the neighbourhood of Tchernobjd; the Colonel Hetman Tioutiounik, the Hctman SokoloAAsky. whose troops massacred 3,000 Jews in 70 places in the neighbourhood of Radumj-sl-Jitomir: the Hetman Simossenko, who was responsible for the butchery at Proskourof; and others besides.
We like to hope that the conscience of humanity will refuse to allow these murderers to remain in complete libcity. to command their regiments and indirectly to ask for the protection of the civilized world. We ask the League of Nations, which represents the continuity of the brotherhood of man, to make a stern example of the culprits. It is a defiance, direct or indirect, to the principle of the League of Nations and to the most elementary principles of human justice to maintain amicable relations with men still red with the blood of their innocent victims, with men who have surpassed an hundredfold the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition.
We ask plainly for the punishment of these murderers. We hope that the whole of himianity will support our claim with all its might.
The President:
N. SOKOLOW.
The Secretary Oeveral:
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REPORT OF POGROMS IN THE UKRAINE By the Kiev Pogrom Relief Committee of the Russian Red Cross
THE wave of Jewish pogroms, unparalleled in history, which has covered the fields and towns of the Ukraine with rivers of Jewish blood, began on December 31st, 1918. The pogroms had their origin in the civil war which broke out after the downfall of the German Empire and of the rSgime of the Hetman which was intimately connected with and dependent upon that Empire. The civil war began with a victorious revolt of the newly-formed Directorate against General Skoropadski, followed by- a no less victorious and violent movement of the Bolshevists against the Directorate. The troops of Petlura, driven westwards towards the frontiers of Gahcia, began to break up into small gangs of freebooters and rebels, who remained in the localities occupied by the Comm^unists, and who thus formed a very dangerous " internal front." This front became especially extensive when the detachments of Grigoriev, Tiutiunik, Zeliony, Struck, Sokolowsky, and of many other chiefs who had at first joined the Bolshevists, separated themselves from the latter and started campaigns of their ovm.
During the first two years of the Revolution, commencing from February 27th, 1917, there were practically no Jewish pogroms. There were, of course, excesses committed by demoralized detachments of troops, more especially during the demobilization. These excesses were, if not exclusively, yet mostly, directed against Jews, but they were merely spora.dic in character and never assumed a large scale. The assailants practically always limited themselves to acts of robbery and to the damage of property.