During the German occupation no pogroms took place in the Ukraine. Equally the months of November and December, 1918, when the Directorate victoriously fought the Hetman, passed without these horrors. Pogrorus only commenced when the Directorate.suffered defeat at the hands of the Communists who rose against them. The more decisive these defeats were, the more often the beaten Petlura troops had to carry out evacuations of territorities which they had occupied, the more cruelly the defeated and irritated troops began to revenge their setbacks and hardships on the peaceful Jewish population, and the more often they began to treat the Jews as Communists. The battle-cries, " Murder Jews and Communists! " and the " Jews are Communists 1 " soon sounded throughout the Ukraine, provoking sanguinary pogroms.
The first massacre broke out in the town of Ovrutsh and its envhons. The defenceless Jewish population were at the mercy of a Petlura Ataman, and murder and robbery lasted from December 31st to January 16th. At the same period the Shitomir pogrom took place (January 7th to 10th) and others of the towns of Berdichev, Tchernichov, and a good number of villages round 0\Tutsh. The wave of pogroms in January was almost exclusively confined to the eastern portion of the province of Volhynia, where the Petlurists were severely pressed by the Bolshevists.
The February pogroms were more widely spread. By that time Kiev was already occupied by the Communists (from February 2nd).
The Petlurists were then hurriedly evacuating the provinces of Kherson, Poltava, and Kiev. Pogroms took place in Elisavetgrad (February 4th and 5th), in Novo-Mirgorod, Piriatin, and many other places of the province of Poltava. On many railway stations soldiers threw Jews out of the carriage windows and shot at them. In Lubny a pogrom was only prevented because a detachment — about a hundred men strong — came to tlie rescue of the threatened victims in time. This detachment lost fourteen men killed, but the population was saved. The Jews of Krementshug, in order to escape a pogrom, were compelled to pay a ransom of one million five hundred thousand roubles.
During this period pogroms took place in the following tovi'ns of the Kiev province: In Vasilkov, February 7th to 8th; in Rossava, February 11th to 15th; most of the victims being miirdered by the Soviet troops. Pogroms also occurred at this time in Stiepantzy, February 14th; Badomysl, February 18th to 20th; Skvir, at the beginning and at the end of February; and in Mtshna and Brov-ary.
The most terrible pogroms, however, took place far in the rear of the armiies, in Proskurov (February 15th) and in Felchtine (February 16th). These pogroms were provoked by an attempt of the Bolshevists to raise a rebellion in Proskurov.
The March pogroms began when the Petlurists cut the front near Sarny in the direction of Korosten, and when they again came to within a hundred kilometers of Kiev. At that time pogroms took place in Korosten; in XJshomir (March 31st), in Beloshitz (March 7th to 12th), in Samgorodok. (March 13th), in Tsherniakhov (March 11th), in Shitomir, for the second time, on March 23rd, in Yanushpol (ilarch 2.5th to 29th), in Radomysl (March 12th to 13th, and again JMarch 23rd to 31st).