Pogrom, Pogrom

On the right, a man wearing spectacles, tails, and a six-button waistcoat, "perhaps a pharmacist or a schoolteacher," Amos Elon (2002), The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 17431933 . Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0805059644. p. 103 holds another Jewish man by the throat and is about to club him with a truncheon. A contemporary engraving by Johann Michael Voltz. ]A pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by the killing and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers. The term was originally used to denote extensive violence against Jews either spontaneous or premeditated but in English it is also applied to similar incidents against other minority groups.

Stephen M Berk, Year of Crisis, Year of Hope: Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 18811882 (Greenwood, 1985), pp. 5455.

I. Michael Aronson, "Geographical and Socioeconomic Factors in the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia," Russian Review , Vol. 39, No. 1. (Jan., 1980), pp. 1831 These rumours, however, were clearly of some importance, if only as a trigger. Contrary to rumour, fourteen of the fifteen assassins were born into Christian homes, and one of their close associates, Gesya Gelfman, was born into a Jewish home. Nonetheless, the assassination inspired "retaliatory" attacks by Christians on Jewish communities.A much bloodier wave of pogroms broke out in 1903–1906, leaving thousands of Jews dead and many more wounded, as the Jews took to arms to defend their families and property from the attackers. The 1905 pogrom of Jews in Odessa was the most serious pogrom of the period, with reports of up to 2,500 Jews killed. Weinberg, Robert.

Life and Death by Edward Radzinsky (Russian ed., 1997) p. 89. According to Radzinsky, Sergei Witte (appointed Chairman of the Russian Council of Ministers in 1905) remarked in his Memoirs that he found that some proclamations inciting pogroms were printed and distributed by Police.

On July 31 there was the first pogrom outside the Pale of Settlement in the town of Makariev (near Nizhni Novgorod), where a patriotic procession led by the mayor turned violent. In Kerch, the mayor ordered the police to fire at the self-defence group, and two fighters were killed (one of them P.Kirilenko, a Ukrainian who joined the Jewish defence group). Their pogrom was conducted by the port workers, actively aided by a group of Gypsies apparently brought in for the purpose.

There were also very few incidents in Belarus. There were 24 pogroms outside of the Pale of Settlement, but these were directed at the revolutionaries rather than Jews.

The pogroms there in October, 1905 took 800 Jewish lives, the material damages estimated at 70,000,000 rubles. 400 were killed in Odessa, over 150 in Rostov-on-don, 67 in Yekaterinoslav, 54 in Minsk, 30 in Simferopol- over 40, in Orsha over 30.

By 1907 the pogroms subsided, as the American administration became overwhelmed by a large influx of immigrants, and pressured the Russian government to take action.

This pogrom was less violent than the others. Although it involved campaigns of intimidation, it chiefly took the form of an economic boycott against Jewish residents of Limerick.

The first of these pogroms was Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, often called Pogromnacht , in which Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed, up to 200 Jews were killed and some 30,000 Jewish men and boys were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

Pawe Machcewicz, "Pomienie nienawici", Polityka 43 (2373), October 26 2002, p. 71-73 The Findings The village was previously occupied by the Soviet Union, (see Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) and the Jewish population was subsequently accused of collaboration with the Soviets. After World War II, a series of violent anti-Semitic incidents leading to pogroms such as the one in Krakw or Kielce pogrom occurred in Poland shortly after the Soviet takeover (for more information see: Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 19441946).

Similarly, the organization of Jewish self-defense leagues (which stopped the pogromists in certain areas during the second Kishinev pogrom), such as Hovevei Zion, led naturally to a strong embrace of Zionism, especially by Russian Jews.

Fifty Thousand Orphans made So by the Turkish Massacres of Armenians. // New York Times, Dec. 18, 1896 In the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom, ethnic Greeks were attacked and overwhelmed by ethnic Turkish mobs. In the years leading up to the Biafran War, ethnic Igbos and others from southeastern Nigeria were victims of targeted attacks. The term is therefore commonly used in the general context of riots against various ethnic groups. Other examples include the pogroms against ethnic Armenians in Sumgait in 1988 and in Baku, in 1990, both of which occurred in Azerbaijan.

Richard Pithouse, 'The Pogroms in South Africa: a crisis in citizenship' Mute Magazine, June 2008 http://www.metamute.org/en/the_pogroms_in_south_africa_a_crisis_in_citizenship In recent years, anti-Arab attacks by Jewish mobs in Israel have been described as pogroms by peace activists, Israeli press, and Israeli officials http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7616269.stm . Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert harshly criticized Yitzhar settlers who launched a revenge attack in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. A Palestinian youth was killed and eight Palestinians were injured. It was not the first time the settlers had harassed the neighbouring villagers.

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