Testimony of Borshchagovka Pogrom Survivor Yaakov Broder
Recorded in
“Scroll of The Slaughter” (Megilat HaTevah)
by Eliezer David Rosenthal, 1927, Volume 1 p. 74
(Hebrew translation courtesy of Nathen Gabriel)
Borshchagovka, Skvira Uyezd, Kiev Gubernia
In Borshchagovka lived about 400 Jewish families. All of the months of winter, 1919 [January 1, 1919] until Pesach [April 14 to April 22, 1919] while the armies of Petlura [Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army] passed through the settlements of the Jews with an avenging sword and destroyed many towns in Podolia Gubernia and Kiev Gubernia, the Jews of Borshchagovka dwelled quietly and their peace was not disturbed.
The first murders occurred at the beginning of Iyyar [May 1, 1919]. A wagoner traveled from Borshchagovka to the market in Belilovka with nine Jewish passengers [it was actually a kind of fair and each town had its own market day, and Jews would travel from town to town selling their wares]. [Belilovka is 36.6 miles NW of Borshchagovka]. On the way, three versts from the town [I assume they mean Borshchagovka, but I am not sure] the regiments of Sokolov [chief of one of the gangs of bandits that roamed Ukraine killing Jews] attacked them and killed them. [A verst is about 0.66 mile].
The killings put the town in a frenzy. The Jews melted from fear. But, four weeks passed in peace. The Jews calmed down and their fear dissipated, but not for long. On the 6th day of Tamuz [Friday, July 4, 1919] the regiments of Sokolov burst into the town. They demanded from the Jews a "contribution" of 400,000 rubles [if I have calculated correctly using the value of a ruble on July 4, 1919 it works out to about $400]. In the meantime they burst into the Beit HaMidrash [a combined house of study and synagogue] and killed six Jews.
Only 110,000 rubles were collected [about $110]. The assassins promised to leave the town, but did not keep their word. The same day they burst into the homes of the Jews, tortured the women and dragged the men into the Beit HaMidrash for a meeting. At the meeting they demanded of the Jews that they hand over the weapons that were in their possession. The Jews only had rusty pistols, and they handed them over to the assassins.
But the assassins were not satisfied with that and demanded that the Jews hand over the cannons that were in their possession. Of course, this was just a pretext [to torture Jews]. There were no cannons in the town. The assassins started to torture the heads of the town, hit them on their heads with sabers so that they would reveal where they hid the cannons. But when the heads of the town repeatedly told them that there weren't any cannons in the town, the assassins killed twenty-eight Jews and wounded twelve. After that they burst into the homes of the Jews, plundered their possessions, broke the windows and doors and left the town.
No sooner had the hoards of Sokolov left the town than on the next day - "new guests." On the 8th of Tamuz [Sunday, July 6, 1919] the hoards of Gregoriev [another bandit chief] burst into the town. They demanded 100,000 rubles on the condition that it be collected in 10 minutes[!]. The Jews received the assassins holding scrolls of the Torah. The local Christians, who were sick and tired of the slaughter and killings, organized a parade with icons and crucifixes and also went to receive the assassins. The Grigorievs were satisfied with 66,000 rubles and left the town.
They left the town and on Saturday evening [a week later?] the regiments of Sokolov returned again to the town. They burnt down about fifty stores and fifteen houses. The Jews who came to put out the fire were killed or were wounded. The Christians were ordered to leave the town because they intended to burn down the whole town. The fear was great but the assassins were satisfied with what they had done and left the town.
Four weeks passed. Monday is market day [in Borshchagovka]. The local farmers gathered in the town for the fair. Suddenly, the secretary of the Volost [rural municipality] that our city also belongs to arrived from Povitz[?] and announced to us that a punitory regiment of the Soviet Army was on its way from Skvira to punish the assassins of the area, and commanded us to go out and meet them with bread and salt. Sixty men gathered at the inn and prepared to go out to the Red Army to welcome them.
In the meantime a regiment of forty men burst into the city on horseback with their Ataman [Chief] Cherbaniuk who was the head of the Volost. He commanded the farmers who had come to the fair to surround the town on all sides and they didn't allow the Jews to escape.
After that they gathered the Jews who were in the inn, stripped them of their clothes and stole their money. They then put guards, two farmers to a Jew [referring to the above-mentioned sixty Jews], and ordered the Jews to go with the farmers to show them their hiding places where they had hidden their money. They showed them the hiding places that they knew about. The farmers took the property of the Jews and returned with their booty and their captives to the inn. After the Jews [the above mentioned sixty Jews] had fulfilled what had been asked of them, the assassins dragged them out into the field and subjected them to terrible torture and then killed them.
In a similar manner they forced an elderly Jew and unfortunate father to dance and play an instrument while they killed his son. The number of Jews killed on that day were forty-three souls in the field and seventeen in the town.
The rest of the Jews remained hidden in their hiding places and were afraid to leave them, even after the assassins left the town. When it was known that sixty victims were scattered in the town and the field, the men were afraid to go out and take care of their burial. Only their wives, their daughters, and their mothers took care of them. They brought the dead from the field, dug graves themselves and took care of their burial.
The Jews of Borshchagovka who saw that their lives were at risk and that they could die at any time started to think about some form of defense. They held meetings and also consulted with honest Christians, and they decided to hire armed guards to defend them. The Jews hired fifty armed men [non-Jews], with Mezhinski the Postmaster [a non-Jew] at their head to protect them from the frequent attacks of the assassins.
This protection cost the Jews dearly, and they were not certain that the guards themselves wouldn't join the assassins when a gang of them would burst into the town, because there were hooligans among them. The Jews were afraid to sleep in their homes at night and slept in various hiding places, and also in the attics in the Beit HaMidrash and the synagogue.
And indeed their fear was not for nought.
On Thursday a battalion of partisans with cannons arrived at the town. They promised that they would not do the Jews any harm, but requested of the Jews that they prepare for them lunch. The Jews prepared for them a generous banquet with different kinds of beverages. After they finished eating they got up together with the guards [that were supposed to be defending the Jews] and broke into the homes of the Jews, plundered their property and killed with great cruelty any Jew that they found.
After that, they broke into the Beit HaMidrash. They found there Berel Tzaleks [son of Tzalek], a learned Jew who had studied Torah all of his life. The assassins demanded of him that he show them where the Jews were hiding, but when he refused to talk they started to torture him with severe torture, but even the torture did not cause him to talk. He accepted the torture and the bitter death with love and did not want to reveal the hiding place of his brothers. And at that time there were many families in the attic of the Beit HaMidrash, which was a secure place because the entrance was hidden from the human eye and it was impossible to find.
When the assassins discovered that they could not get Berel Tzaleks to talk they killed him. After that they found Shimshon Rybak in the Beit HaMidrash and started to hit him and to torture him. He couldn't bear the torture and cried out: “Jews, climb down from the attic and save me!” The assassins started to search and check until they found the opening to the attic and killed 120 people. Only eight Jews who were hiding under hay that was strewn over the attic were saved from death.
As the partisans were firing their canons a company of the Red Army was passing by from Tetiev. They heard the cannon shots when they were not far from the town and thought that Petlurists were in the town. The Red Army company remained close to the town and started to fire its weapons. The partisans fled.
On Thursday the Soviet Army entered the town. They saw the devastation, the death and the destruction that had befallen the town and they took pity on the wretched Jews. The physician who had accompanied the regiment bandaged the wounded. The officers of the force gave support to the widows and the orphans, and also ordered the local farmers to bring wagons to gather up the dead and bring them to burial.
And when they saw that the Jews of Borshchagovka were in perpetual danger, they suggested to the survivors that they leave the town and go with them. Forty families joined them and together they left the town. Just a few families tarried for about two hours because they wanted to gather and take with them the little that remained of their belongings. After that they followed the soldiers to Skvira. But, the assassins fell upon them on the way and they robbed all of their belongings and their small amount of money. Those who were robbed returned to Borshchagovka naked, barefoot and devoid of everything.
The few who remained in the town lay all of the time hidden in holes and tunnels and were afraid to be seen outside. They waited for help from Skvira.
The following week on Monday the regiments of Sokolov once again entered the town. They plundered and robbed the little that was left but did not kill. Before evening a fire ignited in the home of a Christian, and they spread the rumor that the Jews had set the house on fire. The assassins spread out throughout the town and set the houses of the Jews on fire and looked for hiding places. They threw every Jew that they found into the fire. In this manner 150 souls were burned, most of them women and children. An old woman of seventy, when she saw how the assassins were catching Jews and throwing them into the flames, ran to the river, threw herself into the water and drowned.
Only a very few Jewish families remained in the town lying hidden in their places of hiding. The local farmers fired their guns all night long in order to frighten the Jews into leaving the town. And in fact, on Saturday night the remaining Jews left the town, and in the middle of the night they fled to Dzyunkov, eight versts from Borshchagovka. There they hired a militia to accompany them back to Borshchagovka in the hope of finding under the ruins their hidden treasures. But, their work was for nought. The local farmers got there first. They searched under the ruins, found the buried treasures of the Jews and were rewarded with them.
Borshchagovka was destroyed. Those who survived spread out in the nearby towns and died of hunger, disease and cold. Or, they took the wanderer's staff in their hands and went to the large cities and there too, after months of work, after troubles and hardship, most of them found a place of rest in the cemeteries of the big cities. To Borshchagovka came only the poor [Jews] of Dzyunkov to beg bread from the local farmers. When the Soviet Army captured a local assassin, Anton Lipinsker and executed him, the farmers from Borshchagovka took revenge on the poor [Jews] of Dzyunkov and killed them.
The above is the testimony of Ya'akov Broder, a refugee from Borshchagovka.
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