When you say "the Russians," do you mean the reds or the whites?
There were no reds or whites at that time. The Russian soldiers. The Russian soldiers were falling apart. Then Lenin came and he organized the Bolsheviks. And then, the Bolsheviks, naturally, wanted to expropriate the land.

Then the others organized the counterrevolution. Petlura was their man. And then what used to happen is when the Petluras, the anti-revolutionaries, used to conquer a town like Tetiev, there would generally be a pogrom, and they would say, the saying was, something in Russian. I can't think of it right now. It means "Kill the Jews and save Russia."

And then, the Bolsheviks would come and chase them out. Then they would come back again. And you know the farmers, one of the reasons they hated the Jews so much, it wasn't because of their wealth, but because of this religious canard they used to teach them in the church about how before Passover, the Jews would kill a little boy and they would use his blood for matzos. And this thing was perpetrated by the biggest anti-Semite of our time, Henry Ford, who published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Well, he didn't write it though. He may have distributed it.
Yes. He distributed it. It propagates this idea.

So, the farmers used to come. They used to rob the Jews.

And, this is how it happened to us. The first pogrom I remember, we were the four children—there was Frances and Irving, Yossel, and me. [2]

My mother and father and the baby [Irving] were hiding somewhere. But Frances, Yossel, and myself were all lying in bed as if we were sick. And the pogrom seekers were very much afraid of catching typhus. So when one looked in the window and saw us all three lying there in bed, they left us.

But things got very bad, and, after a while, when it let up a little bit, my father and his two brothers, who were all hiding together, decided they would go out to the next town to get some help because the Bolsheviks were in the next town. So they went out, and they never made it. They were caught by the Cossacks and they were all killed together—all three of them. They split his head open with a sword.

How did you know this?
They told me. The people that buried him.

How old were you?
I was seven, eight. Eight I think.

Then, my mother naturally was desperate, four little children, no means of support. Everybody was poor. I remember when they buried him. It was in a wooden casket. And then I said after the Rabbi what you're supposed to say Yisgadal ve'yiscadash sh'mey...And then, they chanted El Moleh Rachamim. It means God of power, have passion for the orphans. It was very sad. And then they buried him.

We were in a great state of grief. I remember when they brought out the coffin, and I said Kaddish. The thing I couldn't understand is that I wasn't crying. I should have been crying. I guess I was too stunned.

How did your family support itself? How did you eat if your income was cut off?
Relatives. Everybody contributed a little bit.

Did your father have a separate funeral or a funeral with other people that were killed?
He had a funeral with other people that were killed. They were all brought up to the cemetery, and they were all buried at the same time. Maybe eight or nine people were buried at the same time.

Did you talk about him in the family afterwards or was it just kind of kept quiet?
We used to talk about it. My mother was unhappy that he never gave her a photograph because it was against the Jewish religion. You're not supposed to take any pictures because it says man is supposed to be in God's image and you're not supposed to carry any graven images. She always regretted that she didn't have a photograph.

I bet you regret it now too.
Sure I do, but I have a very vivid picture of my father in my mind. He had curly hair like Irving. And he had vivacious, sparkling eyes and a little beard. He had to have a little beard because....On the high holidays, all the men would wrap themselves up in the tallis, but he just wore a little one around his neck. I have a feeling that he wasn't very religious.

My father was a very capable man. He knew the language; he knew Russian very well, and he was personable, an extrovert, a lot like Frances. I'm a lot like my mother. Frances was a lot like my father. And he was a go-getter and an aggressive person, and he did well for himself and for the family. And if he wouldn't have been so aggressive, maybe he wouldn't have gone out to look for help that night, and maybe he would have been alive today.

Then, came the final pogrom about six months later [March 26, 1920]. That's the day when they assembled all the Jews and put them in the synagogue and set the synagogue on fire, and all the houses were on fire, and my mother and the four children, we all ran. It was in the middle of the night. I remember my mother telling us to just leave everything and run, and as I turned back, I saw the whole town was in flames.

We ran towards one of my father's customers, who was a gentile, but he was a nice guy and he would keep us overnight. So, we were running, it was the middle of the winter, and it was at night. There was snow on the ground. The town was all in flames in back of us. We were running ahead of the fire. My mother was running first carrying Irving. I was next carrying Frances, and Yossel was running by himself.

And in all this terrible confusion, we were attacked by—well they have there on the farms out in the country—big hay stacks. Anyway, as we were running away from the fire in the snow, we passed a farm house and there came out all of a sudden a big pack of dogs. We were attacked by these dogs and we all dispersed. And when we came together again, Yossel wasn't there and we never found him. We looked around, we couldn't find him, but we had to go. People were running after us. [3]

Your brother had been behind you?
Yes, he was behind me. And we all dove into one of these haystacks. But apparently, he didn't make it to the haystack because when we all came out from the haystack, he wasn't there. We couldn't find him.

This is too horrible to imagine.
Yes, it is.

Wouldn't he have heard you when you were calling?
Maybe. I don't know what happened. When we came out of the haystack, we couldn't find him. It was very dark. We couldn't see anything except a little bit of the moon.

But then, did you look around for him?
We looked around, yes, but we couldn't find him. He may have been in another haystack. When he came out from the haystack, we may not have been there. He may have tried to go to one of these farms. I'm sure he died from disease, probably from pneumonia. It was cold, bitter cold. There was snow on the ground.

Your mother must have been hysterical.
She was. But we had to go. They were after us.

We ran for a while, and then my mother put the baby down on the snow, and Frances and I stayed near him and she went back to look for Yossel. After a while she came back; she couldn't find him. So, we went on. My mother knew which way to go. She may have visited these people at one time.

So we came to this house. The man was a nice guy. He was a gentile. He put us up for the night, and he said "That's all. You can't stay here any more. I'm sorry. I can't keep you any longer because in the morning they're going to come here looking for you." But he provided us with some transportation, a wagon, and my mother knew where she wanted to go.

We came to this town—a big town. You see, we were safer in a big town. In a small town, you had no chance. I think the name was Lintz or something [probably Ilincy]. And in this town we met my aunt, my mother's sister, Aunt Pessie. She was there with her children. We stayed in her house, and we waited for money to come from America. [Pessie's husband had also been killed in a pogrom.]

My mother had a sister in America, Bella. She wasn't married and she worked in the garment center, and she made very little money, but whatever she had, she sent us. So she sent some money to this place, and we hired somebody with a wagon, and we all piled in that wagon, and we came to a town near the river Dniester, which separates Romania from Russia, and we were to cross into Romania over the Dniester.

We almost got killed on the way because my aunt Pessie decided that she had some gold coins that she wanted to take. But, if you get caught carrying money out of Russia, you get shot on the spot. She baked some bread and she baked in the coins. From the outside, it looked like loaves of bread. But here we were traveling in this cart. It was a hay cart and we sat on the ledges with our feet hanging out. All of a sudden, out of the woods there comes a troop of Bolsheviks, "Where are you going?"

"We are refugees from pogroms. We don't know exactly where we are going. We're looking for a place to live." But we knew where we were going.

"What have you got here." "Nothing, just bread." If they would open the bread and see the gold coins, we'd all be shot right there. But, it was our luck they didn't open the bread. We came to this town in Romania—that's my aunt Pessie and the children and us.

Do you remember the name of it?
No. But, you must understand that there were two organizations—one is what they called the Joint, the Joint Distribution Committee for refugees, and the other was the HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society—they took care of these situations. So we came to this town, which is right near the Dniester River. We had to wait for the time where there was going to be a dark night, no moon, and all these people were paid off by the Joint Committee from the United States.

So finally the night came and we had two rowboats, and we all piled in the rowboats. We were lying flat on our stomachs. Nothing was showing, and then the people—there were two men on each side of the rowboat [outside the rowboat]. They were lying flat on the water, and with one hand they were pushing us, and with the other hand they were paddling.

What do you mean, they were pushing you?
Pushing the boat.

Were these people from the Ukraine who were hired by the Joint Distribution Committee?
Yes, the Joint paid them off. Also the guards on both sides were paid off. It was dark, there was no moon, and finally we got across. When we came to the other side, there was a very steep incline. And I had tied up all our belongings in a sheet, which I was carrying, being the oldest. My mother was carrying Irving. We finally got up to the top of the hill, and I lost this sheet and all our belongings rolled into the river.

Anyway, out of nowhere, a man appeared. He was from the HIAS. And he gave my mother 20,000 lei—that's Romanian money, and he gave my aunt also 20,000 lei. And then he disappeared.

So it was all arranged.
All arranged. The things the HIAS did, it was unbelievable. And then we went to Kishinev. That was at that time the capital of Bessarabia. Bessarabia at that time belonged to Romania. Well we came there. We had very little money, so I went into a Yeshiva. They train you to be a rabbi, and you live there. My mother wasn't so much interested in training me for a rabbi, as I should have something to eat. I stayed there for a while, and my mother sold things in the market.

Where did your mother and Irving and Frances stay?
I don't know where they stayed. And anyway, I wasn't in the Yeshiva long. You see, my aunt Bella sent money to Romania, to Kishinev. The money came to Pessie, but she wasn't fair. She gave my mother much less money, and she kept more for herself.

Is this something that you observed or is this what your mother thought?
In the first place, both Pessie and her children and we, mom and us, were in Romania, in Kishinev, and Bella sent money, and Pessie took the money and went to the United States first. But, in addition to that, I feel that Pessie wasn't altogether fair with mom as far as the money was concerned.

Anyway, after a while I couldn't stay in the Yeshiva any more, so I went to live with my uncle. I had an uncle, Shai Mendel, in Romania. I went to live with him, and the children were sent to live somewhere else. And my mother lived by herself.

What was it like?
It was very interesting. Well, in the daytime, they would disappear and they would all gather in the evening. They would all bring the things they...stole. They would collect everything. They had a big pot, a big pot almost the size of this table. They would fill it up with cornmeal. In Romanian, it's called marmaliga. And they would stir it and make a big pot of cornmeal. And then, they would turn the whole pot over, and the whole thing would fall out like a cake. Two people would hold a string, one on each side, and cut it in pieces. And after it was cut, they would slice it, cut this way, and then they would put oil on it. That's what they used to eat, and maybe some fruit.

But after a while, of course, I couldn't live there any more, so I went to work at a restaurant.

Do you know what the injections were?
No I don't know what it was, but it definitely stopped my bedwetting.

But as the time approached for us to leave, my mother got very depressed. I suppose because of the child that was missing.

You see, we received our visas. We were going to leave. Up until that time she had in the back of her head, "Maybe I'm going to find him," but now she has to leave. The idea that she's going to depart forever and not find him... So, that I guess caused her to crack up.

She had a nervous breakdown. She stayed in bed, she wouldn't eat.

And then we were robbed by the people that brought us the checks. I thought they were from the HIAS or from the ticket company. You see, my aunt Bella sent money. The tickets were bought in New York, but she sent money for us to go, but these people would come, and they would make us sign over the checks, the money orders that came from New York. They made us sign them over or they threatened to put her in an insane asylum. So she signed over and we had no money.

Were you were actually there? You actually witnessed this scene?
Yes, I actually witnessed this scene. This was in the refugee camp in Bucharest. Bella later received a letter, supposedly in my name, saying that my mother received all the money, but I never wrote a letter.

We were all lying in a big dormitory. It was bunk beds. I was in the upper bed. Mom was in the lower bed and the two children were somewhere else. I don't know where.

I remember they came to mom, to my mother, she was in bed, she was very depressed and she wasn't eating or anything, and they wanted her to sign over the money to them, and she said, "Let's divide it. You take half and I'll take half." They said "No," and they forced her to sign over all the money to them, and a short while later, they took her away to the institution.

That's horrible.
Sure it's horrible.

One day [in the refugee camp], I saw she was wearing a denture, and I saw it was lying in a bad place, so I took it and put it in my pocket for safekeeping, but I went out and I played. I was away about an hour, and I lost the denture. When I came back she wasn't there. From what I understand, when she saw that the denture wasn't there, she became very hysterical, and they took her away.

Do you blame yourself?
Yes. I blame myself. I always blame myself because I lost the denture. I don't know if it would have made much difference.

She was taken away to Kishinev where they put her in a mental institution, and the next time I saw her is when we were leaving for the States because the visa came and the tickets came. So we all got together, and we went to the hospital, and I didn't tell her that we were leaving for good. I just said good-by, and then I never saw her again.

Do you remember what you did or what you talked about?
They brought us into the institution and then my mother walked out, and we brought her a salami to eat. We talked, and then, we didn't want to get involved in a very dramatic leave-taking because she would probably get hysterical, so when she turned away, we just left. And then I heard her say, "Where...where...I just saw my children here."

Did you hear this from the hallway?
Yes. And then they just took her back and I never saw her again.

Did anybody communicate with her after you came to the United States?
Well, we received a letter from my cousin who lived in Romania, the son of my uncle Shai Mendel, and he went to visit her, and then he wrote me a letter that she died, so I sent him twenty-five dollars to put up a stone on her grave.

That must have been very hard.
It was. I wore a black band. Well they don't do this in the United States, but I went to school at that time, and I wore a black band on my arm. And when they asked me in school what it was, I said my mother died.

Do you have any idea of what she died of?
Probably malnutrition. In those days there was nothing to eat. I don't think she wanted to eat.

Was your mother supposed to follow you to the US?
She was supposed to follow, but she died about a month later.

Do you know what town she's buried in?
Probably in Kishinev.

When, you went to see your mother the last time, was she depressed or did she seem fairly rational?
To me, she seemed rational.

How old were you?
I was about fourteen. So we lived there and I went to school. After school, I used to sell door-to-door like a customer peddler. I used to sell things, and that was how I made a few dollars, which I gave to them. And then, I lived there and I graduated from school.

Was this eighth grade?
Yes eighth grade. [Graduated June 15, 1927 at age 16. Name on diploma is Frank Geyzer; school is P.S. 178.] And then I went to work and I went to high school at night.

Then the depression came, and anyway, Phil and I we belonged to the Young Zionists, as I told you, but we decided that it was not for us at that time because there were so many problems in the country, so we joined the YCL, the Young Communist League.

I would go up on a ladder and orate against fascism and unemployment and all of this sort of thing, and then, one day, some big shot came from Germany, and there was a big demonstration against him at the airport, and I was in that demonstration. All I did was carry a placard. But some policeman came over and gave me a big punch in the eye, and I got a big black eye. I was arrested and went to jail.

How long were you in jail?
Overnight. I was bailed out the next day. And then there was a trial, and the defense showed pictures of me with my black eye and they carried on against police brutality, you know a big thing—police brutality, how they beat me up, so I was found not guilty. There were no charges placed against me and after a while I received all my fingerprints and my papers from the FBI so there would be nothing against me in the files.

What kind of work did you do in those days?
I worked in a wood-working shop. I made kitchen tables, kitchen sets. It was just across the street from Bellevue Hospital. I worked there a couple of years. I made twenty-seven dollars a week. And then, after that, I worked on luggage. And then, for a long time I worked in a grocery store as a grocery clerk.

When did you become a citizen?
In the early 1930s. I have somewhere my citizenship papers. [Citizenship issued August 13, 1935 in New York. Age listed as 24.]

How did you and mom meet?
We met at a meeting of the young people who were radically inclined like myself.

Are you talking about this Young Communist League that you told me about before?
Yes. I guess it was a Young Communist League meeting. I think it was. My friend Phil was with me, and after we met, I wanted to go and visit her in her house. I didn't have much courage to go there, so he went with me, and we both introduced ourselves to her and to her parents, and he went out with somebody else, and that's how we met.

Do you remember anything about your wedding?
Yes. Dolly had an uncle who was Jewish orthodox... well he wasn't exactly a Rabbi, but he was authorized to perform weddings, so we went to him.

Is this Isaac, the husband of mom's aunt Mindle?
Yes. At that time, they had a cleaning store down in the basement. They lived in back. We went in there, and there was myself, grandma and grandpa [Dolly's parents], and other people. Isaac performed the ceremony, but a few days before, we went to city hall and got our marriage certificate. [Marriage performed March 17, 1934].

Then I rented a room in Coney Island for a week. That's where we were going to stay at night, but the landlady didn't let me in. I was supposed to pay eighteen dollars for the room for a week, and I thought I was going to pay her when I got paid, but she wanted to be paid in advance. We had a very big argument, and she finally let me in, and I paid her when I got paid.

After we got married, we rented a three-room apartment in Borough Park— one bedroom. It was in 1934, the height of the Depression. So one day my sister comes and says "I lost my job, I have nowhere to live. I've got to stay with you." This is our honeymoon cottage—a three room apartment in Borough Park. Then Louise [Dolly's sister] comes and says. "Listen, I can't stay with mom and dad. There's nothing to eat and they bicker all the time. I think I'm going to stay with you." So we're now—this is my honeymoon—four adults in a three room apartment. Then, Dolly's grandmother comes. She says "I can't stay with them [Dolly's parents] any more. They are arguing all the time. There's nothing to eat." So we're now in this three room apartment. How many adults? Myself, the grandmother, Louise, Frances, and Dolly. Five adults.

You can imagine what was happening in the morning when everybody was going to work or looking for work, with one bathroom. I was rich at that time. I worked, and I made twenty-seven dollars a week, which was a fortune in those days. And, I had a Model A Ford.

In the morning, there was never any time to get dressed. So they would wash, and they would all pile into my car in various stages of undress. They would pile into the car, and I would take them to the Atlantic Avenue subway station. As luck would have it, one day I crossed a red light, and I immediately got stopped by a policeman. He comes over and he looks inside. This one has her brassiere on. This one is pulling up her stockings. He said "What's going on here?" I tell him, "Look officer, I have no time. We're going to work. Arrest me next time. Give me a ticket next time." So he said "OK." And he let us go.

I worked and mom worked, and then after a while I got a job in Chicago. You see grandpa was a manager at the Chicago plant of the Spiral Binding Company. So, I got a job in Chicago, and that's where you and Arnie were born.

Well after I got married and the children were born, the war was going on. I was always 1A because I was in good physical condition, so I came back to New York, and I got a job at Todd Shipyards, preparing war ships. And I was deferred.

But anyway, I was always 1A and periodically, I would be called. And then Todd Shipyards would intervene and prevent me from going to the war. I remember, this time I went, so I'm in with this doctor, and I figured maybe I'll tell him about my busted ear drum. This guy examines me and I say, "You know doctor, I have a busted ear drum." He said "Yes. I got one too."

Anyway, I'm called, and I'm brought in to the psychology department to be examined by a psychologist, and who is the psychologist sitting there that's going to examine me, but Frances. She was a psychologist. So she got red in the face, and she tells her superior, "I'm sorry I can't examine this man because he's my brother."

I was examined. Of course, I passed everything. But the examination wasn't finished. At that time, the Grand Central Palace in New York had been converted to a hotel with bunk beds, and all the people that were not finished with their examination would sleep there. I wasn't finished, so they put us all up in this hotel at the Grand Central Palace. The men are sleeping downstairs and all the women are sleeping upstairs. And we all get our bunks. We get into bed and they are about to turn off the lights, so the sergeant says, "Well, you all have a good night, and each sleep in your own bed."

I want to tell you about my work at Todd Shipyards. I don't see how we ever won the war. In the first place, we used to get ships that were in such bad condition, that I can't understand how anybody ever survived. The front of the ships were all not there. The worst ships as far as dirt were the English ships. We had English ships that would come in that were in good condition, but rats ran all over the place. The captain was so hoity toity, he would sit up above, and he had one of his men bring him food to eat. It was filthy.

When I started working, I met Phil's father-in-law. Yetta's father. He also worked there. And we, I mean those people that were so called radicals, we were supposed to not be happy with the war for some reason or other.

Even though all the Jews were getting killed in Europe?
We were supposed to be unhappy with the war. I don't remember exactly. But anyway, to show me how he stood, he started whistling the "Internationale," so I looked at him like he was crazy.

And I want to tell you the things that I did there. I worked twelve hours a day. I was supposed to be a carpenter and I was assigned to a welder. I would be called up let's say once for half an hour to an hour to nail something down, and that was my whole job for the day. And I got paid for twelve hours.

What did you do the rest of the day?
We played pinochle. You see the supervisor was a very fat man, and we found a hole in the hold where he couldn't pass through. And we would all go down to the hold and play pinochle for twelve hours a day.

And then, the rest you know.

Did you try and find him when you came to the United States?
Yes. I wrote away to Russian newspapers in the area and also to the Yiddish newspapers in the area, and then I received letters from them. They couldn't find anybody by that name alive.

Tell me a little bit more about your mother. What was she like before she got sick, when you were living at home in Tetiev?
My mother was an introvert kind of person. She didn't talk much to us, but she was very affectionate with Irving. She used to carry him around. I remember us eating together, and I remember it was very nice on Thursday morning when I climbed up on the pripichek. She used to smile.

How much schooling did you have in the United States?
Well, I have a diploma. I went to night school and I finished public school. After I graduated, I went at night to Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn. The problem was I had to work very hard in the daytime. I would come to school, I was tired. Too tired. I think I went to high school about a year and a half, about three semesters. Then later I got a high school equivalency certificate.

But you didn't get that until a few years ago, you and mom.
Oh, no. I got it many, many years ago. [Certificate issued in 1964.]

Tell me a little bit about Frances. What she was like when she was little?
There's a French expression—enfant terrible. She wanted what she wanted and she wanted it now. She had a very strong personality and in all the years I know her, she was a strong person.

Maybe that's why she went so far in her life. For the same reason.
Yes. She wanted things and she went after them.

When Frances and Irving were in the orphanage, was any attempt made to find some kind of family placement for them, some kind of adoption or foster parents?
No, they didn't do it. Besides, I don't think my brother and sister would have gone to a foster home. They had plenty of that sort of thing before they came here.

How did Frances manage to complete her education? She must not have had many resources.
Well, while she was in high school, she was in the orphanage. Then, she went to school in the daytime, and she worked at night or whatever. And she was very ambitious and had a lot of drive.

One of her projects in graduate school was to find out the influence of good nutrition on psychological behavior. So she had a project in Bellevue Hospital, where they assembled a group of poor, mentally retarded children, and they kept them in Bellevue and fed them regular meals over a period of several weeks or months, and then she interviewed them and compared their IQ before and IQ afterwards.

That was her project for her doctorate. I don't know what the results were, but I know she used to use all of us as guinea pigs. Whenever, I used to come to her house, the first thing, she would give me a Rorschach test.

I remember that you once mentioned something about farming, that you had gone to a farm.
Yes. I must have been about 20. I wanted to get a job on a farm. In New York, there was an outfit—I don't know if it's still in existence—called the Jewish Agricultural Society. I went down and I told them I would like to get a job on a farm. They said "Fine." So, they said "We've got a job for you." They sent me to the Toms river in New Jersey, where it was all chicken farms.

I had visions of broad fields and open spaces and I was going to plow the earth, so instead I got myself a job cleaning chicken coops. I only stayed overnight. The next morning, I just left—without saying good-by or anything or collecting any money.

I also remember you mentioned once about acting in the Yiddish theater in the United States. What was that like?
Well, I acted in the Yiddish play The Dybbuk. I was dressed as one of the Hassidim. I just had a walk-on role. I didn't speak anything. It was a play put on by Maurice Schwartz. He was a very famous Yiddish actor, and the play was in the Yiddish theater on 12th street.

Maurice Schwartz wanted me to continue, but I didn't want to. He came over to me and said. "You have a nice face. Why don't you come back?" But, I said "No. I'm not going to come back. I just tried it once as a lark."

You described a lot of very scary experiences when we were talking last time. For example, you described lying in bed with Frances and your brother, pretending you were sick during a pogrom, and also you described your aunt Pessie baking the coins in the bread and the Bolsheviks stopping you. Did you feel a lot of fear?
You have to understand that when people go through that type of trauma, myself and the children, we become immured to fear. We take these situations as a matter of course, as everyday events, you see, so you sit there and you resign yourself to anything that's going to happen.

So you were kind of numb.
Kind of numb, yes.

OK, how do you feel these early experiences you went through affected you in your adult life, when you were married and when you had us.
Well, I really can't give you a definite answer. A psychologist may be able to. I just put all these things in back of my mind. I just divorced myself from the whole situation, and I figured I'll just go on living. It seems to me that when we were kids, you never mentioned your past. Is that what mom wanted, or is that what you both thought was best?
No, I...well, who should I have discussed it with?

I don't know...Us.
Well, I removed myself from the situation.

Is there anything you would do differently if you had things to do over again? Are you pretty happy with the way things turned out?
I would have gotten an education. I would have been a professional. I should have made more of an effort to get an education.

Well, don't forget you had us and we were hungry.
But before I got married, I should have gone to school. I should have gone to college. Other people did it. My sister did it.

Yes. It would have been very, very hard though.
But it could be done.

OK dad, I'm going to stop unless there's a last thing you want to add.
I just want to add that I'm happy about us doing this thing. I'm glad we did it, and if there's any problem, we'll do it again.

I also wonder this: The eyewitness accounts say that some people did survive the Tetiev pogrom, that the red army did lead a band of people to safety in a neighboring village. Might there be uncles and cousins among them? If so, where are they and their offspring today? It seems like there's still a lot to learn.

These rare eyewitness accounts of the final pogrom in Tetiev were uncovered by my daughter, Tamar, in a book published seven years after the event took place. The book, The Pogroms in the Ukraine under the Ukrainian Governments 1917-1920, was compiled and published by the Committee of the Jewish Delegations in 1927 in London. The material reproduced here is from pages 239 – 243.

Annex No. 49 – Evidence of Five Witnesses

The massacres of Tetiev commenced on March 26, 1920. At 2 p.m. some shots were fired on patrols in the town. The Commissar with his small detachment of red soldiers withdrew from the town. Seventeen men with Kurovsky at their head made their entry. Tchikovsky, the Chief of the Militia, joined them with his men and they all started killing the Jews and setting fire to their houses without showing mercy to anybody. Life could not be saved by any ransom. When large sums were offered, the bandits took the money and massacred just the same. Not one person noticed by the bandits escaped with his or her life.

The Jewish population has been hiding in cellars, in houses, and in the synagogues. In one synagogue 2,000 persons sought safety. The bandits set fire to it and nearly all perished, a very few only escaped death. The witnesses who told us these facts stated that in all perhaps ten persons were saved, for whenever anybody jumped out of the window, he was instantly shot at. In one single cellar there were seventy persons, and they were all massacred. The number of killed exceeds 3,000 and all houses without exception were burned.

The witness himself was in hiding in a cellar until Thursday morning. The cellar which contained nine persons in all, was then set on fire. When the smoke became suffocating the refugees left the cellar and found no bandits, but a local rough, Daniela Gergely, having noticed them went after them and killed two out of the nine. The witness and the others who were with him at the time then took refuge in another cellar where many sick persons were hiding. They remained there until Friday morning when the bandits broke into the cellar and robbed them of all they had. It was only thanks to a Russian neighbour, Lemar Levtchenko, who, hearing the cries, came to their rescue, that at least their lives were saved.

After these events, Kurovsky, who signed himself "Ataman Mazepa," issued an order forbidding any further massacres, looting and incendiarism. On Friday night the harness maker, Levtchenko, took the witness and several other men into the shop of a Russian named Invalidov, where they stayed the night. On Saturday morning the witness was able to leave his hiding place, and, taking advantage of a moment of quietness, proceeded towards the synagogue. But he found that of the synagogue nothing remained except walls blackened by fire and a few charred bodies which it was no longer possible to identify. All around the place, local inhabitants began to come out into the streets, so twenty Jews met, and having gathered the human remains and bones, intended to proceed towards the cemetery. But immediately there was a new panic. The massacres were resumed, and everybody again fled.

On Sunday morning a detachment or Red soldiers from Pogrebichtche appeared and killed some of the bandits. The Jews who were hiding then commenced to come out again. The Red army took away all the Jewish survivors with them to Pogrebichtche. The report drawn up by the revolutionary Committee of Pogrebichtche contained the names of 1,603 Jews from Tetiev then at Pogrebichtche. On the road to Pogrebichtche, these unfortunate refugees had a terrible time. They had to run most of the way under a hail of bullets, which the bandits sent after the Red army. Many old men and children became exhausted and remained on the road, where the bandits afterwards shot them dead. We can give the names among others of Israel Tcherkis, Bobbie Kalimag, and Have Schwartz. Several children were trampled to death by the fugitives in the panic.

In the synagogue that was burned down was also the local Rabbi, Simon Rabinovitch. He was hiding in the loft of the synagogue. When the building was already in flames, the Rabbi left the loft and placing himself by the reading desk, recited psalms until he lost his reason, and began dancing and shouting incoherent words. At that moment, some bandits entered the synagogue. Some of them were of opinion that he should be left alone, but others insisted that he was anyhow the head of the community and that he must be put to death, and so they dispatched him.

At that moment, there were still several men in the synagogue who were alive. The bandits demanded money of them. Thereupon one of the survivors, Joshua, the printer, made a collection and handed the money to the bandits. The bandits took the money and immediately killed Joshua and the rest of those who were still alive in the synagogue.

These facts were told us by a boy of 14, Welwel Kligman, who was lying under the victims in the synagogue and who managed to escape through a window. Shots were fired after him, but he was not hit.

(Signed)

Seew Kligman Mariam Friedman David Perlstein Reitze, daughter of Nahum Bentzion Bekov Jacob Wortman

Annex No. 50 – Report of Ch. Kuperschmid

About the middle of March, 1920, in the village of Telebrentsy, rural parish of Tetiev, Kurovski, Ostrovski, Tchaikovski and other former Petlura officers, acting in conjunction with the Co-operative Union of Tetiev and the District Bank, which subsidized them, organized a band of twenty-five men. From there that band went to the neighboring villages of Mikhaïlovka, Dzviniatcha, Dolgolevka, Zbarkhovka, Kochel, Roudoïe-Selo, and Kachperovka; by that time it numbered forty-five men, who then attacked the township of Tetiev.

The officer Tchaikovski, who had remained at Tetiev on secret service, managed to be appointed chief of the Soviet militia. In that capacity he knew the paroles, and having removed the sentries stationed by the Commissar, he conducted the band right up to the Commissariat, surrounded it and opened fire. One of the bandits threw a bomb which hit the frame of a window and then fell back and wounded the man who threw it; he happened to be one Alexander Sagatuk, a native of the village of Telejentzy. This accident enabled the Red soldiers to beat back the attack of the bandits.

Next day the band again attacked Tetiev. The Red soldiers, not having sufficient men to offer effective resistance, especially as several of them went over to the bandits, were compelled to retire. After taking possession of Tetiev, the bandits met to hear an impassioned address bidding them to massacre all the Jews, young and old, from infants of 2 to greybeards of 90—that would be their only way to secure peace. The address was delivered by Ostrovsky, a former Petlura officer. Raising two fingers, he made all those who heard him take an oath that they would not spare a single Jew, and would not be seduced by any money.

After Ostrovsky's speech, the bandits dispersed throughout the township and began a veritable orgy of murder, arson, and looting. Without mercy they burnt and massacred everybody. In the synagogue, all the lofts were full of Jews trying to hide. The insurgents surrounded the synagogue, set it on fire, and let no one escape.

The following incident is typical. A Mr. Peker, who was very popular among the peasants, escaped from the burning synagogue. The bandits got hold of him and were going to cut him up with their sabres when some peasants came to his defence. Kurovsky, the head of the band, approached and said, "He may be the best of them, but since he is a Jew, he must be killed." And Peker was cut up into pieces.

All those who took refuge in the synagogue were burnt alive. Those who attempted to escape were killed with sabres, with rifles, with pitchforks or clubs. Infants were tossed up into the air and their bodies dashing against the pavement, squirted blood on the murderers. Small children had their eyes put out. Patrols of soldiers were placed specially to stop and kill any Jews who managed to escape. Over a radius of several miles, mounted patrols rode about for the same purpose. To this day, hundreds of corpses are lying about in an advanced stage of decomposition in the neighbourhood of Tetiev.

A detachment of Red soldiers arrived from Pogrebichtche and was able to save some 1,500 Jews. The remainder, numbering more than 4,000, were killed to a man. There had been about 6,000 Jewish inhabitants in Tetiev.

On April 18, we were able to obtain the following information from a survivor who had remained at Tetiev all that time. Where Tetiev formerly was only ruins remain. Hundreds of corpses are scattered all over the little town; some were done to death by sabres and others burnt alive. The wells are all full of corpses. The bandits searched most carefully everywhere, and when they found in a cellar or similar place a Jew more dead than alive, or a sick child, they were killed without mercy. The Chief of Staff, Averko Kurovsky, a former Petlura officer, is a native of Tetiev. Through Tutunik, Petlura charged him to form a corps and to march on Kieff. His second in command was Komashenko, a former schoolmaster of the village of Rossoshek. Michael Schliatoshenko and Elias Tchaikovski, officer commanding the cavalry are former Petlura officers. The insurgents had the active support of the Bank of Tetiev and of the local Poles.

The witnesses have set their signatures to attest the above facts.

(Here follow the signatures)