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Anti-Jewish Pogroms and Mennonite responses in Einlage (1905) and Sagradovka (1899)

Below are stories of two pogroms and of the responses in two Mennonite communities in Ukraine/Russia.

The first location is Einlage (Chortitza) in 1905, with two episodes.

The rage of peasants and the working class exploded with strikes, bloody revolts, chaos and plundering across the land, especially on the estates early in 1905. The Greater Zaporozhzhia-Alexandrovsk economic zone, with larger Mennonite manufacturers of agricultural machinery in Einlage as well, was a centre for some of that labour unrest (note 1).

In the shadows of the larger March 1905 Russian Revolution, there were so-called provocateurs named the "Black Hundred" (note 2) who organized pogroms across Russia, but especially in ethnic Ukrainian and Polish areas.

“Jewish stores, shops, and homes were broken into, robbed, and plundered; Jewish women and girls were raped and brutally murdered. Many Jews lost not only their belongings in Russia, but also their lives. And all with impunity. The police could not be relied upon, most of them were members of the "Black Hundred," and took part in the looting. Others stood by and watched.” (Note 3)

This spilled over into the predominantly Mennonite village of Einlage, where there were about 30 to 40 Jewish families in 1905, according to contemporary villager Heinrich Bergen. The Black Hundred extremists “directed the discontent of the less educated workers and villagers against the Jews”—many hoping simply to enrich themselves in the process (note 4).

“In several villages where there were factories, steam mills—such as Chortitza an Osterwick—there are several cases where the ‘Black Hundred’ with the help of the rabble from the Russian villages, tried to harass the Jews, but immediately the ethnic Germans intervened and doused the pogroms before they spread.” (Note 5)

But Bergen noted that the many Jewish families in the Mennonite villages were not harmed; “they were under the protection of the Germans,” i.e., the Mennonites.

Bergen tells of two incidents in Einlage.

"On the farm of Abram Dyck near the Martens-mill stood a wooden shop where the Jew Reichenstein had his store. In 1905 Abram Dyck was still a very strong man and was on the yard when two pogrom-instigators approached the door of the store to break it open. On his own, Abram Dyck approached them and beat them thoroughly, claiming that the store belonged to him, a German and not to the Jew Reichenstein. The pogrom instigators chose not to wait around until Abram Dyck's sons could step in, and retreated.” (Note 6)

The second case in Einlage was with the Jewish cobbler Sljudikow.

“For some 30 years he lived on the farm of Johann Joh. Reimer, where Sljudikow’s twelve sons and one daughter were born … Two of his sons were factory workers, the eldest of them Roman, was an active revolutionary; Abram, Volodya, and Naum were hairdressers in Einlage. Abram was injured in his foot during the war.

The Sljudikows were quiet, peaceful people who never hurt anyone in Einlage. However, old Slyudikov was very strong, and when I was seven years old in 1905 I watched how with a "ped" (used for carrying water) Sljudikow thoroughly thrashed a bandit who wanted to loot him during the Jewish pogrom. He beat the bandit so badly that he most likely lost the habit of looting for a long time. Slyudikov could get away with this, because he knew that the Einlagers [mostly Mennonite] would have his back.” (Note 7)

The two episodes complement each other and tell us something of the relationship between Jews and Mennonites in Einlage. The relationships were by no means perfect, but in crisis this Jewish man knew his Mennonite neighbours would support and protect him.

In a second location—six years earlier in 1899—another pogrom happened not far from the Mennonite colony of Sagradovka.

“There was some commotion among the Russian peasantry. Agrarian issues were causing distress, and an old grievance was looking for an outlet. Suddenly, in the large Jewish village of Nagartav (=Bereznegovatoje), a pogrom against the Jews arose. The Russian police often showed up a little too late for such cases, or perhaps they just did not want to see or help. For Jews in particular they did not have much mercy. The slogan of the blind masses was: "Beat the Jews and save Russia!” People took out their anger on the poor Jews. Terribly the whole [Jewish] village was completely destroyed.

Other Jewish villages were then also threatened and told that they would be next. Nagartav was 25 versts away from Sagradovka. Closer to the Mennonites, at a distance of 10 versts at most, were the two Jewish villages of Gross-Romanovka and Klein-Romanovka. The news of the pogrom in Nagartav had not yet reached our villages, when one Saturday morning the three villages of Alexanderfeld, Neu Schönsee and Friedensfeld were struck by a terrifying arrival. Like an avalanche, the inhabitants of Romanovka suddenly poured into these Mennonite villages in a great flight. Their wagons were loaded to the hilt with old men, women and children, as well as beds and various things.

None of us Germans suspected what was going on.

The women screamed, children cried, and shouts rang out: "Help! Save! Have mercy! Pogrom!" It was a panic parallel. But instincts of mercy and compassion knew what to do. In a few minutes the streets were empty: yards and houses and barns had opened their doors, and soon the frightened fugitives were under cover together with their wagons.

“Ask the Lord that your flight may not take place on the Sabbath day” [Matthew 24:20]. But it was Sabbath. In great anxiety they waited for the awful things that might come, but nothing happened. Outwardly everything remained silent. Only reconnaissance teams went through the streets from time to time and brought back reports to the mayoral offices. The day of terror slowly came to an end as nightfall arrived.

It was said that an order had been received that the Orloffer District Office should send out a guard of 500 men to Romanovka; however, the Oberschulze [Mennonite district mayor] refused, citing the Mennonite doctrine of non-resistance. Judgments and opinions differed.

By this point the Jews had heard that nothing disturbing had occurred in Romanovka thus far; it was still quiet. The next day—on Sunday—news came that the governor had arrived from Kherson with a detachment of Cossacks ... And the poor, frightened refugees returned to their abandoned homes that same day, comforted and rejoicing. This time they had escaped the worse with only a fright." (Note 8)

The Jewish community in this context knew that if its people had to flee for safety, then flee to the Mennonites.

Was this the norm or the exception? Here is another example from the Mennonitische Rundschau in 1882, suggesting that this was somewhat "natural" for Mennonites to do when pogroms arose, and that it came with a cost.

“Until now it appeared that in Russia Jews could find protection with German colonists from the raw persecution of Russians. This came naturally to us [Mennonites], for in our view it is not impossible that hatred could be stirred up against Germans as well. … 'Do unto others what you would have them do to you.' But now it is clear that this type of sympathy with Jews incites the hatred of the country’s population against Germans as well.” (Note 9)

To say that the relationship between Mennonites and Jews was "close" in Russia/Ukraine would be an exaggeration. And sadly there are other, less complimentary stories where—because of context—Mennonites were less able to be themselves. But these stories above and the instincts of the Mennonite community on behalf of their Jewish neighbours were not isolated or one-off. There are more such stories and they ring true to me—whether in urban contexts like Einlage or in the rural context of Sagradovka.


            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Pics: Hermann Roskoschny, Rußland Land und Leute (Leipzig: Greßner und Schramm, 1883), vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/russland-land-und-leute-bd-1-1883/page/n7/mode/2up. Pics 2 and 3: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-were-pogroms/, and https://eesiag.com/history/jewish-pogroms-in-the-south-of-ukraine-in-the-first-russian-revolution.html.

Note 1: See previous posts (forthcoming)

Note 2: On the “Black Hundred,” cf. http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CB%5CL%5CBlackHundreds.htm.

Note 3: Heinrich Bergen, Einlage/ Kitschkas, 1789–1943: Ein Denkmal (Regina, SK: Self-published, 2008), 103; 93. See also idem, Einlage: Chronik des Dorfes Kitschkas, 1789–1943 (Saskatoon, SK: Self-published, 2010).

Note 4: Bergen, Einlage/ Kitschkas, 1789–1943, 103.

Note 5: Bergen, Einlage/ Kitschkas, 1789–1943, 103.

Note 6: Bergen, Einlage/ Kitschkas, 1789–1943, 103.

Note 7: Bergen, Einlage/ Kitschkas, 1789–1943, 93.

Note 8: Franz W. Martens, “Johann Köhn, Schulrat und Oberschulze: Biographisch-geschichtliche Mitteilungen aus der Nikolaifelder Mennonitengemeinde auf Sagradowka für das Mennonitische Archiv in Canada,” Mennonitische Rundschau 61, no. 25 (June 22, 1938), 9, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1938-06-22_61_25/page/8/.

Note 9: Mennonitische Rundschau 3, no. 6 (March 15, 1882), 3, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1882-03-15_3_6/page/n1/mode/2up. The unnamed Mennonite correspondent continues the column with his own hateful language against these “lost sheep from the House of Israel”—which underlines again that the relationship was "complex."

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Anti-Jewish Pogroms and Mennonite responses in Einlage (1905) and Sagradovka (1899)," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), June 9, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/06/anti-jewish-pogroms-and-mennonite.html.

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