The Shield/The Homeless Ones

by Sergey Elpatyevsky

 

 

⁠Sergey Yakovlevich Yelpatyevsky is a popular writer of realistic, and humanitarian tales and sketches. In his youth he was exiled to Siberia, and in 1910 he was imprisoned. He was born in 1854.

 

 

THE HOMELESS ONES

By S. YELPATYEVSKY

I

A PARTY of Jews was brought to the province of Tavrida. Officially they are called "the deported"; the newspapers refer to them as "the homeless ones." At first came three thousand Jews from the province of Kovno. They were followed by Kurland Jews, and now about seven thousand Jews have been settled in the government of Tavrida. Other parties are expected. . . .

They had wandered a long time before they reached their new place of residence. Obviously, the authorities who handled the deportation thought only of how to get rid of the Jews, and those on whom the newcomers were thrust had not been informed in time and did not know how to arrange to take care of them.

The first party, three thousand strong, stayed a while at Melitopol, then they were transported to Simferopol where they remained five days, and were finally distributed over the towns and townlets of northern Crimea.

It is told that one of the parties was assigned to Yekaterinoslav, but the authorities refused to accept the people and ordered them to proceed further. The local papers report that a group of deported Jews was transported from Pavlograd to Jankoy, then, according to an instruction from the Ministry of the Interior they were shipped to Voronezh. . . .

There are many old men and women, many girls and mothers, and a large number of children in the party which has been brought here. All of them are miserable and exhausted, a number are ill, either because they had been sick when the catastrophe overtook them or because they fell ill on the way, and there are many pregnant women among them. As a result of their long wanderings, wives have lost their husbands and mothers their children and they eagerly question everybody about those dear to them.

Little has been written in the newspapers about the Jews deported from the zone of military activities, and so far little has been heard of either the state or the social organisations coming to the assistance of these "war sufferers," who feel the burden of war even more heavily than those who fled from the war-stricken districts on their own account. There was a vague statement that the Pirogov Society is aiding the Jews deported to the Government of Poltava and that meagre sums were contributed by the Union of Towns and the Ministry of the Interior,—that is all the newspapers have so far reported.

The burden of taking care of the newcomers fell entirely on the local Jewish conmiunities. It was a heavy burden, for there are no more than about twenty thousand Jewish families in the entire government of Tavrida. These twenty thousand families had to take care and to support seven thousand homeless people, mostly small tradesmen and peddlers who had had no time to liquidate their businesses and who could not take along any property, for bedding was the only thing they were allowed to carry.

They had to find housing facihties in all haste, to organise transportation and medical aid, and to solve the food and employment problems. An attempt was made to utilise the deported in agriculture, in which labour is nowadays exceedingly scarce in Crimea. But the old people and the children are not fit for agricultural work and it would take too long to train the able-bodied women. On the other hand, the largest and more prosperous Crimean towns, such as Simferopol and Sebastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, and Theodosia, where the deported Jews could easily find employment, are closed to the newcomers. Only the smaller and poorer towns and townlets where even the local Jews can scarcely get employment, are put at the disposal of the newcomers as their places of residence. There was even a project to settle a portion of these people in the city of Perekop. This town counts only one Jewish family among its population. It consists of a prison and several deserted shanties, and reminds one of that legendary Siberian town, which was made up of a single pillar erected as an indication of the site where the city was supposed to stand.

The local Jewish communities spend about fifty thousand rubles monthly on feeding the deported. This sum does not include the expenses of transportation and housing. The local communities applied to the Petrograd Committee, but it took upon itself only fifteen thousand rubles. The remaining thirty-five thousand are contributed by the Jews, who have also to support their specific cultural institutions as well as municipal institutions of a general character.

The representatives of the Simferopol Jewish community applied to the Governor of Tavrida for financial help. I do not know whether they were successful. Meanwhile, other parties of deported Jews are expected here, and how the Jews will be able to handle them, is more than I can tell.

The War has ruined many homes and made many men, women, and children homeless. But it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that fate has been most ruthless to these deported Jews. The so-called "refugees," after all, acted freely; they brought with them, if not what they wanted at least what they had time, what they were able to take; they could go wherever there was work. The refugees were everywhere welcomed and helped by both the authorities and the public organisations. Special days for the soliciting of donations were appointed and large sums collected. Wherever they went people tried to alleviate their sufferings. But the deportation of the Jews took place as if on the sly, without attracting any one's attention, without engaging the sympathies of the people at large to the degree which might be expected.

The deported proved a heavy burden not only for the Jewish but also for the Gentile population of the humble villages of the government of Tavrida, which were flooded by the newcomers. The prices of food, and the rent soared up, and competition among tradesmen and small merchants grew more ruthless,—in a word, life here became much harder than the War alone would have made it.

II

As one observes these throngs of old men, children and pregnant women who are deported and tossed from one end of the country to the other, simply because they are Jews, one wonders to whom it brings profit or happiness. It is clear that it does no one any good and no one finds this wholesale deportation either just or necessary.

"In discussing the deportation of Jews the Minister of the Interior pointed out that this measure was not justified by the actual behaviour of the Jewish population, which is in general loyal to the country and cannot bear responsibility for the actions of criminal individuals, of whom unfortunately no nationality is free" (Yuzhnyia Vyedomosti, No 10). The same communication contains the following statements: "It was asserted that the wholesale accusation of the Jews as traitors is wholly groundless. . . . In view of this the council of Ministers, by an overwhelming majority, decided to make intercession to put an end to the deportation of the Jews."

Whether the Council of Ministers has interceded and whether its efforts were crowned with success,—I know not. The papers published several orders whereby separate groups of deported Jews were permitted to return to their former places of residence,—for instance, the deported Galician Jews were allowed to return to Galicia,—but there was no general rescript which would put an end to the deportation. . . .

The wholesale deportation of the Jews caused a great perplexity among the population of Crimea. Even people who are not over-sensitive to problems of truth and justice and whose sympathies are far from being broad, show signs of being stirred up. Suppose the Council of Ministers is mistaken, they say, and the presence of the Jews in the governments of Kovno and Kurland is really a danger for the State, but then do not Germans live in those provinces, in even larger numbers than Jews? Time and again we read in the newspapers of the friendly reception of the German armies by the German population of Kurland. There were also registered cases where penalties were imposed on individual persons who either showed too great an enthusiasm for the German troops or rendered them material services. Nevertheless, nothing was heard about the German population of the Government of Kurland being deported in a wholesale manner,—at least, not a single train with Kurland Germans has reached Crimea.

On the other hand,—so thinking people keep on arguing,—if the Jews have proved to be more German than the Germans themselves, and the Teutonic population of Kurland act like loyal Russian subjects, why then liquidate the land owned by the Crimean Germans, who have been living in Crimea for more than a century, who have never showm any disloyalty to Russia, who, furthermore, are separated from the German frontier by thousands of versts and who are, therefore, by no means able to inform the Germans from Germany about the movement of our troops in the provinces of Kurland and Kovno.

And once more rises the question: "In whose interests is all this done?"

The matter has also another aspect. How many Jews were deported—tens or hundreds of thousands—no one knows exactly; but seeing the large masses which are being shifted from place to place, people wonder how many cars were necessary to transport all these throngs. And then it occurs to them that all these trains could bring in enormous cargoes of coal, sugar, kerosene and other wares which are so badly needed here, and carry away grain and fruit, which are needed elsevhere, thus making life more livable in many corners of our vast country.

And people who have the enviable capacity of not losing their equanimity under any circumstances, remark that in this fashion the Jewish problem is being settled and the Pale of Settlement removed.

"Here already the provinces of Voronezh and Penza are opened to Jews. . . . Little by little all of Russia will be opened up. . . ."