Chapter II: Speech of Deputy Friedman in the Duma

(August 2, 1915)

(Translated from Petrograd “Retch,” of August 3, 1915, and
published in the New York “Times,” September 23, 1915)

In spite of their oppressed condition, in spite of their status of outlawry, the Jews have risen to the exalted mood of the nation and in the course of the last year have participated in the war in a noteworthy manner. They fell short of the others in no respect. They mobilized their entire enrollment, but, indeed, with this difference, that =they have also sent their only sons into the war.= The newspapers at the beginning of the war had a remarkable number of Jewish volunteers to record. =Gentlemen, those were volunteers who were entitled through their educational qualifications to the rank of officers. They knew that they would not receive this rank; and nevertheless they entered the war.=

The Jewish youth, which, as a result of the restrictions as to admission to the high schools of the country, had been forced to study abroad, returned home when war was declared, or entered the armies of the allied nations. A large number of Jewish students fell at the defense of Liege and also at other points on the western front.

The Zionist youths, when they were confronted with the dilemma of accepting Turkish sovereignty or being compelled to emigrate from Palestine, preferred to go to Alexandria and there to join the English army.

The Jews built hospitals, contributed money, and participated in the war in every respect just as did the other citizens. Many Jews received marks of distinction for their conduct at the front.

Before me lies the letter of a Jew who returned from the United States of America:

“I risked my life,” he writes, “and if, nevertheless, I came as far as Archangel, it was only because I loved my fatherland more than my life or that American freedom which I was permitted to enjoy. I became a soldier, and lost my left arm almost to the shoulder. I was brought into the governmental district of Courland. =Scarcely had I reached Riga when I met at the station my mother and my relatives, who had just arrived there, and who on that same day were compelled to leave their hearth and home at the order of the military authorities. Tell the gentlemen who sit on the benches of the Right that I do not mourn my lost arm, but that I do mourn deeply the self-respect that was not denied to me in alien lands but is now lost to me.”=

Such was the sentiment of the Jews that found expression in numerous appeals and manifestations in the press, and finally also in this House. Surely these sentiments should have been taken into account. One should have a right to assume that the Government would adopt measures for the amelioration of the fate of the Jews who found themselves in the very centre of the war-like occurrences. Likewise, one should have taken into account the sentiments of hundreds of thousands of Jews who shed their blood on the field of battle.

Instead of that, however, we see that from the beginning of the war the measures of reprisals against the Jewish populace were not only not weakened but, on the contrary, made much stronger. =Banished were Jewish men and women whose husbands, children, and brothers, were shedding their blood for the fatherland.= A wounded soldier named Alexander Roskhov, who had been shot in the eye, came to Charkof for further treatment. On his passport were the words, “To be sent to a settlement.” The private soldier Godlewski, one of whose legs had been amputated, and who found himself at Rostof on the Don for recuperation, they tried to send to his native village in the Government of Kalisch, already under German occupation; and it was only due to the activities of the Rural League that he was permitted to stay. An apothecary’s helper, who likewise had been wounded on the battlefield, was not allowed to remain in Petrograd for his cure, and it was only by virtue of special intercession that he was later allowed to sojourn two months more at Petrograd, with the notice, however, that at the expiration of this period no further extension of his sojourn would be granted.

In a long war lucky events alternate with unlucky ones, and in any case it is naturally useful to have scapegoats in reserve. For this purpose there exists the old firm; the Jew. Scarcely has the enemy reached our frontiers when the rumor is spread that Jewish gold is flowing over to the Germans, and that, too, in aeroplanes, in coffins, and—in the entrails of geese!

Scarcely had the enemy pressed further, than there appeared again beyond dispute the eternal Jew “on the white horse,” perhaps the same one who once rode on the white horse through the city in order to provoke a pogrom. The Jews have set up telephones, have destroyed the telegraph lines. The legend grew, and with the eager support of the powers of Government and the agitation in official circles, assumed ever greater proportions. A series of unprecedented, unheard of, cruel measures was adopted against the Jews. These measures, which were carried out before the eyes of the entire population, suggested to the people and to the army the recognition of the fact that the Jews were treated as enemies by the Government, and that the Jewish population was outside the law.

In the first place these measures consisted of the complete transplanting of the Jewish population from many districts, to the very last man. These compulsory migrations took place in the Kingdom of Poland and in many other territories. =All told, about a half million persons have been doomed to a state of beggary and vagabondage. Anyone who has seen with his own eyes how these expulsions take place, will never forget them as long as he lives. The exiling took place within twenty-four hours, sometimes within two days. Women, old men, and children, and sometimes invalids, were banished. Even the feebleminded were taken from the lunatic asylums and the Jews were forced to take these with them.= In Mohilnitse, 5,000 persons were expelled within twenty-four hours. Their way led to Warsaw through Kalwayra. Meantime they were forced to travel across fields through the Government of Lublin, and were deprived of the possibility of taking along their inventories. Many were obliged to travel on foot. When they reached Lublin, the Jewish Committee there had provided bread and food for them; but they were not allowed to tarry, and they had to travel on at once.

On the way an accident occurred; a six-year-old child was killed by a fall. The parents were not permitted to bury the child.

I saw also the refugees of the Government of Kovno. Persons who only yesterday were still accounted wealthy were beggars the next day. Among the refugees I met Jewish women and girls, who had worked together with Russian women, had sewed garments with them and collected contributions with them, and who were now forced to encamp on the railway embankment. =I saw families of reservists. I saw among the exiles wounded soldiers wearing the Cross of St. George. It is said that Jewish soldiers in marching through the Polish cities were forced to witness the expulsion of their wives and children. The Jews were loaded in freight cars like cattle. The bills of lading were worded as follows: “Four hundred and fifty Jews, en route to ——.”=

There were cases in which the Governors refused outright to take in the Jews at all. I myself was in Vilna at the very time when a whole trainload of Jews was stalled for four days in Novo-Wilejsk station. Those were Jews who had been sent from the Government of Kovno to the Government of Poltawa, but the Governor there would not receive them and sent them back to Kovno, whence they were again reshipped to Poltawa. Imagine, at a time when every railway car is needed for the transportation of munitions, when from all sides are heard complaints about the lack of means of transportation, the Government permits itself to do such a thing! At one station there stood 110 freight cars containing Jewish exiles.

Another measure which likewise is unprecedented in the entire history of the civilized world, is the introduction of the so-called system of “Hostages,” and, indeed, hostages were taken not from the enemy, but from the country’s own subjects, its own citizens. Hostages were taken in Radom, Kieltse, Lomscha, Kovno, Riga, Lublin, etc. The hostages were held under the most rigorous régime, and at present there are still under arrest in Poltava Jewish hostages from the Governments of Kieltse and Radom.

Some time ago, in commenting upon the procedure against the Jews, the leader of the Opposition, even before the outbreak of the war, used the expression that we were approaching the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. I now assert that we have already surpassed that era. No Jewish blood was shed in defence of Spain, but ours flowed the moment the Jews helped defend the Fatherland.

Yes, we are beyond the pale of the laws, we are oppressed, we have a hard life, but we know the source of that evil; it comes from those benches (pointing to the boxes of the Ministers). =We are being oppressed by the Russian Government, not by the Russian people.= Why, then, is it surprising if we wish to unite our destinies, not with that of the Russian Government, but with that of the Russian people? When three years ago there was pending here the Cholm law proposal, did the thought ever occur at the time to the sponsors of the bill that in a short time they would have to scrape and bow before free autonomous Poland? We likewise hope that the time is not distant when we can be citizens of the Russian State with full equality of privileges with the free Russian people.

Before the face of the entire country, before the entire civilized world, I declare that the calumnies against the Jews are the most repulsive lies and chimeras of persons who will have to be responsible for their crimes. [Applause on Left.]

It depends upon you, gentlemen of the Imperial Duma, to speak the word of encouragement, to perform the action that can deliver the Jewish people from the terrible plight in which it is at present, and that can lead them back into the ranks of the Russian citizens who are defending their Fatherland. [Cries of “Right.”]

I do not know if the Imperial Duma will so act, but if it does so act it will be fulfilling an obligation of honor and an act of wise statesmanship that is necessary for the profit and for the greatness of the Fatherland. [Applause on the Left.]