I have the honor to inclose his report.
[Inclosure in No. 199.]
Mr. Rawicz to Mr.
Hoffman.
Consulate of the United States,
Warsaw, February 1,
1882.
a brief account of the last riots at
warsaw.
In the month of April last, just before the holiday of Corpus Christi, on
which, according to the Catholic customs, great religious processions
take place all over the whole country, there appeared in the streets and
workshops of our town, as well as in many of the principal manufacturing
towns in the whole country, printed proclamations, instigating the
Christian population against the Jews. Similar tendencies were never
heard of here until the anti-Semite riots in Russia, namely, Kieff,
Odessa, Charkoff, &c., and it is certain they did not spring out on
this soil, but were conveyed here from the main source.
The sober and well thinking inhabitants, with the assistance of the local
governor-general, succeeded in influencing the Catholic clergy, who
again on their part, by proper sermons preached from the pulpits all
over the country, succeeded in refraining the greatest part of the
lowest class of people in taking part in the riots, and in reality the
last events were only perpetrated by minor apprentices, people of the
owest rank, without any employment and reprobates, as there were hardly
any amidst
[Page 447]
the whole number of
the arrested that might be said belonged to the better class of
artisans; and it is a fact proved by the investigating judges that the
violent hands laid upon the property of others were only those of the
rabble amidst whom appeared leaders never seen here before, but that
such an event could possibly take place here was not supposed even by
the greatest pessimists.
During the divine service on Christmas day in the Holy Cross church,
situated in one of the principal streets of this town, about 12 o’clock
in the day, when the church was overcrowded with the pious, a cry of
“fire” was raised, as it was afterwards ascertained, by pickpockets, one
of whom was a Jew; it is said that the same cry was simultaneously
raised in four other churches. The people began to throng to the
entrance, and as the church doors are somewhat elevated, to which two
flights of broad stone stairs of thirteen steps each are leading, here
they began to crowd, fall, and trample each other, and here principally
the whole catastrophe took place, so that in the course of a quarter of
an hour there were thirty killed, and twenty-six seriously injured, who
were taken to a hospital close by, of whom two died soon after. The
governor-general appeared on the spot in order to exert his influence on
the excited populace, and just at that time voices were heard from
amidst the crowd, “It is the Jews that caused this disaster; let us have
our revenge on the Jews!”
Being a first rank holiday, only the Jewish shops were half opened, and
the rabble began to pilfer the Jewish brandy and tobacco shops, as well
as their private lodgings, principally those belonging to the poorer
class and those situated in the back streets, and before the police,
gendarmes, and troops could render any real service, the rest of that
day and the whole night passed; on the next day, however, the
authorities took more energetical steps, and on the third succeeded in
putting a final stop, and since that time no attempt whatever was made
to renew the riots. During these whole disturbances there has not
occurred a single case neither of murder, or violation of woman, as the
chief object of the rabble was pilfering, which was effected, according
to official statement, in 1,025 shops, and the total number of families
that suffered is stated to be 2,011, about 10,000 persons; and the
damages caused by these broils, according to the official statement of
the committee appointed for that purpose, was reduced to the amount of
767,339 rubles, as according to private Jewish accounts it reached to
1,200,000 rubles, which sum was doubtless greatly exaggerated.
The number of persons arrested was over 3,000. The exaggeration of these
street broils in the Times, as well as in many of the other foreign
papers, may be principally attributed to the Jewish propaganda, for the
purpose of exciting commiseration, and consequently augmenting the
subscriptions collected everywhere, and which to the present day amount
to 146,400 rubles.
Besides the poorer class of Jewish shopkeepers who sustained considerable
losses, as many of them lost all they had, it also affected in a great
measure many of the house proprietors, merchants, manufacturers,
brewers, with whom that class of people caried on business, as on that
account the Jews, with few exceptions, do not pay neither their rents,
nor for the goods they had taken.
It is the general conviction here, and there is not the least doubt in
the truth of it, that this evil propensity was totally unknown here,
but, as I already stated above, was brought over from the main source,
but which, notwithstanding the antipathy towards the Jews, fortunately
did not take deep root, thanks to the clergy, who since the very
appearance of the stimulating proclamations, not only in the churches,
but availed themselves of every opportunity to avert the evil, and who
now continue their work to obliterate the traces of the inhuman
deeds.
* * * * * * *
I am, &c.,
JOSEPH RAWICZ,
United States
Consul.
