Tag #135245 - Interview #78133 (Faina Khorunzhenko)

Once ataman Grigoryev sent somebody to gather gangs together to pogrom the Jews in Yelisavetgrad. He decided to go with him, but got drunk, couldn't get on the train and fell under it. People rescued him, but both his legs got cut off. So later, when all kinds of gangs would attack that town, people said the doors of Medvedev's house would open widely for the Jewish families with children to run there and hide. Old man Medvedev would take an icon and his handicapped son, stand in the doorway of his house and tell the gangs, 'First, beat up this icon, then beat up me and my son, and only then will you enter my house'. Thus he saved as many Jews as he could. But I cannot tell you if everyone acted like him.