Tag #148995 - Interview #78036 (Mendel Kreimer)

I know that my grandfather's family suffered from the 1903 pogrom [see Kishinev pogrom of 1903] [3]: their house was ruined and their belongings were stolen. After the pogrom my grandfather's family rented an apartment. Anti-Semitism was rather strong at this time in Russia, and the government was aware of pogroms. The government's position was that if two people fight and the third one wins - divide and rule. The government supported the Black Hundred [4] fighters unofficially during this horrific pogrom. When the Jews saw that they had nobody to count on, they organized Jewish self-defense units [see Jewish self-defense movement] [5]: they were butchers at first, and began to kill these bandits. The tsarist police had to interfere and stop this pogrom.