Читать книгу The Jews in the Eastern War Zone онлайн

2 страница из 11

When the war broke out, one-half of the Jewish population of the world was trapped in a corner of Eastern Europe that is absolutely shut off from all neutral lands and from the sea. Russian Poland, where over two million Jews lived, is in a salient. South of it is Galicia, the frontier province of Austria. Here lived another million Jews. Behind Russian Poland are the fifteen Russian provinces, which, together with Poland, constitute the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Here lived another four million Jews.

Thus seven million Jews—a population exceeding that of Belgium by one million—have borne the brunt of the war. Behind them was Holy Russia, closed to them by the May Laws of 1881. In front were hostile Germany and Austria. To the south was unfriendly Roumania. They were overwhelmed where they stood; and over their bodies crossed and recrossed the German armies from the west, the Russian armies from the east and the Austrian armies from the south. True, all the peoples of this area suffered ravage and pillage by the war, but their sufferings were in no degree comparable to those of the Jews. The contending armies found it politic, in a measure, to court the good will of the Poles, Ruthenians and other races in this area. These sustained only the necessary and unavoidable hardships of war. But the Jews were friendless, their religion proscribed. In this medieval region all the religious fanaticism of the Russians, the chauvinism of the Poles, combined with the blood lusts liberated in all men by the war—all these fierce hatreds were sluiced into one torrent of passion which overwhelmed the Jews.