The Promised Land | Page 6

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special permission of the police, who were always changing their
minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the Passover a time of
horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that lie about murdering
Christian children, and the stupid peasants would get mad about it, and
fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill the Jews. They attacked
them with knives and clubs and scythes and axes, killed them or

tortured them, and burned their houses. This was called a "pogrom."
Jews who escaped the pogroms came to Polotzk with wounds on them,
and horrible, horrible stories, of little babies torn limb from limb before
their mothers' eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and
choke with pain. People who saw such things never smiled any more,
no matter how long they lived; and sometimes their hair turned white in
a day, and some people became insane on the spot.
Often we heard that the pogrom was led by a priest carrying a cross
before the mob. Our enemies always held up the cross as the excuse of
their cruelty to us. I never was in an actual pogrom, but there were
times when it threatened us, even in Polotzk; and in all my fearful
imaginings, as I hid in dark corners, thinking of the horrible things the
Gentiles were going to do to me, I saw the cross, the cruel cross.
I remember a time when I thought a pogrom had broken out in our
street, and I wonder that I did not die of fear. It was some Christian
holiday, and we had been warned by the police to keep indoors. Gates
were locked; shutters were barred. If a child cried, the nurse threatened
to give it to the priest, who would soon be passing by. Fearful and yet
curious, we looked through the cracks in the shutters. We saw a
procession of peasants and townspeople, led by a number of priests,
carrying crosses and banners and images. In the place of honor was
carried a casket, containing a relic from the monastery in the outskirts
of Polotzk. Once a year the Gentiles paraded with this relic, and on that
occasion the streets were considered too holy for Jews to be about; and
we lived in fear till the end of the day, knowing that the least
disturbance might start a riot, and a riot lead to a pogrom.
On the day when I saw the procession through a crack in the shutter,
there were soldiers and police in the street. This was as usual, but I did
not know it. I asked the nurse, who was pressing to the crack over my
head, what the soldiers were for. Thoughtlessly she answered me, "In
case of a pogrom." Yes, there were the crosses and the priests and the
mob. The church bells were pealing their loudest. Everything was ready.
The Gentiles were going to tear me in pieces, with axes and knives and
ropes. They were going to burn me alive. The cross--the cross! What

would they do to me first?
There was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or
rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell
into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would
be worse than death by torture. Rather would I drown in the Dvina than
a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced
to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross,--sooner would I
rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out.
To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,--rather would I be
seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little
girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried. But there
was no pain that I would not bear--no, none--rather than submit to
baptism.
Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen of
Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar's agents and brought up
in Gentile families, till they were old enough to enter the army, where
they served till forty years of age; and all those years the priests tried,
by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept baptism, but in
vain. This was in the time of Nicholas I, but men who had been through
this service were no older than my grandfather, when I was a little girl;
and they told their experiences with their own lips, and one knew it was
true, and it broke one's heart with pain and pride.
Some of these soldiers of Nicholas, as they were called, were taken as
little boys of