Odessa pogroms

A series of pogroms against Jews in the city of Odessa, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, took place during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

[1] According to Jarrod Tanny, most historians in the early 21st century agree that the earlier incidents were a result of "frictions unleashed by modernization," rather than by a resurgence of medieval antisemitism.

The pogrom occurred on a Christian Easter; and the local press, in no wise unfriendly to the Jews, attempted to transform it into an accidental fight, the Greek colony at that time being dominant in the administration as well as in the commerce of Odessa.

[9] Evidence exists that during the 1905 pogrom, the army supported the mob: The Bolshevik Piatnitsky who was in Odessa at the time recalls what happened: "There I saw the following scene: a gang of young men, between 25 and 20 years old, among whom there were plain-clothes policemen and members of the Okhrana, were rounding up anyone who looked like a Jew—men, women and children—stripping them naked and beating them mercilessly... We immediately organised a group of revolutionaries armed with revolvers... we ran up to them and fired at them.

[11] The city of Odessa, founded in the late 18th century, encouraged foreign immigration, especially for the purpose of promoting economic growth.

To fill the resulting vacuum in grain trade, Jewish merchants expanded business and began to acquire greater profits.

Although by the end of the 19th century, Jews held high positions in manufacturing, the majority of wealth in Odessa belonged to non-Jews.

[16] Fear of a pogrom in April 1905 prompted the National Committee of Jewish Self-Defense to urge Jews to arm themselves and protect their property.

Although a pogrom did not take place until October, fear of one re-emerged in June when Jews were declared culpable for instigating shootings as well as fires at the port.

[18] While many Jews and liberals in Odessa celebrated the October Manifesto, conservatives considered the document as a threat to the autocracy and the might of the Russian Empire.

On 14 October, a number of high school students skipped classes and attempted, but failed due to police intervention, to join rallies taking place at the university.

Although a public funeral had been planned for the students, the Odessa city governor, D. M. Neidhart, had the bodies buried secretly to limit rallying around the deaths.

As violence increased between supporters and opponents of the October Manifesto, members of the latter group began to take out their anger on Odessa's Jews, identifying them as the root of Russia's troubles.

When a group of Jews asked a few Russian workers to show respect to a red flag, a fight broke out on the streets and soon turned into an anti-Jewish riot.

The rioters demonstrated excellent organization throughout sections of Odessa, coordinating their numbers based on the size of the neighborhood under attack.

Rather than working to protect Jews and end the pogrom, many policemen and soldiers wearing civilian clothes watched or participated in the massacre.

Though they suffered many casualties and were eventually vanquished, Jewish self-defense forces successfully defended some houses as well as streets and even neighborhoods.

[24] On 21 October, after much of the pogrom was over, the city governor Neidhart, and the commander of the Odessa military garrison, A. V. Kaul'bars, appeared in the streets.

[25] According to a subsequent account written by the British Consul to Odessa, Charles Stewart Smith, Neidhart had ordered the police to withdraw from the streets, allowing the mobs a free hand to murder, rape and pillage.

‘It is quite clear,’ Stewart Smith reported to the Foreign Office, ‘that the late disorders were prepared and worked by the police who openly superintended the work of destruction, looting and murder.’ A few weeks later he wrote: ‘There were hopes that there would be a real judicial investigation of the whole affair, with proper apportionment of blame; but the Emperor has thanked the troops, and apparently Neidhart has been given another post (Nijni Novgorod).

Other relevant statistics from the pogrom include approximately 5,000 Jews injured, 3.75 million rubles in property damage, 1,400 ruined businesses, and 3,000 families forced into poverty.