Kishinev Pogrom - First Pogrom

First Pogrom

The most popular newspaper in Kishinev, the Russian-language anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning "Bessarabian"), published by Pavel Krushevan regularly published articles with titles in reference to the Jewish population such as "Death to the Jews!" and "Crusade against the Hated Race!". When a Christian Ukrainian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, about 25 miles north of Kishinev and a girl committed suicide by poisoning herself, proclaimed dead in a Jewish Hospital, allegations by Bessarabetz insinuated that both were murdered by the Jews using the claim of blood libel (alleging that the children had been killed to use their blood in preparation of matzo for Passover). Another newspaper, Свет (Svet, "Light") made similar allegations. These allegations sparked the rioting along with the urging of the town's Russian Orthodox Bishop.

The Kishinev pogrom started on April 19th (April 6th O.S.) after the Christian population of the town got out of church on Easter Sunday. It spanned three days of rioting against the Jews. Forty-seven (some put the figure at 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses and many businesses looted and destroyed. The Times published a forged dispatch by Vyacheslav von Plehve, the Minister of Interior, to the governor of Bessarabia, which supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters, but, in any case, no attempt was made by the police or military to intervene to stop the riots until the third day. This non-intervention is an argument in support of the opinion that the pogrom was sponsored or, at least, tolerated by the state.

The New York Times described the first Kishinev pogrom:

The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, "Kill the Jews," was taken- up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.

The Kishinev Pogrom captured the attention of the world community and was mentioned in the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine as an example of the type of human rights abuse which would justify United States involvement in Latin America.