Description of the Destruction of Galicia and the Consequences of Anti-Semitic Pogroms

I had achieved my first goal: to enter Galicia to find out what was happening to the Jews. Now I had to tour the occupied towns and villages and conduct a thorough investigation. I focused on this plan, suggesting to Prince Dolgorukov and Demidov that they order me to travel in search of fur and leather for the corps. As a matter of fact, they were badly in need of leather. It was impossible to get shoes from Russia or in Galicia. The people who had leather or boots were terrified that if they showed their supplies, they might be commandeered by the military. But since I was a representative of a welfare organization and a Jew, they wouldn’t be afraid to sell me their wares.
Though I had stopped only in a few towns, I had a general idea of the Jewish situation. Just fact-finding made no sense. It would be awful to come across Jews starving and not be able to help them. So I set myself another task: to secure some cash and bring at least a bit of aid to the places I would visit. With that fir mind, I decided first to go back to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev, describe the hardships in Galicia, and drum up tens of thousands of rubles from relief committees and individuals. When I got back to Tarnow, I found another reason why I had to leave for St. Petersburg immediately. Ader came and told me that the military authorities had plastered the town with Polish and German notices inciting the army and the Christians against the Jews. It was virtually a call for a pogrom and could have the most terrible consequences. I went and read the notice. It was staggering.
• NOTICE •
Our experience in the present war has revealed the open hostility toward us on the part of the Jewish populations in Poland, Galicia, and Bukovina. Whenever we leave a place and our enemy marches in, he inflicts all sorts of punishments upon our pro-Russian friends mainly because of denunciations by Jews, who stir up the Austrian and German authorities against the population.
To free the population from persecution and protect the military from espionage, which Jews are committing along the entire front, the commander in chief has made it illegal for Jews to stay in the same area as the army or to enter the region west of the city of Yaroslav. And to shield the peaceful population against false denunciations, and also because Jewish spies have been exposed, the commander in chief has issued the following order: Take hostages. For every peaceful inhabitant who has been denounced to the enemy and for every secret Jewish spy, two hostages will be held responsible and will be sentenced to death by hanging.
This decree is issued in the interest of the peaceful pro- Russian population to protect it against the punishments that might be inflicted on it by our enemy. This decree is based on six months of experience, which has led the military authorities to the firm conviction that Jews have behaved and are behaving disloyally and cruelly toward the local population. There was no signature.
I ran into Dr. Shapiro, who was also upset by the notice. That morning, she had made a copy and brought it to Prince Dolgorukov. Furious, he had written a letter to the newspaper Ruskiye Vyedomosti, but he thought the censor would likely block its publication. He was certain the notice had been issued by headquarters, which meant nothing could be done about it. Subsequently, I learned that Dolgorukov, unable to act against the notice, had protested the blatant Jew-baiting by hanging a Yiddish sign in his outpatient clinic: “Dispensary for all sick people regardless of nationality.” I had to let the St. Petersburg Jewish community know about the notice. To do so, I needed a copy. But how to get one? The only way was to tear it off the wall, which I had to do very carefully; if I was caught, I could be handed over to a court-martial. That night Dr. Ader and I went through town, hunting for a poster that we could remove without being seen. The notices were displayed in all the streets, and, luckily, they were pasted only at the corners, so it was easy to tear them off. We wandered for over an hour until we found an alley with no passersby. I swiftly tore down a poster, and we went home. That evening, I met with Prince Dolgorukov and presented my plan to travel about in search of leather. He liked the idea, and he gave me an official pass to tour the whole of Galicia and seek leather for the medical corps. I wanted to obtain a similar authorization from Demidov, who was due back tomorrow.

That was on February 12, 1915.1 decided to leave on the fourteenth.