Part 17

The War has ruined many homes and made many men, women, and children homeless. But it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that fate has been most ruthless to these deported Jews. The so-called "refugees," after all, acted freely; they brought with them, if not what they wanted at least what they had time, what they were able to take; they could go wherever there was work. The refugees were everywhere welcomed and helped by both the authorities and the public organisations. Special days for the soliciting of donations were appointed and large sums collected. Wherever they went people tried to alleviate their sufferings. But the deportation of the Jews took place as if on the sly, without attracting any one's attention, without engaging the sympathies of the people at large to the degree which might be expected.

The deported proved a heavy burden not only for the Jewish but also for the Gentile population of the humble villages of the government of Tavrida, which were flooded by the newcomers. The prices of food, and the rent soared up, and competition among tradesmen and small merchants grew more ruthless,--in a word, life here became much harder than the War alone would have made it.

As one observes these throngs of old men, children and pregnant women who are deported and tossed from one end of the country to the other, simply because they are Jews, one wonders to whom it brings profit or happiness. It is clear that it does no one any good and no one finds this wholesale deportation either just or necessary.

"In discussing the deportation of Jews the Minister of the Interior pointed out that this measure was not justified by the actual behaviour of the Jewish population, which is in general loyal to the country and cannot bear responsibility for the actions of criminal individuals, of whom unfortunately no nationality is free" (Yuzhnyia Vyedomosti, No 10). The same communication contains the following statements: "It was asserted that the wholesale accusation of the Jews as traitors is wholly groundless.... In view of this the council of Ministers, by an overwhelming majority, decided to make intercession to put an end to the deportation of the Jews."

Whether the Council of Ministers has interceded and whether its efforts were crowned with success,--I know not. The papers published several orders whereby separate groups of deported Jews were permitted to return to their former places of residence,--for instance, the deported Galician Jews were allowed to return to Galicia,--but there was no general rescript which would put an end to the deportation....

The wholesale deportation of the Jews caused a great perplexity among the population of Crimea. Even people who are not over-sensitive to problems of truth and justice and whose sympathies are far from being broad, show signs of being stirred up. Suppose the Council of Ministers is mistaken, they say, and the presence of the Jews in the governments of Kovno and Kurland is really a danger for the State, but then do not Germans live in those provinces, in even larger numbers than Jews? Time and again we read in the newspapers of the friendly reception of the German armies by the German population of Kurland. There were also registered cases where penalties were imposed on individual persons who either showed too great an enthusiasm for the German troops or rendered them material services. Nevertheless, nothing was heard about the German population of the Government of Kurland being deported in a wholesale manner,--at least, not a single train with Kurland Germans has reached Crimea.

On the other hand,--so thinking people keep on arguing,--if the Jews have proved to be more German than the Germans themselves, and the Teutonic population of Kurland act like loyal Russian subjects, why then liquidate the land owned by the Crimean Germans, who have been living in Crimea for more than a century, who have never shown any disloyalty to Russia, who, furthermore, are separated from the German frontier by thousands of versts and who are, therefore, by no means able to inform the Germans from Germany about the movement of our troops in the provinces of Kurland and Kovno.

And once more rises the question: "In whose interests is all this done?"

The matter has also another aspect. How many Jews were deported--tens or hundreds of thousands--no one knows exactly; but seeing the large masses which are being shifted from place to place, people wonder how many cars were necessary to transport all these throngs. And then it occurs to them that all these trains could bring in enormous cargoes of coal, sugar, kerosene and other wares which are so badly needed here, and carry away grain and fruit, which are needed elsewhere, thus making life more livable in many corners of our vast country.

And people who have the enviable capacity of not losing their equanimity under any circumstances, remark that in this fashion the Jewish problem is being settled and the Pale of Settlement removed.

"Here already the provinces of Voronezh and Penza are opened to Jews.... Little by little all of Russia will be opened up...."

* * * * *

THE JEW

Mikail Petrovich Artzibashef, the author of Sanine was born in the year 1878 in Southern Russia. He is widely read both in his own country and outside of its borders. In 1905 he took part in the revolutionary movement, and was indicted, but escaped punishment because of the temporary success of the popular movement at the end of that year.

THE JEW

(A STORY)

BY M. ARTZIBASHEF

It so happened that the second platoon of the third squad of the Ashkadar regiment found itself completely cut off from the main body of the army, and this without the loss of a single cartridge or soldier.

How this came about, and why a group of men, fifteen or twenty strong, had suddenly become an independent fighting unit, none of them could tell.

At the outset, the entire Ashkadar regiment zealously trudged throughout the long autumn night along an interminable road, leading no one knew where, into the dark, damp, and hostile distance. To smoke or to converse was forbidden. In the dark, the black mass of the regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" they sighed quietly.

At dawn the regiment was brought to a halt and was stretched along the edge of a wide potato field, which the soldiers had never seen before. It was drizzling with sickening persistence, and the dark-blue distances, mildly sloping and mournful, were blurred in the haze of the rain. On both sides, as far as eye could reach, ranks of grey officers and soldiers were wretchedly soaking in the rain. Water was dripping from their sullen faces and it looked as though they were all weeping over their fate--the fate which had cast them upon this strange, unknown, God-forsaken field. In a few hours many of them will perhaps be lying dead amidst the half-rotted potato stems on the wet soil with their pallid faces upturned to the cold heavens, the very ones which now weep also over their dear, distant country.

Behind, a battery crew was vainly attempting to set the cannon which were sinking into the soaked plough-land. One could hear the hoarse angry voices, the cracking of whips, and the heavy, strained snorting of horses. In front of them lone officers wandered in drenched cloaks in the rain; still farther behind the curtain of rain and the thick fog there rumbled cannons and it was impossible to tell whether they belonged to the enemy or not. At times the shooting seemed to come from afar-off on the right. Then the rumble of the guns was deep and muffled like the sound of heavy iron balls rolling over the ground; at other times, the discharges were quite near and rent the air with a crash, bursting over the men's very heads, as it were.

The commander of the squad stood right in front of his men and kept lighting cigarettes shielding them with the skirts of his cloak. He did it so often that it seemed as if he had been vainly attempting to light the same cigarette for the last three hours. The soldiers were attentively looking at his back and were all morbidly anxious to help him. It was cold and damp, and they felt an incessant, nauseating gnawing in the pit of the stomach. It was not fear but an indefinite anguish, a sort of the-sooner-over-the-better feeling.

Several hours passed in this manner, but towards noon it all changed abruptly. Though the sky was still as grey as before and it drizzled continuously, it grew lighter, the clouds in one spot became white and shining and one felt that the sun was somewhere behind them. But amidst this cold white light a disquieting feeling pervaded the atmosphere and the gnawing anxiety was turning into unbearable agony. Suddenly, an aide-de-camp dashed past on a horse, covered with froth and fuzzy with dampness. Officers began to scurry back and forth; sharp commands were heard; and the bugles resounded.

"Well, comrades!" ... said some one in the ranks in a high, false tone of voice. Every one heard this exclamation and understood it, but no one turned around to see where it came from. The grey mass of people suddenly stirred, gave a sigh, surged like the sea whipped by a gale, and, sinking at each step into the mud, the entire regiment rolled forward, over the expanse of the shoreless fields which now suddenly looked strange and dreadful. The soldiers, their faces haggard and queer, were crossing themselves as they ran. They marched in disorder, and when they were stopped on the hill-crest, they turned the regiment into a confused mob of breathless and perplexed men. Some even forgot to lower their rifles.

Before them the hazy network of rain was still hanging and the distances stretched, strange and hostile. But now the fields were astir with flickering pale flames and a ceaseless scattered cracking of guns. In the grey sky a small black dot was discernible, seemingly motionless, but changing in size. When it grew larger, a faint buzzing was heard from above and made the soldiers turn their grey, ghastly faces upward.... Then a mighty buzzing suddenly resounded behind the regiment, and a Russian aeroplane flew over the heads of the men like a drenched bird. As the aeroplane rose higher and higher, the soldiers watched the distance between it and the small black dot far up in the sky grow smaller and smaller.

Voices were now heard from the ranks and when the black dot was rapidly beginning to grow smaller, sinking, as it were, in the sky and approaching the horizon, those voices became loud and gay.

"He don't like it, what! See him run for his life! Well done! Fine fellows!" ... was heard along the ranks.