The Pogroms of Savran 1917 - 1921

View of the Southern Bug River near Savran

Trigger Warning: Graphic Violence Described Below

Introduction

Growing up in middle-class New Jersey in the 1980s and the 1990s, the horrors of the Holocaust seemed like distant echoes in other people’s ears. I knew Holocaust survivors and those born in the Displaced Person (DP) camps of central Europe – and I was exposed to the graphic truth as part of both my secular and religious education. Still, the reality of it seemed distant because my own ancestors had come to the US decades before those horrors. My kind of life makes that violence unthinkable.

Paradoxically, although the horrors of the pogroms that arose in the aftermath of WWI had happened longer ago, they felt closer to me because my grandmother was close to me. Rose Broitman Telles, my maternal grandmother, lived just a few doors down from us and was a constant presence in my childhood. She occasionally told me snippets of stories of her childhood. Of being born in the small shtetl of Savran in Podolia, of her father being a lumber merchant, of being hidden as an infant in a Russian stove while soldiers ransacked Savran with overwhelming violence - a crucifix around her neck as a sign for mercy from the mob, of fleeing Savran with the help of local peasants who had worked for her family – only to be robbed by them and others. Of the dangerous flight from Podolia to Romania, where they lived in poverty for several years. And finally, of their deliverance to freedom in Canada and eventually the United States. You can read about details of their immigration experience here, here, here, and here.

Russian stove in a peasant hut. Wikipedia.

Grandma Rose was an infant when she left Savran and barely more than a toddler when she left Romania. Her details of the events of her early life were based on stories she had been told by her parents, older siblings, and relatives. And my grandmother was not great with details. In contrast, I’ve been obsessed with discovering the details of our family’s story. This post describes the massacres they were fleeing from. 

The Ukrainian War of Independence: A Primer

There are a few things that you need to know about the Ukrainian War of Independence to put what happened in Savran into context. Jews had been in what is now Ukraine for several centuries, in part invited by Polish aristocracy to manage the economy as Christian peasants worked the land as serfs. Jews were the merchants, the tavern keepers, the money lenders, and the crafts people.

World War I saw the fall of the great empires of Europe, including the Russian Tsars who controlled what is now Ukraine for hundreds of years. With the monarchy toppled, there was a power vacuum in Ukraine. Three main groups fought to fill that vacuum:

• The White Russians, who sought to revive the Tsarist monarchy. Anton Denikin was their most prominent general. 
• The Red Russians, who sought to create a communist/Bolshevik/Soviet state. Mikhail Frunze and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko were the most prominent generals for the Red Army.
• Ukrainian nationalists, who sought to create an independent, democratic, and pluralistic Ukraine. Symon Vasyliovych Petliura was their most prominent general. 

In addition to those three groups, there were unaffiliated warlords, bandits, and anarchists who sought nothing but wealth for themselves. 

All of these groups had one thing in common. Each targeted Ukraine’s Jewish population. The Whites saw the Jews as communists, responsible for the fall of the monarchy and the assassination of the Tsar. The Reds saw the Jews as capitalists, taking advantage of the labor class. And while the urban Ukrainian intelligencia saw Jews as a vital part of a future independent state, the soldiers fighting the war on the ground saw Jews as foreigners in their midst responsible for the poor conditions of the peasants.

Orthodox Church in Savran, built 1912. The building is now the “House of Culture.” Courtesy of the Savran Library.

This is the background for what happened between 1917 and 1921 in hundreds of towns across Ukraine, including Savran. Multiple first-hand accounts of the violence of these years in Savran are quite consistent. Based on those accounts, I’ve developed the timeline of atrocities below. 

The Terrors of Savran

March 1917: Red Soldiers Come To Savran

A Jewish self-defense group, "Agudat Hamagen," was created- led by a Dr. Klein (or perhaps Dr. Adelman, according to Gootnick, 1987) to protect the Jews of Savran in the absence of civil authorities. The peasants of the town demanded that they be disarmed, but the group refused.

A few weeks later, a small group of Red soldiers came through the town en route to nearby fighting. Several of these soldiers were drunk. The Agudat Hamagen shot some bullets into the air to scare these soldiers off, but somehow one soldier and his horse were shot and killed during a confrontation.

Fearing retribution, Dr. Klein fled with his son, but was caught and beaten nearly to death by peasants. His father-in-law, Leib Kirzner (or Alters in another account), was arrested and later brutally killed for refusing to reveal the location of Jewish weapons. 

The chaos worsened as Jewish homes were looted and set on fire. Local peasants joined in with the soldiers, escalating the violence. Although the Jewish self-defense group managed to drive off some of the attackers by standing guard and firing shots throughout the night, the violence continued.

Dr. Klein and his father-in-law were eventually killed. “The peasants made a circle around him with music playing, and  began dancing. They killed him using whatever they had, including stones and wood, causing his blood to spill all over the street until he was dead and cut up into pieces.”

The Agudat Hamagen was no more, and there was nobody remaining to protect the Jews of Savran from the horrors to come.

September 1919: Bandits

In September 1919, a warlord named Kazakov arrived in Savran with a group of armed mercenaries. They kidnapped two of the local rabbinical judges, Rabbi Kalman Berditchevsky and Rabbi Zvi Braverman, as well as a local philanthropist Yakel Dechtyar. The bandits killed seven Jews as they fled the village for the countryside. Kazakov kept the rabbis as hostages and sent Mr. Dechtyar back to Savran to collect 200,000 rubles cash, clothing, boots, and dry goods as ransom.

In a period of about an hour, the town gathered the funds and sent it to Kazakov, but the delegation that carried the money did not find the mercenaries. Instead, they found the rabbis dead, having been mutilated. A peasant who remained with the rabbis’ corpses related that they had been tortured to death and their beards shaved off.

The bandits used them for sadistic entertainment.They had been ordered to sing a Sabbath hymn and to dance and afterward forced them to eat eggs with ash. Later, the townspeople found two sons of a local resident Moishe Bershadsky that had been shot to death and thrown into the Bug River. These boys were cousins of my grandmother.

Anton Denikin, leader of the Tsarist White Army during the Ukrainian War of Independence. 

December 1919 – March 1920: The Whites Attack

The worst violence to befall Savran occurred at the end of December 1919 and continued into the early months of 1920. It was then that the notorious Wolf Brigade of the White Russian Army came to Savran en route to nearby Kryvoe Ozero. In the course of this period, they managed to kill many Jews in a series of deadly pogroms, often aided by local peasants. Here are a few accounts of what occurred:

• As the Wolf Brigade rampaged, “…those who hid in holes and cellars froze and became sick from the cold and hunger. Parents did not know the fate of their children and children did not know the fate of their parents.”
• “All the Jews were killed by crude weapons. One Jew pleaded to be killed by a rifle and got this answer: ‘Every bullet is now very expensive, pay us the bullet price, and you will get killed this way’.”
• “Many children froze to death, in addition, they abducted the wives and violated young girls.”
• “The killing lasted three days, and after ten more days, more Danikinian factions came, and again butchered, raped, robbed and pillaged the town’s Jews. The casualties’ toll came to approximately 800 people. Many of the Savarn Jews fled to the nearby villages where they died of cold or hunger.”
• “They took 200,000 rubles out of the old man Boyes hands and promised when he gave the money they would let him live. But after taking his money, they put him against the wall, poured oil on him, and torched him alive. While he burned, they counted the money in front of his eyes. Then they killed his son.
• “They found Saul Chenoaus’s five-year-old son hiding under his bed. They asked him “Where is your father?” "I don’t know," the boy said. Immediately they cut him to pieces and threw his remains to the dogs.”
• “Israel Arages' wife, a very beautiful and graceful women, they took, raped, and decapitated.”

April 1920: The Local Peasants Make Their Intentions Clear

Around Passover 1920, a Jewish student from Savran traveled to Odessa with two Christians, transporting two wagon loads of sugar. They spent the night at a train station where the student had 35,000 rubles stolen from him. Reporting the theft to the new Bolshevik authorities, a search was conducted leading to the arrest of the two Christians, who were found with a large sum of money, counterfeit currency, two revolvers, and the confiscated sugar. Upon learning that the two Christians had not returned, the peasants of Savran responded with threats of violence towards the Jewish community, posting a proclamation that demanded the release of their people. This “warning” to the Jews of Savran said: 

Tatars, Kikes, and Communists

If you don't return our people to us, we will cut all of you. Petliura's men cut you but didn't finish. Denikin's men cut you but didn't finish. We will kill all of you; even a child in a cradle will not be spared. 

Union of Exterminators 

Testimony of Mademoiselle Bersheider about the incident with the students returning from Odessa. The account is written in Yiddish and Russian. This incident is also described in “Hebrew Yearbook for Autobiography, Ethnography and Folklore - Reshumoth”

Essentially, this “Union of Exterminators,” made up of individuals from the Savran community, was saying that while the Ukrainian Nationalist Army (Petiura) didn’t kill all of the Jews and the White Army (Denikin) didn’t kill all of Jews, they’d finish the job if the two criminals weren’t returned. An especially chilling note considering that the Jews of Savran were not the ones in custody of the two men. 

June 1920: The Whites Return

Factions of the White Russian army came back to Savran as they were fleeing defeat by the Red Army. They joined with local gangs and seized approximately 200 women and girls who they then raped, mutilated, and burned alive. Reports indicated that “old people were butchered, and little children were torn to pieces which were thrown to the faction's dogs.” The Jews cowered in cellars. Others tried to leave the town but were killed as they tried to flee. 

Their situation did not improve even after the White Russians left, as the town saw a period of disease and starvation. The war had brought typhus to almost every family, and there was no medical treatment available.

September 1920: The End to the Violence?

By fall of 1920, the Soviets were in clear control of this part of Podolia. There were several incidents of violence against the Jews of Savran by local peasants, but Red Army soldiers tamped down the violence with threats to local Christian leaders. However, the Jews of Savran had nothing left. So many had been killed, fled, or died of disease that their once vibrant community was essentially destroyed. Those who remained were traumatized and had no livelihood to return to. Years of war made food scarce. In short there was precious little hope for their future.

Le Village En Feu (Village on Fire) – Marc Chagall - 1940 

Afterwards

The Reds, the Whites, and the local gangs all targeted the Jewish population of Savran even though they had no knowledge of them personally. Jews were worth humiliating, robbing, raping, and killing just because they were Jewish. Each group had rationalization and pretext, but in the end, it is just another example of sadistic antisemitism. It is just one in a long line of inexcusable terrors that have befallen the Jews for more than two millennia. 

My family was there. I don't know when they left Savran. I don't know what atrocities they personally faced. I don't know how the trauma affected them then or for the rest of their lives. And I don't know how it affects me generations later. 

When the atrocities perpetrated against innocent Israelis on October 7, 2023 started becoming clear, every newscast said that it was the “biggest massacre of Jews since the Shoah.” But my mind went to Savran. Never again should never have had to be said.

Bibliography

Accounts of the Savran Pogroms

• Account of Savran Pogroms by Avraham Drucker, 1921; YIVO Archives; Records of the Mizrakh Yidisher Historisher Arkhiv; RG 80; Folder 323; Pages 30028 - 30033. Translation by Dov Bergman.
• Reports of Savran Pogroms by Two Unnamed Survivors. From “Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-1924. Documents of the Kiev Oblast’ Commission for Relief to Victims of Pogroms (Obshetskom)” (Fond 3050; Opis 1; File 241; Pages 38 and 39 of 48). Downloaded from the United States Holocaust Museum (RG Number: RG-31.057M; Accession Number: 2006.38; Reel 18; File 241). Yiddish translated by Lili Rosen.
• Report of Savran Pogroms by Nahum Fishman. From “Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-1924. Documents of the Kiev Oblast’ Commission for Relief to Victims of Pogroms (Obshetskom)” (Fond 3050; Opis 1; File 241; Page 35 of 48). Downloaded from the United States Holocaust Museum (RG Number: RG-31.057M; Accession Number: 2006.38; Reel 18; File 241). Yiddish translated by Lili Rosen.
• Report of Savran Pogroms by Mademoiselle Bersheider. From “Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-1924. Documents of the Kiev Oblast’ Commission for Relief to Victims of Pogroms (Obshetskom)” (Fond 3050; Opis 1; File 241; Page 36-38 of 48). Downloaded from the United States Holocaust Museum (RG Number: RG-31.057M; Accession Number: 2006.38; Reel 18; File 241). Yiddish translated by Lili Rosen. Russian translated by Clara and Genadi Kaminsky.
• Report of the Delegates of the Refugees from Savran about their Circumstances, 1921; From “Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-1924. Documents of the Kiev Oblast’ Commission for Relief to Victims of Pogroms (Obshetskom) (Fond 3050; Opis 1; File 241; Page 34 of 48). Downloaded from the United States Holocaust Museum (RG Number: RG-31.057M; Accession Number: 2006.38; Reel 18; File 241). Translated by Alex Olshevsky.
• The Attack on Savran in Podolia County. from "Hebrew Yearbook for Autobiography, Ethnography and Folklore - Reshumoth" (Volume 3). Berlin 1923 (Moriya – Devir publishers, Jerusalem –Berlin). Pages 425 - 426. Translated by Reuven Telefus. 
• Gootnick, Abraham, 1987. Oh Say, Can You See: Chaos, and a Dream of Peace. University Press of America.
• Thirty Days of a Jewish Pogrom in Krivoye-Ozero. A.F. Maleyev. Dec 1919 – Jan 1920. Written March 1920. Odessa, Ukraine. Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Item ID: 234436; Reference Code: NY AR191921/4/36/3/260.

General References on the 1917 - 1921 Ukrainian Pogroms 

• Avrutin, Eugene M., Bemporad, Elissa. (2021). Pogroms: A Documentary History. Oxford University Press.
• Bemporad, Elissa (2019). Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets. Oxford University Press.
• Coder, Aaron. (1921). Ukrainians And Jews: After The Downfall Of The Russian Empire, 1917-1920. Second edition. Independently published.
• Batchinsky, Julian. (2018). The Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine Authoritative Statements on the Question of Responsibility for Recent Outbreaks, Against the Jews in Ukraine. Forgotten Books: London, UK.
• Granick, Jaclyn (2021). International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War. Cambridge University Press. 
• Heifetz, Elias. (1921) The Slaughter of the Jews in the Ukraine in 1919. Seltzer: New York, New York.
• Evidence of Pogroms in Poland and Ukraine: Documents, Accounts of Eyewitnesses, Proceedings in  Polish Parliament, Local Press Reports, etc, (1919), New York: Information Bureau of the Committee for the Defense of Jews in Poland and Other East European Countries affiliated with the American Jewish Congress.
• Shtif, Nokhem and Wolfthal, Maurice. (2019). The Pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-19: Prelude to the Holocaust. Open Book Publishers. Translated and annotated by Maurice Wolfthal. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.
• Veidlinger, Jeffrey. (2021). In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust. Metropolitan Books: New York, New York.