Preparations for Abram Broitman's Arrival

A Coordinated Effort

Abram Broitman boarded the S.S. Asia in Constanța, Romania on July 7, 1924, part of a group of 380 refugees. Previous blog posts lay out his departure from Romania and journey at sea; but in the meantime, on land, the ship’s departure touched off a flurry of activity among Jewish aid groups and communities in Romania, France, Canada, and the United States.

• The Central Relief Committee (CR). The CR, an organization with a mandate to support Jewish victims of war, was on the ground in Bucharest providing aid to Russian Jewish refugees. Abram’s passenger record to Halifax listed a Central Relief Committee office as his closest contact in Romania. 
• The Jewish Colonization Association (JCA or ICA). This was the key aid group facilitating the refugee program. Founded in 1914, their mandate was to establish self-sustaining Jewish agricultural colonies in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Mandatory Palestine. Their offices in Paris, Montreal, and Winnipeg were instrumental in ensuring that Abram and his fellow refugees would find safety. 
• The Jewish Immigrant Aid Society (JIAS). The Canadian incarnation of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, this organization was involved in supporting Abram and the other refugees both when they departed Romania and when they arrived in Canada. JIAS representatives would be some of the first officials they would encounter in Halifax.
• The Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). The JDC was primarily responsible for raising the necessary funds, in the United States, to ensure that the new Canadian arrivals had sufficient resources not to become a burden on the state.  
• Canadian Jewish communities in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and as far west as Saskatoon were instrumental in integrating Abram and his refugee shipmates into Canadian Jewish life. 

All these groups needed to work in concert in order to make the refugees’ resettlement in North America possible. They had to (a) meet the conditions for departure and arrival laid out by each government; (b) ensure that sufficient funds were available to pay for the food and transportation by sea and rail; and (c) manage the anxiety and uncertainty that the refugees were facing. 

Notification

Today, this kind of project would be coordinated via instant global communications; but in 1924, there weren’t even reliable phone lines between the relevant European offices. The primary modes of communication were telegram and postal mail, with the result that each aid group had to operate somewhat independently. Only once an organization was notified that the next batch of refugees was en route they could begin to plan for their arrival. 

• 1924, early June: JCA representatives in Bucharest, Romania notify Abram that he has been given the green light to immigrate to Canada. 
• Tuesday, June 24: Abram obtains a passport and departure visa from the Russian Consulate in Bucharest. 
• Friday, July 4: Abram leaves Bucharest for Constanța, Romania. 
• Wednesday, July 9: The S.S. Asia sets sail from Constanța.
• Monday, July 14: JCA representatives in Montreal receive notification, via telegram, of the S.S. Asia’s departure and its estimated arrival date in Halifax. It is unclear if the JCA is given details about the composition of this group of refugees – how many are single? married? families with children? – but regardless, at this point the JCA has to make initial decisions about assigning the refugees to various Canadian cities. Telegrams are sent to JCA and JIAS representatives in Montreal and Winnipeg informing them that this newest group of refugees will be arriving in about two weeks.

Letter from JCA Montreal to Rabbi Barnet Brickner of Toronto informing him of the impending arrival of the S.S. Asia. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. ICA-S-CB-17

The S.S. Asia had already been at sea for five days by the time news of its departure reached JCA and JIAS representatives across Canada. Now the negotiations began.

Trouble in the Colonies

The process of assigning the new arrivals to communities across Canada was tricky. One the one hand, the mission of the JCA was to establish agricultural colonies, and the Canadian federal government had explicitly mandated that a certain proportion of the refugees work as farmhands. On the other hand, the practicality of settling the refugees in the Western provinces was significantly limited by the cost of supporting them, the poor crop yield of 1924, and the refugees’ agricultural capabilities -- or distinct lack thereof. 

These new arrivals had been merchants and tradespeople back in Russia. The idea of working as farmhands probably seemed preposterous to them, not least of all because back “home,” Jews had been barred from agricultural work by the Czar. The prospect of being assigned to agricultural destinations in Canada was so unappealing that earlier groups of refugees had actually refused to travel past Montreal. Accordingly, Abram and his fellow passengers had to sign pledges to go where they were told -- and to do so without complaint.

Oath required of refugee passengers on the S.S. Asia. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. ICA-S-CB-17

The JCA representatives in Montreal expected to send a large number of the S.S. Asia refugees to the agricultural colonies out West: their help was presumably needed with the upcoming harvest, and the Jewish communities in Montreal and Toronto couldn’t absorb any more indigent newcomers anyway. When news of this plan reached the western colonies, however, JCA and JIAS representatives in Winnipeg sounded the alarm. According to correspondence dated between June 17 and June 25, the agricultural colonies could not accept additional refugees, and the small Jewish communities could only take them if they were provided with sufficient funds to house and support them. An emergency meeting of local Jewish leaders was called for June 25 in Winnipeg. While the minutes of that meeting are not available, we can assume it was made clear by telegraph to those JCA leaders in Montreal assigning refugees to the various communities that only a handful of those arriving on the S.S. Asia could be sent to the West.

Excerpt of letter dated 25 July 1924 from a JCA representative in Winnipeg to the JCA office in Montreal. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. ICA-CB-21.1-39

This probably suited Abram and his fellow refugees just fine. Most of them would ultimately be settled in the cities of Montreal and Toronto. But this failure to turn refugees into farmers would mean the JCA would fall short of its mission and be out of compliance with the stipulations laid out by the Canadian government. Adding to their difficulties was a lack of funds: JDC representatives from New York would arrive in August with only a fraction of the money needed to support the struggling new arrivals -- money they had expected to raise from the American Jewish community. The burden of supporting the refugees would fall to the comparatively small Canadian Jewish community instead.

The Days Before the Arrival of the S.S. Asia

In the five days that elapsed between the JIAS-JCA leadership meeting in Winnipeg and the arrival of the S.S. Asia in Halifax, the JCA offices in Montreal finalized how Abram and his 379 fellow refugees would be spread across the country.

Next time: Abram arrives in Halifax

Reconnecting with Pears and Bears in London

The small Ukrainian shtetl of Medzhybizh is largely known today for being the birthplace of the Chasidism movement and the final resting place of its founder, the Baal Shem Tov. It is also one of my ancestral towns - the place where my great-grandmother, Sarah Birnberg Telles - was born. Their surname was Birnberg [Бирнберг] or Berenberg [Беренберг] or Birenberg [Биренберг] or possibly Bernberg [Бернберг].The name appears in English records in so many varieties that some folks have questioned if I'm making it up. Birnberg means "Pear Mountain" (in German) while Berenberg means "Bear Mountain" (in Dutch). I think pears are more likely than bears in this case!

Meyer Birnberg had at least six children between 1860 and 1893 when my great-grandmother Sarah was born. In 1910, Sarah came to the US following in the footsteps of her brothers/half-brothers Nathan (who came in 1901), Edel Leib (who came in 1905), and Louis (who came in 1906).^1,2 But while much of the family came to the US, her older brother Joseph immigrated to and settled in London. He and his wife Rachel had five girls, each of whom had families of their own.

My New York-based family remained in contact with this branch of the family into the 1960s and even hosted one cousin, Brenda, when she first moved to the US in the 1960s. Thanks to my mother's impeccable records, I found Brenda's married name in the invitation list to my parents' wedding in 1965. Sadly, when Sarah's generation passed on, the remaining family members did not maintain those connections. In fact, beyond Brenda we really didn’t know anything at all about the family – not even the names of Joseph’s daughters.

When I became interested in genealogy in the late 1990s, I contacted Brenda. She was so wonderful to speak with, regaling me with stories of her exciting life in the most wonderful lilting accent. Unfortunately, her promises to provide me with the names and dates needed to flesh out the family tree and connect with others never materialized. She did mention her nephew’s name to me (let’s call him "Ronald" for the sake of anonymity), but never even told me what his surname was! Eventually I lost track of Brenda as she moved from one assisted living facility to another.

Several years ago, I decided to track down the family. First, I spent time with the 1911 England Census, finding a few promising candidates for my Joseph Birnberg. Bingo! I found a record with six daughters³. Then I traced the families of each of the daughters, hoping to find records of Brenda to verify conclusively that it was the right family. 

1911 census record of Joseph Birnberg and his family
Class: RG14; Piece: 1509; Title: 1911 England Census. Downloaded from Ancestry.com Aug 2024

It took some time, but with online birth, marriage, death, and burial records I was able to flesh out the whole family tree. I took the following steps: 

• Noted the names of each of the daughters and their approximate dates of birth, keeping in mind variations in given names (e.g., Leah, Lily, and Lilian could all be the same person)
• Confirmed the years of birth using the online "England & Wales Civil Registration Birth Index"
• Identified marriage records for each of the daughters to determine dates of marriages and married names in the "England & Wales Civil Registration Marriage Index."
• Identified the children of each of the daughters by searching the birth index, filtering by "Mother's Maiden Name."
• Located likely death records in the "England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index."
• Verified information with any additional records I could find, including online probate records and photos of headstones that indicate the father's name (via "Find a Grave", for instance). Joseph Birnberg's headstone indicates his father was Meyer, as expected.

Eventually, this allowed me to find records for the extended family, including Brenda, her sister, and her sister’s son "Ronald." It was confirmed; I had successfully identified the English branch of my great-grandmother’s family! Now to track down “Ronald” to get back in touch. Facebook? No go. But LinkedIn had several people with the right name, right places, and approximately the right ages. I reached out to each of them privately with a message I hoped would convince them I wasn’t trying to scam them. You could imagine how excited I was when one of them wrote back to say he was the right one!

Brenda sadly passed away recently, but I was able to speak to her 97-year-old sister last year, my mother's second-cousin. This week, following a work trip to England, I was thrilled to meet “Ronald,” my third-cousin, as well as his son. They showed me and my wife parts of the city we might never have gone to! We did not find a "Bear and Pear" pub, but maybe we will next time. I’d like to think that Sarah and Joseph Birnberg are smiling that the family has been reunited after a century. 

"The Bear and the Pear Pub"
Courtesy of DALL-E 3

1 Another brother, Jacob Birnberg, allegedly went to Argentina and worked with horses. However, I’ve found no records of that. I’ve contacted every Birnberg in Argentina, and we are not related as far as I’ve been able to determine. Many Jews immigrated to South America, supported in part by the JCA/ICA. Perhaps Jacob went to Brazil instead!

2. It is likely that all of the siblings shared a father but may have had different mothers. It isn't clear what the half-sibling relationships were, though. Many genealogical records from Medzhybizh were destroyed in a fire in 2003, so we may never know. 

3. The 1911 census record indicates that Joseph and Rachel had another child who died before 1911. I've been unable to determine their name, although the England & Wales Civil Registration Birth and Death Indexes has a few candidates. Sadly, one of the daughters listed on this census, Golda, died soon after the census was taken according to the England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index. Another daughter, Rifka, was born and died in 1912 at five months old.    

Abram Broitman's Journey on the S.S. Asia

The Fabre Line's S.S. Asia.
Undated Postcard

The Journey

On July 9, 1924, Abram Broitman boarded the S.S. Asia at the Black Sea port of Constanța. Its route for this voyage would take it through the Turkish Straits separating the Black Sea from the Aegean; on to the Mediterranean; through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean; and finally, to the deep-water port of Halifax. A mid-sized steamship, owned at that point by the Fabre Line, the S.S. Asia was built in 1907 and could carry over 1,400 passengers. Third-class cabins, which made up the majority of the accommodations, had up to six berths each. The Fabre Line’s advertising noted, in both Yiddish and English, that the Asia boasted “shower baths” and “hygienic lavatories,” and meals would be served in “spacious and elegant dining rooms” by “courteous waiters.” Given the conditions Abram and the refugees had endured for the previous few years, it must have seemed luxurious. 

Fabre Line third-class cabin

Fabre Line dining hall Photos from advertisements for the Fabre Line ships S.S. Bagra and S.S. Asia. Images courtesy of the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives

Supporting Jewish Practice on the High Seas

The Jewish Colonization Association had gone to great lengths to ensure that the trip would in fact be as comfortable as possible for the refugees. A 1924 press release stated that Fabre Line ships would provide strictly kosher food for the Jewish emigrants and would carry a “Sepher Thora,” a Torah scroll, with a special room being set aside for use as a sanctuary “on shabbes and festivals.” 

While no Jewish holidays fell during the three weeks that Abram was aboard the ship, his voyage included three sabbaths at sea, meaning that three weekly Torah portions were read. One of these was Parashat Balak (Numbers 22:2-25:9), which includes the story of the non-Israelite prophet Balaam (and his talking donkey.) Balaam is hired by King Balak of Moab to curse the Israelites, but finds he is only able to bless them. One can imagine Abram and his fellow refugees reflecting on their circumstances that shabbat morning, and hoping that despite the intentions of those who wanted to harm them, they would find blessing in their new country. 

Press release sent from the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) in Paris to JIAS.
20 Feb 1924. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. JIAS-CA-26-5441-JCA

The Missing Passengers

While the S.S. Asia had berths for 1,480 people, it’s possible that the 380 refugees in third class were the only passengers on board. The United States had seen a flood of immigration between 1890 and 1914, but with the outbreak of World War I, all immigration essentially ceased. Immigration increased when the war ended, but the political appetite for new immigrants was very low. By 1924 there were strict quotas for new immigrants in place. In the U.S. these were based on the makeup of the American population in 1890. In Canada the restrictions were less draconian, but still heavily favored Northern and Western Europeans. In both countries, immigration legislation and policy had the purposeful effect of severely restricting the entry of Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Eastern European would-be émigrés.

With these populations all but barred from entry, there was limited demand for steerage accommodations; hence the likelihood that the 380 refugees, including Abram Broitman, were the only passengers on the ship. Halifax was not a typical destination for Fabre Line ships, and according to Halifax arrival records for that July, the only people to disembark from the S.S. Asia were refugees.^1,2 

Next time: Preparations in Canada for the arrival of the S.S. Asia and the newest crop of refugees. 

1. Ancestry.com. Canada, Ocean Arrivals (Form 30A), 1919-1924 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.Original data: Library and Archives Canada. Form 30A, 1919-1924 (Ocean Arrivals). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada, n.d. RG 76. Department of Employment and Immigration Fonts. Microfilm Reels: T-14939 to T-15248.

2. There is no record of the S.S. Asia arriving in New York in July or August of 1924. I have reached out to archivists at the Steamship Historical Society in Providence, RI to learn if they anchored there or in Boston. 

Abram Broitman's Departure from Romania

Advertisement for the Fabre Line ships S.S. Bagra and S.S. Asia. Passage from Constantinople, Constanța, and Odessa to New York (top) and to Jaffa and Haifa (bottom). Abram Broitman took the S.S. Asia on a chartered voyage in July of 1924 with a group of 380 refugees. Image courtesy of the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives

By July 1924, the Broitman family was in a desperate situation. Abram Broitman, his wife Chaika, and their three surviving children – Anita, Aron, and Raisel – were living in poverty in Bucharest after fleeing the pogroms of the Ukrainian War of Independence. The town they had lived in for several generations, Savran, had been one of many places to endure massacres, disease, and starvation. The journey to Bucharest – via Kishinev – had been equally harrowing, with the Broitmans’ few remaining possessions being stolen and two of their children dying of waterborne diseases. They had eventually made the dangerous passage across the Dniester River from Ukraine to the relative safety of Romania.¹ 

Sometime between 1919 and 1923 the Broitmans had spent a few years in Kishinev with their Bershadsky cousins, with whom they had made the dangerous journey. But Kishinev had gotten crowded as an estimated 50,000 fellow Jewish refugees had flooded the Romanian border region abutting the newly-formed Soviet Union. Bucharest, further from the border, was better, but only slightly: Romanian authorities severely limited what employment their new Russian Jewish “guests” could seek. According to the Jewish Colonization Association, in 1924 there were still an estimated 4,000-8,000 Jewish refugees in Romania.² Many, like the Broitmans, had visas allowing them to join family in the United States; but the passage of the restrictive and infamously discriminatory Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 effectively ended the Eastern European Jewish immigration wave of 1892-1914. So the Broitmans remained in Bucharest, supported in large part by the Jewish aid groups Central Relief and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). 

Luckily, in 1924, the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA or ICA) in Canada was able to convince the Canadian government in Ottawa to accept a limited number of refugees. There were strings attached, of course. 

1. The refugees needed to demonstrate that they had sufficient financial resources that they wouldn’t be a burden on the state. Otherwise, the Jewish philanthropic organizations facilitating refugee resettlement had to raise funds to support them. 
2. A portion of the refugees needed to settle in the prairie provinces and work as farmers. 
3. The steamships used to transport the refugees needed to be Canadian-flagged vessels.

This was Abram Broitman’s chance. He would go to Canada, raise enough money to bring his wife (now pregnant) and children to join him, and eventually gain entry to the U.S. On June 24, 1924, Abram was issued a passport by the Russian Consulate in Bucharest indicating that he held Russian citizenship. This was remarkable, because the country of Russia had ceased to exist years earlier! But the Imperial Russian consulates remained in operation in large part to support the stateless refugees and manage Russian property abroad.³ 

Passenger Record of Abram Broitman on the S.S. Asia, 1924.

Abram wasted no time in arranging his departure. Ten days later, on July 4, 1924, he purchased a ticket (with funds supplied by American and Canadian donors through the JDC to the JCA) from Constanța, Romania to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Although he was a married lumber merchant, he indicated on his passenger record that he was a unmarried farmer – presumably to convince the Central Relief Committee officials to allow him passage. Over the next five days he made his way by train from Bucharest to the Black Sea port of Constanța, leaving his family behind. 

Exactly 100 years ago this week, on July 9, 1924, Abram set sail on the S.S. Asia, a French-flagged vessel, with 380 fellow refugees. Destination: Canada. 

Next time: Abram's Journey on the S.S. Asia

Postcard depicting Bucharest's North Station, circa 1930.

Postcard depicting the Port of Constanța, 1927.

Postcard of Fabre Line S.S. Asia.  The vessel met a tragic end in 1930 when it sank off the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Memo for Mr. Lyon Cohen regarding the number of refugees who may be sent to Canada Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives ICA. 6 January 1924.

1. For an account of a similar journey by fellow Savraner refugees, I recommend “Oh Say Can You See Chaos and a Dream of Peace” by Abraham Gootnick. University Press of America, 1987.
2. Memorandum for Mr. Lyon Cohen, chairman of the Jewish Colonization Association of Canada regarding the number of Russian refugees who may be sent to Canada. Sent 6 Jan 1924. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. Montreal, Canada. ICA-S-CB-18. Two pages.  
3. Personal correspondence, Jeffrey Veidlinger, Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of  History and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan. 3 April 2023.

Genealogy Pride 2024

June is Pride Month, a time when LGBTQ+ lives and history are recognized and celebrated. This got me thinking about the intersection of Pride Month and genealogy. Here are a few reflections based on my own experiences:

·        A cousin of my father’s—a WWII veteran—committed suicide at the age of 26. When I began talking with some of my older cousins in the late 1990s, they spoke in hushed tones about the mental health issues that led to his death. Rumors that he was gay were even more whispered. The stigmas were so strong that they couldn’t be openly discussed even 50 years after his passing.

·        My grandfather, Jack Weil, had two brothers (Abe and Moe) and a sister (Sadie) who never married. Were they gay? I’m not sure—family members told me that Sadie dated men seriously, but it "just never happened for her." I do know that my great-uncle Abe Weil was quite eccentric, owned an antique shop, and had the icon of a roller skate (or ice skate?) on his tombstone.

·        Getting genealogical software to recognize same-sex relationships was a struggle for the first 10+ years I was doing family history research. I had to "trick" the software into accepting my cousin’s family by initially entering one member of the couple as a man, then changing her gender afterward. Even then, I would receive errors every time I accessed her record!

·        Indicating that someone is trans or non-binary is still challenging with the software I’ve encountered. Most programs assume a static gender binary: a person is born male and remains male for life. In reality, a person might be assumed male as a child but identify with a different gender—or none at all—later in life. Newer software has more options for gender and doesn’t base relationships on the gender binary.

·        Names change too, and I try very hard to avoid deadnaming relatives. I’m not always successful, as records are often tied to "official" names rather than the names people use every day.

My genealogical philosophy is to represent people and relationships in my records as they truly are, rather than in some idealized form. I grew up with gay cousins who had families of their own and saw the generations before me slowly come to terms with their prejudiced notions of the traditional Jewish family and gender expectations. With the current generation, I’ve been thrilled to include more same-sex couples, trans cousins, and non-traditional family units in ways that are... unremarkable and normal. As it should be. Happy Pride!

 

Happy New Year 2024!

Dear Friends, Family, Colleagues, and Co-Workers,

May the new year bring us moments of connection, understanding, and sincere contentment.

Looking forward to the promise of new beginnings in the year ahead. 

Happy 2024 from the Weil Family

Account of the Savran Pogroms 1917 - 1919

As part of my family history research, I've been working to understand the violent pogroms that led my maternal grandmother's family to flee the Russian Pale of Settlement seeking a safer life in the U.S. Ten years ago I found an account of the pogroms in Savran, Ukraine and since that time I've been looking for other accounts that could add to my understanding of the horrors. I recently found a second contemporary account and it is every bit as disturbing. 

WARNING: Graphic Content

Savran, Podolia Gubernia, Balta District 

(Peasants – Gangs - Petliyuras—1917-1919)

Avraham Drucker, a 31-year-old merchant from the town of Savran in the Balta District of Podolia-Gubernia, who is currently residing in Warsaw, has consented to narrate his experiences during the pogroms that occurred in his hometown.

In our town, the Jewish community is composed of merchants and craftsmen, while the Christian population comprises peasants, landowners, and craftsmen. In 1905, the peasants in our town contemplated initiating a pogrom, since pogroms occurred in Balta, Bofola, and in the impoverished townlets. However, they were hesitant to do so because they were aware of our organized self-defense group, which had the backing of the state police.

Starting in 1917, several peasants started raiding Jewish individuals, and there were isolated attacks in the city. On the evening of Thursday, March 18, 1917, there were no authorities present in the town, prompting a group of 30 peasants to assemble and demand that the organized self-defense group surrender their weapons. The leader of the self-defense organization was a Jew named Dr. Klein, and Avraham Drucker and 40 other comrades were also members of the group.

The Jews refused to comply with the peasants' demand, causing the peasants to depart. 

A week later, on Friday, March 25, 1917, when the Bolsheviks first retreated from the Petliyuras, a few Bolsheviks passed through our town. Everything was peaceful. Three or four drunken Bolshevik drunkards remained. The Jewish self-defense group was quickly notified, and the entire group gathered together to respond. 

When the Jewish self-defense group demanded that the drunken Bolshevik looters leave, they refused to comply. As a result, we fired shots into the air. However, another person also fired a shot, which hit a Red with a horse and killed them, causing a commotion. The self-defense group fled, leaving only six men behind. Observing the chaos in the town and hearing rumors that the Jews had killed a soldier without cause, the remaining six individuals also departed. Dr. Klein, who was overwhelmed with fear, rushed home and grabbed his son, along with two revolvers and a rifle, before fleeing the city. His wife was not present in the house. 

Upon arriving home, Dr. Klein's wife was informed of the events and immediately began searching for him. Meanwhile, the peasants noticed the doctor fleeing with weapons outside of town and chased after him. They caught up with him near a Gentile's home and severely beat him, nearly to the point of death. During this time, the doctor's father-in-law, Leib Kirzner, arrived at the scene. The peasants arrested Kirzner but left the doctor, assuming he was dead. They hoped that Kirzner would reveal the location of the Jewish weapons, but he refused to do so. 

Drucker accompanied a peasant to the doctor's location and brought him back to his home. Upon learning that the doctor had returned home, the peasants looted his residence, breaking windows and doors in the process. As the peasants continued to loot Jewish homes and even set fire to the Jewish center, the Jewish residents began hiding and eventually fleeing the town. The looting persisted until the Sabbath, after which the town quieted down a bit and people started to venture out into the streets. There was an attempt to release the doctor's father-in-law, but it was not successful until the afternoon. 

Around 2 PM in the afternoon, a patrol of six Red riders arrived. Upon seeing the Reds, the peasants claimed that the Jews had killed a soldier, one of their comrades, over a sum of three kopeks. The Reds didn't take any immediate action and instead waited for the soldier's funeral to take place. Upon hearing of the funeral, the Jews fled the town. The funeral took place at 3 PM, accompanied by music, and a ribbon was placed on the casket that read, "The Jews killed our comrade for 3 kopeks." 

During the funeral, the peasants released the doctor's father-in-law, stripped him naked, dressed him in a white shirt, and led him between two horses to their cemetery. After the funeral, the Red Army conducted a big parade, and on their way back, they brought Kirzner, the Jewish man, back to town. The peasants made a circle around him with music playing, and they 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. After the killing, the looting continued until 8 PM. 

In some parts of the city, members of the Jewish self-defense organization armed themselves and gathered to push back the attackers. As they approached a Jewish home, they shouted, "Comrade, leave!" Gradually, the self-defense organization managed to drive the bandits out of town. They stood guard all night, firing shots to prevent anyone from entering the town. Finally, the town quieted down.

In April of 1917, Drucker traveled to Balta. Subsequently, the Austrians arrived and occupied the area until August 25, 1918. During this time, there was peace. The Austrians controlled the Hetmanate—Skoropadskyi. Petliyura emerged and began to drive out the Hetmanates, causing unrest once again. Petliyura's regime divided into two factions, with half supporting the Reds and the other half supporting the Whites. In October 1918, the two factions started fighting against each other. 

During this time, a group of Setchevkias, led by Zabolotny, invaded Balta from Petliyura's gang. About 3 to 4 thousand men accompanied them, and they immediately started firing their guns in the middle of the city. This happened on a Wednesday in October 1918. Throughout the day of their arrival, the Setchevkias gang entered the town, immediately unleashing a campaign of looting and murder. Over the course of the day, 168 Jews were killed in unspeakably cruel ways, and many women were raped. I heard one soldier rape a Jewish seamstress under my window. Her screams were unbearable, and he killed her afterwards.

The pogrom continued for eight days, during which they looted and killed indiscriminately. On the eighth night, they left the city. Ir two weeks, the city was calm, but right-wing authorities, under the rule of Zabolotny and Petliyura's officers. Jews were afraid to even walk the streets. 

The atmosphere of fear prevailed for three months, until November 1919, when the Reds (Petliyuras) started to gain strength and drove out the Zablitonis on a Thursday night. At the station, there was a group of Setchevkes with an armored train, whom the Reds tried to expel. On Friday morning, the Setchevkes fired from the armored train into the city, Snipers fell into the city. This created a terrible fear among the Jews, and many of them fled the city. The situation persisted throughout Friday, until that night when the Whites' cheered that they entered the city. 

The city was already burning and being looted. On the Sabbath, there was a temporary calm, and we ventured back into the city. However, they demanded that a Jewish delegation bring half a million rubles in gold within an hour. When they saw that we weren't bringing the money, they started shooting in the streets on the Sabbath, killing three Jews on the spot. 

This went on from the Sabbath until Wednesday, during which time they killed 238 Jews, who had been hiding in cellars and attics, and looted everything in sight. The brutality included the rape of as many as 300 women, and the assault of eight pregnant women. The killings were particularly gruesome, with dismembered limbs, decapitated heads, mutilated children, and women who were both violated and killed. 

The house where Drucker was—at a Christian—Drucker's Christian host was fortunate not to have been targeted by the gangs that entered the city. On a Wednesday, the gangs went into a cellar where 68 Jews were hiding, and used a bomb to blow open the door before opening fire and stealing money. After this incident, the city remained quiet until shortly before Purim in 1919, when the city was left without any authority. 

Zabolotny and the Reds then began fighting over Balta, resulting in the Zabolotnis entering the city and killing 132 Jews. Attempting to hide from the gangs, many Jews drowned. The remaining Jews fled the city as the gangs continued their looting. This continued until Sunday when Drucker left for Savran. He faced many challenges on the way, as he was traveling with his wife and children. The non-Jewish locals were too afraid to let them stay overnight, so they had to pay 20 rubles to stay with a gentile on the outskirts of town. The roads were muddy, and the horses had difficulty traveling. 

Finally, after Purim, they arrived in Savran. It remained quiet there until June 1920. During the period spent in Savran, a terrible pogrom occurred. 

A group of marauding gangs seized approximately 200 young girls and treated them like tethered horses. They led them into a stall. Some were raped right on the street. Some of the girls had their hair set on fire with naphtha, causing them to burn alive. A few of them had their breasts mutilated in the middle of the road.

Two rabbis were sent on a delegation to a village near the river Bug. They were ordered to take out boiling eggs from a pot using their bare hands. The attackers then set fire to their beards and forced them to dance. This incident occurred in Chemerpil [small village now in Kirovohrad Oblast across the Bug River – SAW]. Later, the attackers cut off their fingers and ears in small pieces before amputating their hands and feet. 

Upon Drucker's return home, the Jewish community learned about the tragic fate of two Jewish brothers, Yosef and Yehoshua Bershader, who were hunted down and drowned in the Bug River. In addition to this, there were many women in the community who were suffering from typhus. When the mothers warned them that they could contract typhus, the men replied, "Let typhus be afraid of us. We are not afraid of typhus." Many men were killed because they did not allow their wives to be raped. Many of the dead could not be collected because they were dismembered. One person, Fischel Dicker, was strangled with a noose 10 times in order to force him to reveal where his money was. 

In May 1920, Drucker and his family left Savran and traveled to Odessa. From there, they went to Bershid when the Poles entered the area. After that, they went to Poland. By the time Passover 1921 came around, Drucker is considering leaving again, but he is uncertain about where to go.

Avraham Drucker

August 8, 1921

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.