The Kishinev Massacre: A Russian Pogrom That Shocked the World — But Not for Long

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On April 6-8, 1903 — continuing on April 19-21 and later in October 1905 — vicious anti-Jewish attacks, which became known as the Kishinev Pogrom, took place in the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire. (The location is now Chișinău, the capital of Moldova.) At the time, the antisemitic murders, rapes, and destruction of property shocked the world but were soon forgotten. American Jews provided financial aid to the victims and assisted some of the Jews to emigrate. It was one reason Zionist Theodore Herzl proposed the “Uganda Scheme” to resettle the Jews in Africa.

Quote: “So shattering were the aftereffects of Kishinev, the rampage that broke out in late-Tsarist Russia in April 1903, that one historian remarked that it was “nothing less than a prototype for the Holocaust itself.” In three days of violence, 49 Jews were killed and 600 raped or wounded, while more than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransacked and destroyed.”
— from goodreads,com, about

Sources: Wikipedia, goodreads.com

Learn more about the Kishinev pogrom on Wikipedia. >>

Watch “Rethinking Kishinev: How a Riot Changed 20th Century Jewish History” [1:23:06]. >>

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“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.