Apr 6: Kishinev, Russia: Last day of Pesach (Passover) / coinciding that year with Easter:
YIVO –
“The Kishinev pogrom was an anti–Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire (now the capital of Moldova) on April 6–7, 1903.
The riot started after an incident on April 6 when a Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, about 25 miles north of Kishinev. Although it was clear that the boy had been murdered by a relative (who was later found), the Russian–language anti–Semitic newspaper (Bessarabetz, meaning “Bessarabian”), published by Pavel Krushevan, insinuated that he was murdered by the Jews. Another newspaper, (Svet, “Light”), used the ages–old blood libel against the Jews (alleging that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzo).
The US President Theodore Roosevelt to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia: “Stop your cruel oppression of the Jews.”
A lithograph in relation to the first Kishinev pogrom. (Library of Congress)
The Kishinev pogrom spanned three days of rioting against the Jews. Forty–seven (some put the figure at 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses looted and destroyed. The Times published a forged dispatch by Vyacheslav von Plehve, the Minister of Interior, to the governor of Bessarabia, which supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters, but, in any case, no attempt was made by the police or military to intervene to stop the riots until the third day. This non–intervention is an argument in support of the opinion that the pogrom was sponsored or, at least, tolerated by the state.”
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Pogroms Online, http://www.yivoinstitute.org/downloads/Pogroms.pdf (accessed June 14, 2009)
New York Times –
“The anti–Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid–out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, “Kill the Jews,” was taken–up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered…. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.”
“Jewish Massacre Denounced,” New York Times, April 28, 1903, p 6.