Living My Life - Emma Goldman [266]
The old rabbi being too shaken to continue, the narrative was taken up by another of the committee. Fastov had been, he said, one of the most prosperous cities in the south. When the Denikin hordes tired of their blood orgy, they pilfered every home, demolished the things they could not carry away, and set the houses on fire. The larger part of the town was destroyed. The survivors, a mere handful, most of them old women and small children, were now doomed to slow extinction unless help quickly came from somewhere. God had heard their prayers and had sent us at the moment when they had almost despaired of the Jewish world’s learning of their great calamity. “Borukh Adonai!” he cried solemnly, “blessed be Thy name.” And everyone repeated after him: “Borukh Adonai!”
Their religious fervour was all these people had rescued from their hideous experiences, and, in spite of all certainty that there was no Jehovah to hear them, I was strangely stirred by the tragic scene in the poverty-stricken synagogue in outraged and devastated Fastov. The Jews of America were more likely to answer their prayers, and, alas, neither Sasha nor I had access to them. All we could do was to write about the dreadful pogroms. Excepting the anarchist press, however, we had no assurance that any paper would publish our account. It would have been too cruel to tell these people that in America we were considered Ahasverus.31 We could make known their great tragedy only to the radical labour world and to our own comrades. But there was Henry. He could do a great deal for these unfortunates, and I was sure he would, [ ... ]
In the whole gruesome picture of Fastov two redeeming features stood out. The Gentiles of the town had had no share in the massacres. And no pogroms had taken place since the Bolshevik forces had entered the district. Our informants admitted that the Red soldiers were not free from anti-Semitism, but the establishment of Soviet authority in Fastov had lifted the dread of new massacres, and the villagers had been praying for Lenin ever since. “Why only for Lenin?” we asked; “why not also for Trotsky and Zinoviev?” “Well, you see, Trotsky and Zinoviev are Yehudim,” an old Jew explained with Talmudic intonation; “do they deserve praise for helping their own? But Lenin is a goi (Gentile). So you can understand why we bless him.” We too felt grateful that the goi had at least one saving grace in his régime. [ ... ]
The nightmare of travel we had experienced between Kharkov and Fastov was again repeated during the six days that it required to reach Kiev. It left us bruised and battered and made us realize anew the incredible persistency of the Slav in overcoming the greatest hardships. The masses of desperate human beings fighting at every station to get on the train were increased by the village poor, the destitute and ragged children presenting the most awful sight. [ ... ]
The crowds at the stations, Sasha and Henry reported, were as nothing compared with the swarms at the village markets. There they were thick as ants and as determined in their attacks. They were the torment of hucksters and of the militiamen ordered to drive them off the streets. No sooner were the markets cleared of them than they would flock back, apparently in even larger numbers. “Drive them away—what solution is that?” I remarked to Henry. “With the blockade starving Russia, there seems no other way,” he replied. I wished