Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [75]
Things did not go too badly until I arrived at Kiev. There was to be an eight-hour layover until the next train, which would take me as far as Poltava. So, what to do for eight hours? Kiev was forbidden for Jews in its sacred streets. Even Jewish tourists in transit were confined to the station where they were easy picking for the hoodlums.
I was very curious because Kiev was the home of my father. There was a suburb called Podol where Jews were permitted. Hoodlums around the station were making me very nervous, so I decided to take a risk. If I got to the Podol district, I could remain in a synagogue until train time. The streetcar was a wonderment! An astonishing piece of machinery, which was able to drive without horses pulling it.
For fifteen kopeks I ate a meal in a kosher restaurant. All of the conversation around concerned the trial of Mendel Beiliss, which had been taking place in Kiev. You ask me who is Mendel Beiliss? I’ll tell you. He is the Jewish victim of a frame-up, accused of killing a gentile boy for ritual purposes. For Jews, Kiev has always been the shithouse of Russia. No matter how bad things were for us, it was worse in Kiev. Mendel Beiliss was the victim of an organization of goyim pigs, who were called the Black Hundred.
I couldn’t resist taking the chance to go to the courthouse where the trial was being held. I got directions to the center city, but with warnings to stay away. I couldn’t help myself. I was drawn immediately to a large crowd waiting outside the courthouse, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of Beiliss, so I could lecture about it someday. Suddenly everyone pointed beyond the police lines to a droshky that had just pulled up.
A priest emerged and made for the courthouse.
“Pranaites!” everyone screamed.
The name of this animal was well known among us. Pranaites the priest claimed to be an expert on Talmud and was a key witness for the prosecution. His “scientific” testimony was that the murder had all the characteristics of a ritual murder allegedly practiced secretly by the Jews. It was known that Pranaites had a long criminal record, but nevertheless the fine people of Kiev cheered him as he entered the building.
I turned away in anger—directly into the largest man I had ever seen, a gendarme with a red face and drunken eyes. His enormous hand clamped on my shoulder.
Propelled by fear, I broke loose and ran over the street with the whiskey policeman and a half-dozen others after me. I ran right down a dead-end alley, leaped and tried to scale a wall. First stones hit me, then hands grabbed my legs and pulled me smashing to the ground.
I crouched like a turtle and felt kicks to my ribs and head. The policeman finally took control.
“Yid! Let me see your passport.”
“Please, sir. I was only passing through Kiev. I went to the Jewish section for a meal because there was nothing to eat ...please, sir, let me go!”
The crowd screamed and spit on me, urging the cop to take me to jail. He handcuffed me and dragged me to a police van on the main street. As we drove off, the crowd cheered.
I was so terrified I shook all over and could barely speak. Everyone was rough to me at the police station, as if they had caught the biggest criminal in the Ukraine. After being photographed and fingerprinted, I was put into a holding cell which had no bench or seat, only room to stand. This becomes very painful after a few hours.
I had done a dumb, stupid, idiotic thing by going into Kiev. The punishment for Jews caught outside the Pale was to send them to the place of their birth and leave them there until they died. I was born in a village called Novogrudok and to return there forever was worse than a death sentence.
The building, fear of the policemen, fear of terrible punishment, all closed in on me. I must have fainted because when I revived, I was in a different place.
“The Jew boy has woken up.”
“The Chief wants to see him.”
I was dragged into an office obviously belonging to a high-ranking authority and was seated before his desk with a huge