The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-12
RUSSIAN REFUGEES ARRIVE IN NEW YORK Horrible Tales of Atrocity Told
 By All of Them IT WAS A REVOLUTION GentiIes as Well as Jews Were Marked for Butchery-chiIdren Wantonly
 Murdered-A Jews Inde-
 pendent Spirit.

New York, December n.-FiVe hundred
 Russian refugees, many of them eye wit
 nesses to the Massacres in Odessa and
 other Russian centers, disembarked here
 today from the steamers Patriacia and Chemnitz Some of them told graphic and
 pitiful stories of their experiences. Jews
 who had themselves lay hidden in Odessa
 houses while mobs searched for them,
 Russian workmen of the Christian faith,
 strikers and newspaper men, and many
 Germans who had long lived in Russia,
 joined in declaring that they had been
 attacked irrespective of their religion;
 that their assailants were police disguised
 in citizens clothing, and that the mas
 sacres were not race persecution but rev olution.
 While telling their stories the men some
 times burst into tears, for perhaps haif
 of the entire number had left behind
 them wives and children who were either
 dead Or defenseless in Russian cities. There were three Jews, all of whom six
 weeks ago today, on Monday, October 20.
 the day that the Czar proclaimed Russia's
 constitution, were forced into hiding to
 save their lives. All three men are over
 30. intelligent and of f1pe physique. One
 of them, Abraham Chanoch, an Odessa
 tinsmith, who hesitated about describing
 the Odessa massacres, was offered money
 for his story, when he threw back his
 head and exclaimed:
 q won't take money. Thank God I still
 have sS, and that is enough" A Graffic Account.
 Then without further urging he told ,l,at I,a nf ha
 its beginning when two rival parades which were celebrating the new constitu- tion met and began to fight. He told how little children were thrown out of high windows, how Russian Christians pa- trolled the streets in large bands protect ing Jews, while other bands of men pill laged and murdered Workmen and stu
 dents he said, lead the peace parties,
 while disguised police usually led the
 hoodlums. After the first two days he
 and two companions escaped from the city.
 Other stories in a similar strain were
 related. All agreed that the Emperors
 manifesto of the constitution and the fe. tivities on the day that Count Witte stepped Into power, were mere pretext for riots
 Chanoch the tinsmith, said: During the first day after the mani festo 1t seemed to me to be very quiet, for nearly all the Jews remained in doors hiding Sometimes l heard people march, ing through the streets. Six weeks ago today I lay with several other Jews for four hours in the garret of a house to escape from a mob in the rooms below. It was a 3-story building, and those who lived there escaped by crawling along rafters into dark holes a few inches un- derneath the roof.
 Children Murdered. While we were hiding in this house another came in after dark to escape from the streets and to tell what had
 happened in the other houses where the Jews were caught A man told me one
 of these houses had been entered where perhaps POO Jews were in hiding. The members of the mob carried butcher knives stone slabs. iron bars, revolvers and clubs some of which were red wI.n
 blood, and which were used for crushing and stoning people. Those in the house ran in every direction, many of them escaping, but the children ran with a few older persons to the third food There | they were caught and the babies up to | 5 or years of age were thrown living | out of the third floor windows into the | streets The older children and the | grown ups were killed before being
 thrown out. The men who told me this | story also said that a band of several
 hundred students and few police ar | rived in time to arrest some of these mur- | derers and that after they had been | placed in jail some of the prisoners were | recognized by the accusers as members or | the police force.
 | Chonoch said the dead in the street | were too mutilated for recognition. He
 said a Christian priest saved 60 Jewish I, children by placing them in his own | church.