page_title: Kishinev pogrom
section_title: First pogrom (1903)
hierarchical_section_title: Kishinev pogrom / First pogrom (1903)
caption_attribution_description: English: Jewish pogroms in Kishinev in 1903.
context_page_description: The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev, then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on April 19–21 [O.S. April 6–8] 1903. Further rioting erupted in October 1905. In the first wave of violence, beginning on Easter Day, 49 Jews were killed, a number of Jewish women were raped and 1,500 homes were damaged. American Jews began large-scale organized financial help, and assisted in emigration. The incident focused worldwide attention on the persecution of Jews in Russia and led Theodor Herzl to propose the Uganda Scheme for resettlement of the Jews.
context_section_description: The most popular newspaper in Kishinev, the Russian-language anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning "Bessarabian"), published by Pavel Krushevan, regularly published articles with headlines such as "Death to the Jews!" and "Crusade against the Hated Race!" (referring to the Jews). When a gentile Ukrainian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, about 40 km (25 mi) miles north of Kishinev, and a girl who committed suicide by poisoning herself was declared dead in a Jewish hospital, the Bessarabetz paper insinuated that both children had been murdered by the Jewish community for the purpose of using their blood in the preparation of matzo for Passover. Another newspaper, Свет (Svet, "Light") made similar insinuations. These allegations sparked the pogrom.
  The pogrom began on April 19 (April 6 according to the Julian calendar then in use in the Russian Empire) after congregations were dismissed from church services on Easter Sunday.  In two days of rioting, 47 (some put the figure at 49) Jews were killed, 92 were severely wounded and 500 were slightly injured, 700 houses were destroyed, and 600 stores were pillaged. 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.
  The New York Times described the first Kishinev pogrom:
  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 like sheep. 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.
  The Kishinev pogrom captured the attention of the international public and was mentioned in the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine as an example of the type of human rights abuse which would justify United States involvement in Latin America. The 1904 book The Voice of America on Kishinev provides more detail
  as does the book Russia at the Bar of the American people: A Memorial of Kishinef.
caption: Bodies in the street, 1903
exif: {}