Table of Contents
The Kamendrovsky Family
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The most important people in Kislovodsk
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Old Pictures of Kislovodsk
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Red Terror
The Red Terror was a period of political repression and mass killings carried out by the Bolsheviks after the beginning of the Russian Civil War in 1918.
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‘Our’ Wrangel – Lydia’s postcard
Pogroms
‘Pogrom’ is a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.” Historically, the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in Russia and in other countries.
The first such incident to be labelled a pogrom is believed to be anti-Jewish rioting in Odessa in 1821. As a descriptive term, “pogrom” came into common usage with extensive anti-Jewish riots that swept the southern and western provinces of the Russian Empire in 1881–1884, following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.
According to Soviet historians, Shkuro’s forces were particularly cruel and prone to looting. But in Shkuro’s memoirs, he describes many instances in which he spared the lives of enemies. Shkuro claimed that he saved Jewish volunteers taken prisoner by the Whites from execution and that he spoke out against and prevented pogroms against the Jewish population. (See: Beloye Delo, Drozdovtsi i Partizani(White Cause), Moskva Golos 1996, A.G. Shkuro, Zapiski Belogo Partizana (Notes by a White Partisan) p. 224-226.)
But when Denikin’s volunteer army took Kiev in August 1919, it inflicted a large-scale pogrom on the Jews. Over 20,000 people died in two days of violence. After these events, Supresskin, the representative of the Kharkov Jewish community, spoke to Shkuro, who stated to him bluntly that “Jews will not receive any mercy because they are all Bolsheviks” (See: (in Russian) Dr Sergeichuk, V. Symon Petliura kak protyvnyk Yevreyskykh Pogromov (Symon Petlura in opposition to Jewish Pogroms, Zerkalo Nedeli, № 21 (86) 25 — 31 May 1996)