Calamities

calamities

Upheavals are embedded into Jewish history, and as such, they are a part of personal and family experience of being a Jew, especially, in Russian Empire and, later, Soviet Union. Wars and revolutions affected Jews in larger degree than other ethnic groups. During wars, especially at religious/ethnic wars such as Crusades in Middle Age and World War II in 20th Century, Jews were murdered at masses.
Wars and revolutions produced great calamity and destruction of Jewish lives and properties.

Pogroms
(1881-1920)

Evacuation
(1941-1942)

Holocaust
(1941-1945)

Immigration
(1967-1991)

Pogroms
(1881-1920)

Anti-Jewish violence had occurred throughout the region known as the Pale of Settlement since the late 18th century when divisions of Poland substantially increased the numbers of Jews living under Russian rule. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries this western portion of the Russian Empire, exploded with attacks on Jews including looting of property, murder, and rape. At this time these “pogroms” against the Jews became much more common and this Russian word “погро́м” entered English and most other European languages. Continue

Evacuation
(1941-1942)

On the territory of the USSR, by the beginning of the war, there were about 4.855.000 Jews. Among the evacuees, their share was 24.8% - second only to Russians (52.9%). However, this fact was not related to the USSR's policy of saving the Jews, but because most of the Jews fled spontaneously.
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Holocaust
(1941-1945)

The Nazis conducted the majority of the genocide by deporting Jews to death camps, located mostly in Poland. In the Soviet Union, however, the murder was local. Because of the region’s inadequate railway systems and the capacities of the death camps, the
Nazis were unable to easily transport the Jews to the camps. Instead, mobile execution units, like the Einsatzgruppen, gathered, shot and killed the Jews on their home soil.
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Immigration
(1967-1991)

"Why nobody found diaries from Moses time?
- The first 40 years - everybody was busy speaking about Egypt, next one - about a heroic life in desert."
A joke from unwritten diary

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