A Pogrom in Poland by Edna Worthley Underwood

JOACHIM FRIEDENTHAL

High and clear rang the cantor's voice. It was as if with musical fervor / it tried to reach heaven itself, to plead that a door be opened and / mercy granted, to plead that an ear be made sympathetic, to plead that / the suffering in the heart of Jehova make it tremble with pity. [10]

[10] This is a story of the late war.

Never so splendidly before sang Reb Chajim's voice, sang the ancient / melodies of the Day of Atonement. The voices of the men joined with it. / With heaven-storming power they rose to heights of melody and then sank / to depths again, as the pain of despair increased within them and opened / up their measureless grief.

The men stood in their white grave-clothes as was proper. The silver / embroidered prayer cloth they had thrown over their heads to cover / themselves in the torturing hour in which, there above, the great / judgment was made. Now would be decided whether they would be inscribed / in the Book of Life, or cast into outer darkness. And in that outer / darkness perhaps now armed Cossacks were standing and caring nothing at / all about the Atonement and the Book of Life. Praying, the men stretched / their arms above their heads, storming the footstool of Almighty God, / wrestling for His grace, because once He had set them free.

And long centuries prayed with them. Long centuries which had weighed / heavily upon the backs of these Polish Jews, and bent them; long / centuries of want, disgrace, persecution -- the persecution of the / wanderer -- and the curse. And the long centuries seemed to rise up again / on these holy days, rise upon the bent backs, and stretch up toward the / God of Righteousness, with the heaven-storming arms of prayer, and to / ring out boldly in the voice of the cantor, to announce their woe.

The women, according to the old custom, sat apart, upon the horse-shoe / curved balcony fronting the altar. Here the women wept softly. Sometimes / a sob was heard and it cut tragically across the gentler melody of / tears. And they wept long just as they do by the graves of their dead. / Each one had a grave within. Reflected grief from the melancholy of this / hidden grave was visible in the wide, hopeless sorrow of the eyes. Even / the eyes of the young women and girls were veils of grief. They all / hummed together the ancient songs of Israel. Perhaps the meaning of the / ancient words did not penetrate their minds at all and only the melody / made them holy. Sometimes it was as if the antique words of Israel / became life because their hearts hung upon them with such faith. But if / a glance wandered away from the meditation it was sure to fall upon the / stony face of Rivkele Kalischer. She had fled from Klodova to her / mother. Rivkele Kalischer was not praying with the others, although her / lips kept moving.

Her lips framed these words: "Hanged! Because they would not change a / three ruble note! " Her glance was dull and dead. It pierced the / light-filled Temple and saw the picture that was engraven upon her soul. / It was Friday evening, three weeks ago. Two men swing in the wind like / phantoms -- from the balcony of her own house. And for four and twenty / hours she, and all the rest of the Jews of the neighborhood, were forced / to see, because they were forbidden to close their doors or windows. / There they had stood and looked upon the distorted features and the / swinging dead men. And they were obliged to read, too, the piece of / paper pinned upon them by the Cossacks: "_Hanged! Because they refused / to change a three ruble note! _"

_Refused! _ Had she not peacefully prepared the evening meal, said the / prayer, lighted the candles, set out the Shabbes' bread, covered it with / an embroidered cloth, while across in the Temple she listened to the / singing: "We greet thee, Shabbes, beauteous bride! " Then the men came / from the Temple. They stopped to talk a bit together. Her husband and / brother-in-law were among them; she heard their voices beneath the door. / Just then a troop of Cossacks rounded the corner. There were questions / and curses. Her heart trembled. There were blows from whips. A kick / threw the door open. A cruel voice called for a rope. She did not / understand at first. What did they want with a rope? Then a kick sent / her across the room. The Cossack struck her across the face with a / knout. "_A rope! A rope! _"

And the Cossacks hanged them on the balcony. The Shabbes' candles were / still burning and the bread was waiting for a blessing. The woman / recognized in the dead men, her husband and her brother-in-law. And she / read the words aloud: "Hanged! " Her face became like stone and she could / not look away from the balcony where they were swinging; for four and / twenty hours she could not look away.

Night came. The tall candles burned lower. The air was heavy with the / breath of praying men. It came, the great hour of the falling of / judgment. And there was not one among the men who was not wearing the / sacred robe in which to appear before his God. Many an one seemed / scarcely to be recognizable, his features had changed so under the / reverence of prayer. And it really seemed as if in the hearts of these / men who had been faithful in so many wanderings -- even in the money / lender -- there was hidden a priest. But among none of them could be found / the descendents of the Macabees who had arisen in wrath and slain their / enemies. And no one breathed with the soul of Samson, whose mighty / shoulders shook down the temple of the Philistines. Not one of them / prayed that one day he might be the master of those Russians who scorned / him and persecuted him, who took away the power of his eyes and the / freedom of his body, and make to fall and crash about their heads the / mighty palaces of power, even if he himself perished with them. Every / one prayed for his own life. And there was fanaticism in the prayer.