The squadrons spread over the town, accompanied by residents who led them to the Jewish sections that comprised half of Proskuriv. It was a Saturday Shabbos, and late in the day families were gathered at home, mothers preparing the evening meal and men preparing to return to the synagogue for sabbath ending services. A few Jewish men poked their heads out of their front doors to see about the commotion in the street. This only served to identify their homes as targets.
The military units broke down doors, dragged men to the streets and shot them. The Jewish women who came out to intervene were beaten with rifle butts and batons and left in heaps as they moved to the next home. After the first few houses, to conserve ammunition, the Jewish men were beaten to death, too. True to their commander’s orders, there was no looting. Some soldiers were reluctant at first, but with the flow of blood the pent-up anxieties and frustrations of occupying a hostile city were released in blows and cudgels. It was exhausting work, and after a few hours the units headed back to camp. They left 390 men, 309 women and 76 children dead in the streets. An additional 500 Jews were wounded and many crippled. They staggered to the small Jewish hospital, which was overwhelmed with broken bodies.
In the town of Bender, just outside of Odessa, Ukrainian Army privates Igor Lemevsky and Petr Dronov had gotten an early start on Saturday night drinking. At about sunset they were summoned from the saloon by their commander, and they assembled with 50 other men at their camp. They listened, a little tipsy, to the usual harangue about the Bolsheviks destroying the Ukraine, and now the Jews. “The Jews are the gravest threat,” he shrieked. Lemevsky and Dronov had no political convictions and were happy just to be paid almost every week. Then came surprising news – the worst of the Jews were in their very town of Bender! They were given instructions – search the town and kill the Jews. Property was not to be taken – just kill Jews.
Lemevsky and Dronov joined their squad which was led by a local to one section of town where, they were told, lived the notorious criminal family of Schwartzbard. Sholom Schwartzbard was a local folklore hero as an Anarchist, French Army soldier, and a Jew who would fight. The squad was met at the door of the first house by an old, white haired man, Sholom Schwartzbard’s Uncle Yakiv. He stood with his chest out, defiantly holding a butter churning handle, and glared out into the night at their torches. The squad commander immediately drew his pistol and shot him in the chest. He crumpled in the doorway. Three squad leaders stepped over the body and entered the house. While Lemevsky and Dronov remain outside at the door, they heard scuffling, and a woman’s voice screaming “my husband will kill you all!” Then slapping, a thump and more woman’s screaming. Cries and grunting for an uncomfortable time. Then silence. Suddenly, the woman was thrown through the door opening, over Uncle Yakiv and onto the street. She lay on the ground, bleeding from her mouth and her long skirt was torn to the waist.
Their leader stepped from the house, buckling his trousers. “Finish her,” he commanded Lemevsky and Dronov in a low, stern voice. They stood in stunned silence. The commander drew his pistol and pointed it at Lemevsky. Reluctantly, they shuffled to the woman on the ground. While Lemevsky sat on her chest, Dronov strangled her.
With their blood lust aroused and all restraints put aside, the squad moved to the neighboring homes. That night fifteen members of the Schwartzbard family were murdered.
THE TRAIN
“R-r-r-return to camp!” Kotovsky commanded, after receiving news of the collapse of the revolt from his reconnaissance scouts. Word spread among the Anarchist troops arrayed along the river edge north of town, and they packed up their provisions and began the trudge back west to camp. A few were itching for battle, but most of the soldiers were apprehensive of just this lack of resolve among the townspeople, and relieved that they would live another day.
Max learned of the failure to retake the town when the first troops returned to break camp. He was dressed in two shirts and two thin coats in the cold February wind, and was allotted a pair of lightweight shoes, more like slippers, to shuffle around the motor pool. No doubt his captors thought he was unlikely to escape in them. Now there was near chaos in the camp as soldiers gathered their kits, broke down their tents and scrambled to find their units for marching out. The complete failure of their military mission added to the nervous anxiety, short tempers and lack of discipline.
In the confusion, Max spotted a duffle bag with a pair of boots tied to the handle near a flattened tent next to the motor pool. No one was around. He had gone over and over in his mind the odds: he did not know where he was or the surrounding areas; the locals were either friends or very hostile, the town with the train was filled with enemy soldiers; he had no identification and no money; and poor clothing and footwear. All the duffle bag offered was a solution to the last problem. Nevertheless, in the mad scramble of the troops he ambled over to the bag, put it on his shoulder and started back, head down, to the vehicles.
“Max,” Marusya called to him, holding a pistol pointed at the ground.
Max looked up at her. He saw in her face a disapproving tensing of her eyebrows, and downturned smile. Max looked back at her with a sorrowful disappointment.
“I am just helping to load the truck,” Max said, and slung the duffle bag onto the back of the truck flatbed. She watched him return to the motor pool before she went on with her tasks.
Soon Max was directed to fill the trucks with petrol, stow the remaining drums in the flatbed, and check that all were running. The armored automobile units, comprised of eight armored cars, two staff cars, ten trucks and a petrol tanker, Max’s workshop truck and six motorcycles, were first out of camp. Max sat inside an Austin-Putilov armored truck in the position of loader/mechanic next to two gunners, with Sholom in the front seat next to the driver. Soldiers could walk and might be captured or shot, but they could not afford to lose any transports or their mechanic.
Kotovsky headed to the deeper hills and forests outside of Shepetivka, 100 kilometers to the north. The motor unit reached a campsite midway and sent ahead motorcycles on a scouting mission on the following day, Monday, February 17. In the meantime, they sent out raiding parties to expropriate provisions from the surrounding farms. The scouts returned to report that Shepetivka, too, had been the site of pogroms over the weekend, and that a few had been killed and wounded but also a few women had been raped by Petliura’s troops. When his lagging soldiers reached camp late in the day, Kotovsky learned from Bolsheviks fleeing town that Ivan Petliura himself was visiting Proskuriv. This convinced Kotovsky and his commanders, including Sholom Schwartzbard and Marusya, that retaking Proskuriv was impossible and that the pogroms had been planned and directed by Petliura. They decided that it would be too dangerous to try to take Shepetivka with so many Cossacks battle ready. Two days later they made their way into the dense forest to the north of town and set up several camps for the troops. Max was sent with the motor vehicles to the central operations camp.
The grim battle outlook and primitive forest living hammered Kotovsky’s troops into a hardened militia. They descended into banditry. Led by Marusya, they stole food and petrol from the local farmhouses that were identified as Ukrainian supporters, ambushed White Army patrols and raided Directorate storehouses. All sense of political mission was lost, and their only guide was anarchy and survival.
Max was desperate. He saw himself a prisoner of rouge pirates, outmaneuvered by a hostile army murderously disposed toward Jews, in unfamiliar territory miles from rescuing his parents and escaping home. He chewed his fingernails constantly and lost weight from not eating the meager soup and moldy bread. He tossed in his cot at night, with visions of his brothers, Pa and Mamma circling above. For a change he brooded on his betrayal by Zalmund and Deena. He woke up angry. Working on the trucks in the motor pool was some relief, but he hated himself for falling in Marusya’s trap, and helping these thugs terrorize the local farmhouses. Not many noticed him except for his constant guard. Marusya did not come around, no doubt disappointed in his foiled plan, and possibly consumed by command survival. Everyone had their own concerns.