Pogrom

For the volcano in the Aleutian Islands, see Pogromni Volcano.

The Hep-Hep riots in Frankfurt, 1819. On the left, two peasant women are assaulting a Jewish man with pitchfork and broom. On the right, a man wearing spectacles, tails, and a six-button waistcoat, "perhaps a pharmacist or a schoolteacher,"^[1] holds another Jewish man by the throat and is about to club him with a truncheon. The houses are being looted. A contemporary engraving by Johann Michael Voltz.

A pogrom (Russian: погром) is a form of violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres. The term usually carries connotation of spontaneous hatred of majority population against certain (usually ethnic) minority, which they see as dangerous and harming the interests of majority. The term was originally used to denote extensive violence against Jews in the Russian Empire and a series of anti-German^[2] pogroms in Russia in 1915.^[3] Pogroms often affect members of middlemen minorities. This can, in extreme cases, result in genocide, such as that of Armenians or Jews.^[4]

Etymology

The word pogrom (Russian: погром), Russian pronunciation: [pɐ'grom], came from the verb громить, Russian pronunciation: [ɡrɐˈmʲitʲ] "to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently" (in perfective, taking the form погромить). In Russian the word pogrom has a much wider application than in English, and can be applied to any incident of wanton and unrestrained destruction on a mass scale, such as may occur during wartime. The word pogrom may have come into English from the Yiddish word פאָגראָם, also a loanword from Russian.^[5]

Pogroms against Jews

Ancient

There were tensions between Hellenism and Judaism following the conquests of Alexander the Great, see for example the Maccabean Revolt of 167 BCE. Particularly disputed were circumcision and antinomianism.

There were antisemitic riots in Alexandria under Roman rule in CE 38 during the reign of Caligula.^[6][7]

Evidence of communal violence against Jews and Early Christians, who were seen as a Jewish sect, exists dating from the 2nd century CE in Rome. These riots were generally precipitated by the Romans because Jews refused to accept Roman rule over Judaea^{[citation needed]} and early Christians were seen as a Jewish sect that proselytized actively. It should be noted that Romans were generally quite tolerant of other religions, yet they conducted several wars against the Jews, see Jewish-Roman Wars, and, before the Edict of Milan, persecuted Christians.

Medieval

Massive violent attacks against Jews date back at least to the Crusades such as the Pogrom of 1096 in France and Germany (the first to be officially recorded), as well as the massacres of Jews at London and York in 1189–1190.

During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, beginning in the 9th century, Islamic Spain was more tolerant towards Jews.^[8] The 11th century, however, saw several Muslim pogroms against Jews; those that occurred in Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.^[9] In the 1066 Granada massacre, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000 Jews^[10] In 1033 about 6,000 Jews were killed in Fez, Morocco by Muslim mobs.^[11][12] Mobs in Fez murdered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, in 1465.^[13]

In 1348, because of the hysteria surrounding the Black Plague, Jews were massacred in Chillon, Basle, Stuttgart, Ulm, Speyer, Dresden, Strasbourg, and Mainz. By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been destroyed.^[14] A large number of the surviving Jews fled to Poland, which was very welcoming to Jews at the time.^[15]

In 1543, Martin Luther wrote On the Jews and Their Lies, a treatise in which he advocated harsh persecution of the Jewish people, up to what are now called pogroms. He advocated that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated.^[16][17]

Jews, Poles, and Catholics were massacred during the Khmelnytsky Uprising of Ukrainian Cossacks in retaliation for Polish colonialism in 1648–1654,^[18] and during the Koliyivshchyna in 1768-1769.

Russian Empire

There were several waves of pogroms throughout the Russian Empire.

See Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire.

Outside Russia

Pogroms spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Anti-Jewish riots also broke out elsewhere in the world.

• In the Americas, there was a pogrom in Argentina in 1919, during the Tragic Week[1][2]
• In 1919, pogroms were reported in several cities in Poland.^[19]
• In 1927, there were pogroms in Oradea (Romania).

In the Arab world, there were a number of pogroms which played a key role in the massive emigration from Arab countries to Israel.

• On 1–2 June 1941, the Farhud pogrom in Iraq killed between 200 and 400 Jews.
• In 1945, anti-Jewish rioters in Tripoli, Libya killed 140 Jews.

There was a Limerick Pogrom, in Ireland in the late 19th century. This pogrom was less violent than the others. Although it involved campaigns of intimidation, it chiefly took the form of an economic boycott against Jewish residents of Limerick.

During the Holocaust

Pogroms were also encouraged by the Nazis, especially early in the war before the larger mass killings began. The first of these pogroms was Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, often called Pogromnacht, in which Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed, up to 200 Jews were killed and some 30,000 Jewish men and boys were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

A number of pogroms occurred during the Holocaust at the hands of non-Germans. Perhaps the deadliest of these Holocaust-era pogroms was the Iaşi pogrom in Romania, in which as many as 13,266 Jews were killed by Romanian citizens, police, and military officials.^[20]

In the city of Lwow, some Ukrainian police along with occupying Nazis organized two large pogroms in June–July, 1941, in which around 6,000 Jews were murdered,^[21] in alleged retribution for the collaboration of some Jews with the Soviet regime and the large number of communists who happened to be of Jewish descent (see Controversy regarding the Nachtigall Battalion).

In Lithuania, some Lithuanian police led by Algirdas Klimaitis and the Lithuanian partisans — consisting of LAF units reinforced by 3,600 deserters from 29th Lithuanian Territorial Corps of the Red Army^[22] engaged in anti-Jewish pogroms in Kaunas along with occupying Nazis. On 25–26 June 1941 about 3,800 Jews were killed and synagogues and Jewish settlements burned.^[23]

During the Jedwabne pogrom of July 1941, some non-Jewish Poles burned around 340 Jews in a barn-house (final findings of the Institute of National Remembrance) in the presence of Nazi German Ordnungspolizei. The role of the German Einsatzgruppe B remains the subject of debate.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29]} The guidelines for such massacres were formulated by Reinhard Heydrich, who ordered to induce pogroms on territories occupied by Germany.^[30] The village was previously occupied by the Soviet Union, (see Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) and some members of the Jewish community were subsequently accused of collaboration with Soviet occupiers and the NKVD.

After World War II

After the end of World War II, a series of violent anti-Semitic incidents occurred throughout Europe, particularly in the Soviet-liberated East, where most of the returning Jews came back after liberation by the Allied Powers, and where the Nazi propagandists had extensively promoted the notion of a Jewish-Communist conspiracy (see anti-Jewish violence in Eastern Europe, 1944–1946).

Influence of pogroms

The pogroms of the 1880s caused a worldwide outcry and, along with harsh laws, propelled mass Jewish emigration. Two million Jews fled the Russian Empire between 1880 and 1914, with many going to the United Kingdom and United States.

In reaction to the pogroms and other oppressions of the Tsarist period, Jews increasingly became politically active. Jewish participation in The General Jewish Labor Bund, colloquially known as The Bund, and in the Bolshevik movements, was directly influenced by the pogroms. Similarly, the organization of Jewish self-defense leagues (which stopped the pogromists in certain areas during the second Kishinev pogrom), such as Hovevei Zion, led naturally to a strong embrace of Zionism, especially by Russian Jews.

Modern usage and examples

Diverse ethnic groups have suffered from similar targeted riots at various times and in different countries.

In the view of some historians,^[31] the mass violence and murder targeting black people during the New York Draft Riots of 1863 can be defined as pogroms, though the word had not yet entered the English language at the time. The term "pogrom" is commonly used in the general context of riots against various ethnic groups.^{[citation needed]}

Other examples are:

• The Asiatic Vespers of 88 BCE (massacre of Roman citizens and other foreigners in Asia Minor).^[32]
• Boudica's revolt in 60-61 CE,^[33]
• Massacre of foreigners in Guangzhou in 878,^[34]
• St. Brice's Day massacre (killing of Danes in England) in 1002
• Sicilian Vespers (massacre of French inhabitants of Sicily) in 1282,.^[35]
• 1740 Batavia massacre was a pogrom against ethnic Chinese living in the port city of Batavia, the Dutch East Indies. The incident lasted for two weeks in October.
• The Haun's Mill massacre of 18 Latter Day Saints in Haun's Mill, Missouri, an example of several pogroms in the mid-19th century targeting Mormons. It occurred on October 30, 1838
• Chinese massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles, California
• Batak massacre in Bulgaria by Bashi-bazouks in 1876.
• Killing of Koreans in the wake of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Tokyo, Japan, after newspapers printed articles saying Koreans were systematically poisoning wells, seemingly confirmed by the widespread observation of wells with cloudy water (a little-known effect after a large earthquake).
• 1860 Lebanon conflict, a burst of sectarian violence in Mount Lebanon, wherein the Druze massacred more than 10,000 Christians, mostly Maronites,^[36] An uprising in Damascus resulted in the destruction of the Christian quarter and the massacre of many Maronite Christians.^[37]
• The Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896, refers to the massacring of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, with estimates of the dead ranging from 80,000 to 300,000,^[38] and at least 50,000 orphans as a result.^[39]
• The Armenian Genocide of 1914-1918, refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction (genocide) of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire (1,500,000 deaths) during and just after World War I.
• The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma
• The 1937 Parsley Massacre in the Dominican Republic
• In the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom, ethnic Greeks were attacked and overwhelmed by ethnic Turkish mobs.
• In the years 1960-1967 leading up to the Biafran War, ethnic Igbos and others from southeastern Nigeria were victims of targeted attacks.
• Sumgait pogrom in 1988 against ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan
• The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964 put an end to the local Arab dynasty. Many Arabs and Asians were massacred by the descendants of black African slaves, according to reports, and thousands of others were detained and their property either confiscated or destroyed.^[40][41][42]
• Anti-Chinese sentiment in Southeast Asian countries is often a result of a very different economic position between the Chinese and the indigenous majorities. This has led to violence, such as:
  • May 13 Incident in Malaysia in 1969.
  • During the Indonesian killings of 1965–66, in which more than 500,000 people died,^[43] local Chinese were killed in some areas, and their properties looted and burned as a result of anti-Chinese racism on the excuse that Aidit had brought the PKI closer to China.^[44][45]
  • The Jakarta Riots of May 1998 were pogroms targeted against ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Businesses associated with Chinese were burnt down, women were raped, tortured and killed.^[46] Fearing for their lives, many ethnic Chinese, who made up about 3–5% of Indonesia's population, fled the country.

One million Armenians fled Turkey between 1915-1923 to escape pogroms.

• Sikhs have also experienced a pogrom in India, most notably those occurring in November 1984 when India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh guards acting in the aftermath of Operation Bluestar. In these 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, Sikhs were killed in pogroms led by government loyalists, with the government allegedly aiding the attacks by furnishing the mobs with voting lists to identify Sikh families.^[47] The current Congress party leader, Sonia Gandhi, officially apologized to the Sikh community in 1988^{[citation needed]} for the pogrom and began reconciliation efforts, as well as efforts to provide justice for the victims, the most notable being the Nanavati commission.
• In Sri Lanka in 1983, state sponsored anti-Tamil riots killed as many as 3,000 people, mainly in the capital city of Colombo, and helped trigger the 30 year civil war. More than 300,000 people, mostly Tamils, were displaced. Seeking a safe haven, hundreds of thousands of Tamils sought refuge in South India and western countries.
• Over 500,000 Hindus, belonging to a community called Kashmiri Pandits, have also experienced a pogrom in the Indian occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir when they were systematically targeted by the separatist militants and driven out of the Kashmir Valley in 1989. They continue to live as internally displaced persons in transit camps in southern Hindu-majority portion of the state as well as in other parts of India, in spite of sporadic efforts to rehabilitate them.
• Acts of ethnic and religious violence in India^[48] such as the following tend to occur as the root causes of violence often run deep in history, religious activities, economic imbalance and politics of India:^[49][50]
  • 1968 violence against South Indians in Mumbai
  • 2002 Gujarat violence: in 2002, about 1,250 Muslims were killed by Hindus in the Indian state of Gujarat^[51][52]
  • 2007 Orissa violence
  • 2008 attacks on North Indians in Maharashtra
• In 1989, after bloody pogroms against the Meskhetian Turks by Uzbeks in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley, nearly 90,000 Meskhetian Turks left Uzbekistan.^[53][54]
• In the summer of 1990, an anti-Russian rioting engulfed Tuva's urban areas, leaving scores dead. Thousands of ethnic Russians reportedly fled Tuva in the wake of the 1990 ethnic disturbances.^[55][56]
• Pogrom of Armenians in Baku in January 1990 forced almost all of the 200,000 Armenians in Baku to flee to Armenia.^[57]
• In Egypt, the rise in extremist Islamist groups such as the Gama'at Islamiya during the 1980s was accompanied by attacks on Copts and on Coptic churches; these have since declined with the decline of those organizations, but still continue.^[58] The police have been accused of siding with the attackers in some of these cases.^[59]
• During the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, a disputed territory within the United Kingdom, many pogroms took place. The most violent have taken place in the city of Belfast when unionist rioters attacked the small Nationalist housing estate known as the Short Strand (Irish: An Trá Ghearr). Three unionists and one nationalist were killed by gunfire here, on the 27th of June 1970 during the "Battle of St. Matthews".
• During the Albanian terrorist attacks against non-Albanian population in Serbian province of Kosovo in 1999, which was followed by NATO-led attacks, more than 300,000 Serbs, Jews, Montenegrins and other Yugoslav loyalists were forced to leave their homes and find refuge from pogrom in Serbia, Montenegro and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. ^[60][61]
• On 17 October 1999, at approximately 12:00 noon, members of the radical Basilist sect, led by Basili Mkalavishvili, an excommunicated Georgian Orthodox Church priest, interrupted the meeting of a congregation of 120 Jehovah's Witnesses held in the "Giza" building, in Tbilisi-Gldani and viciously attacked many of the individuals who were in attendance. Men, women and children were physically attacked.^[62] From 1999-2003, there were over 100 attacks and related incidents in Georgia. The houses of some Jehovah's Witnesses were burned. The victims have filed more than 800 criminal complaints.^[63]
• The 2002 Gujarat violence in Gujarat, India.
• In November 2004, Chinese authorities have admitted that inter-ethnic rioting gripped part of central Henan province. Henan's riots are said to have started with a traffic accident, and escalated with Hui and Han Chinese gangs attacking and burning villages of the opposing community.^[64]
• In November 2004, several thousand of the estimated 14,000 French nationals in Ivory Coast left the country after days of anti-white violence.^[65]
• In 2006, rioters damaged shops owned by Chinese-Tongans in Nukuʻalofa.^[66] Chinese migrants were evacuated from the riot-torn Solomon Islands.^[67]
• In 2007, ethnic Kurds in South Kazakhstan suffered arson attacks which continued for three days.^[68][69]
• In May 2008, there were pogroms against migrants across South Africa that left almost 100 people dead and up to 100,000 displaced.^[70]
• In recent years, anti-Arab attacks by Jewish mobs in Israel have been described as pogroms by peace activists, Israeli press, and Israeli officials^[71]:
  • Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert harshly criticized Yitzhar settlers who launched a revenge attack in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. A Palestinian youth was killed and eight Palestinians were injured. It was not the first time the settlers had harassed the neighbouring villagers. "This phenomenon of taking the law into their own hands and of brutal and violent attacks is intolerable... There will be no pogroms against non-Jewish residents," said Olmert.^[72]
  • On December 7, 2008, Olmert again used the term "pogrom" while denouncing a group of Jewish settlers residing in a disputed building in Hebron who had clashed with Palestinians of the city during and after being evicted from the building by Israeli forces: "As a Jew, I was ashamed at the scenes of Jews opening fire at innocent Arabs in Hebron. There is no other definition than the term 'pogrom' to describe what I have seen."^[73]
• Although Iraqi Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the Iraqi refugees now living in nearby countries, according to UNHCR.^[74][75] Massacres, ethnic cleansing, and harassment has increased since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.^[76] Furthermore, the Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to the ongoing atrocities by Islamic extremists.^[77][78]
• The 2009 Gojra riots were anti-Christian pogroms that erupted in Gojra, Pakistan, in 2009 where Muslim mobs slaughtered eight Christians over Pakistan's theocratic blasphemy laws.

See also

References