Białystok pogrom
Jews killed during the 14–16 June 1906Białystok pogrom
Location	Belostok,Russian Empire (modern-dayBiałystok,Poland)
Date	14–16 June 1906
Deaths	81–88
Injured	90+
Perpetrators	Russian soldiers andBlack Hundreds

TheBelostok (Białystok)pogrom occurred between 14–16 June 1906 (1–3 JuneOld Style) inBiałystok,Poland (which at the time was part of theRussian Empire).^[1]

The names of 80 victims killed in the 1906 pogrom are recorded on a memorial pillar erected in a Białystok cemetery,^[2] though the exact number of casualties will likely never be known because victims were taken to multiple hospitals, other towns, and to private homes.^[3] 90 others were gravely wounded with both local police and theImperial authorities held to blame for the tragedy.^[4]

The officialRussian State Duma report on the pogrom found that it was pre-planned by the government and police administration and directly led to the systematic shooting of "peaceful Jewish residents, women, and children."^[5]

The Białystok pogrom was one of a series of violent outbreaks against Jews between 1903 and 1908, including theKishinev pogrom, theOdessa pogrom, and theKiev pogrom.^[6]

At the beginning of the 20th century, Białystok was a city with a predominantly Jewish population. In 1897, the Jewish population numbered 41,900 (out of about 66,000, or about 63%).^[4] Białystok was primarily a city known for its textile manufacturing, commerce and industry. During the1905 Russian Revolution the city was a center of the radical labour movement, with strong organisations of theBund and thePolish Socialist Party as well as the more radical anarchists of theBlack Banner association.

In July 1903, anarchists shot at two local police officers after police broke up a labor demonstration. One officer was seriously wounded, while the other sustained no injuries.^[7]

In the summer of 1904, an eighteen-year-old anarchist, Nisan Farber, stabbed and seriously wounded Avraam Kogan, the owner of a spinning mill, as he walked to the synagogue onYom Kippur. On October 6, Farber threw a bomb into a police station, injuring several policemen inside. Farber himself was killed by the explosion.^[8]

Martial law was declared in Białystok in September 1905, which lasted until March 1906. After martial law was lifted, the series of assassinations and acts of terror began anew. On March 4, the police officer Kulchitsky was killed, followed by the killings of gendarme officer Rubansky, and NCO Syrolevich, who were killed on March 18.^{[citation needed]}

Later, the policemen Zenevich and Alekseychuk were wounded, three privates of the Vladimir infantry regiment were wounded and theCossack Lopatin was killed.^{[citation needed]}

These events led to a demoralization and disorganization of the police in the city. Between the years 1905 and 1906 there were seven police chiefs.

On 11 June 1906, the Police Chief of Białystok, Dierkacz, was murdered, most likely on the orders^[9] of the Russian commissar and ferventanti-semite Szeremietiev.^[10] Dierkacz was known for his liberal sympathies and opposition to anti-semitism; for this he was respected by both theJewish Bund and thePolish Socialist Party. On a previous occasion, when Russian soldiers attackedJews in the marketplace, Dierkacz had sent in his policemen to put down the violence and had declared that a pogrom against the Jews would occur “only over his dead body”. His murder was a foreboding of the violence to come, as people in the city noted that after Dierkacz's death Russian soldiers began preparing for a pogrom.^[11] The murder occurred on Surazhskaya Street, a hotbed of Jewish anarchism at the time, which led many to believe that he was murdered by Jewish anarchists. The local garrison was informed that he had been killed by Jewish anarchists.^[12]

On 14 June, two Christian processions took place: aCatholic one through the market square celebratingCorpus Christi and anOrthodox one through Białystok's New Town celebrating the founding of a cathedral. The Orthodox procession was followed by a unit of soldiers. These soldiers had been informed that the procession would be bombed by Jews.^[12] A bomb was thrown at the Catholic procession, and shots were fired at the Orthodox procession. A watchman of a local school, Stanislaw Milyusski, and three women, Anna Demidyuk, Aleksandra Minkovskaya and Maria Kommisaryuk, were wounded. These incidents constituted signals for the beginning of the pogrom. Witnesses reported that simultaneously with the shots someone shouted “Beat the Jews!”^[13] After the pogrom, a peasant who was arrested for unrelated charges in the nearby town ofZabłudów confessed that he had been paid a substantial amount of money to fire on the Orthodox procession in order to provoke the pogrom.^[14] Russian authorities falsely announced that Jews had fired on the Orthodox procession.^[15][16]

Once the shots were fired, the violence began immediately. Mobs of thugs, including members of theBlack Hundreds, began looting Jewish owned stores and apartments on Nova-Linsk Street. Policemen and soldiers who had earlier followed the Orthodox procession either allowed the violence to happen or participated in it themselves. The first day of the pogrom was chaotic. While units of the Czarist army, brought to Białystok by Russian authorities, exchanged fire with Jewish paramilitary groups,^[17] thugs armed with knives and crowbars dispersed throughout the main areas of the city to continue the pogrom.^[16] Some Jewish sections of the city were protected by self-defense units, usually organized by the labor parties, which moved against the thugs and looters.^[15] They were in turn fired upon by Czarist dragoons. Thanks to the Jewish self-defense units, several working-class sections of the city were spared the violence and thousands of lives were saved.^[11]

In the following two days, the attacks on people and property became more systematic and directed, resembling a coordinated military action more than a spontaneous outbreak of violence. Marauding mobs and tsarist soldiers broke into many Jewish homes and either killed people on the spot or dragged them outside to murder them. It was only at the end of the third day thatStolypin, the Minister of Internal Affairs, instructed regional governors and mayors to suppress the pogrom.^[18] The violence ended abruptly upon the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city.

During the course of the pogrom 88 people were killed, including 82 Jews, although some sources list a higher number of 200.^[19] A total of 169 shops and houses had been plundered, among them the largest stores in the city. The pogrom was the subject matter of many news reports and articles, including a special manifesto issued by the Polish Socialist Party condemning the occurrence.^[20]

Russian authorities tried to blame the pogrom on the local Polish population in order to stir up the hatred between two ethnic groups (both of which generally opposed the Tsar). However Jewish survivors of the violence reported that the local Polish population had in fact sheltered many Jews during the pogrom and did not participate in it.^[15]Apolinary Hartglas, aPolish Jewish leader and later a member of thePolish Sejm, together withZe'ev Jabotinsky, managed to obtain secret documents issued by Szeremietiev which showed that the pogrom had been organized well in advance by Russian authorities who had actually transported railroad workers from deep within the Russian Empire to participate.^[10][15] A commission set up by theRussian Duma charged with investigating the pogrom held both the local police and the central authorities to blame for the tragedy.^[5][15][21]In 1908, on the initiative ofConstitutional Democratic deputies in the Duma, some of the perpetrators of the violence were tried but the trial was widely criticized for handing out light sentences to those convicted and for failing to bring the real organizers of the pogrom to justice.^[18]

The victims of the pogrom were buried in a mass grave in theBagnowka cemetery^[22] and a memorial obelisk was erected with a poem inHebrew by Zalman Sznejur inscribed upon it. The poem begins with the words "Stand strong and be proud, you pillar of sorrow" and the monument came to be known as thePillar of Sorrow.^[23] The monument survived throughWorld War II and theHolocaust, and it still remains there,^[24][25] though one source falsely claims that it was destroyed after the war by unknown vandals.^[11]

The pogrom is mentioned inYevgeni Yevtushenko's famous poemBabiyy Yar, about the murders of Jews inBabi Yar in Ukraine by Nazi Germany.^[26]

Veronia Schanoes' novellaBurning Girls includes a fictionalized account of the pogrom.

• Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907)
• Melech Epstein who fought in the pogrom as a member of the Jewish self-defense force
• Siedlce pogrom
• Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar" byDmitri Shostakovich (referred to in 1st movement)

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBiałystok pogrom.

• Białystok Jewish cemetery

• Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire
• Military history of Białystok
• Massacres in 1906
• 1906 riots
• Jewish Polish history
• Antisemitism in Poland
• 1906 in the Russian Empire
• 1906 in Poland
• Grodno Governorate
• June 1906 in Europe
• 1906 murders in Europe
• 1906 in Judaism
• Jews and Judaism in Białystok
• 1906 murders in the Russian Empire
• Massacres committed by the Russian Empire
• Massacres in Poland
• 20th-century mass murder in Poland

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 Russian-language sources (ru)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Pages using infobox mapframe with missing coordinates
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from June 2025
• Commons category link from Wikidata