TheWarsaw pogrom was apogrom that took place inRussian-controlledWarsaw on 25–27 December 1881, then part ofCongress Poland in theRussian Empire, resulting in two people dead and 24 injured.[1]
Simon Dubnow, a contemporary Jewish-Russian historian, gives the following details of this event: on 25 December 1881 the outbreak of panic after a false warning of fire in the crowdedHoly Cross Church resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine persons in astampede. It was believed that the false alarm was raised bypickpockets, who used the ruse to allow them to rob people during the panic. A crowd gathered on the scene of the event and some unknown persons started to spread a rumour, which subsequently proved to be unfounded, that two Jewish pickpockets had been caught in the church.
The mob began to attack Jews, Jewish stores, businesses, and residences in the streets adjoining the Holy Cross Church.[2]The riots in Warsaw continued for three days, until Russian authorities (who controlled the police as well as military in the city) intervened, arresting 2,600 people. During the Warsaw pogrom two people were left dead and 24 injured. The pogrom also left about a thousand Jewish families financially devastated. In the months afterwards, about a thousand Warsaw Jews emigrated to theUnited States.[3] The pogrom worsened Polish-Jewish relations, and was criticized by such members of the Polish elite as writersEliza Orzeszkowa,Boleslaw Prus and several other notable activists.[3][4]
HistoriansSimon Dubnow,Yitzhak Gruenbaum,Frank Golczewski andMagdalena Micinska have argued that the pogrom might have been instigated by the Russian authorities, trying to drive a wedge between Jews and Poles or show that pogroms, increasingly common inRussian Empire after the assassination of thetsarAlexander II in 1881 (in that period over 200 anti-Jewish events occurred in Russian Empire, notably theKiev andOdessa pogroms),[5] were not a Russia-only phenomena.[6][4][7] However, historianMichael Ochs disagreed with this explanation, citing insufficient evidence.[4] Ochs calls those explanationsconspiracy theories,[4] arguing that they fail to present what the Russian authorities would have gained from the pogroms. He notes that period from 1863 to 1881 was witnessing the increase ofanti-Semitism inPoland, with disillusionment among Poles with the idea of assimilation of the Jews was growing, and hence there was less need for the Russian authorities to orchestrate a pogrom, which might have been spontaneous.[4]