Warsaw pogrom (1881)
Anti-Jewish pogrom
The Warsaw pogrom was a pogrom that took place in Russian-controlled Warsaw on 25–27 December 1881, then part of Congress Poland in the Russian Empire, resulting in two people dead and 24 injured.
Warsaw pogrom
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 crowded Holy Cross Church resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine persons in a stampede. It was believed that the false alarm was raised by pickpockets, 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.
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 the United States. The pogrom worsened Polish-Jewish relations, and was criticized by such members of the Polish elite as writers Eliza Orzeszkowa, Boleslaw Prus and several other notable activists.
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This entry incorporates text from “Warsaw pogrom (1881)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.