History of The Jews in 19th-century Poland - Pogroms

Pogroms

The assassination prompted a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots, called pogroms throughout 1881-1884. In the 1881 outbreak, pogroms also occurred in Russia, in a riot in Warsaw twelve Jews were killed, many others were wounded, and women were raped while over two million rubles worth of property was destroyed. The new czar, Alexander III, blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish movements, but large numbers of pogroms continued until 1884, with at least tacit government approval. The pogroms proved a turning point in the history of the Jews in Poland, and throughout the world. They prompted a great flood of Jewish immigration to the United States, with almost two million Jews leaving the Pale by the late 1920s, and the pogroms set the stage for Zionism.

An even bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903–1906. Some of the worst of these were carried out by Polish people against Russian Jews living in Poland, and included the Białystok pogrom of 1906, in which up to a hundred Jews were killed and many more wounded.