Tears over Russia: A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine’s Pogroms

Genealogist Brahin debuts with an evocative and distressing account of her grandmother’s experiences during the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms that swept across Russia and Ukraine in the early 20th century. Estimating that as many as 250,000 Jews were killed between 1917 and 1921, Brahin details horrific crimes committed by gangs of “vicious peasants” and soldiers of the Russian White Army and Ukrainian nationalist forces opposed to the Bolsheviks. Her grandmother Channa, who was born in 1912, was forced to flee her home in Stavishche, a village near Kyiv, and hide with her family in the forest and in the dark crawl spaces of friends’ homes. Eventually, they moved in with a family in a neighboring city, where a chance encounter with a distant cousin from the U.S. resulted in the extended family emigrating. Brahin adds context to Channa’s story with reports from Yiddish newspapers and diligent archival and genealogical research and paints vivid scenes of anguish and resilience: “Nearly eight hundred Jews filled the cobblestone and dusty dirt Stavishche streets, carrying their belongings, their eyes weary and grief-stricken. They were leaving the only home many had known.” This is a vital personal record of Ukraine’s turbulent past. (June)