Horrors Of Kishineff

HORRORS OF KISHINEFF

First Refugee In America Describes Massacre of Jews.

SAYS RICH RUSSIANS JOINED IN.

Jacob Friedman, Covered With Wounds, Saw His Grandfather Slain and LIttle Children Torn to Pieces by the Raging Mob-How He Escaped From Scene of Atrocities.

Jacob Friedman, the first refugee from Kishineff, the city of the recent Jewish massacre in Russia, who landed in New York recently, brought with him bruises from Russian knouts and clubs, and it was only through the help of a Christian friend that he escaped at all. The slaughter of his people in Kishineff is so impressed on Friedman's mind that he cannot believe he is safe.

Details of the first two days of the massacre were given to a reporter for the New York World by Friedman through an interpreter.

"It was the most awful butchery that men ever saw," said Friedman. "The rich Russians of the town joined in and with gloves on their hands helped to tear the Jewish children limb from limb. At first it was the lowest people of the town, then the better class became enraged at the sight of blood. I saw men dressed in fine clothing mixed in with the dirty ruffians of the town.

"I am a Polack and went to Kishineff three years ago to visit my grandfather, Solomon Friedman. I liked the town, and as I had 600 rubles (about $300) saved up, I moved my family there from Warsaw. With my grandfather I started in the glassware business at 4 Alexandroffsky street. We were doing well and saving money.

"On Sunday, the last day of the Passover, while we were eating dinner about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, I heard shrieks of women and children. We ran out to see what was the matter. I saw a wild mob coming, beating down women in the streets and breaking the windows and bursting open the doors. They were yelling and shouting in all sorts of languages. There were Wallachians, Roumanians and other people besides the Russians, so it seemed.

" 'Come, grandfather, let us run away or we'll be killed!' I called out.

" 'Oh, it's nothing,' my grandfather answered. 'Don't fear; It's only a holiday among the gentiles, and they feel somewhat gay.'

"I saw that It was a bloodthirsty mob and tried to convince my grandfather, but the old man said he had lived in Kishineff all his life and that there was never anything there but peace. The mob came nearer, and we saw that they were beating people to death. I saw fifteen persons killed before they got to our door. I could hear cries from all over the city. I called out to my grandfather to run, but he said he would close up the shop and stay in the house. As he was closing the doors the mob rushed up and began beating us with clubs.

"I was struck on the arm and knocked down. I tried to help my grandfather, but the mob was so large I could not get to him, so I ran away to save my life. I saw them beating him with clubs. They broke his arms and beat him so that he died as soon as he was carried to the hospital.

"I ran to the house of Ivan Fiodroff, a Christian, who had bought glass from me. He was a good man, and he hid me in his cellar. I lay there all night, expecting every moment to be hunted out and killed. I was crazy with the thought that my two little girls had been butchered and worse by the mob and that my two boys were killed. I had seen the wretches tear little children in two and throw their arms and legs into the gutter, and I thought that was the way they must have treated my own children. Monday morning I slipped out of Ivan's cellar and went by side streets and through alleys into Alexandroffsky street.

"My feet slipped in the blood muddled clay. Bodies lay across the roadway and I stumbled across them. There were the bodies of men mutilated in ways I dare not tell. There were the bodies of women ripped open as a butcher cuts a beef.

"From the house of a carpenter came the groans of the dying man whose hands had been cut off with his own saw by a great brute who laughed at the fitness of the jest and who was applauded by the other brutes who clustered around laughing at the sight. There was not a house in that quarter that dld not have its dead and dying within its walls.

"The whole street was filled with feathers and blood. The Russians had torn open every pillow and bed and had thrown the feathers in the air. They were scattered everywhere. My wife was peeping out of a hole and saw me. She ran out with the children, and together we escaped into the country. We went to a village, but there was no security there. We expected every minute that the Russians would come and kill us. After a few hours I slipped out and went back into Kishineff. The streets were a terrible sight, with mutilated bodies here and there. I don't know how I got up courage enough to go into the city, but I did slip in and reached the home of Ivan Fiodroff.

"He took me in, though it was dangerous for him. I begged him to give my family protection and get us out of the neighborhood. At first he hesitated, but finally he said he would see us out of the city. He went with me and escorted my family by a devious way into the quarter of the city where lies the Kishineff railroad station. He