1906: An assassination sparks a pogrom

On June 14, 1906, pogrom against Jews in Bialystok, Polish Russia took place An excerpt from the article:

"A police chief remembered as benevolent to Bialystok's Jews said a pogrom would take place only over his dead body. That is precisely what happened.

On June 11, 1906, an assassination took place that, several days later, sparked the horrific Bialystok pogrom.

Although the pogrom was one of a number of such anti-Jewish rampages that occurred in the Russian Empire between 1903 and 1908, its particular circumstances led to its becoming a seminal event and contributed to the feeling many Jews had that there was no place safe for them in Russia.

The assassination target was the chief of police in Bialystok, Russia (today Poland). His death is thought to have been the decisive event that led to the murder of 80 to 200 of the town’s Jews (estimates vary).

Bialystok in the early 20th century was more than three-quarters Jewish in its population – some 48,000 out of a general population of 63,000. It was an industrial center and, not coincidentally, also a center of the labor movement. Many Jews were among the activists involved in radical political thought and activity. Ludwig Zamenhof, founder of the utopian Esperanto movement, was a native of Bialystok, and the Hibat Zion proto-Zionist movement had its roots in the city as well."