Marking the Centenary of Berlin's Scheunenviertel Pogrom

 It was, as claimed, the first pogrom in Berlin.

It took place in the Scheunenviertel (Barn) quarter in the first week of November 1923. It was termed the "Ostjudenpogrom". The area is today, less than one-half square mile, is now Berlin's Mitte district, not far from the historic city center, north of the city wall between Hackescher Markt and today's Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.

Earlier in 1923:

the Berlin police chief Wilhelm Richter ordered a large-scale raid against the Jewish population in the Scheunenviertel, during which around 300 Jewish men [eventually to reach some 1500], women and children were picked up by the police and interned in a “Jewish camp” near Zossen, a chilling precursor to what would happen over the next 20 years.

That referred to

popular violence against Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe during the Weimar Republic, their incarceration in camps in Pomerania and Bavaria during the early 1920s

Specifically,  the so-called Bavarian “Ostjuden Deportation” of October 1923 when Gustav Ritter von Kahr was appointed by Bavarian President Eugen von Knilling (BVP) as state commissioner general (Generalstaatskommissar) with dictatorial powers under Article 64 of the Bamberg (Bavarian) Constitution. Kahr refused to ban the Nazi Party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter, on 29 September he suspended the enforcement in Bavaria of the Law for the Protection of the Republic and in mid-October, Kahr had several hundred Jewish families who had immigrated from Eastern Europe decades earlier expelled from Bavaria (See: "The Expulsion of Jews with Polish Citizenship from Bavaria in 1923, Józef Adelson, POLIN, 2008). 

As reported in the JTA on Ocotober 29, 

Two hundred Jewish families have already been expelled from Bavaria and as many are awaiting deportation... including Jews who, while not subjects of the Bavarian State, are citizens of the Reich...A number of East-European Jews from Austria are also among the evicted. The houses owned by the deportees have been requisitioned for the alleged purpose of housing the refugees from the Ruhr district...The Voelkishe Beabachter, organ of Adolph Hitler, disregarding the Jews’ plea, continues the publication of the names of Jews not yet expelled, demanding the confiscation of their property as well as of those already deported.

Moreover, "an order has been issued by Dictator von Kahr to the Jews expelled from Bavaria, that their property must not be removed from the country. Jewish business men and manufacturers have received orders from the police authorities that the machinery and equipment of their factories as well as their products must remain in Bavaria, and their factories must be conducted in their absence by managers appointed for the purpose." 

The event went international at the end of November when

Foreign Minister Roman Dmowski of Poland has addressed a new note to Bavaria protesting the expulsions from Bavaria of Jews who are Polish citizens...the deportations are contrary to international law as well as the common principles of humanity. In conclusion, M. Dmowski threatens to order the deportation of German citizens on Polish soil if the expulsions of Polish citizens are continued.

Austria and Spain became involved.

To return to the events of the Berlin pogrom:

Jews of Berlin Attacked by Mob of 30,000  November 6, 1923

"...a mob of 30,000 stronge invaded the Jewish sections of the city and carried out the first pogrom in the history of Berlin. Anti-Jewish riots commencing in the afternoon in Grenadierstrasse, and Dragonerstrasse, inhabited largely by East-European Jews, 

Source

spread by the evening to all quarters of the city housing Jewish residents...No Jew was safe on Berlin streets yesterday and it is too early to say that greater security prevails today. Jewish passers by were stopped at every turn, were searched, maltreated, robbed of their possessions and stripped of their clothes, some being left only in their undergarments. Homes of Jews were searched for food and money, owners offering the least resistance being severely beaten.

Shops owned by Jews were plundered of their contents which were hurled through the windows smashed by the hooligans in order to gain entrance. Jewish tenement dwellers were dragged from their beds and driven to the streets in their night clothes.

...That the anti-Jewish riots were premeditated and well-organized is shown by the fact that on a given signal the plundering and mobbing would begin, and at a sign from a specially organized corp the anti-Jewish excesses would end.

...The Tageblatt and the Local Anzeiger remark it is significant that the mob attack was not sporadic, but broke out simultaneously in the Muezastrasse, Gormmanstrasse, Linienstrasse, Grenadierstrasse, Dragonerstrasse. Lilienstrasse, where many residences and practically all shops were systematically plundered, the wares being distributed among the waiting crowd. Especially in the clothing and piece-goods district were the wares seized and cut up to be carried away by the rioters...Herr Kopf, manager of the “Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith” received several blows from a black-jack as he was caught in a crowd swarming towards the Boerse and shouting “Death to Jews”.

Reports {as referenced in Dunker, Der Reichsbund judischer Frontsoldaten 1919-1938: Geschichte eines judischen Abwehrvereins, 53; "Der Bund judischer Frontsoldaten vor Gericht," Judische Rundschau, no. 40 (1924)}  noted

While the police had not arrived members of the Reichsbund Judischer Frontsoldaten (Jewish Veteran Association) assembled at the Jewish community centre on the nearby Rosenstrasse. Cadres of members, some of which were armed with pistols and rubber truncheons were formed and began patrolling the area, guarding synagogues and defending local Jews against the looters. On Bulowplatz, the Reichsbund cadres clashed with a group of some hundred rioters. In this situation, the veterans seek support from a passing by police patrol that refuses and leaves the area. In the following melee, a shot rang out fatally wounding a rioter.

The failure of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria did not deter the authorities there from halting the earlier deportations.

A precursor to the atmosphere which allowed Hitler to commence the Holocaust.

^

A Wales of a Pogrom

I was sent this:

The Times, 15 February 2019:

Sir, Winston Churchill’s detractors need to recall that in August 1911 the Jewish communities of the “Western Valleys” (West Monmouthshire and East Glamorgan) were subjected to a week of brutal, premeditated assaults, robbery and looting by coal miners and their wives, whipped up by socialist propaganda. Only the troops deployed by Churchill, who was then home secretary, protected them. Churchill quite correctly referred to these incidents as a “pogrom”. Professor Geoffrey AldermanUniversity of Buckingham

Professor Alderman authored "The Jew as Scapegoat? The Settlement and Reception of Jews in South Wales before 1914", Transactions & Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England), Vol. 26 (1974-1978), pp. 62-70.

I admit I was unaware of this event.  I am going to guess most of you are as well. So, a bit of history -

Information is here:

anti-Jewish riots...swept the valley communities of Monmouthshire and Glamorgan in August 1911, leading to the temporary imposition of military rule – Churchill ordered detachments of the Worcester Regiment to patrol the affected areas - and to the wholesale evacuation of Jewish families by special trains that conveyed them to the relative safety of Cardiff, Newport, Aberdare and Merthyr. These riots - a week-long orgy of attacks on Jewish property - began in Tredegar during the evening of Saturday, August 19, and spread rapidly to Ebbw Vale, Rhymney and other industrial centres of the Western Valleys. Wherever Jews could be found, the rioters struck. 

And

At Tredegar only Jewish shops were attacked, while at Ebbw Vale, the Daily News reported, "the cry of the mob was … one long denunciation of Jews." The view of the presiding magistrate at Tredegar was that "the first disturbances were no doubt anti-Jewish," and the chief constable of Monmouth, in a report to the Home Office (August 21), gave it as his opinion that there was "a determination expressed by the inhabitants [of Tredegar] to get rid of them," meaning the Jews.

There is compelling evidence that the attacks were planned. According to the Rev Harris Jerevitch, minister at the Cardiff synagogue, "There is no doubt that the attacks were planned. Some of the Jewish inhabitants were informed a day or two before the outrages that people intended to wreck and loot their shops."

And here.

Churchill in Parliament

There were in several places gross instances of incendiarism, and in two cases in South Wales, at any rate, of wholesale loot by persons previously of good record. That is an amazing feature in the recent disturbances. I was told that at Tredegar there had been a case of anti-Semitism; and, quite peculiar and quite unknown in this country before, persons hitherto respectable were seen going home with bundles of clothes which they had taken from shops and which they were taking away as if they were not in the least ashamed of what they had done.

And Liberal MP Sir Arthur Markham

...The letter which I received states that serious rioting took place at Tredegar. [An HON. MEMBER: "Read it all."] You shall have it all if you wish it. The letter, dated August 21st, says:— Serious rioting took place at Tredegar on Saturday and Sunday night. It would appear that on Saturday night, between 11 and 12 o'clock, an attack was made upon shops owned by Jews in the main street of the town. There can be no doubt that this had been pre-arranged, although the police had no knowledge that such an attack was likely to take place. There were only eight constables available, and they were quite inadequate to deal with the disturbance, and could do little more than look on at the wrecking and looting or eighteen shops owned by Jews or persons of Jewish extraction. At an emergency meeting of the magistrates held on Sunday afternoon, it was decided to ask the Home Office for military protection, as there were strong rumours of a recurrence of the riots that evening. About 200 military arrived in the town about 10.30 that night from Cardiff, but previous to their arrival a few scuffles had taken place with the police, and the wrecking and looting of two other somewhat large business premises owned by Jews was commenced. Fortunately the arrival of the military prevented further grave disturbances, but the two premises I have previously referred to were looted of everything they contained; respectable people to all appearances carrying off bundles of clothing quite openly, and apparently without shame. 
At one time a serious conflict seemed imminent, but by appealing to the crowd a large number were prevailed upon to go home, with the result that by the aid of the military patrolling the town and by police rushes, the streets were eventually cleared without serious mishaps other than broken heads and cuts from the baton charges. Had I not seen it myself, I would not have believed that such an occurrence could have taken place in Tredegar, and I am sorry to say that although undoubtedly started in the first stage by hooligans, there were a large number of respectable working men taking part in the disturbance…. As previously stated the feeling in the first case was against the Jews, but now it appears to be an outburst of lawlessness in all directions, and threats have been used against respectable tradesmen who have been in the town for many years." 

^

When Did The Anarchists Arrive?

According to this Hebrew report, when the IDF arrived at the village of Asira Al-Qabaliya on the Shabbat, the found Jonathan Pollock and friends from the Anarchists Against the Wall [Fence] group. They claimed they came after hearing reports of the violence and to protect the Arabs and calm things down.

I am going to guess they were there much earlier and I hope some detective work is done in this matter.

"Pogrom" was the word Olmert used. The revenant residents had a different version. And this, too:-

The events began Saturday morning when a Palestinian infiltrated the illegal outpost of Shalhevet Yam near Yitzhar and set fire to an empty mobile home. He then tried to enter another home and encountered a 10-year-old boy outside sent from a home nearby. The Palestinian stabbed the boy in the back and hand several times.

The Palestinian then fled to the village of Asira al-Kabaliya and the army set up roadblocks in an attempt to capture him.

A military official said of the first incident: "If the family had been there they would have been burned alive." A Yitzhar resident, Yehudit Liebman, said the family was away for the Sabbath.

The official said the boy was lightly injured. The Magen David Adom ambulance service took him to Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikva.

"The terrorist came up to the Shalhevet neighborhood through the wadi from which the murderers of my brother and the murderers of Harel Ben-Nun came up more than 10 years ago," Liebman said.

According to Liebman, after the Palestinian set fire to the empty home, neighbors, the Stetmans, smelled the smoke and the parents sent their son, 10-year-old Tuvia, to warn the Ofan family of the fire.

Meanwhile, the terrorist tried to enter the Ofans' home though a bedroom window, but according to Liebman, Revital Ofan struggled with him and closed the shutter on his hands. He then stabbed Tuvia, who reportedly was able to wrest the knife away before the assailant grabbed him and threw him down the valley.

If this was a "pogrom", what did Olmert do in South Lebanon two years ago?