orities who handled the deportation
thought only of how to get rid of the Jews, and those on whom the
newcomers were thrust had not been informed in time and did not know
how to arrange to take care of them.

The first party, three thousand strong, stayed a while at Melitopol,
then they were transported to Simferopol where they remained five
days, and were finally distributed over the towns and townlets of
northern Crimea.

It is told that one of the parties was assigned to Yekaterinoslav, but
the authorities refused to accept the people and ordered them to
proceed further. The local papers report that a group of deported Jews
was transported from Pavlograd to Jankoy, then, according to an
instruction from the Ministry of the Interior they were shipped to
Voronezh....

There are many old men and women, many girls and mothers, and a large
number of children in the party which has been brought here. All of
them are miserable and exhausted, a number are ill, either because
they had been sick when the catastrophe overtook them or because they
fell ill on the way, and there are many pregnant women among them. As
a result of their long wanderings, wives have lost their husbands and
mothers their children and they eagerly question everybody about those
dear to them.

Little has been written in the newspapers about the Jews deported from
the zone of military activities, and so far little has been heard of
either the state or the social organisations coming to the assistance
of these "war sufferers," who feel the burden of war even more heavily
than those who fled from the war-stricken districts on their own
account. There was a vague statement that the Pirogov Society is
aiding the Jews deported to the Government of Poltava and that meagre
sums were contributed by the Union of Towns and the Ministry of the
Interior,--that is all the newspapers have so far reported.

The burden of taking care of the newcomers fell entirely on the local
Jewish communities. It was a heavy burden, for there are no more than
about twenty thousand Jewish families in the entire government of
Tavrida. These twenty thousand families had to take care and to
support seven thousand homeless people, mostly small tradesmen and
peddlers who had had no time to liquidate their businesses and who
could not take along any property, for bedding was the only thing they
were allowed to carry.

They had to find housing facilities in all haste, to organise
tr