The Warsaw pogrom 1881

The Warsaw pogrom was a pogrom that took place in Russian-controlled Warsaw on 25-27 December 1881, then part of Vistula Land in the Russian Empire.

A contemporary Jewish-Russian historian, Simon Dubnow, gives details of this event: on Christmas Day 1881 the outbreak of panic after a false warning of fire in the crowded Holy Cross Church resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine persons in a stampede.

It was believed that the false alarm was raised by pickpockets, who used the ruse to allow them to rob people during the panic. A crowd gathered on the scene of the event and some unknown persons started to spread a rumour, which subsequently proved to be unfounded, that two Jewish pickpockets had been caught in the church.

The mob began to attack Jews, Jewish stores, businesses, and residences in the streets adjoining the Holy Cross Church.

 The riots in Warsaw continued for three days, until Russian authorities (who controlled the police as well as military in the city) intervened, arresting 2,600 people. During the Warsaw pogrom two people were left dead and twenty-four injured. The pogrom also left about a thousand Jewish families financially devastated. In the months afterwards about one thousand Warsaw Jews emigrated to the United States.

The pogrom worsened Polish-Jewish relations, and was criticized by almost the entire Polish elite, including writers Eliza Orzeszkowa, Boleslaw Prus and several other notable activists.

It was and still up to day (2015) is the most used weapon of elimination of minorities in Russian Empire- using national minorities to struggle each with other and in such way to clean "lebensraum" for Russians from Europa to the Far East

Historians Simon Dubnow, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Frank Golczewski and Magdalena Micinska, among others, noted that the pogrom might have been instigated by the Russian authorities, trying to drive a wedge between Jews and Poles.