Jewish pogroms. The question of whether Jewish pogroms took place on the territory of Latvia is considered from different perspectives. There are indications that pogroms occurred in Latvia in 1881 and later. The literature mentions a Jewish pogrom in Tukums in 1883. There are also reports of Jewish pogroms in Riga during the Revolution of 1905–1907.
Thus, there is a reference to a pogrom in Riga that broke out on October 22, 1905: a Jewish shop was looted, nine people were killed, and many (not only Jews) were wounded. The pogrom was prevented from spreading further by troops who dispersed the crowd. Subsequently, order was maintained by self-defense units consisting of Jews, Russians, and Latvians, mainly members of the Bund and the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (LSDRP). (Sh. [B.])
There is also evidence in the foreign press about pogroms and clashes outside the Pale of Settlement, including in Riga. There are data on a pogrom in Talsen (Talsi) after the Manifesto of October 17, 1905; in this case, the perpetrators were local pogromists.
After “Bloody Sunday” (January 9, 1905), in Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, Shavli (Šiauliai), and Kovno (Kaunas), the police attempted to provoke Jewish pogroms; in Bobruisk, Kreslavka, and Gory-Gorki they limited themselves to threats.
Some authors believe that attempts by the Black Hundreds to organize pogroms in the early twentieth century failed. There are reports that in 1905 a pogrom in Ludza was prevented by Latvian Catholics, as well as information that on October 23 and 24, 1905, Latvian and Jewish militants — Social Democrats and Bundists — thwarted pogroms in Riga and Daugavpils. In Rēzekne, members of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) reportedly eliminated the threat of a Jewish pogrom, allegedly being prepared by the police, on the eve of May Day.
Some authors therefore prefer to speak of attempts at pogroms during the Revolution of 1905–1906.
In 1918–1940 a number of anti-Jewish disturbances reached such intensity that they may be classified as pogroms. Today there is no consensus among researchers on this issue. However, some recent publications (for example, the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia and others) classify a number of antisemitic outbreaks in Latvia precisely as pogroms.
Thus, in 1918 the Jews of Bauska suffered from pogroms carried out by soldiers of the Latvian army. Likewise, during the capture of Kārsava, soldiers engaged in looting, during which all Jewish shops were affected and two Jews were killed. According to some authors, the events in Kārsava resembled a pogrom. However, no political conclusions were drawn from the events in Kārsava—the authorities regarded them as an accidental incident.
Similar events later occurred in Jēkabpils, Daugavpils, Liepāja, and Rēzekne. In Rēzekne, for example, the police were forced to open fire in order to stop the pogrom. Five Jewish apartments and twenty-seven Jewish-owned shops were destroyed and looted. Sixteen people were arrested with the property of the victims in their possession. L. Fishman, a deputy of the Constituent Assembly sent to Rēzekne, concluded that the losses caused by the pogrom were excessive. Another member of the Constituent Assembly, I. Berz, stated that an organized pogrom had taken place in Rēzekne: “workers of the Poker leather factory <…> were invited to participate in the pogrom, as a result of which ninety-two people suffered.” Concerning the events in Rēzekne and Daugavpils, an official government statement signed by the Minister of the Interior was published in Valdības Vēstnesis. The events in Rēzekne were also defined as a pogrom in the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia.
The events in Daugavpils and Rēzekne should indeed be classified as pogroms. This was also the assessment of the newspaper Jaunākās Ziņas, which wrote regarding the events in Daugavpils: “Pogroms in a democratic state are a disgrace. There must be no place for them in free Latvia.”
In 1921, “a pogrom took place in Bauska on the day of the elections to the Latvian Saeima.” A pogrom was prevented in Jēkabpils in 1922, when Jews were indiscriminately accused of murdering a Christian child, and also in Viļāni in 1926, although antisemitic incidents occurred there in 1928 and 1930. In 1926 clashes between members of the LNK and Jews continued for nearly a week.
However, as a result of active resistance to antisemitism by Jewish organizations, representatives of other organizations and national groups, as well as state institutions, attempts to organize such excesses in the mid-1930s and later did not develop further. During this period the authorities largely eliminated antisemitic incidents.