November 25, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
Vicious pogroms are still raging around Odessa. One woman had a cross cut into her stomach. Many victims’ eyes were plucked out and sand was rubbed into their empty eye sockets. On October 19th, outside of Odessa, 60 Jews were forced to lie down on railroad tracks, side by side. Then, one after another, their heads were chopped off with an axe. Despite the horrors, Jews are fighting back. Small numbers of weapons have been distributed for self-defense. Boiling water was poured off the roof of one of Brodsky’s sugar factories onto the pogromists, who also had balloons full of carbolic acid thrown on them. Dozens were injured. If it were not for the army protecting the pogromists, the Jews would do a lot more damage to them.
75 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
Early this week, the Forward ran a front-page “extra” item announcing that reports out of Moscow indicated that Stalin had been shot. People sent out thousands of telegrams and cables all around the world, trying to find out what happened. As it turned out, nothing had happened. In an interview, Stalin jokingly denied that he had been killed or even shot at all. Editorial offices all over the world had been in a feverish state for days, trying to figure out what had happened. The only thing determined is that the news simply started from an unfounded rumor.
A Vilna newspaper has reported that a female peasant has been arrested on the charge of strangling her 2-month old grandchild — for having the wrong father. The woman declared she accidentally discovered the fact that the father of her grandchild is a Jew; she decided to punish the child for his mother’s “crime.” She added that she committed the murder on the command of her deceased mother, who came to her in a dream and told her to send the child to her in the next world.
50 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
In an address to the United Nations General Assembly this week, Uruguay’s representative stated that Israel and the Arab states should forget the past and attempt to build a future together. He noted that Israel had offered to pay reparations to Arab refugees and that the Arab countries should settle the refugees and give them citizenship where they are among their own kind, with whom they speak the same language and share the same traditions. The Uruguayan delegate’s speech followed that of the Pakistani delegate. The latter delegate stated that Israel had no right to its holy places, because so many claim them.
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