Virginia S. reviewed on 6/19/2018 + 18 more book reviews

The author organized desperately needed relief for Jews living in the Pale of Settlement during WW1, as the Germans, Austrians and Russians fought back and forth across these lands, conducting pogroms, burning, looting, killing, raping.....what amazed me was how the author could move around, often long distances, by catching trains or cars, going from Galicia to St. Petersburg to Kiev to Minsk, arranging for money from the Duma, Jewish groups in better off areas, carrying thousands of rubles on his person and distributing them to Jewish refugees who were destitute, whose homes and lives and livelihoods were ruined by war. I thought the book might be depressing, and to some extent it was, but it was also riveting. I don't see how someone could witness all this horror and still stay sane. Those who did manage to survive ended up suffering the same horrors in WW2. No wonder many Jewish families like that of my husbands forebears left the Pale for America and many other nations.

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