Author’s Note
196 Words
Author’s NoteThe reign of Czar Alexander III of Russia opened with a persecution of the Jews that was unequalled until fifty years later, when Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany. The Czar ordered that one third of the Jews in the country must die, one third emigrate and one third assimilate.
This appalling programme resulted in thousands of Jews being murdered and their property confiscated, while 225,000 desolate Jewish families left Russia for Western Europe.
In 1892 the Emperor’s brother, the Grand Duke Serge, evicted thousands of Jewish artisans and small traders from Moscow. Cossacks surrounded their quarters in the middle of the night while police ransacked every home, driving the unhappy people out of their beds. Classed as criminals, they were forced along the roads to nowhere.
In the summer of 1894 it was announced that Alexander III was suffering from dropsy, the result of kidney damage he had suffered in a train disaster. Desperately ill and shrunken to half his size, he lingered on until finally dying on 11 November.
His son Nicolas II, whom the Prince of Wales once described as ‘weak as water’, reigned until 1917. The following year the Bolsheviks assassinated him and his family.
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