Historical references in Shraga Feitel's Imrei Shefer

Topics:

• the terrible destruction caused by the war;
• the proximity of the battle lines to his home area and to major concentrations of Jewish population;
• collateral deaths among the general population;
• disease (flu?) which ravaged communities (including members of Zeide's family);
• death from 'nervous' conditions (this was personally relevant, since Zeide also describes his own emotional trauma).

The following are excerpts from some sources on the web.

………………….

World War I began in the summer of 1914. The fighting ended November 1918.

More than 9 million combatants were killed, due largely to great technological advances in firepower without corresponding ones in mobility.

On 28 July the conflict opened with the Austro-Hungarianinvasion of Serbia,^[9][10] followed by the German invasion ofBelgium, Luxembourg and France; and a Russian attack against Germany. After the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917. In theEast, the Russian army successfully fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces but was forced back by the German army. Additional fronts opened after the Ottoman Empire joined the war in 1914, Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Romania in 1916. The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, and Russia left the war after the October Revolution later that year. After a 1918 German offensive along the western front, United States forces entered the trenches and the allies drove back the German armies in a series of successful offensives. Germany agreed to a cease fire on 11 November 1918

….

Technology

Armoured cars

The First World War began as a clash of 20-century technology and 19th-century tactics, with inevitably large casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernized and were making use of telephone, wireless communication,^[132] armoured cars,tanks,^[133] and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganized, so that 100 man companies were no longer the main unit of manoeuvre. Instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured. Artillery also underwent a revolution.

In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone. Counter-batterymissions became commonplace, also, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.

Germany was far ahead of the Allies in utilising heavy indirect fire. She employed 150 and 210 mm howitzers in 1914 when the typical French and British guns were only 75 and 105 mm. The British had a 6 inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm and 420 mm guns, and already by the beginning of the war had inventories of various calibers of Minenwerfer ideally suited for trench warfare.^[134]

Much of the combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each yard gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War. Such battles include Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme,Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Haber process of nitrogen fixation was employed to provide the German forces with a constant supply of gunpowder, in the face of British naval blockade.^[135] Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties^[136] and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head-wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced theAdrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German Stahlhelm, a design, with improvements, still in use today.

The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used includedchlorine, mustard gas and phosgene. Few war casualties were caused by gas,^[138] as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing were both outlawed by the 1907 Hague Conventions, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness,^[139] though they captured the public imagination.^[140]

The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns weighing hundreds of tons apiece. These were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres (60 mi), though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms (210 lb). While the Allies had railway guns, German models severely out-ranged and out-classed them.

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya 23 October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year. By 1914 the military utility was obvious. They were initially used for reconnaissance andground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed. Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins as well.^[141] Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMSFurious launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars atTondern in 1918.^[142]

German U-boats (submarines) were deployed after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development ofdepth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS R&-1, 1917), forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918).^[143] To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.

British Vickers machine gun

Trenches, machineguns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The British sought a solution with the creation of the tank andmechanized warfare. The first tanks were used during the Battle of the Sommeon 15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability became an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while combined armsteams captured 8000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Light automatic weaponsalso were introduced, such as the Lewis Gun and Browning automatic rifle.

Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes.^[144] If there was an enemy air attack, the crew could parachute to safety. At the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft (with their marginal power output) and smaller versions would not be developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice.^[145] Recognized for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets of enemy aircraft.

Johnson's Nieuport 11 armed with Le Prieur rockets for attacking observation balloons.

To defend against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were even tried. Blimps and balloons contributed to air-to-air combat among aircraft, because of their reconnaissance value, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines. The resulting panic took several squadrons of fighters from France.^[141][145]

Another new weapon, flamethrowers, were first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, they were a powerful, demoralizing weapon and caused terror on the battlefield. It was a dangerous weapon to wield, as its heavy weight made operators vulnerable targets.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for wheeled vehicles eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.

……….

In 1915 the German command decided to make its main effort on the Eastern Front, and accordingly transferred considerable forces there. To eliminate the Russian threat the Central Powers began the campaign season of 1915 with the successful Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in Galicia in May 1915. After the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the Eastern Front functioned under a unified command. The offensive soon turned into a general advance and then a strategic retreat by the Russian army. The cause of the reverses suffered by the Russian army was not so much errors in the tactical sphere, as the deficiency in technical equipment - particularly in artillery and ammunition. Only by 1916 did buildup of Russian war industries increase production of war material and improve the supply situation.

By mid-1915, the Russians had been expelled from Russian Poland and hence pushed hundreds of kilometers away from the borders of the Central Powers, removing the threat of Russian invasion of Germany or Austria-Hungary. At the end of 1915 German-Austrian advance was stopped on the lineRiga–Jakobstadt–Dvinsk–Baranovichi–Pinsk–Dubno–Ternopil. The general outline of this front line did not change until the Russian collapse in 1917.

The Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive during World War I started as a minor German offensive to relieve Russian pressure on theAustro-Hungarians to their south on the Eastern Front, but resulted in the total collapse of the Russian lines and their retreat far into Russia. The continued series of actions lasted the majority of the campaigning season for 1915, starting in early May and only ending due to bad weather in October.

Click to enlarge maps below:

from A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People edited by Eli Barnavi and published by Schocken Books.

The First World War, the most appallingly savage international conflict in all preceding history, had a profound impact on world Jewry. This was due to the existence of a large concentration of Jews within one of the principal arenas, the enlistment of unprecedented numbers of Jews to the armies of the belligerent nations, and the success of Jewish leaders in influencing the political policies of the major powers. Furthermore, increasing tensions during the war years deepened the hostile attitudes towards the Jews, particularly in Germany and in Eastern Europe.

The war on the eastern front between Russia and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) was conducted on territories that were home to almost four million Jews. In the autumn of 1914 and the winter of 1915, Russian forces occupied Austrian Galicia, and in the spring and summer of 1915, Germany and Austria conquered Congress Poland (the duchy annexed by Russia according to the treaties of 1815), Volhynia, Lithua nia, and western Belorussia. Under Russian rule, the Jews were suspected of collaboration with the enemy, and 600,000 of them were banished from the front by the czarist army, a traumatic experience and aneconomic catastrophe that was still felt long after the war. To aid their displaced and impoverished brethren, Jews around the world established welfare organizations on a scale previously unknown.

At the outbreak of the war, the Jews, eager to demonstrate their loyalty to their respective countries, rallied to the war effort. Initially the Jews in Russia were no exception, but when the policy of deportation was implemented, many Jews began to pray for the victory of the Central Powers. Nevertheless, about half a million Jews donned Russian uniforms. On the opposite side, almost 100,000 Jews were serving in the German army. Yet despite this massive enlistment, accusations of evasion and of profiteer ing were brought against the Jews in both countries, and official investi gations were instigated. Although the conclusions of these inquiries were never published, the statistics indicate that the percentage of Jewish losses was in no way smaller than that of the non‑Jewish population. Suspicions concerning their loyalty were even voiced in England and the United States, since the Jews did not hide their hostility toward the oppressive Russian autocracy, the ally of the two powers; and indeed, there were those among the recently‑arrived immigrants from Russia who refused to enlist. In both countries, Jews of German origin were requiredto sign humiliating public declarations of loyalty.

While the loyalty of Jewish individuals was torn between the opposing camps, Jewish international associations, including the World Zionist Organization, declared themselves neutral. But in view of the nature of the czarist regime and the large proportion of Polish and Russian Jews, the sympathy of most Jewish leaders lay with Germany and the Austro -Hungarian Empire. The German Foreign Office was aware of this, and during the first years of the war tried to exploit this to further German interests. GermanJews all over the world founded the "Committee for the East" which disseminated pro‑German propaganda among the Jews in Poland. Zionists in Germany conducted negotiations with the Foreign Office concerning cooperation over Palestine, and in 1915 the Jewish philosopher, Hermann Cohen, went to the United States to ask the Jews to try to persuade the American government to enter the war on Germany's side. These efforts undoubtedly spurred the British government to make advances to the pro‑English minority within the Zionist Organization, which contributed to the publication of the Balfour Declaration in November 1917.

Despite this first diplomatic victory for political Zionism, by the end of the war the majority of Jews found themselves confronting hatred and trouble. In Germany, the Jews were identified with the republican regime imposed on the country by the victors. Vanquished and humiliated, many Germans consoled themselves with the "stab in the back" myth, counting the Jews among the chief traitors. As the perennial scapegoat, the Jews were also blamed by many for the Bolshevik coup d'etat of October 1917; approximately 100,000 Jews were killed in the anti‑Bolshevik campaigns conducted by Ukrainians, Poles, and Russians.

The war's great upheavals changed the demographic map of the Jewish people. During the war, intercontinental migration dwindled, but there were large movements of refugees within Europe. Once the war was over, hundreds of thousands of Jews began leaving Europe again.

Eli Barnavi is the Director of the Morris Curiel Center for International Studies and a Professor of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University

…

AR: The below is from a "revisionist" website: they are attempting to show that there was no Holocaust of 6 million Jews during WWII: to the extent that the information is reliable, it is useful in showing how terrible the destruction was in WWI.

The story of the holocaust of up to six million European Jews didn't originate with World War Two. In fact, a very similar scenario was played out in somewhat less flamboyant terms during World War One and its aftermath. After World War One it was reported as news that five million, over five million, even six million Jews in Europe were sick or dying in a holocaust from starvation, horrible epidemics, and a malignant persecution. The following focuses especially on the World War One fund raising drives. These selected campaigns by major Jewish advocacy groups may offer historical significance both on their own and in terms of the post World War Two Holocaust industry.

Holocaust is a World War One word. Holocaust was used during and after World War One to describe what was going on in Europe and what allegedly happened to the Jews of Europe during and after that war. While the stories that are today referred to as "the Holocaust" weren't called a holocaust during or even for decades after World War Two, the word holocaust was used while World War One was happening and thereafter. It was called a holocaust, it was called the greatest tragedy the world has ever known and it was called the greatest need the world has ever known.

Until 1917, the leader of the Jewish community in New York, Jacob Schiff, repeatedly called for an end to "this holocaust".[54] In 1919, the American Hebrew magazine used the word holocaust in describing the plight of European Jewry in an article written under the byline of a former Governor of New York State.[55] Yehuda Bauer wrote in My Brother's Keeper, an authorized history of the Joint Distribution Committee of Jewish War Sufferers, that[56]

"the destruction of European Jewry during World War Two has obliterated the memory of the first holocaust of the 20th century in the wake of the First World War."

A "holocaust of humanity" is the way World War One was described in The Great Betrayal, a book co-authored by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and published in 1930. The premise of The Great Betrayalwas that the British had reneged on promises they made concerning Palestine to the Jewish leadership during World War One. This book included a chapter on Winston Churchill's opinion that:[57]

"The Zionist movement throughout the world was actively pro-Ally, and in a special sense pro-British. Nowhere was this movement more noticeable than in the United States and upon the active share of the United States in the bloody struggle which was impending rested a large proportion of our hopes. The able leaders of the Zionist movement and their wide-spread branches exercised an appreciable influence upon American opinion and that influence - like the Jewish influence generally - was steadily cast in our favor. Jews (Zionist and non-Zionist alike) sympathized with the Allies and worked for the success of Great Britain and the close co-operation with Great Britain of the United States.

The Balfour Declaration must, therefore, not be regarded as a promise given from sentimental motives; it was a practical measure taken in the interests of a common cause at a moment when that cause could afford to neglect no factor of material or moral assistance."

The Price of Liberty is an authorized history of the American Jewish Committee that was published in 1948, after World War Two was over. It contains a chapter about World War One entitled "The Holocaust of War". This chapter mentions some of these World War One and postwar fund raising efforts and includes the following quote:[58]

"As the armies rolled back and forth in desperate conflict over the borders of Poland, Galicia, and East Prussia, terror, desolation and death descended on the civilian population in general, but most of all upon the seven million Jews. The Christian Poles, Ruthenians and Germans suffered the inevitable hardships that attend all warfare; but the Jews, already proscribed by the Russians and Poles, met with a concentrated orgy of hatred, blood lust and vindictive opportunity that threatened to wipe them out in one vast holocaust."

Less than a month after the initial declarations of war in Europe, plans were begun to organize an effort to help Jews living in the war affected areas. On October 4, 1914, the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War was formed with Morris Engelman elected financial secretary and a day of prayer was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson. On October 14, 1914, Louis Marshall, the president of the American Jewish Committee, called a meeting which resulted in the formation of the American Jewish Relief Committee with Louis Marshall as chairman and Felix Warburg as treasurer. On November 27, 1914, the American Jewish Relief Committee and the Central Relief Committee organized the Joint Distribution Committee, electing Felix M. Warburg chairman.[59]

…In 1915, at a rally in New York, Louis Marshall, on behalf of the American Jewish Relief Committee, along with Jacob Schiff and Congressman Meyer London, denounced the apathy toward the suffering of co-religionists declaring that millions were in dire distress and pleading with the rich to give. Marshall said there were about 13 million Jews in the world, and that over 6 million of them are in eastern Europe where the war is being fought. Marshall also read a letter from Schiff that "private reports" had been received showing conditions in Russia, Palestine, Poland, and Galicia, "the frightful nature of which could not be pictured." Mr. London said this was the worst period in Jewish history and that millions of Jewish peoples depended on the generosity of more fortunate Jews of the United States.[60]

In May of 1915, certificates bearing the facsimile signatures of the officers of both committees ranging in value from one dollar to five dollars were introduced. In September, the Esras Torah fund was founded to aid the unfortunate Rabbis and Zadikim in Europe and Palestine. In October, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (Hias) obtained permission from Germany and other countries in Central Europe and received the consent of the United States Government to make arrangements so that communications between residents in the United States and their kin in eastern Europe could be reestablished with all letters passing through Hias, which acted as an International Post Office.

…..A May 22, 1916, New York Times article reported that there were 700,000 Jews in need on the east war front:[63]

"of the normal total of about 2,450,000 Jews in Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, 1,770,000 remain, and of that number about 700,000 are in urgent and continuous want. About 455,000 of these are in Poland, and 50,000 of these number are persons who are without homes and in particularly distressful circumstances."

Another 1916 project was a book entitled The Jews in the Eastern War Zone. Published by the American Jewish Committee, … The book said that Russia has virtually converted an area into a penal settlement, where six million human beings guilty only of adherence to the Jewish faith are compelled to live out their lives in squalor and misery, in constant terror of massacre, subject to the caprice of police officials and a corrupt administration - in short, without legal rights or social status:[65]

"a kind of prison with six million inmates, guarded by an army of corrupt and brutal jailers."

The Jews in the Eastern War Zone is an important book from this period because the language in the book is reused extensively by other sources, such as the New York Times. It is important today because it shows what the American Jewish establishment was telling people before the United States entered World War One, as a reading of the introduction and the introduction to the section on Russia shows.[66] This book's concept included the theme that the Jews in eastern Europe were experiencing a unique suffering, that this suffering was to an extent suffered by no others, that they were denied elementary rights denied to no other people, and were the victims of government sponsored persecutions. It even contains the buzz words "six million" and "extermination."

….…

By 1917, the Russian economy finally neared collapse under the strain of the war effort. While the equipment of the Russian armies actually improved due to the expansion of the war industry, the food shortages in the major urban centres brought about civil unrest, which led to the abdication of the Tsar and the February Revolution. The large war casualties also created disaffection and mutinous attitudes in the army, which was fueled by Bolshevikagitators and the Russian Provisional Government’s new liberalization policies towards the army (stripping officers of their mandate by giving wide sweeping powers to "soldier committees", the abolition of the death penalty). The very last offensive undertaken by the Russian Army in the war was the brief and unsuccessful Kerensky Offensive in July 1917.

On 29 November 1917, the Communist Bolsheviks took power under their leaderVladimir Lenin. Lenin’s new Bolshevik government tried to end the war but the Germans demanded enormous concessions. Finally, in March 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed and the Eastern Front ceased to be a war zone. While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year, it did provide some relief to Bolsheviks, who were embroiled in a civil war, and affirmed the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and Lithuania. The Germans were able to transfer some of their divisions to the west in order to mount an offensive in France in 1918. However, by then the arrival ofAmerican units in Europe was sufficient to offset the German advantage. Even after the Russian collapse, about a million German soldiers remained tied up in the east until the end of the war, attempting to run a short-lived addition to the German Empire in Europe. In the end, Germany and Austria lost all their captured lands, and more, under various treaties (such as the Treaty of Versailles) signed after the armistice in 1918.

[edit]Casualties

The Russian casualties in the First World War are difficult to estimate, due to the poor quality of available statistics. Some official Russian sources list 775,400 battlefield fatalities. More recent Russian estimates give 900,000 battlefield deaths and 400,000 dead from combat wounds, or a total of 1,300,000 dead. This is about equal to the casualties suffered by France and Austria-Hungary and about one-third less than those suffered by Germany.

Cornish gives a total of 2,006,000 military dead ….. He says civilian casualties were five to six hundred thousand in the first two years, and were then not kept, so a total of over 1,500,000 is not unlikely. .

…….

World War I

With the advent of World War I, Russian Jewry felt that they could increase their substandard role in society if they participated in the defense of Russia. Over 400,000 Jews were mobilized and about 80,000 served in the front lines. Battles occured in the Pale of Settlement, where millions of Jews lived. Yet, when the Russian army was defeated, anti-Semitic commanders blamed the Jews and accused them of treason and spying for the Germans. Jews were even kidnaped and tried for espionage. Shortly after the trials, mass expulsions of Jews living near the front lines were organized. In June 1915, Jews were expelled from northern Lithuania and Courland.

One month later, the use of Hebrew characters in printing and writing was prohibited, making it impossible to write both Hebrew and Yiddish. Western opinion united against the discrimination against the Jews, which made the procurement of loans from Western countries difficult. Shortly after, the Russians ceased enforcing the laws relating to discrimination of the Jews and Jewish refugees from Poland and Lithuania moved towards central Russia.

Austria and Germany’s conquests in 1915 brought 2,260,000 Jews (40% of Russian Jewry) under military rule. These Jews were freed from czarist abuses but also cut off from their families and neighbors. In Russia, the Jewish presses were silenced and Jewish youth were conscripted into the army. Yet Jews from the rest of eastern Europe were torn from Russian Jewry leading to social upheavals which affected all facets of eastern European Jewry.

February Revolution

In early March 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne, ending 300 years of Romanov rule. A provisional government was put in place. On March 16, 1917, the provisional government abolished all restrictions on the Jews. Jews were given the change to hold every available public office and were exposed to newfound freedoms. Anti-Semitism was forced underground thanks to the newfound freedoms granted by the provisional government. Thanks to the freedoms granted the Jews, the Revolution saw tremendous support from the Jews. Jews were active in every aspect of the Revolution’s political life, obtaining leadership positions in several parties. The newfound freedoms also allowed Jews to engage in Jewish nationalist politics. The Zionist movement flourished in 1917 and Zionist youth groups were formed throughout the country. Hebrew book clubs and press were founded. In November, as news of the Balfour Declaration reached Russia, Zionist rallies were held in major cities. A self-defense organization “Union of Jewish Soldiers,” was founded. Joseph Trumpeldor led it.

Only a few months after it was formed, the provisional government was severely weakened and anarchy reigned. Anti-Semitism, previously underground, became more prominent. Sporadic pogroms occurred throughout the Russian empire. In October 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution crushed the provisional government. Shortly after, Russia was thrust into a civil war that lasted until 1921. Between October 1917 and 1921, violent anti-Semitism became widespread. While individual soldiers of the Red Army attacked Jews, the official policy of the Red Army was to clamp down on anti-Semitic attacks, resulting in Jewish sympathy for the Red Army and the Soviet Regime. The White Army, on the other hand, was filled with Cossacks and officers, the bastions of anti-Semitism. The White Army was saturated with anti-Semitism and its slogan was “Strike at the Jews and save Russia!”

Under Soviet Control

As the borders of Soviet Russia sharpened, large numbers of Jews who had previously been under Russian control found themselves outside of the Soviet Empire. Only about 2,500,000 Jews remained under Soviet control. The Bolsheviks rejected anti-Semitism and loosened civil restrictions on the Jews. Under the influence of influential assimilated Jews, the Bolsheviks began to see the assimilation of the Jews as the only solution to “the Jewish problem.” Jewish nationalist expressions, be they expressions of the Jewish religion or Zionism, were clamped down upon. While the Bolshevik leaders clamped down on Jewish separatism their fight against anti-Semitism gained them wide support among the Jewish masses. Jewish youth enthusiastically joined the Red Army (founded by a Jew, Leon Trotsky). In 1926, Jews made up 4.4% of the officers in the Red Army (more than twice their ratio in the general population). Jewish elites also took part in the administrative rebuilding of the country. While a small but influential group of Jews helped rebuild Russia, the Socialist Economic Policies weakened the masses. The Bolsheviks also set up a special “Jewish section” in government in response to the fact that millions of Jews were attached to the Jewish religion and Hebrew language (at least as a language of prayer and Judaism). The Communists put secular assimilationist Jews in charge in order to foster hatred towards the Jewish religion, Hebrew, and Zionism, though temporarily allowing its replacement with secular Yiddish culture. In August 1919, Jewish communities were dissolved and properties confiscated. Traditional institutions of Jewish education and culture, such as yeshivot and cheder, were shut down. Hebrew study was prohibited and it became forbidden to print Jewish books. In 1928, it was forbidden to even print religious books and Jewish calendars. In 1927, Rabbi J. Schneerson, the leader of Habad Hasidism, was imprisoned and expelled from Russia. Yet “underground” religious activity still continued, though after World War II, hundreds of Hasidism left Russia to Eretz Yisrael. The growing restrictions on Jewish religious life strengthened Zionism.

Yiddish was also strengthened by the forming of a “Jewish proletariat culture.” A Yiddish press and Yiddish newspapers were established, though the writing of Yiddish was phoneticized into Russian script so as to cut its ties with Hebrew print. Russians granted Yiddish official status in that tribunals were held in Yiddish and significant resources were invested in the development of Yiddish school systems. After awhile, however, Jewish parents rebelled against these schools whose only connections to Jewish culture was a few lines of Yiddish literature and which taught anti-religious sentiment. As the quality of the schools declined (weak to begin with), they began to disappear.

The disappearance of Yiddish was replaced by cultural assimilation. Jewish children spoke Russian and attended Russian schools. Mixed marriage became common. Jews began to play an important role in Russian cultural life.

..

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.

In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy (Deseret News). An estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for WWI died of influenza (Crosby). 1918 would go down as unforgettable year of suffering and death and yet of peace. As noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association final edition of 1918:

…

Combat stress reaction (CSR), in the past commonly known as shell shock or battle fatigue, is a military term used to categorize a range of behaviours resulting from the stress of battle which decrease the combatant's fighting efficiency. The most common symptoms are fatigue, slower reaction times, indecision, disconnection from one's surroundings, and inability to prioritize. Combat stress reaction is generally short-term and should not be confused with acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or other long-term disorders attributable to combat stress, although any of these may commence as a combat stress reaction.

The ratio of stress casualties to battle casualties varies with the intensity of the fighting, but with intense fighting it can be as high as 1:1. In low-level conflicts it can drop to 1:10 (or less).

In World War I, shell shock was considered a psychiatric illnessresulting from injury to the nerves during combat. The horrors oftrench warfare meant that about 10% of the fighting soldiers were killed (compared to 4.5% during World War II) and the total proportion of troops who became casualties (killed or wounded) was 56%. Whether a shell-shock sufferer was considered "wounded" or "sick" depended on the circumstances. The large proportion of World War I veterans in the European population meant that the symptoms were common to the culture.