June 13 1915 Dearest Mother; The last few days have been so exciting I have not had an opportunity to write for I have not been a minute alone. Perhaps you have read reports in the papers of the demonstrations against the Germans. It was kept out of the Moscow papers for a couple of days and then the news was greatly exaggerated all over Russia. We dont know what got into the foreign papers, but the whole thing was dreadful enough. It started Thursday. The stores which were in any way representative of German business were closed and there are thousands of them in the city. A very large percent of business here before the war was German and though nearly all German citizens have left the city, there are a very great many left who are of German descent and Russian citizenship. Of course, the anti-German feeling is intense. The Russians do not like the Germans much at the best. They are of such a different temperament. The Russians arent good at business and the Germans have come in with their modern business methods, shrewdness and business ability, and have established themselves in every branch of commercial life. The Russians have scorned many of their ways and have at the same time resented their aggressiveness and their success. Now that the war has given them such bitter feeling against them as the enemy, all this contempt for German characteristics has tremendously increased and the government should have closed up their stores and offices long ago. But because German firms are so necessary to everyone I suppose it was put off. Anyway, it happened that feeling grew intense over some reported German atrocity and the people made a big demonstration in the streets. Crowds marched about with flags and pictures of the Czar, and the police allowed them to destroy German firms. The first we saw of it was on Thursday afternoon when we heard the noise on the street. I happened to be at the office and we went out in time to see crowds of people up on Marasyka - one of the prominent business streets - and soon people were running in all directions with great boxes and tins of Eminem’s candies. Einems is the finest confectioners here. They have several stores and factories and the best cakes and candies in the city are manufactured by them. They are famous all over Russia. But they are a German firm and it happened to be the first place attacked. The crowds broke down the doors, smashed through the windows and looted and destroyed everything, so that absolutely nothing was left in the building but the heavier equipment that couldnt be moved and that was made useless. The ringleaders intended that nothing should be taken away, and everything destroyed on the spot; but, of course, with the crowd increasing every moment that was impossible, and people scurried off in every direction after each store was broken into and they carried away what they coul
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 22:17:01 +0000
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