Damaged scroll describing an anti-Jewish pogrom and memorializing those killed

Vellum scroll with an eyewitness account and remembrance of those lost in a 1918 massacre in Novhorod-Siversʹkyi, Russia, (now Ukraine.) Written soon after the pogrom, it curses the perpetrators, recounts the events, and records a prayer for the dead and the names of the men, women, and children who were murdered. It is the only known eyewitness account of this event. On April 6, 1918, as Red Army troops retreated from the German Army, they attacked the Jews of Novhorod-Siversʹkyi, and 88 were killed. Hostility toward Jews was widespread in the Russian Empire, and the military was notoriously antisemitic. Anti-Jewish pogroms, outbreaks of mass violence, erupted frequently in the early 20th century, causing immense suffering. These scrolls were a traditional way to express community remembrance and to honor victims of pogroms. The practice of recording the names of the dead was done following the Holocaust in memorial books known as Yizkor books, created through the collective efforts of survivors to remember and preserve what was lost. The document is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.