A Galician Jew as a Prisoner of War in Siberia
A prisoner by accident

A Galician Jew as a Prisoner of War in Siberia

A POW by accident I have been reading about the Russian Civil War and the prisoner's of war in Siberia and came across the story of the old Raresh who became a prisoner all by mistake. This was a Galician Jew with only one eye and a long beard. In the POW camp among the Hungarian, Austrian and German soldiers he conducted their prayers in barrack #35, which had been designated as a synagogue. His tragedy was that he had been in the crowd watching the POWs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as they were passing through his native village in Galicia, when somebody by accident pushed him. He stepped forward and got caught up in the POWs. When he tried to step back out, one of the guards put a bayonet to his chest, refusing to let him go. Although he tried to explain that he was not one of the POWs, and wore no military uniform, and was even blind in one eye, the guard did not let him go. He had to stay with the prisoners, and if he really was not one of them, he would have his chance to explain himself in the next town. After a few weeks, however, there were many POWs with civil clothes and the old Raresh's story became nothing but one of the many excuses that provoked but a smile from others. He eventually got with the POWs all the way to the middle of Siberia. He received mail like other prisoners, from one of his eight children and from his wife he left behind so unexpectedly.

This story how an old one-eyed Galician Jew got caught up in the turmoil of World War I is a touching example of the fate of people in times of war. He had nothing to do with all this, and yet spent years in Siberia as a prisoner of war, away from his populous family in a tiny village in Galicia. Raresh's story is in the novel Aranyvonat (Golden Train) by Rodion Markovits. This is the writer who had himself spent several years in Siberia and after he came back, wrote a very successful book called Siberian Garrison. The novel about the Golden Train was his failed attempt to repeat the success of the first book. And while this second novel sold far fewer copies than the first, it is a still a captivating account about the fate of the Siberian prisoners and the times in which they lived. Of course, this novel is in Hungarian. Unfortunately, it was never successful enough to warrant an English translation... by Imre Galambos -- 2010 The Imperial Family of Russia Rise of the Russian Empire The Cossacks Among the lepers of Siberia The Religious Sect of Moscovites called Scoptsis Foreign retirees in Manchuria Pictures of Stalin