AustLit

'In BIalystok, Poland, during the summer of 1906, a procession of men dressed in gowns walked solemnly through the city centre to commemorate the building of a new Russian-Orthodox cathedral. Though the town was mostly Jewish, the atmosphere between Jews and goyim had been strained since Pesach the previous year, when local gossip began to spread that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood to make matzoh for the holy day. The police chief, Derkacz, had sent the police to stop Russian soldiers from attacking Jews in the marketplace. He was the seventh man to have held the post of police chief that year. The other six had been murdered on orders from the Russian government, or had stepped down from the position out of fear. Derkacz had heard the stories from nearby villages of what was happening to the Jews there. He told the Jews in Bialystok, 'It will not happen here.' My great-great-grandmother (I do not know her name) heard him say, 'Over my dead body.' He was murdered in June on the orders of the Russian commissar.'  (Publication abstract)