This week's Yizkor book excerpt on the JewishGen Facebook page #general
Bruce Drake <BDrake@...>
One of the dark periods for Jewish communities in the Russian Pale of
Settlement in the 19th century began in 1827 when Czar Nikolai issued the Cantonist Decree requiring them to provide recruits for military service. Under the order, the Jewish communities had to fill the debt of military service with people, and not with money as had been the practice. The term of service was 25 years, which began at age 18. But "the most bitter of the cruel laws" imposed by Nikolai was to take Jews aged 12 to 25 with the aim of forcing religious conversions to Christianity by sending the younger ones to Cantonist institutions- "small, weak, trembling children [stolen] >from their mothers. In 1856, Aleksander II repealed the edict permitting the taking of children up to 18 as soldiers. URL: https://www.facebook.com/JewishGen.org/posts/1792391904116290 Bruce Drake Silver Spring MD Researching: DRACH, EBERT, KIMMEL, ZLOTNICK Towns: Wojnilow, Kovel
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