Mikhail suggests that maybe Chaia is thinking of marriage but Rachel believes that is ridiculous as they are much too young to be considering marriage. However, Mikhail tells her that his mother was married at sixteen and his grandmother even earlier. Rachel responds that she wants to be a famous writer and marry someone she loves and only have she has travelled the world. As they continue to argue, suddently Mikhail pulls Rachel into an embrace and kisses her. This shocks Rachel who admonishes him.
Nevertheless, the damage has already been done. Violence and hatred are unleashed against the Jewish community in Kishinev in the form of destroyed homes and businesses and the massacre of fifty one innocent people. Rachel must come to terms with the losses she suffers and Sergei must deal with the part his own father had in the violence against their Jewish neighbours.
Rachel's Secret by Shelly Sanders
Toronto: Second Story Press 2012
245 pp.
They encounter fourteen-year-old Sergei Khanzhenkov who also likes Rachel and wants her to skate with him. However, Rachel is not interested. She remembers how they collided a few days earlier and Sergei caused her to drop a bag of flour. He made no offer to replace the flour. So when Rachel refuses to skate with him, he angrily leaves. Rachel and Mikhail continue to skate until Rachel's older sister, Nucia calls her to go home.
Meanwhile as Sergei and Petya walk home together, they discuss their Jewish neighbours. Petya, whose father is mayor of Kishinev, relates how people complain to him about how crowded Kishinev is because of all the Jews coming to the town. Sergei wonders if Mikhail's father knows that he is interested in Rachel who is a Jew and he tells Petya that his father believes the Jews are taking all the jobs and that they will eventually control Kishinev. But Petya feels that the Jewish shops do good work.
Sergei lives with his mother Tonia and father Aleksandr, his Aunt Carlotta, and his younger sister, eight-year-old Natalya. His father is a police officer who expects Sergei to also soon become a police officer and marry. However, Sergei doesn't want this for himself and decides he needs to tell Mikhail that they must leave Kishinev sooner than planned. Meanwhile as Mikhail skates, he thinks back on the conversation he had with his grandfather earlier that day: how he wanted to attend university and travel, not begin working in the factory as his grandfather wanted. His grandfather wants him to work in his factory that processes tobacco but Mikhail believes he can find work in St. Petersburg.
At the river's edge, Mikhail meets his Uncle Vasily and his cousin Philip. Some previous quarrel had resulted in Vasily and Philip not being welcome in Mikhail's grandfather's home. Vasily is drunk and quarrelsome, revealing that he lost his position at the factory. Mikhail is tripped by Philip resulting in him crashing to the ice and hitting his head. He offers to intervene with grandfather on Vasily's behalf but Vasily tells him that won't make a difference. If Mikhail is gone, then Vasily's father has no one but him to run the business. Mikhail pleads for his life but Vasily stabs him in the chest and repeatedly in the back, arms and legs, killing him.
Meanwhile, halfway home, Rachel realizes that she has left behind the new red shawl her mother made for her. She runs back to the river and locates it by the bench near a grove of trees. But while there she hears the familiar voice of Mikhail and peering through the trees she witnesses Mikhail's brutal murder by his uncle. Terrified, Rachel flees home, falling and dirtying her skirt. At home she is so distraught she can't eat and is consumed by guilt, wondering if her friendship with Mikhail was responsible for his murder. Nucia also reveals that Rachel was skating with Mikhail, resulting in her mother admonishing her for being seen with a gentile.
At school the next day Sergei is puzzled by Mikhail's absence until a policeman reveals that blood was found on the ice of the River Byk and that Mikhail is missing. Sergei is questioned by the policeman but doesn't reveal that Mikhail was with Rachel. Later that night Sergei learns that Mikhail's body has been found far away in Dubossary. When he shows his father the next day where he last saw Mikhail and reveals that he was with Rachel, his father tells him to stay away from Rachel, that she is bad luck. Sergei questions his father as to why he and the other policemen are so focused on the Jews. As he is walking past the grove of trees, Sergei finds Rachel's red shawl that she was wearing the day she was skating with Mikhail. He quickly retrieves it, hiding it from his father.
Rachel is so distressed over Mikhail's murder that she doesn't attend school for several days. Her father Gofsha, who works as a shoemaker's assistant, arrives home with the news about Mikhail's murder and how his body has been found in Dubossary. Her father questions her, and while Rachel desperately wants to tell him what she saw, she is afraid he won't believe her and that the police will know that she saw the murder. Gofsha tells Rachel's mother Ita, that they are not to go out alone and not beyond lower Kisinev where they live as there is talk that a Jew may be responsible for the murder.
At her school, the Jewish Gymnazyium, her friends Chaia and Leah reveal that their families will not be attending shul tomorrow because of the rumours being spread that Mikhail's murder was committed by a Jew for his blood. At Shabbos with her family and Mr. Talanksy and his son Sacha, Mr. Talansky tells Rachel's father that the gentile newspaper, Bessarabets is blaming Jews and calling them parasites. When news of Mikhail's murder spreads, the Russian community begins spreading the lie that Mikhail was the victim of a blood libel. Fed by anti-Jewish propaganda from the local newspaper, racial hatred ignites and seethes in the town of Kishinev. People have already been blaming the Jews for many things as the area has a history of prejudice against them.
One afternoon while Sergei is in Chuflinskii Square with his parents and Natalya, they witness a well-dressed Jewish family being harassed and beaten by Russian peasants. No one intervenes to help the family. Natalya tells Sergei that everyone including her friends and the teachers are talking about Mikhail's murder and the blood ritual. As the situation worsens, Rachel is harassed by a shopkeeper then attacked by a group of teenage girls who kick and punch her. She is rescued by Sergei who drives the girls away and offers to walk Rachel home. He apologizes to her for causing her to drop the bag of flour. Sergei asks her why the Jews are believed to commit "blood libel" and Rachel explains that when the bread they make for Passover, matzah is old or wet, a red mold develops. This is the source of the ugly rumour. Sergei also encourages Rachel in her determination to be a writer, telling her that his sister who is smart should have more choices. As they begin to develop a friendship, Rachel finally confides in him about Mikhail's murder. Sergei attempts to tell his father what he knows about Mikhail's murder in the hope that the real culprits will be arrested and the Jewish community exonerated, but his father refuses to act until he hears from the Governor.
Nevertheless, the damage has already been done. Violence and hatred are unleashed against the Jewish community in Kishinev in the form of destroyed homes and businesses and the massacre of fifty one innocent people. Rachel must come to terms with the losses she suffers and Sergei must deal with the part his own father had in the violence against their Jewish neighbours.
Discussion
Rachel's Secret takes readers on a journey inside the 1903 pogrom of Kishinev, Russia. The book was inspired by the experiences author Shelly Sander's grandmother endured as a survivor of a pogrom in Russia. Many of the characters in the book are real people who lived through the events Sanders describes including Ita and Gofsha Paskar, Chaia and Hosea Berlatsky, Sergei's father Aleksandr Khanszenkov, Bishop Iakov and a few others. The novel describes events over the time frame of March to May of 1903.
The Kishinev pogrom was a real event that occurred in the town of Kishinev on Easter Sunday at noon, April 19, 1903. Kishinev at this time was part of the Russian Empire, having been annexed from Moldava in 1818. About half the population of Kishinev were Jewish in the late 1800s. While Jews owned many businesses and factories, most Jews lived in poverty, attending their own schools, As mentioned in the novel, the Bessarabets, a Russian newspaper regularly published anti-semitic and inflammatory articles about the Jewish population.
The pogrom was triggered not only by the anti-semitic propaganda published in the newspapers but also by the murder of Mikhail Rybachenko, a Ukrainian boy, in the town of Dubossary located north of Kishinev, and the suicide of a Jewish girl. The horror began at noon with the harrassment of Jews in Chuflinskii Square. As Sanders describes in her novel, many of the Christian homes and businesses had crosses chalked on them, or icons in the windows, protecting them from the mobs that began to roam looking for Jews. They descended upon the Jewish quarter, smashing windows, demolishing property, looting, raping and murdering. The local police stood by and watched as Jews were beaten, mutilated and murdered. The pogrom ended three days later with murder of thirty-four men and seven women, almost five hundred wounded and two thousand homeless. The local population was unrepentant over what had happened. And it would be repeated two years later in 1905.
In Rachel's Secret, Shelly Sanders has written a balanced fictional story based on the horrifying events of 1903. The Jewish community are shown as being peaceful and integrating as much as they are allowed into Russian society, speaking both Russian and Yiddish. The novel's three main characters, Rachel Paskar, Mikhail Rybachenko, Sergei Khanzhenkov are friends drawn into horrific events beyond their control. Rachel is a witness to the murder of Mikhail that sets in motion the pogrom of 1903. The pogrom is described through the eyes of Sergei, who watches the raging mob, while his father, chief of police does nothing.
The three main characters are well developed and believable even though one of them, Mikhail, has only a minor part in the story. They are realistic because like most teenagers in the 20th century, they want more than what tradition has to offer the young of a new century. Rachel wants to marry for love but only after she has travelled and become a writer. Sergei doesn't want to be a police officer but instead wishes to travel and become an artist. Mikhail also wishes to leave Kishinev to attend university rather than take over the family's tobacco business.
Rachel is strong, sensible heroine who like all young people wishes for a better future. She is overwhelmed after witnessing the brutal murder of Mikhail, a boy she likes. Initially, Rachel questions if she is responsible for his murder. "Rachel feared that Mikhail's uncle had seen them together, that maybe she was partly to blame for the stabbing." She is haunted by these thoughts."Seeing Mikhail killed made Rachel wonder if their friendship was to blame, because he'd ventured outside his world and into hers, because he'd cared about her more than he should have."
Rachel is also consumed by fear and guilt and she desperately wants to tell someone what she witnessed so the perpetrator can be brought to justice. But she knows this is not what will happen should she speak up. "She desperately wanted to tell her father what she'd seen but was afraid he wouldn't believe that a police officer was responsible. He might think she'd been mistaken, that it wasn't an officer at all, and insist on going to the police. Then the man who'd killed Mikhail would know she had seen him and come after her." Later on Rachel writes in her diary accusing herself of cowardice and improper conduct. "If only I could have stopped Mikhail's uncle, she wrote in Yiddish. For as long as I live, I will regret my actions, my cowardice....I regret also my friendship with Mikhail. I see now that it was wrong, that people from two different worlds do not belong together."
Eventually Rachel tells her sister, who advises her to keep this secret forever but as she comes to trust Sergei, she tells him as well. At the trial of Mikhail's killers, when it appears they may not face justice due to the lack of a witness, Rachel takes the courageous step of coming forward and giving her account of what she saw that winter day. "She could not bring Mikhail back, but at least she'd made sure the people responsible were punished. Truth had finally conquered evil."
It is Rachel who takes the initiative and writes to her paternal grandparents, Bubbe and Zeyde asking them to help. They respond with much love and send Rachel and her family three train tickets to Vladivostok, encouraging them to travel to Shanghai and onto America. It is a life-changing choice, all due to Rachel's quick thinking.
Through the characters of Sergei, and some of the minor characters such as Father Petrov, Sanders shows that not all Russian Christians were so prejudiced towards the Jewish people. Sergei is smitten with Rachel, an attraction that is forbidden in both their cultures. With Mikhail now gone, Sergei finds the courage to approach Rachel and to try to mitigate some of the harm directed towards her and her family. Unlike his fellow Orthodox Christians, Sergei is struggling with how his friends, family and the Christian community treat their Jewish neighbours. When he and his friends are skating for the first time on the river after Mikhail's murder, Sergei finds himself defending their Jewish neighbours. Both he and Petya find the stories of blood libel ridiculous, but their friends Nikolai and Theodore believe that there are too many Jews, and because they are so successful in their businesses, they should be driven out. When his friends attack a Jewish woman and her two children, Sergei tries to talk them out of it and even attempts to have Petya help him stop the attack. However, when Petya refuses, Sergei runs off, "disgusted by his inability to help."
Sergei becomes very aware of the hypocrisy being shown by his fellow Christians. When he is given a gingerbread cross at the Fast Fair, Sergei notes that it tastes dry. "He stared at the cross and became queasy. This icon was the most sacred symbol of their faith. It represented all that was good and noble. Yet the talk about blood and killing Jews went against everything the icon stood for. "
This leads him to try and stop the rioters in Rachel's courtyard and to help a young traumatized boy named Menahem. After the riots he continues to visit Menahem at the hospital and at the orphanage. And later, he confronts his father in front of the mayor and Governor von Raben for his prejudice and lack of action. Again and again he challenges people for their prejudice towards their Jewish neighbours ;the shopkeeper who sells him tobacco and even his own mother who doesn't understand the involvement of her husband, Sergei's father in the pogrom. Sergei transforms from the timid schoolboy into a courageous teenager, willing to call out evil when he encounters it and willing to help others.
As with Sergei, not all Christians participate in the brutality. Father Petrov attempts to stop the mob, explaining that "Jewish people don't eat any meat that has blood in it." Sacha Berlatsky reveals to Rachel afterwards, that he and his father, along with other Jews, survived because a gentile family hid them in their home.
Rachel's Secret is a well written novel about a real event, the first pogrom of the 20th century. In that regard, the 1903 pogrom in Kisinev was harbinger of events to come in Russia and Eastern Europe. This novel should be required reading for middle grades to help young readers understand how prejudice grows and is often learned from misinformation, envy and lies. The author has included a Historical Note and a Glossary at the back. A map showing the location of Kishinev in 1903 Europe would have been very helpful for younger readers.
Book Details:
Book Details:
Rachel's Secret by Shelly Sanders
Toronto: Second Story Press 2012
245 pp.
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