generations.

One bleak December day, at a market place in Warsaw, a young Jew, baited
beyond endurance, struck out madly at his aggressors, and in the general
melee that followed, the son of a high official was killed. No one knew
how he became involved in the brawl, for he was a sober, high-minded
youngster, and very popular. Just how he was killed and by whom was
never known. But the Jew had struck the first blow and that was all
sufficient for the blood of hate to surge in the eyes of the race-mad
mob.

Then began a blind, unreasoning massacre. It all happened within an
hour. It was as if after nightfall a tornado had come out of the west,
and without warning had torn and twisted itself through the city,
leaving ruin and death in its wake. No Jew that could be found was
spared. Saul Levinsky was sitting in his shop looking over some books
that had just come from the binder. He heard shots in the distance and
the dull, angry roar of the hoarse-voiced mob. He closed his door and
bolted it, and went up the little stairs leading to his family quarters.
His wife and six-year-old daughter were there. Ben, a boy of ten, had
gone to a nobleman's home to deliver some books, and had not returned.

Levinsky expected the mob to pass his place and leave it unmolested. It
stopped, hesitated and then rammed in the door. It was all over in a
moment. Father, mother and child lay dead and torn almost limb from
limb. The rooms were wrecked, and the mob moved on.

The tempest passed as quickly as it came, and when little Ben reached
his home, the street was as silent as the grave.