THE RHINELAND MASSACRES

On the eighth of Iyyar (May 3, 1096), the crusaders had surrounded the synagogue of Speyer. Unable to break into it, they had attacked any Jews they could find outside the synagogue, killing eleven of them. One of the victims - a woman - preferred death to conversion and inaugurated the tradition of freely accepted martyrdom, Kiddush ha-Shem.

Odelia, a woman Devorah knew as a teacher, who, even though, had agreed to be baptized to escape death, was putting up a fight as she was taken into the river to the man. She took in the same position as all her forerunners.

Standing in front of the Priest, she was held back with his left arm. He placed his hand in front of her face to close her nose and mouth for when he immersed her.

She kneeled down into the water to be immersed, but shoved his hand away from her face. He forcefully grabbed her face while saying, "Do you agree, before God, to accept Christianity as your new religion?"

"No," she screamed hysterically, shrieking and thrashing in the water, the fluid splashing against the man’s face and clothes - he was unfazed, "Never! I choose Kiddush ha-Shem."

The man remained still and shoved her away. “You have made your choice,” he said in a calm and dangerous tone, “You have decided to choose death and condemnation over God and heaven. You will face your sins at the threshold of death and the afterlife and be thrust into the place Christ sees fit.”

While being dragged out of the Rhine, she struggled no more. Everybody stared in surprised silence as she was thrown to her knees. Other than with Ferdinand, she had willingly surrendered. A knight raised his sword and brought it down in a sadistic delight.

On the 23rd of Iyyar (May 18, 1096) Worms suffered a similar fate. The crusaders first massacred the Jews who had remained in their houses, then eight days later, those who had sought an illusory refuge in the bishop's castle. The victims numbered about 800; only a few accepted conversion and survived, the great majority choosing to be killed or suicide rather than apostasy.

If it hadn't been for Hugo, Devorah would have died in Worms. He had stopped her in time when she had rushed to help a child whose mother had refused to have him baptized. Just as she was about to get the child from his mother, the Knight beheaded both of them at the same time. Splattered with blood, she had begun screaming hysterically. Only afterwards did she realise that Hugo had dragged her away.

The Jews of Mainz asked for the bishop's protection, even resorting to paying him. When the crusaders, led by Emicho, arrived outside the town on the third of Sivan (May 27, 1096), the burghers hastened to open the gates. The Jews took up arms under the leadership of Kalonymus b. Meshullam.

Weakened through fasting, for they had hoped to avert the disaster through exemplary piety, the Jews had to retreat to the bishop's castle; however, the latter could do nothing for them, as he himself had to flee before the combined assault of crusaders and burghers.

After a brief struggle, a wholesale massacre ensued. More than 1,000 Jews met their deaths, either at the enemy's hands or their own. Those who managed to escape were overtaken; almost no one survived.

One of her fellow Jews told them about a Jew from Mainz; the stories that were going around the campfire made her sick to her stomach.

Meshullam ben Isaac had sacrificed his son Isaac, killed his wife Zipporeh and finally committed suicide. He didn't want their deaths to come about the hands of the Crusaders.

Another story had been about a young woman named Rachel, the wife of rabbi Judah, and was said to have told her friends that she had four children and that they were not to spare their lives when the crusaders came.

One of her friends came to kill her children. She pleaded with the friend not to kill her boy, Isaac, in the presence of his brother Aaron. Her friend took Isaac, and she killed him.

Her two beautiful daughters Bella and Matrona lay bare their necks and sacrificed themselves to the Lord. She then had supposedly dragged Aaron out from where he had hidden and sacrificed him.

She put her children to bed with her, two on each side. When the crusaders came in they thought she hid money with her in bed, but when they saw it was her children she had killed, they struck her with a sword, killing her. Her husband sacrificed himself upon his own sword when he discovered the horrendous scene.

A comparable disaster occurred in Cologne where the community was attacked on the sixth of Sivan (May 30, 1096). The bishop dispersed the town's Jews in order to hide them in nearby localities. The crusaders located them and a bloodbath followed.

When they set up camp in Cologne, she didn't sleep that night at all. She had wanted to die with all of them. She felt like she needed to walk the plank and be sent to her death - why stay alive and live her days just as humans were supposed to when humans were capable of monstrosities such as these?

She couldn't see anything, but death. She wanted to die. Blindfolded by fear, she walked to go and suffer punishment at the hand of the Knights, but just before she jutted off the end of the plank into the sea of blood and torment, Hugo caught her. Once again, he had saved her life - but at what cost? At what effort?

At Trier, the bishop could not protect his Jews, as he himself had to go into hiding, and he consequently advised them to become Christians. The great majority refused, preferring suicide.

At Regensburg, all the Jews were dragged to the Danube, where they were flung into the water and forced to accept baptism.

At Metz, Prague, and throughout Bohemia, one massacre followed another.

The massacres came to an end when Emicho's crusaders were decisively halted and crushed by the Hungarians, who had risen against them. There had been more than 5,000 victims.

He was gone.