I did not know there were Jews in Mongolia.  After Richard Bloom, an award-winning Holocaust film documentarian and friend, sent me a Chabad article about Jews and Mongolia, I learned.

Jews in Mongolia – Yes and No.

Documented Jewish presence in Mongolia dates back to the 19th century, when Jewish fur traders and merchants established economic relationships with Mongolians. The Jewish community significantly grew when Russian Jews fleeing the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) arrived. They sought safety in the Far East from the bloodletting and antisemitism unleashed following the Bolshevik overthrow of the Russian monarchy.

In 1921, virtually the entire community was coldly massacred by the anti-Semitic warlord and White Russian Army leader, Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. Ungern, born in Graz, Austria, a descendant of German Baltic Crusaders, was born a Christian, later converting to mystical Buddhism while a Don Cossack fighting for the Czar during WWI in the Far East.

The fall of the Russian monarchy ripped his tightly ordered world apart.  He blamed the Bolsheviks.  He blamed the Jews even more.  Ungern appointed himself a Lt. General. He organized an army from chaos, an army that practiced extreme terror and brutality as it marched on the skulls of untold numbers of victims.

Ungern attacked Mongolia ostensibly to liberate the country from the Chinese. His real goal was to reestablish a new Russian Monarchy that would stretch from the Far East to Moscow.  February 1-4,1921, Ungern attacked Ulaanbaatar, the Capital of Mongolia.  They blasted open the gates, unleashing pillaging, rape, and murder as the city fell.  They found an estimated 800 Jews. Ungern immediately ordered his subordinate Captain Feodoroff to exterminate every Jewish man, woman, and child. Feodoroff completed his task with relish.

The Mongolian community was shocked, incredulous by the ferocity directed at........

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