Yaakov Kopl Yarminovich

Yaakov Kopl Yarminovich was conscripted into the fifth brigade of the Czar's army as a Cantonist when he was sixteen years old. In common with other Jewish cantonists he was pressurised to convert to the Russian Orthodox faith.
Yaakov Kopl was determined not to convert, despite the extreme tactics of his superiors. On one occasion the officers put him in a sack, which they tied with a long rope. They carried him up to the top of a tall building. They then lowered him, in the sack, down an iron ladder rung by rung. When he reached the bottom, they repeated the performance by hauling him up the ladder again. When he was finally released his injuries were such that he had to remain hospitalized for half a year.
He became such a symbol of Jewish resistance that the army officers were determined to break his spirit. He was sent to a bishop, together with another unbending Jewish conscript by the name of Saadia. The bishop ws unable to convince the young men to convert. He therefore instructed that they should be taken up to the bell tower of the church where they were detained overnight in the Siberian autumn cold. They were found, half frozen, in the morning by the church attendant, who gave them food and hot water, and a warm bed.
After being discharged from the army, Yaakov Kopl wrote about this experiences as a Cantonist.

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