so bad is the situation , noted a british observer on the scene , that even the most extreme antisemites have been moved to complain at treatment of the jews.xxii while the french ambassador to russia wrote in his diary , for the jews of polandthe war is one of the greatest disasters they have known.xxiii for decades in the nineteenth century , forcible induction into the russian army , from which my great-grandfather barely escaped and his brother didnt , had been jews single greatest complaint against the government .