The papers lamented the loss of the hero. A representative of the Polish aristocracy, the proud Stanislav Pototzki, devoted a special discourse to his memory at a meeting of the "Society of the Friends of Science" in Warsaw.
Thou hast saddened--thus spoke the orator--the land of heroes, thou valiant Colonel Berek, when unmeasured boldness drove thee into the midst of the enemy.... Well doth the fatherland remember also thy old wounds and thy former exploits, remember eternally that thou wast the first to give thy people an example, an example of rejuvenated heroism, and that thou hast resuscitated the image of those men of valor over whom in days gone by wept the daughters of Zion.
The Polish nation remembered, and that for a short time only, the one Berek; but the thousands of his oppressed brethren were forgotten. The only way in which the gratitude of the "fatherland" manifested itself was a special order of the Duke granting permission to Berek's widow, who found it difficult to live and bring up her children on her scanty pension, to reside in the streets of Warsaw from which the Jews were barred, and "to engage there in the sale of liquor." Other civil privileges the Jews could not hope for, even by way of exception.
This state of affairs could not very well inspire the Jewish population with a great love for military service, although the Jews had been graciously permitted to discharge it in person. With few exceptions, the Jews preferred to pay an additional tax rather than spill their blood for a country which offered them obligations without rights. The decree of January 29, 1812, legalized this substitution of personal military service by a monetary ransom, the grand total of which amounted to 700,000 gulden a year.
On the brink of destruction, during the war tempest of 1812, the Duchy of Warsaw still found leisure to strike an economic blow at the Jews. At the suggestion of Minister Lubenski, a ducal decree was issued on September 30 forbidding the Jews, after the lapse of two years, to sell liquor and keep taverns, which meant, in other words, that tens of thousands of Jewish families were to be deprived of their livelihood. Secretly the Government justified this measure by the impending augmentation of the territory of the Duchy and the restoration of Old Poland, where strict economic measures were necessary to keep the returning Jewish population in bounds. But the confidence reposed in the power of Napoleon was not justified. The idol was overthrown. The Duchy of Warsaw, the pale specter of an independent Poland, vanished into air, and the fate of the country again lay in the hands of the three Powers that had divided it, particularly Russia. The millions of Jews in Russian Poland were well aware of what they had to expect at the hands of their new rulers.