A somber group of homeless women and children rest on their flight following a pogrom. Their dark-hued clothes and makeshift bundles add to their sense of displacement and despair. Locked in their own reveries, the figures are isolated from one another as they contemplate the sorrowful present and the uncertain, frightening future.

Born in Warsaw, Maurycy Minkowski suffered a childhood accident that caused the loss of his hearing and speech. His early paintings concentrated on landscapes and portraits. After witnessing the pogrom in Bialystok in 1906, the artist abandoned his earlier themes and focused on depicting the persecution of Eastern European Jews and their subsequent mass migration.