The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1921-03-17
only to tell you how they killed our

tortured them. Then they put them
two together, and at night they took
them in motortrucks to field out
sine the city. There, on a frosty
night, they took from them all their
clothes, the soldiers seizing these
clothes for themselves, and finished
the poor things up by breaking their
skulls with the butts of their rifles.
You might think that all this is
Just my imagination, but my daugh-
ter-in-law, the widow of my son,
and from the other ladies who had
lost son or husband, decided to
lind out the sad place of their deaths.
through soldier whom we corrupt
eG we found the place field where
there had been killed literally thou
sands OF people. We found five tre-
mendous excavations, not quite COW
cred with earth. The place was all
covered with little fragments of
skulls and bones and clothes. One
lady found fur cap which she re-
cognized as one that had been her
husbands. In the cap she found
a half head.
I 1 found there a handkerchief which
had belonged to my son. We under
stood that our people who knew that
they We're going to be killed had tried
to leave for us trace, that we might
cover the earth with our tears,
I Oh God! What a terrible thing
1t was when instead of living healthy
peoc.S, we found merely the ground
covered with red snow. However,
ourselves are still alive and are try
ing our best to keep going. We
have learned the lesson of trading
our few possession for food My
bracelets went for ten pounds of
sugar. One pound of butter costs
$4,000 rubles. A pound of meat costs
1900 rubles, pound of potatoes
500 rubles, a pound of salt 1900
rubles. A pair of shoes cost 10000
rubles, yard of cloth $4,000 rubles
and one apple 500.
For three years we have not seen
white bread. We receive from the
Soviet Commissioner a ration card
which gives to US sometimes soup
made without meat-and potatoes
and little of dirty oatmeal. We
are fed like pigs and l make our
ration liveable only by exchanging
my few trinklets as 1 tell you.
! We have forgotten what is fruit,
what is fish, what is white flour, tea,
coffee, and we drink so-called cof-
fec made of burned spirited wheat
and tea made out of carrots. Our
life is a terrible nightmare and we
see no end. Do not be surprised
that l am writing you this letter. 1t
is the first chance have had to COM
municate and it is a dangerous way.
but such is our plight that 1 am
willing to take the risk.
The Bolshevist newspapers, the
only news we have, tell such lies
that you might think We were liv-
ing in heaven, but it is all a lie. We
are living almost without any clothes,
without socks or stockings, without
shoes. 1 am myself washing the
remains of our linen of long ago.
, The remains of the socks of my
/ husband. We live In two rooms.
The temperature in one is 10 de-
grees Reaumut, because the cook
ing stove is in it. the other is de-
grees below zero.
I write this to you for the sake of
truth and humanity, that you, who
live in civilized country like Amer
lea, will not be silent, but will tell
the truth about the terrible condi-
, ton of the intelligent people of Rus
sia. Nobody can move from this
place. Nobody can call anything he
had his own, because the Bolsheviki
have requisitioned everything and
stolen everything in the name of
requlsitioning. Nobody has the
right to wear or possess anything
OF value. 1t all comes under the
requisition. There are no means
OF communication except your two
legs. The stree cars are carrying
lots of wood or taking away the dirt,
Whlch is terrible. Everything we
must carry on our own backs. Some
times, by luck, we manage to get
to village outside the city and
exchange the little trinklets or the
rev clothes we have left for a few
food products, receiving in return a
few pounds of potatoes which we
carry back to the city on our backs,
glad that the hunger death is post
poned for us for the time being.
The city is dead. There are hun
dreds of thousands Of sick people,
but no medication. You can get
/ nothing from drug store without
an order from Soviet commissarv
not even insect powder for the pests
which are eating us to death.
1 want this letter to come to you.
fear that 1t may trouble you. but
believe me. we are dying by degrees
In this awful, unjust fight against
overpowering oppression. This Is
the city OF a dying people. In fact,
we are people no longer--only shad-
ows.
In fact, life with you in the dear
United States seems to us now onIy
beautiful dream. Please write to
me TO the address I gave you, 1 am
no longer afraid, even IL L suffer for
it. Yours ever sinceraly