The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1935-04-20
SOVIET GUARDS
DRIVE HUNGRY
To LABOR
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sion. It was the Jewish Sabbath,
on which day no burials are al
lowed by the Mosaic law.
Dead Child in Arms
A Jewish woman, carrying a
dead child in her arms, was max
ing her way to the cemetery. The
child, about 8 years old, had died
the night before. The mother,
who shared quarters with other
families having children, could not
keep the little corpse at home. All
the other children were bloated
from hunger. The mother was
going to stay with her dead child
at the cemetery until shutdown,
when she would dig little hole in
the ground and bury him.
Not a single person accom-.
panied the woman. When I
stopped her, she Rugged the little
corpse. She talked in voice that
snapped in the middle Of words.
A month earlier she had buried in
the same fashion another child OF
hers. Both children had died from
hunger.
l wanted to know about her huls-
band. Yes, she had one, a worker,
but he had been sent down to
Odessa. For a while he had sent
her a little money. Then she re-
ceived notice from the Odessa
Soviet that her husband was dead.
1t was just like war notice.
She wanted to investigate, but
could not get permission to leave.
Perhaps her husband had been
shot. She did not know.
Still Have Hearts
I obtai ed the services Of a man
to perform the rites Of an under
taker and grave-digger. Only when
the dead child was removed from
her arms, to be put away until
nightfall, did the woman break
down. She cried:
There are till people with
uCdA GS ACAO AAA G1IC WOEkUs
And I, stranger from far-away
America, Wept with her.
We continued on ou-' journey
until we came to Berditchev, once
a lively Jewish trading center in
the sugar-beet district. The city
now seemed to sink in mud-holes.
Soldiers and police we're driving
the townspeople to work in the
fields, as the peasants in the coun-
try had refused to dig the beets.
The whole region was in a state
of terror.
People would rather die from
hunger than labor in the fields.
Why? Because they demanded
bread for their toll. Some wanted
more bread, better bread, not the
coarse black stuff baked with
straw, which the Soviet supplied.
Bakers Steal Bread
A large modern bakery had
been installed some months earlier
in Berditchev. The Communist
managers and the bakers, it was
revealed, had formed an alliance
to steal flour and bread from the
government bakery.
Here was a new sidelight on
the famine-bakers going hungry
and forced to steal bread! Yet
they knew that their crime in.
volved more than theft. that
they would be charged with a
conspiracy against the state. The
main cause of all Soviet crime
is hunger, but the Soviet govern
ment is not interested in the
cause of crime.
Every little episode of every
day life was a mirror of the
famine gnawing at the land.
There was, for instance, a pa
thetic scene 1 observed when a
man in Berditchev received a
photograph from his brother in
America. showing him with his
wife and three children, the lat
ter all born in the United States.
The picture showed contented,
happy faces. Immediately, neigh
bors from all the town began
to flock to look at the photo
graph.
Since the World War, America
had become familiar to eastern