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[The following is in regards to the Soviet famine of 1932-33, a major famine that killed millions of people in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region, and Kazakhstan, the South Urals and West Siberia.]

The reports submitted by the rare inspectors sent out by the health authorities are still more precise regarding the famine that since 1932 had been decimating the deportees in the “pioneering polygon” that the Narym region was supposed to be:

Flour, the only product that is brought in more or less regularly, is mixed with various substitutes, particularly dried and finely ground sawdust from tree stumps. The deportees use this mixture to make their bread. Another substitute frequently used, especially in the Parabelskaia and Mogochinskaia komandaturas, is birch bark. We have mentioned that in order to satisfy their hunger as quickly as possible, special settlers often don’t even take the time to bake the bread, eating the diluted flour as it is, mixed with water… It is impossible to care for such weakened organisms in local dispensaries or even in hospitals. Even an appropriate dietetic diet leads to fever spikes reaching 39 to 40 degrees centigrade, and at the end of four to six weeks, these exhausted patients die of paralysis of their cardiac functions… For children, the situation is still more critical. In the Ketskaia komandatura, for example, both children living in orphanages and those living with their families are extremely thin. The expression on their faces, even though they are only five, six, or seven years old, is totally apathetic; these children look like old people – they hardly move, and have no desire to play. We tried to distribute as equitably as possible the 2,000 food rations for children we had been allotted.

Source:

Werth, Nicolas. “Western Siberia, a Land of Deportation.” Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag. Princeton University Press, 2007. 55-6. Print.

Original Source Listed:

GARF, 9479/1/43/6, pp. 231-33.

Further Reading:

Soviet Famine of 1932-33
[**The following is in regards to the Soviet famine of 1932-33, a major famine that killed millions of people in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region, and Kazakhstan, the South Urals and West Siberia.**] >The reports submitted by the rare inspectors sent out by the health authorities are still more precise regarding the famine that since 1932 had been decimating the deportees in the “pioneering polygon” that the Narym region was supposed to be: >*Flour, the only product that is brought in more or less regularly, is mixed with various substitutes, particularly dried and finely ground sawdust from tree stumps. The deportees use this mixture to make their bread. Another substitute frequently used, especially in the Parabelskaia and Mogochinskaia komandaturas, is birch bark. We have mentioned that in order to satisfy their hunger as quickly as possible, special settlers often don’t even take the time to bake the bread, eating the diluted flour as it is, mixed with water… It is impossible to care for such weakened organisms in local dispensaries or even in hospitals. Even an appropriate dietetic diet leads to fever spikes reaching 39 to 40 degrees centigrade, and at the end of four to six weeks, these exhausted patients die of paralysis of their cardiac functions… For children, the situation is still more critical. In the Ketskaia komandatura, for example, both children living in orphanages and those living with their families are extremely thin. The expression on their faces, even though they are only five, six, or seven years old, is totally apathetic; these children look like old people – they hardly move, and have no desire to play. We tried to distribute as equitably as possible the 2,000 food rations for children we had been allotted.* _______________________ **Source:** Werth, Nicolas. “Western Siberia, a Land of Deportation.” *Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag*. Princeton University Press, 2007. 55-6. Print. **Original Source Listed:** GARF, 9479/1/43/6, pp. 231-33. _______________________ **Further Reading:** [Soviet Famine of 1932-33](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333)

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