[The following takes place during what would later be known as the Nazino Affair. Context of the incident, courtesy of Wikipedia: “The Nazino affair was the mass deportation of 6,000 people to Nazino Island in the Soviet Union in May 1933. The deportees, mostly political prisoners and petty criminals, were forcibly sent to the small, isolated island in Western Siberia, located 540 kilometers (340 mi) northwest of Tomsk, to construct a "special settlement". They were abandoned with only flour for food, few tools, clothing or shelter, and those who attempted to leave were killed by armed guards. The conditions of the island led to widespread disease, abuse of power, violence and cannibalism. Within thirteen weeks, over 4,000 of the deportees related to Nazino Island had died or disappeared, and a majority of the survivors were in ill health.”]
On May 21 alone, the three health officers counted seventy additional dead bodies. “In five cases,” they emphasized,
the liver, the heart, the lungs, and fleshy parts of the bodies (breasts, calves) had been cut off. On one of the bodies, the head had been torn off, along with the male genital organs and part of the skin. These mutilations constitute strong evidence of cannibalistic acts; in addition, they suggest the existence of serious psychopathologies. On the same day, May 21, the deportees themselves brought us three individuals who had been caught with blood on their hands and holding human livers. Our examination of these three individuals did not reveal any extreme emaciation, but rather external signs of degeneracy. These individuals were immediately turned over to the head of the guard.
Source:
Werth, Nicolas. “Nazino.” Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag. Princeton University Press, 2007. 139. Print.
Original Source Listed:
V. P. Danilov, S. Krasilnikov (eds.), vol. 3, pp. 80-81.
Further Reading:
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