I'm reading a book entitled Bloodlands-Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. A rather gruesome history of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s in the region the author calls the bloodlands. There are multiple references to cannibalism in the Ukraine, especially during the darkest of the forced starvation period in 1933. These are well documented and are unbelievable to read. For example "one family killed their daughter-in-law, fed her head to the pigs and roasted the rest of her body". (on pigs, see Hiroaki Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror in the Donbas A Ukrainian Borderland, 1870s-1990s, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press, 1998 , p 172, ). That is only one of many incidents that read like a grade B horror film script. Some of those references refer to photographs of the incident. I'm only about 1/5 of the way through the book and don't know if I have the stomach to continue. Stalin makes Hitler look like an altar boy and I've previously read a biography of Mao that made both Hitler and Stalin look like angels. Dennis Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:59:29 -0500 From: Gary Martens <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [GV] Cannibalization To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I contacted Dr. Samuel Sinner, author of "The Open Wound - The Genocide of German Ethnic Minorities in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1915-1949 - and Beyond". My question to him was whether he found any evidence of cannibalism among German-Russians in research for the book. His answer was "Abundant evidence exists for cannibalism in the Volga villages during both famines in the 1920s and 1930s, including photographic evidence, which is disturbing and gruesome". Gary Martens

I have heard that Lenin said of Stalin: "Beware of this man - there is something wrong with him." Lenin was right on that count. Stalin has been quoted as saying, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions are merely statistics." I would give up on culling info from the Memorial website, but it is important to remember what happened in the former Soviet Union. I have read the definition of the word I posted the other day as "dispossession of kulaks," rather than cannibalization for the sentence. That seems to be a better translation; it was pointed out that "kulak" is the root of the word. Thanks for everyone's input. Bill Pickelhaupt On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Dennis Zitterkopf <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm reading a book entitled Bloodlands-Europe between Hitler and Stalin by > Timothy Snyder. A rather gruesome history of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s in the > region the author calls the bloodlands. > > > > There are multiple references to cannibalism in the Ukraine, especially > during the darkest of the forced starvation period in 1933. These are well > documented and are unbelievable to read. For example "one family killed > their daughter-in-law, fed her head to the pigs and roasted the rest of her > body". (on pigs, see Hiroaki Kuromiya, Freedom and Terror in the Donbas A > Ukrainian Borderland, 1870s-1990s, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press, 1998 , > p > 172, ). That is only one of many incidents that read like a grade B horror > film script. Some of those references refer to photographs of the > incident. > > > > I'm only about 1/5 of the way through the book and don't know if I have the > stomach to continue. Stalin makes Hitler look like an altar boy and I've > previously read a biography of Mao that made both Hitler and Stalin look > like angels. > > > > Dennis > > > > Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:59:29 -0500 > > From: Gary Martens <[email protected]> > > Subject: Re: [GV] Cannibalization > > To: [email protected] > > Message-ID: > > <[email protected]> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > > > I contacted Dr. Samuel Sinner, author of "The Open Wound - The Genocide of > German Ethnic Minorities in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1915-1949 - and > Beyond". > > > > > > My question to him was whether he found any evidence of cannibalism among > German-Russians in research for the book. > > > > > > His answer was "Abundant evidence exists for cannibalism in the Volga > villages during both famines in the 1920s and 1930s, including photographic > evidence, which is disturbing and gruesome". > > > > > > Gary Martens > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >