The person to ask would be Dr. Samuel Sinner, author of "The Open Wound", who did extensive research on what happened to German-Russian after 1915. His book only has an index to people's names, and place names. Samuel has been unavailable for comments for about 6 or 7 years, although I've had contact with his sister. I'll see if I can find her email address and see if he will answer a question about cannibalism. Gary Martens Dobrinka, Galka, Neu-Weimar and Schilling villages VC On 3/28/2011 12:24 PM, David Schmidt wrote: > Bill Pickelhaupt asked: > In working with the Memorial website, I have found several entries of > "Verdict: canibalization" for victims of Soviet repression. Has anyone > else who has worked with the website found this? I know the communists > were brutal but I can't imagine they condemned people to that fate. Or > is the term just a bad effort by Google Translate? > > My comments: > I think it very unlikely that any Soviet tribunal would have sentenced Russian Germans to commit cannibalism. A more likely interpretation is that the person was convicted of cannibalizing other villagers (i.e., the verdict was the accused had committed cannibalism). Things got so bad during the 1921-22 and 1933 famines in the Volga villages that I have heard rumors about cannibalism before. I have not seen a letter, newspaper article, or other definite evidence, but it would not surprise me that, in their dire starvation, some Volga Germans had to resort to cannibalism. > > David F. Schmidt > > Village Coordinator for Boaro, Cäsarsfeld& Stahl am Karaman > > Walnut Creek, CA 94598, USA > > Email: [email protected] > > > ------------------------------- > 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 >