Miron Dolot - Execution by Hunger

As we continued our way to the field, we found two dead bodies. As we reached a shallow depression between two hills, my brother spotted an object lying in a furrow, a few feet off the road. We left the cart, and went to see it. We discovered a man’s body lying face down in the mud. There were no signs of a struggle. Apparently the man had fallen down and was just too weak to get up. He must have died quite a while ago and his body had lain there under the snow during the entire winter. We tried to turn the body over to see his face, but we could not. It was still frozen and stuck to the ground.

At this point Petro’s mother had caught up with us, and upon seeing the corpse she let out a loud cry but avoided getting near it. She urged us to keep on going and to hurry.

Naturally, she was unable to keep up our pace which we were doubling now, so we left her as we hurried on. Evening was approaching and heavy clouds began descending from the horizon onto the fields. Far away it was pouring rain and we could watch the storm slowly moving in our direction.

Yet we were delayed again. After trudging for about half a mile, a few feet off the road we spied the body of a woman whom we recognized. Her death, however, wasn’t caused by starvation. We could see instantly that she had been killed by a shotgun. She lay there on her back in a pool of blood mixed with mud, and her eyes seemed to be staring at us blankly. Apparently she had met her death quite recently. I tried to figure out what had happened to her. Her assailant could not have been an individual crazed by hunger like someone who would kill for a few frozen potatoes. No ordinary villagers had guns; only officials and guardsmen were in possession of arms. So it was most probable that the woman had been shot by a kolhosp field guard for foraging on the kolhosp potato field.

As before, we had to leave the body behind us and move on. The rain was coming nearer, and it was growing dark. We strained with all our might to get to the place where we hoped to find Petro. When we finally arrived, panting and perspiring, we found him. He was lying in the road still alive and breathing slowly. The long track behind him told us that he had crawled for quite a distance in the mud before he had passed out.

We somehow managed to put him on our cart with his feet hanging over the edge as he was too big for it. Our way back was even more difficult as it had started raining. We inched our way through the mud, pushing the cart with our heavy load.

We were expecting to meet Petro’s mother and we started worrying about her when she did not show up on the road. After a while we found her. She was lying in the mud, unable to move any farther. She had apparently also lost her speech. She just stared at us with her wide eyes. We were frightened, for we could see that her death was imminent. However, she made a slight movement, signaling to us that she wanted to see her son. We lifted her to her feet. With our help, she reached the cart, but then she fell on it with all her weight. This was an impossible situation. There was no way we could have pulled or pushed the cart with both of them on it since Mykola and I were at the point of exhaustion.

As if sensing our plight, Petro’s mother slowly raised her head and tried to say something, but she could not. She slid down from the cart, and slightly lifting her right hand, she pointed at Petro. We understood that she wanted us to leave her behind while we hurried with her son to the village. She still hoped we could save him.

We left her there, intending to return for her later, and hurried home with Petro as fast as we could in spite of the bad weather and our waning strength. It was pitch black when we finally reached home, and raining heavily. Mother was very relieved to see us and with her help we brought Petro inside.

Not stopping to rest, we set out to bring Petro’s mother back for she could not last out there in the dark for long. Mother had decided to go back with us, so she wrapped Petro, who was still breathing slowly but evenly, in some warm clothing, gave him some broth to drink, and made him comfortable. Then we left the house, taking the cart with us again.

We found Petro’s mother alive but unconscious. After placing her on the cart, we headed slowly homeward with our heavy load. It was impossible to see the road in the darkness and pouring rain, and we often had to wade through pools of water. Our cart turned over several times, throwing Petro’s mother into the mud, but we never gave up. Drenched to the skin, we finally made it home where Mother, soaking wet herself, hastened to put dry clothes on Petro’s mother, while Mykola and I turned our attention to Petro. We wanted to change his clothing too, but bending over him, we discovered that he had died. We all made Petro’s mother as comfortable as we could, but she never regained consciousness and she died in terrible convulsions. We were sad, but also glad that at least they had not succumbed in the mud and pouring rain that dark night.

Once again we were confronted with the problem of what to do with the bodies of our friends. They could not be left in our house, but neither could they be taken to the cemetery to be buried properly, as Mother usually insisted. This time she realized that we were too weak for that, so we decided to take them to their home and let the Thousanders dispose of their bodies. This we did that very same night.

THE FROZEN potato rush took on a new fervor toward the end of April. This was the time when the kolhosp planted a new crop. The hungry villagers thought that now it would be easy for them to get some potatoes. One could go out and simply dig them up, and some did just that. Others worked out another system: they found the first potato, and then followed it down the row.

But in reality it wasn’t that simple or easy. The government soon stepped in to protect its kolhosp fields. It was announced that foraging in the fields was prohibited. Anyone caught stealing the planted potatoes or other vegetables would be executed.

Those villagers who disregarded the official warning and ignored the guardsmen were arrested and locked up in the county jail. Soon rumors spread that the jailers in the county prison fed the prisoners well, giving them bread and other food to eat. As a consequence, many villagers, instead of looking for potatoes looked for guardsmen to arrest them and put them in the county jails. People were exchanging their homes for prisons which were places of refuge from hunger. Thus the number of “criminals” rapidly increased.

But it didn’t work for long. Obviously the county prisons became overcrowded. Besides, the authorities surmised the true reason for the increasing number of “enemies of the people.” In order to stem the flow to the county jails, it was officially announced one day that the village “criminals” would have to stay in the village jails. Prisoners in the village jails received no food from the jailers, and their families had to feed them. Also, the prisoners who still could walk had to work. Usually, they dug graves in the cemetery, or worked on the roads, or in the kolhosp fields.

Throughout April it was cold and uncomfortable in our house. We had already burned everything that would burn in order to keep warm. The barn, pigpen, and the fence had all been torn down and burned. When the snow started melting away, we began collecting dry weeds in gardens, backyards, and along the roads for fuel. But in spite of all our hardships, we were still better off than many other villagers, since we still had some potatoes and a few small bags of grain hidden in a haystack.

And we still had our cow! Just having her assured us a better chance of survival. She would soon be giving us milk, as she was going to calf sometime at the beginning of May.