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Published in: "Marienberg, Fate of a Village"
By Johann Bollinger and Janice Huber Stangl
Germans From Russia Heritage Collection
Fargo, North Dakota, 2000, Page 270
#64-27 April 1932--Marienberg, Soviet Ukraine
DR (Dakota Rundschau): 10 June 1932, page 5
Now, dear S....and S..... We are alive, thank God. I can't
write you about anything good. B......has been imprisoned already
for 5 months; but he is not guilty. You know that he was chairman
of Selsowek for six weeks. Everyone liked him. In late fall, they
took everything away, and he wanted to see to it that people had
bread to eat, and that was his undoing. He is in Tiraspol. I have
often tried to get him out, but nothing helps.
It is sad here. We have no breat and must starve; and we had
a good crop but they took away everything; yes, we even had to
give up the chickens, and we have nothing for ourselves.
I bought a Pud of cornmeal for 80 Rubels; that garbage was
unedible, it was half sand. Oh, it is so hard when one must see how
the poor children must starve. We older people surely have earned
this; as the Bible says of difficult times and hunger. I had some bread,
and that I had to give up also. When one is inflicted with a obligation
(tax?) then it is high time. I have 400 PUd wheat and more than
enough corn, but..........
How it will be this year, we don't know; it is already 15 April and
no crops have been sowed. The horses cannot and the people can't
---all for hunger. Our cow was brought back. As long as she gave
milk, she was gone. We have the vineyard to work in, but in autumn
they know what to do with it. We should do the work, and others
do the drinking.
There would be a lot to write about, but I dare not. If you only
could see how it is here!
I close with many greetings.
(No Name Printed)
(NOTE: Letter was printed in the German language newspaper Dakota
Rundschau published in the Dakota's in the USA. The names were
omitted from many letters for security purposes.
Marienberg was founded in the early 1860's. It was a German colony
located in a northwesterly direction from Odessa, Soviet Ukraine. Before
the revolution in 1918-1919 the area called by many South Russia.)
Book available at the following Germans from Russia Heritage Collection
website: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/order/general/bollinger.html
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