Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

in the Ukraine, doing no general feeding there. It was to be expected that the many American friends of the large Jewish, Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist and Mennonite popula- tion in the Ukraine would supply them liberally with food packages. The 25% on each food remittance would thus UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 195 increase considerably the Volga feeding fund. But the Ukraine was not convinced that their own neediest people would thus be supplied. So that Government did not then provide satisfactory facilities to handle even the food re- mittances. But during this time urgent appeals for help con- tinued to come to us from that section. Already in Octo- ber the outlook was very dark when Benjamin Janz tabu- lated on October 8 the conditions in several Mennonite villages of the Molotchna that were experiencing the forcible collection of the harvest. More than a hundred Mennonites, ‘“‘honest industrious, innocent citizens,” were jailed because several other farmers had hidden some wheat in chaff, and other places in order to save food for their families. To secure the release of these prisoners, payment continued to be made until a complete system of bribery was developed with specific rates for various kinds of arrest. As an example of the demands made upon these people for taxes, the following table is given: Village of Population Harvest Per in Bu. person Blumenstein 595 69 1 bu. Altonau 629 270 4 bu. Ruecknau 634 3607 5.5 bu. Tiege 537 2464 4.6 bu. The tax demanded from the first three villages was 5,219 bushels which was one third more than the entire harvest. The tax levied on Tiege alone was 3,2764 bushels and in addition to this 4,468 eggs, 11,880 pounds of butter, 4,464 pounds of wool and 318,600 pounds of vegetables were demanded. Rev. Janz sent repeated petitions to our Moscow office, imploring speedy assistance and finally dispatched two men to depict the terrible suffering and need for haste. They arrived on a cold night, when the snow was falling 196 FEEDING THE HUNGRY fast and the driving wind made the streets a blur of swirling flakes. They brought the word that starvation to the death had actually begun. To delay further meant so many deaths every day. With bitterness in my heart over the unnecessary delays and consequent waste of life, I had to send them back with nothing more than the promise to come as soon as ‘possible. When would it be possible? We had no way of knowing. As soon as the A.R.A. would deliver the food. As soon as their diffi- culties with the Ukraine would be adjusted. It was not ignorance of the serious need in the South that caused the opposition in Moscow. During the July and August sessions of the All Russian Relief Committee in Moscow, the condition of the South had been described. Apparently the hostility was due, in part, to the Ukraine’s refusal to subordinate itself to Moscow. So far as our own work in the Ukraine was con- cerned,