Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

HUNGRY starve. So I went South accompanied by Peter F. Froese of Moscow. As we were going into the hunger districts, it was necessary to take with us food sufficient to last till our return to Moscow. All along the way were the evidences of starvation. At the railroad stations the sight was appalling. The moment the:train halted it was besieged by living skeletons. From their bony frames hung filthy rags in place of clothing. The feet also were wrapped in rags. Not with a rush did they come, but slowly, weakly; too starved to hurry, too famished even to demand; the skin dry and bloodless like parchment, the lips colorless, but the eyes haunted by fear like those of a hunted ani- mal, and full of hopeless beseeching that wrung one’s heart dry; from out the rags were lifted their bare arms, seemingly nothing but skin and bones, the wasted fingers extended towards the car windows in entreaty for food; slowly, haltingly, piteously muttering the one sentence that was being wailed despairingly by millions in Russia— Chleb!—‘“‘Bread, in God’s name, bread!” The words that resounded day after day in the ears of American relief workers; that haunted their sleeping hours and woke them with a revulsion of fear and agony, the muscles quivering, the heart beating wildly, the body bathed in perspiration, until the nerves of some broke down com- pletely. Within the railroad station, whether large enough to accommodate a dozen or a thousand, the floor was usually covered with forms of human beings, lying or sitting or crouching, waiting for something to eat or for the chance to move on to another station. Men, women, children and babies all jumbled together in a squirming mass of filth and vermin, sick of hunger and of typhus, bugs and lice passing from one to the other, spreading the terrible typhus which also claimed its multitude of victims. UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 199 In our baskets was the food for our journey. Just outside the glass of the car window were human beings starving. If we give them our food they will live a little longer; if we do not, they will quite surely starve to death; and even if we do, they will probably live only a week or two more. But without our food, we could not hope to work; we would weaken ourselves and probably bring on serious illness. Then the thousands would suffer and die instead of the few. So we had to keep the food in our baskets for ourselves; but it had lost its taste and it stuck in the throat, when we tried to eat, for the picture of the starving was ever before the eyes. At Alexandrowsk we were received as messengers. sent by Heaven. The family of Johann Lepp, whom I had met in Sevastopol in 1920, very kindly took me into their home. The widowed Mrs. Lepp had passed through deep suffering but the serene quiet of her motherly face was ever as a benediction. It was a joy to tell her of her son Gerhard and her nephew Heinrich, and others who had come sa