Page 5, Die Welt-Post, Thursday, December 10, 1932:

A Call For Help From Huck

   Mr. Pastor D. Maul has received a letter from Kendrick, Colorado, with the plea, written by the people of Huck, Russia, for publication.

Philipp Frick also has received other letters of interest to the Huck reader, among them the information that school master Rusch has died.

My Friends and Relatives in America:

   We want to complain to you of our need, yes great scarcity and starvation has once again returned to us. We can no longer save ourselves. Everything that we had has been devastated and the government has taken everything away. Many people are starving to death. As they walk around seeking roots they fall together like snowflakes and are gathered up in a faint.

   Much fruit lies in the warehouses but the State will not give it out. It looks as though we will all starve, but we don't know God's intention. The State took the people's last Pud of bread and the last of their potatoes, all the cattle are gone and no one can resist against it; the Soviet has the power, no one has enough to eat. He who works for the State receives his share but the family can starve.

   Oh, you Americans, if you could see with your eyes the misery only once, for 2 or 3 days that many elderly, brothers and sisters, or only friends of yours, how miserably they must live. Day and night they are tortured by the cunning liars.

   Evenings after 5 pm the people must no longer be in the Collective in the Rayon. There they are interrogated as to what objects they still possess that they could sell and must give them up for 5 or 10 Rubles. When people say they need the items for their wives and children and cannot give them up, the officials send a Potwoda (wagon) to those who perhaps still have something and take it all away for themselves down to the last morsel of food that was still on hand. That is our death maker here in Huck. One doesn't know whether the State wants it this way or whether the people in the Collective have the right to take such action.

  We want to list the Wolves in our village for you:

The Priske Georg Michel;(Ed. Note: meaning of Priske is unknown. It is either a title or pejorative term)

Johannes Hergenraden (father Lorenz);

Philipp Mörkel (father Philipp);

Lorenz Hergenrader (father Lorenz)

Konrad Eckhardt (Kötentibel) (Ed. Note: meaning of "Kötentibel" is unknown);

The Schäfer Hautgekiker Adam (Ed. Note: Schäfer could be either the surname or the job 

title of this individual: Schäfer=shepherd. "Hautgekikier" am unable to 

translate, but it certainly doesn't sound very good.... believe the man's name to

be Adam Schäfer with "Hautgekiker" being a descriptive term);

Philipp Schäfer (police informant);

and Georg Eckhardt with Catherine.

   The Priske is our king here in the village. You people in America doubtless know the above named persons. They go from house to house and demand duties (Ed. Note: "Obligatoren" most likely taxes) and tractor levies (Ed. Note: "Traktorsteuren" most probably tax levies for tractors) and when we have no money they take away the bedding and pillows from the women. Many tears have already been cried here by many a heavy heart, that we are so handled.

   Here in the Lafka (Bude) (Ed. Note: Bude=shack, probably a Kiosk or perhaps a general store) we can no longer obtain things for ourselves, nor for money, and when one, for example, asks for 3 pounds of sugar, he receives only 1 pound for the family. The cunning liars are holding back the sugar. Cakes and candy and whatever they want in the Collective, but we poor people receive not once a shirt or trouser and must go around nearly naked.

   Many people travel in this wide world to escape hunger, but it is bad everywhere.

   We must eat our Weizen-Karschen (wheat meal???) or Korn-Karschen (grain or corn meal???) porridge without lard.(Ed. Note: Schmalz = grease, lard or fat) because one can no longer buy it anymore and our children know neither bread, nor cakes, and have also no sugar.

   Yes, you Americans, when one of us wants to go out in the street, mortars (Ed. Note: a grinding tool much like an old style potato masher) are banged against coffee grinders like they do during the approach of severe storms, thusly are the people trampled and ground down by their petty "Rules."  The women spend the entire day in such employment.

   Should sugar or something remarkable arrive in the Lafka (Bude), only the communists receive a share but for the workers and the village people they sit and have nothing and become day and night more tormented. Tormented by taxes and what things they might have left to sell. Three pounds, and who knows how to pay when called to do so.

   The communists took the individual farms away, took bedclothes, clothing, flour, meat, and so forth and so on. You should simply go into the ground. Here in Russia under the rule of the Bolsheviks a heretic lives but no men live. The Bolsheviks say they will once again restore Russia after they rid the world of the Kulaks and thereby hunger. Doubtless God will simply look after those that still remain behind in the village, with the innocent starving children.

   Only one portion of the population of the village goes to the Collective. 3 portions hold themselves remote from it; moreover, it appears as if the Collective is wholly concerned with farming. The people are struggling and go by the "Rules"  of the Collective no more. We have worked in the heat for the whole summer and have received no money, nor food. The tormenters who are at the helm here "eat" everything themselves and leave us to do the work, because of this we could yet starve. (Ed. Note: the normal term "to eat" is Essen, in this case the author has chosen the pejorative "Fressen" which is to eat like an animal).

   My dears, we must not starve, when we, here in Russia, have orderly superiors, the Regime will maintain the people.

    If one drives to Balanda or to Balaschof, one finds piles of fruit that was all taken away from here. Along the way much went lost because the people filled their sacks and mattresses with fruit and much of it rained down behind them and thereby the fruit naturally rotted. And here we sit, in the largest famine that Russia has yet known, and then one says to us "the Regime provides for us!"

  Well, I think those in power will be the death of us, but it would be better for us if they were to take a cannon and lay us low, then we would be put out of our misery much earlier.

Each of you, who have a share in our misfortune, read this letter and have pity on us.

                       Your brothers and sisters in Huck