Now we found ourselves in a peculiar situation. We had two corpses of people not related to us in our house. We could not keep them like that in our house too long, and burying them in the cemetery involved certain risks.
It was dangerous to show sympathy to starving villagers, particularly to people who, like this boy and girl, were looked upon by government officials as “enemies of the people.” Trying to save the lives of these two young people came as natural to us as trying to save our own lives, but the Communist Party looked upon such an act as high treason. Nevertheless, come what may, we decided to bury their bodies properly in the cemetery.
The next morning, Mykola and I loaded the bodies on our sledge, covered them over, and started toward the village center where the cemetery was located. It was very hard for us to pull the sledge with such a heavy load; we had very little strength for such a task, especially in the deep snow and freezing cold. Moving along the main road, we saw a few more corpses; some of whom we recognized as the remains of neighbors. There were also strangers among them who had probably come from other villages in search of food. The fact that all the corpses were covered with heavy snow suggested to us that they had been lying on the road for quite some time.
As we came closer to the village center, we saw a pair of horses pulling a sleigh and galloping toward us. We knew that such a luxury was only afforded Party and government officials. The road was narrowed by the high snowdrifts, so we could not give way. The rearing horses stopped almost in front of us. At first we heard only swearing coming from the sleigh; then we were commanded to move aside. While we were trying to do this, our heavily-loaded sledge became firmly stuck in the snow. As we vainly attempted to push and pull our sledge out, we inadvertently uncovered our cargo. The attention of the officials was instantly riveted to our sledge. They dismounted and came over to us for a closer look.
There were two of them and both were strangers to us. They were warmly dressed and looked well fed and prosperous, as in olden days. One of them with a fur coat, stepped forward and demanded to know what we were pulling in our sledge.
“You see what we’re pulling!” I replied, pointing to the corpses. The other stranger was eyeing us with curiosity.
“Who were they, and how did they die?” the man in the fur coat continued his interrogation.
What a superfluous and ridiculous question! I casually answered that the corpses were those of our neighbors. Then, instead of explaining to him the cause of their deaths, I pointed out that one could see many corpses on the road, and that there were many more dead and dying in their homes. He apparently must have been very displeased with my answer because he asked me angrily who we were and stepped closer to us.
“You certainly don’t want to tell me that the entire population of the village died, or is about to die out, do you?” he continued, raising his voice. Then hurling more insults and curses at us, he took a notebook out of his pocket and wrote down our names.
The other man watched this whole procedure silently. After the man in the fur coat put his notebook away, they both returned to their sleigh, and passed swiftly by. It was no small effort for us to finally extricate our sledge from the deep snow.
It was quite a relief when we at last reached the cemetery, for we were very cold and utterly exhausted. Here we found ourselves among dozens of corpses. They lay scattered on both sides of the road. Some of them were piled up into heaps—probably all members of one family or of one neighborhood. Others were thrown all over in a haphazard fashion.
The cemetery was deathly quiet. No one was around. Nobody bothered to bury the remains of these miserable wretches.
A “proper” burial in the cemetery in those tragic days consisted of simply depositing the dead in one of the common graves or in graves that had been opened by looters and gold hunters. Even strong grave diggers would have had a hard time digging a grave in that frozen, snow-covered earth. For the ordinary village man, weakened by hunger, it was an impossible job. So we just lowered the bodies of our dead friends into one of the opened graves half filled with snow, and covered them with additional snow. We quickly departed for home.
On the way home, we met a man who lived close to us and was also going in our direction. It was good to have his company. He told us that he had gone to the center to inform the authorities about the great number of people who had starved in his neighborhood and whose unburied corpses remained in the houses and everywhere else. He was very upset by the fact that his story didn’t make any impression on the men in the village soviet, and no one even wanted to believe him. The chairman of the village soviet even went so far as to object to the word “starved” and accused him of misinterpreting the facts. The chairman had his own interpretation. He admitted some deaths, but those could have happened only to the idle and lazy who didn’t like and didn’t want to work in the collective farm or to the “enemies of the people” who had to be exterminated anyway. Our companion realized he could accomplish nothing there. They had no use for further explanations and arguments, so he left the village soviet office an embittered man.
We, in turn, related to him that these same conditions prevailed in our neighborhood, and that we were just returning from the cemetery where we had buried two of our unfortunate neighbors’ children. We also told our companion about our encounter with the two strangers on the way to the cemetery. From him we learned who those men were. The one in the fur coat was the new chairman of the village soviet. He had been appointed to that position by the county government and had just recently arrived in our village. The other man was a journalist sent from the capital city to our village to write an article about progress in collectivization and the meeting of grain delivery quotas. Only now it dawned on us why the man in the fur coat, our new chairman of the village soviet, became so embarrassed and furious when we talked about the corpses of the starved people. It was obvious to us now that he had been trying to hide the terrible reality of the misery of the villagers from his friend the writer.
From that day on we stayed at home, becoming more and more debilitated as the days went by. We watched with great anxiety our last hidden food reserves slowly diminishing, and the cold winter outside still in full swing.
CHAPTER 26
TOWARD the end of March, the famine struck us with full force. Life in the village had sunk to its lowest level, an almost animallike struggle for survival of the fittest.
The village ceased to exist as a coherent community. The inhabitants who still managed to stay alive shut themselves within the walls of their houses. People became too weak even to step outside their doors. Each house became an entity in itself. Visits became a rarity. All doors were bolted and barred against any possible intruders. Even between immediate neighbors, there was little, if any, communication, and people ceased caring about one another. In fact, they avoided each other. Friends and even relatives became strangers. Mothers abandoned their children, and brother turned away from brother.
Some of those who still had strength left continued to forage for food, but as unobtrusively as possible, quietly and stealthily, as if feeling guilty for still being alive.
But what could they find under the snow? On the streets, in the fields, in gardens and orchards, and on the frozen river, everywhere lay the frozen bodies of starved villagers. Their corpses became petrified monuments, perfectly preserved by the snow and frost. They became memorials to the starving children, men and women, old and young: an indictment of official Communist policy and morality.