tensified and special brigades frequently came to search our household, confiscating first grain and later, all kinds of food. In the early spring of 1932 the whole family had to pitch in and look for food Four of us children went out to dig for sugar beets and potatoes left unharvested from the previous years’ frozen fields. My attempts to beg for food from neighbors was short-lived Facing closed silent homes only deepened my feeling of hopelessness. Later that year, we continued to search for food by glean¬ing wheat ears from harvested fields. Gleaning was prohibited, and we were chased and whipped by overseers on horseback. Often, when they caught us, our bags, be they empty or full, were taken from us by force.

As early as the spring of 1932, my aunt on my mother’s side was apprehended while cutting half ripe ears of wheat, trying to save her husband from starving. He died, and she was sentenced to seven years of forced labor in Siberia. At about the same time my maternal grandparents died of starvation. I can still see quite vividly a man’s corpse that I stumbled upon along a country road one day. The worse came after Oc¬tober 1932 when my father’s property was confiscated, and the family was evicted from the house. Now we were homeless. For the next five or six months the family settled in a barn of a state farm—a cold, damp and dark place. Here we, undernourished and utterly hopeless, faced the most critical period in our lives. Skeletons with skin or with swollen, watery bodies, sick and desperate, we were ready for the final act, but it did not come. The family survived. The drama, the trauma, and the atmosphere that accompanied these events, probably account for the vividness of my memories, after more than fifty years.

I would just like to add a couple more things that I omitted. Later on, obviously, I was told that my uncle, my father’s brother, had been cannibalized in Crimea, his property was confiscated two years earlier because he was a kulak, so to speak. He owned more land than my father, therefore, his time came earlier. But the cannibaliza-tion incident came later. And, also, perhaps, the fact that in the interim, between those two and a half or three years, between 1930 and 1933, my father also was tried and sentenced for two years labor camp.

And, also, the fact that after the demise, I guess the word is, we were treated as second-class citizens, until probably 1939. My other brother that was draft age, wasn’t inducted until the Finnish-Soviet war broke out, and until then it was very difficult for members of my family to move around.

Congressman HERTEL: Thank you very much for your testimony. Questions from the Commission members?
Ms. MAZURKEVICH: Can I ask you, do you know of anyone that was tried for can¬nibalism?
Mr. DANILENKO: No, I lived in rural area. My contacts with the outside were limited, and I am just relating some of the things that I have retained in my memory.
Congressman HERTEL: Other Commission members have questions?
(No response)
Let me ask you, sir,do you recall in the way all of this was done by the Soviets, they never gave—as we have heard from other testimony—any reason, nor did they do it in any official way, they just did it to the people, didn’t they? There were no edicts, or anything, they just came in and took the food, and took food away from people