Mr. KOSTYRKO: You didn’t have any possibility to ask somebody what was the state of the world. Some people, communist people, but very good people, told me this is very tragic story,
but we can nothing to do about it. I heard from my relative in Moseow-I told ray relative and he could do nothing. This is order from Stalin; that is all.

Ms. MAZURKEVICH: Thank you.
Senator DeCONCINI: Commissioner Weres?

Dr. WERES: Nothing.

Senator DeCONCINI: I want to thank the witness very much for the fine testimony. We appreciate your taking the time and putting this statement together. It will be part of our report to the Congress.

Our next witness is Ivan Kasiianenko.

Dr. SAMILENKO-TSVETKOV: With the permission of the witness, I will read his testimony in English.

TESTIMONY OF MR. IVAN KASIIANENKO OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

I was born in January 1924 in the village of Kovalivka, Hrebinka (now Vasylivsky) Raion, in Kiev Province. My father was a so-called peasant and had five children, in¬cluding me. Our family belonged to a cooperative, which consisted of 20 families. This cooperative had a grist mill and even some American farm machinery. Beyond that I remember very little about my father, except that they wanted to arrest him, and he was always on the run.

When I was born, it was still the time of the New Economic Policy (1921-27). We had enough food and no one bothered us. A free market was permitted, and people could lift themselves up by their bootstraps. Where we were, people grew mostly wheat and sugar beats. The state didn’t seize it but bought it. Taxes were very low. People would sell the beets and receive sugar and some money besides.

Then everything changed. Adults and children were robbed of the shirts off their backs and driven from their homes. You could hear crying and screaming everywhere. I remember that the villagers who shared ownership in the mill were taken from their homes along with their whole families. I remember how one time I saw a pregnant woman walking down the street, crying, “Please leave me alone long enough to have my baby.” But they didn’t even do this. I saw a member of the G.P.U. (what is now the K.G.B.) kick her in the stomach and heard her cry in agony.

I recall most vividly that my mother and father had to work the fields themselves, because it was no longer possible to get hired help. They called it exploitation and drove people from their homes, if they did. My mother and father left each morning while we were still in bed and returned in the evening after we had gone to bed.

In 1932 the harvest was a normal one. It was brought in before anyone suspected what was to happen. It was winter when they came in to take the grain that had al¬ready been ground into flour and was sorted in bags. They came and seized all of this grain, not only from us but from all the villagers. And ours was a large village—6,000 people lived there.

The sound of crying was everywhere. Those who seized the grain carried out their orders without mercy. I remember as if it were yesterday how a man ran away, leaving