New Eastern Europe Issue 1

142
History Ewa Ziółkowska, They All Perished, only Tanya Survived
at home. Whole families died off . Soviet propaganda called hunger the “fascist
mercenary killer”. In the book, Defence of Leningrad, History without retouching
Vladimir Bieshanov explains, “Th e mass deaths caused by starvation resulted
from two things: fi rst, they were a consequence of the organisational mistakes of
the Soviet bureaucracy, unaccustomed to caring for people, and second, they were
a result of widespread theft”.
Death as deliverance
Food ration cards, introduced at the beginning of the war, were reduced fi vefold.
From November 20th 1941, after a further drastic decline in the quality of bread
(other products did not really exist), the daily ration amounted to 500 grams for
soldiers at the front line, 250 grams for workers and only 125 grams for the others.
It should be added that only half of the bread was baked from poor quality rye
fl our, the rest was bran, cellulose and sawdust. In early February 1942, bread was
not sold for three days and 20,000 people died every day. Electricity and fuel were
also in short supply, and the freezing winters were exceptionally cold. At the same
Photo: Ewa Ziółkowska