News Brief

Half of Bessarabia hungers. In the city of Kishineff alone fully one third of the Jewish population is forced to depend on local charity agencies for existence, a report of conditions in the Bessarabia famine belt discloses. The former corn granary of South Russia is today starving for a loaf of bread. Hundreds are perishing from disease and cold.

The poor crops of the last few years have exhausted the resources of this naturally endowed country. The vast steppe has been burned dry by the blazing sun and the work of millions of peasants is trampled underfoot. The villages where the peasants’ hard work has been eaten up by the drought, are starving. The town which derives its income from the village suffers and looks with hungry eyes on the peasants’ bread.

Hunger is spreading all over Bessarabia and sows disaster and disease. The little towns where the fairs are the only means of livelihood are the first to feel the disaster. The peasants sit at home hungry and embittered without anything to sell, and with no money to buy. The small town storekeeper waits in vain for business from the village and pays the exorbitant taxes (four and five per cent per month is quite an ordinary occurrence in Bessarabia), in the forlorn hope that the situation will change for the better. The fact is that the situation is daily growing worse and the extent of the terrible crisis stands fully revealed The small storekeepers one after the other go into bankruptcy, until the state of ruin is catastrophic. From a village crisis the disaster has spread to the towns until it has reached the capitol of Bessarabia-Kishineff.

Kishineff, which derived its importance from the fact that it was a government seat, where various government administrations were located, has gradually been losing its central importance. For the past ten years Bucharest has done its best to outrival Kishineff with the result that Bessarabia has been so divided up administratively that Czernowitz is the capitol of North Bessarabia, Galatz the capital of South Bessarabia and Moldavia the center of Central Bessarabia. Thus Kishineff has been reduced to a provincial capitol dependent for its existence, upon the patronage of the surrounding villages, since it has no industries of (Continued on Page 4)

Kishineff, in the last several years, has steadily been degenerating. Its few rich men and the influx of the refugees helped to hide its poverty. In the last year, hounded by the poor crop and the general economic crisis the full extent of its poverty has been revealed. The disaster has developed into a mass catastrophe. Thousands of Jewish families daily are forced into a declassed status, since they have no means of earning a living.

At the outset, no one believed that people were starving in Kishineff. The division of Jews into a handful of rich men and a mass of poor men, was not unusual. It was customary to care for needy, and a few hundred additional needy to be cared for was not alarming. The local charitable organizations proceeded with their work at their usual pace, and communal leaders had their usual cause for dissension.

Recent developments, however, exceed all anticipation. All unnoticed, keeping pace with the economic crisis, a colossal reserve of poverty stricken has developed. These are not the proverbial poor, but members of the bourgeois, reduced to poverty, bankrupt storekeepers, officials without jobs-people who only yesterday played a role in the communal life. The more industrious do not despair and have gone to other parts of Roumania to seek a livelihood. Bucharest, Galatz, Cluj, Czernowitz, to the Bessarabian spell a sort of America. There he has no one to be ashamed of, hires out to some one else, buys a stock of goods to peddle, or simply works by the day. The weaker, however, remain in Kishineff, struggling to keep alive on the aid extended by the public charities.

The extent of this quiet emigration was made evident recently in the census taken in connection with the coming elections. The approximate figures show that there are today in Kishineff only 40,000 Jews. Compared with the Jewish population figures of ten years ago, these show a decease of 40%. This decrease is a dramatic recital of the inroads of the crisis.

The following figures reveal the measure of the relief extended: The Jewish Relief Committee extends to aid to 1,800 families, 7,300 people; the Kishineff municipality aids 400 families, 1,500 people; the Trade Union extend aid to 420 families, 1,700 people.

A survey of the number of people cared for in the poor houses and by the soup kitchens yields the astounding number of 3,700 families, about 15,000 people. In other words, more than one-third of the Jewish population of Kishineff have become public charges.

These are the figures to date. If the predictions of the heads of the relief organizations are correct, this is just the beginning of the catastrophe. Starvation and the terrific cold will bring in their wake an immeasurable increase of illness. There are already instances of children fainting in the classrooms from cold and hunger, and of parents consigning their children to orphanages rather than endure the sight of their suffering. The Kishineff Jewish community is powerless in the hands of this catastrophe. The slender means placed at the disposal of the Kishineff Relief Committee by local and foreign sources does not begin to cope with the elementary needs of the population. Generous and immediate aid is imperative. The catastrophe is spreading like fire, daily victimizing hundreds of new families. Appeals have been sent out. Help, if it comes at all, must come at once.