“they were threatened with trial and thus everyone had to give up unwillingly his individual property and become collectivized. This is how in Jankoy we obtained 92 percent collectivization.”
He pointed out that now the guilty officials had been removed and the Jewish colonists were getting back their cows and poultry. “The damage done by forced collectivization in the Jewish colonies is so great that it must take much time and energy to return to normal.”
Similar reports from the Krivorog and Zaporozhie regions were wired to the land commissariat by its representative Severov, who admits that many of the collectivized Jews will now return to individual efforts because they were collectivized by force. The White Russian representative Abramov wires that when the collectivization of Jews of Homel and other regions was in process, cattle was taken away even from those who flatly refused to join the collectives. “Much property, including pillows and laundry, was confiscated under the pretext of kulakism, and even from Jewish peasants who should never have been considered kulaks.” Abramov’s report adds that he is now taking measures to correct the admitted errors.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
