CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART IV

May 1932
On May 25, 1932, Svoboda received a lengthy letter from Hnat Porokhivsky, a man in Bucharest who had made contact with many of the refugees who had escaped to Rumania from Ukraine. He also collected news items from the Rumanian press about the peasant refugees who made it over to Bessarabia. In his letter, Mr. Porokhivsky says he had the opportunity to travel to the border near the Dnister. He cites the reasons Ukrainian peasants escaped to Rumania, on the basis of his talks with them. He writes that, according to the Rumanian press, which dutifully covered any news about Ukrainian refugees in the period between January 1 and March 13, it was recorded that the following number of people made it from Soviet-occupied Ukraine to Rumania: 315 men, 234 women, 283 boys and 223 girls.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART III

April 1932
On April 2 Svoboda reported from Bucharest that a special commission composed of both Rumanian and Soviet representatives was beginning investigations of the shootings of Ukrainian refugees who crossed the Dnister into Bessarabia. Rumanians represented included the minister of the press, Bagnal, and the ambassador for Bessarabia, Christie. Svoboda reported that the commission representatives from Russia were Gen. Meneshchynsky of the Moscow secret police and Redel, head of the secret police in Ukraine. An official of the Rumanian government said there was a possibility that the League of Nations would be asked to take part in the investigations of this “masquerade staged by the Bolsheviks on the Dnister by shooting more than 1,000 refugees in a three-month period,” reported Svoboda. The April 9 headlines in Svoboda read: “Hungry peasants steal from and then burn a preserved foods factory; Soviet armies and secret police shoot at the hungry masses.”