“And then at the ‘Tschreswytschaika’? There are youths, mostly circumcised, often half or wholly drunk! Should there be personal enemies among the ‘judges,’ the unfortunate ones are executed either on the same day or the next one, but are sometimes also ‘tried’ like they ‘tried’ the heretics in the Inquisition chambers. Several of these creatures of the ‘Tschreswytschaika’ and especially a certain Wichmann—a Jew, of course—carry on terribly; he is the terror of the city and the flat land; he even kills Bolshevist Commissars and their wives should they now and then reveal a more humane feeling.
“They fear the reprisal and hasten across the borders, laden down with valuables.
“More suffering is caused in the cities by hunger and cold. The dead bodies are buried without coffins and often without clothes. How the people dwell in houses I shall, perhaps, relate next week. Enough for today.
The freedom of the Balkan Jew from the hunger and suffering which afflict the native peoples is vividly set forth in the words of an American:
“Our ship is the first to enter Libau on a peaceful mission since the war, they say. At any rate, our arrival has caused a great excitement, on account of the food cargo we have for these people. At present we are tied up to a quay, in a narrow stream that seems to be also a sewer. Unloading our flour is a ticklish piece of work, due to the terrible hunger of the crowd that watches us. Whenever a bag breaks, people fight to scrape up the loose flour, which they put into cans along with a good portion of dirt that is mixed into it ... Everyone has a tin can and at noon there was almost a riot over a bucket of potato peelings that were tossed into the water. The people tied strings to their cans and went fishing for the peelings. They stand all day and beg us for food ... It is not a very pleasant sight—this crowd of emaciated, white-faced men and women, and big-eyed children.