When we arrived at Vinnitza and made known all the abovedescribed facts to all the public institutions, the best answer we could get was always: "At present we are powerless to do anything, we have no genuine power; wait, wait" When the cantonal capital Bratzlav was again taken by a Soviet detachment, Red soldiers from Bratzlav, Tulchin, and Trostianetz went thither to do guard duty. Some time later our military commissar, Kolesnikov, again arrived in Vinnitza with an urgent request for machine guns and troops. But there he was arrested by the military committee of the government, charged with being drunk and disorderly. In spite of our demands that he be immediately replaced with another, since the lack of a commanding officer would threaten to wipe off the face of the earth the widows and orphans who still remained alive, the military committee of the government has as yet taken no steps. This i« why we have come to Kiev and have presented this report to the proper authorities, with the request and demand, in the name of the still living widows and orphans:
(1) That there be immediately dispatched to the town of Trostianetz a Commission of Investigation, into the composition of which should enter representatives of the military authorities, the revolutionary tribunal, and the communist parties; and which shall discover and punish the counter-revolutionaries and participants in the rebellion and massacre who are even yet enjoying complete liberty. This is possible only if there is sent into the district of Trostianetz a reliable Red-army detachment, with about 16 machine guns, and other firearms, to disarm the peasants and bandits that are still in arms. (2) That extraordinary measures be immediately adopted leading to the social welfare of the widows and orphans, more than nine hundred of whom have already been registered. They are stripped bare, plundered, left literally without a piece of bread. They must be furnished with provisions, clothing, medicines, and financial means. (3) That a responsible government be immediately organized in the canton and district.
The Secretary of the Trostianetz Military Revolutionary Committee.
The Director of the Department of Labor,
I. SAFRO.
The Secretary of the Department of Manufactures,
G. MONASTYRSKY.
The President of the temporary Soviet of the Town of Trostianetz,
B. SANDLER.
The Secretary, M. BOGDANSKY. Kiev, May 30, 1919.
III. Report of S. Kulikova
I submit herewith a list of the slain, and of the widows and orphans left without any means of subsistence, in the town of Trostianetz, to which I was sent to bring first aid to the victims of the pogrom and the counter-revolution.
After the massacre which was experienced, and which cost
UKRAINE
the town of Trostianetz several hundred victims and all its property and wealth, there appeared even more horrible factors, which completed the job of devastation and destruction of the town with inexorable consequence and swiftness.
Famine appeared as a result of the crisis in provisions, which had existed before the massacre and was now made much more severe by the fact that the peasants, after the horrible slaughter, refused to send bread and other provisions to the population. The few score of men who have remained alive find nothing to do, because of the lack of any work and the present stagnation of trade. Still more helpless to get a livelihood for themselves are the widowed women, left with various numbers of small children, many having three, four, five, and some as many as ten or even more.
But to complete the horror and to make full the cup of bitterness for the people of the town, diseases have appeared; abdominal diseases, famine typhus, and others. Medicines and medical aid are lacking, and a local apothecary has fled from town because he was an instigator of the pogrom; so that the town is threatened with the most extreme miseries and with absolute annihilation.
From all that I have seen, I have come to the conclusion that without aid of the broadest character, on a national scale, nothing can be accomplished. The life of the town must be renewed, or the place is fated for complete ruin. It is imperative that there be sent to the Committee now existing in the town an appropriation of money and material aid in medicines, clothing, and shoes. Help must be given now, before it is too late.