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TokenBoomer

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Nice People (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago by TokenBoomer to c/progressivepolitics

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[–] Kyrgizion 16 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The same was said about the siege of Stalingrad. No "nice people" survived.

They were eaten.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And the Holodomor

Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was "not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you." The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did....

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

A pretty common theme during famines is killing spouses and children to put them out of their agony.

Late Victorian Holocausts covers a lot of less-known ones. Here's a free PDF.

RE: Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879

Richard later discovered human meat being sold openly in the streets and heard stories “of parents exchanging young children because they could not kill and eat their own.” Residents—who everywhere went armed with spears and swords for self-protection—also “dare not go to the coal-pits for coal, so necessary for warmth and cooking, for both mules and owners had disappeared, having been eaten.”49 (Richard, on the other hand, was struck by “the absence of the robbery of the rich” among so much death.)50 The other European witness to the catastrophe, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shanxi, confirmed Richard’s most disturbing observations in a letter to the procurator of the Lazarist Fathers (later quoted in The Times): “Previously, people had restricted themselves to cannibalizing the dead; now they are killing the living for food. The husband devours his wife, the parents eat their children or the children eat their parents: this is now the everyday news.”51

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I think you meant Leningrad, Stalingrad was never entire cut off.

[–] Kyrgizion 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Woops, correct!

[–] TokenBoomer 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I thought that was an exaggeration, but no, it happened.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's even crazier in the context of the city being shelled for over two years and half a million Nazis died failing to take the city.

Having to eat enough to have the strength to fend off the next assault, knowing that your family is eating eachother at home.

[–] BlitzoTheOisSilent 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And the fact the Soviets practiced a scorched-earth policy as they retreated back to Leningrad, burning their crops fields and such. It prevented the Nazis from eating it, but didn't leave the Soviets much either.

Just horrific all around. Weren't there stories about residents resorting to eating dirt after all the rats had either been killed or fled the city, but before cannibalism?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

And the fact the Soviets practiced a scorched-earth policy as they retreated back to Leningrad

Scorched earth is more of a metaphor in this context, burning a field in winter is impractical. Rather it meant destroying livestock/infrastructure that couldn't be transported away from enemy lines, rails, power lines, mines, power plants, tractors, etc.

This probably didn't impact the famine inside the city as anything that could be transported into the city or further behind soviet lines was, and anything that couldn't would have been used by the nazis and certainly not given to the people in the city if it wasn't destroyed.

Weren’t there stories about residents resorting to eating dirt

This is common in other famines, it's probably accurate