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Archbishop of Vienna Says Toll Will be Millions Unless World Heeds Plea
CANNIBALISM REPORTED
Metropolitan of Galicia Tells of Suffering in Ukraine--Moscow Official
Issues Denial
Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES
The New York Times, New York Sunday, August 20, 1933, Page Three
VIENNA, Aug. 19--A striking appeal for Russian famine victims, who
he declared were likely to be numbered once more by the million, was made
today by Cardinal Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna.
"In an hour whose deep seriousness must awaken a sense of
responsibility in all mankind," said the Cardinal, "we feel the necessity of
calling on public opinion throughout the world for help. Famine in Russia
threatens members of all religions and all races equally.
"It is already established that that catastrophe still obtains, even
at the time of the new harvest. It will in four months reach a new peak.
Once again millions of lives will be lost."
"Merely to look on such a situation would be to increase the
responsibility of the whole civilized world for mass deaths in Russia. It
would mean to bear the guilt of the fact that, at a time when whole sections
of the world are almost choked with a surplus of wheat and food, men are
starving in Russia.
Cruelty Accompanies Hunger
"Famine conditions there are accompanied by such cruel phenomena
of mass starvation as infanticide and cannibalism. In the interest of the
eternal laws of humanity and charity, the undersigned raises his voice and
appeals to all those organizations and centres in the world which work in
serving humanity and justice in order that they can undertake, before it is
too late, a general plan of rescue on a basis above nationality and above
religious affiliation for those who are threatened with starvation in
Russia."
The appeal was addressed before all to the International Red Cross,
but it was made also to all those who are today negotiating for the
enlargement of economic relations with Soviet Russia in order to make
those negotiations dependent on the comprehension of the necessity
for help in the stricken districts of that country. Representatives of
various religions are invited to come to Vienna to establish a committee
for this work.
Cardinal Innitzer concluded with this appeal, "rouse yourselves for
a common brotherly gesture before it is too late. It is God's will."
Cardinal Innitzer grounds his appeal on the fact, whose truth he
declares no denial his impugned, that already hundreds of thousands
have perished from hunger during a few months in Russia.
Cites Letters of Appeal
"Hundreds of touching letters from the famine-stricken North Caucasus
report this, " he said. "Eyewitnesses about whose competence there can
be no doubt have described shocking details of the crisis. I refer to the
appeal of the Metropolitan of Galicia, Andreas Scheeptyckyj, in which the
frightful suffering of the people of the Ukraine districts of the Soviet
Union are grippingly reported.
"An Englishman, Gareth Jones, confirms this and has established by
inquiries on the spot that in some districts already a quarter of the
population have perished from hunger.
"The general secretary of the Nationalities Congress, Dr.Ewald
Ammende, reports in a memorandum that, besides the Ukrainians and
Russians, members of all other races in the Soviet Union are being
frightfully involved in hunger from scarcity."
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Moscow Official Issues Denial
MOSCOW, Aug. 19 (AP).---Denying the charge by Cardinal
Innitzer of Austria that millions have died of starvation in Soviet Russia
in
the past few months, a Foreign Office official tonight said, "There is no
cannibalism and, I may say, there are no Cardinals in Soviet Russia."
He described Cardinal Innitzer's report of starvation and "accompanying
horrors of infanticide and cannibalism" as "pure fabrication."
It is generally known, however, that there has been some suffering in
Russia, even to the extent of malnutrition in many cases, because of last
year's poor harvest. This year's bumper crop is expected to alleviate
conditions.
The New York Times, New York, Sunday, August 20, 1933, Page 3
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