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Examples of Cannibalism in Slavery, Famine, and Prison.

Slave Labor Camps of Stalin’s Russia

Author Anne Applebaum, recent publisher of the Major Synthesis of Evolution of the Soviet Gulag, writes of Labor camps that were overfilled, and due to the massive globalized shipments of native crops, famines struck the camps, creating little means for survival, instigating cannibalism among them. In May 1933, 6,114 peasants ^[1], were deported to the uninhabited Nazino Island of the Ob River, beyond the Artic Circle, without any food whatsoever. On the day of their arrival, 295 of them died. A three-month check up from a party functionary showed that only one-third of the original population of prisoners had survived. The survivors had only been able to carry on by living off the corpses of the dead that surrounded them. They were described as walking corpses and were further imprisoned at a new installment at Tomsk for their cannibalistic activities (Vardy)^[1].

Escapes from these prisons involved a group consisting of common criminals. They would enlist a willing participant to join them, in order to secretly be used for meat when the food supply emptied. A certain break out in one of Vorkuta’s forced labor camps involved two bandits taking a large cook with them, and eventually consumed him. As the two carried on, they began to fear each other, and kept awake as long as they could, knowing that the other would just as soon as eat the other. As one of the bandits finally gave in, the other took advantage, slit his throat, and slowly ate him. Two days later he was caught with much of his companion still in a bag.

Another similar story involved a small bearded man, who was discovered holding a human head in a bag. He claimed that he and another prisoner escaped, and when the traps began to fail, they would sleep with paranoia, until the bearded man broke out and beat the other prisoner with an axe, and began to consume him. As punishment, he was forced from camp to camp explaining his story to inmates, inspiring fear from escape ^[1].

Transportation of these slaves also resulted in cannibalism. A death ship carrying many thousands of prisoners was voyaging from Vladivostok to Magadan, and on the way, got stuck in the ice. After the food reserves for the prisoners ran out, the guards began to feed the dead to the living. Many died from starvation, suffocation, exhaustion, and thirst. The few remaining alive became cannibals, having to survive off of their own kind for so long ^[1].

A group of Hungarian prisoners, who were trapped in these Russian camps, targeted the chef as someone to eat. The chef would make bran, and instead of adding oils, he would sell it to civilians, and serve the prisoners the remaining bland ingredients. A small group of the prisoners pushed him into the giant mixing pot and slammed the lid shut upon him. They returned the next day to a giant bran soup with chunks of human meat. It was served to all the prisoners in the camp, and only those who had known the fate of the chef refused to eat it. After finding the clothes and bones of the chef at the bottom of the pot, the Russian guards were unsuccessful in finding the culprits ^[1].

Cannibalism in Stalin’s Famine Stricken Russia

On the other side of these labor camps, the Russian population was heavily suffering from a brutal famine, due to the decision of Stalin to export most of the food to the surrounding Western Europe. This took out most of the food supply that was meant to keep them alive. Six million peasants perished by the early 1930’s. The great lack of food brought about cannibalism ^[1].

Peasants began by trying to live off of grass, straw, animals, and moved onto the neighborhood children, and the bodies of the dead. Some would go into a temporary insanity driven rage, and eat the neighbors’ kids, along with their own. In effect, the government posted poster around the neighborhoods saying, “to eat one’s child is a barbarian act” ^[1].

Cannibalism became a common justification in the Ukraine during the great famine. as their food supply was stolen, and their land surrounded by barb wire fence, they were forced upon any food such as dogs and children. As police would go around to remove the bodies of the dead, they would find bodies that had been stripped clean of their organs and main insides. Later some Ukrainians admitted to stealing body parts and selling them in the marketplace for filling meat pies being sold in the market place. Acts such as these caused the Russian government to ship them to prisons scattered around Serbia ^[1]. Many further acts of cannibalism are recorded in the Ukraine such as parents devouring their own children, setting traps for other little children to catch and eat them, children consuming the bodies of their parents, and a recorded case of a mother telling her kids to eat her when she died. The story was told by a young teenager to his older brother returning from one of the Serbian camps ^[1].

The acts of cannibalism, the death camps, and the increasing famine all but diminished with the downfall of Stalinism.

Cannibalism in Moa's China

In 1958, the Great Leap forward began and carried on for about four years, bringing about the death of thirty eight million people. Workers were receiving less food than the prisoners in the Nazi death camps ^[1].

In this time period where nearly a third of the population perished, cannibalism had become a daily event. People could be seen on the streets eating carcasses of the deceased, because of the unbearable hunger.

Though more perished in the Great Leap forward, the Cultural Revolution brought much more brutal deaths, an example being 3,681 being beaten to death within an eleven day period ^[1]. The communist party wanted to demonstrate on how brutally and how cruelly they could inflict punishment. After being bludgeoned and dismembered, they would be partially consumed. Organs such as heart, liver, and even genitalia would be cut off, and in cases while the victim was still alive. The collected parts were later cooked eaten in what was called human flesh banquets. At some of these banquets, even minors were brutally beaten and eaten. An example was recorded as an old peasant caught a minor in a trap, slit his chest open, and let him die in agony surrounded by the village. ^[1].

Cannibalism in Australian Prison Camp (Story of Alexander Pearce)

In August 1822, Alexander Pearce was sent to a seven-year senence at Sarah Island in Macquarie harbor, Notorious for it’s escape-proof build to house the more notorious repeated offenders. Pearce escaped in a group of eight men six weeks into his sentence, heading back to the Australian coast ^[2].

When the crew’s food supplies quickly became depleted, they took out the first member of the group who’s name was Alexander Dalton, who had been chosen most likely by his past choice to volunteer as a flogger to the prisoners. Two more members of the group, William Brown and William Kennerly, became fearful that they could be next to be eaten, and decided to turn back. They soon died of exhaustion less than a month later ^[2].

As they traveled through desert, two more members, Thomas Bodenham and John Mather, were the next victims to further provide food for the survivors. Another one of the members was bitten by a snake, carried for days, and as soon as his foot grew gangrenous, was murdered and eaten in his sleep.

At this point, only Pearce and a man named Greenhill remained, waiting for the other to fall asleep, and fall prey to the desperate starvation. Pearce lasted out longer, and killed and ate Greenhill. 113 days prior to his escape, Pearce was recaptured and returned to Sarah Island ^[2].

Pearce made another escape attempt months later with a single cellmate named Thomas Cox. After escaping, Pearce found that Cox couldn’t swim, and killed him in a rage. He turned himself in, and was found with a piece of Cox’s flesh in his pocket. He was further Tried and hung in Jobart town on 19 July, 1824 ^[2].

References