HUNGER IN RUSSIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 January 1943, Page 3

HUNGER IN RUSSIA

THOUSANDS WILL DIE DURING WINTER WAR DEMANDS PLACED FIRST. STALIN’S REPORTED DECISION. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) LONDON, January 13. Thousands of Russians will die of starvation this winter because of short food rations, states a report from Moscow. Painting a picture of the sufferings of Russia at war, it adds that most of the city dwellers go hungry on their existing rations. Soviet doctors estimate that most Russian civilians have lost an average of fifteen pounds weight in the past vear. Old people and babies look thin and pale. Medical services exist almost exclusively for the Red Army and munition workers. Girls wear summer sandals in winter because of the leather shortage. All travel, except on railways, is prohibited. Women are doing Russia’s war work at home —driving trains, building roads and railways and working in munition factories. The report says British and American supplies of war materials have helped Russia’s fight, but Stalin has reluctantly decided that weapons must still come before wheat in Soviet production.