Cannibalism
This is a story of Yevdokiya Yemelyanovna Zhiganova:
We lived with the peasant woman of Kamenki village, the widow Natalya Fyodorovna Pyshkina, with our whole family: I, Avdotya, daughter Agrafena, son Alexey of 11, and small daughter Maria of 5. Natalya Pyshkina had her own daughter Praskovya of 9, so overall there were six people in the house. And we all suffered from terrible hunger. From spring to winter, we lived on weeds, dogs, and cats. Then, we ran out of everything, and we started suffering, weakening, and swelling from starving. Our landlady Natalya’s daughter Pasha fell ill, and dies three weeks before Christmas. Her mother said to us, “We don’t have anything else to eat; we have eaten all cats and dogs. We are going to die of hunger. Let us eat my little dead one; I have already eaten dead people. They’re OK, eatable.” We were scared by these words but we decided to do it, and we decided to do it because the end was near. Therefore, we ate the girl. In a week, my little son dies, Alexey, of hunger. So we ate him, too. However, your own child is no food, you soul does not take it, and you cry without stopping. My boy died swelled, and blackened, so his flesh was bad for eating anyway. After that, and old woman of 70 asked to spend a night in the house, saying no one else did not want to let her in.
We did not have any meat again, so we had to stay hungry. At night, everything was quiet. The old woman fell asleep.
Agripina interrupts her mother, saying,
Natalya Pyshkina took a knife, and told me, “Go hold the old woman down, we’ll slaughter her, and we’ll have meat again.” At first, I did not want to knife the old woman but Pyshkina threatened me, saying, “Either I’ll kick you out, or I’ll slaughter you.” So we killed the sleeping old woman, cut her up, and then boiled.
Soon after, Fofanova came to live with us, our landlady Natalya Pyshkina started talking to us about butchering Fofanova, too, and eating her. By this time, we have lost our fear. At night, Natalya and I went to Fofanova. She woke up, and saw the knife in Pyshkina’s hand. She was very frightened. She kept saying, “What are you doing? You can’t do that.” Nevertheless, we did not have time for idle talk, so I grabbed Fofanova by the hands, and Natalya sliced her throat with the knife. Then we chopped the body up, and put the pieces into a barrel. Then we ate it. When we remembered that we were eating human flesh, we felt sick.