Here in the Ukraine thousands of recruiting notices and placards have been put out to get cooperation from the people and urging them to report to the Reich with the assurance of best treatment. Therefore, considering this and also the above mentioned abuses, it would seem to be of interest to the Reich, and necessary for the security of our future race and to prevent a later evil, to prevent by all means an alienation of the Ukraine with its precious territories and population by settling vicious abuses and by a clarification of the situation.
Certified True Copy C.P. 5 Oct 1942.
[illegible signature]
Envelope
At the V.O. of the Reichs Ministry for the occupied territories of
the East.
Deputy with Army, Territory B.
Official seal.
Copy of Copy
Copy of a letter of graduate engineer given to the Specialist Collecting Camp. (Translated from the original in the Specialist Collecting Camp.)
27 April 42
Camp Dabendorf, Berlin
Reich Railway direction.
Mister Franz H. Ergard and H. Nester!
Good Day!
As I have told you in my letter of 20 Apr. 42, we have been transported to the Grunewald Railroad car repair factories. In the first week I have worked as a manual laborer in the main warehouse of the works. I have unloaded coal, have dug the ground and have stacked lumber. This is supposed to be the "employment of Specialists" in their own line of work. The question constantly arises, why did I go to Germany, maybe that I who volunteered as a specialist (graduate engineer) for Germany, am to be transformed into a banned prisoner? I wonder why? What misdeeds have I committed against Germany? On the contrary, I have believed all those who spoke in Charkow about the worker's life in Germany. My attitude toward Germany has remained kind and friendly, I want to work, but I do not want to be led astray, to be treated as a civilian prisoner and without any care, or as a forgotten man who can find nowhere and receives from nobody, care and moral backing. I had hoped that we would be treated humanely and quite differently. It should be clear that I did not come to Germany to beg for charity. I had a job in Charkow and a decent working place; this I have renounced for the good of Germany and sacrificed for the improvement of the condition of my family. It was clear to me that I had to help that state that delivered me from the Bolshevist yoke, from this yoke under which I had to live for 24 years. Now I had expected a better future for myself. Our food ration consists of: at 4 o'clock in the morning 3/4 of a liter of tea, in the evening at 6 o'clock 3/4 of a liter of soup and 250 grams of bread a day. That is all. With such food we have to dig the ground and great requirements are made from us just like from manual laborers. On account of the under-nourishment and the heavy work I am weak and exhausted today and I don't know if I can endure and survive this much longer. To what conditions thoughtlessness can drive a man! Into a condition which will probably not be pleasant to anybody.
I beg you all, deliver me, help that I can go back to my family! If this is impossible, ease my condition otherwise I may commit a stupidity, escape or suicide.
There is no possibility to continue to live like this.
Your,
Grigori.
P.S.: Expect with impatience to hear from you. What is the possibility of sending me a work suit which in my stupidity I have not taken along.