From: Emmental, Bessarabia
5 May 1921
Worthy Staats-Anzeiger!
Again I reach for the pen to write something from this region. The status of health leaves nothing to be desired.
In regards to the weather, we often have wide spread and consistent rains. Therefore the soil remains moist enabling the crops to grow. However, not a drop has fallen in Akkerman County and there the crops are supposedly in sad shape.
There also has been no rain in the Cherson region. The outlook there is for a totally failed harvest. They didn’t sow much there to begin with, and now God seems to send them a failed crop. One could almost say that God is helping with the destruction so that it will come to a quicker end there.
This is the situation there now: Disease, war and hunger, Lord give us our daily bread. And yet lately, one reads a lot from the American writers, or better said from the Bolshevists, who are writing that the devil’s bandits are acting justifiable.
In Edition #76, I again read a report by Franz Hulm, who vindicates the report by Eberhardt and praises it almost to high heaven. Reports like that make my hair stand on end, because I know very well how things are over there.
Some may ask how I know about that all that well that I could not say or prove. But those, who I would like to tell the most, don’t believe me anyhow. They do not even believe those who experienced and witnessed it for months that many people were tortured and killed. There was nothing left in the end but to leave wife and children and flee to a foreign land, where now they have to suffer hunger and cold to the utmost degree. All the while they used to have everything in excess at home. Is that not clear proof that pure hell is in existence there?
Father Kopp had written from Katharinental, to be in hell and imagining being in hell are two different things. The gentlemen in America express themselves in a way as if one would have to butcher people there regardless of how many and without any reason. I almost assumed that there are people over there, which one should butcher now, and why just in Russia? Why not also among us in Bessarabia and Rumania, and France, England and also over there, where you are, or are there only saints in those countries? Certainly not! I think that in the whole world there are rich and poor, good and evil people, especially in America.
For instance, what do the people in legislature do over there in North Dakota? Should they not be beaten to death, at least those in the J.V.A. whom you do scold by the numbers? Why don’t you just go over there and butcher them? You are always saying that those are the capitalists and profiteers. The righteous Bolshevists have butchered that kind a long time ago. In other countries they are still alive. Therefore, it seems that the Bolshevists are the smartest people in the world. Yes, the devil is also smart. I could write a lot about the havoc over there.
Only one thing I want to tell the American gentlemen. I wish they would live for just two weeks in Russia and witness the atrocities. Then, should they still have a human heart, they would certainly say, we’ll go on foot back to America, just let us get out of this hell. Then they will believe everything, even what the dumbest farmer boy reports from there. Enough reported about that.
(*Editor: We are convinced that the Mr. Zachaeus Kopp we know has not written this report, but someone else, who is hiding behind him like a coward, who does not want to mention his name. Otherwise, we inform the writer of this article, that so far we have accepted in the newspaper all reports, pro and con, about the Bolshevists. We withhold our opinions concerning such reports. We leave it up to the readers to pass their own judgement. The fact is that there are contradicting rumors going around in reference to South Russia. We just cannot comprehend that the huge mass of Russian people lets itself be ruined for 4 years now by the Bolshevist minority without opposition. A government like the one in Russia, which has been in power for 4 years now and that has repulsed victoriously every invading enemy, can’t possibly be a gang of robbers and bandits. Those who are writing against them seem to have a great familiarity with the J.V.A’s in North Dakota. They smear the ruling party, the nonpartisan league (Farmers Alliance) with all kinds of scandalous activities. Although the current government has repeatedly been voted in by the majority of the people. We envision a similar situation existing in Russia. In the end tied in with a lot of propaganda everything is being blamed on the Bolshevists, just like the J.V.A’s here try to put the responsibility onto the Farmers Alliance. During the war they blamed the Germans for everything, which amounted to nothing more than propaganda.)
Further, I want to report that we intend to build a new church with the help of God and good people. For that of course we need a lot of money. Indeed we need very much. At the time when our prayer house was built we were 40 families. Today we are 100 families. The building is too small to meet the current situation. Besides that it is already 35 years old and in dire need of repair.
Therefore, I would like to ask all the people in America, who originated from Krasna and Emmental and also other Catholic Christians to let me know if they would like to assist a little with the building. In bygone days, we had been able to get donations in such situations from the large and wealthy villages in the Cherson region, but that is no longer the case today. What could one really collect there now? We have no alternative but to turn to our friends and acquaintances in the New World. Especially our people from Emmental should know very well that our old prayer house no longer suffices.
Many may say that Mr. Kopp is the second Mr. Strohmaier. I can assure you that nobody will have to send money based on this letter. (*Editor: Nobody will be that dumb again after the bad experience with Mr. Strohmaier #1.) We would like to know if we could count on assistance from America. Then we will send you a common document with authentication and the seal of the church from our priest Johannes Fuchs and if need be, from our Bishop Joseph A. Kessler.
On the wedding register are Anton Bonakofski from Krasna, son of the old Felix and the widow Eva Mass from Emmental, the second wife of the deceased Johannes Mass. They originally came from the Cherson region. Otherwise nothing has changed.
Right now it is raining hard and consistently over a widespread area. We are hoping for a good harvest, which of course would contribute greatly to the construction of a new church.
Signing off with a sincere greeting and hoping for an answer,
Zachaeus Kopp