13Aug37: Poison Bottle Links Woman To Deaths

DETROIT EVENING TIMES

Dateline: Friday, August 13, 1937

FRONT PAGE

Poison Bottle Links Woman To Deaths

International News Service Wire

CINCINNATI, Aug. 13.–The mysterious death of a fifth elderly man acquainted with blond Mrs. Anna Marie Hahn, 31, former German school teacher, complicated police investigation today of her activities shortly after a bottle of poison was taken from a locker of her husband in a downtown telegraph office.

Officers received a report from August Schultz that George Gsellman, 67, a former neighbor, was seen in Mrs. Hahn’s company shortly before his death July 6. Gsellman’s death was the fifth reported.

Held on a larceny charge, Mrs. Hahn, said to be the widow of a Viennese physician, denied any connection with the five deaths under inquiry, including that of Ernest Kohler, an elderly team-

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Suspect Grilled As 5 Die

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ster, who died several years ago, willing her his home.

GETS LARGE FUND

Lieut. George Schattle declared investigation has shown that Mrs. Hahn had received from $50,000 to $70,000 in the past eight years from elderly friends.

The poison, taken from the locker of Mrs. Hahn’s second husband, Philip, a telegraph operator, was said to induce a violent dysentery. Hahn was not held, explaining he had held the half-bottle with the intention of turning it over to the authorities.

His refusal to return it to his wife, he told police, resulted in a domestic quarrel which led him to leave their home for a week.

Schultz, on reporting the most recent unsolved death, was confronted by Mrs. Hahn at police head quarters. When he saw her he exclaimed:
“That’s the woman.”

ACCUSED OF THEFT

Inquiry began when Mrs. Hahn was accused of stealing a $300 ring in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she traveled by train with George Obendoerfer, 67, a cobbler, who died shortly after their arrival there. Mrs. Hahn declared her son found the ring.

A larceny charge was placed against her by George Heis. He said he became ill after drinking beer and eating food she served him.

City Chemist Otto B. Behrer conducted autopsies on the body of Gsellman and those of Joseph Wagner, 78, and Albert Palmer,, 72, who died here in June and March, respectively. Mrs. Hahn was acquainted with both, papers in her home disclosed.

Mrs. Hahn continued her indignant repudiation of any connection with the deaths. Detective Pat Hayes quoted her as telling him:
“You can keep me here five months and I won’t tell you I did things I didn’t do.”

13Aug36: ‘UNCLE, GIVE US BREAD!’ Starving Pray for Death To Strike Them in Sleep

DETROIT EVENING TIMES

Dateline: Thursday, August 13, 1936

PAGE 11

‘UNCLE, GIVE US BREAD!’
Starving Pray for Death To Strike Them in Sleep

Arne Strom is a Danish poultry expert who had lived in Canada and the United States. He was engaged by the Soviet government to help improve its state farms.

Accompanied by his wife and child, Mr. Strom went to Soviet Russia imbued with a deep sympathy for the Communist experiment.

He spend a year off the beaten track, on a state collective farm and traveling widely throughout the country.

Everywhere he went in Russia he heard the cry from a starving and miserable people, “Uncle, Give Us Bread!” He returned to Denmark utterly disillusioned.

With the pitiable cry of the tortured millions “Uncle, Give Us Bread” as the title, Mr. Strom has published the record of his experiences.

The book was translated from Danish and issued in England in the Spring of 1936.

“Uncle, Give Us Bread” is an unadorned and unique picture of life under the Soviet regime. It is suffused with a profound love for the helpless Russian people ground down by a merciless dictatorship.

Following is the sixteenth instalment (sic) of Mr. Strom’s narrative.

ARTICLE SIXTEEN
By Arne Strom

An old peasant in Povorino was suspected of having gold. He was imprisoned and his garden dug up; but as the Russian steppe is wide and his garden ran out into the steppe, this method was soon abandoned and the man was made to starve instead. This treatment continued for a month, but he was given just enough to keep him from dying.

At last he confessed that he owned 20 roubles (sic) in gold. These were found and then stolen by the G. P. U. and at the same time his three old sisters were arrested. The neighbors loved these old women and many brought them sour milk and bread. As the eldest of them was dying, her tormentors had to let her out.

The two others disappeared. Nobody ever heard of them again. The whole story was forgotten. They probably died from hunger typhus, as this sickness devastated our district during the Winter of 1932-33.

MANY ARE SHOT

During one of my visits to Voronezh it leaked out that one night all the windows in the Gorgsin had been painted with the following text on the ample display of food behind them:

“Children of Russia, see how your parents lived before the revolution!”

Of course, these words caused great gatherings outside the windows of the Torgsin. The G. P. U. got to work, and, as usual, several persons were shot, but it is uncertain whether they were the true heroes. Probably not, for the thought-arousing experiment was repeated some time later.

About this time a G. P. U. officer of high rank was found in his bedroom cut into small bits. It was done with an ordinary pocketknife.

FEAR LONG EARS

When news of this kind reaches the public it is very seldom through the newspapers, for they take no interest in such small matters. No, it is whispered from man to man. Nobody dares say it out loud, for the G. P. U. has long ears, and everybody fears the law’s blindly striking had.

* * *

It suddenly came out that there was a German amongst the office staff. As I am quite certain this man is no longer living, I see no harm in giving his name. It was Frantz Schuler.

Schuler spoke a beautiful German and it surprised me that he had not offered me his services long ago. This was due, as I learned later on, to the fact that Schuler was not a Communist nor greatly inclined toward communism.

PRAYS FOR DEATH

“Are you hungry?” I asked him.

And he answered that he was so weak from lack of food that he prayed to God every night that death would be sent to him during his sleep. We went straight to the co-operative shop, where I saw to it that my new interpreter was given a big rye loaf.

Schuler’s father had been a school teacher in one of the German colonies near Saratov. He and Schuler’s mother both died many years ago, during a drought, before help came. He was not 43 years old and his wife had died last year.

Schuler had a son of 12 who caused him great anxiety. He lived a vagabond’s life and would probably die from starvation and cold this Winter.

“Why don’t you try to get him into on of the many new children’s homes?” I asked.

Schuler answered me with a quiet smile:
“As I am the son of a school and a fully trained bookkeeper, I don’t belong to the proletariat. And as the Communist system only recognizes the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, I belong to the bourgeoisie. So my son has not the slightest chance of ever being taken into one of these homes. Besides there are not nearly enough of them; there are only a few which are meant for show on fitting occasions; that is how it is.”

STAMP OF DEATH

Schuler was tall, painfully thin, and death had already stamped his face. His clothes were incredibly ragged and patched together, for the manufacture of darning and sewing needles and yarn does not come under the big industries so nobody troubled to make such things.

In those months he was my interpreter I was always afraid any moment that he might fall down, never to rise again. I kept him busy at home with translating my numerous letters of complaint which I sent off right and left.

For things were going very badly indeed on the farm. No sooner had I taught something to a set of workers, after a lot of trouble, than they would suddenly leave. Nobody knew where they went, but, nomads as they were, they went off probably to fresh pastures. The reason was always the same. They did not get enough toe eat here. When two strangers met their first question was always:
“How much bread do they give you?”

BACKBONE OF NATION

In spite of the terrible conditions of work and of life, some of the women held out during the whole year I was in Povorino. Undoubtedly several of them paid for their steadfastness with their lives. I became very fond of these few women workers. From them I learned a deep veneration for the primitive Russian woman, who is indeed the backbone of the Russian nation.

One evening we had a big fire. One of the chicken houses on the outskirts was burning. In it were those idiotic incubators that I have already mentioned. There had often been explosions before, but this time it was one of such violence that the whole house was burnt down in a quarter of an hour and 7,000 chickens perished. The big, thatched roof made and enormous bonfire.

Unluckily the wind was blowing away from the farm, otherwise the whole of this farcical poultry farm would have gone up in flames, and the gain would have been great.

FIRE FIGHTING CLOWNS

The fire engine in the country is often a farce, but the one on the Povorino farm was the funniest one I have ever seen. The workers came galloping along full without taking the trouble to cover the top of the barrels, so that they were practically empty when they reached the burning house. Here they stopped and gave themselves plenty of time to empty every remaining drop–generally only a bucketful, which they threw into the roaring fire.

MANAGER IS “HERO”

The manager, who felt he had to set a good example, suddenly rushed into the burning house and brought out an incubator, which was quite ruined, I am thankful to say. He was badly burned, but stayed like a hero on the field.

The two women who were responsible for the burning house ran about wringing their hands and quite beside themselves. Never before had I realized what “beside oneself” really meant till I saw those two. When a Russian peasant woman weeps she shows herself as the utter child she is. She cries like a little girl whose doll ahs fallen out of its pram and broken its head.

FEAR G. P. U. SOLDIERS

Never, till the day of my death, shall I forget my last glimpse of these two women. They stood in front of two G. P. U. soldiers who had arrived by motor car. With their faces blackened by a mixture of petroleum smoke and tears they looked in their bewilderment like grotesque devils in a carnival procession.

With uplifted arms and widespread fingers they rocked from one side to the other on straddling legs, yelling the whole time at the top of their voices. I had never thought human beings could look like that.

I touched the shoulder of one of the grim G. P. U. soldiers and explained to him, through Schuler, who was with me, that the two girls were absolutely innocent. The G. P. U. had better find the rascals who were responsible for installing these old-fashioned and dangerous contrivances in low, thatched houses.

They wrote and wrote on; and I begged them to add that the foreign expert–who had refused in writing to take any responsibility for the working of this poultry farm–had long ago written to the head office of the trust pointing out that these unsatisfactory incubators were very liable to cause fire.

My hope of quieting the poor girls was not fulfilled. The sight of the G. P. U. soldiers had driven them quite crazy from fear. They were not arrested, but one of them disappeared that very evening; and I heard that the other threw herself in front of the train at Borisoglebsk.

13Aug36: Tuberculosis Leads In Death Cause List

DETROIT EVENING TIMES

Dateline: Thursday, August 13, 1936

PAGE 10

Tuberculosis Leads In Death Cause List

Tuberculosis today listed first on the list of communicable diseases in a report released by the board of health. Nineteen deaths and 38 new cases were reported. Pneumonia followed with 15 deaths and 29 new cases.