[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] "Louts"

[Richard Benert]

I hate to be a thorn in everyone's side, but I really think we need to be 
careful about assigning epithets to people.  I'm not sure what a "lout" is, 
but I suspect we're referring to the Bolshevik b_____s in leather jackets 
who carried out the arresting, deporting and murdering of our people.  I 
can't be sure about this, but I'd suspect that few of these guys were actual 
working farmers (muzhiks), but rather were alienated, dislocated, unemployed 
city boys trying to get ahead by joining the party.  They may have been born 
as muzhiks, but I think that the Russians would not have thought of them as 
such once they moved to the city.  Small difference, perhaps, but it isn't 
fair to a whole class of millions of peasants to think of them all as 
criminals.

There may be stories in which neighboring farmers (muzhiks) took part in the 
destruction of their neighboring Germans, but this would almost surely have 
been the exception, not the rule.  At least so I think.  Any comments?

Dick 
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