This AHSGR material relates to the starvation of the Volga German colonists in Russia, and the efforts of the American Volga Relief Society (AVRS) to supply food and other aid to the region. Although the collection contains items spanning the dates 1921-1938, the bulk of the materials are dated 1921-1925, which were the most intensive years of the famine.
Many of the records are written in German, and contain materials of the following varieties:
- Letters written by Volga German village leaders recording population statistics before the Revolution and after the famine in 1923
- Lists of donors with amounts donated
- Receipts for food or clothing packages and cash
- ARA and AVRS office correspondence (including newsletters, correspondence of Jacob Volz, letters of appeal for donations from Germany, CSVRS subscription coupons, bank statements and other miscellaneous items) relating to the AVRS and the Volga German communities of Lincoln and McCook, Nebraska, and Portland, Oregon
- Documentation of the efforts to provide food to the needy in Germany after the ARA (and therefore AVRS) removed all representatives in the Soviet Union in 1924. The German food support was implemented through the German Red Cross.
The material is organized into two sets: Collection 1 and Collection 2. Collection 1 contains material for all the series and sub-series of the Index. The Index for Collection 2 uses the same index structure but only a subset of the index listings was necessary to describe the Collection 2 material. A Table of Contents is located at the end of the material.
The 244-page document is available in PDF format and is searchable by keyword or phrase to easily access the information you seek.