18. At The Peak of This Disaster, Tens of Thousands Starved to Death Each Day
Stalin’s Terror famine reached its peak in June, 1933, when an estimated 28,000 died of starvation each day. That was nearly 1200 deaths every hour, or 20 every minute. Millions died of straightforward starvation, as their hungry bodies first consumed their fat reserves, then their muscles, before their lives were extinguished. Others fell to illnesses that their malnourished bodies were unable to resist.
Yet more succumbed to waves of epidemics, such as typhus, that swept the Ukraine and southern Russia during the disaster. The final death toll is unknowable, but in the Ukraine, the tally ranges from a low of three million according to conservative modern estimates, to a high of ten million.