---
title: '"We Are No Longer Human Beings!" (English poster distributed in the Philippines)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-are-no-longer-human-beings-english-1950/
description: A purple-and-yellow poster reprinting a letter said to be from a German nun held with 1,500 others in a labour camp in Russia. (2 of 7)
section: Collection
---

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3. "We Are No Longer Human Beings!"

[!["We Are No Longer Human Beings!", 1950 US poster: A purple-and-yellow poster reprinting a letter said to be from a German nun](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-are-no-longer-human-beings-english-1950.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-are-no-longer-human-beings-english-1950.jpg)

# "We Are No Longer Human Beings!" (English poster distributed in the Philippines)

A purple-and-yellow poster reprinting a letter said to be from a German nun held with 1,500 others in a labour camp in Russia, ringed by drawings of guards whipping and beating nuns and of a bridge over the Dnieper. It asks readers to pray for the nuns. The tell is testimonial: an anonymous letter is vouched for only by the publications that carried it, with no checkable names or dates.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
 "WE ARE NO LONGER HUMAN BEINGS!"

(A LETTER FROM A NUN IN RUSSIA)

"DEAR PARENTS:

"At last I have the opportunity to give you an indication that I'm still alive. Will you get this letter? It has been a long time since we were shipped to Russia. Can't you sense my homesickness and my urgent desire to knock at your door? How often have I not written: Don't forget us! Pray for us! Help us! We are so poor, so abandoned and in blackest misery! Don't forget us! Pray for us!

"It is positively frightful what we 1,500 Sisters have to suffer here. We are treated like animals, driven and beaten to work. We are worse off than beasts because no one concerns himself with our welfare. If we fall exhausted and drop dead, or the guards kill us by striking us, it matters little. In silence, dispirited, dazedly, we stagger to work. And when this work isn't done promptly enough, or if the guard is in bad humor, we get a thorough whipping.

"At first we worked on the construction of a big bridge to span the Dnieper -- heavy work -- work for men. We had to drag heavy steel girders and slide them in place high above the wide river. Those who fell exhausted felt quickly the lash of the whip. If they didn't rise they were kicked into the water. We had this heavy work no end and to eat -- scarcely more than a piece of sticky bread with a bit of thin soup. Many of the Sisters died there and we were envious of them.

"At present we are working in a mine -- all day under ground in a suffocating atmosphere -- many of us are already dead.

"If we had someone who would relieve us, strenghten us, or give us ever so little aid! But there is no one. We are completely abandoned and isolated. No Sundays, no feasts -- perpetual, dreary work days. Hunger, blows, a poor and cold barracks, a hard bed, filth and vermin, no heat. We wear dirty rags for clothes, and besides constant hard and heavy labor, we are tortured by hunger never satisfied. We are no longer human beings.

"Oh, dear parents, now you know how hard our life is, how frightful is our misery!

"Our misery, our anguish of soul -- no, I cannot express it! We haven't the least right, we are judged, exiled, to satisfy the whims of despots. Oh, these nights in which despite our fatigue we cannot sleep -- in which we lament and groan -- and death awaits us always and pursues us stealthily! Oh, mother, I do not wish to sadden you, that is why I am telling you only the least part of our affliction. May the Good God deign to cast an eye of pity on us poor and neglected Sisters, who despite all, believe and trust in Him. Let us love Him and persevere because of Him in his ceaseless dying."THE SUFFERING of 1,500 nuns in a slave labor camp somewhere in Russia reached the outside world, when one of the nuns, a German, smuggled a letter out of the camp into her parents' hands. The letter has received wide publicity in Europe. In the United States, the text has been received by the Christian Brothers in Beltsville, Maryland. It was recently published in Brooklyn's THE CRUSADER. The story of the nuns in the camp and their stirring plea for prayers follow in a literal English translation from the German.

(Reprinted from THE CRUSADER, Brooklyn N.Y.)

Distributed by the Catholic Youth Organization of the Philippines
```

[← Ho Chi Minh and the Snake (Vietnamese poster distributed in Vietnam; NARA title: Viet Poster #2)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/viet-poster-2-ho-chi-minh-snake-cao-dai-1950-1955/) [Children examine collected Colorado beetles during the "American beetle" campaign, Chemnitz district →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-potato-beetle-search-children-chemnitz-1950/)

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