Peasants tried to escape the famine by fleeing to the cities. Though checkpoints were set up at railway stations and on the main roads, thousands managed to evade them, only to die ignored on the city streets. ‘People hurried about on their affairs,’ wrote Grossman of Kiev, ‘some going to work, some to the movies, and the streetcars were running – and there were the starving children, old men, girls, crawling among them on all fours.’
