Tale of Horror

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 811, 4 November 1929, Page 9

Tale of Horror

RUSSIAN REFUGEES FOUND Fled From Dreaded Prison STORY OF TORTURE AND MURDER United P.A. — By Telegraph—Copyright Received 12.18 p.m. HELSINGFORS, Sunday. FINNISH GUAIIDS discovered 13 Russian refugees, including a woman, pitiably exhausted on tlie Lapland frontier. They declare that they escaped from the dreadful Bolshevik prison on Solovyetsk Island, in the White Sea.

The refugees say they knocked down their guard and warders while working in a forest. They suffered great hardships throughout the march. They assert that a reign of terror prevails at Solovyet.sk. This is aggravated by shocking sanitary conditions, and prisoners are dying daily. The refugees are all young, but they look aged and emaciated. Recently they were sent to the mainland to build blockhouses. When they heard the Finnish frontier was near they decided to escape. They attacked the gaolers with axes, secured food and a rifle, and wandered for a fortnight in the deep forests, finally eating berries and moss.

I The refugees describe as appalling the conditions at Solovyetsk. The prisoners are housed in ice-cold barracks. Food is scarce, and medical attention is lacking. The filth is indescribable. Torture is inflicted daily, they say, for the smallest offences, and the gaolers’ brutality, especially to women, is unspeakable. More than 100 religious prisoners in February displeased the gaolers and were sentenced to death. Their hands and feet were cut off, after which tlie prisoners were thrown into graves which they previously had been forced to dig. Then they were left to perish slowly.