TORTURED IN WAR CAMPS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 156, 1 July 1916, Page 21

TORTURED IN WAR CAMPS.

AUSTRIAN BARBARITIES. Sister Eomanova has Jnst returned from Anstrla after an Inspection of the Russian war prisoners' camps there. She has informed the Ked Cross authorities that the Uusslan war prisoners receive only as much fond as is necessary to kerp them from starvation or rapkl exhaustion, bnt the soldiprs nttribnte the scarcity i>f food to the circumstance that "tbe Atistrians have nothing to eat themselves." The treatment to which the Russian prisouers are subjected resembles that wHM] is imposed in an ordinary prison. The men are punished for the most trifling offences by deprivation of food, and in serious cases they arc subjected even to torture. Tula torture takes the form of "hanging" and fettering. To the questions put by the Russian Sister on the subject of hanging, the soldiers stated in chorus, "They do hang us up, Sistratza (Little Sister). They cruelty us as the Jews crucified Christ" This torture consists of tying the man's hands behind his back, and then pnlling him up so that he touches the earth only with the ends of his toes. Sister lloinnnova discovered that this punishment was inflicted two hours daily for a specified period. The fettering, which is applied more seldom, resembles what is known in England as the Btocks, but sometimes one foot Iβ fettered to the ground. This latter penalty is more debasing tnnn painful. Sister Roonannva was informed that in the Marchtreni camp ten men »ere selected from a party of 400 men and sentenced to be shot because they had refused to work on the wire entanglements on the Italian front. Four of these were killed before the eyes of their comrades before the remainder consented to do the work required of them.