RUSSIAN TORTURES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 136, 12 June 1933, Page 8

RUSSIAN TORTURES.

METHODS OF OGPU.

PROFESSOR'S EXPERIENCES. ±1

FORCING CONFESSION.

British* opinions of the value of eonfceiions mado by prisoners in the Tiaijtls of the Ogpu have been Jar;:-lv j„. Iluenccd by a letter from I'ni'cssor Vladimar Vyaeheslavoviteh To 1 :*-, nnvin published in "The Times." Profwsor Tchernavin escaped in -August, 19;j> after having been accused as a sabotageur. "The investigating jifliccr w; m c to sign a statement that I pleaded fiuiltv to being a. 'wrecker.' As 1 refused, 1 Wa ' s threatened by way of bringing >»rc!=3ijre to bear upon r<ie, first, that 1 would bo shot; second, that my wife would be arrested and my 12-vear-old son sent to an institution for vagrant children* third, that my wife would bb kept ia prison during the whole inquiry iuto my case; fourth, that my wife would be sont into penal servitude; iifth, that unless I signed the statement within tliree days I should be shot on the fourth day. Finally I was taken in the ni«ht as though to be shot. ° "Despito this I did not sign the false statement. Then they did not crossexamine mc any more, but sent me without trial to five years' penal servitude at the Solovctsky concentration camp, whence I escaped in August, 1932. "Prisoners who were in the same cell with me had the following measures ap. plied to tliem in order to wring 'confessions' from them: "'Standing'—the prisoner being made to stand without food, drink or sleep for as long as six days and nights. " 'Cold punishment cell,'" where the windows were kept open in winter and the prisoner wndresscd. " Wet punishment cell,' where tho floor was covcred with water to a depth of lOin; there being no sanitary arrangements and no bed —only a narrow bcnch to sit on. " 'Crowded cell'—as many as 300 people, men and women, were so crowded together that they had to stand closely pressed against one another; the room was kept very hot and they were forbidden to sit or lie down. Few cuuld endure more than six days of this. "'The conveyor'—the accused were made to run, forty people at a time, in procession, from story to story and room to room until they signed what was required or fell down senseless. "These tortures were inflicted in Leningrad prisons chiefly upon-educated people including many well-known scholars and scientists. All convicts whom I met in the. Solovetshy camp told me the same methods were uised by tho Ogpu in other parts of the L'.S.S.K. A3 well." '