A WONDERFUL ESCAPE

Evening Star, Issue 17225, 15 December 1919, Page 5

A WONDERFUL ESCAPE

FROM THE BOLSHEVIKS' GLITCHES.

A particularly vivid story of an adventurous, and almo&t miraculous, escape from ihe rule of the Bolsheviks is of the Alexandirowicz family, consisting of a man, his wife, and seven children, who reached Warsaw a short time ago after walking the entire distance of about 4CO miles from Kief. It is written by the special correspondent in Russia of the London 'Post,' The Alexandrowic' family a;re said to be people of means. landowners, and ensraggd' in manufacturing at Kief. Since 1914 the family had privately maintained t'ho best-equipped hospital in that city. "When the Bolsheviks entered the town, one of the first tilings that did was to descend upon this family. " They imprisoned AlexandTowicz, and ordered" Mrs Alexaudrowkz, hor children, the English governess, and the maid's to the attic. Mrs Alexandrowicz and her daughter of 16 were compelled to begin doing all the conking and household work for 26 of the new arrivals who moved into the house. Of these 26 24- were Jews, and of these 24 two were American citizens and three were British subjects; there were also on© Finnish and ono Lithuanian Jew in t'ho party; the rest were Russian Jews. No great time, passed before Alexandrowicz was sentenced to death; but Mrs Alexandrowicz, by bribing the guards of the city prison, made it possible for her husband to escape. He iled to their country estate, about five miles out of Kief, and hid himself in the cellar of a remote shooting lodge that he had built, lie did not dare to leave this cellar for more than two months, and the oldest child in the family, a boy of 17, used to carry him food as opportunity offered."

The Bolsheviks immediately began to carry into effect everything that goes with the pleasing institution of: nationalisation, for which their peculiar system of governmental machinery is somewhat celebrated, and carried things with «, high hand. '' Mrs Alaxandrowicz was allowed to draw only 500 roubles a month from the bank, and this was utterly inadequate for the family needs, /s-eeing that bread had risen to 16 roubles a pound, and other necessaries were on a like scale. Meat was entirely prohibited to them, but the Bolsheviks in the house had abundant supplies, which Mrs Alexandrowicz, with her hungry children, including a child of two, upstairs, we.ro compelled daily to prepare and serve At night the Bolshevik lodgers used to indulge in the most boisterous and vile oigies in the chief apartments of the house, and there was one- particular individual who used to make it his especial business to come to Mrs Alexandrowicz nearly every day and inform her of the execution of some additional friend or relative. " Early in June one of the children, a boy of seven, fell ill with appendicitis. Mrs Alexandrowicz took him to the hospital that she and her husband had maintained, and one of the military surgeons was allowed to operate. At about the same time the men in the Alexandrowicz's house set up a printing press in one of the rooms to counterfeit Bolshevik money. What they were doing \va-s discovered, and a commissionnaire, with a force of soldiers, came to raid the plant. Before the commissionnaii'6 had gained access to the house the Bolsheviks below hauled their press upstairs and dumped it into the attic where Mrs Alexandrowicz and her children were living. There it was discovered. Although 6he herself was not accused of counterfeiting, she became convinced that as a result of the episode she was even less safe than she had been. In any event, the idea of attempting to escape with her seven children, the maids, and the governess, and to take her husband, who was becoming dangerouslyweak, along with the party, began to assume shape. Obviously the risks were enormous, but Mrs Alexandrowicz eventually felt herself forced to the plan by the execution, on Juno 15, of 47 persons, almost the hut of the bourgeois class of Kief, and including 25 merchants and business men, seven doctors, eight lawyers, and three professors in the University of Kief. Two of the professors, Mr Armachewsky and Mr Florinsky, wore men who enjoyed no small scientific repute, not only in Kief, but in Warsaw and even in Vienna."

Jt was at this juncture that plans were lnid for an escape. The entire project was engineered by Mrs Alexandrowicz, with the assistance of such members of the family a-s were not ill. The account proceeds : "It was the practice of the Bolsheviks living in the Alexandrowiczs' homo to lock the iron entrance gate at night, so as to guard against the escape of 'any members of the family, and for one of them to keep the key by hini until morning. The 16-year-old daughter undertook the task of securing a wax impression of the lock upon this gate, and succeeded in doing so. A key was made. The problem of transporting Mr Alexandrowicz. the boy had just been operated uponj and the infant of two years nest arose. The eldest fion managed to buy a peasant's cart and a pony, whicH were taken to the country estate. In order to have a means of obtaining food upon the journey, Mrs Alexandrowicz arranged a bundle of aa many of her clothes as she had been able to retain, and these she subsequently traded along the way for provisions. Finally, on the night of June 26, she led her little party, quietly aud undetected, from the house, walked, herself carryin<r the youngest child, the governess and the maid assisting the boy who was ill, to the estate in the country, there placed the husband, the baby, and the sick lad in the peasant's cart, and set forth. The journey, which was accomplished only by a vast amount of zig-zagging in qsdar. to escape towns and cities and to

.1 find loopholes in the military lines, was full of adventure. Upon one occasion several peasant women, after Mrs Alexandrowicz had showed some of the clothes j with which she was bartering for food, j attacked the party, and a small wayside ; battle _ with sticks and stones ensued. ' These incidents, though, were for the most j part exceptional ( generally the peasants i were not inhospitable, accepting the party, | who were travelling barefooted and dressed jonl-v in rags, as destitute refugees and ! nothing more. The approach to the Polish ; lines, which was made not far from Pinsk, ! brought a ticklish moment. The Boljshevika were not holding any front at the j particular spot where the Alexandrowieza, j just at dawn one morning, came up. Mrs | Alexandrowicz, the English governess, and one of the maids went forward toward the outpost; the rest of the party were kept in hiding. Seeing only women, the Polish sentry did not fire, and the party wa3 safe."