ESCAPE FROM RUSSIA

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 11323, 29 September 1930, Page 5

ESCAPE FROM RUSSIA

“I SHALL BE SHOT IF SENT BACK.”

“If 1 am sent back I shall be shot as soon as I land-” This dramatic declaration was made to the police, through an interpreter, by Eugene Kriwolap, a Ukranian subject, who is stated to have landed at West Hartlepool, after escaping from Russia as a stowaway in a Greek vessel from Archangel (states the London Sunday Dispatch). A pathetic story of hardship and privation was told of the man by the interpreter, who assisted the police.

Kriwolap, who is in an emaciated condition, said: “I am 21 years of age. I am not a Bolshevist and was taken from a little village in Ukraine because of my religious beliefs.

“I was kept in prison for eleven months, and was then sent to Archangel to work at the docks, where there are ■ thousands of prisoners, most of them persecuted Christians. ,1 could not stand it any longer, and escaped in a boat. All I had to eat was a small quantity of black, bread and load water to drink. “In 1920 the Bolshevists shot my mother for her religious beliefs, and my father was so distracted that lie disappeared! I last heard that he was in Serbia.’.’

Kriwolap is said to have stowed himself away among the piit props on. deck. According to the story communicated to the police, lie was without food and water for three days. .. . r’ ; . •. \7; . ,