GRUESOME TALE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 October 1925, Page 5

GRUESOME TALE.

MASSACRE OF PEASANTS. BESSARABIAN HORROR. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT . LONDON, Oct. 2. Mr. George Rcmviek, correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, alleges that gruesome judicial crimes are being perpetrated by Roumanians in Bessarabia. The Story "is vouched for by such men as Professor Albert Einstein and M. Henri Barbus.se, author of ‘ 1 Le Deu. ’ ’ A year ago a number of Roumanian gendarmes murdered a Bessarabian peasant because he refused to let them have goods for nothing. The neighbouring peasants were aroused but the authorities, instead of punishing the criminals, treated the peasants as criminals, and as punishment destroyed six villages by artillery fire. The authorities also burned down the town of Tatarbunar, where two hundred peasants were - massacred and eighty-seven, who sought refuge in a church, were hauled out, tortured and executed. It is officially stated that two thousand rebels were killed while the so-called revolt was being suppressed. The bodies of 279 prisoners, wbo were executed in cold blood, were displayed publicly as a warning to the population. There are still 480 men, women and children confined in prison under the foulest circumstances in Kishineff, and they are now threatened with courtmmtial without any defence. Professor Einstein and others signed a strong protest to the Roumanian Government.