RUSSIAN PRISON HORRORS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XIX, Issue 2053, 9 December 1924, Page 3

RUSSIAN PRISON HORRORS.

LEFT IN FILTHY CELLS FOR WEEKS. On June 13 four men sat in a back room of a boardinghouse on Dorotheenslrasse in Berlin and listened to a Russian woman telling this story. She is the wife of a military engineer and had just made good her escape for Sovdepia. The others present look notes as she talked. It was not necessary for me to do so, as almost every word she uttered caused me such pain and suffering that I knew I should not easily forget. It is in a effort to rid myself of the nighmare that I now put her. story on paper. Mrs 0. M. is a highly cultured woman. Her husband left with Denekin in 1920. She remained in Cherson with her three-year-old daughter— Anita. For a long time no one interfered with her—she even found employment in the secretariat of the town militia.

In August, 1921, she was arrested in the street, without any warnii g. Anita was in her arms. They were taken to the Cheka, on the Sobornaya Street. Anita had on a summer overcoat. Mrs 0. M. a summer costume.

Three courtyards, a passage, and then a cellar. Narrow pens with wooden partitions. Sickening heat and filth. Anita was crying; her mother did not know why she had beei. rounded up. She tried to be brave so that Anita should not be frightened. Weeks passed and nothing happened. The wardress, with rags round her head, brought salty water and wet bread twice a day. Anita grew pale and quiet. Her mother could not get her to play. She sat still like a white mouse. A request to be allowed exercise was refused.

Nights in Cherson are sultry. Their dirty clothing and hair were wet from the damp moisture. Anita slept uneasily, her arms outstretched, moaning and groaning. “And then one morning l was called up for examination. A Chekist, Epstein, questioned me. ‘Where is your husband? He is a White-officer, and you are charged with counterrevolutionary activities and spying. “ ‘But I know nothing. I have been living and working like anybody else. All I have is Anita.’” At the second cross-examination she learned who had denounced her. Sasha Grinberg—a youth belonging to the party. Formerly he had been a decent youngster. His parents had started to trade but had been forced to close down. They were starving, and Sasha decided to save them. There was but one way—to enter the services of the Cheka. For every “plot” unearthed by him he would receive money, food and boots. He denounced her. TORTURED TO “CONFESS.” At the second questioning they told her that “they would force her to confess.” It ivas Epstein again and an Esthonian. They went back to the filth of their cell, and Mrs 0. M. did her best to keep the flies from the eyes and lips of Anita. The soldiers in the courtyard had told her, “Best go and live with the Commissar, otherwise it will go badly Avith rou.” When summoned for the third time she asked permission to sit down. This met with a refusal. She then asked permisison for Anita to sit, but they took the ailing child from the room. “iWe will force you to confess.” They took her to a narrow room without windows, just a dim electric light. The air was foul. She Avas put in an armchair and heavy weights were attached to her, Avrists. And all the time she ivas tortured about her child. She could hear faintly her cries of “Mama, mama.” There ivere four men. Two bent to her feet and tAvo held her fast to the chair. In the hands of the former were burning tapers. First they passed the flames between her toes, then along the soles of her feet, and so on upwards. She groaned in agony, but not sufficiently loud to be heard by Anita. She could hear her child sobbing even while bearing the torture, but she would not add to her fright. “They wanted to know the whereabouts of my husband, and I did not know myself. ‘You are a spy,’ they yelled, but I had only been guilty of warning ex-officers of their impending arrest.” And as she sat there and suffered she prayed that God might strike them down. Nothing was left of the flesh on the soles of her feet. But she managed to hop across the cobbles of the courtyard and corridor. During the night she picked off pieces of burned flesh Avhich remained hanging.

OUTRAGE AND DEATH. Through the wooden partitions of these cells for women everything could be heard. She did not learn the name of the woman on her right, but to the left there was the daughter of Colonel Markoff. nAd nightly the Chekist soldiers and Chinese torturers dragged them from their cells and defiled their bodies. The woman to the right went mad, and the daughter of Colonel Markoff managed to hang herself

with the bedclothes. Anita became feverish and died, and while she held her dead child in her arms Mrs 0. M. was summoned for the fourth time. This time she was led to a large, light room, and sitting there ivas an acquaintance Nikolai Sokolovsky. He let her out, but insisted that she should fly to the north. He would destroy the papers. He himself had decided to make an attempt to escape. He succeeded, and to-day is someivhere near, in Bulgaria or Roumania. She could not leave the same day, as Anita had to be buried. But she got ?away and is now in Berlin, and her husbandrrd dar pre ararahthrdld has news from her husband.—A Student of Bolshevism in the London Daily Mail.