WAYS OF THE SOVIET

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3440, 8 March 1932, Page 2

WAYS OF THE SOVIET

FATE OF GERMAN COLONISTS.

SLOW DEATH IN SIBERIA. "CRIME" OF BEING RELIGIOUS. A description of the fate of old German colonists in Bolshevist Russia is described ir\ a prisoner's letter successfully smuggled across the Soviet frontier. Written in November from Siberia, and dealing 1 with current events, this heartrending document tells of Moscow's evident determination to exterminate by every cruel means possible the German peasant element throughout the land. German colonists "'were introduced into Russia during the reign of Peter the Great, and ever since that time German agricultural workers have emigrated to Russia and been naturalised, but have retained a German communal spirit of industry and perseverance and their language. Their present crime in the eyes of the Soviet is not that they are "foreigners," but that they are a religious people.

For obvious reasons names and places are excluded from the following letter, but its authenticity can be solemnly vouched for, and a correspondent of the Morning Post says he has handled the letter.

The letter begins abruptly: "We must live and end our lives surrounded by fields of ice and in impassable forests, while others are rotting in prison or skulking in caves and hollow trees. As regards those imprisoned, we hear no more of them. "It must not be thought that we are suffering more than other Russians, but I am speaking of our own suffering in order that our plight may be brought to the notice of the public and to make another protest to the League of Nations and to other civilised centres.

Victims of the White Death.

"We are living in the .north as victims of the white death. It is strange that no one has dared to lighten the terrible lot of the women and the innocent children. The only consolation of the German peasant is his belief in divine justice. Why have we been sent to exile? Because we remain true to God and will not descend to the Communist ideas so unworthy of mankind. "Our life was a life of work; but we are not prepared to enter the collective farms and thereby give up our faith. The world forgets that Communism is built not only on an economic basis, but also -on atheism, with an attitude towards women and children and a complete surrender of personality which the German colonists refuse to admit. "On what definite charge we have been sent to exile we do not know. Last July they came to our village and simply gave us the order that every living soul must be on the train in 20 minutes. We could not take anything with us. My sister had even to go barefooted as her shoes were being mended. We did not know where they were taking us. for how long, or why. It was to Siberia they took us, and the suffering of the journey are beyond description. "In this Siberian village we live in barracks. We are all weak—and we know what that word means. All men and women must work from early morning to late at night. For us there is no such thing as an eighthour day. Our wage is every day a pint-of vegetable soup without meat and a half-pound of stale, sour bread. We are all 'famishing here.

Average of Ten Daths a Day.

"There were in this area about 7000 families, but we are dying: off at about an average of 10 a day. They simply come with a wagon, pitch the dead on it, and cart them away without word or ceremony. No relations are allowed to attend the funerals such as they are. Like the carcases of dogs they are dragged off and heaped together. Our German villages are practically all destroyed, the inhabitants deported, imprisoned or shot. All who remain are worthless.

"Not far from us many other German colonists have arrived in exile. They have told us that our homes have been torn down for conversion into cattle stalls. In the south, from where some of the newcomers have been deported to Siberia, we hear that conditions are terrible —all hope of salvation lost. They tell me that the only religious rights allowed are those exercised by foreigners and under foreign protection.

"Many villages are empty and, according to what we are told, the idea of the Soviets is to destroy utterly the German colonies, as they have given up hope of turning them into Communists. The authorities here openly say that the world public opinion would be roused if they shot all the German colonists wholesale — so they are placed where they must perish. Pray for us, and may God help us."