SLAVES IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20740, 6 December 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

SLAVES IN RUSSIA.

ILL-TREATED PRISONERS.

PASTOR'S VIVID ACCOUNT.

HARD WORK AND LITTLE FOOD.

A Lutheran pastor, Adam Kuortti, is one of the lucky persons who have recently escaped from the Soviet inferno in Russian Carelia. Upon his arrival at Helsingfors, Finland, recently, says a Daily Mail correspondent, he signed a statement before the public notary relating h's experiences.

After explaining that ho was formerly vicar in the parish of Lempaala in the Jngria district, near Petrograd, Mr. Kuortti says in his statement:—"l was many times taken to the Ogpu (Soviet terrorist police) at Petrograd and at Siestarjoki, where I was threatened with severe punishment unless I joined the Ogpu. As I refused to enter its service, I was suddenly arrested on February 4 last, though no special charge was preferred.

"Some days later 1 was sentenced to death for some unknown crime, but the sentence was mitigated to 10 years' hard labour, and I was sent on February 28 to do forest work in Ea6t Carelia. At the same time 500 other prisoners, mostly political, were despatched there, and we were conducted to a logging-place near Magrinojarvi, where about 1000 prisoners were already working, the greater pari 'political offender!.'

"Wo were forced to do forest labour from that time on until I escaped on June 20. I was employed in all kinds of lumber work; at first cutting, transporting and barking logs, and later preparing and loading pit prop? into railway trucks. There were no days of rest. Only May 1 (Labour Day) was a holiday! Very little food was given. The constant hunger and heavy work exhaused many prisoners so much that they fell by tho road and died. "Constantly watched by brutal armed guards, most of the prisoners were forced to do their unpaid work almost night and day. The amount of work to be done every day was strictly fixed, but it was so heavy that most prisoners could not perform it, although they slaved for 12 or 14 hours. If the job was left unfinished tho small food rations were further reduced and night labour was enforced. "One day some of us were ordered to peel logs, every man having to strip 55 in the day. When evening came my job, like that of most of my comrades, remained unfinished, although we had exerted ourselves from early morning. At 10 p.m. tho guard conducted us to our barracks. We had just received our bread rations and had begun to eat when

we were called out, lined up, and again sent to the forest.

"Wo had to cross a lake covered with broken icc and sludge. We asked to be allowed to go round it, so as to avoid the icy-cold water. But the guard and tho foreman ordered us with curses into the water, which reached to our loins. They kept us in tho forest for threo hours be fore allowing us to rest a little." The pastor concludes by saying that this is only one instance of the brutality meted out to political prisoners in th»> Soviet timber industry.