WAYS OF THE SOVIET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

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 in a prisoner's letter successfully smuggled across the Soviet frontier. Written in November from Siberia, and dealing with current events, this heart rending document tells of Moscow's evident determination to exterminate by every cruel means possible the German peasant clement throughout the land. German colonists,wero introduced into Russia during tho 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, ami a correspondent of (ho Morning Post says he lias handled the letter.

Tlio loiter begins abruptly: " We must live and end our lives surrounded by fields of iYo and in impassable forests, while others are, rotting in prisons or skulking iy caves and hollow trees. As regards those imprisoned, wc hear no more of them. "It, must not, l»c thought that wo are j suffering more than other Russians, but I I arn speaking of our own suffering in ! order that our plight may be brought to i the notice of the public and to make another protest to the League of Nations j and to other civilised centres. Victims o! the White Death. " We are living in the north as victims |of the white death. It is strange that no ' one lias dared to lighten the terrible lot : i>f the women and the innocent children. file only consolation of the German j peasant is Ins belief in divine justice. Why have we been sent to exile? BeI cause we remain true to God and will j not descend to the Communist ideas so : unworthy of mankind. ■ ! "Our'life was a life of work; but we i are not prepared to enter the collective farms and thereby give up our faith. The I world forgets that Communism is built not ! only on an economic basis, but. also on i atheism, with an attitude towards women ! and children and a complete surrender of ! personality which the German colonists | refuse to admit. "On what definite chai'ge wc have I been sent to exile wo do not know. La-st I July they came to our village and simply ! gave us "the order that, every living soul i must be on the train in twenty minutes. | Wo could not take anyhing with us. My ! sister had even to go bare-footed as her i shoes were being mended. We did not i know where they were taking us, for bow ! long, or why. It was to Siberia they I took us, and the sufferings of the journey j are beyond description. I "In this Siberian village wo live in j barracks. We are all weak—and we j know what that word means. All men I and women must work from early morning to late at night. For us there is 110 such thing as an eight-hour day. Our wage is every day a plate of vegetable j soup without meat and a half pound of j stale, sour bread. Wo are all famishing here. | Average of Ten Deaths a Day. " There were in this area about 7000 I families, but we are dying off at about jan average of ten a day. 'I hey simply come with a waggon, pitch the dead 011 it, and cart them away without word or ceremony. No relations aro allowed to attend the funerals, such as they are. Like the carcases of dogs they aro dragged off and heaped together. Our German I villages are practically all destroyed, the j inhabitants deported, imprisoned, or shot. ! All who remain aro the worthless, i " Not far from us many other German ! colonists have arrived in exile. They have I told us that our homes have been torn | down for conversion into cattle stalls. 111 j the South, from where some of the newcomers had been deported to Siberia, we hear that conditions are terrible —all hope of salvation lost. They tell mo that tho only religous rights allowed a:o 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 I colonists, as they have given up hope of turning them into Communists. The authorities hero 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. Fray for us, and may God help 11s."