A GHASTLY RECORD

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6627, 29 September 1908, Page 6

A GHASTLY RECORD

THE RUSSIAN IMQUISIXION. TERRIBLE STORIES FROM THE RIGA PRISONS. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, August 21. “Torture,” says Air G. K. Chesterton, “is a thing from hell.” Who will not agree with him ? Yet the Russian despots who are. daily torturing their victims within prison-walls have their ajiologistSj and ugly facts are too often glossed over or ignored. Tho “Daily News” has done good service this week in publishing, through the medium of a Russian refugee, an account of tho terrible sufferings inflicted at Riga upon captured revolutionaries and suspects. It makes sickening reading, this tale of horrors, but it is well that the world should know what is going on in Russia today. Tim refugee, a young Esthoniau, describes his first “interrogation” by the Lindvardcn Punitive Detachment. He was told that unless he at once confessed his guilt ho would be tortured until be did so. He replied that lie had nothing to say. The narrative proceeds:— “ I was then taken to a special building sot apart for tortures. There the dragoons stripped me of my clothing, and rained blows upon my head and my whole body, ionin (an officer) after that ordered the dragoons to count thirty strokes of the nagaika (a Cossack whip) upon my body. Disgusting and indecent jokes followed, and again thirty strokes of the nagaika were meted out. The pain was horrible. ...

“After iny first ‘interrogation’ I lay for several days on the floor unable to stir. My whole body felt like one great wound. One day lonin came back from an absence in Riga, and ordered the dragoons to bring me into the torture building. They did so and threw-mo on the floor. lonin read aloud from some paper words to tho effect that I belonged to ishe Lettish Social Democratic Union, and that I was the editor of ‘The Workman.’ When I declared this to be untrue, tho dragoons fell upon me, and began to strike me with their nagaikas so savagely that I could not help crying out. lonin dealt me blows with a wire rod. The dragoons kicked me, while tho officers laughed. Then they raised me to a standing position, and lonii struck my head and throat with the flat of his sword. They pinched the wounds upon my back, and poked sticks into them. Specially selected dragoons carried out tho tortures. Many of the others pitied us, and expressed commiseration. They secretly brought us cigarettes, sugar and tea.”

Another prisoner' named Martinson, sharing the same cell with the refugee, .was taken out and tortured for throe hours, in spite of the fact that his spine was hadly injured from previous torturing find his throat so badly hurt that ho could not speak. Ho was then thrown back into tho cell, naked and unconscious. During tho next three, weeks ho was tortured in the most horrible manner. lonin and other officers applied lighted cigarettes and candles to his lips and tonguo and rubbed salt into his wounds. Eventually ho was taken out and shot. A GIRL’S TORTURES. A girl named Amalia Kregcr, suffering from a serious disease, was arrested along with her aged father and mother and brought with them to Lindvardon. The daughter was forced to be present in the room during the torture of hor parents, and the mother subsequently beheld the agony of tier daughter. The torture took place in the story above. the prison cells, so that the refugee could hear the groans and cries of the victims. Later on ,tho old man revived, and was thrown one day into the cell. Two days later ‘all three were taken to tho torture chamber again. The narrative continues : “One day—-I don’t remember exactly which—l was summoned to iho dreaded room. There I found lonin, Prinz, several other officers and dragoons, and the three unfortunate IKrcgcrs. Wo four were made to istand up together, which wo wore hardly able to do because of our great weakness, lonin showed me various photographs which had been found in Kickers house. “‘Do you know these persons?’ ho asked me. . “I replied in the negative. r “Do you know this man?’ he asked Amalia Ivreger. “The girl replied: ‘No, I don’t know him.’ J“Ar.d, indeed, we were perfect iplangors. But hardly had she utterfpd the words than the dragoons fell 'upon her .and began to flog her brutally. lonin trampled upon her body with his heavy boots, and the unhappy •girl filled the air with desperate shrieks of pain. After awhile she was made to stand up again, and lonin asked once more: “‘Do you know'this man?’ “She again answered in the nega-

five and tho flogging began again, this time louin, nagaiku in hand, taking part in it. All this was done in the presence of her old parents, who .sobbed helplessly at the sight. "Those proceedings lasted for three or four hours, when we woro all four thrown hack into our cells. "After two weeks of repented torture Amalia Kroger was taken away to iliga, to the Central Prison. The girl was so exhausted end mutilated that she could not stand, and the dragoons were obliged to carry her out in their arms, she being driven in a cart through tho fields to the station. The parents were released at the same time. They parted from their daughter with hitler tears. I witnessed tho scene from the window of my cell. She is still lying in tho Higa Prison Hospital, although two years have passed since then; ‘a most pitiable sight of a mutilated woman,' as the prison doctor told mo later when I was also placed in tho same hospital. She is otill unable, not only to walk, but even to sit up, without help. _ Until cow thero has been neither trial nor investigation of her case.” HEYOLTING DETAILS. During his four nooks in Lindvardcn prison, tho refugee was taken several times to tho torture chamber. Each time he was brought back senseless and loft for some days unmolested m til ho bad regained strength enough to rise and undergo a new "interrogation." Tho dragoons, among other things,' dug deep holes in his Jogs with their spurs, and pulled out pieces of fleshuith ordinary iron pincers. They also stripped the skin from the edges of his wounds. His wounds were not bandaged, his boots were clotted with Ldood, and his linen bathed in it and swarming with vermin Another' prisoner named Jacob Zariu and his parents and a small brother of twelve wore beaten by lonin with wire and gutta percha rods. ‘He pulled hair from Jacob Zarin’s board, kicked his old mother, and tying tho littlo boy to a stool, flogged him with.great cruelty. Jacoo Zarin’s head ,aud legs were squeezed into a halter so that his body was doubled in half. Ho was then beaten from behind with a leaden weight. Drops of benzine wore poured upon his body and set alight. He was battered, mutilated, and burnt all over, yet ho confessed to nothing. A few days later, in tho beginning of November, 1906, Jacob Zarin was courtmartiallod on tho charge of adhering to tho Social Democratic Party, condemned to doatji, and shot., A LITTLE Gll’L OF EIGHT. Soon after tho Kroger family departed, the dragoons brought a' littlo girl about eight years of ago, Anna Pureu, into tho courtyard. Tho child, suspecting no harm, walked cheerfully aloug between her guards. Her father was a farm labourer, who had taken part in tho revolutionary movement of 1905, and since then had been hiding in the forest. Tho family was entirely without means, and therefore the child, her mother, and her grandparents had been living in tho Kingsmundshbf Almshouse. . The littlo girl was accused of having taken food to her father to his hiding place in tho forest. lonin gave the order that sho was to bo flogged. When tho prisoners in their cells hoard tho heartrending childish screams, they could not refrain from tears, and vowed sooner or later to take vengeance upon tho persecutors. Soon afterwards her mother and grandparents were brought into Lindvardcn, and likewise flogged with nagaikas. Later the child was set free, but the mother (also called Anna Puren) and tho old people were transferred to Ogcrn. During the refugee’s presence in the Lindvardcn Punitive Detachment, tiro majority of those tortured were between the ages of eight and seventeen or between fifty and. eighty. Those between the ages of twenty and thirty comprised tho smallest number of victims. AH the cases described, and a groat number or others, the refugee witnessed with his own eyes during the four weeks ho passed in Lindvarden.