HORRORS OF BOLSHEVISM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14006, 10 March 1920, Page 6

HORRORS OF BOLSHEVISM.

' ~- J Renter's representative has had'an interview with two Irish jgirls —the MJ-se« Mav and Eileen Healy, daughters of Mr T. Healy, formerly >,ationulis',. M.l'. lor Wexford—who have just reached London, having escaped trom Kieff with nothing but the clothes - thin linen dresses—they were wearing. L'hese ladies have been in Russia tor eight vears as governesses, and have been in KeifV during each period ' ot Bolshevik rule. Describing the seemon the occasion of the relict ot Kie.i iiv Denikin's army last Scptembe„. after eight months of Bolshevism, Mi>s Eileen Healv said: "When tlie Bolsheviks were evacuatiii" Kieff as Denikiu approached, U' trains each of about '.W trucks were font otr dailv Wleii with furniture an. ,:11 kinds of loot taken by the Reds. I *hali never forget the day the \ olun-tc.-r Armv arrived. When the Russian Hag was hoFsted over the Duma the citv"went mad with joy; the. people sobbed" and veiled with reliet. The crowd -nmed round General Bretloff, wrapped his charger in a Russian Haft, and carried him and his horse 0:1 their shoulders through the streets. I 'he Ucd* had been compelled to clear out ,0 Quicklv that they had no time to n\d* ihe evidences of their crimes, and the nest day I was enabled to visit the various "eliresvoichaika,'' or extraordinary prisons -each of which was a ruriltable torture house—Scattered through Ihe city, usually villas or line i'ark-htue kind of houses, in the most nrtistocratic parts of the town. 1 ivtiew many who entered them when the Reds "had departed to look for ictssiiig relatives who came out mail. *ml one lady friend of mine dropped dead on reaching the street. One of Utc.se. places. -\Sadavoea o," was an .fitr.-.clivc villa with a small garden. .in a side building, a sort of garage. I -aw the walls covered with Mood and nra-ina. In the middle was cut a channel or drain full of congealed blood. und just outside in the garden 127 nude and mutilated corpses, including (hose of some women, were flung int.) 11 hole. They had been murdered the day i-ievionsly. and the man who had rcinoved the bodies from the nhcd told n horrible story of what he described ns a of bleeding bodies reaching almost to th e ceiling of the shed. "Opposite this slaughter-house was the governor's houses. . . On fhlo evenings the commissaries after dinner .ised to go into the garden, where they «a:. smoked, and drank ciianipagne. Some of the prisoners would be invited to walk about the garden, and. as a form of sport, the drunken Bolsheviks potted at them with their revolvers, vometimes killing, sometimes wounding their victims. -In the cellars of this prison were found a number of largo boxes. In each, of these were two 01/ three naked bodies.' OnU'ide *hese two houses it was customary to place a motor-car. witli its engine running, in order to prevent dwellers in the adjoining residences from hearing the groins and cries of the tortured inmates. Even when I left Kielt the n-.ir.nnrities had not completed their excavations, but already between 1000 and -500(1 bodies had been" identified. Quite apart from these atrocities life in Kieff during the Red jc-cupatioii was a tmie of terror—one icng nightmare. TVone of us knew when we would be arrested, and there nas always shooting and firing in the streets." Women of the better class, said -Miss Healy. dared not appear in ihe streets ji-centtv clothed, so they made them.selves its shabby as possible to avoid being classed as "accursed bourgeois." But even so the Rolshe-.ik agents, wearing theVr red rosettes, were suspicious, and so asked "Show yonr manicure,'" "and it fared ill with any woman whose hands showed signs of not being of the working class. "The terrorisin of the .Reds is --eally much ivorse than anything I have read of. ,ud I > those in this country who believe the story is exaggerated I would only say. 'Go out ana s-'e lor yourselves. "

• Towards the end of their stay Miss May Heafy was living in a house iust outside KielF, where sh,« was hiding some Russian officers. Some Bolshevik agents got to hear of this, aiut she only escaped a few hours before the whole place was gutted and destroyed. and her sister had to run for five milr?. Eventually tho two ladies sucrnrded in getting into a train and travelled via Taganrog and Xovorossisk t« Constantinople, whence, owing to the courtesy of th e British High Commissioner, thev travelled by steamer to England.