SLAVES IN RUSSIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21221, 30 December 1930, Page 14

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 his experiences. .After explaining that he was formerly vicar in the parish of Lempaala in the Ingna district, near Petrograd, Mr Kuortti says in his statement:—“l was many times taken to the Ogpu (Soviet terrorist police) at Petrograd and at Biestarjoki,'where I was threatened with severe punishment unless I joined the Ogpu. As I refused to enter its service, l was suddenly arrested on February .4 last, though no special charge was preferred. “ Some days later I 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 East Carelia. At the same time 500 other prisoners, mostly political, were despatched there, and we were conducted to a logging-place near Ungrinojarvi, where about 1000 prisoners were already working, the greater part ‘ political offenders.' “We 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 props 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 oxhaused many prisoners so much that they fell by the 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 heavy that most prisoners could not perform it, although they slaved for 12 «r 14 hours. If the job was left unfinished the small food rations were further reduced aud 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 comrades, remained unfinished, although wg bad exerted ourselves from early morning. At 10 p.m. the 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. We had to cross a lake covered with broken ice and We asked to he allowed to go round it, so as to avoid the icy-cold water. But the guard and the foreman ordered us with curses into the water, which reached to our loins. They kept us in the forest for three hours before allowing ns to rest a little. Tlie pastor concludes by saying that this is only one instance of the brutality meted out to political prisoners in the Soviet timber industry.