LIBERTY SHUNNED

Southland Times, Issue 22009, 8 May 1933, Page 8

LIBERTY SHUNNED

FORMER WAR PRISONERS. ODD GROUP IN ITALY. In the provincial mental hospital of Aversa, near Naples, there are 24 excfficers and soldiers of the late Tsar of Russia who prefer to remain there rather than return to Soviet Russia. They were taken prisoners m the Great War fifteen years ago. For the past seven years they have been in the Aversa institution. They sleep in a group by themselves, refuse all information about themselves, and wrap themselves in mystery. Even their names are not known. All that interpreters have been able to get them to admit is that they belonged to the Imperial Russian Army, that their ranks are varied and that they do not want to go home. Their motto is “keep silent at all costs.” When they are photographed for identification purposes they twist up their faces.

They were captured by the Austrians in Galicia, sent to dig trenches on the Austrian front against Italy, and were captured at Vittoria Veneto. In Italy they refused to work and went on hunger-strike. Eventually they were sent to Aversa, where they are scheduled as a group suffering from “collective madness.” They have all grown beards and are known as “the popes,” since they resemble orthodox priests. They talk gravely among themselves and only show themselves furiously hostile when any move is made for their repatriation. Unidentified and mysterious, they are left in peace.