WHITE RUSSIANS

Southland Times, Issue 22486, 22 January 1935, Page 5

WHITE RUSSIANS

TERRIBLE PLIGHT

CONDITIONS IN MANCHUKUO

HELP ESSENTIAL

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) London. January 19. “The condition of 30,000 White Russians in Manchukuo is worse than anything I could have imagined. Twothirds are living on the verge of starvation,” said Dame Rachael Crowdy, in an interview with a News-Chronicle representative on her return from a two months’ tour. “Most officials and business men sent away their wives after the murder of Mrs Woodruff, consequently girls are unable to find domestic positions. The younger ones aged from 11 to 12 haunt the low dance halls, while their elders become Chinese farmers’ mistresses. Hundreds of Russians—many of noble birth—are living in huts and dugouts built of mud and petrol tins. Some have been 16 to 17 years in such quarters. People are committing suicide owing to their helplessness and seven or eight are frozen to death nightly in the streets of Harbin. There are drug shops everywhere, and mobs of lads beg money to spend on dope. There is a notorious shelter called the Small Boys’ Corner, where scores are doped with heroin cigarettes and with faces like a death’s head are leaning against the wall in 50 to 60 degrees of frost. Crowds are making an effort to raise funds in America and elsewhere to succour the sufferers. The Japanese are tackling the problem, but outside help is essential.”