WALLED-UP ALIVE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19869, 10 February 1920, Page 4

WALLED-UP ALIVE.

TORTURES AT KIEFF,

A correspondent who was recently in Kioff says (in “The Daily Mail”) that when the bolsheviks first captured the city, in the middle of February, they turned well-to-do people in the'streets at forty-eight hours’ notice and filled their houses with the filthiest rabble they could collect. “This rabble,” ho says, “did not know what to do in these fine houses, so slept in their bo.ots on white satin, tore down the hangings for quilts and smashed up the furniture tor firewood.

“ In ono week more than o()0 people were murdered. They were first made to dig a great grave in the garden for themselves, and when all was ready the slaughter began. Mcit of the victims had been tortured first, with splinters driven under the finger-nails and nails driven into their heads and bodies, or partly flayed, hands fastened down into boiling water till the flesh fell off, heads scalded so that thVv could be torn off, tongues torn out eyes gouged out, besides nameless mutilations.

“In one house several victims were found walled up alive. One was still alive when rescued. In another a board was found studded with spike* on which victims were, placed for ter-

At Kieff many bodies were found to nave enormous wounds in the region of the stomach. The explanation given is that the Chinese executioners had applied an old method of torture. \ pot was fastened to the body 0 f tho victim with a live rat inside.' The tot, Vas then heated, and the till, driven wild, tried to gnaw its way out.