SLAVES IN RUSSIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 449, 15 December 1930, Page 11

SLAVES IN RUSSIA

ILL-TREATED PRISONERS I 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 Pempaala in the Ingria district, near Petrograd, Mr Kuortti says in his statement: — “I was many times taken to the Ogpu (Soviet terrorist police) at Pct r o;;r- 1 and at Siestarjoki, where I was th t ea” vu.'d with severe punishme.it unless I joined the Ogpu. As I refused to cuter it j tvivicc, 1 was suddenly aufuel cn February 4 last, though no special chart’' was preferred. 4 Some days iat'J I was .-wnL-iKrl to ueath for some unknown crime. biF 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 Magrinojarvi. 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 escape! on June 20- I was employed in all kinds of lumber work; at first cutting, irunsporting and barking logs, and later preparing and loading pit props into railway trucks. There were n«» dajs of rest. Only May 1 (Labour Day) was a holiday! Very little food was given. The constant hunger and heavy work exhausted many prisoners so much that they fell by the road and died. , i.i “Constantly watched by brutal armed guards, most of the prisoners were forced to do their unpaid‘WorK almost night and day. The amount ot work to be done every day was s-nctl\ fixed, but it was so heavy that most, prisoners could not perform it, a though they slaved for 12 or 14 hoursIf the job was left unfinished the small food rations were further reduced and night labour was enforced“One day some of us were ordered to peel logs, every mart having to strip 55 in the day. When evening came my job, like that of most of my comrades, remained unfinished, although \se had exerted ourselves from early morning. At 10 p.m. the guard conducted us to our barracks. Wo had just received our bread rations and had begun to cat when wc were called out. lined up. and again sent to the forest. “We had to cross a lake covered with broken ice and sludge. We asked to be 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 us to rest a little.” The pastor concludes by saying that this is only one instance of the brutality meted out to political prisoners in the Soviet timber industry.