Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-03-09 | Page 53 | Red Cross Tries to Halt 'Death Train'

RED CROSS TRIES TO HILT MH Tiff Many War Prisoners Die on the Long Winter Trip Across Bleak Siberia. Packed in Big Cars Like Sardines, They Quickly Fall Victims to Disease. i VLADIVOSTOK, Feb. 10. (Corre- j spondomrc of the Associated Press.) American Red Cross agents liave beeu ; vainly trvinrj to induce tiaus-Siberiau railway authorities to halt a "death train" on whirl) Sou persons are being i seut back toward Samara, after they : had been shipped from that city ou "a. j 4-30u-mile journey, across Siberia in min- wiuter. Many of them arc ill with ty- ' phoid fever, and they have only such : medical attention as' can be 'vcn. at stations en route. They are a part of a group of 2100 ! war prisoners, inmates of the Samara j jail, and other alleged "offenders'' j shipped out of Samara by the Czeclio- ; Slovaks on October o, after they cap- ! tured taat city. . " i On the way from Samara to Xikolsk, near Vladivostok, 750 of them perished ; of disease, starvation or cold. Sufferings Are Pitiful. Their sufferings made a pitiful tale ; of hunger, disease aud death. J Cooped on forty freight ears, fifty or sixty to a car, in tiers of bunks which left only a small space of standing room in front of one door, they were forty-one forty-one days crossing Siberia'from Samara I to Kikolsk. Of the 2100 who started ' the terrible journey, only 1335 survived to end it. " Red Cross representatives ' removed ;' hundreds of them from the train, and : sent the most serious cases to an improvised impro-vised hospital at Xikolsk. Eight hundred hun-dred were reshipped back toward Samara Sa-mara in s, fresh train of box ears, by whose orders is unknown. Rudolph Bukeley, one of tho Ked I Cross representatives sent to Xikolsk to care for the refugees, delayed the de parture of the. train until the statiou master at Xikolsk said he w-as iu dau-ger dau-ger of court martial if he persisted iu ! disobeying orders. How far the train has proceeded no one here knows. Examination Ex-amination of tbe prisoners at Tsitsihar disclosed that fifteen of the S00 who started back for Russia had died after leaving XTikolsk, and that nearly every one of the others was ill. There were three or four women among them, and their condition was i no better than that of the men. There j were forty-two cases of typhoid fever I ou tbe train. " j Substantial Aid Given. At Manchuria station two American i railway operatives raised a substantial subscription aud purchased food for one day for all on tbe train, and Geuerai Fugi, tlie Japanese commander ther. supplied some medical atteutiou ami food for two days, after which the train was sent on toward Chita. There is said to be little chance of any permanent relief at Chita, and it is feared the unwelcome refugees will be passed aloug from one station to au- i other until the last victim has died. ! Many of these people had been traveling trav-eling in box cars since October last, most of the time packed iu closer than herrings, according to tho description : of one of the Red Cross workers. Among them were a number of innocent persons per-sons who had been imprisoned bv tho ! Bolsheviki. One was a woman doctor jj who had been doing Ked Cross work (vith the Red Guards. Another was a i' girl of IS, formerly a typist and book- " keeper in the mayor's offico at Samara. Many of the refugees werr clothed in rags or clothing ill-fitted for the rigors of a long journey across Siberia iu midwinter. mid-winter. Dependent on Charity. Their train was in charge of a joint guard of Czechs and Russians, who also were dependent upon charity. The result re-sult was that the train descended like a pest upon the towns aud villages en route, and it was the business of every station master to get rid of it as quickly and with as little trouble to himself ns possible. Demands for food were made upon the station masters, who could not ! comply because they bad no fund6 to j purchase tbe supplies. The native populations along the lino j responded to the best of their ability, but their best was far from nieeling tho necessities, and for days at a time the prisoners were compelled to go without food. i It is reported that several similar trains were sent eastward from Samara, I and that they are scattered along the I line from Omsk eastward.