Show DEATH ATH T TRAN AIN HO HORRORS f a TOl u J Prisoners of the theDy Dy Die Aboard Cars En Route to the it Wilds of S Sib i b e r ria i a 4 By Peggy Hull N. N E E. E A. A Staff Correspondent Covering Ill I'll K Russia and SiberIa TOK v Siberia Sib ria E e March New horrors pounce pounce upon me from every A direction Atrocities fade fado the plunder and rape of Belgium I into Into insignificance The Bolshevik reign is surpassing all history in ini I premeditated viciousness I Siberia is face to face with a power that has reverted beyond even evena a state of savagery for savagery knows only brute strength but the I perpetrators of the present day crimes over here have perverted their civilization to make malte their deeds more moreiN iN appalling I t BISHOP BURIED ALIVE The night the news came through y of the fall of Perm there were tense I. I low spoken groups everywhere Solemn Sol SolI I faces and white cheeks and eyes I f that glowed with apprehension for w we knew that a few tl thousand miles to the west madness had taken fun full funs fulls s s sway vay and and we shuddered in tion BuIl Bulletins tins brought the details ar A bIShop had been buried alive and andI I his priests had been killed by driving long nails into their backs s I Then we received the details on the capture of a young Czech o officer Cicer J I His comrades found his body with epaulets carved out of his skin on his shoulders Facsimiles of the buttons on his uniform were crudely cut in his torso and there were other othere e mutilations too horrible to write A about No 1 one knows how long he hO lived under these tortures I bo b In a battle that followed a few hours after the body was found were made prisoners General Gen Gen- GenI I J eral Gaida the youthful commander q q of the Slovaks Czecho-Slovaks made them pay the price and they faced the maI machine ma- ma I chine guns in squads of ten l DEATH FOR CAPTIVES i Ii Raiding along the Trans Trans- I 1 1 Siberian line whip many of their I captives to death Some of the raile rail rail- I d e way who have stuck to their 5 posts through the various changes ot of I n I government often meet a sad and andis is hJ pitiful end at their hands Their I favorite pro procedure is to occupy ter- ter I 4 story off the railway line Une and to I Irr rr ii make sudden visits to stations when i troop trains i are not going through Many valuable supplies are obtained in this way and the suf- suf Per fer no losses as there are no armed forces to oppose them The death train episode more than I any other tragedy which has occurred since the allies came show d how insensible insensible in- in i sensible the people have become to the cause of humanity The inmates of the train were Bal Bal- Bol- Bol Bolshevik prisoners rounded up in Samara last October There were 2100 including in- in including men and women found in the provincial jail who claimed they had I been arrested by the Bolsheviks because because be- be cause they wouldn't espouse their cause Sixty people were packed into I box cars which could legitimately hold but forty There was no provision for heating and the sanitary arrangements arrangements arrange arrange- ments consisted of small openings in inthe the floors of the cars TRAIN OF THE DEAD This train was started for Cor Siberia and when it reached a small station on the western side of Harbin early in December De- De cember cember American railway engineers I reported to the American Red Cross Cross' that had died en route Some were I shot by guards when they tried to get I p c food and water at the stations Typhus typhoid dysentery scurvy and pneumonia pneumonia I monia took the largest toll toU One boy of 17 was found dead across the doorway doorway door door- way of a car when Red Cross workers entered He was naked with the exception ex- ex exception of a piece of gunny sack tied around his loins It was then ihen five degrees degrees de- de grees below zero Half his face had y been eaten away by scurvy None of the prisoners had been permitted permitted per per- to leave the cars since their arrest arrest ar- ar rest and they all wore what was left of of the clothing they had on when taken taken tak- tak en into custody 14 RED CROSS HELPS I f In spite of the rapid work of the Red Cross the prisoners were dying a day And no one knows who was was responsible for the train train-no one knows who sent it to Siberia and no one knows who order ordered d it out of the evening after the worst cases had been taken of off and the remainder re- re bathed and issued pajamas It F went and aU all the generals in Vladivostok ci tok stormed but to no purpose ie 1 It went east toward Samara with sick and dying men and women clothed only in pajamas and the thermometer ther- ther clinging around 40 below Jn in that direction It was las last heard of in the vicinity of Chita where i the Cossack ataman presides ther-I ther That was ae 86 was a month ago and it is hard to be- be tt tl lieve that any of the victims still survive sur- sur vive |