worst' Russian POW camps for Turkish and other POWs.
This report is probably the most detailed and authentic
commentary on the island.//
Not much improvement over the years.
35. Report dated 20 December 1917 from Dr. Gregory Alexandrof, a
Russian citizen, who has been assigned to inspect the prison camps in
Russia by the Swedish Embassy in Petrograd, B Section. The report
was presented to the Swedish Embassy:
I visited the prisoners on Nargin Island in November 1917. There were
3,000 Turkish and 2,000 German and Austrian prisoners for a total of
5,000. The condition of the prisoners was unacceptable and many
complaints must be filed about their situation.
On Nargin Island in 1915, 40 shacks were constructed, one on top of
the other to house 10,000 prisoners. The width of the island is 500-
1,000 meters. There was no fresh water on the island. The windows
of the shacks shattered in the winter cold and pieces of cloth covered
them instead. Each shack was assigned 120 people. The prisoners
were quite weak and dirty. The air smelled especially bad. There
were billions of flies on the prisoners, who were without strength and
at death’s door. They were so weak that they couldn’t even get up
to relieve themselves and did so where they lay. They had no
underwear nor clothes. The sick lay on wooden boards atop wooden
bedsteads because the grass-filled cushions has long since disintigrated.
The food given to the prisoners was horrible. One day I wanted to
taste the soup, in which there were a couple of beans and potato pieces,
visible only with a microscope. Most times prisoners were not given
bread. The prisoners greatest desire was to drink some water.
Sometimes they went 6 days without drinking water. There is no
spring water on the island. The water brought from the city is first
given to the Russian coffeehouses, secondly to the Russian guards
and if there’s any left over it’s given to the prisoners. Although there
are enough shacks for the sick to house 400 of them on the island,
there are, in fact, 1,200 sick or nearly dead prisoners in these shacks.
In 1915 there were quite a number of yellow fever cases on this
island and thousands of men died from it. Now there is no cholera
or typhus and the daily death rate is 40. The day before my visit 42
had died. During my visit through the rooms I asked one of the
prisoners whether the person next to him was sleeping. The answer
I got was “to tell you the truth, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s died.”
When the poor fellows die their clothes are immediately stolen and
put the bodies in a place without washing them. Before evening they
put the bodies into coffins in threes, bring them to the shore as naked
as when they were born and put 20 bodies in a hole all at once.
Christians and Moslems are buried together. There is nothing
resembling a grave and there’s no cross put on the hole. Even though
I myself am Russian, I was ashamed to see this. Since I try to call
attention to what’s needed for the hapless prisoners, I’m even more
ashamed.
In November 1917, the military doctors sent a report to
Tbilisi about the prisoners’ conditions, writing that henceforth
prisoners ought not be sent to this island. However, this report got
stuck on the desks of the general staff there. The doctors on the
island appealed to Tbilisi not to send the sick for treatment or, at
least, to send very few. And even though they requested purchases
for patient treatment in September to the Caucasus Region Health
Office, they were refused. There are 800 civilian Turkish prisoners
on Nargin Island, among whom are some who are 70-year-olds,
women and children. There are consul and vice consul prisoners
on the island but enemy countries have had these enemy consuls
and vice consuls returned to their countries. I feel very sad about
this. The shore of the island is quite bad and dirty. There are two
bathrooms with no walls and no roofs. The fierce winds threaten
to blow the prisoners into the sea. No one can go to the bathrooms
at night so prisoners must relieve themselves around their shacks.
Consequently, the filth and bad smell is intolerable. These
deficient cleanliness matters are not addressed. The cleaning
teams are put to work on other jobs by the Russians.
Nargin Island (Ostrov Nargin)
There are five Russian doctors on the island but because the
Russian government has rejected requests for treatment and
equipment the doctors can do nothing. The head doctor sometimes
doesn’t visit the shacks for weeks at a time. Other than the prisoner
consul-doctor Frebts Niedermayer, there is no compassionate doctor.
Since March, he has done about 1,800 large and small operations on
ill prisoners, without medicines and without water. This humane
action is quite amazing. Everyone owes him a debt of gratitude.
Unfortunately, a Russian soldier assaulted this devoted doctor. The
reason was that the doctor intervened when the Russian soldier
wanted to strike a prisoner. What I have written so far is only a
small sample of the calamities I’ve seen. When I think of them I
always cry. The Russian doctors told me everything about what
they’ve witnessed for the past two years and they cried, too, as
they told me.
//END of PART VII//
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