Beasts in Cassocks: The Crimes of the Heads of the Russian Greek Catholic Orthodox Church in America/Chapter 28
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Horrors and Atrocities of the Soviet Inquisition.
I was not taken back to prison, but directly to a barn under a shed. Seventy-six naked counter-revolutionaries were standing at the wall. Among them were also women who must have already passed through excruciating tortures because their breasts were either entirely torn out with forge-tongs or were so that, instead of breasts, their flesh was hanging in fragments. These women were covered with blood from their breasts down to their heels. … I was ordered to undress. I was in a state of dumb stupor. They began to tear off my clothes. Just then an "official" entered and asked: "Is Dudikoff here?" They pointed me out to him because I could not utter a word. The official came over to me and said: "You were in Skoropadsky's and Petlura's Armies!" I shook my head. The official continued: "Take this wretch back! He must be re-examined." While I was dressing hurriedly, the order to fire from the machine gun was given, and all seventy-six men and women who stood under numbers I to 76 marked on the wall in chalk, dropped to the ground. I was taken back to prison. At the inquest I was accused of belonging to the Opposition, and the false witnesses, Lubansky and others, were again referred to. I was accused because it was alleged that I was serving both Skoropadsky and Petlura simultaneously. Once more the verdict was "to be put to death."
Early one morning, they took me, under strong convoy, to No. 8 Elizabethinskyah Street where a great crowd of people were assembled in the court-yard. In the center of the yard there was a large caldron full of water which was steaming-ho. Near the kettle there were a few steps on which one ascended, and on top a gang-plank along which the poor sufferers walked until they were rapidly dropped into the boiling water. A short distance from the caldron stood two hangmen with huge forks, with which they pierced the bodies of the victims and dragged them out of the water to the ground. They then poured benzine over them and set fire to them. Under the shed they were "attending" to the women and young girls, whom they violated, and upon whom they inflicted incredibly beastly tortures, such as driving stakes into their bellies, throwing out the intestines and then hanging them on the barn wall, or nailing their hands and feet to a tree. As I was standing there, a Commissar came over to me. He was Comrade Bezsmertny whom I had known from childhood. He told me to plead guilty although I was innocent, because this was absolutely necessary in order to get out of the "Che-Ka," to be transferred to No. 16 Yekaterininskayah Street. Here they also subjcted those arrested to the tortures of the Inquisition, but of a milder nature. Had the Chinaman who struck me with the butt of his gun killed me, I would have gotten off easily in comparison to what I was yet to experience.
I was taken to the guillotine. In a suburban park, where the trees had been cut down, boards were nailed to both sides of a stump and between them a large blade was moving up and down. To make the impact heavier, a few stones were fastened to the blade. The executioner stood near the guillotine, and in front of it, between an inclosure made by two ropes, stood those sentenced to death. Their eyes shut or cast-down, they moved forward mechanically. … True, there wer also a few who turned their eyes heavenward, where the sun was just about to rise. … It was early in the morning. … A few of the victims, mostly women, crossed their arms on their breasts and whispered prayers. In dead silence, broken only by the dull thud of the knife falling on the condemned's neck and, after the head fell into the pit, one could hear: "Oh, to have it over with. … Lord, forgive and receive me." … Here, too, were brought people who had gone through hell fire. Not only women, but men were seen with flesh hacked and torn, hanging in shreds.
Without a word, two men came over to me, tore off my clothes, and put me at the rear of the line. In front of me were from one hundred and fifty to two hundred people. This meant that my turn would come in about forty minutes, or an hour at the most. They "worked" very rapidly. The head would fall into the pit of itself and the corpse followed it into another pit nearby. The pit for the heads had been dug behind the stump. … Standing in line, and also moving forwrad mechanically, I bade farewell in my thoughts to my wife and relatives, and prayed and prepared to meet my murdered babies. I had come quite near the stump … when looking behind me, I saw that I was no longer the last. There were more people behind me. Suddenly I heard an exclamation: "Dudikoff is here! Why were you in such a hurry to bring him? His case has not yet been disposed of. Take him back." A shudder ran through my frame. I was prepared to die. … I had made peace with the thought that the knife, which was ascending and descending, held salvation for me from all further tortures—The knife meant the end! No longer would I see, hear, or suffer agony. Now, suddenly, the tortures loomed up before me.—I was to go through the ordeal all over again.
Naked as I was, I was taken out of the line, to the fence. There a strong, tall man insisted: "You stole the money and handed it over to your brother." "No," I replied, "I did not." "You are a counter-revolutionary." "No," I replied again. "You are a spy of Skoropadsky and Petlura." "No." With a strong hand he took hold of me and clutched my back with tongs. I felt a horrible pain, something burning into me, and fell senseless. When I came to, I was again living on the floor of my prison cell, which was dyed red with my blood, and my back was burning as if on fire. The strong man had not only pinched my back with his tongs, but had torn out a piece of my flesh. That was why I suffered such intense agony and that was responsible for the blood on the floor. For a whole week they left me in peace but they refused to give me any clothes. The water they brought me I would not drink, despite my terrible thirst. I dipped my fingers into it and then put them to my mouth to quench the thirst, and used the water to wash my wound.