The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-01-26
LOCAL WOMAN
HELD between
LINES AT FRONT 7.
Mrs. Sivick Home After Wit
Messing Many Horrors Of
World War.
DEPREDATIONs OF
SOLDIERS AWFUL.
Civilians Surrendered Food
and Starved Themselves
PerfOrce.

I Landed at her home IN GaI1cl2. the
day before war was declared, henmed
in between the armies of Austria and
Russia, and unable to escape until
she had been forced into many of the
hardships that follow the battle Of two
armies for control of a vantage point,
Mrs. John Siwik, a. resident of Bridge
port, has passed through more than
the ordinary experience of women.
When seen at her home, 746 Rail
road avenue, where she has lived for
the last seven years with her husband.
a cripple, and one son, Sebastian, eIn-
ployed by the Warner Brothers Co.,
she told Of the awful devastation
caused by the sswaying armies of Aus
tria and Russia near, Cracow in Gal
icia.
Mrs. sfwik left Bridgeport to visit
her property, Is miles from that town,
and on the river frontier of the two
countries. August IA, 1914. She re-
turned to America last December,
emaciated, harried in body and spirit
and devoid of property.
t She had witnessed carnage that
passes understanding here, had been
in her home as one-half of the small
building was swept away as if by tor
shells, "a inches in diameter. had
pierced it on its terrible flight.
From points between battle lines
from which there was no escape by
refuge in cellars, she had seen the in
cessant firing of infantry back and
forth between the closely entrenched
lines, for seven hours without respite,
when the splitting of thousands of ri
hes was punctuated by the roar of the
gatIing guns.
Piled three feet high, she had seen
the bodies of Russians and Austrians
thrown from trenches that the barrf-
cade for the living might be more Sc
cure and then following the Iull of
victory or a truce, she had seen the
gruesome burial of the dead and sue
cor of. the wounded that the battle
might go on again.
Devoid of food. with the aged, in
firm and infant population that re-
mained when lads of II were fighting
beside their grandfathers of SO in the
ranks she had begged food at the
Russian commissarfess while in turn
she was beseeched and threatened at
other times by the Russians and Aus
trians who themselves had. nothing to-
eat OF the Russian for whom at the
point of a bayonet while she barred her
throat for the stroke, she today has
nothing but compassion. Upon her
complaint to the commandantt she had
been compelled to witness the public
foggingl with the knout of the, poor
wretch.
EFT is terrible, this war; said Mrs.
Siwik. There is nothing left in the
country to eat, none dare cook with
fire because the rising smoke from the
logs is invitation for a shell from
the enemy's side.
1.-The country is. tramp1ed and burn
ed to a desolate plain, the fences are
gone, and blackened ruins merely
mark the site of towns that once -four
ished.
''It will take half a century to re-
build what has been torn asunder by
the violent fighting in Ga1icia.
IT had hardly reached my home,
which is on the Austrian side of the
boundary, when war was declared.
The first premonttion. of war that the
countryside had was the mobilization
of troops Everyone knew that Russia
wanted our town. It was most desira-
BILE from a strategic point, they said.
"At first the regular reserve troops
were called out. but with the opening
roar of battle which came without
warning to the inhabitants of our
town, the carnage was terrible. It
would go on for hours when a white
flag would be hoisted for short
WHILE Someone said that the only
reason for truce was fear of pesti-
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