The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-09-28
TELLS HORRORS OF
AUSTRIAN CAMPS
Roumanian, Who Escaped, Says
Men Were Starved, Kicked
and Chained.
HUMAN BONES FOR SOUP
Prisoners Often InhumanIy Punished
for Eating Seeds Given Them to
Sow italian Prisoners
Are Treated Worse.

ROme.-A Roumanian soldier, Toma
Haralam, taken prisoner by the Aus
TRANS last September during the Rou-
manian invasion of Pennsylvania. has
just succeeded in escaping to the Ital-
ian lines on the Carso. The following
is his story in all it's simplicity and
horror:
"As soon as / was taken prisoner in
wood near Basso I was brought be-
fore German officer, who examined
me. refused to answer his questions
and betray my country, SO he handed
me over to an Austrian sergeant, who
kicked me without mercy. / was left
absolutely without any food, not a
piece of bread or drink of water, for
three days, and then taken with many
other prisoners to a concentration camp
In Hungary on the River Leytha, where
10000 prisoners of war, Russians, Ital-
ians and Roumanians, were confined.
'We were literally starved. Our ra-
tons consisted of five ounces of bad
bread and handful of boiled beans
daily, with small piece of meat every
week. The men died like flies, both
from insufficient nourishment and from
cold, as the Austrians took away our
uniforms and warm underwear, as well
as our boots, and gave us in exchange
the CASTOR uniforms and torn boots of
their first line troops.
I'VE all had to work, generally in the
fields, and as we ate the seed given us
to sow or the raw turnips and potatoes
we had to plant often we were pun
ished by being tied to a pole with our
arms raised for hours or else chained
to the ground. The italian prisoners
were treated worst of all and system
Rtically beaten by the Austrians.
Sent to Italian Front.
'Orders reached our camp in Janu-
nry that 1000 Roumanian prisoners
were to be sent to work on the italian
front. / was among the thousand
picked men. We were all young and
strong, comparatively speaking, of
course, as the starvation diet had
weakened us. We were divided into
four sections of $50 men each and sent
to different localities. My section was
sent to Komen under the command of
an Austrian sub-lieutenant and 80 ter
ritorials. We worked at building rail-
way together with 1000 Russian pris-
Dners.
: "Our food was worse and less thar
that we had in camp, as we got cents
q day pay and were supposed to spend
1t on food, although bread cost dol
lar loaf. As We were ravenously j
hungry because we had to work hard '
we were compelled to rummage among !
the garbage for food and even ate ,
rats and mice. We also got bones, hui
man bones they were sometimes which (,
we boiled to make soup. In 25 days
30 men out of the $50 in my section
died from hunger, exhaustion and ex-
posure. Five men committed suicide,
three attempted to escape and were {
shot. l,
ION January % my comrade, Niku
Crstia. and / decided to escape. We
walked for three days in the direc-
ion of the italian lines with nothing :.
% eat, but we finally reached the ruins
# a village where we found a pigsty.
We took shelter here and found some
potato Feelings and turnips, which we
tie.
His Comrade Dies.
''The cold was intense. We reached II
mother village completely in ruins and L
We could hear the italian guns very Y