AJanuary 19 1940
The Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, Friday, January 19, 1940
Latest dispatches from Europe state that all official tournaments Europe have been called off during the duration of the war. It will be recalled that Dr. A. A. Alekhine who visited Honolulu in January, 1933 told a very interesting story of the last world's war. Alekhine is now world's chess champion.
When the Bolsheviks turned Russia upside down in 1917 he was promptly arrested and thrown into a dungeon along with a few hundred other unfortunates. Each morning the guards would come to the cell, and rumble off from a sheet of butcher paper names, such as— grass, rat, cat, horse, etc. They would then aim their guns thru the bars and fire a couple of rounds of ammunition. Those nearest the front fell dead and were later dragged out. After 17 days, Dr. Alekhine finally managed to smuggle thru a message to Trotsky, after bribing a guard. Trotsky was the head man of Russia, and had attended many of Alekhine's chess tournaments in fact being an addict himself.
Through an official order from Trotsky himself wired through to the prison, Alekhine was released and escorted under official edict, until he left Russia to flee to France. He has since become a French citizen and has never set a foot on Russian soil since.
