AUGUSTOWICZ BOLESŁAW

1. Personal data:

Gunner Bolesław Augustowicz, photographer, born 1912, unmarried, Polish forces, [Paiforce?] No 160.

2. Date and circumstances of arrest:

I was arrested at home on 29 February 1940. After carrying out a search, they took me to the NKVD headquarters for interrogation. I was ill-treated and tortured. Then they sent me away to the Białystok prison.

3. Name of the camp, prison or forced labor site:

I was detained in this prison from 1 March 1940 until 29 June 1940. On that day we were loaded into railway cars and taken to the Vitebsk prison, where I stayed until 17 September 1940 and from where, after being informed that, based on article 38, I had been sentenced in absentia to two years of forced labor, I was taken to Ukhta, to a forced labor camp in the north. [illegible]

4. Description of the camp, prison etc. (camp grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):

In the Murmansk prison, small cells designed to house one individual held from 8 to 10 people, and ordinary cells intended for 15 inmates housed from 80 to 130 prisoners. We slept on the ground, one on top of the other. The cells were dirty, infested with lice and unheated. Very little light filtered through the painted-over windows into the cell’s interior. Prisoners, short of food, light, and fresh air – for we were allowed to leave our cells and go for a walk only twice in three months, for three and five-minute walks respectively – moved around like specters. When returning from a walk, we had to lean against the wall because we were no longer able to stand on our own.

In the Vitebsk prison the conditions were slightly better with respect to light and fresh air, for there were no panes in the cell windows, only an iron grid. The cell was also filled to overcrowding, housing as many as 660 people. Every time it rained, there was a lot of water pouring in through broken windows from both sides of the building. On 17 September we were loaded into a train and sent north. In the north, living conditions were also very harsh. The barracks were dirty, unheated, and infested with lice and bedbugs.

5. The composition of prisoners-of-war, prisoners, and exiles (nationality, type of crime, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations etc.):

The prison population consisted of people of several nationalities: Polish, Russian, Belorussian, Jewish and Ukrainian. One might be held prisoner for being a Pole, for coming from Poland, for occupying a state position, or for holding some property. Some were detained during round-ups at the border. Some, having returned home from the German- occupied part of Poland to the territories controlled by the Soviets, were arrested at home. Subjected to torture, they were sentenced from 3 to 10 years.

The Poles, on good terms with each other, were badly treated by the Russian inmates.

6. Life in the camp, prison etc. (daily routine, working conditions, working quotas, remuneration, food, clothes, social life etc.):

Living conditions in the camp were hard. We were very badly fed: hot water or a spoon of oat groats in the morning, dinner – oat soup boiled with rotten fish, a spoon of groats and 600 grams of a clay-like black bread. This was the life of those who met their quotas, and the quotas were very difficult to fill, even for those who performed some specific types of work. Those who were unable to meet the norms received 200 grams of bread and even worse food. Consequently, inmates died of hunger and exhaustion by dozens. We wore either our own clothes – those of us who still had them – or we were given some old tattered rags. Most, having worn out their shoes, had their legs wrapped in rags or wore boots made from car-tire rubber. The moment you stepped on the wet ground or snow your legs got wet too. We wore the same shoes in winter, when the temperature fell as low as 50 degrees Celsius below zero.

7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (ways of interrogating, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland):

The camp authorities were very cruel. During the interrogations people were beaten, kicked, stripped of all their clothes and thrown naked, often for several hours, into a cold seclusion cell filled with water. Then they were again taken for interrogation. After being beaten unconscious, they were taken back to the dark cell. Subjected to intensive Communist propaganda, we were told that there was no better place to live than the Soviet Union, that Poland would never exist again, and that the whole world would come under Soviet rule.

8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (give the names of the deceased):

Medical assistance was very poor. The sick were forced to work because doctors usually refused to issue Poles sick leave. This was usually granted to Soviet thieves. Very few Poles were given sick leave. The mortality rate was very high.

9. What, if any, was your contact with your country and your family:

As far as contact with our country is concerned, only a few out of all the camp inmates – up to two thousand people in number – received any messages from home. I wrote six letters and none of them reached my family. There were hundreds of such situations.

10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?

I was released from the camp in August. I don’t remember the exact date. It was around 20 August. At the first "lagpunkt" (camp sub-section) in Ukhta we were again detained and forced to work, being as badly fed as we were before. [We were fed from] the first cauldron and we were rushed to work regardless of the weather. Our task was to pull logs out of the cold water. We were there until 4 September 1941. On that day we were finally released. We received certificates and went to Totsk. On 29 September 1941 we joined the Polish army.