Second Lieutenant Michał Dembiński, 27 years old, civilian occupation: teacher; unmarried.
I was arrested by the NKVD on 19 April 1940, during an attempted passage from the Soviet- occupied territories to the German side. I was sent to the prison in Białystok. I would like to emphasize that before they sent us to prison, the Soviet border guard was keeping graniczniki [illegal border crossers] for a dozen or so days in the border outposts, in the so-called pigsties (men, women and children, all together), in conditions that were inhumane in every aspect. It often happened that the children were transferred to the German side and their parents left on the Soviet side or the other way round.
I spent six months in the Białystok prison. A room for twenty inmates had to hold 90–100 people at one time. The composition of prisoners: a few were imprisoned for common crimes (5 percent), there were many political prisoners (70 percent) and graniczniki (25 percent). The majority of the prisoners were Poles, but there were also many Jews (about 20 percent) and a few Germans (2 percent). The intellectual level varied from illiterate to people with a higher education. The moral standing was usually low (spiritual depression). There was no social life. We received near-starvation food rations which were only given to keep us alive.
Investigation – nightmare upon nightmare of physical and moral torture: people were summoned a few times during one night, beaten unconscious and thrown into cells, threatened with guns (“fake execution”), intimidated, etc.
Both during interrogations and in the labor camp the NKVD functionaries often tried to instill in us the doctrines of their socialist social system. They also intimated to us their large-scale political plan, with the basic premise being that they would make an advance westwards and southwards. They didn’t take into account the possibility that Poland might be reborn. Interestingly, all information about Poland and the Western countries, which they had gathered before the outbreak of the War, was completely false. They believed that such countries as England, the United States and France were outdated capitalist organisms, doomed to wither away beneath the Soviet blows together with a weakened Germany (this was before the outbreak of the war with the Germans).
In October 1942 I was deported to the “Osinówka” labor camp in the area of Arkhangelsk. The camp comprised some 2,000 people; there were about 200 Poles. The rest were Russians, both political and common prisoners. The latter were the scourge of the Poles. The newly arrived Poles were placed under the worst conditions. We always got the worst barracks or the worst clothes. Our private clothes were stolen or bought from us. We performed physical labor – we worked felling trees. We worked for ten–twelve hours a day with a short dinner break for “shock workers”. Our average meal consisted of three-fourths of a liter of soup in the morning and in the evening, and 500–700 grams of bread per day.
We had a break from work (otdykh) once a month. There weren’t any cultural diversions, except for Communist propaganda. Instead, there were hospitals for the dying. In total, twelve Poles died in the camp, apart from people of other nationalities.
I didn’t have any contact with my country or family (I didn’t receive any letters).
I was released on 1 November 1941, and I reached the Polish Army (on 10 February 1942) through my own efforts, covering the route from Vologda to Uzbekistan under terrible conditions.