1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Corporal Marian Dmytryszyn, 27 years old, regular non-commissioned officer of the Polish Army, unmarried, Field Post Office number: 137.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
On 24 December 1939 in Lwów, for membership in a clandestine organization and arms possession. I was arrested in Lwów on 24 December 1939 at 11.00 a.m. and transported to the prison on Kazimierzowska Street. There I was charged with membership in a clandestine organization and arms possession, and sentenced to 10 years in prison under articles 54/2 and 54/11.
3. Name of the camp, prison or forced labor site:
Kamchatka, Pyatiletka camp.
4. Description of the camp, prison etc. (grounds, buildings, housing conditions, hygiene):
Mountainous terrain. Buildings: tents and barracks. Awful housing conditions. Leaky roofs, unheated buildings. Very poor hygiene. No bowls for washing, dirty floors, bug-infested pallets, etc.
5. The composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles (nationality, types of crimes, intellectual and moral standing, mutual relations etc.):
There were Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and so forth. Types of crimes: only political prisoners. The intellectual level varied from intelligent people to half-educated persons and illiterate ones. Mutual relations between the offenders were very bad. There wasn’t any mutual understanding, support or cooperation.
6. Life in the camp, prison etc. (daily routine, working conditions, work quotas, remuneration, food, clothes, social and cultural life etc.):
A working day was sixteen hours. Wake-up at 4.00 a.m. Return from work at 8.00 p.m. The work was in a gold mine. Deplorable working conditions. Work quotas were impossible to meet (for instance, digging up 9 cubic meters of earth – per one person); remuneration: 50 decagrams of bread per day, soup at noon. No money. Clothes: only those in which we had been arrested. No social life due to the diversity of criminals and hostility towards Poles. No cultural life.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (interrogation methods, torture and other forms of punishment, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
During interrogations the Poles were subjected to sophisticated and cruel torture methods, such as forcing one to sit down on a chair leg, beating, incarceration in the dark cell, threatening with shooting. One of the methods was to reduce food rations to bread and water. Communist propaganda: mandatory attendance at lectures and meetings, during which the Communist leaders and ideas were extolled and glorified. They disseminated falsehoods about Poland. They spoke about the Polish army and General Sikorski in vile terms.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (give the names of the deceased):
No medical assistance. The following men died in the camp, tortured to death: Second Lieutenant Engineer Mieczysław Fuk and Senior Sergeant Edward Koncewicz from the 19th Infantry Regiment, Lwów – Hołosko Małe Prochownia. Second Lieutenant Fuk died on 26 December 1940, and Senior Sergeant Koncewicz on 16 October 1941.
9. Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
There wasn’t any contact with our country.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released from the camp on 10 December 1941 and, by my own means, on 22 February 1942 I got to the Polish Army in Lugovoy, Kazakhstan.
Official stamp, 3 March 1943