1. Personal data:
Rifleman Chil Fuks, a merchant, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested by the NKVD on 14 December 1939 in Nieśwież, on charges of spying for Germany, article 74.
3. Name of the prison, camp, etc.:
Nieśwież, Slutsk, Kotlas – the Siberian taiga.
4. Description of Nieśwież prison: cells with an area of 4.5 square meters each – 54 people. There was one boarded-up window. In the middle of the cell stood a bucket into which we relieved ourselves. Food: 500 grams of bread and soup once a day. Except when interrogated, we were confined to our cells, squatting inside. No underwear was issued and until 4 March 1940 we didn’t take our clothes off. Lice infestation was horrible.
It was on 4 March that we were allowed to take a walk for the first time, but the physically emaciated people would collapse from exhaustion.
5. Composition of prisoners-of-war, prisoners and exiles:
Polish landlords and aristocrats made up the majority of the prisoners. With the exception of one informer (Antoni Nieźwierny from Kielce), we were all loyal and supportive to each other.
6. Life in the camp, prison; the NKVD’s attitude towards Poles; medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:
We were treated as if we were the most hardened criminals, fingerprinted and photographed from every possible angle, and forced to wear identification numbers on our necks. Interrogations were held every second day and only during the night. We were beaten and insulted. In this way they tried to force us to testify the way they wanted. We were also coerced to sign fake reports, which were later used as the basis for issuing the harshest sentences.
They would throw us into isolation cells. We would be locked up in darkness, living on bread and water, with nothing but our underwear on.
On 27 June 1940, the Soviets loaded us onto tarpaulin-covered trucks. We were told that looking through the tarpaulin would be punished by death. We were taken in these trucks to prison railway cars. There were eighteen people in each compartment. We were taken on a three-day journey to Slutsk via Minsk.
Once in Slutsk, we were placed in cellars which were so low that it was impossible to stand. The floor was flooded with water. There were 71 people, and all were covered in sweat in spite of the fact that they had no clothes on.
Medical assistance was non-existent. I can give the following example: a sergeant and a high school professor, both from Nieśwież, received no medical assistance despite numerous calls for help; and they definitely needed assistance, for they were suffering from fits of asthma. The professor died.
On 5 September 1940, a sentence of eight years imprisonment was read out to me and I was transported in a boxcar to Kotlas. The journey lasted fourteen days and was full of pain and suffering.
Food: bread, water and herrings.
In Kotlas I was put to work building railroad tracks. On 15 November 1940, we were deported to the taiga. Dropped off at a place where there was nothing but trees, we had to build tents in temperatures of around minus 40 degrees Celsius. We worked eleven hours a day in up to 50 degrees Celsius of frost. It was impossible to fill the work quotas (4.5 cubic meters). Food: 300 grams of bread and ice-cold soup, half a liter.
As punishment for failing to fill work quotas, we would be deprived of our felt boots and forced to work barefoot despite severe frost. People froze to death. Some were so desperate in their efforts to be admitted to the hospital that they cut off their fingers.
The lack of medical assistance, combined with an ukaz forbidding doctors to see patients when the temperature dropped to below minus 38 degrees Celsius, resulted in a great number of deaths.
7. What, if any, was your contact with the home country and your family?
We were allowed to write to our loved ones once a month, but we never received a reply.
8 When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 3 September 1941 after a 150-kilometer march to Kotlas. Because of my physical exhaustion, the military commission refused to admit me to the army and I therefore left for Tehran as a civilian. In Tehran, after being examined one more time, I was allowed to enlist.