STANISŁAW KURECZKO

Uhlan Stanisław Kureczko, Squadron of the Armored Cavalry of the Reserve Center.

On 24 December 1939 at 4.00 a.m., I was arrested by the NKVD and transported to Berezwecz, where I was imprisoned for three days. At the end of these three days I was summoned for an interrogation and confronted with my wife, where I learned that she was the only person to testify against me; she declared in my presence that I worked in “Dwojka” [the Second Department of Polish General Staff] and that I had been sent to Latvia as an agent.

From Berezwecz I was taken to Minsk, where at the trial my wife repeated that I had worked against the Soviet authorities. The verdict was read out in the presence of my wife; I was sentenced to death, later commuted to ten years. From Minsk I was transported to Orsha, and from Orsha to Rujbeszerowskich łagierej [?], where I worked until the amnesty.

The work was very hard. The quota was to cart away and unload 8,000 bricks, or to dig and cart off from 4 to 6 cubic meters of earth. I didn’t receive any remuneration.

The NKVD was very cruel, they used all sorts of methods of harassment. Life was unbearable: we were plagued by cold and hunger, and as for hygiene, it was horrible: although we went to the so-called bathhouse, the lice would never disappear. Verbal abuse and beatings were awful, defying description. Immediately after the amnesty was proclaimed, I joined the Polish Army in Buzuluk, and then I went to Totskoye, and from there to Kenimech, and I remain in the Polish Army to this day.

15 February 1943