1. Personal details:
Lieutenant Władysław Pawlik, 37 years old, student of the Faculty of Mechanics of the Polytechnic School of Lwów, married, two children.
2. Date and circumstance of arrest:
I was arrested on 10 April 1940 in Brzuchowice, near Lwów. The arrest was typical. First, three NKVD officers entered my home at 5 a.m. and after a quick search for weapons, which didn’t yield any results, they ordered me to take some personal hygiene items and underwear and follow them to the police station. They told my wife that I would be back in two days’ time. At the station, I met other arrested inhabitants of Brzuchowice. After brief formalities, we were taken to Lwów.
3. Name of the camp, prison:
The first prison I was put in was the Brygidki prison in Lwów. I remained there until 1 November 1940. Then, I was taken to Kherson by the Dnieper river, where I stayed till 17 March 1941, from where I was taken to Kharkiv. After a three-week imprisonment, I was deported to the forced labor camps in Sverdlov Oblast, Ivdelsky raion.
4. The composition of prisoners:
The composition of prisoners differed according to the period. In Lwów, I was only with Poles and Ukrainians, rarely and for a short time they put Moskals [Russians] with us. It was the same in Kherson. In Kharkiv, however, we were mixed with Moskals, Ukrainians, Rusyns from the Zakarpattya region, there were even two Germans. In the labor camps, people were equally mixed. Depending on the camp, there were 15 to 30 percent of Poles.
When it comes to the categories of crime, we were always together with common criminals, except for the first two months, during which time we were kept separately as political prisoners. The intellectual standing of the Polish political prisoners was usually very high, whereas the intellectual level of the common criminals was very low. The attitude of the criminals toward Poles was very hostile. They robbed us of food, clothing and cigarettes, they beat and harassed us. Often, they forced us to take away the bucket with feces and to wash the toilets. Russian prisoners treated us Poles well in the prisons, but in the camps their attitude was hostile, like that of the common prisoners.
[5. Life in the camp, prison:]
A usual day in prison looked like this: Waking, using toilets, bathing from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m., depending on the number of toilets and cells in a given corridor; breakfast was around 8 a.m., dinner from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. and supper from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Around 9 p.m., there was an inspection and then getting ready to sleep. During the time between breakfast and dinner and then between dinner and supper, we nearly always were allowed walk for 15 minutes; apart from that, in the first months there were stories, talks and language lessons by our fellow prisoners, but then, as a result of torpor, despondency and mixing with political prisoners, all that stopped. During the day, we would play chess, checkers, domino and cards, which we secretly made from matchboxes. During our imprisonment in Kherson, we were allowed to borrow books in Russian and Polish from the prison library. We spent the remaining time on killing lice and repairing garments. Despite our shared misfortune, social life was nothing extraordinary. I have seen many examples of selfishness.
In the camps in which I stayed, the working time was usually organized in two shifts. The mode of life depended on the shift one worked in. Usually, there was very little free time, because we worked 12 hours per day, and later even 14 hours per day. One got back so tired that one could only eat what people call scraps and go to sleep. Both in the prisons and in the camps the hygienic conditions were terrible – overflow, dirt, lice and bedbugs. I got my remuneration upon my release: 40 rubles.
[6. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:]
The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles was unfavorable and ironic. They always said that we would all finally croak. My interrogations were pretty calm, without beating. My cellmates were not beaten either. There was no communist propaganda in the prison or in the camp.
[7. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:]
The medical aid was very poor, because of the shortage of medicines. The doctor saw patients every day, but he hadn’t anything to treat them with. As a result of poor hygiene, there were outbreaks of typhus, dysentery. The overall mortality rate was high, but no one from my cell died.
[8. Was there any chance to get in contact with one’s country and family?]
During the time I was imprisoned or in the camp, I had no contact with my family. Although I wrote letters from the camp, I never got any replies. It wasn’t until my release that I received my one and only letter announcing my wife’s and child’s deportation to Russia.
[10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?]
I was released on 29 August 1941. Straight away, I went to my family, who was in a kolkhoz located in an out-of-the-way village of the Aktyubinsk Oblast. Having found my family, with great difficulty I took them to Aktyubinsk and provided for them as well as I could. On 14 November 1941, I was personally appointed by the Polish embassy branch office in Aktyubinsk, and so I presented myself at the staging area of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR in Totskoye.
Temporary quarters, 13 March 1943.