Master Rifleman Stanisław Pleśniak, farm worker, unmarried.
I was taken prisoner in Łuck, in Volhynia, on 27 September. Before that, I had served in the Youth Labor Troops, 6th Battalion, which was dispersed in Polesie near Kamień Koszyrski by Ukrainians, after which everyone had struggled to get home on his own. That is how I fell into the Bolsheviks’ hands.
On the same day, a Soviet convoy went down the town’s streets, capturing Polish soldiers, gathering them in columns, and loading them on trains. After loading us, they took the entire transport to Brody, where they organized a camp. The POW camp “Brody” was later divided into sections, as they were called, working at the construction of the Kiev–Przemyśl road via Lwów. At the beginning, living conditions in the camp were completely neglected, which meant that there was famine, cold, terrible lice infestations, and miserable medical aid. As for the relationship between the POWs at the camp, it was hostile because there were people of various nationalities: Poles, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and Jews. With time, the hostile relationship between POWs changed.
We were close to finishing the road in Brody. At the beginning of 1941, we left the Polish territory for Soviet Ukraine, where we built airports in Viitivtsi and Teofipol. Only then did the captivity, or rather penal slavery, begin. The Soviet authorities tormented Polish soldiers, they introduced an 11-hour work day, they assigned a very high output quota for all types of work, so that near the beginning of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union people were getting night blindness and collapsing from exhaustion, fatigue, and hunger. As we were going to work or from work, the guard urged every one of us on with the butts of their rifles.
When the Germans were rapidly approaching Soviet Ukraine, the camp overseers put the POWs in rows of four, strengthened the guard, and drove us eastwards, across the Dnieper, to Zolotonosha. People were dropping like flies on the way – from exhaustion, fatigue, cold, and hunger, and those who stayed on the road were stabbed with bayonets or driven like dogs.
We slept outdoors, ankle-deep in mud and water. That’s how we reached Zolotonosha on foot, where we were loaded on a train like cattle, still in the rain. Freezing, hungry, and physically exhausted, we got safely to Starobilsk, where we were assigned to camps. Soon, they would stop harassing us, as on 30 July 1941 an agreement was made between the Polish government and the Soviet Union’s government, and then all disagreements and unpleasant moments were forgotten.