EDWARD SKIBA


1. Personal details (name and surname, rank, Field Post Office number, age, occupation, marital status):


Gunner Edward Skiba, born on 21 September 1918, railway traffic technician, single; Paiforce No. 163.

2. Date and circumstances of arrest:

19 June 1941, arrested and deported to Barnaul, Siberia with his family

3. Name of camp, prison, or place of forced labor:

Siberia, Altai Krai, Barnaul.

4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):

The barracks were made of planks. There were single room dwellings with bunk beds; women [slept] on the bottom, men on the top; up to 15 people in one room (three families). There were windows without glass and no doors. At night, people would barricade themselves in with planks [to protect themselves] against Soviet thieves. The barrack housed up to 200 people. Hygiene [was] awful, [there was an] epidemic of some disease, [and] mostly children died.

5. Identity of the prisoners, captives, displaced persons (nationality, crime types, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations, etc.):

Mostly families of civil servants and military officials, as well as professors of junior high schools and farmers were of Polish nationality. Everyone had been forcibly displaced. Intellectual level: high; mutual relations: good.

6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (average day, working conditions, quotas, remuneration, food, clothing, social and cultural life, etc.):

Life was very bad. Forced physical labor (children and women included) and small wages. For those who worked, [they received] 800 grams of bread; 400 grams of bread for those who didn’t work. Nothing [else] apart from that. [You only had] your own clothing. Many injuries [happened] at work due to exhaustion and poor nutrition. Work lasted 12 hours, in two shifts. Work [consisted of] building a factory in the city: carrying bricks, lime, digging, [and] unloading and loading construction equipment off cars.

7. The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards the Poles (interrogation methods, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):

The NKVD’s attitude towards the Poles was inhumane. They were instilling in Poles that Poland would never rise up, and even if it did, it would only be communist. They were coercing us into taking Russian citizenship.

8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality (give the names of the dead):

Medical care: bad. My father was not admitted to the hospital when he had an infectious disease. The doctor sent him to work, writing on the medical certificate that he was healthy and able to work.

9. What kind of contact, if any, did you have with your family and country?

I have two brothers (in the rank of military officers) in German captivity, who were writing letters to us [illegible]. We had no contact at all with the family living near Warsaw.

10. When were you released and how did you get to the army?

With the announcement of the amnesty, around 15 August [1941], the head of the NKVD gathered the Poles and announced that Polish citizens are now free. Then, despite the risk of rearrest, I quit my labor and went to Jalalabad (I got there after a month of wandering). Here, our army arrived from Buzuluk, and on 3 February 1942, I joined the army as a volunteer. Then, the NKVD transported me to Gorczaków, where I was assigned to JR [Reconnaissance Unit].

Place of stay, 16 March 1943