Karol Stecyszyn, a rifleman of the Polish Army, Economic and Trade School student, born in 1927, single.
I was a prisoner of the USSR from 3 February 1940 to 20 September 1941. That includes time spent in camps after having served my sentence.
I was arrested on 3 February 1940 at 8:30 AM They lured me out of my house so I did not even have a chance to say goodbye to my loved ones. Outside, I was knocked out with a pistol handle and thrown into a limo. When I regained consciousness, [I noticed] the car was driving very fast across the city. Next to me sat military men with pistols in their hands; later, I learned they were NKVD officers. Having passed Bandurskiego Square, Czarneckiego Street, Bernardyński and Halicki squares, and Legionów and Kopernika streets, the car stopped in front of the new power station building in Lwów on Pełczyńska Street, where the headquarters of the Lwów NKVD were located. One of the military men brought me into the building using a blue pass, and took me to the third floor to a small room with one window and two doors – one led to the corridor and the other to some office. I was told to get undressed and they performed a detailed search, looking into my mouth and rectum. After the search, they started an investigation that lasted from 9:30 AM to 3:00 AM the next day; that is, [approximately] 17 hours with a 15-minute break – during which they gave me a glass of bitter tea and a spoon of buckwheat kasha with sauce. I could not eat because I was depressed and beaten. From 11:00 PM until morning (that is, until 3:00 AM), they beat and kicked me so much that I simply gave up living. They drove bamboo chips under my nails and set me on fire. I was told to confess to my belonging to a counter-revolutionary organization, and they accused me under Article 54 ([sections] 1, 2 and 11). At 3:00 AM, they led me into the basement of the building, where I lay on the concrete floor in a tiny brick cell with one window. On 4 February, at 5:00 PM, they took me back for investigation. They terrorized me, telling me to sign documents written in Russian, threatening me with execution, beatings, and killing my family. They cursed using the name of the Lord and the Holy Trinity. On 5 February, in the morning at 4:00 AM, all bloodied, I was taken to the (former Polish) prison at Kazimierza Wielkiego Street. Seeing me bloodied, the NKVD duty soldier took me under the water pipe and washed me. I was not able to do it myself because of my swollen and bleeding hands were hurting very much. Then, he brought me to cell number 54. The first impression I got looking at the people imprisoned there was horrible: they were dirty and hairy, with eyes that shone with some wild despair. Surprised, they looked at me and asked for cigarettes and bread. I had neither. At 7:00 AM, on the same day, I was given some hot water mixed with burned bread, which was a little sugary, and a quarter loaf of bread. At 1:00 PM, for lunch, I was given half a liter of ash-colored soup with grains of pearl barley kasha. That was all. The same was provided for dinner. In the cell, we recounted stories and events, played chess with pieces made of bread or the board game Ludo, and the days passed. One morning, a nurse came and asked about our health and how we were doing. The very same day, they called me again for investigation. When I came in, they asked me, “How are you?” and then the usual, “Which organization did you belong to?” They hit my face and kicked me, but it did not work on me. I sat huddled and moaned. They asked me whether I would plead guilty. I replied that I had nothing to admit to. They began to explain to me that “Poland is a drop of water in the sea compared to the USSR. Look how the Polish Army ran away from the German Army.” I could not resist, and I answered him that the Bolshevik Army ran away even faster from the Polish one in 1920. They slapped my face and kicked my stomach. They saw me off with their characteristic curses and told me that they were near the end of their investigation.
In April, I was transferred to the prison at Leona Sapiehy Street 1. The cell was an unused cellar with a small window overlooking a little yard, surrounded by the buildings of the former Polish branch of the Criminal Police Department. In the corridor there were four cells, numbered 9, 10, 11, and 12, [one of] which they locked me away in. The daily schedule at this prison was as follows: mornings, at 5:30 AM, was pod’yem [wake-up call]; at 7:30 AM, we were taken to the restrooms for our needs. We were allowed to wash our hands and faces and could take a saucepan filled with water (Polish military saucepans, without handles, wire, or cover) back into the cell. From 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, they called us for investigation; at 5:00 PM, they gave us half a liter of water with some corn flour stirred in, a quarter loaf of bread, and two sugar cubes; and at 6:00 PM, they took us to the restrooms again. In the cell, there were no toilet facilities, only twice per day were we taken to the restrooms, and once every 24 hours they fed us. We all slept on wet concrete. Very often, they performed a general search of the cell. It was in this prison that they resumed my investigation. When I went to the investigative judge for questioning, he asked me what organization I belonged to; who travelled abroad and communicated with this Polish bandit, General Sikorski; whom I had recruited; where the weapons were hidden; and where and in which apartment or place the organizer of the secret meetings stayed. I did not answer him, which is why he became incredibly furious. He started raging, but then he shifted gears. He started talking to me gently, smiling, and saying that I was young and needed, and that he also had children. He wanted me to give him some names and confess everything, telling me that I would be released then and sent to school to become an engineer, I would marry, etc. Seeing that I was not going to say anything, he told me to go with him and one Polish citizen, a Ukrainian who served as an informer and was a Militia officer. I knew him from the [time of the] Bolshevik’s invasion. His name was Michał Kordiuk, [and] he lived at Pijarów Street 11. I heard that he had ordered arrests of many people. We went down to the basement, where I was told again to plead guilty for counter-revolutionary activity, and they warned me that if I did not, I would be shot dead. I was afraid of being executed and was trembling like a leaf. They coaxed, threatened, and beat me. When it did not work, I was put against a wall and the investigating judge started shooting over my head so that the plaster would fall into my eyes, which started stinging [once the debris got into my eyes]. They did not hurt me, but I was distraught and my vision was blurred. Then, the Ukrainian – along with other helpers that he had called in – beat me with rubber batons until I was unconscious. When they carried me to the cell, my cellmates applied wet towels on my body to “make my body stick back to the bone,” as they said. On the third day, the Commissioner of the State Police, Mączka, died in his cell from a beating, after two hours of investigation. They made him a coffin out of egg crates, which they stuffed with straw. Then they put him in in his underwear and drove his body in a “Concordia” hearse to the cemetery. We saw it from the window cell.
It was the worst prison I have ever seen and been in, excluding the transition garrison [bunker] in Zamarstynów, where they transferred me on 14 June 1940. I was detained in cell number 72 on the second floor above the gate. It was hot. The cell was small with a large number of prisoners; in a three-and-a-half by four meters cell, there were 22 inmates, who were lying on top of each other. A double-barred window overlooked the corridor. There were a few things that were better in this prison, though, such as consistent food rations, baths, medical care (which was useless, but was there), and a fairly clean ubornaya – that means restroom. The mental conditions were simply appalling. Throughout the night, bells rang in the hallways; doors were slammed; keys were rattled; there were the moans and cries of people being investigated; and the nasty laughter of the soldiers butchering our people. The worst was this: the bell and footsteps of the duty guard, the clinking of keys, the slamming of doors, the whispering under cell doors, and the unlocking of doors. Then, two thugs stood at the door of the cell saying “Na bukva zyet” [“Starting with the letter Z”]. People were saying their names, but they said, “Nyet” [“No”], only. “And who is Karol Grigorowicz?” “Me,” I said, and they left. Then, I lost one tooth (incisor on the left).
From Zamarstynów, I was transferred to Jachowicza Street, where I was locked in cell number 8. A lot of people were arrested for crossing the German-Soviet border. In this prison, the cell was large and bright, and there were 85 of us inside. I was bored, however, because my investigation ended and they left me alone. I started thinking about the people I had met in past prisons. In Brygidki, [I had met] Major Jakubiak; Captain Bimer; a logistics/support officer of the 40th Infantry Regiment in Lwów; Chief Judge Zielinski from Drohobycz; attorney Zając; and many others. Then I thought about the desperate prayers and preaching of Reverend Kwapiński, the Armenian canon.
On 5 October, they transferred me in a freight car to Kherson in the USSR. The prisons here were more horrifying than in Poland. The windows were boarded up (like a basket). Sometimes one or two of the 95 prisoners got a parcel from home. But they received very little. You had to clamor and call for the prison governor if you wanted to write a letter. In this prison, I was sentenced by the so-called Special Troika (Osoboye Soveshchanie [Special Council of the NKVD]), and I received eight years of ispravitel’no trudovykh lagerey [corrective labor camp] and five years exile from my home country. I received the sentence on 13 December 1940. On 17 December, they escorted me to the interim prison in Kharkiv, and on 25 December, I was transferred to Ivdel in Sverdlovsk Oblast. It was cold in the snow- covered cars, especially since we had no warm clothing. The cars, guarded by NKVD soldiers, jerked and swung us around mercilessly. In the car, there were 25 of us, two of whom were Israelites. During the journey, they gave us a quarter loaf of bread (about 500 grams), two handfuls of tiny fish (khamsа) [anchovies] or three herrings. They did not give us any water, and when one of us put a hand out through the bars on the window to get some snow, he had to withdraw it [and] a bayonet used by a stuikhovy [officer] would hurt our hands. This is how we reached Samy [Sumy?], where they herded us to the 10th transitional camp. After quarantine, [we traveled] 39 km on foot – perhaps further – up to the 9th OLP (Otdel’ny lagerney punkt) [separate camp point] in Ivdel. There, they gave us some clothes – which were once probably decent quilted jackets, but now were rags – and a pair of rubber shoes, and told us to work.
Ivdel is a quite spacious town, with tidy houses built of wood, surrounded by mountains and taiga – it looked picturesque. There was a camp outside the town, surrounded by barbed wire with the NKVD stuikhovys in the corners. The wooden barracks, painted white with lime, with broken windows, looked quite decent. However, the nary [bunks] on which we slept were largely inadequate. First of all, there were bed bugs, and [the bunks] often broke while we were sleeping. In the camp, there was a “hospital,” dispensary, canteen, and club – all in one. There were also barracks for the tailors and shoemakers. They divided us into groups, or brigades, and every day at 7:00 AM, they rushed us out for drainage work. We built dams in the water and in the freezing cold. 70% of us had frostbitten faces, hands, and feet. After finishing work on the river, we went into the forest to cut a path for the construction of a railway line. The conditions were dreadful, especially since we were almost naked. We returned from work at 7:00 PM. For the work done, they gave us 700 grams of bread a day. In the morning, we received soup (water with flour stirred in and two dumplings), we didn’t have anything for lunch, and for dinner [we had] bread, the same soup, three tablespoons of chestnut, kasha or porridge, and half a herring. In addition, there was hot water to drink in the barracks.
We suffered from scurvy and dropsy [edema]. Our legs, head, and hands swelled up and our teeth fell out. The doctor did not want to give us sick leave, so those who were most sick basically stopped going to work, for which they were locked in izolator [isolation] for otkazyvat’sya [refusing] to work. In the izolator, a detainee received 300 grams of bread and sometimes hot water.
In April, they rushed me to the first otdeleniye [division] of the camp point in camp Taltiya [?] through the settlement and camp Jurtysh [?] (49 km away). The conditions there were really dire: [there was a] lack of bread (a portion of 900 grams cost 25-30 rubles) and a lack of clothing, footwear, and medicines, although a Polish doctor did his best [to help]. There were no books at all, and from time to time we received a newspaper. The daily schedule was as follows: at 3:00 AM was the wake-up call and breakfast (a small portion of soup); around 3:30 AM we were escorted to work (logging, timber rafting, tree stabilizing, and drilling holes in the trees). During timber rafting, it was not possible to rest or light dried leaves or grass in newspaper. We were returned to the camp at 10:00 PM. I got sick with scurvy and had a strange fever. I did not go to work, for which they locked me in the izolator. I met various people there who cursed the Poles and the Polish government.
They then took me to Taltiya [?] and put me in the izolator in Jurtysz [?] where they beat, kicked, and isolated me till 15 September 1941. On that day, they released us from the camp and herded us to Ivdel, where we waited for the documents. We got them on 20 September. They paid us 195 rubles each and sent us south to Samarkand. In Samarkand, I worked hard to earn money for a slice of bread and a kilo of tomatoes. One day, we were detained by the militia and sent to the Krasnyy Pakhar kolkhoz [collective-owned farm] in Bagisni, Jalalabad Oblast. In the beginning of January 1942, I arrived at the Polish Army, overcoming hundreds of difficulties posed by the woyenkomat [wartime recruiting board]. By then I was well-fed, and finally, after appearing in front of the recruitment board on 26 February 1942, I was assigned to the Polish Army in the 9th unit of the Light Artillery Regiment in Gorchakovo. I left for Persia on 21 March 1942.