1. Personal data:
Warrant Officer Marian Bolesław Stępień, born in 1899, a regular [soldier in the Army], married.
2. Date and circumstances of the arrest:
I was arrested on 19 February 1940, when crossing the border from the area occupied by Lithuania to the area occupied by the USSR.
3. The name of the camp:
Having been detained at the border, I was put into jail in Lyda, then in Baranavichy prison, and finally in Orsha prison. I was then transferred to the north, to the forced labor camp in the 4th unit of the 4th colony unit, near Kniaz Pohost.
4. Description of the camp:
Lyda prison – [There were] cellars in the court house, in which they inserted wooden walls to arrange the cells.
Baranavichy prison – The Polish prison [was] by the rail tracks. They accommodated the detainees in the cells where beds were ripped off the walls, with no furniture; they detained 33 people in a cell meant for five.
The prison in Orsha – a building of a former convent, where in cells designed for 6 or 20 persons, they accommodated 34 or 100 inmates; we could not breathe.
The labor camp in the 4th colony – [was] by the railway track; work [was] performed on the railway tracks, in the forest, and in the carpenter’s shop. There were 60 to 70 people in the barracks.
5. Composition of the prisoners:
The camp consisted of (about) 300-400 people, including 32 Poles and 17 Jews; the rest were Russians, Turkmen, and Uzbeks. A very small percentage were intelligent people – usually they were political prisoners – the rest of them were so-called bytovyky [non-political prisoners], that is, thieves, bandits, recidivists [repeat offenders]. Mental and moral levels were very low.
6. The camp life:
The work day – compulsory 12-hour shifts; quotas were very high and difficult to meet. Salary ranged from 40 to 120 kopeks, depending on the type of work. Food was very scant, divided into three tiers (caldrons). The first [level] was 400 grams of bread, and a thin soup in the mornings and evenings. The second [level] was 800 grams of bread, soup in the morning, at noon (at work) more thin soup, and in the evening soup and a bit of kasha without meat based on vegetable fat. The third category was for stakhanovites [highly productive workers] – 900 grams of bread, soup in the morning, more nourishing soup at noon, and in the evening, soup, kasha, 100 grams of fish or 40 grams of meat, or a dumpling or a whole meal bread roll of 40-50 grams. The so-called stakhanovites had the right to buy 300 grams of bread, rusks, sugar, makhorka [tobacco], candies, and butter, which often could not be found in the shop anyway. With the outbreak of the war with Germany, all food rations were reduced by almost 40 percent. In general, clothes were not issued. Prisoners received clothes from the warehouse only when they were completely barefoot or their clothing was falling off them.
7. Attitude of the NKVD towards Poles:
After the arrest, NKVD officers often treated me poorly at interrogation, but I was not beaten. However, some of my fellow prisoners, after their return from interrogation, were pretty battered and talked how they were mistreated during questioning. The NKVD officers rarely came to the colony in the labor camp, and they used their stay only to spread propaganda; during our stay in the camp they showed three movies with communist propaganda.
8. Medical care:
Medical care was very poor, so-called lekpoms [doctor assistants] laid us off from work only in the cases of high temperature (over 38 degrees Celsius). During my stay in the prison and camp, there were no deaths.
9. Contact with your home country:
For the time of my detention, I had no contact with my country, even though I sent letters via legal and illegal routes.
10. When were you released?
Because of the amnesty, I was released 2 September 1941, and I immediately went to the Polish Army. On 13 September, I came to Totskoye, the site of the formation of the Polish Armed Forces.
8 March 1939 [1943?]