Corporal Cadet Zygmunt Jaworski, 30 years old, local government inspector in Buczacz district, married.
On 27 September 1939, shortly after the Bolshevik army entered Buczacz, I was arrested on the street by a Jewish policeman named Goldberg, a cabman by trade. After two days of staying in Buczacz and a preliminary interrogation [conducted] by the NKVD, I was transported to a prison in Czortków.
In Czortków, I shared the cell with a Ministry of Internal Affairs Counsel – Leon Garatowski; Municipal Court Judge Henner; retired Polish Army captain – Stanisław Janicki; attorney Marian Kozakiewicz; tax office clerk Józef Grabowski; criminal law clerk of the district office – Aleksander Brzeziński; Reserve Ensign Mieczysław Rutkowski; Leon Muryka; and Pająk – a settler.
All the above were from Buczacz or its environs. Moreover, the following stayed in the same prison at that time: Prof. Stanisław Matuszewski (the mayor of Buczacz) and Wincenty Urbański (a teacher).
I was informed that Stanisław Matuszewski and Henner died in a camp somewhere in the North; I haven’t had any news on the fate of the remaining people up until now. Families of the above were relocated to Russia in April 1941. Their fate is unknown to me as well.
The Poles who were arrested in the first weeks of the Bolshevik occupation of the Polish territory were exclusively representatives of higher management in state institutions, as well as judges and prosecutors. In the winter months of 1940, the prison in Czortków was filling with Poles who had been trying to cross the Romanian or Hungarian border. The course of investigation on that category of people depended on the extent of their confessions on crossing the border. I don’t know specific cases of coercing testimonies by way of physical force.
Housing conditions were generally bearable at this point. Once a month it was possible to receive a parcel from your family, its contents limited to cigarettes, underwear, and sugar – there were times when matches weren’t permitted (and there was no way to get a light for a cigarette from any of the prison guards). Writing letters and family visits were prohibited. Even though – according to the prison regulations – after an investigation had been concluded and a sentence pronounced, writing letters or arranging a visit of a family could be allowed, almost nobody could do so, and even if somebody received permission, their letters never made it to the recipients because the prison authorities wouldn’t send them.
After 21 January 1940, the NKVD implemented special investigation methods against the suspects accused of attempting to start an armed riot. Most of them were young boys from Czortków high school. Among those of them who were staying in a cell with me, the following were interrogated several times during 24 hours and beaten in a horrid, barbaric way: Tomaszewski and Kamiński – high school students; Włodzimierz Jurków – non-commissioned reserve officer, a miller by trade; all of them were from Czortków. Furthermore, the following underwent identical coercive interrogations as suspects of being members of an anti-Communist organization: Jan Biedroń – district instructor of the Voluntary Fire Department from Buczacz; and Żyms – a student of Corps of Cadets School from Lwów.
In the spring of 1940, Ukrainians and Jews began flowing into the prison, the latter usually for speculation.
The Poles were always the most numerous group in a cell, separating themselves from coexistence with Ukrainians and Jews. Politically-motivated conflicts often occurred. The reasons were that the Ukrainians were cheering at German victories. When it came to Jews, the quarrels concerned their criticism of the September campaign, which ridiculed the Polish army. Those who stood out in their attempts to damage the name of Polish soldiers were Dodyk – a farmer from Mielnica, Borszczów district; and [illegible] from Nowy Sącz.
Medical care for the prisoners was seemingly well-organized and bearable up until the point when medications – which had been left by the Poles in the prison’s medical kit – depleted. Since then, there was a shortage of even the most primitive medical accessories – to such an extent that I was given a dirty wound dressing following a surgery, which caused an infection that I barely survived.
In October 1941, they read out an in-absentia ruling which sentenced me to five years in a guarded labor camp, followed by a resettlement to Russian territory. The verdict was as follows: socially precarious. Accusations levelled at me during the investigation included: organizing the circles of Polish landed gentry in Buczacz district, organizing the Polish Milk Cooperative, and running local government elections. My activity was allegedly directed against the economic and political life of Jews and Ukrainians.
My statement that establishing economic associations in Poland was allowed for all citizen groups, and thus also for Poles as hosts, met with a response that my actions had aimed to eliminate Jews from the economic life of the farming community and Ukrainians from participating in political life. A document with a list of people who confirmed that was shown to me as proof. When I demanded the surnames of the accusers be read out loud – they refused.
On 8 December 1941, after an 8-day journey, I found myself in Kharkiv, from where I was taken to Yartsevo, Arkhangelsk Oblast. Then, we marched in a group of thirty, escorted by dogs and strelkas, to Alexeyevka, a penal labor colony (no. 1).
The next day, 5 January 1941, we began working on logging the trees in the forest – of course, in our own clothing. When we demanded uniforms appropriate for work, we were told only those who would fill the quotas would receive clothing. In logging, the quotas were from around three to six cubic meters, depending on the material’s potential to be utilized. Dirty barracks, nothing to cover ourselves with at night, meager food, prison-related exhaustion – such conditions made it absolutely impossible for any of us Poles grouped in specific teams (called brigades) to attain any of the assigned norms.
Remuneration for a fulfilled quota was initially 900 grams of bread and a meal two times a day, in the morning and evening. After the war with the Germans broke out, we would only be given 700 grams of bread and a meager warm meal containing no fat (twice a day). Obviously, none of us filled more than 50 percent of the demanded quota, so we all received 500 grams of bread and literally 1.5 liters of water which couldn’t be called soup. It was considered unwillingness to work and we were put in a cold confinement cell, where you couldn’t even sleep despite being exhausted after the whole day, because there wasn’t enough space: the room was tight, no bigger than two by three meters, and 20–30 people would be placed in it. When it comes to being remunerated in cash, it was counted in kopecks per month, and we would often be told that the value of received food exceeded the salary.
In the camp, we were receiving letters from our families back in Poland, as well as food parcels, handed to us with a special permit by the camp’s chief, who often kept hold of them, justifying it with poor work results. I don’t know of incidents, however, where they wouldn’t be delivered at some point or another. We could write letters, but [there was] a limit of one per month, and it had to be in the Russkis’ language. Of course, they were not always sent. In order to send a telegram, we needed a special permit from the politruk [political worker]. Despite my repeated requests, I did not receive a permit, and the reasons for that were never revealed to me.
There were around 120 Poles in the colony for 800–900 Russian criminals of various categories, usually bandits and thieves; there were few political prisoners.
A sick leave could only be obtained in the case of running a fever, with only a certain fraction of that overall number being excused, so the ones less severely ill – according to the doctor’s opinion – had to attend work, hungry and poorly clothed. Refusal to work was punished by being placed in the confinement cell and limiting the bread ration to 300 grams a day. Moreover, they would threaten to take us to court and impose another sentence.
Tadeusz Tenerowicz – a student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków – died in that camp. He hadn’t been discharged from work in spite of running a temperature of 38 degrees [Celsius], and when he was in such a bad condition that he literally couldn’t walk, he was placed in a hospital, and died from pulmonary gangrene.
How was Poland’s situation presented to us? The so-called politruks were desperately trying to persuade us that our dreams of Poland were absolutely unreasonable, as there was no way for Poland to ever rise again. Even after signing the Polish-Soviet agreement, we were told that Poland would be one of the USSR’s republics. Of course none of us shared these opinions. Working conditions after the signing of the Polish-Soviet agreement worsened, contrary to what one could expect. Not only did they raise the work quotas – regardless of the food becoming poorer and poorer day by day – but also bolstered the guards; normally there would be one shooter watching us, but in this period there were two, sometimes even three.
The releasing process was sluggish, a few people per week or even less. Apart from that, we were threatened that if we refused to work we would not be released at all, but tried as a USSR enemy. Nobody tried to be their friends, besides on rare occasions.
On 1 October 1941, all Poles refused to work, arguing that we were free people according to the amnesty and as such had no obligation to work. We were divided among several camps, and the attitude towards us got even worse.
I was finally released from the camp on 18 November 1941, and after a month-long [illegible] journey, I arrived in Tatishchevo, where I was given the “A” category by the conscription commission and assigned to the 5th Anti-aircraft Artillery Division [5. D.A.P.L.].