1. Personal data:
Corporal Szymon Kardasz, born in 1916, tailor, unmarried.
2. Date of arrest:
19 May 1940 in the town of Waliły, while fleeing from German custody.
3. Name of the camp:
Prison in Białystok.
4. Description of the prison:
There were tiny cells, 110 people to one [cell?]; there were 18 beds and 110 prisoners. It was very dirty and cramped.
5. Composition of POWs and exiles:
POWs exclusively, fugitives from German custody, and a dozen or so thieves, all Poles.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
I didn’t work in prison at all. Two times a week, there was a 15-minute walk. When they sent us away to forced labor camps, I worked in a coal mine until I got ill and went to a hospital for three weeks – till the amnesty.
7. Attitude of the local NKVD towards the Poles:
After the arrest, they interrogated me for four days without a break. The investigation lasted 6 months.
8. Medical assistance:
There was a visit every day at 2.00 p.m. The care was average.
9. Was there a possibility to communicate with one’s country and family?
In year and a half, I received one food parcel and some clothes.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 10 September 1941. I worked in freedom until 28 February 1942, when I joined the 9th Division of the 9th Light Artillery Regiment in Gorchakov [Margilan].