Corporal Władysław Bartkiewicz, 25 years old, born in Delatyn, resident in Kołomyja, Stanisławów voivodeship. I worked for the railway, first as a guard, and later as a clerk at the wagon office. I was mobilized in May 1939, and arrested some two years later by the Soviet authorities.
On 31 January 1941 at 1.20 a.m. they detained my father, and me half an hour later. The arrest was carried out as follows: while a motor car was already waiting in the street, an NKVD functionary approached our flat (previously surrounded by NKVD soldiers), carried out a search, and seized me and my father; we were not allowed to take any personal items.
From 31 January I was held at the NKVD prison in Kołomyja. During my first interrogation I learned that I had been arrested because of my membership of a “counter-revolutionary organization”. I was charged under Paragraph 54 Article 13, Paragraph 54 Article 6, and Paragraph 54 Article 12. My interrogations – more or less forty in total – lasted until March 1941.
During the investigation the examining officer, a man by the surname of “Sijndekow”, and his accomplices used various methods to extort testimony; among others, they would beat me all over my body until I lost consciousness, which fact can be attested to by various friends and acquaintances who were incarcerated with me at the time: Professor Dębski, Lubczyński, Piwański, Cabak, Junger, and others – all of them saw the bruises on my body. Even though I admitted nothing – and in actual fact I was not a member of this fictitious organization – they still sentenced me to five years of prison, although this was commuted to detention in a labor camp, where I wound up in February 1941.
The journey to the camp was most difficult, for our transport, numbering some two thousand men, was sent off in cold and unheated wagons; we were given fish and small quantities of bread, while the provision of water was inadequate. In their dealings with Poles, the Soviet authorities were always contemptuous and abusive.
I remained in the camp until September 1941. We were assigned quotas that were impossible to meet, while the wages were not only low, but also [illegible]. I would work in the cold, hungry, for twelve hours or even more, and there were practically no days off. I was first incarcerated at a “Polish” forced labor camp in the Ural, in the Ivdel region, and thereafter in Jarcenówka in the same region.
The doctors behaved abominably – they refused to recognize many people as being sick, while if anyone didn’t want to work due to illness, he would be sent off and punished in various ways.
The camps in which I was imprisoned contained mainly Poles, who would always behave in a friendly manner; Soviets, Hungarians and Ukrainians were also present. Nearly everyone was a political prisoner, and real criminals were few and far between.
I was released in September 1941, and managed to get through to the Polish Army in 1942 by a miracle, for the Soviets made it as difficult as possible for me. Finally though, having circumvented the dangers, I was able to enlist in the Army, which I did on 13 January 1942 in Vrevskaya.