1. Personal data:
Corporal Michał Bojar, 43 years old, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
On 11 July 1940, while detained in an internment camp in Wiłkomierz in Lithuania, I and some 5,000 other internees were deported by the Soviet authorities to a camp in Russia.
3. Name of the camp:
Kozelsk, from 14 July 1940 until 15 May 1941, and then the Kola Peninsula, until 12 July 1941.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
The area was forested, while the buildings in which we were kept were made of both brick and wood – in the main they were former Orthodox churches; the living conditions and hygienic conditions were passable.
5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees:
The prisoners were Poles who had been interned in Lithuania and Latvia, namely officers of the State Police, non-commissioned officers of the Military Police, the Border Protection Corps, the Border Guard, and also court officials and employees of the civil administration.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
Our normal daily work was focused on ensuring the functioning of the camp; we would busy ourselves in the kitchen, and clean the sanitary facilities and buildings. The interned teachers organized language courses – English, French and German – which were attended by many of the prisoners. We had our own clothes, and the food was passable; our mutual relations were good.
7. Attitude of the authorities, NKVD towards Poles:
The attitude of the NKVD towards us Poles was bad, they would interrogate us for days and nights on end, threaten us with the death penalty; they would also drag internees from their cells in the middle of the night and take them away to unspecified locations.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality rate:
Passable, the doctors were Polish internees, and there was a hospital on the spot.
9. Was it at all possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family? If yes, then what contacts were permitted?
No.
10. When were you released and how did you get through to the Polish Army?
On 24 March 1941, while in the camp in Suzdal, we started registering for enlistment in the Polish Army.