1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, Field Post Office number, age, occupation, marital status):
Rifleman Jan Bogucki, 30 years old.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 15 August 1940. They demanded that I hand over weapons and denounce ten people for arms possession, in return for which I would be released.
A Polish armored wagon was passing along the Małkinia–Barańsk road in the vicinity of my village, Tymianki-Bucie. It was surprised by German tanks and routed, and all the military equipment of the Polish troops was left at the site. People from the surrounding villages took the weapons, and hid them as the German units entered my village two days later. In 1940 the Bolsheviks issued an order to hand over the weapons by 1 June, but nobody complied, except for Aleksander Tymiński from Tymianki-Bucie, Ostrów district, warszawskie voivodeship. I was arrested and taken to the NKVD station in the township of Ciechanowiec. The NKVD began to question me whether I was in possession of arms, and told me to denounce ten people who had weapons hidden, as then they would let me go. I didn’t hand over the weapons, for which they beat me up and put me in the basement. I stayed there for three days. Next I was taken to the prison in Białystok. I remained there until the trial. I spent a month and a half waiting for the trial, and then I was sentenced to four years in prison for alleged arms possession. The questioning by the court was horrible – they accused me of hostility towards the Bolshevik government and membership in an organization, and claimed that I was only waiting for an opportunity to take up arms against the Boshevik authorities, and that for such crimes I should be punished with execution even.
3. Name of the camp, prison or forced labor site:
I was taken to Białystok, where I spent a month and a half. From there I was transferred to the prison in Mińsk, where I spent [illegible] months.
4. Description of the camp, prison etc. (grounds, buildings, housing conditions, hygiene):
Brick prison building, 240 prisoners in a cell of 80 square meters. It was dirty and there was a three-centimeter thick layer of mud on the floor. For the night we were taken to some small room in the basement, where people often fainted due to the cramped conditions and stifling heat. When someone asked for the door to be opened and some fresh air to be let in, the guards would take him aside, beat him cruelly, tie him up and throw him into a basement room, where he would be left for a few days.
5. The composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles (nationality, types of crimes, intellectual and moral standing, mutual relations etc.):
There were about 5,000 people in the Białystok prison. Russian boytsy [fighters] and Poles were imprisoned there. The Russians were hostile towards the Poles. The Polish prisoners represented various social strata: scholars, [illegible], priests, peasants. They were imprisoned for various crimes: political crimes, border crossing, arms possession. The intellectual level was good, we comforted one another saying that our suffering would soon be over, that the situation might change at any time. There were talks about the history of Poland.
6. Life in the camp, prison etc. (daily routine, working conditions, work quotas, remuneration, food, clothes, social and cultural life etc.):
The Poles and Russians were transported by train from the prison in Minsk to the Gulag camps of Leningrad. We arrived in the woods in December. For some time we slept in the open air. Some of us built barracks for us, and the others worked at logging. We worked eleven hours per day. In order to receive a kilogram of bread one had to do eight cubic meters. This was impossible: due to snow and cold one could do three cubic meters at best. What is more, they didn’t give us any clothes and we slept on bare boards, without blankets or mattresses. The clothes we wore for work served us both as blanket and as mattress.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (interrogation methods, torture and other forms of punishment, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The NKVD’s attitude towards the Poles was horrible. We were constantly persecuted and told that this wasn’t Poland. They used ghastly interrogation methods: they forced confessions with beatings – a prisoner was taken for interrogation to the NKVD, where they asked him various questions, to which he couldn’t give answers. Then he was tied with a rope and beaten bloody. If that didn’t bring the desired effect, the prisoner was placed with his face to the wall and told, amid a great clatter of weapons, that if he didn’t talk, he would be executed. They told us that it was pointless to dumat [think] about Poland, as Poland would not exist until hell freezes over.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (give the names of the deceased):
There was no organized medical assistance. I don’t remember the surnames of the deceased, as the camp was very big and the Poles were mixed in with Russian prisoners.
9. Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
There wasn’t any contact with our country or families.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
When the war with the Germans broke out, all Poles were deported to Ural. The Gulag chief came to us and announced that the Polish government had made an agreement with the Russian government to the effect that all Polish prisoners would be released from the Gulag camps. I was released on 7 September [1941]. I went to a kolkhoz, where I learned that a Polish army was being raised. On 2 January I went to Kuybyshev, from where I was sent to Lugovoy, where I joined the army.