1. Personal data:
Corporal Wawrzyniec Dykas, born in 1900, farmer and carpenter, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was taken prisoner on 27 September 1939 together with a unit of the 5th Engineer Battalion in Łuck.
3. Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site:
I was taken to Shepetivka, where I spent twelve days. Living conditions: half a liter of water with a small addition of groats per day. Sleeping conditions: a concrete floor in the barracks, no bedding.
After twelve days I was driven on foot back to Poland, to Busk near Lwów. We covered 50 kilometers per day and spent nights in the fields. Due to these “comfortable” conditions and cold nights, every morning we had to leave a few dead friends behind. In the camp in Busk we were placed in the stables of some farm, and there were about a thousand of us. Housing conditions: sleeping directly on boards, no clothes, from November 1939 to 1 February 1940 without a bath or clothes; as a result we suffered from lice and scabies. The conditions improved on 1 February, when we had a bath and the steaming of underwear was introduced (although without washing). Our work consisted of digging trenches by the road and crushing stone in accordance with the prescribed work quota, which was so high that nobody could meet it, and as a result we didn’t receive remuneration for our work and got very meager food – remuneration was only for those who filled the quota, which was to dig six cubic meters of clay or eight cubic meters of sand or to crush six meters of stone into the so-called pakielarz [?]. The Poles received harsh, spiteful treatment.
Those who couldn’t work due to exhaustion were punished with hunger, and exemption from work could be obtained only when someone ran a temperature of 38 degrees. Those who lost consciousness due to sickness were transported away, allegedly to a hospital, but nobody ever returned from this. We were transported from one camp to another in sealed wagons, fifty people per one goods wagon, with windows closed shut. In all of the camps food depended on work. The living conditions would have been quite bearable for those who filled the quota, but there were no such people due to overwork and exhaustion. The last gulag camp was in Teofipol, where we worked from 4.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. with a half-hour break for dinner, which was brought to us from a camp situated seven kilometers from our workplace, in barrels covered with dirty sacks. For dinner we had cabbage, some groats and salty fish, all cooked together.
During the German-Soviet War we were expelled from the camp and driven on foot for eighteen days in a row. Food rations: 200 grams of bread and a herring, but not every day. Drinking water was prohibited. Once a day during our journey the entire camp was driven into some pond, to drink water I believe, but apart from that even utterly exhausted people were forbidden to get a drink of water, even when we were crossing it – bending down to fetch some water from the ditch was punishable by death. Weakened people, who were dropping on the way, were kicked by the NKVD escort or attacked by their dogs. In this way we were forced to continue our journey. The unconscious ones – now and again someone dropped – were pulled into a ditch, but I don’t know what happened to them afterwards.
The last period – Starobilsk, where in September 1941 I joined the Polish Army. I confirm what I have written above with my own surname.