1. Personal data:
Rifleman Ernest Faja, born in 1920, student, unmarried.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 18 September 1939 near Dubno, along with the command of the Non- Commissioned Officers’ Air Force School for Minors (SPLM). Among those taken prisoner was the commander of the SPLM, Lieutenant Colonel Adam Zaleski, Lieutenant Wolski (relying on our help, Wolski escaped in disguise from Dubno camp on 20 September), a treasurer, and a priest whose name I don’t remember. They first took the treasurer’s car and drove off, but they returned soon after and allowed us to take the box containing all the money. The money was distributed among the officers and non-commissioned officers (there may have been as much as 400-600 thousand zlotys).
3-4. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site; description of the camp, prison etc.:
From Dubno, we were taken to Szepietówka and further on to Novohrad Volynskyi, from where after two months we were sent to Donbas, to Elenowka. A group of 136 people (myself included) was moved to Nowotroick, seven kilometers away from Elenowka, where we spent seventh months working in quarries. On 22 May 1940, following a thorough personal search (we were stripped naked), we set out on a seven-day journey to Kotlas (during our ride in sealed railway cars we were poorly fed and there was a rapping of wooden hammers against the car walls at night). Then, after a three-day trip down the river Vychegda, we marched 65 kilometers through the woods, starving, to Kniaź Pohost, from where we traveled 250 kilometers by train to Trzebin to 25 lagpunkt. The camp saw the establishment of the so- called słab komandy, which were sent to the 13th colony, 5 kilometers back.
5. Composition of prisoners-of-war, prisoners, exiles:
In the camp, which was made up of thirteen colonies, there were among others the following people: Rozdel and his wife, the only woman among us prisoners-of-war, doctor Bierżyński, doctor Dryg, Gołębiowski (over 60 years of age), and Sergeant Żejmo, whom I heard say that hair would grow on his palm if he ever saw Poland restored; he is now in the 5th or 7th Division.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
As an invalid, I was tolerably fed. And I worked in the kitchen boiling water.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
The NKVD treated us like slaves.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:
We received medical assistance from our military doctors. The mortality rate was 8 percent.
9. What, if any, was your contact with the home country and your family?
I was in no communication with the home country.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
We left the north on 15 July 1941 and went to Talica, about three hundred kilometers from Moscow.