1. Personal data [name, surname, rank, age, profession, marital status]:
Rifleman Piotr Frąckiewicz, born in 1896, post office clerk, married, two children. Resident in Wilno, Senatorska Street 5, flat 11.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on the street in Wilno, on 11 November 1940, when I was returning from work at the Post Office (Post Office no 2).
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
I was imprisoned in Wilno at Słowackiego Street, in the Railway Directorate building in which the Soviets set up a prison. After being investigated there for three weeks, I was sent to Łukiszki prison. On the night of 23 to 24 June 1941 I was deported to Russia, to the prison in Nizhny Novgorod.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (terrain, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
The prison set up in the Railway Directorate building consisted of 10 cells. It was set up in the building’s cellars, in the coal storehouse. I was in cell no. 3, which housed from 8 to 10 people. It wasn’t packed. There were washing faucets installed on the corridor’s wall. We could use them once a day.
In Łukiszki prison, famous for holding Polish prisoners, I was in cell no. 62. Initially, there were two of us, but I ended up sharing the cell with four other men.
The Nizhny Novgorod prison: a special prison set up in a several-story brick building situated on a hill near the city and surrounded by walls with recesses and guard posts. There were both single and common cells. I was first put in the common cell and then in the single one. There were about seventeen people in the latter. Because of the scarcity of space, the conditions in which we lived were very difficult. The fittings, such as washbasins and toilets, were insufficient for this number of people. For this reason life was really hard there.
5. Composition of prisoners-of-war, prisoners, exiles (nationality, types of crime, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations etc.):
In each of the prisons there were people of different nationalities. This holds true especially for the prison set up in the Railway Directorate building. In Łukiszki prison, in cell no. 62, there were only Poles. I don’t know the nationality of the people from the other cells. In Nizhny Novgorod prison there were Poles and Lithuanians, with the former constituting an overwhelming majority. I was imprisoned for being a member of the secret organization of the PPS (the Polish Socialist Party), as were some of my acquaintances. There were many prisoners whom I didn’t know and that is why I don’t know on what charges they were arrested. Prisoners differed in terms of their intellectual level (journalists, a priest, a military doctor – colonel). We were on good terms with each other regardless of nationality. Moral fiber was good, everybody helped each other, exchanged information, and we even listened to a secret radio. There were no brawls or scuffles.
6. Life in the camp, prison (daily schedule, working conditions, quotas, remuneration, food, clothing, social and cultural life):
Daily schedule (more or less the same in all three prions): wake-up call at 6.00 a.m., breakfast at 7.00 a.m., midday meal at noon, and supper at 6.00 p.m. The bugle call at the Railway Directorate was sounded at 11.00 p.m., in Łukiszki prison at 9.00 p.m., and in Nizhny Novgorod also at 9.00 p.m. Between meals we would have leisure time or be interrogated. Prisoners weren’t required to do any work. In the Railway Directorate, interrogations were usually held during the night. As far as clothing is concerned, we weren’t given any. People wore whatever they had. No laundry was done, only fumigations. Prisoners often had their clothes taken away while they were being transported to prisons. Mutual relations were good. Until the conclusion of the Polish-Soviet agreement we were allowed to organize cultural events. Once the agreement was in place (the news of it was unofficial), we organized information briefings and held religious services for propagandistic purposes, with the prison’s authorities usually having no knowledge of what we were doing.
The food in the Railway Directorate was quite tolerable, and the same goes for Łukiszki prison (one liter of coffee in the morning, one liter of soup for dinner and one for supper, 600 grams of bread a day – our bread portions weren’t weighed – and 20 grams of sugar). In Nizhny Novgorod prison: 400 grams of bread, hot water for every meal (you could take as much of it as you liked); half a liter, or less, of soup made of potato peelings and cabbage, with some salt added. The meals we were given in the evening weren’t much different: soup and one spoon of kasha, peas or potatoes.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (methods of interrogation, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland etc.):
The prison in the Railway Directorate building (NKVD). Initially the interrogation was civil and gentle, but it became cruel after I refused to plead guilty. I was beaten on the neck with the palm of the hand and threatened to be burned with a cigarette. I received no punishment. I don’t know whether any punishments were meted out to others. I didn’t encounter any form of communist propaganda. The prison authorities provided us with no information about Poland. It was only after the outbreak of the war between the Soviet Union and Germany that they mentioned the agreement the Soviets had reached with Poland and this they did only with a view to persuading us to plead guilty to what we were accused of.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality (give the names of the diseased):
Medical assistance existed, in theory, in Łukiszki and Nizhny Novgorod prisons. People suffered mostly from stomach ailments, which were not treated. Those who were very seriously ill were taken out, probably to the hospitals. I haven’t heard of anyone who died in the prison. One man – Senior Sergeant Aleksander from the 85th Infantry Division – died from exhaustion during his transport from Wilno to Nizhny Novgorod, before arriving in Gorky (the journey lasted eleven days).
9. What, if any, was your contact with the home country and your family?
We had no contact with either our country or our families. Only once, in Wilno I think, did the prison authorities inform me that I had received some money (50 rubles), but I don’t know from whom.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 5 January 1942 in Nizhny Novgorod. An NKVD official arrived with some files and released me and several other Poles with whom I shared the cell. He issued us special passes (udostoverenie) and then, after being given some money (I received 28 rubles), we were escorted to the train station where I, along with the other released Poles, reported to the Polish Committee. After three days we left for Kuybyshev, from where we were sent to the assembly point. I joined the Polish army in Tehran on 23 April 1943.