Senior Rifleman Władysław Głuszak, 44 years old, Roman Catholic, married, a carpenter by occupation, resident in Warsaw at Czerniakowska Street 206.
I was captured on 28 September 1939 near Lublin, from where on the same day we were driven on foot 65 kilometers to Chełm. Once we got there, we were loaded onto goods wagons (with a reduced capacity), 60 men to each, and received a bread ration sufficient only for 20 men. As a matter of fact, it was Polish Army bread – all green with mildew. The voyage lasted ten days, and we were given nothing more than bread (the same as before), just once again; this time the ration was sufficient for 18 men. In the main, we were fed by local civilians. After we arrived at our destination, that is Olecko in the district of Złoczów, we were detained in the castle, one hundred to a hall. For two weeks we slept on the ground. Later they made us plank beds, however they were so small that each of us had no more than 50 cm of room. Our daily ration comprised 400 grams of bread, a plate of fatless soup (given twice), and tea (poured out just once). The hygienic conditions were terrible, and our clothes were crawling with lice.
We were forced to work irrespective of the weather, even when it was minus 35 – 38 degrees Celsius. I had no shoes and no coat – only my uniform (which was torn); my companions were similarly dressed. I know of three murders committed by the NKVD, on 20 December 1939; the victims were colleagues who were trying to escape from our place of work. They were buried on 24 December in the Roman Catholic cemetery in Olecko. On 9 April 1940, I was transferred to the camp in Angielówka in the district of Złoczów, where we were also forced to labor. The quotas were impossible to fulfill. For example, the quota for crushed stone was initially 3.5 cubic meters, but they kept on increasing it daily, until finally it totaled 9.5 cubic meters. Our remuneration was 35 – 50 rubles per month. Next, I was moved to the camp in Mościska near Przemyśl, to Zieleńce near Podwołoczyska, and then to Teofipol near Wołoczyska, where we toiled at the airfield. The daily norm was to cart away 12.5 cubic meters of sand to a distance of 50 – 100 meters on a wheelbarrow. We were forced to work from sunrise until late in the evening.
When the German-Russian war broke out, our plight got even worse. We were marched off on 2 July 1941. There were some 1,500 of us in total, the inmates of two camps, and the Soviets drove us on foot without mercy. The first four prisoners had revolvers put to their heads and were beaten with rifle butts in order to walk faster, while the rest had to keep pace, for those who lagged behind would also be beaten with rifle butts and have dogs set on them; many of my colleagues received serious bite wounds. During this march we received no more than half a liter of thin soup and 100 – 150 grams of bread per day. Some of my friends collapsed along the way, but whoever fell was done for – the guards would finish him off with rifle butts or bayonets. Between 8 and 15 men collapsed from exhaustion daily. On the twenty first day of this ordeal, after we had crossed the Dnieper River, I was unable to walk – my legs were swollen and bleeding, and I was completely spent. A guard hit me a few times with his rifle butt in order to force me on. I was resigned to my fate and ready to depart from this world and my colleagues, however the Soviets finally gathered us, the weakest – some 60 men in all – and loaded us onto trucks that drove us to a train station; once there, we were put on open wagons, 80 men to each. During this part of the voyage I fell seriously ill with dysentery; I didn’t receive any medical care. I remember that after I regained consciousness, I found myself lying in a pool of water (it had been raining). Only after we arrived in Starobilsk was I examined by a doctor.
A dozen or so days later the Soviets read out Stalin’s order granting us our freedom, and the NKVD gave each of us 500 rubles in damages. Thereafter I enlisted in the Polish Army and left for Totskoye; it was a very long time before I regained my health, ruined so terribly by the Soviets.