1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation and civil status):
Platoon Sergeant Józef Grot, born on 11 January 1897, formerly a Senior Constable of the State Police, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
On 1 September 1939 at around 6.00 a.m., following the German invasion of Poland from the territory of Slovakia along the Niedzica – Czorsztyn section of the border in the district of Nowy Targ, the police station in Czorsztyn and the Border Guards post were both evacuated from Czorsztyn to Nowy Sącz. Until September 1939 I had been serving at Czorsztyn police station.
On 4 September, I was designated by the constabulary in Nowy Sącz to escort a group of spies and political criminals – Polish citizens of German ethnicity – to the prison in Wilno. There were 24 prisoners in all. After I arrived in Wilno on 11 September and handed my prisoners over to the governor of the jail in Łukiszki, I remained in the city in the Police Reserve, having been thus ordered by the Provincial Commander in Wilno. When the Soviets invaded Poland, policemen were evacuated from Wilno to Lithuania. On 19 September, I crossed the Polish- Lithuanian border near Vievis. From there, the Lithuanians transported interned policemen and military men by train to Palanga. On 29 January 1940, the internees were moved to the barracks in Vilkaviškis. On 12 July 1940, Bolshevik forces surrounded the camp and loaded us all onto a train which took us to Kozelsk.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
The camp in Kozelsk had been specially established to house prisoners or internees. We were not forced to perform work, only carrying out jobs connected with the maintenance of the facility. The interned policemen were deported for forced labor in Ponoy port on the Kola Peninsula on 15 May 1941. We were supposed to carry out earthworks connected with the construction of an airfield and an access road leading to it, and also erect a large camp for more numerous groups of workers who would be recruited from amongst the interned Polish policemen and soldiers.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
The camp in Kozelsk comprised former Orthodox churches and residential buildings previously used by the monks, which were somewhat dilapidated due to a lack of maintenance. The interned Polish soldiers soon carried out the necessary repairs and the whole facility could then be inhabited. The buildings had electric lighting. Hygiene was passable; we could bathe and change our underwear once a week. However, the conditions in the forced labor camp on the Kola Peninsula were terrible: there were absolutely no barracks, and we had to live in the open and sleep on the wet ground, which had recently thawed to a depth of some 20 cm. Rains were frequent, but there was nowhere to hide, for the location is uninhabited and devoid of trees (the highest “trees” are stunted birches no more than 40 cm tall). The work there was very difficult – we were forced to toil on the construction of a road and airfield in wet, mainly swampy land, standing in the water all day long without appropriate footwear. After only a few days of such labor the soldiers started falling ill with pneumonia and other diseases, finally progressing to scurvy.
5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees (nationality, category of crimes, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations, etc.):
The population of the camp in Kozelsk comprised officers of the Polish Army, low-ranking policemen, and NCOs of the Army, Military Police, Border Guards and State Police. All were of Polish ethnicity. According to Soviet law, all these people were “political criminals”. The intellectual level and moral fiber of the internees was rather high, and only a few caved in, becoming convinced that all was lost and that Poland had ceased to exist. In consequence, some of them joined the Soviet cause and served them by denouncing those who had combated communism in Poland, or maliciously turning in men who tried to keep up the spirits of their fellow Poles. There were instances when such men refused to speak with their friends in Polish – only in Russian. We avoided them and warned others not to socialize with these traitors and informers. I do not remember the surnames of these despicable colleagues, although I did have them written down. However, when I was in the process of joining the Polish Army in Vladimir (Suzdal), I was informed by a functionary from the Polish representation that all those who had transgressed against the Polish state and their brothers in arms would be amnestied, and so I destroyed my notes.
6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (the course of an average day, working conditions, quotas and norms, wages, food, clothing, social and cultural life, etc.):
In Kozelsk, everyone would spend the average day differently, making best use of their individual talents and skills – some would make knives or straight razors, others chess pieces and various sculptures in wood, for example of the Mother of God. We would read the books that we had taken with ourselves from Lithuania, or been given by Poles living in this country or by the Lithuanian Red Cross. In addition, the Soviets opened a library which apart from Russian books (unpopular amongst us, for they were pervaded with the communist spirit) also had some written in Polish. I would like to add that when reading or swapping between ourselves the Polish books which we had brought with us or obtained in Lithuania, we had to be discreet and avoid the informers (our former colleagues), for they would denounce us to the Soviets and we would end up in the punishment cell, charged with distributing Polish literature. The food was passable (if you take into consideration that this was the USSR), while each of us still had his own clothes. Mutual relations: men who were reliable and trustworthy would keep together, making every effort to keep up their comrades’ flagging spirits. Our sole objective was to survive. Others, who became convinced that all was lost and that Poland would be no more, served the NKVD, accepting money for denouncing their fellow countrymen who had helped combat communism in Poland. Having been given away, these poor souls would be removed from the camp and taken into the unknown. We always avoided the traitors so as not to expose ourselves to the NKVD.
7. Attitude of the authorities, NKVD towards Poles (methods of interrogation, torture, punishments, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The NKVD would usually interrogate us Poles in the night – for a good few hours, until we were completely exhausted. During my examinations they didn’t use torture. I was reprieved from sentencing thanks to the conclusion of the agreement between the Polish government and the Soviets. Communist propaganda was disseminated in the course of specially organized meetings, and more generally whenever the occasion arose. They laughed and scoffed at the Polish system of government, whereas they assured us with complete certainty that the country would never be reborn.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the surnames of those who perished):
The medical personnel in Kozelsk was on the whole attentive, and the mortality rate was low. I don’t remember the surnames of my fellow Poles who died in the camp in Kozelsk.
9. Was it at all possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family? If yes, then what contacts were permitted?
I had no contact whatsoever with my family back home. For although the NKVD did allow us to write home and I therefore sent a few letters, I never received their replies seeing as they were seized by the NKVD who wanted to pressure me into giving up the surnames of prewar Polish informers, saying that only then would I receive my mail. I never agreed to their proposals.
10. When were you released and how did you get through to the Polish Army?
On 11 July 1941, while working on the Kola Peninsula, we were informed by the NKVD that we were to discontinue work. Two days later, on 13 July, they embarked all the Polish soldiers in Ponoy port, from whence we were transported to Arkhangelsk over the Arctic Ocean. After a few days in Arkhangelsk, we departed by rail for Vladimir (Suzdal). A Polish recruitment committee arrived in Vladimir (Suzdal) on 24 July and, following a medical examination, I was enlisted in the Polish Army. On 5 September we left for Tatishchevo, where the 5th Division was being organized. I was there for only a short time, however, for on 31 October a group of more than one thousand men, myself among them, was sent to the south of Russia, having first been instructed that a new division was forming somewhere in the vicinity of Tashkent and that we were being transferred there. We traveled by rail for 33 days, but there was no trace of any new division anywhere. Finally, we were sent to Kazakhstan and quartered in kolkhozes near Tokmak. The kolkhozes provided us with some food – 400 to 500 grams of flour per day, nothing more. We worked packing tobacco plants. Only in February 1942 did I learn that a Polish division was being formed in Lugovoy, and so I and a few friends left the Kazakomu kolkhoz near Tokmak and traveled to Lugovoy. There I enlisted in the Polish Army, on 20 February 1942, and was assigned to the 10th [Infantry] Division.