Joachim Jakubowski, born in 1897, State Police officer, married, with two children; platoon of the 1st company of the guard battalion, temporarily attending training for car drivers with the 104th transport company.
I was an internee, and on 12 July 1940 I was deported from the internee camp in Lithuania to the internee camp in Kozelsk, USSR. I was interned in the camp in Kozelsk from 14 July 1940 to May 1941.
The camp was set up in former monastery buildings. We lived in monastery rooms, a few hundred or more men to each. For the first few weeks we slept on bare boards, and later we received a kilogram of rotten straw per person, which was to serve us as bedding. The rooms were damp, unheated and murky. The hygiene was in a deplorable state.
As for the composition of the internees, there were over 2,500 people: officers of all ranks from the Polish Army and the police, non-commissioned officers from the Border Protection Corps, gendarmerie or Border Guard, and State Police officers, both young and older, up to 60 years of age, the majority being of Polish nationality, representing a higher intellectual level, and having held various state positions back in Poland. The majority of the inmates of the Kozelsk camp were sent there from Lithuanian camps. The rest were prisoners of war or civilians arrested by the Soviet authorities in the eastern regions of Poland after September 1939. They were arrested or interned because, as loyal citizens of the Polish Republic, they had occupied various state positions. I myself was interned for being a criminal investigation police officer.
At first our life in the camp – considering the living conditions of Soviet citizens – was bearable, although still far below par. Our food consisted of black bread, half a liter of soup and a few spoons of groats seasoned with oil. During my ten months’ stay in the Kozelsk camp I was under investigation by the NKVD, during which I was subjected to moral torture, as they tried all possible means to break the spirit of Polishness in me. During interrogations, the NKVD functionaries, whose surnames I didn’t catch, often tried to convince me that Poland had been a temporary state, that it would never be reborn and that Communism would rule the world. The NKVD also carried out propaganda activities to the same effect, through talks and lectures delivered in the clubs and through the literature that we had access to in the camp. When the investigation was closed, we were separated from the officers and deported for forced labor to far North, that is, to the Kolski Peninsula.
It was only there that I experienced real camp life. I received clothing consisting of two valenki boots, padded pants, shoes and a cap. These clothes were meant to last me through the freezing winter in those parts, where temperatures fell to about 70 degrees below zero. We were transported in sealed boxcars to Murmansk, and from there by ship to the desolate Kolski Peninsula. Our food rations consisted of 80–120 grams of bread per day, dried fish and twice some soup made of rye flour. We carried out earthworks at the airport and road construction sites. I lived in the open air and toiled for 12 hours a day.
The supervising NKVD soldiers were very brutal, and those who couldn’t go to work had dogs set on them.
There was neither a bathhouse nor a hospital, and the sick lay on their pallets. The living conditions were unbearable. Had it not been for the German-Soviet war, I wouldn’t have endured it.
Following the amnesty we were transported from there first to Arkhangelsk, and then to Suzdal, where after some time I joined the Polish Army.
During the entire period of my stay in the Soviet territory I received only one letter from my wife, who lived in the German-occupied territory, although – as she mentioned – she wrote numerous letters.
In general, my stay in the Soviet Union left me with the worst impression imaginable.
Official stamp, 14 March 1943