1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, and marital status):
Rifleman Dymitr Klimow, 30 years old, student at the Electromechanical Department of the Lviv Polytechnic National University, unmarried.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 24 December 1939 in Lwów, at Technician’s House II, at 4.00 a.m. In the presence of a militia officer and the head of the dormitory, two NKVD lieutenants conducted a search and then arrested me without giving any reason for doing so.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Brygidki prison in Lwów and the garrison prison in Zamarstynów – from 24 December 1939 to 22 February 1941. The court of the oblast sentenced me to ten years of forced labor in Ukhta-Izhma labor camp, Ukhta settlement for workers, Water Works II.
4. Description of the camp, prison etc. (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
Brygidki and the garrison prison – old Polish prisons – were very overcrowded. For instance, 29 people were held in cell 17 in the prison in Zamarstynów for quite a long time. The size of the cell was 3,4 by 3,4 meters (one square meter was taken up by a brick stove covered with metal). We were often moved from one cell to another (I stayed in about 12 cells). We slept on the floor and were sometimes provided with pallets – one for several people. There were plenty of lice. The Ukhto-Izhma camp, Water Works II, was located on the left bank of the Ukhta river, 25 kilometers south-west from a town by that name (Chibyu). The river in this section curved round, creating something like a large arched bow around the camp, the string of which was a high embankment crowned with barbed wire and guard towers. On every other side, the cold current of the Ukhta river provided a sufficient obstacle. Established on this peninsula, located among huge forests, was an industrial work camp. We were tasked with acquiring radium and barium from radioactive sources by means of drills, and subjecting them to appropriate chemical processes. Due to the character of this camp, housing conditions were slightly better in comparison to other camps. The camp workers lived in small houses – wooden barracks, which were plastered, whitewashed and had floors. There were ordinary beds made out of wood, sometimes double bunk beds. Not all had pallets. Depending on the size of the room, the number of people was generally reasonable. Washing and disinfecting occurred every ten days. There were no lice, but we had plenty of bedbugs.
5. The composition of POWs, prisoners (nationality, type of crime, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations etc.):
The prisoners were almost exclusively Polish, but in the spring of 1940 Ukrainians started becoming more numerous, and some Jews were also detained there. A high percentage of prisoners in Brygidki came from the Lwów criminal world. There were also political prisoners. All of the prisoners in Zamarstynów had been detained for political reasons. At first, they were mostly members of the intelligentsia, military men, and in the summer of 1940 also workers. As for mutual relations, a significant solidarity was displayed towards the authorities. Out of the total amount of about 3,000 detainees in the camp, about 900 were Polish. The rest was mostly Russian, but almost all of the USSR nations were represented. As for crimes, people were charged with almost every paragraph of the Soviet law, but mostly those pertaining to politics. The majority of the detainees were specialists – chemists, electricians, mechanics, drivers, etc., who built and manned the power plant, mechanical workshops, brickyard, sawmill and so on. The attitude of the other deportees towards the Poles was favorable. They were very cautious among themselves, out of fear of being reported.
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.):
A day in the prison: We woke up at 6.00 a.m., everyone from the cell went to the toilet where they washed themselves under a tap. At about 7.00 a.m. we had a breakfast consisting of 600 grams of bread, 25 grams of sugar, and a liter of tea. Dinner was at 12.00: a liter of soup. Supper at 5.00 – 6.00 p.m.: a liter of soup. We went to bed at 9.00 p.m. Once every few days or weeks we took a 15-minute walk. In the camp we would wake up at 5.30 a.m., wash ourselves in basins, and have breakfast at the canteen – a liter of soup or 200 grams of kasha. In addition to that, we were sometimes given some herring or pie. Work lasted from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. with no breaks. We would finish work at 7.00 p.m. and have dinner – soup, kasha, and a bit of boiled fish, or sometimes meat. We went to bed at 10.00 p.m. There were almost no fats or vitamins – many people fell ill with scurvy and night blindness. Clothing was very lousy, especially footwear: the so-called kords – boots made out of used tires. For filling 100 percent of the quota, one would get a second food ration. For less than that – only one ration. For exceeding 125 percent – they would get three rations. The best stakhanovite would get three rations and 50 rubles a month, others would get correspondingly less or nothing – apart from food. In our cell in Lwów we had foreign language courses: German, French, and Russian, as well as lectures and talks concerning various specialist and general subjects conducted by prisoners. Apart from a few film screenings which were usually meant for spreading propaganda, and the magazine “The Truth”, which was on a public display, on two or three occasions we watched musical performances by some unschooled artists. No Polish cultural life was possible whatsoever.
7. The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards the Poles (ways of interrogating, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The interrogation of a detainee usually began in a very kindly and polite manner. However, this treatment changed completely if the detainee did not admit to the crimes that they were being accused of. A rubber truncheon was the most persuasive of arguments for admitting one’s guilt. I saw people who were beaten to the point where they couldn’t stand on their own and fainted. Their backs, buttocks, and thighs were almost black due to internal hemorrhages. When on Christmas Eve in 1940 prisoners in all the cells in Brygidki started singing carols, five people from our cell, along with prisoners from other cells, were punished by detention in the cellar. Singing carols was treated as an act of provocation. During interrogations they tried to influence us psychologically by undermining our hope for a better future. They would say that all was lost. They sometimes tried to influence us by talking about the extraordinary achievements of the Soviet authorities. This propaganda, however, brought no results.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the surnames of those who perished):
Medical care functioned only pro forma, there was no medicine, and the mortality rate was fairly high. I don’t remember any names.
9. What, if any, was your contact with the home country and with your family:
Ordinary prisoners were allowed to write home once a month, political prisoners – once every three months. Letters and even packages with food would sometimes arrive, but with a considerable delay. I sent a telegram and received one from home (Ostroh, by the Horyn river).
10. When were you released and how did you get through to the Polish Army?
I was released from the forced labor camp on 23 August 1941, but had to live in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Until 20 October 1941, I lived in the village of Wilgort, near Syktyvkar, from where two of my colleagues and I walked to the Shizhim railway station (130 kilometers) and then went by train through Kotlas, Kirov, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Chkalov to Totskoye, where I joined the army on 14 November 1941.