Sergeant Major Józef Koryzna, born on 7 March 1896 in Nowosiółka Koropiecka, district of Buczacz, Tarnopol Voivodeship. Married, childless, Roman Catholic; police inspector stationed in Lwów, at the 4th Police Station at Kurkowa Street 23, serving until the Soviet army entered the country; residing at Gosiewskiego Street 10.
I was arrested and sentenced to five years of forced labor.
On 19 December 1940, at 2.00 p.m. I was arrested in my apartment in Lwów by two NKVD agents. During the arrest they did not let me take any food or underwear, and they said that I was going to be back home soon – that it was just a so-called proverka [inspection]. They took us to the NKVD office on Pełczyńska Street, where they wrote a report, and then transported me to the prison on Zamarstynowska Street in Lwów. Having arrived there, I was stripped naked and thoroughly searched. They took away my silver Omega watch, silver cigarette case, wallet, 105 rubles in cash, a scarf, and other small items. I was given a kvitantsia [receipt] for these things and was then sent to cell no. 22. This was at 4.00 a.m. When the overseer opened the cell, prisoners started shouting that there was no more room inside. The guard replied: – Nichevo, khvatit [So what, that’s enough] and pushed me into the cell, locked it, and left. The cell was 4 [illegible] meters in size and there were 28 prisoners inside – 29 including me. They were all lying there, packed like sardines. It was a terrible thing to see in those first moments – prisoners were unshaven, emaciated, and pale. They looked as if they were 60–80 years old, while most of them were in fact young. Five more prisoners were later added to our cell, so the total number was 34. In such circumstances six people had no space to sleep at night, so we arranged that each night six different people wouldn’t sleep. Five people would sit on the table in our cell, and one would sit on the parasha [close- stool] – a bucket – and the others would lie down on the floor. At night they could only turn to the other side all at once, for there was no way of doing so alone. The prisoners: 12 Poles, one Jew, and the rest were Ukrainians. Among the Poles was a secondary school teacher from Lwów, whose name I don’t remember, Jasiński, a student of the Lwów Polytechnic National University, a company sergeant, Franciszek Paliwoda from Lwów, Eugeniusz Czerwony, a fireman from Lwów, a district postman from Lwów, and a few other Poles from Lwów and its provinces, state officials, a Jew from Lwów – a landlord, whose name I don’t remember. Several Ukrainian farmers from around Turka were detained for resisting deportation. The rest were Ukrainians. Young secondary school and university students were detained for belonging to a Ukrainian clandestine military organization. All Poles were charged with membership in a clandestine military organization. Relations between prisoners were usually acceptable. Poles and Ukrainians alike tried not to talk about politics, since we supported the English, while they supported the Germans. Whenever this subject came up it caused an argument, so we would quickly change the conversation. The Soviets’ attitude was the same towards all prisoners. Sanitary conditions were terrible: we weren’t allowed to wash our underwear – it was taken from us every two to three weeks for washing. We were marched to a bath once a month, and went for a walk outside once every 10 or 17 days, so everyone had plenty of lice. We were all obligated to search our underwear every day and get rid of the lice. We made sure to remind one another of that. Food rations: 600 grams of bread, tea in the morning, half a liter of thin, peeled barley or millet soup for dinner and supper, which obviously wasn’t enough. Every few days the Soviets conducted searches in the following way: they would lead us to the corridor, undress us completely – despite the cold – and go through our clothes looking for needles, cards, etc.
Interrogations by the NKVD: I was personally interrogated by an NKVD woman, so I was fortunate enough to avoid being beaten. Others who were detained with me, Poles and Ukrainians, complained that they were beaten and kicked during investigations. These were conducted above my cell, so I could hear the screaming and moaning of the men and women who were being interrogated – especially at night. Zamarstynów prison, where I was detained, was very tough: we weren’t even allowed to speak out loud, so that the prisoners wouldn’t be able to recognize one another’s voices when a prisoner from another cell was asking an overseer a question.
In April 1941 I was transported from Zamarstynów to Brygidki prison in Lwów. On 7 May I was transported from Lwów to a camp in Starobielsk in Russia. Several hundred of us were transported by train for a couple of days. In the course of this journey we were fed salty dried fish and bread. Water was in short supply. In Starobielsk we got very little food, but every day we were marched outside for a walk, so people could at least warm themselves in the sun – especially those ill with scurvy (many of them had ulcers all over their bodies, mainly on their legs), for the sun was good for their wounds. Medical assistance was very poor, almost non- existent – no medicine was used, we were simply instructed to warm ourselves in the sun.
At the beginning of June 1941 we were deported to the Vorkuta camp in the south. Including [illegible], our transport was comprised of about 1,500 people, including 150 women. We journeyed by train and then on barges on the Pechora River for five weeks. During the entire time we were given bread, fish and kipyatok – boiling water. We accepted what we could get. Everyone was louse-infested to the point that killing lice was useless, because there was no way to get rid of them all.
Having been transported to Vorkuta, we were bathed and subjected to disinfection of our clothing and underwear. They didn’t let us rest, though – on the following day we were rushed to work in the morning. Some were sent to a sawmill, others to a coalmine. I was assigned to carry out earthworks, namely to transport soil on wheelbarrows at a distance of 100–300 meters. Everyone was supposed to transport 3.75 cubic meters a day. This was the quota. There were two shifts, from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. and from 7.00 p.m. to 7.00 a.m. We had very little rest, merely four to five hours a day, because the distance from the camp to the workplace was about three to four kilometers. We would wake up at 4.00 a.m., get dressed between 4.00 and 5.30 a.m., tie our ripped boots with string and wire, and then wait in a queue which was several kilometers long for breakfast. This consisted of a couple of unpeeled potatoes and one herring, or a quarter liter of oat kasha with oil. After breakfast at 5.30 a.m. we were rushed outside the barracks and assembled in front of the gate, where brigades were formed and inspected. We were then marched to work, so that we could be on site at 7.00 a.m. and start working. Work was hard and lasted 12 hours, with a half-hour break and no meal. Those who were unable to meet the quota would swell up from hunger, for they received only 300 grams of bread and thin oat soup in the morning and in the evening. Those who filled the quota would get 700 grams of bread and oat soup for dinner, sometimes followed by a second course: 4–5 spoons of a thick oat soup. Additionally, in the morning and in the evening there was always boiled water (so-called kipyatok) in the barrack, organized by a dnevalnyi [orderly]. After work and an inspection at the gate, carried out to made sure that everyone had returned, we came back to the barracks at 8.30 p.m. Next was dinner: we had to queue up again, and after dinner we were herded outside the barracks for the second proverka – inspection – which lasted until 11.00 p.m. (sometimes until 12.00, if the number wasn’t right, and then we had very little time to rest).
Sanitary conditions: Once a week we were allowed to use a washroom. Afterwards we were given underwear. We were allowed to go there in our free time, which meant that only those who worked at night could take a bath, for the washroom was open only during the day. Since we worked each shift for 14 days, only those on the night shift rotation could take a bath. The situation with clothing and footwear was very bad, we had to simply fight for it. People walked around barefoot, wearing ragged clothes. The boots that we had were tied with wires, while those that we were given were made out of used car tires. We called them chuni, they looked like lapti [bast shoes]. Like many other people, I didn’t get anything apart from underwear. We would patch our clothes and walk around in boots fashioned out of sacks tied with a wire.
Medical assistance: it was difficult to get it, and if someone managed to do so, they still wouldn’t get a sick leave – only those with a 40-degree fever who couldn’t stand on their own were taken to the hospital. Very few people came back from there.
There was no cultural life in the camp – no one thought about culture, we only cared about getting a piece of bread, while the sick only wanted to be done with it all, and end their suffering.
After the signing of the treaty, the Poles seemed to be reborn and at once were more lively and happy. They visited one another in the barracks, since almost every morning a number of names were read out, and these people did not go to work but to the administrative board to get a document of release. There each person received 200 rubles which he could spend in a shop buying 3 kilograms of bread, 2.5 kilograms of [illegible], 3 [illegible], half a [illegible], 10 [illegible], and 5 packs of 20 cigarettes – one paid 75 rubles for everything and was let outside the gate on the following day. I received 236 rubles. When we were being released, they asked us where we were going. While it was also possible to join the Soviet army or find work, Poles volunteered only for the Polish army. Those who volunteered to join the army were to be transported to Buzuluk. However, the transports were sent to kolkhozes in the Republic of Karakalpakstan. We were told that we were being sent to kolkhozes in order to regain our health, and that only those who wished to would work, while others would be given food anyway. It turned out differently: those who didn’t work were given nothing, while those who did work got nothing except carrots and sorghum. I was in the Chu baj-baj [?] kolkhoz and worked collecting cotton and – for a few days – cleaning the sewers. I had to walk 8 kilometers in order to get to work, and was given only ten rubles a month.
On 15 September 1941 I was released from the camp. The journey to Karakalpakstan lasted six weeks. I stayed there for a month. We were then taken to Uzbekistan – to kolkhozes again – where we arrived at the beginning of December 1941. I was sent to the Voroshilov kolkhoz in the Bukhara Oblast. They gave us 400 grams of barley flour, or millet called taryk, and nothing more. Near the end we didn’t want to work, because we had no strength, so they gave us 200 grams of oil per five people for a week.
On 6 February 1942 I was summoned before the Recruitment Committee, enlisted into the army, and transported to Kermine, where I appeared before the Recruitment Committee again on 9 February 1942 and was enlisted in the engineers battalion in Narpay. With this battalion I left Russia in 1942.
Official stamp, 14 March 1943