1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, profession, and marital status):
Senior rifleman Leonard Jurewicz, 33 years old, gimnazjum teacher, unmarried.
2. Dates and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 17 March 1940, near the Soviet-Lithuanian border.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Prison in Oszmiana, then in Molodechno. Labor camp: Kotlas-Ukhta.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (terrain, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
Prison in Oszmiana: there were 100 prisoners in cells meant for 20 people; they were terribly overcrowded. Ventilation was very bad: there were two small windows with bars, in addition covered with wooden bars made from thick boards. Stuffiness. Lack of air. Dirt. Tons of lice and bedbugs. The bathroom was a joke. They walked 100 people into a room where only 20 could wash. A small bowl of water for five to six people. Time for washing even in that amount of water was insufficient. We changed underwear every one or two months. Shaving with a razor – once a month. Food rations absolutely insufficient – constant hunger. The same applies for Molodechno prison.
5. Composition of POWs, prisoners (nationality, offense category, moral and intellectual standing, mutual relations, etc.):
The composition of prisoners in the mentioned prisons varied: the intelligentsia, craftsmen, farmers, and different kinds of social scum, including those who received a life sentence from courts in Poland. Relations: thievery accepted by the prison administration, snitching.
6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (daily routine, working conditions, quotas, salary, food rations, clothing, social and cultural life):
Life in the camp. Various prisoners: political and criminal. Daily schedule: wake-up call at 4 a.m. Workday starting at 6 a.m., ending at 6 p.m., no break. Food – absolutely insufficient.
Constant starvation. Quotas very high and practically unattainable. Remuneration theoretical. Own clothing. I didn’t get a hold of any clothes except for a summer hat. There were clothes in the storehouses, but not for the Poles. Social life: Poles harassed by the Russian element, thievery, fights. Cultural life – none. Living conditions: no bedsheets, bare pallets; we covered ourselves with our own clothes, lying on the bare boards. Billions of bedbugs in the beds.
7. NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (methods of interrogation, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
Methods of interrogation: shouting, threatening, coercing confessions by punishment cells.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality (list names of the deceased):
Medical assistance was very poor. No medicine, no medical personnel. Mortality in the labor camp in the North was very high. The camp administration didn’t demonstrate any attention to our health.
9. Was there any possibility to communicate with one’s country and family?
I got in touch with my family in the country and received letters and parcels, but very rarely. We (meaning political prisoners in the camp) were allowed to write once every three months.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to get into the army?
I was released on 28 August 1941. Directly after being released, after approximately a month journey during which I was looking for our army, I came to Totskoye on 25 September 1941 and entered the forming Polish Army right away.
17 February 1943