Master Corporal Kazimierz Mańkowski, born on 2 March 1895, senior constable of the State Police, married.
I was arrested on the night between 30 and 31 May 1940 by order of the Soviet authorities of the NKVD in Łuck, Wołyń, where I served in the Voivodship State Police Headquarters in the rank of senior constable. I was taken away from my family and home, leaving my wife and five young children destitute. That crucial night a thorough search of the premises had been carried out, for the second time in a row, [in search of] weapons and items that could become incriminating evidence. I was interrogated several times, I was charged with deceiving the Soviet authorities by introducing myself as a gardener at the State Police, and with the violation of article 45.13. During the interrogations I was asked to collaborate with the NKVD as a paid snitch in exchange for releasing me from jail.
I stayed in Łuck prison until 21 April 1941. The overall living conditions were worsening day by day. In cell 20 where I had been locked up, I was the 25th person to be put there and when I was leaving it, the number of inmates had risen to 87. In another joint cell where I was locked up three days before sending me to Soviet Russia, it was even worse, to such an extent that there wasn’t enough space on the floor for everybody to lie down, so turns were taken. Demanding a doctor for the sick was pointless, the jail infirmary was overcrowded, and they wouldn’t transport inmates to state hospitals, so the mortality rate was overwhelming. I am listing the deceased known to me in Łuck prison below:
1. Michał Kuraczycki, State Police commissioner
2. Lisiecki, State Police senior constable
3. Szpak, State Police constable
4. Rens, former Parliament member
5. Count Zygmunt Ledóchowski
All of them from Łuck, and:
6. Prelate Tokarzewski, a parish priest of Kowlo, and many others.
In the joint cell mentioned above were a parish priest from Dubno (I can’t recall the name) and father Kobylarski. They held quiet prayers with us, keeping our spirits up and hearing confessions.
On 19 April 1941 my verdict in absentia was read out to me, sentencing me to eight years of forced labor. I was still strong in my faith and full of fervent hope that we would outlive the tyrants, as only villainous nations shall die out.
On 21 April 1941 I was moved to Lwów prison by a rail transport (in prison wagons), together with other inmates. About two weeks after arriving there we were taken to Kiev prison, where I stayed for another two weeks.
From Kiev we were transported to Kharkiv, where I spent around a month. It was a central prison where captives from Poland and other conquered territories were held. It was enormously overcrowded, and conditions were awful, every day a few dead bodies were taken out. The attitude towards the prisoners was terrible, Soviet criminals were doing time together with political prisoners of the conquered countries so Poles were hurt the most, often being beaten till they bled, we were robbed of everything and terrorized to stay silent. A so-called headman was appointed by the prison board among the Soviet criminal offenders, and usually it was a man from the social margins. Such a headman had all the power within his cell, so when the food to be shared among the cellmates was served he would be grossly unfair, making the already thin portions even smaller. The complaints we made didn’t bring any results, but only escalated the conflict.
The Kharkiv prison was overcrowded to such an extent that there was no way to move at all inside the cell. We were allowed to walk in the courtyard on extremely rare occasions and sometimes there would be no walks for weeks. From time to time there was a bath, during which the prisoners (male) would undergo medical examination conducted by a female doctor. At the same time the clothing was disinfected, but in such a poor manner that the lice would still bother us, spreading the bacteria of infectious diseases, especially typhus. Lavatories were incredibly dirty, and it was unbearably stuffy in the cells. Among the prisoners, Poles were the most numerous, but also the most hated, even by the Ukrainian nationalists – fellow companions in misery, who viciously and wrongly accused us of made- up nonsense, like harassing them, and for the hostile attitude of the Polish politicians and government towards the Ukrainians. As a result of that bias, we had to face many unpleasant situations. They gathered separately for chats, where they would talk about history, heroic fights of the Ukrainian nation, they would sing patriotic songs and [discuss] the great future of creating an independent Ukrainian state with the approval of a victorious Nazi Germany. A leading figure and organizer in the Kharkhiv prison was Dr Mogilnicki from Włodzimierz Wołyński, whom I shared a cell with throughout the whole time.
Relatives, or even friends, who came from the same town were separated, and during subsequent transports each was sent in a different direction so that they wouldn’t meet. No intellectual entertainment was allowed or provided. We did some things secretly though – for example chess – but after the first search carried out by the prison guards, all such items would be taken away and the owner would usually be sent to solitary confinement for a few days. There was no reading at all: a newspaper, or rather its torn pieces, was a rarity. News from the world came almost exclusively with the help of new prisoners, and the cells would communicate by knocking on the adjoining walls, using the so-called prison alphabet.
In June I was deported from Kharkiv in a huge railway transport into the tundra of the Urals, near the White Sea, through Moscow, Kotlas, Pechora, and placed in the main distribution camp for the period of allocation. The transport was directed and overseen by a large and vigilant escort of NKVD soldiers, armed and equipped specifically for that mission. There were also watchdogs (wolves) for increased alertness and safety of the escort. The train also had a special telephone apparatus and headlights installed on the outside in order to illuminate the whole carriage at night. At every night stop, an inspection was carried out with the help of wooden hammers used to hit the walls of the wagons from the outside to ensure their integrity. It was the most upsetting inspection for the unhappy involuntary passengers. Apart from that, a couple of times every 24 hours, including nights, the inmates within individual train cars were inspected. To ensure the convoy stayed alert, or maybe to discourage fleeing, gunshots were fired from time to time. When the cars were opened for a check or for handing out food, at least two soldiers armed with rifles with bayonets fixed and ready to thrust were guarding the door.
Provisions consisted almost solely of dry food, that is, a portion of a pale bread, tiny, uncleaned salty fish, one sugar cube and plain water served in limited amounts. Needless to say, with such nutrition we were feeling as hungry as bears.
From the distribution camp in Pechora, we were sent together with a group of about a hundred prisoners to walk to our destination, which was at least 300 kilometers distant. We were carrying our bundles on our backs – that is, if we still had them. The journey lasted a couple of days, the way we were going was extremely difficult – actually it wasn’t really a way, but just footprints of the passing people who had been bogged down just like us, walking on the swampy grounds, getting stuck all the time because of the fallen trees blocking our way, being constantly forced to march faster, while the weaker at the back were sworn at horribly. Breaks for resting were rare, and at night we were driven to nearby fields, where – under the stars, often in the rain, wet, and dead tired – we would sleep for a few hours. We were already marching on in the early morning, oftentimes hungry, because the supply points many times didn’t have provisions even for their own people. I remember marching for three days without receiving any food, eventually reaching our destination. It was a labor camp inhabited by the 15th Vehicle Unit, where around 300 distressed exiles of various nationalities were housed. Similar camps were set up every several dozen kilometers, each having an assigned work circuit – the task was to construct a new railway, Kotlas – Pechora – Vorkuta (White Sea).
This was where the lingering death of the Polish convict began. He was driven to do heavy work in the ground, digging the irrigation canals for the assigned territory. Along the railway, the soil, or rather peat, had to be picked out and removed with carriers or barrows at least 50 meters to one side. The thickness of the peat layer was varying, one meter and above. An empty canal, with the hardened bottom, could be then filled with sand, gravel or quarry stone from the nearby rocks, brought by trucks and formed into a bank. This labor was preceded by another one, that is laying a road made from wooden logs rather than from gravel or stones, because without this any other task would have been impossible.
In every job there was an appointed quota to attain. The labor was mandatory and divided into two shifts of 12 hours each, excluding the time it took to get there and back. Summer rains, which were very frequent in the area, were not to disrupt any work, and we did not have appropriate clothing. Very often we were soaking wet and so were our feet, constantly, because of the poor footwear and muddy terrain.
The worst burden was the lack of food. It was prepared in three categories (the so-called cauldrons). The first cauldron – the worst food – would be given to those who hadn’t reached the appointed quota. The second cauldron would be given to those who had filled the quota, and the third – to those who exceeded the quota. It was a rarity for any of our people to fill the quota, because they were too wretched, weak and sick, so we usually got the food from the first cauldron. To that group I belonged, too.
In these conditions I wasn’t able to think about anything else other than to satisfy my hunger. Due to the lack of food, especially fats and vitamins, I became weak, I could barely walked from place to place, I got night-blindness, lingering wounds appeared on my arms and legs (so-called cynga [scurvy]), my limbs got swollen because of the starvation, and I had a temperature of 38 degrees [Celsius]. All these symptoms weren’t enough for the nurse to release me from physical work, he just gave me a glass of pine needle tea and cheered me up saying he would give us fish oil as soon as he got it, which never happened.
Both physically and morally broken, I thought I would be released from this torment within a few days, bidding farewell to my life. God had been watching over me though, because in this crucial moment the joyful news spread that there had been an agreement reached between Poland, England and Russia. We still worked for a long time after that, but the attitude of the guards and the living conditions got a little better.
To illustrate the gruesomeness of various experiences, I’ll give a brief account of one of such incidents. A young man known to me, to free himself from this tyranny for at least some time and get into the hospital, mutilated himself by cutting off his thumb on the left hand.
While working in exile I became acquainted an ex-starost of Stażki, near Lwów, a former prosecutor, Ossoliński, from Lwów, and Lt. Col. Krzywoszyński, a referent [chief of department] of Military Affairs from Lwów. The latter, after fainting, was moved to another camp, the so-called słabosiłka, where he probably died.
In October I returned from the labor camps of the North and we were placed in kolkhozes in Uzbekistan, by the Amu Darya river. After a month we were transported to kolkhozes in Bukhara Oblast, G`ijduvon district, sielsoviet Gishty, kolkhoz Ittifak.
On 10 February 1942 I stood before the Military Medical Commission at a rallying point in Kermine. The next day I was assigned to the 2nd Company of the 7th Division in Narpay, Bukhara Oblast. On 2 of April I arrived in Persia (Pahlevi), on 5 May in Palestine, and on 23 June I finished training in the Gendarmerie School in Haifa.
28 January 1943