Sergeant Major Izydor Michalski, born 1901, non-commissioned officer in the regular army.
On 23 September 1939, I was captured by Soviet troops and transported to the POW camp in Kozelsk. On 10 October 1939, I was released from captivity, together with all the prisoners of war, because the Soviets released those who lived in the territories seized by the Soviet authorities, so I returned to where my family lived. Until my arrest – hiding from the Soviet authorities – I maintained contact with my family, who lived in the borderland, where I had served in 1939.
On 20 March 1940, I was arrested by the NKVD and placed in Berezwecz prison [now Berazvechcha, Belarus], charged with taking part in killing a Soviet soldier in 1939, which had happened in the sector guarded by the company that I served in. Next, they demanded that I disclose the names of informers working in that sector for the Border Protection Corps [KOP, Polish military force defending the eastern borders, 1924-39]. I denied acquaintance with such people, even though [the Soviets] used various methods, such as locking me up half-naked in cold cells (solitary confinement). They kept me starving for up to two days, giving me only salted fish and nothing to drink.
During that time, they interrogated me several times per night.
On 1 March 1940, I was sentenced to eight years in forced labor camps. The POW camp in Kozelsk was only for Polish prisoners of war. It had once been a holiday resort. At that time, there were about 10,000 people [there]; [this number] included mostly servicemen, policemen, and civilians. We ate twice a day; they explained this was because they were not prepared for such a large number of people, and they promised this would change for the better. The treatment of POWs during transport was beneath criticism – during the three-day journey they gave us no food and allowed no outsiders to approach. All officers and non-commissioned officers were placed in one train car, which was closed and guarded by Soviet sentries all the time.
Berezwecz prison was [formed from] former monastery buildings where Border Protection Corps units had been stationed in 1939; at that time it was a prison, and its inmates were about 1,500 men and 150 women – 3 percent of them non-Polish. The number of prisoners constantly changed due to continual arrests, and the inmates were deported to Russia.
On 3 January 1940, I was deported to the USSR, to Chibyu-Ukhta, forest site no. 3. The food during transport was: 700 grams of bread, a piece of fish, and the snow brought into the water barrels in the wagon during stops. No medical care was provided during the journey. During a stop, I noticed a few people frozen to death in an unheated car. Their surnames were not established.
In the labor camp there were about 400 people of various nationalities; Poles accounted for 60 percent, and the others were from USSR territories. Life in the camp consisted of 14 hours of logging work. Everyone had a quota to meet, and daily food ration depended on meeting it [quota]. Ninety percent of Polish people in the camp failed to meet the high quota, and I was one of them, because of exhaustion. We received 400 grams of bread, soup twice a day, and a herring or some other fish once a day.
Medical assistance. There was a Russian doctor in the camp; he was also one of the inmates and had guidelines, imposed by the authorities, concerning how to handle ill people. Unless a patient reported with fever that exceeded 38 degrees, he was considered healthy and rushed to work. Those fainting from exhaustion were sent to the hospital, from which they never returned. There was one fatal accident – during tree-felling [the cutting down of a tree].
Contact with the country was not possible at all, because no mail was received. Our source of information from the outside world was the Soviet people who came from the town for wood. They shared the news they had heard on the radio.
On 1 September 1941, amnesty for the Poles was announced. After the amnesty, several Soviet agitators appeared and began to persuade us to volunteer for work, promising high remuneration. They told us that it would not be possible to obtain permission to leave until after three months of work. In that case, about 40 people from the camp volunteered for work and left for some unknown destination. On 9 September 1941, official amnesty was announced to us, and we were informed that a Polish army was being organized in Buzuluk; I was issued a document to go there.
On 19 September 1941, I reported in Totskoye and [was] enlisted in the Polish Army.