Private Felicjan Panasewicz
On the night of 12–13 April 1940, in Różana (Kosava-Paleskaje district), I was arrested by the NKVD and the Soviet militia together with my family – my father, mother and two sisters. They broke in to our home at night, ordered us first of all to hand over any weapons and then started to search each of us separately, as they had us standing each a few meters apart from one another. They ordered us not to move, otherwise we would be shot in the head. All the exits were watched by Soviet soldiers with their weapons ready. Then they proceeded to search our home. When they were done, they told us to approach the table and read out the sentence: because my brother Józef was an officer of the Polish Army and was currently held captive by the Soviets in Kozelsk (Smolensk Oblast), and my second brother, a non- commissioned officer of the 19th Relief Infantry Regiment of Lwów, had not returned from the 1939 war (my second brother was handed over by the local police serving the Soviets), we were deemed to be hostile toward the Soviet authorities and dubious, based on which we were to be deported into Russia. Next, they ordered us to get ready and did not allow us to take more than a restricted amount of food and clothing. We were escorted straight away to the nearest transport heading into Russia. They did not pay attention to the fact that my mother was gravely ill (the doctor summoned stated that her condition was grave) and disregarded our requests to leave her at home for a short time to recover. They refused everything and carried her to the cart.
After fourteen days of tiring journey in locked wagons, we were let out in the Akmolinsk Oblast of the KSRR [Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic] in the rural settlement of Novo Cherkask [Nowoczerkasskoje], where we were settled. On the next day, my sisters and I were ordered to work in the local kolkhoz, where an overseer came every day and we had to go into the steppe. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have suitably warm clothing, given the harsh climate, and that we hadn’t enough food. And the half a kilo of bread in exchange for work was not always given us.
Because of these difficult living conditions in cold, humid clay huts, my father fell ill and died. Shortly after, I fell ill too and had to stay for two months in a Soviet hospital in Astrakhanka. When I recovered, I had to continue working to improve the situation of my family, my mother being a sickly elderly woman and my sisters hardly able to support themselves. In such conditions, we survived the winter of 1941/42. In March, I left my family at the above-mentioned place in hopes that they would get at least partial support from Polish institutions, joined the Polish Army in USSR and was enlisted in Lugovoy on 27 March 1942.