1. [Personal details:]
Corporal Józef Panek, 31 years old; occupation: stoker of a steam generator; unmarried; [field post office] no. 163.
2. [Date and circumstance of arrest:]
I was arrested on 23 April 1940 in Dobromil for my participation in a Polish underground organization against the Soviets.
3. [Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site:]
I stayed in a prison in Drohobycz until 18 July 1940, and then I was taken to the Korolonka prison in Kiev. I remained in Kiev until 6 July 1941, and then I was taken to Gorky. I do not remember the name of the prison.
4. [Description of the camp, prison:]
I was in a crowded, 24-meter-long and 1.8-meter-wide prison cell. There were 12 people in there. Water poured down the moldy walls, a light was on day and night, lice bit us, we were dirty and hungry; each day we got 400 grams of bread and boiled water. The cell was not heated.
5. [The composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles:]
There were 35,000 Poles [sic] in the prison, all of whom were political prisoners.
6. [Life in the camp, prison:]
Life in the prison was harsh, I slept on a bare floor, without any blanket. The Soviet authorities took my clothes, money, watches and other items.
7. [The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:]
The NKVD authorities treated Poles very roughly, beat them severely and insulted them with various names as well as telling them that Poland will be once and for all communist.
8. [Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:]
There was no medical aid and even during the transport from Kiev to Gorky, with 88 people in a wagon, where 38 people died each day because of hunger and lack of fresh air, there was likewise no medical aid.
In Paklava [?] these people died [illegible] – I can recall only two names: Judge Gurski from Jagielnica (Czortków district), 40 years old; Włodzimierz Balwajder, 41 years old, from Dobromil, Lwów Voivodeship.
9. [Was there any chance to get in contact with one’s country and family?]
I had no chance to contact my family or anyone in the country, because they wouldn’t let me.
10. [When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?]
I was released from prison on 28 October 1941. I joined the army in 1942 in Kokand, Wilayah Fergana, where I appeared before the Polish-Soviet commission [illegible] and got assigned to the [illegible] to the 9th Division.