1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, field post number, age, occupation, and marital status):
Corporal Franciszek Plewiński, 29 years old, farmer, unmarried; field post number 160.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 10 February 1940 at 6 o’clock, together with my family, that is, with my mother Ludwika and my brothers, 10-year-old Mieczysław and 8-year-old Józef. This was in the settlement of Kalinka, in the commune of Ihrowica, Tarnopol district. We were arrested by one Soviet official and two commune officials, accompanied by two guards with bayonets on their weapons. After a thorough search, they let us take only 10 kilograms of groats and around 20 kilograms of flour, as well as clothes.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Komi ASSR, Priluzsky region, Noshul forest site, quarter 180.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (area, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
The area was swampy, covered with coniferous woods, with lots of mosquitoes in summer. Wooden buildings, badly finished, with broken windows, no whitewash. In the cracks there were lots of bedbugs, which bothered us horribly. The 15-square-meter flats housed several families, that is to say, 15 people.
5. Composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles (nationality, category of crime, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations, etc.):
The exiles were of both sexes and various ages, of Polish nationality. The crime for which these families had been taken was simply being Poles who cultivated Polish culture and language in the eastern territories of Poland. The exiles were mostly farmers, their education – usually primary school. The attitude of Poles towards the Soviets was hostile.
6. Life at camp, prison, etc. (daily routine, working conditions, quotas, pay, food, clothing, social and cultural life): Life as an exile was very difficult when one had a family to feed. Hard work at felling trees, waist-deep in snow in winter, swarms of mosquitoes pestering us in summer. A worker could earn five rubles a day, and for that money one had to clothe and feed one’s family and oneself, as well as pay for the house they assigned to the exiles, for light, and for firewood. An exile could only eat potatoes, bread, berries, and mushrooms. In summer, the families ate mostly berries and mushrooms. Social and cultural life was at a low level. Women older than 40 went to mow hay in summer, and in winter they chopped wood and cleared snow from the roads; they earned up to two rubles a day.
7. The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards Poles (interrogation method, torture, punishments, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The NKVD was very hostile towards us Poles and treated us unbearably. They forced everyone from the age of 14 to the age of 60 to work. Those aged from 18 to 50 felled trees, those older than 50 and younger than 18 of both sexes chopped wood and cleared snow. When someone shirked work, they were locked in cold flats, and then they were put on trial. Communist propaganda was being spread, and it was mostly Polish children who were indoctrinated.
8. Medical aid, hospitals, mortality (list the names of the dead):
Medical aid was neglected, there were no medicines. Mortality was high, around 30 per cent died of pneumonia, dysentery, bloody diarrhea, and typhoid. The dead whose names I can remember were: Ludwika Plewińska, Maria Mazur, Tekla Solecka, Władysław Luciów, Irena Ciurlik, Bogusław Ciurlik, Alfons Ciurlik, Irena Karpińska, Irena Walatyo, Jan Kowalski, Marian Kowalski, Adolf Kowalski, Maciej Kowalski, Stanisława Frankowicz, Stefan Bator, Marian Kulik, Rozalia Kulikowa, Jan Stary, Adam Miter, Adela Nowakowska, Maria Osień, and many others.
9. How did the contact with one’s country and family look, if there was any?
Contact with the country was hampered; parcels, money, and letters were lost.
10. When were you released and how did you reach the army?
Our freedom was announced around 20 September 1941. Information about the army was scarce, Soviet officials simply tried to persuade Poles that there was no Polish army and that it wasn’t being created in the USSR. When we wanted to leave for the Polish army, they didn’t pay us the money we’d earned. An example: I had earned 200 rubles, and the Head, Kozonov, didn’t allow me to be paid even one kopeck. And he said that there was no Polish army in the USSR, just like there was no hair on one’s hand, that there was and would be no Poland, that the Poles’ country is in the taiga in the north. They gave us no money and no food for the journey to the army. The food they did give us on the way was scarce and irregular. On the way from Chelyabinsk to Orsk, I ate mostly raw cabbage and cabbage stalks. I often didn’t eat anything for two days in a row.
I attest to these facts with my personal signature.