1. Personal details (name, surname, rank, field post number, age, occupation and marital status):
Gunner Bolesław Rafałowski, 24 years old, a locksmith’s apprentice, unmarried; field post number: 161.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 28 May 1940 for possession of a weapon.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
For about two months I was in prison in Łoża. Then, through the transitional points, I was sent to Arkhangelsk where I stayed until I was released.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
The living conditions in the labor camps were unbearable. We were living in tents pitched on the snow while it was 50 degrees Celsius below zero. We were sleeping in filth. Our clothes and underwear were full of lice.
5. Composition of prisoners, captives, deportees (nationality, types of crimes, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations, etc.):
The deportees’ nationalities were various: there were Uzbeks, Georgians, Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews. As regards the types of crimes, they were mostly political criminals. The Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians were the most hostile towards the Poles.
6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (the course of an average day, work conditions, quotas, remuneration, food, clothing, social and cultural life, etc.):
The day in the labor camp started before dawn, at 5 a.m. After breakfast, consisting of soup or rather water with a few cabbage leaves, we were going for labor. We were working until dusk. The conditions were difficult and it was hard to meet the quotas. Our quota was to lay out seven cubic meters of construction wood for the bridge and we received about eight rubles a month for that. When we got back from work, we again got soup for supper and 400 grams of bread. Due to this kind of feeding we were all exhausted and we couldn’t even reach 25% of our quotas.
7. The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards the Poles (interrogation methods, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
When I was in the prison, I was interrogated by the NKVD three times a day. During the interrogation I was beaten, threatened with death, called “a Polish swine” and other insulting and brutal words filled with hate towards the Poles and Poland.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality (give the names of the dead):
In the labor camps Russian physicians treated all diseases with quinine. The mortality rate was very high. There were many cases when a deportee went to work and suddenly he started bleeding and died.
9. What kind of contact, if any, was there with your family and country?
I didn’t have any contact with my family in Poland. I received one letter from my colleague who wrote that he sent me a package with food and money, but I didn’t get any of them.
10. When you were released and how did you get to the army?
On 30 August 1941 I was released from the labor camp in Arkhangelsk by virtue of the agreement between the Polish government and the USSR. From Arkhangelsk I came to Tatishchevo, where I was assigned to the 5th armored battalion.
Temporary quarters, 17 March 1943