1. [Personal data:]
Corporal Józef Sajpel, 36 years old, worker, married; field post number 163.
2. [Date and circumstances of arrest:]
On 15 October 1939, I was arrested in Lesko for crossing the border. I was coming from my wife’s family, who were on the other side of the demarcation line on the San river, back to my family, who were in Lesko.
3. [Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site:]
I stayed in Lesko for two days. I was transported to Lwów, I stayed in the Brygidki prison. On 25 January 1940, I was transported to Russia, to the prison in Kirovograd, where I was given a default sentence of five years. On 18 June 1940, I was transported to the gulag on the Pechora river.
4. [Description of the camp, prison:]
In the prison cells in Lwów, there were very many prisoners, so it was impossible even to lie down. They lay down to sleep next to each other on the floor. They were given almost no water.
5. [Composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles:]
In the prison in Poland, there were only Poles, while in the gulag, we were mixed with Russian thieves and murderers, and treated worse than them. When I went to complain, they were always right, not me.
6. [Life at camp, prison:]
After a breakfast consisting of a piece of bread and a so-called soup, we had to work for ten hours until evening, when we were given soup again. Work conditions were very hard, so you were completely exhausted physically and morally – you crippled yourself, unable to fill the quota, as it was called. Better to die than to live in the gulag.
7. [The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards Poles:]
After confessing that I had served in the Polish Army, I was reminded of 1918: “You beat our brothers!” – and hit on the head with a revolver butt, while another one beat me with a stick. There were 11 such nights. When talking about Poland, they said that it would never exist, that England had pushed us, Poland, into the war with Germany.
8. [Medical aid, hospitals, mortality:]
Very poor medical aid, so people with blood dysentery were sent to the so-called hospital, were they died.
9. [How did contact with one’s country and family look, if there was any?]
I had no contact with the country from the moment of arrest. I was forbidden to write or talk to anyone in our nation.
10. [When were you released and how did you reach the army?]
I was released by virtue of the amnesty and directed to Buzuluk. Since there was no place for me due to the large inflow of released Poles, I went to work in kolkhozes in the Karakalpak Republic, from where I was called to the Polish army on 18 February 1942.
Temporary quarters, 17 March 1943