Rifleman Piotr Sernacki, aged 44, carpenter, married.
On 18 September 1939, I was captured by the Russians near Tarnopol, together with other Polish soldiers.
They brought us to Podwołoczysk [Pidvolochysk], where they got everyone aboard a train and took us to Nowogrod [currently Novohrad-Volynskyi, Ukraine]. Russian boytsy [soldiers] guarded us during the journey and we were only given food after three days. We were held in Nowogrod for six weeks. We weren’t forced to work, but we were fed very poorly. Three hundred twenty Poles were forced to walk 60 kilometers to the town of Korzec [Korets], where we were held for a year and two months.
We made paving stones for road construction. The work was very tough. The daily quota per worker was initially 180 centimeters, which was later increased to three meters. Nutrition was very poor, you could barely walk, yet you had to work because if you didn’t, you would only get 400 grams of bread and thin floury soup with no fat. We were transported from Korzec to Proskurów [Proskuriv], where we stayed until August and worked loading stones. That work was very tough as well, poor nutrition and no pay of any kind. Then we were taken from Proskuriv to Jarmolińce [Yarmolyntsi]. We worked there until the German-Soviet war began. Three days after the war broke out, they started making all of us – slaves – walk 60 km a day, for 17 days in a row. On the road they would give us 200 grams of bread and they wouldn’t even let us drink water. If someone wanted to drink water or collect some for the road, they would shoot them with rifles. I witnessed one of the boytsy shooting one man in his hand for leaning down to pick up some water. I don’t remember his name. Anyone who was too weak and couldn’t walk any further was hit with gun butts and kicked. For those who couldn’t keep going at all – I don’t know what happened to them – I never saw them again.
In Winnica [Vinnytsia] they got us aboard a train, on hopper cars. We travelled six days to Starobielsk [Starobilsk], and for six whole days it rained constantly. Soaking wet, cold, and starving, we barely got out alive. They held us at Starobielsk for six months. They didn’t give us any work. They fed us very poorly: we would be given 400 grams of bread and tiny salty fish – I was swollen from hunger.
Many people died, I can’t remember their names.
The NKVD were very hostile towards us.
I was released in August 1941. Afterwards, I faced the Polish military commission in Starobielsk and once more I entered the ranks of the Polish army, where I remain to this day.