Corporal Alfred Sadowski, 21 years old, student, unmarried.
Arrested on 2 October 1940 in Łuck, in Volyn, during a mathematics lesson, in the then- Polish secondary school under the Soviet regime. Reason: possible membership in a secret organization.
At the beginning, I was detained in the prison in Łuck. Then, I was sent with a railway transport to Kharkiv, from where after a two-week stay I was sent with other prisoners to Kozhva, from where I was sent in August 1941 to Vorkuta.
In Łuck the prison was old, formerly used by Polish authorities. It was partially destroyed and restored during the war. It was completely devoid of beds and pallets. There weren’t any tables or benches, either. There were beds, mattresses, sheets, and blankets in the cells that were being used as the hospital. In the cells for people under investigation, there were on average two persons per square meter, and in the cells for people who had already been tried – three and a half persons. What’s more, containers for dirty laundry and waste were disproportionately few.
We were let out to the toilet twice a day, at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. The hygiene at the toilet was terrible. Prisoners relieved themselves into no more than four toilets, or directly on the concrete floor. It was possible to wash oneself well, as water was relatively plentiful. I didn’t go to the baths for three months and a half. Lice and bedbugs were common. At night, centipedes often fell down from the ceiling onto our faces. There were two windows for 130 people, open during the whole winter despite temperatures of 30 degrees below. In the investigation cells, only two windowpanes were open in summer, while the entire window was covered with crisscrossing planks that hampered the lighting and ventilation. Due to the large amount of people, it was unnecessary to heat the cells. However, the cells with relatively few people were also unheated, and people who didn’t have their own covers, for example, a blanket or a coat, often came down with pneumonia, flu, and similar diseases.
Hemorrhoids and frostbitten limbs were very common, as many prisoners didn’t have shoes. Medical aid was given by one of the nurses, a Russian woman, every day, in the form of pills and drops. The doctor came once a week, or in case of an emergency.
During my stay in the investigation cell there were four Poles and 28 Ukrainians. All Poles were intelligent (two priests, one policeman); as for the Ukrainians – two of them had graduated from a small secondary school, the others were from the countryside – remarkably unintelligent, but fierce types. The Poles’ moral level was satisfactory, on average the Ukrainians’ moral level was low.
Mutual relations were good, there were no quarrels. After the trial, I was reassigned to a cell with a great number of prisoners. There were 74 Ukrainians and 46 Poles. The intellectual level was similar to the one in the investigation cell. Everyone was tried as a political prisoner. Mutual relations there were bad. Constant tensions, regular fights between Ukrainians and Poles every two days resulting from differences of opinion. Fights were initiated by the Ukrainians. The Poles always won, thanks to their organization and quick coordination; The Soviet authorities didn’t react.
In the Kharkiv prison, conditions were much worse. Six people per square meter. Bad sanitary conditions. We met thieves and all kinds of perverts for the first time. Very good medical aid. Bad hygiene, unventilated toilets, no bath.
In the camp in Kozhva, there were very good living conditions. Hard work.
Life in the camp: Reveille at 12 a.m., work until 5 a.m., breakfast from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m., work from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., dinner from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., free time from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. – sleep, bath, walk.
Living conditions were good until the outbreak of the war against the Germans. After that, I was taken to Vorkuta, still farther north, located in the tundra itself. It was dreadful there. We rose at 4 a.m., left for work at 5:30 a.m. Work was very hard – loading coal on railway cars – and lasted until 6 p.m. with no breaks. We ate dinner on the way back from work. Living conditions were bad. No bedding and mattresses, or even beds. A very good bath every ten days, so there were no lice. Very bad food. A small 50-gram chop made of salted fish and some warm water for breakfast. For dinner, half a liter of oat “soup” where you could find on average 15 grains of oat, and quarter of a liter of oat groats with a minimal amount of fat – margarine. Every one wasted away on that diet, lost their strength every day. However, they kept working to get the 500 grams of black bread, heavy as mud. If someone didn’t reach 100 per cent of the quota, he was given 300 grams.
There was no cultural life in prison and in the camp available to prisoners.
The NKVD authorities’ attitude in the prison was bad. During that month, I was in around 40 interrogations lasting for around 400 hours. And I was beaten every day with a ruler and fists. I survived the entire investigation without confessing. I was no stranger to the tortures of single cells and the punishment cell or the dungeon with cold and hot water.
Contact with my family was only one-sided. They received the cards I wrote to them every two weeks. I know of no deaths.
The amnesty was announced to us on 15 September 1941, and on that day I left for the army in my worst clothes, as other, better things had been taken from me. I couldn’t reach the army at first because recruits were no longer being enlisted in Buzuluk, so we were directed to the kolkhozes on the Amu Darya river, from where I came to the commission in Guzar in April 1942.
I could write a lot, but thinking about it weighs heavily upon the heart.