1.Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, and marital status):
Bombardier Zenon Sierżant, age 34, carpenter, unmarried.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
My brother and I were arrested on 26 March 1940 in Dołhinow (Wilno voivodship, Wilejka district), for beating up a Komsomol [communist youth organization in the USSR] member, Antoni Hleb, a Polish man who became a blatant communist when the Soviet army came.
3. Name of the camp (prison, place of forced labor):
I was in prison in Wilejka for two months. Then, [I was] sentenced to five years of labor camp, [and] I was sent to Khabarovsk region.
4.Description of the camp, prison (area, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
It was a camp situated in a taiga. Living conditions were extremely tough. We set up a camp ourselves, by cutting down the forest. It was named Novotambovskiy Camp (RSFSR [Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic], Khabarovsky Kray, Novotambovskiy Lagerpunkt). Hygienic conditions were poor. The nearest town was 100 kilometers from us.
5. The composition of prisoners of war, inmates, exiles (nationality, category of crimes, intellectual and moral standing, mutual relations, etc.):
There were about a thousand people there, almost exclusively Poles. Nearly all of them were political prisoners. The intellectual and moral standing was average. Mutual relations were completely proper: the Polish would stick together and support one another.
6. Life in the camp, prison (daily routine, working conditions, work quotas, remuneration, food, clothing, social life, etc.):
Work would take place between 6:00 AM and 8:00 PM. Working conditions were hard; one needed to cut down eight cubic meters of thick wood. Achieving this daily standard granted 800 g of bread and soup three times a day. We were badly clothed, as the clothes wore out very quickly during the forest work. There was a sense of camaraderie among the prisoners, but there wasn’t any cultural life at all.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards the Polish people (interrogation methods, torture and other forms of punishment, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The NKVD was particularly hostile towards Polish people. There was no investigation and I was sentenced based on Hleb’s report. There was Communist propaganda in the camps and it was meant to turn one against everything Polish, praising the Soviet Union at the same time.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (give the names of the deceased):
There was almost no medical assistance at all. Very many people died.
9. Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
There was no contact with one’s country or family.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
After the Polish-Soviet agreement [Sikorski-Mayski agreement of 1941], I was on trial again for three days, after which I was sentenced to death. However, after the amnesty [for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union], I was released. Once I made my way to Uzbekistan, I made my living working on a kolkhoz and then, in February 1942, I entered the ranks of the Polish army in Kermine [currently Navoiy, Uzbekistan].