Senior Sergeant Józef Śledź, 45, manufacturer, married.
On 17 September 1939, I was arrested by the NKVD and deported to the city of Pleszczenice in Russia [USSR]. I was in prison for two weeks. When they led me to prison, they told me that I was [being] held hostage, so nobody recorded my arrest. In prison, I stayed in a single cell, [was] without the ability to communicate, and [was] dependent on the prison food. After these two weeks, I was transported to the prison in the city of Głębokie, and placed in a common cell where I met many friends. I learned from them that a number of arrests had been carried out in my town. Cells were so overcrowded that there was no room for any night rest. Cells did not meet any hygienic requirements – dirt, lice, and vermin [were all present]. The food consisted of a slice of bread weighing approximately 150 grams, and a dirty so-called soup.
During my three-month stay in prison in Głębokie, I was interrogated 26 times. Interrogations usually took place at night, and each one lasted for hours. The head of the NKVD, Baranov, took delight in beating arrestees during interrogations in a sadistic way, forcing them to confess to the [false] accusations. I was accused of collaborating with the Second Department [military intelligence], and they tried to force me to confess to this. Because my statement did not cover the accusation, Baranov punished me with a two- month dungeon [confinement], located in the basement of the prison. There, I fell ill; swollen all over my body and after being examined by a doctor, I was placed back into a common cell. Staying in the darkness weakened my senses so much, that after returning to the common cell I was not able to recognize my best friends. Later, interrogations were conducted, but the result was always the same.
After three months, I was transported to the prison in Berezwecz [Vitebsk region]. There was a monastery [which was] turned into the prison. Here, the cells were overcrowded as well. Rooms, despite the great frosts, were not heated, and the prisoners were sleeping in their own clothes on bunks, without any covers. The food was also poor because it was [only] a piece of bread and soup. Parcels sent by family were admitted, but not passed on to prisoners, because authorities had ordered to confiscate them. We received only underwear and some tobacco from these parcels. New prisoners were arriving every day, and we received news from them about mass arrests and deportation of Polish families to Russia [USSR]. The prisoners were mostly from the intelligentsia of Polish nationality.
[On] 28 February 1940, I was called to the prison corridor, where there were many friends of mine, and at around 5:00 PM, we were transported to the Głębokie railway station, where we were loaded into freight cars – 60 people per car – and taken to the Soviet prison in Orsha [a city in Belarus, by the Dnieper]. The journey lasted four days. Cars were unheated. During this entire time, I only received 400 grams of bread twice. In Orsha, we were escorted to prison on foot. Here, they split us into groups and placed [us] in cramped, damp cells. Measurements of the cells were: five by four by three meters; 25 people were imprisoned in such a cell. Cells were neither heated nor ventilated; the prisoners were not taken out for a stroll. The whole day the cell was closed, the toilet was changed once a day, so the stench from it was polluting the air. Here, I was not interrogated anymore.
In April 1940, I was sentenced to eight years of forced labor in the prison camps. On May 1940, we were again loaded into freight cars and taken to Kotlas [a city in the USSR, in the Arkhangelsk Oblast]. The journey lasted about a month and took place under very arduous conditions; because the cars were locked, physiological needs were done inside, and we got food once a day: a slice of bread weighing 300–400 grams, and water.
In Kotlas, we were placed in a camp with Russians. There were barracks surrounded by barbed wire. About 300 people were living in barracks, sleeping on bunks built one above the other. Polish prisoners did not use the barracks, because Russian thugs constantly attacked us, ripped off our clothes, stole underwear, and other stuff. After one week, we were loaded onto a barge and we went north to Czubi [Czibiu?]. There, they split us into groups of 200 people and sent us to neighboring forests to stump [remove tree stumps] the area for the construction of a railway line. In those swampy forests, we used branches to build hovels [shelter], and we rested there at night. The work lasted from 16 to 18 hours a day. Impossible quotas were required [of us], which involved stumping an area of around 20 m², digging it out, and preparing it for the railway track. Food depended on meeting quotas. When you met a quota, you could get 500 grams of damp, half-raw bread, and so-called soup twice a day. There was no bath or changing of underwear. After three months, the prisoners were exhausted. They forced us to work by beatings and putting us in isolation. I was a witness to the incident, when Engineer Połoński, who worked in Poland in the heavy industry at the COP [Central Industrial District], was killed with clubs at work, because he was unable to work due to lack of strength.
After three months, the medical commission, which allegedly came from Moscow, considered 80 people completely unable to do physical work. I belonged to that group. We were taken to the nearby working colony, where there were people who were exhausted and unable to do physical work. We received a little better food, but after a two-week stay, when we were nourished up a bit, again, we were forced to do the same work. Due to the way prisoners were treated, and how the working conditions were, prisoners became so depressed that many of them chopped off their feet or hands with their own axes. Suicides were a frequent phenomenon as well. We had our own clothing, which was completely destroyed, because at work it wore down terribly, and there wasn’t the slightest opportunity to repair it.
Relationships between Poles were good. We were persecuted by the Russians at every turn.
We did not have the possibility to contact our families; we did not have any information about Poland. In the winter months of 1941/42, feeding conditions were much worse, [to the extent] that prisoners were catching rats and eating their meat. For 250 people, we received five kilograms of rye flour for an entire day of living; this meant 500 grams of bread per person. I was also a witness to an elderly Georgian, who was physically exhausted, cutting off his hand with his own ax, then warders, who set trained dogs on him, rushed him to work. Naturally, the prisoner died. Such occurrences were countless.
On 9 January 1942, after the announcement of the amnesty, I was released from the camp. In my udostowierienija [document releasing from the labor camp], I was assigned to a place to live in the North. They offered me a job. They did not want to let us go to the Polish Army. We were released from the camp in small groups; in this way, they didn’t allow larger groupings to be formed. After leaving the camp, I managed to get to Kotlas, where I found a Polish outpost, which directed us to Kermine [a city in Uzbekistan], and here, I enlisted in the Polish Army.