1. Personal details (name, surname, rank, military mail no., age, profession and marital status):
Ludwik Borger, corporal, 193, 28 years old, carpenter-upholsterer, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested during the night of 17–18 September 1940. I was taken away from home supposedly for interrogation, to the NKVD.
3. Name of camp, prison or place of forced labor:
Stanisławów Prison, a labor camp in Starobelsk, port of Bukhta-Nakhodka, Kolyma island.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (terrain, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
In Stanisławów, I sat in a small single cell, where there were 20–24 [people]. [There was] also a toilet in there. We slept on the floor—just sitting, without bathing, among the lice. In Starobielsk it was a little better, because at least they gave us straw mattresses and blankets and there was a bath once every two weeks. In Bukhta-Nakhodka [it was] just like in Starobielsk.
On Kolyma island, the housing conditions [were] deplorable, [we lived] in barracks, [it was] cold, we slept on the boards without undressing and we had a bath twice a month.
5. Composition of prisoners, POWs, exiles (nationality, category of crimes, intellectual and moral level, interpersonal relations etc.):
The Poles were the most numerous, and apart from them there were Jews, Ukrainians, Czechs, Magyars and Russians. Everyone [had been] arrested for political reasons, but there were differences between them. The intellectual and moral level varied. Our relations depended on who made your [acquaintance], and which nationality he was. It was worst with the Ukrainians because they were happy with our misfortune.
6. Life in the camp, prison (the course of an average day, working conditions, quotas, remuneration, food, clothing, social and cultural life):
The Kolyma gulag: in the morning, [when it was] still dark, there was a wake-up call [accompanied by] words that the average person would not even call a dog or other animal. Whoever was sluggish because of the cold or hunger was yanked to the floor by his feet, and he then had to pick himself up. Later, there was a breakfast consisting of hot water and 500 grams of bread. Then we worked until the evening. Sometimes they brought us some soup for lunch, but usually there was nothing until dinner. The work was very hard, the quotas [were] large, and the only pay [we received] was a portion of bread. Whoever made the quotas received 500 grams of bread, and who did not got 250–300 grams per day.
The food [was] indescribable: water with cabbage or groats, some salty herring, a portion of bread depending on the quota and hot water. Clothes: [we had] very flimsy thin leather shoes, denim trousers and something similar on top in temperatures as low as minus 40. It was not until the coldest weather that we were given padded trousers, a jacket and shoes made of material. Social life was marked by stress and culture was at a very low level.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards the Poles (interrogation method, torture, punishment, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The interrogation would usually begin with sweet promises of release from prison [and] seeing our family again, and if that did not help, we were threatened with the deportation and the execution of our family. If this [still] did not work, some manual requests were made and we were ordered to sit for several hours right on the edge of a chair with our legs extended forward. If [anyone] fainted, they would give him a kick, douse him with water, whack him in the teeth with the butt of a revolver. They would order him to hang on his ribs on a clothes hanger; they came up with the very worst, and all this took place at night. They would lock us in the so-called dungeons without food and water, and they would stick a corpse in there to make a bigger impression. Led out several times to be shot. Propaganda at every step, the information about Poland identical: “propala” [“gone”], “nebudet” [“will not return”].
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality (surnames of the dead):
Medical assistance [was given] only in the case of wounds and fevers—if [anyone] did not have this, he could die, he had to go to work. I cannot say anything about the hospitals because I never lay in one. Mortality was very high, people were dropping like flies in the cold. I remember only [one] name: Urbański from Kosovo.
9. Was there any communication with homeland and family? If so, how was it?
Communication in general was very poor. We could still find out what [had happened] back home from those who were later arrested, but what [had happened] to our family— that [we found out] only before the outbreak of the Russian-German war.
Hardly anybody could write to their family. I did not have any news from the day I was arrested.
10. When were you released and how did you reach the army?
I was released in September 1941 [and went] to the meeting point for those released, but [in] October we were taken back in a convoy. On 28 December, I was released for the second time and on 1 January 1942, I left Kolyma on a ship. When I received my passport, I received 250 rubles for the journey, which could last no more than ten days. In the meantime, the journey lasted 30 days by means of transportation and with my own money.
I arrived at the army on 20 February 1942. I [joined] the Infantry Division in Lugovoy.
Army base, 9 February 1943.