Czesław Celiński, corporal, born on 15 November 1900, Polish, military settler, married, family: ten members.
On 17 September 1939 (Sunday), I was informed that the border had been crossed by the Soviet army. At that time, I worked at a post office in Poczajów as a postman. That evening, local Ukrainians came, took office, arrested me and brought me to my house, searched it and while looking for weapons, robbed and beat not only me, but also my children. I was left alone for a few days, and only a policeman came every few hours to check if I was present.
After a couple of days, two political commissars came and ordered me to be arrested. I was brought before the residents of the entire village, the political commissar spoke up and said: “We came here to liberate you, your and our task is to destroy the bourgeois class, destroy – the lordly dogs – we don’t need to kill them as there’s no use in wasting bullets], take everything from them, let them die of hunger and cold, take revenge even on the fifth generation!”
That day I was released home under the supervision of the police. The next day they robbed me so that within a few hours I was left in my birthday suit: naked, barefoot and destitute.
On 30 December, an NKVD commissar came to me accompanied by four policemen. He started his interrogation, demanding the provision of surnames of officers I had known in the years 1918–1920. When I replied that I didn’t remember, the policemen took me to the stable and started such an examination that I woke up after a few hours with my ears and mouth full of blood.
On 10 February 1940 at 2.00 a.m., I was arrested together with my family. Naked, barefoot and hungry children were thrown upon a sleigh and transported 24 kilometers to a railway station in Krzemieniec.
In wagon No. 5 there were 12 families – omnipresent hunger, poverty and despair. On 28 February, we were brought to Kop, Solvychegodsk Raion, Arkhangelsk Oblast.
The living conditions were terrible. The barrack was divided into 3 by 6 meter rooms, housing 3 families each, 16–18 people on average, lack of space, lice and bedbugs. The work consisted in digging ditches in the frozen ground. Together with my 16-year-old daughter we earned 6–7 rubles a day. We received 800 grams of bread for those who worked and 300 grams for those who did not work, although they were adults.
On 12 May, about 60 families were transported to Solvychegodsk to work in the production. Together with my colleague – Stefan Woś, a military settler, we cut wood and earned 7–8 rubles [which amounted to] about 200 rubles a month. From this amount they took 10% for the NKVD and 6% for some other tax. Five Polish families lived in one house. Our life was terrible.
A district hospital was nearby. What was happening there! Every day dozens of Poles were brought there with their legs, arms and ears affected by frostbite. I saw a lot of people arriving at the hospital, but those who recovered were scarce – they did not return to the settlements. The cemetery with an area of about 45,000 square meters in a forest in Solvychegodsk, about 2 kilometers from the city, remembers the Middle Ages, people of different religions are buried there. However, in 1940–1941, the number of Polish graves exceeded the number of the previous graves. There are plenty of graves of children who, while dying of hunger and poverty, cried at the time of death with clenched fists: “Mommy! Mommy! I want to go to Poland, mommy! Give me a tiny piece of bread!” There are also many graves of small children who froze to death in the arms of their mothers during the transport from the station to the settlements.
Parents died as well. And what happened to orphans? They handed them over to the orphanage. Those children were not even allowed to meet any Poles, they were suffering horribly. In Solvychegodsk there were two orphanages, and in nearly each major village council there was an orphanage, each of them housing several Polish children.
In the evening on 22 June 1941 (Sunday), a furious NKVD commandant Shangin burst in and shouted: “Sobirays´!” [Get going!]
About 2,000 Poles were grouped in the settlement of Koryazhma and placed in the labor camp barracks. We, the men, were taken to a ship and transported to a separate settlement of Zharovaya. And life got even more terrible: hard work, 400 to 500 grams of bread every second or third day. As for the earnings, this was not important to me, because no matter whether you earned one or one hundred rubles per day, there was nothing you could buy, so all that counted was to have sufficient funds to buy bread.
They paid us 4–5 rubles every second or even fifth day as an advance payment. Work was never-ending, we worked day and night. People were exhausted and couldn’t sleep, they would fall into the water and drown. This was on the Vychegda River, during timber floating.
The life of our families was the most horrific torment – hungry mothers, children and elderly people were looking for food in the fields and forest, eating sorrel and unripe berries, as they were given 300 grams of bread every third day. Finally, the searches for food in the fields and forest ceased – whoever went even a few steps away from the barrack to look for food was taken to the solitary confinement – even 7-year-old children. Small living skeletons were passing out for fear when seeing an NKVD man.
Thank God, the Lord showed mercy for the poor prisoners in Koryazhma and at the beginning of July 1941, 5,000 Estonians arrived in Kopytovo (2 kilometers away from Koryazhma) – wealthy and elegantly dressed people. They came not on their own, but were forced to do so by being mobilized to the army. The Estonians provided help immediately, took the Polish children to kitchens, gave them their own bread, money, clothing and everything they could, and strengthened their spirits. Unfortunately, the NKVD officers did not like it. The Estonians were forbidden to help Poles. [The NKVD men] shouted, “Nelzya nichevo davat polskim sobakam!” [Do not give anything to the Polish dogs!] When looking for food in the kitchen, Polish children were beaten and kicked by the NKVD officers. The Estonians gave them such a lesson that they shall never beat or kick anyone ever again.
The news started to circulate that we were to be freed, and then finally came the joyous day of 6 September 1941. They began calling us one by one to the NKVD commandant’s office, where we were given udostovereniya [certificates of release], but those were not sufficient as a document. A pass had to be issued by the commandant, instructing us where to go. For some families, the NKVD commandant issued passes, and the rest of them – about 100 families – were sent to other settlements. Together with other 11 families, I was sent to work at the hospital in Solvychegodsk. There – working as a carter, I could get to know the poor people who were lying there. It was very important to me, as on 8 April 1941, in the hospital my 4-year-old son was murdered. The boy suffered from pneumonia and they gave him typhoid injections (one of the Russian doctors, but not a communist, told me in secret that my child was murdered, together with hundreds of other children). The skeleton-like children were dying in the most terrible pain, crying out: “Mommy, daddy, save me, I want to go to Poland!”
When working at the hospital, we were guarded and intercepted by the police, and we had to report to the NKVD commandant every few days.
I found out that the Polish army was being formed, with the headquarters in Buzuluk. I wrote a few letters then, asking for help, so that I could be liberated. On 22 December 1941, I was requested to visit the military draft office; they showed me a telegram stating that I had been called for the Polish army. The telegram was signed by Colonel Okulicki and Captain Bielecki. I owe my life to the Polish army. I took my family and arrived in Kotlas on 23 December. There I found the social welfare personnel – Mr. Kowalewski and Corporal Janeta. They declared that they had not known anything about the Poles in Solvychegodsk. They immediately demanded that the remaining Polish families be freed and taken to Kotlas, but the children – Polish orphans – remained in orphanages; I don’t know how many of them were there.
On 29 December 1941, I received an order from the social welfare employees to handle the transport and escort it to southern Russia. The number of people: 386, including 76 children up to 15 years of age. Seven wagons, one pullman wagon. 97 people: all men from the labor camp, ragged, miserable, hungry and lice-infested – they had a horrible misery on their faces, they were unlike humans – only shadows of men with swollen legs and faces. Major Frąckiewicz and Lieutenant Turczyn traveled on this wagon. In Chelyabinsk, this wagon was detached, I don’t know why, and 7 wagons were attached. The number of people was 410. I could not find peace neither during the day nor at night. You had to fight, ask and beg for every piece of bread and portion of soup. At some major railway station I received an allowance of 330 rubles for 410 people and I joined the transport of Major Siciński. Our transport was called a “coffin.” We were refused medical assistance everywhere, every day at some station somebody was left forever. At major stations, where you could get 100 grams of bread, the train would scarcely stop, and in deserted fields it stopped for several days. We arrived in Jalalabad. 15 km beyond it, at a small station in the mountains, we were told to empty the wagons, but I did not agree. I was sent to Guzar, where we arrived on 22 February 1942.
I passed on the transport to Mr. Adamski, the representative of Polish embassy. I joined the army on 24 February. On 6 March, I was assigned to the engineer battalion. On 26 March, we left Guzar to go abroad, to Persia, and on 16 May to Palestine. On 13 June, I was assigned to the 3rd DSK Carpathian Rifle Division, to the 3rd Anti-tank Squadron. From 16 June to August inclusive, I took a driver course. On 10 September, I left for Iraq.
On 25 November, I was assigned to the 5th Division to the 5th Anti-tank Artillery Regiment. On 22 December 1942, I was directed to the Reserve Center of the Army, to the concentration station. From the moment of joining the army until the moment of commencement of driver courses I performed the function of the section leader.
I forgot to refer to the propaganda in the Soviet paradise. Poles were not allowed to mention Poland, boast that life in Poland had been better, or say a word about the misery in Russia. A Polish mother would teach her child to pray, whispering into their ear: “My dear child, do not tell anyone that I teach you to pray.”
When I was in Poland, in October 1939, two policemen came and took me and my wife to the school in Łosiatyn. There were a lot of people around. I asked them: “What is going on here?” Suddenly, a guard approached me, “Nu davay, idi” [Go on, walk], and took me to a room where three Ukrainians, professional thefts, were sitting. A box stood in front of them, and at the box stood guard with a rifle and a bayonet on the rifle. He gave me a sheet of paper and said: “Pishy!” [Write!] I asked: “What do I have to write down?” “Ne stesniaysa, u nas svobodno, pishy pryamo, yasno Malkush Lev” [Don’t be shy, we have freedom here, write clearly – Lev Malkush]. I wrote it down, gave him the paper back. The guard read it to see if it was clear and slipped it into the box. Later on, when I was exiled in Russia, I constantly heard the following: “Upala prognivshaya Polsha, upal burzhuazniy klass, skoro upadyot i Anglia, tam uzhe ne khvataet zhyrov, khleb po norme, skoro nash krasniy flag zalopochet nad vsem mirom. Polyaki, belye bandity, uzhe pokoncheny” [Rotten Poland has fallen, the bourgeois class has fallen, England will fall soon, they have nearly run out of fat, bread is distributed as per quota, soon our red flag will flutter all over the world. Poles, the white bandits, are already finished].
At this point I’d like to end the description of my ordeals in Russia and emphasize that I have not exaggerated, and talked about maybe 10% of the misery and prosecutions suffered by Poles in this paradise. They suffered no less than the persecuted and tortured Christians in Rome or those imprisoned by Tatars or Turks. Maybe not all, I knew some who were doing a little better (those who quickly joined the communists).
The contents of this questionnaire may be confirmed by numerous witnesses, whose data I can provide on request.
Encampment, 13 February 1943