On 24 July [1939], I was drafted into the army as a reserve soldier. Then I was taken prisoner by the Germans near Siedlce, and was taken to a place near Königsberg, Mohrungen district. I was there until August 1940, but then I escaped to the Polish territories. I intended to visit home, but I failed because my home was far away, beyond the Latvian border, in the Brasław district. Before I reached Białystok, the Bolsheviks stopped me to check my identity. Since I had no documents, they put me in prison in Białystok as a German spy. They kept me there until May 1941. During that period, I was interrogated, and I received 300 grams of bread and a liter of soup per day. We were left there at the mercy of lice and bedbugs, without any medical care.
As soon as we smelled gunpowder from the direction of Germany, they took us to Russia, beyond the Urals, to the White Sea, to Vorkuta. The journey took a month, we ate salty fish and 200 grams of rusks. As soon as we reached the destination they forced us to work in a coal mine, giving us poor food, that is 300 grams of bread and a bit of soup, but only if we met the quota. If we didn’t, we received 200 grams and some warm water. Many people died because of such nutrition. I remember the name of one companion, Jan Osowski.
The authorities treated Poles very badly, and the only thing they would say to us was “You Polish masters, you will die here and you will never see Poland again.”
We lived in such poverty until the amnesty, and then, when we were released, I joined the Polish army in Buzuluk.
Bombardier Stanisław Gisicz