Corporal Stanisław Głowiak, 40 years old, border guard, bachelor.
On 18 September 1939 around 5.00 a.m. I arrived in the town of Złoczów, Lwów district, with several hundred companions. The whole unit was commanded by Major Ruciński, while my company was led by Captain Socha.
In Złoczów I noticed several hundred civilians, mostly men, standing next to the town hall. They were immediately dispersed. Major Ruciński then assigned us to posts throughout the town, because the local residents had been robbing from the barracks, stealing uniforms, blankets, and other military items.
On 19 September 1939 around 8.00, I was arrested and disarmed near the town hall in Złoczów, together with the above-mentioned companions. Major Ruciński, Captain Socha, and lieutenant Daprzalski, former Border Guard Deputy Commissioner, were also arrested.
About 15 minutes after being arrested we were escorted to the Złoczów–Tarnopol road, about three kilometers from Złoczów, and we stayed in the field by that road for a day without any food.
On 20 September about 9.00 a.m., we were escorted back to Złoczów, where we were released.
As soon as we were released, individual soldiers scattered in groups in different directions. I marched off with a certain group of soldiers towards Kowel. When we arrived in Kowel, my companions and I were arrested again by the Soviet authorities, the NKVD. During the march to Kowel, defenseless Polish soldiers were attacked by Ukrainians, who confiscated the last of their money and their uniforms. I spent a day in Kowel and then we were taken by freight train (in covered cars) to Shepetivka (Russia), where on 30 September 1939 we were placed in old military barracks. There were several thousand Polish prisoners of war in the camp, the personal details of individual soldiers were written down and we were searched; they took away razors and other sharp objects. Our life: once a day some very watery soup and 400 grams of bread.
On 5 October 1939 we left Shepetivka and marched off in the direction of Ostróg (Poland). During that journey, many soldiers collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of the road, some of them were run over by vehicles because of the dark.
On 6 October we arrived in Ostrów, from where we departed two days later and marched to an estate in the town of Podliski, Lwów Voivodeship. We arrived at the Podliski estate on 10 October, and on 12 October we were escorted again, to the Żydatycze estate, Lwów Voivodeship.
On 14 October 1939 we began work on widening the Lwów–Żydatycze road. Initially, the soldiers were reluctant to work, but the Soviets forced us, threatening us with arrest and a reduction in our food rations.
At work, we were supposed to meet a certain percent of the quota, from 25 to 200. The kind of life each soldier had depended on the percentage of the quota he met. Based on these quotas, the Soviets organized three cauldrons and bread rations.
The soldiers who met from 110 to 200 percent of the quota lived the best life – 1,200 grams of bread and the third cauldron. Those who met 100 percent of the quota received 800 grams of bread and food from the third cauldron. If you met less than the full quota, that is, 75 percent – you were given 700 grams of bread and food from the second cauldron. For 50 percent – 600 grams of bread and food from the second cauldron, for 25 percent – 400 grams and the first cauldron, which was the worst. We were given food from the cauldrons three times a day.
The camp in Żydatycze was about [illegible, blot] square meters in area, was encircled with barbed wire, and a watchtower was built at each corner. In the middle of the camp there was a long building that had previously held cattle. We slept in that building, initially on straw, but later on bunk beds were assembled. In addition two sheds were built from boards. One of them served as an infirmary, and the other one as a kitchen. A pit was dug next to the latter, about four meters deep, which was often covered with poles and served as a toilet.
There were about 800 of us in the camp – about 70 percent were Poles, 20 percent were Belarusians, and 10 percent were Ukrainians.
The Soviet government considered the following actions crimes:
1. criticizing the Soviet regime,
2. escaping from a camp,
3. encouraging prisoners in the camp to refuse to work.
The Ukrainians and some Belarusians were hostile towards Poles, and reported everything about us to the Soviet authorities – whether someone had once worked as a government official, had been a member of the Riflemen’s Association or the Military Preparation.
Work was organized as follows: we were woken up at 6.00 a.m., at 6.30 we had breakfast, at 7.30 we marched off to work, from 12.00 to 1.00 p.m. we had dinner, which was delivered to work. We finished work at 5.00 p.m., had supper at 6.00, and curfew started at 9.00 p.m.
For meeting 100 percent of the quota at work, we were paid three rubles per day.
The Soviet authorities, that is, the NKVD, were very hostile towards Poles. We were interrogated based on information provided by the Ukrainians, some Belarusians, and other prisoners of war.
Medical help was provided as follows: people suffering from non-infectious diseases were treated in the camp, in a zone for the sick, while those with infectious diseases were transferred to a hospital.
Apart from the Żydatycze camp, I was also in the following camps: Stary Jaryczów, Kurowice, and the last one – Olszanica, Lwów Voivodeship.
In Olszanica, where we stayed until the outbreak of the German-Russian war, our task was to build a huge airport. On 23 June 1941, as a result of a German air raid on the camp, we abandoned it and were escorted towards Złoczów.
In Złoczów, while we were resting in the morning, there was a German air-raid, during which soldiers immediately started escaping and hiding in rye. The Soviet escorts opened fire, using an anti-tank rifle and killing a dozen or so Polish soldiers. The Soviets shot at the soldiers even from a distance of about two meters and stabbed a few of them with their bayonets. Then we marched through Tarnopol to Volochysk (Russia). While we rested in the Zdolbuniv camp, a dozen or so soldiers hid in one of the buildings under boards in the attic and in the basement. With the help of a few dogs, the NKVD found all the soldiers who had hidden. The soldiers were beaten with whips and kicked, and then escorted along our column already standing on the road and ready for marching off, after which they were taken back to the camp. After three minutes, they were all executed by shooting.
While marching from Olszanica to Volochysk we received from 150 to 200 grams of bread and some watery soup per day. The convoys did not even let us drink water. After about two days, others from a different column told us that in the Zdolbuniv camp they had seen a dozen or so Polish soldiers lying in a basement filled with water – their tongues had been cut out and their faces had been cut. One of them was a pilot whose name I knew, Stachowicz from Warsaw.
We travelled from Volochysk to Starobilsk (Russia) by freight train (covered cars).
The march column and the train were commanded by a major going by the name Szerszyl. People claimed he was Ukrainian. During the march, some of our companions asked major Szerszyl to let us have some water and to increase the bread rations. He answered: “It’s your payment for the year 1920.”
We were given barely about 50 percent of the food that was intended for us during the journey. Therefore, when we got off the train at Starobilsk station, about 40 percent of the soldiers were unable to walk because their legs had swollen (including mine). The distance from Starobilsk station [to the camp] was about four kilometers.
In the camp in Starobilsk until the non-aggression agreement was signed by Poland, England, and Russia, we received 400 grams of bread, some very watery soup twice a day, and several dozen grams of very salty fish.
It was difficult to communicate with families who lived under the German occupation, because many of the letters never arrived at the camp.
The Soviet authorities provided the following address for sending letters to the Żydatycze camp, Lwów Voivodeship:
Eastern Ukraine, Równe, postbox no. 37, group IV.
On 26 August 1941, in the Starobilsk camp, I was released from Russian captivity along with several hundred Polish soldiers, with whom I immediately joined the Polish army in Starobilsk.