1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Gunner Władysław Jaworski, 27 years old, a student at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów, unmarried.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
The NKVD arrested me in Lwów in my own house, on the night between 7 and 8 January 1940. A brutal search was conducted following that.
3. and 4. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site; description:
Since the day of my arrest, I stayed in custody (tyurma NKVD no. 2) in Lwów on Zamarstynowska Street. In that prison, every hour was full of untold misery that came with being called to and returning from doprosy [interrogations] at night, which had often marked the prisoner’s skin with wounds and bruises; there was enigmatic shouting and wailing reaching us from the far interior corridors of the building; and brutal shakedowns where all our clothes, underwear, and pallets would be turned upside down. Then, when we were already stripped naked, they would look into our mouths and anuses to check whether we didn’t keep a needle or a pencil there. When the summer heat came, surviving each day in the incredibly cramped space was a true nightmare. Medical care was provided.
On 5 August 1940 I was moved to a prison on Jachowicza Street, where the food was better and the density was lower, at least in some periods. Despite that, we frequently encountered lice. Medical care was provided.
5. Compositions of prisoners, POWs, exiles:
Composition of prisoners widely varied, but generally, Polish urban element formed the majority (with the so-called intelligentsia – that is attorneys, doctors, officials in various fields, soldiers and retired soldiers – being the biggest group). There were also some Ukrainians. Their number multiplied by the end of 1940. Other groups of insignificant numbers were Jews or refugees from the Western territories, who were often accused of spying, or the communists, who were accused of having strayed from the course of orthodox communism. I need to add that Ukrainians were usually treated as nationalists and supporters or members of UON [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] during interrogations. The most common article which was pinned to Poles, was Article 54 point 13 (it concerned working for a capitalist country, as far as I recall) as well as Article 54 points 2 and 11 – being a member of an armed organization. These provisions were mostly used against many young people aged 17–21, often pupils of secondary school, or coming from a craftsmen environment. In the cell I stayed in for more than half a year, there would be an average of 70 people with me, and I’m basing my observation on that sample. Quarreling, fights, and thefts also occurred [the latter rather rarely]. I encountered several people who – if not seriously mentally ill [a couple of nutcases from villages, one paranoiac] – were at least displaying psychopathic features.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
On 15 June 1941, after a three-and-a-half-month stay in the Starobilsk camp in Ukraine, I was transported through the small town of Bukhta Nakhodka by the Sea of Okhotsk (near Vladivostok), to the city of Magadan, in a region commonly known as Kolyma. A couple of days after arrival, I was taken 47 kilometers away from the city, where I worked at airport construction.
The work was very hard. We stood in miry, marshy ground, ripping moss from it, and removing tree trunks. There were quotas, impossible to fulfill by the weak workers. The confinement room and food cutbacks were the consequences for them. We were literally hustled to work, and also returned in a great hurry, rushed by the threats of the boyets escorting us. Whoever was ill with scurvy or suffered from heart problems could see the end coming. When returning from work, we often had to carry firewood to the camp, and the roll calls after supper dragged until late night. I can say about various nariadchiks and other camp functionaries, who had been sentenced just like me, that they acted worse than mad dogs.
When the amnesty was proclaimed, I was brought back to Magadan along with 350 other Polish citizens (including both Jews and Ukrainians), but we couldn’t leave from there right away and were pushed into a labor camp again. We went to work where no quotas were demanded, but the food rations were also scarce. Approximately by the end of October 1941 we were moved to another camp (the so-called 10th Olp [?]), outside the city, where we were given winter clothing and bedsheets. We would go around the city and do various jobs, but the food worsened greatly. Quotas were set again and we were fed accordingly. The highest bread ration was 500 grams, the lowest (penal) 250 grams a day. On such a diet, people were getting weaker and weaker, many of them dying from exhaustion. Freezing temperatures, snow, and huge distances to work contributed to that. Barely anyone was free from a hunger-induced psychosis. Thefts and quarrels were spreading. A usurious bartering of anything edible could also be observed.
7. Attitude of the NKVD towards the Poles:
During my stay in Lwów prisons, I had many opportunities to learn about investigative methods of the NKVD. I was punched several times myself during an interrogation, threatened with a gun and a rubber baton in order to force me to tell the truth. But my companions suffered from much more severe punishments. Two of them were carried back to the cell with their bodies black from beating – from feet, to thighs, up to their necks. The NKVD men didn’t hesitate to do the most brutal things, especially when it came to testifying about hidden weaponry. A group of several officers would kick and beat the prisoners until they blacked out. Sometimes such a badly battered individual would be thrown into the confinement cell. I had an impression that only the top ranks of the NKVD had actual knowledge of the overall social-political situation in Poland. The lower ranked an official was, the more dubious was his understanding of the Polish affairs, and so a number of funny misunderstandings came up during interrogations (which I heard about from my companions in prison).
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:
In Magadan, Kolyma, 15 people died from my environment throughout six months. From among the closer ones, the names are: Roman Pudłowski from Lwów, Adam Kopeć from Lwów, Aleksander Dobrowolski from Lwów, and Judge Jurkiewicz from Stryj. The first two died from pneumonia, the third one from a stomach disease, and the fourth one from overall exhaustion.
9. Was there any possibility to contact one’s country and family?
I didn’t have any contact with the country or with family (who also got deported) since the time I was taken away.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 10 December 1941, and after leaving Magadan on 1 January 1942, I went directly to Lugovoy, where I joined the Polish Army on 4 March 1942.