1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Gunner Władysław Karzaczuk, born 1911.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
12 February 1941, Maćki [Miłkowice-Maćki] village, Bielsk-Podlaski commune, Białystok voivodeship. Until the Soviets came, I lived in my house. I worked as a concreter and a journeyman carpenter.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
“Czerwoniak” prison in Brześć, cell no. 134. Gorky Oblast, ŻDW (rail branch), Suchobezvodnoye station, railway.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
Labor camp’s buildings were palatkas, that is huge tents. The bottom was boarded, the upper side being a tent. There was a pathway inside, double bunk beds on the sides, and half a meter of water on the ground.
5. Compositions of prisoners, POWs, exiles:
There were 40,000 prisoners in the whole camp, 29 Lagerpoints that contained various numbers. I was in the disabled section between 15 March and 30 March, then they picked us, the more healthy Poles, and took us to another camp, where 350 of us Poles were and 400 [people] of various nationalities.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
The quota was to dig a ditch 1.5 cubic meters wide and 1.5 meters deep, for which you received 750-gram payka of bread and the third cauldron. We only had private clothing throughout the entire time. Comradeship was poor, and there was a bandit culture.
7. Attitude of the NKVD towards the Poles:
Like vultures are drawn to carrion, they were drawn to us Poles. Methods of interrogation: [standing] in knee-deep water for 24 hours. [Access to] information was worse than nowadays in Poland.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:
When I suffered from frostbite on three of my toes, they sprinkled them with sinka [blue paint for fabric]; then they took me to hospital, where I sat for 48 hours and they brought me back. If someone had a headache, they gave them castorca [Castor oil], and because it caused diarrhea – they would cover their stomach with iodine.
9. Was there any possibility to contact one’s country and family?
I received one letter from home in May.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 27 September and sent away to Samarykanski [Samarkand?], where we were placed in various kolkhozes. On 26 February 1942 I was accepted into the 7th Infantry Division, Sapper Company.