Wacław Lenczewski, born on 14 July 1910, surveyor, until 17 November 1939 a resident of Byteń by the Szczara, Slonim district.
Arrested on 18 September 1939 by the militia from Byteń, released on 28 September by the NKVD, still a resident of Byteń.
On 17 November 1939, I went to my family who lived in the village of Rzędziany, Białystok voivodeship, and immediately after my arrival I contacted a secret organization that smuggled people to France. When my concept of leaving Poland failed, I joined a secret organization under the name of ZWZ. My task was to prepare staff maps and mark on them the main Bolshevik military facilities in Bialystok and the surrounding area. My nickname was “Vulture”.
On 21 June 1940, a previously arrested member of the organization, Wacław Kulikowski, denounced us all to the NKVD authorities in Białystok, and I was arrested immediately and imprisoned in the NKVD prison in Białystok. I stayed there until 17 July 1940, I was also interrogated and knocked around because I did not want to admit knowing the members of our organization.
On July 20, we arrived in prison named the old NKVD prison in Minsk, where I served time until 31 January 1941. The housing conditions and food were terrible, constant searches, night interrogations, and being thrown endlessly into cell after cell.
Medical assistance was scarce. I was sentenced to eight years [illegible] of labor camps on 13 December 1940.
On 1 February 1941, we were transported to the gulags. The trip was terrible. 700 grams of bread per day, one fish and often no water—that was our daily meal. Around 40–45 people in a cold, wet freight wagon. Daily searches, undressing and moving from wagon to wagon complemented the ‘menu’.
I was brought to the gulags on 27 February 1941. It was called Ivdellag, in the Sverdlovsk Oblast.
The work was mostly sawing and logging—very heavy. Life was generally bad, no fat, bread from 400 to 900 grams per day, depending on the ability to work.
The gulag command, as well as the guards, were unfavorably disposed towards us until the day of the amnesty, then their conduct was as it should.
For having arrested me, my brother and for taking my family to Russia, general wish is for Russia and its government to disappear from the face of the Earth.