1. Personal details (name, surname, rank, age, occupation and marital status):
Stefan Lewczycki, 30 years old, driver (merchant), arrested on 13 March 1940.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
The NKVD said that I was working for the police. Besides, Polish citizens also informed on fellow Poles.
3. Name of the camp (prison, place of forced labor):
The Samarka [Samara?] gulag in Kuybyshev.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
Very harsh conditions, in tents. Damp, cold, no hygiene at all because it was not possible.
5. Composition of prisoners-of-war, prisoners and deportees:
About 15,000 different nationalities there for different crimes. Relations between Poles and the rest—criminals—were bad because they constantly taunted us Poles, so this [led] to even larger clashes, because they insulted our leaders.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
Life was very hard. I worked as a welder. One time I burnt my eyes and went to the doctor. The doctor sent me to the NKVD who took me to the guardhouse, gave me a few rifle butts and I had to go back to work with them calling me again: you Pole, etc.
7. Conduct of the NKVD towards the Poles:
When they took us for interrogation, it was mostly at night and from time to time they liked to hit us, sometimes even landing a blow to the kidneys. They asked what I was doing in Poland and what I did. Naturally, I preferred them to kill me, rather than admit anything, because they would have shot me anyway.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:
At first, when I had just arrived at these gulags, they would shoot people, and then again it was calm for some time. Until the beginning of the German-Russian war, they began to take people away again at night, no one knows where. I personally thought that my turn would come. Every night I awaited this, but somehow I got lucky.
9. Was there any communication with homeland and family? If so, how was it?
I did not have any connection with my home, nor do I have any to this day.
10. When were you released and how did you join the army?
On 29 October 1940, they released me. I immediately went to the army, although the NKVD assigned me to go somewhere in Uzbekistan—I forgot to which town—because if I was not there, they would find me and arrest me. But our committee was in Kuybyshev and I was immediately drafted to the army and sent back to Tatishchev.