1. Personal data:
Włodzimierz Dawidowicz, second lieutenant in the reserve forces, mobilized [illegible] in 1939, Polish, Roman Catholic, married, local government official.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested by the Bolshevik troops on 18 September 1939 in Łańce, and was transported to Zdzięcioł. On the following day I was transported to Russia as a prisoner of war, but in Koszelewo I managed to escape and went to Nowogródek, where I worked as a bookkeeper in “Soyuz Pieczat” until 15 March 1940, when the NKVD came at night to arrest me and incarcerated me in the Nowogródek prison. I was sentenced to eight years of hard labor as a “socially resistant” element (I had worked in the police force), and my family, consisting of my wife and three children, was deported to Kazakhstan on 13 April 1940.
3. Name of the camp:
On 30 December 1940 I was sent to a Gulag camp by the River Onega, Plesetsk train station, Arkhangelsk Oblast, camp point no. 7.
4. Description of the camp:
The camp was located three to four kilometers from a railway siding. It was fenced with boards and wire and housed 6,500 people, including up to 400 Poles and 500 women of Russian origin. It was divided into two parts, and work was done both during the day and at night – wood was delivered via the Onega River and, after appropriate processing, from sixty to a hundred wagonloads of timber were transported away every day.
5. The composition of prisoners:
The majority of prisoners were political criminals, and they represented various nationalities – there were even inmates from France and Germany; the famous secretary [?] in the political case of Dmitriev worked in the camp as gruszczik [loader], but I don’t remember his surname.
6. Camp life:
The inner camp administration was composed of prisoners, which was very troublesome. The so-called naryadshiki were fully informed about all our movements and about the material conditions of the prisoners, so theft met with approval and none of us Poles was able to keep his modest clothes and possessions untouched. A slice of bread cost 5 rubles, depending on the availability of tobacco [?]. The Poles were divided, that is, allocated to various brigades – each 30–50 people strong – that were housed in separate barracks. Mutual relations were acceptable, but shrouded in secrecy.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
Bearable and acceptable; there was such a medley of nationalities that it was difficult to observe anything or draw any conclusions.
8. Medical assistance:
The personnel consisted of prisoners. Among them were our doctors and a paramedic, but they behaved very badly. That is to say, Dr Trusewicz and the others were very afraid to speak Polish and brushed the sick Poles aside, fearing that it might do them harm.
9. Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
Contact with our country was very poor. It was so due to the fact that Polish political prisoners could send only a limited number of letters, and receiving food packages or money depended on meeting the work quota, which meant that the intelligentsia and older people, who couldn’t fill 85–90 percent of the quota, were denied the possibility of using their own money or receiving packages.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on the basis of the amnesty on 4 September 1941, together with fifty other people, in the third group of those released. I was entitled to settle in Tambov, where I arrived from the station in Plesetsk in the first days of October 1941. The conditions were terrible. In dire poverty and wretchedness, we reported to the woyenkomat [army drafting committee] as volunteers for the Polish Army. Our petitions were sent to Buzuluk, but we didn’t receive any answers. Following protracted and difficult negotiations, the sixty of us were loaded into a train and sent in the desired direction. A surprise awaited us in Orenburg (Chkalov): the Polish Information Bureau, in the persons of a lieutenant and a sergeant, strictly forbade us to leave for the Polish units in Buzuluk or Tatischevo, and instead sent us southward, to Tashkent – it was a terrible blow that cost lives among the exhausted people. The later high mortality rate in military formations can be ascribed to these directives. I myself fell ill at the station in Aktyubinsk, and I learned from the Polish Representation that my family was nearby in that oblast; I hadn’t had any information about my family from 15 March 1940 to 4 September 1941. My family was found with the help of the Representation and I was sent to join them. They were in the hamlet of Trojeki [?], situated 100 kilometers from the Aktyubinsk station. I recovered on 3 February 1942, and in the same month I appeared before a Polish-Bolshevik board, which drafted me into the Polish Army and sent me to Dzhambul. On 14 February I arrived in Chok-Pak, where I joined the 8th Infantry Division, [illegible] company.