1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, profession, marital status):
Senior Rifleman Michał Janiszewski, age 27 (born in 1915), lawyer, single.
2. Dates and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 10 November 1939 in Stanisławów. I was taken from an apartment on Wołczyniecka Street 21. I stopped in Stanisławów with a group of people, who were known to me personally, more or less. We were supposed to get a guide, who would take us across the Hungarian border.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
I stayed in the NKVD’s headquarters in Stanisławów (formerly a seminary building of the Uniate Church), later in prison (by the District Court). On 25 December I was deported to Odessa, where I stayed until 6 September 1940. I also received a sentence in absentia (so- called тройка) there – 5 years of labor camp (Уст. руд. Лаг.). I stayed in the labor camps around Kuybyshev, being moved from one camp to another. Living conditions were horrible; it wasn’t until the end of 1940 when they slightly improved, after which they were bearable.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (terrain, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
We lived in wooden barracks, heated with stoves. They were impossibly overcrowded, though. The same could be observed in Odessa prison, where 10–15 people slept in a “single” cell. Notion of hygiene was limited to bathing once every two weeks, sometimes once a week. We would also change our underwear from dirty to clean then.
5. Composition of POWs, prisoners (nationality, offense category, moral and intellectual standing, mutual relations, etc.):
In the Odessa prison there were mostly Poles (around 3,000–4,000), the rest were Russian (Red Army soldiers and criminals). In the camps, however, apart from Poles, who were sometimes the majority, there were Russians and Uzbeks. Regarding offenses, they were usually criminals and so-called counterrevolutionaries.
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