Stanisław Piekut, born in 1907, Roman Catholic, Polish nationality.
On 24 May 1940 in Porohy, the district of Nadwórna, I was arrested by Soviet border guards. After a few days, I was transported to Nadwórna and thrown into a cellar. I learned from other prisoners that a few days before, 11 people had tried to cross the Soviet-Hungarian border, and four people had been killed in the resulting fight with the guards, including the priest from Stanisławów whose name I can’t remember, but I know where he was buried.
From Nadwórna I was transported to Stanisławów, where they finished the investigation that had already begun. During the three-month investigation, various methods were used to make me own up to the things I was accused of. Interrogations would start in the evening and end in the morning. They usually lasted 12 hours with no breaks. The NKVD officer with a rank of lieutenant who conducted the investigation slandered Poland and ridiculed General Sikorski. Several times he put a revolver to my head and hit me on the head with it. I was accused of belonging to Sikorski’s organization and attempting to cross the border. Others were treated the same. An acquaintance of mine, Józef Łagan, a doctor from the municipal hospital in Bydgoszcz, was clubbed on the head by the NKVD officers so hard so that he suffered a shock, and then, after the deportation to Siberia, he ended up mad. Another one, a merchant from Stanisławów, had a pencil stuffed up his nose during the interrogation, which caused him pain and made him own up to a deed he hadn’t committed. Yet another one, a football club member, was so battered that he had to be carried back to the prison room.
At the end of September 1940, I left with a transport for Starobilsk, where I stayed until the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, and then I was transported to Vorkuta on the Usa river in Komi.