Master Corporal Stanisław Rosiński, born in 1902, farmer, married, [before the war residing in:] military settlement of Jelomalin, Zdołbunów district, Nowomalin commune.
On 1 January, while I was walking on the streets of Zdołbunów, I was stopped by the Soviet militia and escorted to the police station where I was searched. They were looking for weapons and accusing me of being a member of a Polish band that was organizing against the Soviets. After a 24-hour police investigation, the militia escorted me to the NKVD and there the investigation began again.
They were hitting me with a gun in the back of my head and forcing me to confirm everything they were accusing me of: that together with the Border Protection Corps I was working for intelligence, that until 1939 I was going abroad to the USSR as a confidant and apparently that’s why the Polish government gave me the settlement. Ty naverno ubil mnogo nashikh boytsov 1920 goda [you must have killed many of our soldiers in 1920] – he was saying and hitting my head with a rubber truncheon.
After the 12-hour interrogation I was barely alive. They took me to the podvaliny beneath the magistrate – these were the basements for storing fruits in the winter. When they opened the door to this cell a terrible fug shocked me. I met many familiar settlers, officials and officers – all of them were dirty, unshaven and hard to recognize. The basement area was five meters to four meters and I was 25th person there. There was no place to sit, and sleeping while lying was out of question. In the morning we got something to eat: a half liter of water, for lunch a half liter of soup resembling water, in the evening a half liter of boiled water and 600 grams of bread resembling clay. We spent three months in these conditions. Medical care was out of the question, they used to say: podykhay, menshe vas budet, kontrrevolyutsyonerov [die, there’ll be fewer of you counterrevolutionaries]. There were no beds or bunk beds in the cell, only pure cement. They were taking us for interrogation two or three times during the night, raising the same charges.
After three months they transferred me to a jail in Ostroh next to the Horyn River. It was much better there –three of us were living in a small single cell on the floor. Each of us got a blanket and after three months in the basement we washed ourselves in a bathhouse and got rid of some lice. Food was a little bit better. When it came to beating and investigations, we were hearing groans and screams all night.
On 29 July after four months of imprisonment in Ostroh, without any court or sentence, they loaded 57 people onto a rail car in Ożenin, twisted the screws and took us to Vologda Oblast. The heat was unbearable but they didn’t let us open any windows and didn’t give us any water. We reached the Sheksna River and there they loaded us onto a ship, but I begged them to reunite me with my family that had been taken to Vologda Oblast, next to Sokol [illegible] on 10 February. On 22 September 1940 I was reunited with my family, but I found them in pitiful conditions. The barracks were old, during the rain there wasn’t a single dry place in the building. Everything was dripping on our heads. The walls were full of vermin and the bedbugs wouldn’t let up. On 25 September they ordered me to go to work, dragging out the wood from the Sukhona River. The pieces of wood were called balasy because there was a paper factory nearby. We had to go seven kilometers for work, the quota was to work for sixteen hours, and we got remuneration for that of up to six rubles a day. When someone was 10 minutes late for work he was punished by the court: 25% of his income for the first time, and if it happened again, 50% for the second time. When it came to food, it was hard to get. One liter of milk cost six rubles, one kilogram of beef – 40 rubles, one kilogram of pork fat – 80 rubles, and it was all hard to get. Sugar was out of question, only for 1 May did we get half a kilogram per person. There was no groats at all. The commander of the rural settlement didn’t allow us to go away from the kolkhoz, he would only said that we hadn’t done anything in our country except eat, and that’s why we didn’t have any military equipment, and that’s why we lost the war with the Germans.
On 27 October 1940, the NKVD came in during the night and arrested six of us, and it began all over again. There were 76 families in this rural settlement, each night they took 10 or 15 of us for a whole night’s interrogation, and then in the day we had to go to work. They were accusing us of plotting against them, apart from that they were asking what people were doing in the country and why they were having good relations with the police, apparently people must have been collaborating. The families of those arrested didn’t receive any help. We were collecting several rubles for them, and in this way we were supporting them. After 13 days, they arrested another 12 people, and to this day we still don’t know where they might be.
On 2 January my four-year-old son got sick. My wife went to ask for medical help, but our child had to die without it. There were many cases like that. There were days when even three people died, and the Soviets were laughing and saying: Net sala da masla i podykhayut, tak im nada, pol’skiye mordy [no lard or butter and they will die, as they should, those Polish mugs]. 38 people from this rural settlement died. When a mother wanted to avoid work during her child’s illness, she was locked up in detention.
On 18 August when the amnesty was read out to us, the commander said that we could sign an agreement for several years of work and it would be good for us. We wouldn’t have to join the army and that we would support the front because we were supposed to fight together. On 23 August 1941 we asked to settle our accounts because we wanted to join the army. They refused and said: zdes’ tozhe front [the front is also here]. Regardless of that, on 20 September we went to Buzuluk by ourselves, and on the 22nd we reached Totskoye, and there I was assigned to the 7th Cavalry Division.
12 February 1943