1. [Personal details:]
Rifleman Jakub Osterweil, 47 years old, tailor, married.
2. [Date and circumstances of arrest:]
I was mobilized and drafted into the 54th Guard Battalion on 28 August 1939. On 17 September, in Krzemieniec, I was taken prisoner by the Soviets, but after a few days, they released me and I went to Lwów via Wołyń. I stayed there for some time. I was working there to make a living. Then I headed west – I went to Tarnów to my family. On 12 January 1940, I was arrested at the border in Lubaczów and taken to the prison in Rawa Ruska. In February I was taken to Brygidki in Lwów. At the beginning of March, I was deported to Kharkiv, and later, in July 1940, to Starobilsk in Ukraine.
3. [Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site:]
Prisons in Rawa Ruska, Lwów, Kharkiv and Starobilsk. Labor camp in the north of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where I was working in the woods.
4. [Description of the camp, prison:]
The prison in Rawa Ruska was abysmal. We were sleeping on a bare, concrete floor, without any straw mattresses; it was crowded, food was poor, there were lice. The prison in Lwów was also miserable, both in terms of food and sanitary conditions – we hunted lice three times a day. The prison in Kharkiv was similar to those in Rawa Ruska and Lwów, there were personal inspections every four days, we were not allowed to look around us during the walks – this was punished with banning the walks. The prison in Starobilsk was more bearable because we were sleeping on wooden cots, two people on one straw mattress. Food was also better.
The camp in Komi ASSR was situated in the deep forest. Wooden barracks, wooden cots to sleep on (without pallets), barracks surrounded with barbwire and by the guards in dovecotes, a dreadful level of hygiene – a bath once a month, underwear that wasn’t changed or washed, everyone was wearing it till it tore, everyone had lice.
5. [The composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles:]
In Rawa Ruska, there were Poles, Jews, Ukrainians; the same in Lwów, Kharkiv and Starobilsk. In the labor camp in Komi ASSR there were also Russians. The moral standing was rather good. Mutual relations were passable. Poles and Jews stuck together, Ukrainians kept to themselves. There were snitches among the Ukrainians who were reporting on us to the Soviet authorities. Intellectual standing varied. Among Poles, most were intelligent. In the prison in Starobilsk were the mayor of Kraków, Kaplicki, as well as judges, prosecutors, Polish officers, police etc. On the other hand, when it came to the Ukrainians, there were mostly people of a poor intellectual level.
6. [Life in the camp, prison:]
Life in the camp was monotonous: waking up at 5 AM, watery soup for breakfast, gathering together to work in the woods at 6 AM, 7 kilometers away. The quota was 140 blocks of wood in 12 hours, which, when the wood was poor, was impossible to do. We didn’t get any dinner, just supper in the evening after we got back from work. For breakfast, they used to give us a light soup, two spoons of groats and sometimes some smelly fish.
If you didn’t meet the quota, you were locked up in solitary confinement for the night. The food was often saltless and sometimes (when food was not delivered) we got nothing to eat, though we didn’t have to work on those days. We got 400 to 700 grams of bread per day and no remuneration. Clothes were miserable, riddled with holes, the convicts had to repair them by themselves – if we somehow got hold of thread. Footwear was feeble, made with rubber, sometimes wadded. Social life was possible. There was no cultural life, no newspapers, books, cinemas – nothing at all, we lived in a boarded-up world.
7. [The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:]
The NKVD authorities were very hostile towards us. During interrogation they tried to force me to confess that I was a spy by holding a gun against my head. Communist propaganda was present only at the beginning, when I was being held as a prisoner. I was sentenced to eight years of “just work in the camp” in Starobilsk because I supposedly belonged to the Polish Socialist Party. The Soviets told us that Poland was over and we wouldn’t see it ever again.
8. [Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:]
Medical assistance was there, but there were no medicines. Polish doctors were good with
the sick people. There were hospitals there. The mortality was high, prisoners were ill mainly
from dysentery and scurvy.
Names of the deceased:
Bartel from Stanisławów;
Brzozowski, a sergeant major from Uhlans, from Łuck;
Jampolski, a colonel who was living in Romania before the war;
Mojżesz Wieliczko from Nowy Sącz.
I can’t remember more names.
9. [Was there any chance to get in contact with one’s country and family?]
There was no contact with the country or family, writing letters were not allowed, we had neither a pencil nor paper.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released from the camp at the beginning of September 1941 and, along with others, I left for Tock [Totskoye]. From there I was on the first transport to a kolkhoz, but as I had no clothes and it was cold, I went to Buzuluk where, around 15 October I joined the Polish Army, the Guard Battalion where I still serve.
22 January 1943