1. Personal data (name and surname, rank, field post office number, age, occupation, and marital status):
Gunner Stanisław Szyłobryt, farmer, married; field post office no. 160.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 9 June 1940 in Ejszyszki, Lida District, for wearing a Polish military uniform. After the arrest, I was taken in handcuffs to the prison in Lida.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
Prison: Lida, Baranowicze; nine months. 31st lagpunkt, Ukhta-Chibyu, Komi ASRR.
4. Description of the camp, prison etc. (area, buildings, housing conditions, hygiene):
The prison was overcrowded: 31 men were kept in a cell for five people. We took turns sleeping (because there was no room). There was no bathroom and we did not have our underwear washed. After a typhus outbreak, they started disinfecting the underwear.
In the barrack, I slept on a bunk bed without any bedclothes. I wore my own uniform; we were not given any clothes or blankets. There were no dishes to eat from. I didn’t change my underwear; it was only disinfected every two weeks.
5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees (nationality, categories of crimes, intellectual and moral standing, mutual relations, etc.):
I stayed in the prison and camp among Soviet political criminals (soldiers who had been arrested on Polish soil for expressing their admiration for the prosperity present in pre-war Poland). Those prisoners were fine with us.
6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (average daily routine, working conditions, work quotas, remuneration, food, clothes, social and cultural life):
In the camp, I worked as a carpenter. None of the Poles were able to meet the full work quota: two people had to lay 30 square meters of floor. Food: twice a day (soup and bread).
I worked in my own clothes, 12 hours a day. There were no newspapers. By radio, only propaganda messages concerning the life of the Soviets were broadcast.
7. Attitude of the authorities, the NKVD, towards Poles (method of investigation, tortures, punishment, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
After the interrogation, I was placed in a punishment cell for three days because I did not confirm that I had been sent over by the Germans with a special mission. The interrogation took place at night. In the punishment cell, I was allowed to wear only my underwear and I was given some water.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality (please list the names of the deceased):
I was in a hospital after I fell sick with pneumonia. We were given almost no medications. The treatment – as I noted – consisted only in measuring my temperature.
9. Was it possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family? If yes, what contacts were permitted?
I was not allowed to make any contact with my family, although when I was in the prison in Lida, I was only 25 kilometers away from home.
10. When were you released and how did you join the army?
I was released in August 1941. I was informed the Polish army hadn’t been organized yet and I was forced to work in a sovkhoz in the town of Ufa, the 8th colony. I left to join the army on my own. I enlisted in Totskoye in October 1941.
15 March 1943