FRANCISZEK BATOR

1. Name of the camp:

Ostashkov on Stolobny island, Lake Seliger, Kalinin Oblast.

2. Composition of prisoners:

The camp [was] mainly for police, but there was also some Border Protection Corps, border guards, prison guards, civilians, gendarmes, etc., officers and rank-and-file.

3. Number of POWs:

More or less exactly 6,700 people.

4. How long the camp existed:

I arrived at the camp on 15 November. I think that the camp had been there for a month, but the people changed—previously they were rank-and-file soldiers who had mostly been deported, later the state of the camp stabilized and remained so until around 15 May 1940. I left on 29 April 1940. The camp was disbanded from 4 April 1940, about 300 people per day, and often 600. A mix of officers and rank-and-file.

5. Description of the camp:

[It was on] an island [with an area] of about ten hectares, of which only half [were] occupied by the camp, and the rest [was] a park with [illegible], [there were] a dozen or so brick blocks. The rest [were] barracks put up by the prisoners made of wooden boards, in a sack of sawdust. On the island [was] a sawmill, a power plant and a lot of steel tools for work. In buildings, in general [it was] warm, in February they virtually stopped giving us fuel completely. The prisoners coped as best they could.

6. Life in the camp:

[We were] divided into so-called corps, each block or hut corresponded to one corps. People living in a given block (barrack) belonged to the corps and were recorded as such.

The work included: [work in] the laundry, bakery, bathhouse, clearing snow from the camp, carrying ice to the icehouse. [There was] forced labor for the reconstruction of burnt blocks and to build a dam—a bridge between the camp island and the neighboring island, the so-called dog. On Dog Island there were barracks for the NKVD, a cemetery for POWs, etc. Some kind of cultural activity was initiated in the camp, ad hoc, casual, but lively. The most [developed] was in the 9th Corps, where the officers lived. There were talks on completely disconnected topics, for example [illegible] and France—Fr. Major Trzeciak. Establishing and taking care of commercial orchards and beekeeping—Lt. Franciszek Bator. Training dogs— State Police Commander-in-chief Grimm. Rearing poultry—a police commissioner from Silesia, I do not remember his name. Fingerprints—a State Police Sub-commissioner from Warsaw. The construction of houses—Engineer and 2nd Lt. Słowikowski. Running a vineyard—a senior Gvozdovski State Police inspector. Combating prostitution— Sub-Commissioner Sitkowski from Łódź State Police. The Soviet authorities, it seems, did not know about it, but we did not hide it; this took place only in our living quarters and only up to [illegible].

7. Attitude of the NKVD authorities to the POWs:

At first calm [prevailed], we were only [interrogated] at night, without any particular harassment. The spring of 1940 [brought] a new wave of nocturnal interrogation and if the testimonies did not go the way [the authorities] wanted (especially regarding how many communist informers there were and how he fought], [those interrogated] were usually arrested. Many police officers were locked up in particular. Conditions in custody were very harsh—they could neither wash nor shave for a month. The toilet waste flowed into the detention area. One of the leaders committed suicide, another went crazy, carved [illegible] with a razor blade. State Police Deputy Inspectors Petri and Romanchuk spent the longest there, about a month. There was no particular propaganda on a major scale.

8. POWs who were distinguished by particularly positive or negative conduct:

Almost everyone in the camp conducted themselves well. The only bad relations were manifested by the State Police rank-and-file towards the officers, but only those from larger cities, especially from Warsaw. The Border Protection Corps conducted themselves very well—officers as well as rank-and-file. Three people [illegible] communist work: Cadet Nalewajko, who recently worked in [illegible] (before the war), some [illegible] 2nd Lt. Kopacz from the Border Protection Corps, who at the briefings talked at length about his intense work for the Bolsheviks, and a Jewish civilian, whose name I have forgotten. There were no special escapades. The attitude of the POWs towards the regime was very critical.

9. Deaths in the camp:

38 people died, but I do not remember their names.