Personal data:
Kazimierz Osuch, sergeant, born 30 March 1890, former Stakhanovite and State Police station chief.
Date and circumstances of arrest:
Soviet policemen surrounded the house on the night between 9 and 10 April 1940, at 1.30 a.m. They took me even though I was sick with the flu. There was no arrest warrant – they claimed they were taking me for an interrogation.
Name of the camp (prison – forced labor site):
I was held for two days in a stable. Then, from 12 April to 12 August 1940, I was interned at the Lwów prison (Brygidki). Later, until 6 March 1941, I was detained at Konotop prison (in Soviet Russia) and then, until 27 March 1941, in Kharkov prison. Finally, I was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and sent to the following camps in the Sverdlovsk Oblast, Ivdel Raion: distribution point I., Palkino, Ivashkova [?], Chernoyarka, Ivdel no. 9. I remained thus until my release.
Description of the camp or prison:
In Brygidki in Lwów they packed 60–70 people in cells intended for 10. Due to the overcrowding and the heat there was no air and no place to sleep. We were let out for a walk once every three or four days, we bathed once every five or six weeks, so lice soon multiplied. Sick people whose temperature did not exceed 40 degrees were left in the cell without medical assistance. They didn’t want to let sick people out to go to the bathroom,
| even though the slop buckets in | the cells were full. Konotop prison had cells smaller than |
| the one in | Lwów that were also intended for 10 inmates and housed 60–70. Some prisoners |
| slept in | beds, others under beds and on the floor, and yet others slept sitting up for lack of |
space. The windows were obstructed by high shutters so there was a constant shortage of air. The food essentially consisted of bread and hot water as well as something barely identifiable as soup made from discarded herring parts with bits of tomato and cucumber, hence the prisoners suffered from various skin diseases, they were swollen, and after a couple of months their skin turned sallow. They did not fix the food despite revolts, strikes, etc. It is true that the prison doctor came to the cell every few days, but his intervention was limited to using different ointments to treat skin ailments, which only made matters worse. Tubercular patients, for example, were only taken away a few days before death.
In the camps we lived in insufficiently heated barracks and in the summer, we were even forced to sleep outdoors for lack of space.
In the Kharkov transit prison, I spent three weeks without lying down even once because there just was not enough room – they had packed 125 of us into a 15-person cell.
Social composition of POWs, prisoners:
In the Lwów prison they put criminals of various sorts together with the political prisoners; those crooks mistreated the others in elaborate ways, particularly targeting any policemen, judges, and other officials. The relations among the political prisoners themselves were very friendly. For example, prisoners who could buy cigarettes because they had money deposited at the prison would share everything with the prisoners that had no cash. Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and people of other nationalities all shared cells.
Life in the camp, prison:
In the prisons some things were regulated by the prison regimen (such as cleaning, eating meals, etc.). Beyond this, activity in the cells was limited to talks given by some of the prisoners on scientific or political topics, playing chess, various discussions, prayer, and such. All of that was conducted at low volume, almost in a whisper – loud speaking was prohibited.
In the camps the prisoners worked from dawn till dusk (some better organized camps had a 12-hour workday); there was no time for talks or any social activities. Food was distributed only twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, and it varied according to the fulfillment of work quotas. Elderly people and members of the intelligentsia, who could not fulfill them, suffered hunger; they resorted to collecting potato peels and kitchen refuse. Camp life was generally hard. Those who did not know how to cheat and could not bribe the camp authorities (by, for example, gifting them some clothes or selling something at half price) mostly went hungry, since few people were able to fulfill the assigned work quotas. Thieves got so bold that they would steal from our people both by day and by night; there were even cases of mugging. Camp authorities did nothing and there were even rumors that the higher-ups were in cahoots with the thieves. If someone refused to work, they would be put in the punishment cell for the night, deprived of their bread ration and forcibly sent out to work the next day.
The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (interrogation methods, torture and other forms of punishment, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The attitude of the authorities was horrid. In prison I was questioned several times by a sledovatel [interrogator]: in Lwów they did not beat me and only abused me verbally but in Konotop I was actually kept for interrogation at the NKVD offices outside of the prison for a whole week and questioned on every night of that week. Each night they would push me around, threaten to kill me, spew the vilest of insults, and offend both my religious and national convictions. (They wanted to get the names of my informants from back when I worked as a State Police chief). The chief of the NKVD office personally participated in those interrogations; he was assisted by a sledovatel and a guard armed with a rifle. Even the guard who led me away after an interrogation would malevolently shove and insult me. These questioning sessions took place mostly at night.
During our train journey [to the camps], our escort (consisting of specially trained NKVD soldiers) also mistreated us in various ways. They did this to demoralize us and prevent potential escape attempts, which they feared we would undertake. They would feed us salty herrings and refuse to give us water, perform searches and proverki [inspections] all throughout the day and night, and when doing so at night they would bring a lamp specifically for this purpose and then leave us in complete darkness with all our belongings mixed up and strewn about the train car. During all this they would shove and insult us in the vilest way possible, as well as claim we were supposedly showing signs of attempting to escape and consequently put us in American handcuffs with our hands behind our backs for hours on end.
During the car journeys from prisons to train stations, the mistreatment took on another form: they would load as many people as they physically could into a small truck – with all the prisoners standing – and then order them all to sit. People would weep, cry out and basically break their legs, which only elicited laughter, threats and nasty insults from the guards.
In the camps there were cases of beatings. I was badly beaten by a Soviet foreman on 15 August 1941, while we were in the woods. An NKVD guard watched the incident and did not react.
Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the names of the deceased):
In the prisons there were Soviet physicians, and, in the camps, our own doctors assisted the sick. In the camps many inmates suffered from edema and many died. There were infirmaries, where the sick prisoners were taken. I remember that N. Hausman from Lwów died in Konotop prison, as did Senior Police Constable Czwartkowski from the Bóbrka District, who succumbed to tuberculosis. I do not know the names of the other deceased.
Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
In the prisons I was detained at, there was no contact with the home country or with our families because writing letters was prohibited. The first time I had contact was 13 months after my arrest: I received a letter from Lwów, informing me that my family had been deported to Kazakhstan.
When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released from the camp on 15 September 1941 and at the end of that month I arrived in Kazakhstan, where I reunited with my family. I stayed there until 11 November 1941; I was then informed by the embassy branch office in Aktyubinsk that I could join the Polish Army, so I made myself available for draft at Buzuluk.
Encampment, 22 February 1943