1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Platoon Commander Ensign Walenty Kasprzyk, 38 years old, school principal, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
Interned in Lithuania in July 1940; deported to Yukhnov camp in Russia, then sent to work at an airport construction site on the Kola Peninsula.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Ponoy Port, Kola Peninsula.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
The main camp consisted of tents. The labor camp, where working groups were sent from the main camp, was a clearing by the river, with no tents. We dug ditches in the ground, covered them with sheets, and lived like that. It wasn’t until later when the tents were sent in, and more and more groups would be placed there. It went on for over a dozen days. There was no medical care at all. Tents in the main camp were infested with bedbugs.
5. Compositions of prisoners, POWs, exiles:
About 90 percent of POWs were Poles of Roman Catholic denomination, the rest being Orthodox or unaffiliated. Both reserve soldiers drafted in September 1939 in [illegible] [and] non-commissioned officers, farmers, craftsmen, and police officers.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
We worked two shifts building an airport, 12 hours a day. The quotas were so high that literally nobody was able to fulfill them. We didn’t receive any remuneration. The food rations we got were absolutely insufficient even for an idling person. There were days when we were given 80 [sic!] grams of bread and soup once a day. In the initial days, dry provisions were allotted. After returning from work, we had to cook food, but a lack of firewood made it extremely difficult. The ones who were weaker physically were carried back from the airport. Any kind of cultural life was out of question. One shift never met the other. The shift which arrived at work was held at the side of the airport until the previous shift went out of sight.
7. Attitude of the NKVD towards the Poles:
They tried to induce a conflict between us in the Yukhnov camp. They appealed to the working-class solidarity – they agitated at meetings, in the common-room, through screenings, and at individual talks. A striking demeanor of craftsmen and workers should be noted. There were 41 people who attended the alluring propaganda meetings, mostly the intelligentsia, and they created a cell commonly referred to as Jewish commune. Most people mocked the speakers and made fun of their ignorance. Their [illegible] efforts and creativity were astonishing. They picked on Poland, claiming it would never exist again. On the Kola Peninsula, we were told clearly: “This land is your grave”.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:
Medical assistance in Yukhnov was at quite a good level. There were four or five cases of death. On the Kola Peninsula, there was no such care at all. There were medical assistants who didn’t even have a thermometer.
9. Was there any possibility to contact one’s country and family?
The letters would get through to us, but not everybody received them.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
Following the Polish-Soviet agreement, we were deported from Kola [Peninsula] via Arkhangelsk to a camp outside Vyazniki [Talitsa], where recruitment for the Polish army was held.