KAZIMIERZ HUKAŁOWICZ


1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, number of field post office, occupation, and marital status):


Bombardier Kazimierz Hukałowicz, 32 years old, farmer, married; field post office no. 161.

2. Date and circumstances of arrest:

24 May 1940, in Sokółka, Białystok Voivodeship. I was arrested and taken away from my wife and three children. My wife was left with no one to take care of her.

3. Name of the camp, prison, location of forced labor:

Kozhva. I performed every kind of forced labor in the camp.

4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):

The buildings were made out of ordinary logs covered by moss. Everything was located in the taiga. It was very cold in the barracks, there were lice and other disgusting filth. We couldn’t change our underwear, we had to wear unwashed underwear for months, since there were no conditions in which to wash it, and they wouldn’t let us to do anything for ourselves anyway – they would actually prohibit it.

5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, displaced persons (nationality, category of crimes, mental and moral state, mutual relations, etc.):

All of the prisoners in this camp were Poles who had been arrested for political reasons. People were of varying mental and moral states. The relations between us were good, as between Poles.

6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (the course of an average day, working conditions, quotas and norms, wages, food, clothing, life among colleagues, cultural life):

We would wake up at 5.00 a.m. Work was very hard, if someone wanted to fill the quotas they had to dig 9 cubic meters of earth in order to fill 100 percent of the quota. There were no wages, we only received food rations which consisted of boiled water in the morning (instead of tea), half a liter of oatmeal, and about 500 grams of bread. We wore tattered clothes and wrapped rags around our feet.

While we formed bonds typical of colleagues in captivity, the attitude of the Soviets towards us was very negative.

Work lasted 12 hours a day, we were given the same food 3 times a day.

7. Attitude of the NKVD authorities, towards Poles (methods of interrogation, torture, punishments, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):

They told us that we would never get to see our families or Poland again. They interrogated us in the following way: they would wake us up at midnight, drive us into a field, and ask about various things. They beat up and threatened to kill those who refused to talk. We were ordered to dig ditches and told that if someone didn’t talk, they would kill him. Pointing at the ditch, they would say that they were going to bury him there. This occurred quite frequently.

8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the surnames of those who perished):

The doctor was a Pole and I cannot complain about him. There was a hospital there, but no one who went there ever came back. I witnessed the deaths of two people, namely sergeant Wolski, who served in the 76th Regiment in Grodno, and Trzonkowski, from the district of Łomża. They died on account of starvation, insufficient clothing and overwork.

9. Was it at all possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family? If yes, then what contacts were permitted?

At no point did I have contact with my family, even though I kept writing letters.

10. When were you released and how did you get through to the Polish Army?

I was released on 1 December 1941 and managed to get through to the army on my own.

Official stamp, 17 March 1943