JAKUB FILIP

1. [Personal details:]

Second lieutenant Jakub Filip, BOS [?] sub-commissioner, married.

2. [Date and circumstances of arrest:]

On 29 April 1940, I was arrested in Żółkiew by the NKVD on charges of counterrevolution.

3. Names of prisons:

Żółkiew, Lwów, Starobelsk, Artyomovsk, Kharkov, Khanty Mansiysk

4. [Description of the camp, prison:]

Description of the Artyomovsk prison. A 20 x 25 m cell—360 people, two small windows; the cell was underground. The floor was concrete, there was a ‘parasha’ [slop bucket] in the cell. Everyone squatted; we slept on our own things. [Food]: 400 g of bread and some watery soup twice a day. Major lice infestation. Limited amount of water.

5. [Composition of prisoners, POWs, exiles:]

70 percent [were] Soviet prisoners, recruited from the worst kind, 20 percent Besarabs, 10 percent were Poles, mostly educated. Among the prisoners [there were] fights, thefts, informers, and the Poles suffered the most.

6. [Life in the camp, prison:]

The order of the day: 2.00 a.m. – wake up call, general toilet, breakfast; 11.00-12.00 – dinner, 4.00 p.m. – general toilet, 8.00 p.m. – lights out. There were no walks.

7. [NKVD authorities’ conduct towards the Poles:]

The interrogations took place at night.

8. [Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality:]

No medical assistance nor medicine.

9. [Was there any communication with homeland and family? If so, how was it??]

All correspondence [was] forbidden.

10. [When were you released and how did you reach the army?]

I was released on 10 July 1941, but I had to report to the NKVD once a week. On 2 September, I received a document releasing me completely on the basis of a Polish-Soviet agreement and left for Totskoye, where on 29 September 1941, I joined the army.