Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Tadeusz Nowicki, rifleman, aged 38, turner, unmarried.
Date and circumstances of arrest:
Arrested on 22 January 1940 in Sieniawa for the attempt to cross the border. I was in a group of 14 people. When I was arrested, shots were fired. One of the victims who was lying on the ground was stabbed by a soldier with a bayonet three times. We were brought to Lwów and sentenced on 6 May 1940 to three years of spravitelno-trudoviy lager [corrective labor camp]. I was transported to Zhytomyr, Kiev, Kharkov and finally to Baku. From Baku to Solyany, for the construction of the iron road.
Name of the camp (prison – forced labor site):
Military construction JTK NKVD No. 7, otdeleniye II, colony 103.
Description of the camp or prison (grounds, buildings, housing conditions, hygiene):
For one month we slept in the field. We put up a tent, slept on the ground, cramped, in the sitting position, just like we did in the prison. For three months [illegible], no barber was available, there was lice, dirt, unwashed underwear, only our own clothes. No drinking water, steppe [illegible].
The composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles (nationality, category of crimes, intellectual and moral standing, mutual relations, etc.):
50% of Ukrainians, Soviets, Russians, Uzbeks, in the majority counterrevolutionaries, in the minority common hooligans who terrorized the majority. Attitude towards Poles – generally hostile, they took away bread, clothing, shoes.
Life in the camp or prison (daily routine, work conditions, quotas, wages, food, clothing, social and cultural life, etc.): Wake-up at 5.00 a.m., depending on the season, works performed from dawn till night. It was dark outside when we went to work and dark when came back. During the rainy season, works were performed until the construction was completed. There were no days off, quotas of 8 cubic meters. Clothing non-existent. No earnings. No cultural or social life.
The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (interrogation methods, torture and other forms of punishment, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The NKVD authorities were purposefully hostile towards us. During the interrogations we were beaten, threatened to be shot, starved, kept in the dark. They referred to us only vulgarly, e.g.: “God damn you, Polish fascist, you will stay in the gulags and learn to be an honest Soviet citizen.”
Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the names of the deceased):
They urged a sick with a fever of 39 degrees to work using their batons. Stanisław Gołębiowski died of exhaustion, of cold. He died at night in the tent; in the morning he was completely naked – the hooligans had stripped him of his clothes. 35,000 of 150,000 prisoners died in total within three months. I suffered from dysentery; three to four people were laying on [illegible] two beds. Out of 39 people in one tent, five, six, or seven people died every day.
Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
Correspondence was forbidden. They explained that this was a military postroyka [construction], and therefore we were not allowed to communicate. Once I recovered, I was taken to postroyka of the military gorodok [town] to Kirovabad.
When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 30 August 1941, directed to mesto [illegible] to Kokand, Fergana Oblast. The police prevented me from starting professional work. I was sent to a kolkhoz to Uzbeks, where I was starving. They made us wait for the numerous interventions at voyenkomat [military draft office], until they requested us. Finally, after a month, we formed a group and left for Kermine, where we joined the 7th Infantry Regiment.
28 January 1943