Prisoner of the NKVD

I am in the U.S.S.R., and I am all right ...


Reserve Lieutenant Paweł Brus


Monday, 18
“At 7:00 am, 700 people (policemen) were disarmed” — writes Reserve Lieutenant Paweł Brus in his notebook on September 18th 1939. “There was crying. Rifles and Brownings were collected in one pile. The Russian Cavalry galloped through the yard. Next, shooting from tanks and machine guns, which lasted 2 hours. I found out from a Russian officer that we were to be taken prisoner. [...]”

Wednesday, 21
Around 1000 people in the yard, living on bread and water. Registration, names taken down. Night spent in the prison chapel[...]

Friday, 29
We are being held in the Połtawa province, in Kozielszczyna, east of the river Dniepr. 6000 people. The police stay in tents, we're in pigsties. It's very cold. We have to queue for hours to get water[...]

Monday, Novermber 20th
They've allowed for correspondence, or at least they've declared a rule on this issue. Our stay here is either coming to an end, or getting longer. [...]

November 28th, 1939
Part of a letter sent home: “My dearest loved ones. I am in the U.S.S.R, and I am all right. [...] We are supposedly allowed to receive packages with clothing. If you can, send me a pair of plain, large slippers, thick old long johns, an old patched shirt and warm mittens, no food, because we have enough bread [...]

Paweł Brus

The author of the diary was Reserve Lieutenant Paweł Brus, in peacetime a schoolteacher in Pruchna, in Cieszyn Silesia. He was taken prisoner — as were 200,000 soldiers, Polish Army officers and police officers — almost immediately following the Soviet invasion of Poland. After a short stay in Kozielszczyna he was transferred to Kozielsk, one of 9000 other privates and officers of the Polish Army taken there. Besides Kozielsk, camps in Ostaszków and Starobielsk were also being filled with prisoners in the final months of 1939. In October, 4824 prisoners lived in the Orthodox church and barracks of the Starobielsk camp, including 2243 officers, among them those who had defended Lwów during the September Campaign. Ostaszków was the destination for policemen, gendarmes, intelligence officers, judicial and penal system employees, officers of the Border Guard, and also military settlers, some of them together with their families. By December 1st, 6000 people were living in the two sub-camps in Ostaszków, among them 1400 police officers from the Silesian Voivodship.

They quenched their thirst with snow ...

“The camps were ill prepared for the arrival of the prisoners, as the buildings were not sufficient to house them, while the construction of additional buildings (barracks) in the first days was impossible, due to time restraints and the lack of local supplies of construction materials.

In result, the arrival of the prisoners caused significant overcrowding in the camp buildings, with prisoners being squeezed together, and in some camps 3 and 4 story plank beds were built.

In the Putywelski camp, 40 prisoners were confined to 20 square meters. In the Ostaszków camp, there was no room at all for 728 people. In the Juchnow, Kozielsk and Orańsk camps, some of the prisoners were put into buildings unsuitable for living: stables, pigsties and sheds.

In many camps, prisoners were housed in summer rooms. The coming cold drastically worsened their living conditions, the rooms were cold, and there were no stoves.

Prisoners of war in the Putylewski camp would leave their summer barracks at night to go to the heated ones, but those living in the latter would not let them in, which lead to misunderstandings between the prisoners. It once happened that some prisoners brought cauldron into their barrack and lit a fire in it, and set up a stove with no pipe and lit it as well [...]

Because the camps were inadequately prepared for the large number of prisoners sent there, water was lacking in almost all of them, not just for washing, but even for boiling.

Prisoners queue for water in Kozielsk. Drawing by Stanisław Westwalewicz.

The lack of water is especially obvious in the Orańsk camp, where prisoners would quench their thirst with snow, as well as in the Putywelski camp, where the imprisoned officers could not even wash during their first few days in the camp[...] *

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* From the report on the state of NKVD P.O.W. camps, prepared in Moscow after November 15th 1939. In “KATYŃ. Jeńcy nie wypowiedzianej wojny” (“KATYŃ. Prisoners of an undeclared war”), published by Wydawnictwo “Trio”, Warsaw, 1995.