1. Personal data:
Senior rifleman Adam Cybański, 36 years old, mechanical engineer, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was deported on 29 June 1940 together with my wife and a four-year-old son. I had previously been arrested on charges of arms possession, and released under obligation to report regularly to the militia. The main reason for our deportation was my refusal to take a job in the Soviet Union as an expert in my field, an offer which – including high remuneration – had been presented to me upon release.
3. Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site:
Forced labor site: Niriawża-Odkryłoje [?], the Aldan region, the Yakut SSR, eastern Siberia.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
Some of the exiles lived in buildings, but the housing conditions were so deplorable that they were unsuitable even for the most uncultured people. They were dirty and infested with billions of bugs and other vermin. The rest had to live in tents, despite the onset of a Siberian winter. I lived in such a tent, with a small child, suffering Siberian cold, for so long that finally, out of necessity, I built a separate shelter with my own hands, and after the hours of my regular forced labor.
5. The composition of prisoners-of-war, inmates, exiles:
90% of the exiles were Jewish families, and the rest were Russian people from Polish lands and a few Polish families. The majority of the inmates had previously been engaged in trade in small Polish towns and villages. Many of them were in the NKVD’s service, and generally they were extremely hostile towards Poland. They cursed the country in which they’d been born and to which they owed everything they brought with them to Siberia. This very often included considerable assets in money or gold, which made life easier for them for a long time. The Jewish intelligentsia was very indifferent, but outwardly decent.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
The inmates were working mainly in the woods and preparing timber. The work was exhausting and remuneration very low. An average exile couldn’t make a living on such wages, let alone support his family. We had to buy food, as well as clothes and shoes, with our own money.
There was neither social nor cultural life, with the exception of a few Polish families. The entire camp was terrorized by two families: the Szwarc family and the Parobek family from the vicinity of Włodawa, Poland. One of the leaders of these oppressive groups was Motia Szwarc, a lad who boasted in public that back in Poland he had shot a Polish ranger while serving as a militia man during the wartime turmoil. It is possible that this individual is currently present in that area.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
The NKVD was cold, indifferent, ruthless. When I had been arrested back in Poland, I was subjected to a regular investigation with all its [illegible]. I wasn’t beaten. However, I was threatened with beating. The clerk who interrogated me threatened me with a gun, ordering me to tell him immediately where I had hidden weapons. In the camp for the exiles, the authorities were more calm, but equally cold and ruthless – they were indifferent to the misery or death of the inmates. They tormented us by repeating over and over that Poland would never exist again, that it was lost forever, and that we would never leave the taiga to which we had been brought. They hammered it home to us that we had to live and croak there. That was well put, because one doesn’t die there, one croaks.
A few people died during my stay there. I cannot submit their surnames as I cannot recall them. One man committed suicide by hanging himself in the taiga. Raps – such was his surname – was a small-time merchant from the vicinity of Jarosław. He was of the Jewish nation. He was a very good man; he orphaned three children and a mentally challenged wife.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
When the amnesty was proclaimed, the majority of the exiles immediately left for other Russian areas. Some people who worked in the mine were kept in the camp – they were granted permission to leave, but denied discharge from work, which meant that they were forced to stay and work. After strenuous efforts, I was released towards the end of November, and immediately left for Samarkand, Uzbekistan. I couldn’t find any job in that town for two months, only because I held Polish citizenship. Towards the end of my stay, with the help of a Polish post, I got a job at a factory in cordage manufacturing. I earned two rubles a day, although it was universally known that a kilogram of flour cost 40 rubles.
9. Was there any possibility to get in contact with one’s country and family?
We had contact with our families in the Russian-controlled territories by post, but as for the German-controlled territories, it was virtually impossible to maintain any contact. It all came to a halt shortly before the outbreak of the Russian-German War.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:
In the Siberian camp for the exiles we received quite good medical care, that is, the best that could be provided given the almost complete lack of medicaments. Dr Abend, an inmate himself, was our doctor.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
On the first day after the mobilization was proclaimed, I reported to the draft board and, despite great difficulties caused by my health problems (utter exhaustion and a heart condition), I was drafted into the Polish army.