1. Personal details (name, surname, rank, age, occupation and marital status):
Master Corporal Jan Róg, 30 years old, professional non-commissioned officer, unmarried.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was taken prisoner on 19 September 1939, in Zaleszczyki, from a military hospital as a patient.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
On 21 September I was taken to Russia, to Kamieniec Podolski. After nine days I was brought to Poland, to Równe, and on 4 October to Żytyń where I was kept for seven months. On 19 April 1940 I was sent to Antopol to work at road construction. On 10 August I was sent to the town of Skole next to Stryj, this was the forced labor camp Świętosław, I was working in the quarry.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
Świętosław camp – mountainous terrain, barracks made of wooden boards, wooden bunk beds without any bedding. Later we were given one blanket and one straw mattress per person. We were sleeping this way until the winter, then we got some straw for our mattresses. Hygiene was neglected until the governor was changed in 1941. It was a little better then because they built bathhouses.
5. Composition of prisoners, captives, deportees (nationality, types of crime, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations, etc.):
There were 1,500 prisoners, 50% of them were Poles, the rest were of mixed nationality. Very low intellectual level. The Poles’ morale was really high, and due to the improvement of the situation the minority joined the Poles.
6. Life in the camp, prison, etc. (the course of an average day, work conditions, quotas, remuneration, food, clothing, social and cultural life, etc.):
The relations between the prisoners and the Soviets were very poor, and whoever wasn’t their supporter had to go to work, even if they didn’t have shoes or clothes, which they didn’t get. If someone didn’t go, he got arrested. The day started with a wake-up call at 4 a.m., we were leaving for work at 5 a.m. The work was very hard and dangerous: breaking rocks and sending stones sliding down. The tools were uncomfortable. We were working for 10 hours. Every two weeks we got one day of rest. They intentionally drove us out to work during holidays. If you didn’t go, you were locked up and they starved you. Even during winter, at 35 degrees below zero Celsius, without regard to shoes or clothes – everyone had to go. If someone didn’t work and they noticed it, they locked him up after we came back. The quotas were very high: we had to crush six cubic meters of stone with a 12-kilogram hammer, and if you didn’t meet the quota you received penal food, without any fats, only 400 grams of bread and water with flour. There was remuneration as an incentive, but mainly for those who took sides with them – they were working separately, often without an escort. Only among the Poles was there some kind of social life.
7. The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards the Poles (interrogation methods, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
Information from the Soviets was false, there was a lot of propaganda against the Poles.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality (give the names of the dead):
Medical care was very poor because they didn’t believe that someone was sick. Only if he fell during his work did they believe him that he was sick.
9. What kind of contact, if any, was there with your family and country?
There was no communication with our families because letters didn’t get to us, and they didn’t let us send them from the camp.
10. When you were released and how did you get to the army?
When the German-Soviet war broke out we were evacuated to Russia. During the transportation we didn’t get any water. When someone even approached the water, they shot at him immediately. Food during our transportation was very poor: 100 grams of bread, a spoon of sugar. We were going to Starobilsk for 23 days on this kind of food, and we were very weakened. In Starobilsk, when the organization of the Polish Army began on the basis of the agreement between Poland and Russia, I joined the Polish army.
17 February 1943