Destination England -
Nadworna Jail
|
Go Contents
12. Nadworna Jail
During my stay in Nadworna prison I was interrogated and often knocked
about. Some interrogations lasted many hours at a time. The
worst time for me was when they discovered a little note sewn into my
jacket's lining with a coded message on it. They wanted to know
what it said, who sent it and to whom. I could only answer the
last part of the question, but they wanted to know more. They
said that if I didn't tell them, they were going to shoot me in the
morning.
As promised, the next morning they marched me under escort into the
yard where a firing squad of six soldiers was waiting. I didn't
know whether they were serious or just trying to break me into
submission and tell them what they wanted to know. My head at the
time was working at full speed to think of a way out of this rather
difficult situation and I didn't want to become a dead
hero! Before being tied to the post, I told the officer in charge
that, if given time, I would disclose the contents of the note.
This resulted in me being taken back for interrogation, during which
they got the translation of one of my patriotic poems. I had
written a few poems in my young days, when I was in the third year of
Grammar school. At the end of this particular poem were the words
"and there will come a time, when Poland will again stretch from Baltic
to Black Sea", as it had a few centuries ago. This earned me two
black eyes and a few bruises all over my body. After that they
asked me why it was coded? I told them "In case you would try to
read it".
Following this, my captors put me into a cellar with a very small
window and two rats for company. I spent seven days there, each
day getting only 300 grams of black bread, (which I was sharing with my
two companions), about a pint of fish bone soup and, of course, half a
bucket of water. A week later I was transferred into a bigger
cell which was the next one along and which measured about 15 by
20feet. There were 25 people in it, all of them 'volunteers' who
had followed the communist propaganda promising paradise on
earth. Later on I found them in Siberia, being sentenced to many
years of hard labour for abandoning instead of expanding communism in
their countries. They were also told that Russia had enough of
its own communists and didn't need any more. They were made up of
Slovacs, Hungarians, Yugoslavs and some Jews as well. One of the
Orthodox Jews was trying to go to the toilet, and being Saturday, the
Sabbath, asked me to tear piece of paper for him, to which I
obliged. I was sure he would have difficulty continuing this
custom later on.
After few days I wished I was back in my previous cell with my
four-legged companions, with whom I would feel more comfortable than
here with these so-called humans. There was a horrible smell from
their clothes which were made from sheep's wool. They used to
spit into the nearest corner and very often misused the toilet
buckets. I was kept in this cell for three weeks. I think
the reason they held me there that long was that they were hoping to
catch the remaining members of my company.
Top Of Page Contents
© Nick Bailey & Krys Bailey (nee Stendera) & Jozef Stendera
2013-2020