Destination England -
Stanislawow Jail
|
Go Contents
13. Stanislawow Jail
I was next transferred to a prison in Stanislawow, where I stayed for
about two months before being deported to yet another prison, or rather
another 'education centre'. This time it was situated in Russian
territory at a place called Poltava, which lies between Kiev and
Charkov. Before I continue further, I would like to describe life
at Stanislawow's jail. Stanislawow's jail consisted of a large
complex of buildings in which two to three thousand inhabitants were
held. There were large cells with double windows which had bars
fitted to them. In front of the windows there were metal screens
set at an angle 45 degrees, so you could see the sky but not the
windows opposite. The cell was about 24 by 24 feet with a toilet
in the corner, and was occupied by 30 to 40 men. We had to sleep
on the bare floor, side by side, packed like sardines in a can.
When you were trying to turn over, you had to wait for the others to do
the same. If you were trying to do this on your own, apart from
being verbally abused, you had to put up with your neighbour breathing
in your face! I had only light weight trousers and a jacket to
wear since my overcoat went with my friend. My jacket was used
both as a cushion and a blanket at the same time. At night we
dressed ourselves because of the cold,but during day it was the other
way round.
I shared the cell with other Poles who had been captured attempting to
'emigrate illegally', or just because the Russians wanted cheap labour
in the Siberian camps which were places where nobody voluntarily, or
being sound of mind, would go. Among those in the cell were
doctors, professors and simple people, both young and old. There
was even a seventeen year old boy with his father. When I asked
this youth why he was arrested, he said that it was because they
accused him of not preventing his grandfather from fighting against
them in 1920 when they invaded Poland. He had told them that it
was impossible because he wasn't born until two years later, but they
still insisted that he should have prevented him. You may draw
your own conclusions from this!
To break the monotony in our daily life, we were very often called for
interrogation, mostly at night, and many times it lasted for
hours. Usually it occurred at about midnight, when your body
resistance was at its lowest level. When it was your turn, the
door of the cell was opened and your name was called. We jokingly
used to say "Po backu i po macku", which translated into English means
"After father and after mother". To clarify this I need to
explain that Russians always add the Christian name of your father to
your surname. For example, my name is Jozef Stendera, and
supposing my father's Christian name is Adam, then my full name would
be Jozef Stendera Adamowich. In other words "Jozef, son of
Adam". After your name was called out, you had to walk in front
of the caller, who was the man who was going to interrogate you and on
whom your return with or without a bloody face, some long hours
later,depended. During this walk your interrogator always carried
a newspaper under his arm where he kept his hand on a
revolver. During the interrogation they asked you many silly
questions like "Why were you trying to leave Russia; why illegally?"
They wanted to know the names and addresses of your friends, especially
those opposed to the communist regime, and so on. If you were
lucky, you were sitting fully on a chair. If not then you were
sitting on the edge of it with your legs outstretched in front of
you.
After such an interview, you were taken back to your cell with the same
ceremony, sometimes with a bleeding face. Now, as you returned to
'ordinary' life while being captive, you were described as
'zakluczony', which means that you were under lock and
key. Depending on the accusations you were under, you were given a
criminal code (status) according to which your future sentence would be
passed by three invisible judges somewhere in Moscow. The outcome
of such judgment would be made known to you when you were called to
the prison commandant's office and told to sign a 'contract' for so
many years of hard labour somewhere in Siberia, (if you would be lucky
enough to survive that long!). My 'contract', according to code
'58', was eight years. A year later, after I had expressed aloud
my thoughts about 'backo' (grandfather) Stalin, this sentence was
increased by another five, which I referred to as 'overtime'!
Under the Russian custom, when you are just an ordinary 'zakluczony',
you were without any rights and even your daily ration of bread was
smaller, (400g). However, after signing up to your sentence, your
bread ration was increased to 600g and you were given 100 cigarettes
each week. You were also given sugar which was measured in a
match box.
Of course we had our daily soup from fish bones. We tried to find
some fish meat in it, but with no luck. Still, we found those
fish bones very useful because we made sewing needles from them.
For cotton we used fabric from bandages obtained, sometimes using
slight 'persuasion', from victims with wounds. There were also
'sculptors' who from brown, or sometimes white bread, (if somebody was
lucky enough to get a food parcel from home), would chew it with saliva
and then mold the figures to make a chess set. After drying,
these
figures were hard and long lasting, providing guards didn't steal them
for their own use!
Cigarettes were often supplied but ran out before the next ration was
issued. Those lucky ones who still had some left were sharing
them with others who had run out of 'fuel', often in exchange for
another kind of delicacy. It came to a point that when the last
cigarette was going round, the final few smokers were holding it at the
end of a fish bone or a matchstick and then one cigarette was smoked
by5 to 10 people, the last one burning his lips!
Our hosts were also taking us daily, if they could spare the time, for
15 minutes walks in the prison yard and every month we had a shower and
our clothes were disinfected. The clothes were tied together and
then they were put into hot air boilers where all the parasites such as
lice, etc. were supposed to be killed. To our disbelief
however, these parasites were more lively than before the
treatment! We also had a unique telephone system which we used so
we could communicate with inmates living in the same building
block. For the microphone and earphone we used the toilet
bowls. There was no water in these bowls so by speaking into it
and and listening, providing there was no water in the connecting pipes
at the time of 'transmission', we could communicate with other
cells.
During the daytime we were not allowed to sleep. We had to sit on
the floor or stand. At night the lights were on, although
dimmed,so it was possible to see fleas jumping from one person to
another or the lice and other blood sucking parasites crawling all over
you. There was also the problem, caused by lying on the bare
floor, which caused a lot of boils to form on the side of your
thighs. In order to get rid of them, you had to see the prison
"wratch" (doctor). He prescribed an empty beer bottle, which was
given to you in the evening to be filled with your own "lager", and
afterwards handed back to the guard who, after putting your name on it,
left outside the door of your cell.
After 24 hours of fermentation, you were given this 'potion' back, so
that you could rub it on the affected places, returning the bottle
afterwards to repeat the same operation for at least two more
days. To my amazement, after about ten days, the sore places
disappeared, at least until the next time, which was about eight weeks
hence.
Time was passing very slowly and life became monotonous. To
change that, I decided to give lectures about aircraft engines,
radio(there was no television yet in Poland at that time), and
photography. For a blackboard I used the whitewashed walls of the
cell, and instead of chalk, I used black charcoal from partly burnt
wood we collected during our daily walks. Of course after each
inspection by the prison commandant, which was on average every 2
weeks, I usually ended up in the 'cooler, with only half of my bread
ration, no sugar, no cigarettes and even no fish bones in the soup,
only smelly water!
Three days after rejoining my 'class', I carried on with my 'lectures'
as before, but this time on freshly whitewashed walls, redecorated
during my absence. This continued until the commandant's next
inspection. The outcome of his visit was similar to the previous
one, only instead of three days in the 'cooler', it was five days, with
a warning that next time it might be four weeks!
Luckily it didn't happen, because two weeks later myself, and many of
my 'pupils' were loaded, like cattle, into railway carriages which were
fitted with wooden dividers to provide extra floor space to lie
on. There was an area in the middle of the carriage for a
stove. There was also an exit to one side of the sliding door
through which we had entered and through which food and water was
'thrown' in or, if somebody 'didn't make it', was pulled out.
Apart from that, with the exception of opening it to count us, that
door was closed and locked from the outside. The other sliding
door was permanently closed but it contained a small
hole. Attached to this hole was a 'sewage pipe' made from two
narrow planks of wood arranged in a 'V' shape, about five feet long and
hung at a 45degree angle. That was our 'toilet'. There were
also two small windows (with bars) on each of the side walls, which had
some kind of flaps that we kept closed. In every carriage there
were about 40 to 50 prisoners.
At the end of each train, searchlights were used to illuminate the
rails, in case somebody was trying to escape by breaking through the
floor. It is difficult to say how many carriages were in
transport, but I estimate it was about thirty. This included
accommodation for around thirty guards, dogs and, of course, salted
herrings, water and black bread to feed over a thousand people during
the three day's journey to the next destination, Poltava jail.
Top Of Page Contents
© Nick Bailey & Krys Bailey (nee Stendera) & Jozef Stendera
2013-2020