Escape from Poland

Late December 1939 one of our group members (Janek) got arrested. No one knew why he had been picked up - it could have been for some simple misdemeanour or for his underground involvement. There was always the chance that under threat he could implicate some of us. It was difficult to find out without appearing to be compatriots and we were not willing to take this risk. So we discussed the matter and decided to plan for our members being discovered. Gerard, Alfons and I decided to head for the Russian border and Stanislaw elected to stay and take the risk. We agreed to meet the next morning and to board the train to Jaroslow that was on the frontier. We had not involved Joseph in our plans at this time as we felt that he was too young and was unlikely to be implicated. I went home and acted as if nothing had happened and I don't think my parents suspected that anything was wrong. The following morning, with a certain amount of apprehension, I asked Joseph to walk with me to the station. On the way I told him what we were going to do and asked him to break the news gently to my parents. You may ask why I did not do this before leaving. Cowardice. My mother would have cried and pleaded with me not to go and I couldn't face this. I had put on my warmest and oldest clothes and I told Joseph that he could have the good ones (including my leather jacket) for himself. I carried nothing else but my papers. When we got to town, I kissed Joseph and told him to be helpful to our parents. We then parted. He went back home and I left for a final destination only vaguely envisaged.

I wish I could say that this decision to leave was to protect my family. I wish I could say I agonised over the pros and cons. I wish I could say that I was talked into it. I wish I could say that it was the only thing to do in the circumstances. However, I can't with all honesty say any of these things influenced my decision. I think that I used the circumstances as an excuse to get away from the area and the oppression. I could have gone into hiding as others did. Maybe fate had a hand in it. I was afraid and wondered what would happen to us but I was also elated as at the start of an exciting adventure.

We were not stopped or challenged by the militia and reached Jaroslow without incident. This frontier town was on the new Russian frontier that before 1939 had been part of Poland. Our aim was to reach Hungary or Romania that is where the Polish army had retreated. We hoped eventually to reach Britain. The train arrived mid afternoon and as we were not going to attempt to cross the border until nightfall we spent some time just wandering around the town, talking to people and having a some food and drink in one of the local hostelries. Others who had the same intentions enlarged our little band and we pooled our resources together to hire a horse and sledge. The driver of the sledge took us alongside the River San, which was frozen, until he found us a spot narrow enough and safe enough to cross. Here he waved us goodbye, wished us luck and returned to the town.

We all crossed the river safely and entered a forest. It was dark and eerie but there was comfort and safety in numbers. We were now in Russian territory and we had not been challenged. There was snow on the ground, it was cold, but the excitement and adrenalin ensured that we were not too uncomfortable. The cover of the trees in the forest, however, came to an end and we could see a railway embankment on the horizon. We stopped and discussed our next moves. We had two choices. To risk crossing an open space to reach the railway line and then hope to hitch a lift on a train heading south or at least follow the tracks, or to continue south under cover of the forest edge uncertain of how long the cover would last. There were two different schools of opinion and agreement could not be reached so we separated. My cousin Gerard and I went in one group, which went across the open space towards the embankment. The other group of which my cousin Alfons was a member headed alongside the forest. The snow was unmarked, white and crisp. No sign of any human presence traversing it for some considerable time. It looked a fairly safe bet. What we had not considered was that the snow, which would have shown up our enemies also, made us vulnerable to discovery. The Russian guards must have been just over the other side of the embankment and had spotted us. They started firing and as we were mid way between the forest and the embankment we were sitting ducks and could do nothing other than fall to the ground. We were well aware of what would happen to us if we did not. The other group managed to get away, mainly because the guards were concentrating on watching us. It was the 1st of January, 1940, the beginning of a new year, and there we were, half way across an open space, faces in the wet snow, at the mercy of Russians firing flares which lit up the sky and the hungry barking of man-hunting dogs. So we were captured.

We were taken at bayonet point to a building somewhere near the railway, counted, and locked up for the night. We were not unduly worried at this stage as we expected to be released when we had explained our circumstances. During the night a pregnant woman (a Jewess of about 25 years old) was brought in. She had been stabbed in the lower part of her abdomen by the bayonet of a Russian Guard. Why was a mystery to us. She had been given no medical treatment and was in extreme agony and bleeding profusely. We managed to help her by tearing underwear into bandages and covering her wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding. We knocked on the door to ask the guards for assistance but our pleas were ignored. In the morning we were marched out, searched and again counted. Our possessions and documents were taken and we were interrogated. These interrogations were a bit of a fiasco as the Russians did not speak Polish and we did not speak Russian. We did not see the injured woman again and I have no knowledge of what happened to her.

We then set off by foot on quite a long march to the prison at Przemysl. During the march, on a few occasions, we were allowed to stop by the farms to get drinks. At these times there was often some confusion and some prisoners took the chance to escape. When we reached the town's suburbs the Russians who were quite well aware that prisoners were missing decided to take a count. It was rather unfortunate for some of the bystanders because when the guards confirmed the shortage the innocent onlookers were taken to make up the numbers. No amount of complaining by them made any difference. They were threatened with bayonets and had to comply if they did not want to be injured. I began to feel just a little uneasy about these 'civilised' Russians.

We reached Przemysl prison where we were again counted and searched, this time more thoroughly. We were again interrogated brusquely and in a foreign tongue -
"Name,"
"where have you come from?"
"parents names,"
"grandparents names,"
"where are you going?"
"what for?
"You lying ......

The Ukrainians who could speak some Russian interpreted for us and we answered as best we could in our own language. Any possessions, which the guards had missed the first time, were now confiscated, including even handkerchiefs. As we were interrogated in groups of about five or six we did manage to pass some small possessions to prisoners who had already been searched, but these were very few. We were still hopeful of our release, as they had nothing to charge us with. We had been wrongly arrested. We were not criminals. Russia was a civilised country, which treated its subjects in a fair and civilised manner. Wasn't it?

It was a very cold winter - the snow was thick outside. I had never been inside a prison before. What was I doing here? Why wasn't I at home in comfort with my family? How had I come to be in this predicament? I was afraid and apprehensive, but I still thought that I would soon be free. Gerard and I were not criminals like the majority of the inmates. The cell to which we were taken seemed a fairly large room but all that I could see at first glance were men, men and even more men. The room was packed full of men. As I got over the initial shock of all these men in one room I took a good look at my surroundings. The walls were dirty and the paint, which must have had some pigmented colour at one time, was drab and peeling off. There was graffiti everywhere. This graffiti, scratched or painted with who knows what medium, took the form of the names of ex-inmates together with dates and reasons for them being there. The writers could perhaps tell so many stories. Where were they now? Were they still alive? How many of them escaped to tell their tales? I would never know. At least I would not add to this Roll of Dishonour. I was innocent.

In one corner was a large encrusted bucket, which was about the size of a dustbin. This was to be the toilet facilities for all the cell occupants. It was a nauseous sight and I vowed to keep well distanced from it. Against the far wall there were two bed frames, their heads adjacent to the wall. There were no mattresses or bedding on these beds. These pathetic items of furniture represented the cell hierarchy. The only things on them were two burly men who were obviously some sort of "trusties". Elsewhere, there was nothing but men - 100 to 150 of them. All these men had to use only one disgusting slop bucket. There is nothing more certain to cut everyone down to size than the use of a prison slop bucket. By evening, hours before it's once a day emptying, it was overflowing and stinking.

We were fed once per day with loaves of bread and some watery soup. This was just brought into the cell and the inmates had to elect a committee of prisoners to carry out the delicate task of dividing the food so that all got equal portions. The bread was dark brown in colour of a very soggy constituency, dense and heavy. If it was squeezed it would stay in the shape of the hand like putty. Not the most appetizing food. The only other "meal" was water, which was provided also once per day.

Battery hens have better conditions than those we had to put up with. At least the hens have separate compartments and are reasonably well fed. The relative space per person and the constant noise was not dissimilar. During the day it was a veritable 'Tower of Babel' - and a multitude of different dialects and languages fermented and compounded the confusion. Even at night there was no peace and quiet. A snore, sighs, moans and groans interspersed with occasional nightmare horror screams and shouts.
It was hard for me, coming from a well-fed, clean, hygienic, well-ordered household to adjust to the dirty smelly conditions in that prison. At first I could hardly stomach the bread and soup but eventually the empty belly overcame the other handicaps.

When night came we had to sleep as best we could on the floor. There was no room between bodies when everyone lay down and the only coverings we had were our own clothes. My cousin Gerard and I shared our coats - we put one on the ground and with the other we covered ourselves. Interrogations were always carried out at night. Just as we were settling down to get some sleep the door would open and the guard would call out a name. When our names were called we would be taken out individually and asked the same old questions about our name, where we were from, where we were going, who did we know. These interrogations were carried out at regular intervals and always followed the same routine. The questions were obviously standard to all interrogators and were merely read parrot fashion to everyone at every interview. No variation, it would seem, was allowed.

The guards had taken all my papers when I was first arrested and so they were well aware of my details. I suppose they were looking for discrepancies in our answers. I had not told them the truth, that I was heading for Romania to join the Polish army, that would have been suicidal and I would have been classed as an enemy spy and either shot or sentenced to a long imprisonment in a Russian Concentration camp. I had given my reason for being over the border in Russia as visiting my aunt. When they asked for my aunt's name I gave them the name of my flying instructor's wife and the address of my flying school which was now in Russian territory. When they asked me details of this aunt I had to make some of them up and commit them to memory for the next interrogation. I kept these details fairly simple and so I got away with this deception. If they had checked up they would have found the house there minus the aunt.

We were not allowed outside the cell apart from these interrogations, nor we given any washing facilities. For two months none of the prisoners in that cell washed and I suppose we grew accustomed to the stench - three hundred unwashed sweaty feet - three hundred unwashed sweaty malodorous armpits. One hundred and fifty sets of dirty, smelly, matted clothing. Not to mention the various other intermittent odours emanating from such a motley lot of underfed windbags. It was in some ways a good thing it was winter and not summer, as I am sure that the cold weather prevented us contracting any disease or illnesses. Gerard and I were lucky to be situated a distance away from the "bucket". Others were not so lucky and had to sleep adjacent to it, where overspills were commonplace and the wooden floor was impregnated with urine from countless prisoners who had passed this way. The weak didn't go to the wall here - they went to the bucket.

There was very little to occupy us during the long days and it was difficult to conquer the boredom. Some time was spent in talking to other inmates, trying to ascertain what had happened to our acquaintances. As they were not in the cell with us we hoped that they had got away. We feared that they had not and were in other overcrowded stinking cells. Occasionally new inmates arrived, often from other parts of the prison and they were bombarded with questions about their cellmates. This was the only way that any news came in or went out. Often there would be a description or a name that was recognisable and then we would know that a colleague was also in the prison. Occasionally a prisoner from our cell would be taken out for interrogation and would fail to return. Perhaps he had been set free. It could be my turn next.

Shortly after arriving I noticed that the two "trusties" were sitting on their beds, underneath the window, doing something with their clothes. They appeared to be peering intensely at them and picking bits off. I was intrigued. I soon discovered that they were delousing themselves - degradation upon degradation. I made a mental note to keep well out of contact with these men to avoid contamination. I squirmed at the thought. However, it was inevitable that before long I along with everyone else would also be carrying out this exacting chore. Only once during my incarceration in this prison was I taken out to the shower room to wash myself and have my clothes disinfected- some temporary respite from the debugging. It was not long before re-infestation occurred.

Rumours were rife. From these we assumed that we would be transferred to Lvov prison, as this one was getting more and more overcrowded. We half expected that we would be discharged to either live or work in Russia or handed back to the Occupying Germans. Meanwhile we tried to keep ourselves agile in both mind and body. For exercise we used to "walk the plank". The floor of the cell was made of wooden planks and during each day a space was kept clear for us to take it in turns to walk up and down a portion of the wooden floor. This little area of the floor was polished smooth and shiny with the constant friction of shuffling feet.

There was an attempt at an escape. The two tough guys had their own good reasons for constantly sitting on the beds. One was to show their seniority another was to mask some secret activities. Behind the bed heads they had been systematically loosening the mortar and dismantling the wall brick by brick until they had made a hole big enough to crawl through. Where they intended to go from there, or how they intended to scale the surrounding walls was a mystery. Unfortunately for them, before they could finish the job they were found out (or informed upon - one never can tell what some people will do to ingratiate themselves with the guards or who the authorities may have planted) and their attempt was foiled. To avoid being found out they had been surreptitiously depositing the rubble in the slop bucket, exacerbating its inadequacy. As it was their job to empty this once a day they had covered their tracks fairly well. The bucket with its extra contents was obviously so heavy that they took it no further than the courtyard outside our cell and emptied its contents right underneath the only window. Not only had we to put up with the stench inside, our only source of outside air was also polluted.

We were all transferred to other overcrowded cells whilst the Russians considered what to do with the hole in the wall. There were new people to question about friends and other rumours to discuss. We found that prisoners who we thought had been freed had just been placed in different cells. The occupants of this next cell included Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and even one Argentinian Pole who had been on holiday with relatives in Poland when hostilities broke out. He had been captured whilst trying to reach Germany. This Argentinian had a cello with him and I would love to hear him play it. The cello has always been one of my favourite instruments with its mellow haunting tones. He never let the precious instrument out of his sight and he even slept clutching it. I was to find out some time later that the cello had been the hiding place for jewellery and valuables, which he had been trying to take with him back home. Unfortunately for him they were discovered and confiscated. Not only did he lose his fortune but also his beautiful cello was smashed up and destroyed by his captors. It always amazed me that people could be so materialistic as to value their possessions above their life. I could not feel sorrow for the Argentinian's hidden hoard, but I was saddened to hear of the cello's demise.

And still the interrogations continued - always at night. Same questions, same order, same remarks. Same answers. What were they hoping to achieve? Eventually the commandants got used to some Polish and we got used to some Russian expressions. The guards who were willing to talk to us and who were as confused as we were about our reasons for being there would tell us,
"When we get you sorted out you'll be able to go home."
It was taking them a long time to sort us out. The more we questioned newcomers to our cell, the more our hopes of release faded. Our spirits sank bit by bit and we stopped believing the assurances of the guards. We did once have a visit from the Commissar who asked whether there were any complaints. There were. Many. He listened inattentively, going through the motions, but we knew that he had heard them all before and there would be no improvement.

We had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were now in Russia and there was very little we could do about it. We wondered what Russia was really like. There was very little information, which had come out to the outside world. The Rumours circulating at the time were that the people were half civilised. From the little information we could glean from the guards we were still none the wiser. The guards were local and had no information about the rest of the country. They had been told that they were well off and that the people in the Capitalist countries were starving. They wouldn't believe that over the border in Poland there was such a thing as electricity and motorcars.

One man in the cell had been a journalist and a staunch supporter of the Communist Party in Poland. He announced to everyone one day that if the Polish Government wanted to rid the country of communism all it had to do was to send each of the Party members to Russia for six months training. He guaranteed, from his experiences, that they would return home totally disillusioned with the doctrine.

One night, after about two months in this prison, we were woken up and marched outside where there was deep snow on the ground. As soon as the fresh cold air entered my lungs I was taken aback. Everything started spinning round and I had great difficulty in standing up. It took all my effort not to collapse on the ground. I was weaving about like a drunken man. In a short time, as I got used to the clean, cold air and my brain had become accustomed to the unfamiliar influx of oxygen, I looked around and saw that others were also reeling and that some had fainted and were being carried. We were marched out of the prison flanked by guards. After the initial shock it felt good to be in the open air, the crisp white snow under our feet and the chill freshness clinging to our unwashed hands and faces. The forced march ended at the railway line where we were again counted and with much shouting, pushing and rifle butt nudging loaded into waiting goods wagons. It was here that my cousin Gerard and I were separated and although I was to catch a glimpse of him once I was not able to speak to him again for some considerable time. I suddenly felt very lonely. I had not until this time realised what comfort we had afforded each other. My link with home and family had been whisked away from me. Only strangers in a strange environment surrounded me. Parents, brother, sister, cousins, aunts and uncles suddenly seemed further away than ever, unreachable.

We stayed locked in these wagons in the stationery train all the rest of that night. It was obvious that we were going somewhere but no one told us where. We could only guess. At least conditions couldn't be much worse than those we had just left. Again there was hope that we would be set free when we reached our destination. Maybe we would have some kind of trial where we would be able to convince them of our innocence. Whatever the outcome change had to be better than stagnation. As daylight broke the train shuddered, the wheels screeched against the icy iron rails, turned first in slow motion clanking discordantly, then gathering speed, revolving faster and faster until the rhythm settled down into a hypnotic pulsating beat. We were on our way and heading east.

The wagons were fairly large, totally enclosed and with a small stove in the middle which stretched from floor to roof. These wagons were as crowded as our previous premises. We were given some fuel to burn in the stove, which served to keep the centre of the wagon warm but did not permeate to the sides of the wagon. The perimeter walls remained covered in frost. Some people managed to escape from these wagons although they were well and truly locked from the outside. They exited through the floor. A piece of metal was heated up in the stove and used to burn a ring of holes in the floor thus dislodging a suitably sized piece of wood making it possible for a man to drop through down on to the track. Once on the track all that was required was to lay flat until the train had passed. However, if you made it on to the track you still had to brave the gunfire of the guards if spotted. There were those who obviously felt that it was worth the risk. Some prisoners possibly gained their freedom this way. The sudden braking of the train and the subsequent rifle shots echoing in the quiet countryside vividly demonstrated that there were also those whose only freedom was in death.

We had not been travelling for long when we all complained about our skin itching. We looked around and tried to find the cause. This soon became evident. The wagons we were in had been previously used for transporting salt - the only commodity in plentiful supply in Russia - and the residue from the last consignment still clung to the interior surfaces of the wagon. Once we had located the cause of our discomfort we set about sweeping it up with whatever utensil we could lay our hands on. This gave us something on which to concentrate and our suffering was also alleviated.

We expected our destination would be Lvov prison but in this we were mistaken. The train stopped in some sidings. This was Kiev. The guards unlocked the trucks and we were allowed to get out and stretch our legs. High fences surrounded the sidings, which contained another goods train, as well as the one we had just vacated. Here we were put to work. The job was to take potatoes from an underground warehouse and load them onto the goods wagons of the other train in the sidings. It was good to be out in the open air with the limited amount of freedom to wander about within the compound. Our sleeping quarters for the next three nights was the underground warehouse and this accommodation was the best we had seen for several months. There was plenty of space and it was reasonably warm. We were sorry when the work was completed and we were loaded on to the train once more to continue our journey.

As we travelled further and further south the weather got warmer and warmer. What had started as an uncomfortable cold, cramped journey turned into one that was still uncomfortable, but sweaty, sticky and hot.

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