n late December 1940, after a heavy snow fall, I got hot walking to work and on arrival there I asked the escort if I could go to the river to get some water. He said yes, so I went to the river where there was a small wooden shack used as bakery, where they were baking bread for slaves and the escort.

There was a hole in the ice made by the bakers, so I filled my little can with water and drank some. An old Russian came out of the shack and asked, who are you, and where are you from and what are you here for? I told him I am a Pole and I am here for trying to cross the border. Throw the water out and I will give you some "galushki" (noodles). I threw the water out and he filled my can with noodles, which I shared with Edward.

But having drunk ice cold water when I was hot, I got a nasty chill. By midday I felt my temperature rise rapidly and by the end of the day I was burning hot. On the way back to the camp I was walking fast and was warned that if I make one more step ahead of the rest, I would be shot. On arrival back to the camp, I went to see the "lekpom" (sick room male nurse). He was a butcher's boy from Kraków, who somehow managed to bring his fur coat with him and gave it to the camp commander, who made him a lekpom. He put a thermometer under my arm and it read 39 degrees Celsius. He checked again and it was rising. When a person's temperature was over 39 degrees, he was authorized to declare that person unfit for work. Next day I was very ill indeed.

On 31st December, they carried me to the hospital which was outside the camp, in a deep dugout topped with poles covered with sphagnum moss and brush and a layer of soil to keep the frost out. Inside there were four posts supporting the roof. On arrival there I was stripped to be washed and I could see how skinny I was. A nurse took the few rubles I got for my boots for safe keeping. At that time I was getting delirious and was objecting to being robbed and lost consciousness.

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One day I awoke and tried to lift my head up, but it was too much and I drifted off again. I could hear people talking near me and someone said: he should wake up in about two hours, but if he does not, he will never wake up. Some time later I came to again, and remembered that I tried to raise my head before and collapsed, so I just turned my head to the side, and on my right there was a friendly looking face with a mustache, so I asked - where am I? In hospital, was the answer. How long was I here? Don't know, you were here when I was brought here two weeks ago. What date is it? He pointed to a calendar on a post supporting the roof. I read - it was the fifth of February. So I was unconscious for thirty six days !!

After a while a nurse came over to have a look at me and went off to return with a doctor. The Doctor examined me and said - you will be all right now and they left. A while later the nurse came back with a glass full of tea and a slice of bread. She broke the bread, dipped it in the tea and fed it to me. She introduced herself as Lena Vasilevna and the doctor was Vasili Ivanovich Zagumionnyi. They too were prisoners. All the time I was unconscious she fed me like a child. There was another nurse called Marusia and a "felcher" called Valentin. (felcher was a title given to medical students who had not passed their exams but were called up to attend to the wounded). These two were not prisoners. I started to gain strength from day to day and soon started to help the nurses take food to the patients.

In hospital there was a French boy, about fifteen years old, who didn't speak Russian and could only communicate with Dr Zagumionnyi, who spoke good French. He often wrote poems and Dr Zagumionnyi would read them, praise them and give him a lot of encouragement, as well as supplying him with some paper and a pencil. Zagumionnyi was a true gentleman, far too intelligent for Stalin's safety, that is why he was imprisoned. I have seen him amputate frozen limbs by cutting flesh with scissors and bones with a carpenters saw. Sometimes he had some ether to knock the patient out, but often he didn't have any, so he would put a leather strap between his patient's teeth and get two men to hold him down while he was cutting. Nurse Marusia soon left the hospital and went South to have her baby.

One fellow from Caucasus started coming over to see me, and we would have a chat about Caucasia and Poland. He hated the Bolsheviks and all that they were doing. He couldn't talk to Russians about it as he did not trust them. Once he saw a Russian bullying a little Chinese man and he just shook in anger saying, look at that Russian animal, what he is doing.

From time to time Doctor Zagumionnyi would take me to a partition and examine me. One day he told me I was all right now and all I needed was food, which he could not give me, but if I was willing to go to his dugout at night to keep the fire going, he might be able to get some for me. I agreed and that night I went to his dugout to attend to the fire. His food was brought to him from the kitchen and he would share it with me. One day Dr Zagumionnyi told me that he no longer could keep me in hospital, as there were many others in greater need and the authority began to question my staying here.