Waldemar Pernach

There were three-tier bunk beds in the cell. It was impossible to look through the windows because they were frozen. There was also frost and ice on the walls, you could scratch it off. In the corner there was a toilet without a seat or a cover. You had to do your business in public. When I say I spent nine months in prison, some say: no, you were interned. But, no, I was in prison. We had to follow prison regulations. The friendlier jailers would tell us that there were no internment regulations, so we were subject to the prison regulations regime and we had to be treated as such. I had one and a half threadbare blankets and we slept in all we had, because it was freezing cold. If there was a ladder there I would even cover myself with it. In the morning we had to warm up, we ran one by one between beds and did squats. At 7:30 the door swung open and a prisoner brought in black coffee and some food.

And they put me in the Black Maria. I wondered whether they were taking me to be shot like my father, only this time by Polish authorities. The van didn’t have windows, so I didn't know where they were taking me - maybe to the Kampinos Forest to be shot? As we were driving, I felt the bridge over the Vistula. They took me to Bialoleka. I was relieved they were going to put me in prison, rather than shoot me. Antoni 'Szary’ Heda, who had five death sentences and fought against the communists and the Germans, was locked up with us. He told me that he also thought that it might end in execution and that we should be polite to the jailers, not tease them, because they might open the cells and let us escape. And there I was, locked up in Bialoleka on 17 December.