I was constantly interrogated, day and night. I was so exhausted that I could hardly keep on my feet. When I was led from one judge to another, they had to support me to keep me from falling to the ground. Moreover, I was starving because I was given only a little soup and 300 grams of bread a day.
One morning, as I was returning to my cell, I spotted the bishop of Stanyslaviv (today's Ivano-Frankivsk) from western Ukraine, who was just coming out of the restroom. Almost eighty-year-old Mons. Hryhoriy Khomyshyn was covered in wounds and looked as if he was at the end of his strength. It is certain that hunger, lack of sleep, and especially long and continuous interrogations can destroy a person and drive them to madness. I attribute to God's grace that I did not succumb under the weight of this suffering.
(Josip kard. Slipij /1892–1984/, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic bishop,
arrested by the NKVD in 1945, then spent 18 years in a gulag,
released in 1963 based on the intervention of John XXIII and forced to emigrate to Rome;
memories of Soviet prison, Kyiv 1945)
