Address:
Strzeżony Ośrodek dla Cudzoziemców w Białej Podlaskiej
ul. Dokudowska 19
21-500 Biała Podlaska
Tel number to the public phone located in the camp’s residential ward:
Family Ward nr. 1: 83 801 01 32
Family Ward nr.2: 83 801 01 33
Family Ward nr. 3: 83 801 01 37
**This phone is located in the hallway and any prisoner can answer when it rings. If you don’t know anybody inside, you can call and ask for someone who speaks your language (English, Russian, French, Arabic, German, etc.) in order to find out about the situation in the camp. Prisoners rarely receive calls and words of solidarity from people on the outside. It is even more rare that someone calls in order to pass information about prisoners inside the camp, to the outside world. Take a piece of paper, a pencil, or maybe a tape recorder and document people’s stories. We can publish them on this website. Prisoners often go on hunger strike because it is one of the only methods of protest possible behind bars. The border guard does not allow information about hunger strikes to leave the camps walls. In general, we discourage contact with the border guard because they always say everything is just fine.
VISITS
Visiting prisoners is possible 7 days a week,
From 9 am – 12 pm and 2 pm – 5pm
maximum time allowed is 60 minutes
**To visit you need permission from the camp’s border guard-in chief (komendant). You can download the application form (you must be approved by the komendant) on the website of the nadbużański border guard unit.
The detention camp in Biała Podlaska was most likely opened on November 27th, 2012 along with the nabużański border guard unit. The unit considers the detention camp its “organizational cell” (quoted from unit’s website). In the Fall of 2012, the camp’s prisoners went on hunger strike along with the prisoners of 3 other detention camps (Białystok, Lesznowola and Przemyśl). Together 73 prisoners refused food rations.
Below we publish a photo essay that documents an art workshop for kids and their parents that was organized in the Biała Podlaska detention camp. Our intention here is not to normalize life behind bars. While the photos may be colorful and the scenes familiar to everyday life outside of the prison context, notice the double and triple barb wire fence that sets the background. Notice how close the neighbors live on the outside and what they see every day through their windows (first photo, top left). These photos are misleading in what they don’t say: these sorts of workshops and activities for the inmates, regardless of age, are hardly ever organized and what characterizes life inside the camp is dreadful monotony. This is maddening for any person, but for youth especially. This particular workshop was a grassroots idea that gave our group access inside the prison and the ability to create relationships with the people locked up inside.
Were you held at the detention camp in Biała Podlaska? If you want to share your experience/story, we can publish it on this website. Contact us by email: noiiwarszawa@autistici.org
Responsible for the camp in Biała Podlaska:
mjr sg małgorzata suchodolska – chief
angelika sudak – chief of education
por. sg radosław kasztelan – chief of records
por. sg marta wiatrowicz – older records assistant