Platoon Officer Cadet Bohdan Doliński, 6th Tank Unit.
On 20 September 1939, Włodzimierz Wołyński was captured by Soviet troops. On the basis of negotiations upon the surrender of the garrison, all the soldiers were to be released home. Those who wanted to cross the Bug river to the German side were to be escorted to the river. This group comprised about thirty officers from the Artillery Reserve Officer Cadet School. They were separated from their families and transported to Kowel, where they were set free. A few hours later they were arrested and deported to Kozelsk as prisoners. The same fate befell the rest of the officers, who had preferred to stay in the Soviet-occupied territories. The point was to arrest those officers as civilians, not as prisoners of war. In total, there were 43 officers from the Artillery Reserve Officer Cadet School. Following the amnesty, only Capt. Tadeusz Czerny was released from among this number. The rest, such as Capt. Stanisław Żaboklicki, Capt. Jabłoński, Colonel Jasiński, Major Mrówczyński, Lieutenant Gondek, Lieutenant Murzyczyn, Capt. Kozowicz, Capt. Larch (I can’t recall any more surnames) were deported from Kozelsk in an unknown direction. On 10 February 1940 all military settlers and the more affluent Polish farmers were also deported. They were loaded onto a train at night, when the temperature fell to 35 degrees below zero. The goods wagons were furnished with stoves, but there wasn’t any firewood. As a result, 23 people – mainly children – were buried already in Kowel. I don’t remember their surnames. The rest were deported to Ural. In a wave of arrests, on the night of 19/20 March 1940, about thirty people were arrested. One of them, Jerzy Ptasznik (16 years old), died as a result of beatings during interrogation. On 13 April 1940, about 1,200 people were deported from Włodzimierz and the surrounding area (36 wagons, approx. 35 people per wagon). We (I was among the deported) were allowed to take only hand luggage. The families of the arrested were also deported. The wagons weren’t heated. We didn’t receive any food until we reached the station in Homel. We could leave the wagons once a day, and sometimes not at all. The journey lasted sixteen days.
From the station in Taiynsha (Petropavlovsk Oblast, Kazakhstan) we were sent to various kolkhozes. When we reached our destination we were forbidden to leave the village. At first we didn’t get any jobs or foodstuffs. After a month we were allowed to work, but we received neither food nor firewood. There were 65 adults in the village, including 12 boys aged from 16 to 20 years, and the rest were women. There were approximately 30 children. Due to the fact that we were paid neither in money nor in kind, in October we stopped working. In January we were paid 3 rubles per day, while the prices were as follows: 20 kilograms of flour – 100 rubles; 1 kilogram of lard – 60 rubles. The following people died: Zofia Lisiecka (70 years old) and two other women whose surnames I don’t remember. It was difficult to buy anything with money; one could get something only in exchange for underwear, clothes, and shoes. We didn’t receive firewood in the winter. A winter’s supply of firewood cost about a thousand rubles. The temperatures fell to 60 degrees below zero.
On 23 June 1941, the men and the stronger women were taken to build the Akmolinsk– Kartaly railway line (Kazakhstan). We had a twelve-hour workday and twice a week we had to work also at night. 40 people lived in one barrack, bed next to bed. When it was raining, we waded ankle-deep in water in our barracks. We didn’t have any free days. At first we were paid about 10 rubles per day, depending on the quota. However, one could buy an 800-gram lump of bread, which cost 1.5 ruble per kilogram. In October the bread ration was reduced to 400 grams. Other products were: lard – 120 rubles for 1 kilogram; oil – 70 rubles for 1 kilogram; flour – 150 rubles for 20 kilograms. The daily work quota for women was to dig 8 cubic meters of earth and load them onto a wagon, and then unload it by the tracks; for men: 12 cubic meters. In October our wages were cut by half.
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