GENOWEFA GALANTOWICZ

Senior leader Genowefa Galantowicz, born on 9 October 1917 in Wilno, married.

I was deported from Wilno to Russia together with my two children on 14 June 1941. We were sent to the township of Rubtsovsk in the Barnaul Oblast of the Altai Krai. They sent our transport to various kolkhozes and sovkhozes. I worked for a month cultivating beetroot in a sovkhoz, but thereafter I had to resign, for my children – left completely without care – fell sick with pneumonia and diphtheria. I stayed with them in a children’s hospital in Rubtsovsk for two months. On 11 September 1941, after a very heavy illness, my son died. When the amnesty was announced on 1 September 1941, the Polish Committee organized a transport to Asia. On 17 November, once we received our release documents, I left with my daughter for Asia.

After a month of journeying in very difficult conditions, in filthy, unheated wagons, the NKVD quartered us in the Berlik kolkhoz, 40 kilometers from Tergana, where I would receive 200 grams of flour daily; our shelter, a so-called kibitka, without any windows or doors, housed fifteen people. A typhus fever epidemic soon broke out, and four to six people would die every day. On 24 January 1942, I reported as a nurse to the hospital in the said kolkhoz. After working there for a month, on 19 February, I fell seriously ill with typhus fever. On 27 March 1942, once I had recovered and received my wages of 180 rubles, I left the hospital directly for Gorchakovo. On 4 April 1942, I was accepted to the Women’s Auxiliary Service in Margilan. From there, I was sent to Guzar, to the Reserve Center of the Women’s Auxiliary Service. On 18 June, I was assigned to the garrison hospital in Karkin-Batash. After working for a week at the infectious ward, I fell seriously ill with dysentery. Six weeks later, my health finally began to improve. On 11 July 1942, I left for Krasnovodsk, where I worked at the Evacuation Hospital as a nurse. Following the liquidation of the hospital on 28 July, I left for Pahlevi, where I worked at Evacuation Hospital no. 1, also as a nurse. On 15 October 1942, I departed for Iraq and arrived in Quizil Ribat, where I currently work as a nurse at Military Hospital no. 3.