Volunteer Henryka Kwiatkowska: I was born on 26 January 1924 and on 10 February 1940 I was deported with my family to Arkhangelsk Oblast, Nuchtoozhersk [?] hamlet.
We lived in barracks; the conditions were very harsh, and the hygiene poor. I worked in the forest at logging. The work quotas were very high, and toiling 12 hours per day I was able to meet barely one third of the quota, with remuneration depended on meeting it. On average, I earned from 25 to 30 rubles per month. For failure to go to work or some sort of obstinacy – for instance if they convened some meeting in the club and herded us there to listen to them gloating over our misfortunes, constantly hearing “Poland has disappeared for good” – when we skipped one of these lectures, we were later severely persecuted and sent for more difficult labor. They never gave us a day off on Sunday or any other holiday, but only during the week, and moreover sometimes we had to work all month without a break. Once when I skipped work on a Sunday, they gave me only half of my food ration for the whole week and made me work even harder, not letting me rest during dinner break. When I didn’t go to work the second time, I was sentenced to six months of forced labor and had 25 percent deducted from my monthly wages.
I learned about the amnesty on 5 September 1941, and from that time on we weren’t harassed as much, although we had to work until 15 October; then, they issued us our udostoverenie [certificate of release] and I went with my family to Uzbekistan, Jalal-Abad Oblast, to Krasnyy Partizan kolkhoz. The journey lasted until 30 December 1941 and was very hard. There were 98 of us in one wagon, it was cramped and we were hungry. We received only 40 decagrams of bread on the way, and we couldn’t get or buy anything else. People started falling ill. During the journey, a military settler, Józef Sulma, a colonist, Mikołaj Zajko, and six children whose surnames I don’t remember died in our wagon. I arrived with my family at Jalal-Abad, and we were sent to a kolkhoz. I worked there at picking cotton and at road repairs. My father joined the army on 12 February 1942 and left, while my mother, my younger siblings and I stayed and worked to make a living until 17 July. Next we were brought to Suzak as a military family and stayed with the Army, with the 5th Division. We all left for Pahlavi, where on 10 September 1942 I joined the ranks of the Women’s Auxiliary Service.