1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, profession, marital status):
Volunteer Wilhelmina Jastrzembska, born on 27 December 1914 in the city of Samara (Russia), bookkeeper, typist, unmarried.
2. Dates and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on the night between 23 March 1940 and 24 March 1940, after my apartment had been carefully searched.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
24 March 1940–5 April 1940 – political prison in Grodno, then from 5 April to 1 October wniutrynna curma [wnutriennaja tiurma] by the Minsk NKVD, after the investigation had been concluded – municipal prison in Minsk from 1 October 1940 to 5 March 1941; after having been sentenced, from 5 March 1941 to 30 August 1941 – “Karaganda” labor camp in North Kazakhstan.
4. Description of the camp, prison, etc. (terrain, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
Prison in Grodno (single cell) – conditions quite bearable. Internal NKVD prison in Minsk – this was a show-off prison, where the only thing going on were interrogations; living and hygienic conditions were good. Municipal prison in Minsk – living conditions, hygienic conditions, and food rations very poor. For example, cell no. 38, which normally held 5 prisoners, [was filled with] 30 to 35 people, being 3 meters long and 1.5 meter wide and without a window. We suffered lack of air and water (everyday around five to six people fainted). From time to time, they let in some artificially condensed air. We slept on the bare floor, almost naked, in two shifts. To make our life “easier”, they put two crazy women into this crowd, who were arguing day and night, provoking all kinds of fuss. Another cell – no. 164 – was huge, cold, damp, and there was a small, barred window with no glass at the top, and water was dripping from it and leaking on the floor that we slept on, with no blankets again. There were 17 of us in that cell. The conditions in both cells were just outrageous, indescribable.
5. Composition of POWs, prisoners (nationality, offense category, moral and intellectual standing, mutual relations, etc.):
Elite social element, of Polish nationality; offense categories: for membership of political organizations before 1939 and after USSR entered our territory, and insignificant number for crossing the border illegally. Intellectual standing – at least the little matura [exam passed], moral standing – fierce patriotism showed by almost all. Mutual relations were very friendly.
6. Life in the camp, prison etc. (daily routine, working conditions, quotas, salary, food rations, clothing, social and cultural life):
We tried to lift our spirits as much as we could. Because there were people of various social groups, the intelligentsia, we educated one another. We carried out lectures from diverse disciplines, such as: domestic and foreign literature, ancient and modern history, natural history, geography. As we had a mathematician among us, we also revised math, algebra and geometry. To celebrate different anniversaries, we organized ceremonies, lectures, concerts, choir performances, stage plays, even regional dance shows. By telling each other books, theatrical plays, movies, we filled the rest of our spare time of the day. There wasn’t a day or night when one of us wouldn’t be summoned for interrogation.
In prison they gave us Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian books with communist, propaganda content. All were very primitive.
In the labor camps, they woke us at 3 a.m., and we’d go to sleep at 11 p.m. or sometimes 1 a.m. I first worked clearing the fields of ice and snow, then I was harrowing, sowing and reaping. I also worked at the haymaking. Quotas had to be kept, working conditions were very hard, and we didn’t receive any remuneration. Food rations were very poor; we weren’t given any clothing, everybody kept wearing off whatever they had, constantly patching the clothes up. We walked around the fields in trepki [clogs] we made on our own. Walking through the stubbles bare-footed would hurt.
Due to the lack of time, there was no way for sustenance of cultural life in the labor camp.
7. NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (methods of interrogation, torturing, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
Attitude of the NKVD was hostile. Interrogations usually took place at night. For the whole time of the interrogation, they kept me in a single cell. They addressed me in the worst possible ways (I don’t want to quote their words), constantly cursing, and even slapped me in the face; in order to coerce a confession, they kept me in a punishment cell for eight days (bread once a day and a cup of water). The looks and the hygiene in the punishment cell were unbearable. Communist propaganda was there at every turn. They spoke nonsense of our Republic of Poland government, saying stupid things about Poland, the clergy, etc.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality (list names of the deceased):
Medical assistance, both prison and in the labor camp, was pretty fast and decent.
9. Was there any possibility to communicate with one’s country and family?
I didn’t have any contact with the country or family throughout the whole time I stayed in prison and in the labor camp.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released on 30 August [1941] based on the amnesty. After the amnesty, as a free citizen, I worked in Turkestan in a brickyard. When I learned about our army being formed, I applied to the wojenkomat of Turkestan, and after three days, a permit to leave for Buzuluk arrived.
Official stamp, 9 March 1943