1. [Personal details:]
Ward nurse (isolation ward) Helena Pałaszkiewicz, 37 years old, office worker, married.
2. [Date and circumstance of arrest:]
On 13 April 1940 I was deported into internal exile; my husband had been arrested in 1939 for his community work in the KPW [Railway Military Training?].
3. [Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site:]
Kazakhstan, Pavlodarsk Oblast, kolkhoz Rajgurnes.
4. [Description of the camp, prison:]
We lived in a big stable that was 20 meters long and 5 meters wide. There were 18 of us: elderly people, women and children. It was tolerably clean, because we worked to keep it clean ourselves.
5. [The composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles:]
Our relations were not bad, we were listening to each other and helping each other out..
6. [Life in the camp, prison:]
The labor was hard, we had to loam, whitewash, make kiziak [dried dung used as fuel], dig ditches, dry hay in summer and do other farm duties such as herding cattle and milking cows.
We lived on hard-earned bread and milk called abrat. We had our own garments, which, fortunately, were sufficient for our needs. The social life was often insupportable. There was no cultural life at all. A prayer book was our greatest entertainment.
7. [The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:]
The NKVD officials came very often and were always telling us the same things: you’ll never see Poland again, you have to work, you have to marry, because you were sold out by the Polish authorities who fled to England, etc.
8. [Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:]
The medical aid was in a sorry state. Some 40 kilometers away, in a sovkhoz, there was a midwife acting as a doctor. If someone had a fever of more than 39°C, they were allowed to miss work for one day. We had to cure ourselves alone. A few elderly people died, some because of hunger and exhaustion. In my hovel Wincenty Zalewski from Riwera, an elderly man of 76, who was deported with his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren, died.
9. [Was there any possibility of getting in contact with one’s country and family?]
I received a few letters from my friends, but I haven’t been in contact with my family since 1939.
10. [When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?]
We were released on the very day the amnesty was declared; we were no longer forced to work and people were behaving differently toward us.
I managed to get to the army by myself. It has taken me half a year to arrive to Guzar from Kazakhstan. I was often cold and hungry, but finally I arrived at my destination.
Now I’m employed and it has been a year since I joined the Polish Army.
Temporary quarters, 8 March 1943