1. [Personal data]:
Volunteer Stanisława Skrycka, born on 2 February 1922 in Horodziłów [?], Oszmiana district, I was with my family, single.
2. [Date and circumstances of the arrest]:
On 20 June 1941, they arrested my brother, my sister-in-law with two children, me, and my younger brother; they deported us to a place of forced labor. We do not know the reason for my brother’s arrest, they accused him of agitation and of being a wealthy landlord, a so- called pomeshchik.
3. [The name of the camp, prison, or place of forced labor]:
Place of forced labor: Siberia, Altai Krai, Troytsk region, Belovsky sovkhoz.
4. [Description of the camp, prison]:
The place of my residence was a pig sovkhoz. The whole sovkhoz was divided into farms in which there were up to 2,000 pigs; the land had an area of up to 1000 hectares. Together with my family, I lived in the center of the sovkhoz, where housing conditions were much better than in the “brigades”. One building housed ten families – a flat almost without windows; covered with cardboard, but on the floor; a mass of house-bugs on the walls made the room look horrible. Where I lived with my family was a former school, which was given to us. There were 10 people in one room, and 14 in the other. The housing conditions were terrible, but we made our life together as possible as we could. We didn’t have wood and the forest was 40 km away. It was impossible to bring wood, however, I worked in the building industry, from where I brought splinters home every day.
5. [The composition of prisoners, captives, displacees]:
There were about a hundred displaced people in the sovkhoz. Mostly women and children – there were very few men, most of them old or ill. There were Jews from Kowno, Wilno, factory owners, and bank directors. [There were] Poles from Wilno, Oszmiana; military families, wives of officials, three engineers, and four families from the countryside including mine. We all lived in harmony, we understood each other; we conveyed news from the newspapers [illegible] other, to all those we trusted, we only stayed away from the Jews.
6. [Life in the camp, prison]:
I worked building houses (mud huts). My work was to carry clay, stones, dig trenches, etc. I started at six and I worked as hard as I could until eight o’clock. There was no way to meet the quota. The four of us, Polish girls, worked among the Russian men, while others were sent to “brigades” for field labor, where the earnings were scant – 60 to 80 kopeks a day. At the beginning, we received 600–400 grams of bread. For the rest of our survival, we drew off our reserves.
7. [The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards the Poles]:
The attitude of the NKVD towards us was unfavorable. They often made inspections, took Polish books, paintings, forced us to work on Sunday, [and] threatened lawsuits. They told some stories about Poland, about us. Sometimes they tried to gain our trust, saying that everything they did was for our good, but then we felt even greater disgust and hatred.
8. [Medical care, hospitals, mortality]:
During my stay, due to the lack of good nutrition and care, various diseases spread, like typhus and dysentery, mostly among children. Cases were always fatal, my one-and-a-half- year-old nephew died as well. There was a physician in the sovkhoz, but he was helpless due to the lack of medicines and vaccines.
9. [What kind of contact, if any, was there with your family and country?]:
We had no contact with the country or with family because it was during the outbreak of the Russo-German War.
10. [When were you released and how did you get to the army?];
On 9 September 1941, we received the udostovereniya [release from the labor camp] and the authorities announced that we could change our place of stay. They gave us a choice of a few cities where we could live. Of course, they set up great obstacles, but thanks to the efforts of one doctor, we left on 1 October for Tashkent. Then, they took us along the Amu-Darya River to Nukus. There, I worked on a kolkhoz, and in December – by order of the authorities – we left for the Bukhara Oblast, also to a kolkhoz. There, when I heard about the Women’s Auxiliary Service formed in Guzar, I joined them on 29 January 1942.
3 February 1943