Władysław Wójcik, corporal, born in 1902, State Forest ranger, married.
On 24 June 1940, I was deported, along with my wife, to Turniga [?] in the Nyandoma Raion, Vologda Oblast. Our group, consisting of 74 persons including children, was loaded onto cargo train cars and thus sent away. For three days we received no provisions whatsoever. Then, they gave us a kilogram of bread per person. This pattern continued: we would henceforth receive a kilogram of bread per person once every three days. In my train car there were only Poles and Ukrainians. We arrived at our destination on 14 July 1940 and were then quartered in very shabby wooden barracks. We lived in groups of 120 per barrack compartment, sleeping on the floor because there were no beds. Morale: people succumbed to despair, women and children cried.
We were sent to work from 16 July 1940 onwards and were assigned the task of forest clearing. The work was very hard; all were expected to fulfill the labor quota, which was clearing 3 cubic meters per person, irrespective of the fact that some people were old or ill. The usual pay was 90 rubles. Hygiene was maintained to some extent. As regards clothing, we were issued none. Mutual relations among the prisoners were mostly good. If a person did not fulfill their labor quota, they were put in solitary confinement for the night and had to go to work the next day. Notably, some among us became snitches. One of them was Zdzisław Kiełbasiński (from the Niemowicze village in the Sarny District, a forester of a private forest) who watched the behavior of the Poles in the camp on behalf of the NKVD; he received permission to leave the camp whenever he wanted. Polish women would organize secret meetings and Kiełbasiński would snitch on them to the Soviet authorities relatively frequently. Upon receiving such a denouncement, the authorities would immediately put the women in solitary confinement for a few days.
There was medical assistance, but not for Poles. One Roman Żarczyński had a fatal accident. I maintained contact with the home country up to the outbreak of the war.
I was released on 13 September 1941 and received a referral to the town of Melekess on the Volga River. After three weeks, I left for Buzuluk but was not accepted there due to overcrowding – I was sent to a kolkhoz in Jalalabad. I received a summons to the Polish Army on 12 February, travelled immediately to Saratov and jointed the army there.