Gunner Jan Gałka, 21 years old, farmer, bachelor, born in Wołyń.
On 10 February 1940 my family and I were taken to Russia to the Arkhangelsk Oblast, Solvychegodsk, and then the Lensky District, a hamlet called Ust’-Viledi. The number of families in the hamlet was 115. The housing conditions were bad because of the damp and masses of vermin. The living conditions varied, some had it better others worse depending on the family in question, and on the number of people who could work, because the wages were generally very low.
It was bad. One family of nine was reduced to only three people; their surname was Warżawa. There were also many other fatalities.
Most of the people in the hamlet were Polish, a small percentage were Ukrainian, who were on the warpath against the Poles, because their situation in Poland had been really bad, etc. We earned from three to ten rubles, the quotas were high, impossible to meet.
Clothes were available to those who met the quotas, and the quotas were met by those whose situation in Poland had been bad.
The NKVD treated us quite well, because they wanted the Poles to become just like them, but they did not succeed.
Considering the conditions, the medical care was not very good.
I was released as a result of the amnesty. I left Arkhangelsk in October and went to Kazakhstan, the Suzak region, from where I set off to join the army, the 8th Division. My family stayed in a kolkhoz in the Suzak region.