Rifleman Stanisław Adamusik, son of Andrzej and Maria, née Chruzińska, a laborer from Równe.
I was sentenced by the Soviet authorities to seven years’ compulsory labor and deported to Russia, to the Finnish Karelia, where I worked very hard without pay, clearing barrels of fish etc. I walked three kilometers to work. The work quota was 20 tons. When I did my work, I received 900 grams of bread and half a liter of poor soup twice a day.
Accommodations: we had tents [illegible]. There were 300 of us, sleeping one on top of the other. At night it was impossible to reach the door, for there was no room to put a foot down. For seven months we lived deprived of a bathhouse, wearing the same underwear. Those who took a change of clothes from home had it taken away during the search. As a result, we were left with nothing but what we had on. The rest was distributed among those who had no clothes at all. Lice and bedbugs kept us awake. When you were falling asleep, they were crawling into your eyes and nose. We rested for ten hours, while we were standing in a queue to get a piece of bread and soup.
There were about 5,000 prisoners in one camp. The camp had one kitchen. Food was served from three windows. Waiting to get something to eat never gave you enough time to rest. I spent seven months living in this way. Then all the Poles were taken to Arguta [handwritten note: Vorkuta] to work in even worse conditions. We received 600 grams of bread. Our work required us to stand in knee-deep mud. I worked there for two months. When the amnesty was proclaimed, I went to Central Asia, to Nokus. Until 2 March I worked in a kolkhoz. Then I joined the Polish army in Shakpak. We went from Shakpak to the port in Krasnovodsk, and further on to Persia, along with the 8th Division of the 24th Infantry Regiment.
I am now in the back-up center attached to the staging area command post in the staff platoon, working as a cook in a non-commissioned officers’ canteen.
7 March 1943