1. Personal data:
Aftergut Bernard, rifleman, private clerk, 49 years old, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
On 22 June 1940, my son and I, having been arrested at 3.00 p.m. in Lwów at Tarnowskiego Street 45, were taken to the train station and deported.
3. Name of the camp, prison or forced labor site:
Sverdlovsk Oblast, Achitsky Region, Afanasievsky Razezd, Mech. Forestpoint, Quarter no 59.
4. Description of the camp, prison (camp grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
I lived in barracks. There were five of us in one room. It was a tight squeeze. Hygiene left much to be desired.
5. Composition of prisoners-of-war, prisoners, and exiles (nationality, type of crime, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations etc.):
[Illegible] beat the prisoners with [illegible], most had fled from the German occupation. Mostly Poles, half of them were intelligentsia, their intellectual and moral level was all right [illegible]. We all got on well with each other.
6. Life in the camp, prison etc. (daily routine, working conditions, work quotas, remuneration, food, clothes, social life etc.):
We got up at 6.00 a.m. and at 7.00 a.m. we left for work in the woods, having about four kilometers to cover. We started work at 8.00 a.m. sharp. Lunch break was from 12.00 p.m. to 1.00 p.m. and the lunch consisted of bread, tea and water, which we would take with us. Work continued from 1.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. Then we returned to our barracks. Following the outbreak of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, we were forced to work twelve hours a day, from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., with a one-hour break. 90% of our work quotas were impossible to fill. We were poorly paid, and much of what we were to be paid was deducted from our [actual] pay. As a result, we could hardly afford to buy bread and this poor soup. The work was carried out under the supervision of the NKVD authorities and the MLP administration. They always urged us to hurry up. Under pain of punishment and arrest, the NKVD authorities, aided by the camp commandants, [illegible] all physical strength. Only some of us received clothes [illegible]. We lived on good terms with each other. With regard to cultural [illegible].
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (interrogation methods, torture, punishments, communist propaganda, information about Poland):
If you were twenty minutes late for work (progul – unauthorized absence from work), you faced a trial and a 25% deduction from your pay, to be suffered for six months. If you were late for a second time, you served time in prison. A woman who, without obtaining a sick-leave, missed one day at work for health reasons was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment (Ślizińska, from Bochnia). Propaganda: frequent meetings and an obligation to turn up in the evening to listen to all the nonsense. They complained all the time that we didn’t want to work and that we would be best advised to forget about our future. We were constantly urged to work harder.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (give the names of the dead):
Medical service – one doctor was supposed to look after a great number of patients, whom he saw from 7.00 a.m. If you weren’t given a sick leave, you faced progul for being late at work because it was simply impossible to eat something and still manage to turn up in the woods at 8.00 a.m. I was suffering from a painful ulcer, which our doctor operated on. I had to go to work wearing bandages and running a fever of 37.8 degrees Celsius. It was only after I developed a 38-degree fever that I was granted a three-day sick leave.
9. What, if any, was your contact with your home country and your family:
I wrote to my wife every week, but I received only two postcards. From the postcards I learned that my family got very little news from me.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to get to the army?
During a meeting held on 28 August 1941, we were told that we were released from compulsory labor, and on the following day we received udostoverenie [certificate of release]. I stayed there until October because I hadn’t yet been paid the money I was owed. Having received my remuneration I went south. My son joined the army [illegible] and I was given category D in [illegible].
6 March 1943