1. Personal data:
Gunner Michał Ambroziewicz [illegible], army postal service no 163, 37 years of age, city messenger, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 11 December 1940 for maintaining contacts with Polish police.
3. Name of the camp, prison or forced labor site:
I was put in the Stanisławów prison, from where I was taken to a camp on the Pechora river.
4. Description of the camp, prison etc.:
There were only Poles in the Stanisławów prison – almost 7,000 in number. And the prison had a capacity of 700 inmates. In the camp on the Pechora river we did construction work in the freezing cold – 60 degrees Celsius below zero.
5. Composition of prisoners-of-war, inmates, exiles:
Poles made up all of the inmates. Everyone was preoccupied exclusively with how to get a piece of bread. We lived mainly on bread, the scarcity of which was most painfully felt.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
Work lasted ten hours a day. We were clad in rags, our legs wrapped. The work quota was set so high that, given our exhaustion and the conditions in which we worked, it took three days to fill it. In return for our work we received 300 grams of bread and hot water.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
The NKVD authorities treated us very badly. For seven nights we were beaten with rubber batons and with rulers studded with pins. They would tell us that there would never be a Poland again, that it was as impossible for Poland to be restored as it was for the river to reverse its course.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate:
Medical assistance was very poor. There was only one doctor for the whole camp.
9. What, if any, was your contact with your home country and your family?
Although I wrote tons of letters, I had no communication with my country. Nor was I able to communicate with my family.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released under the amnesty in August, and in September 1941 I joined the Polish army in Buzuluk.
15 March 1943