Corporal Alfons Awdziej, son of Stefan and Maria, farmer, born on 15 February 1900 on the A[illegible]ty estate, the Wilejka district.
On 10 May 1940 I was arrested by the NKVD as a military settler from Gwozdow, in the Postawy district, wileńskie voivodeship, and deported as a forced laborer to the Semipalatynsk district. There were four thousand arrestees in our transport. On the way we were ill-treated by our escort. They gave us neither water nor food, and upon our insistence on [being given something to eat or drink] the guards sometimes responded by beating us. The journey lasted 19 days. Upon reaching our destination they lodged us on the grounds of a gold mine. We worked 8 hours a day, receiving 800 grams of bread a day per person and 1 kilogram of sugar and 1 kilogram of groats per month. We did piecework, earning 250 rubles. It was very difficult to get by on that pay. Living conditions were very bed. The barracks in which we were lodged were made of sod. We could make almost no use of the medical assistance. When one of us fell ill, the doctor refused to consider him sick and the man was sent back to work. When he failed to appear at work he was tried and punished. His pay was reduced by 25% for three months.
Political commissars held special meetings to spread their propaganda. We were told that we would never see Poland again, and that even our tenth generation wouldn’t become [illegible]. We were also reminded that we had fought the Bolsheviks in 1920.
Upon receiving notification from the Polish army command, on 18 February 1942 I departed for Lugovoy where I joined the army (the 10th Infantry Division, 27th infantry regiment).
During my stay in Russia I received no news from Poland, including from my family, even though I sent them letters. My wife and my five children were also deported, on 5 March 1940, to the Gorkovsky district. She lived in the camp and worked in the forest. On 25 February 1941 she was brought to me. While my wife was in the camp, my son, Władysław (thirteen years old), went separately from her into the woods to pick mushrooms. He never returned. His fate remains unknown. When she reported that her son had gone missing she was told in response: "you are all going to perish here".
During my stay in Russia I wasn’t interrogated.
8 March 1943