1. Personal data:
Janina Balińska, born on 19 March 1905 in Częstochowa, daughter of Roman and Helena Oziembło, Roman Catholic, Polish nationality, education: Russian secondary school, married, an office worker by occupation.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was evacuated on 1 September 1939 and left for Kowel. On 15 December, I was arrested for trying to cross the border and return to my home in Jagodzin.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
I was incarcerated at the following prisons: Włodzimierz, Łuck, Kharkiv, and Starobilsk, where I was sentenced to five years of forced labor in Kazakhstan.
4. Description of the camp, prison:
The prisons were terrible, nearly impossible to survive. Artemivsk [now Bakhmut], Kharkiv – dark basements, small and damp cells, without floors and infested with all sorts of vermin. The toilet was overflowing with feces, while water was hard to come by.
5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees:
The majority of prisoners (“politicals” and functionaries of the Border Guard) were of Polish nationality.
6. Life in the camp, prison:
Prison life was a nightmare. “Hunger”, water and stinking fish, moldy bread.
7. Attitude of the authorities, NKVD towards Poles:
The NKVD and the prison authorities were invariably cruel in their treatment of Poles, for example: the method of interrogating inmates was completely inappropriate – the Soviets would use abusive language, torture people by locking them up in punishment cells, etc. They never ceased to ridicule and deride the Polish government and armed forces – laughing that all they had cared about were their lacquered shoes and opulent lifestyles – and also readily profaned religion (this was accompanied by the spreading of Communist propaganda).
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality rate:
Medical care was poor to non-existent. People died of dysentery, typhoid fever and pneumonia. Lice were omnipresent.
9. Was it at all possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family? If yes, then what contacts were permitted?
We had no contact with the home country or our families.
10. When were you released and how did you get through to the Polish Army?
Following the amnesty, I was unable to travel to Buzuluk and join the Women’s Auxiliary Service. It was forbidden. At the time I was in Buguruslan, working on a building site. I planned an escape, for the commandant categorically refused to let me leave for Buzuluk, stating that the Polish government would summon me if I was required. My friends then collected some money for me, and I ran away without a pass or a ticket. After a few days I returned, however, because – having witnessed firsthand the formation of the Polish army in the USSR – I intended to persuade my friends to leave with me; I was successful in my efforts and we jointly escaped the commandant’s clutches. After arriving in Buzuluk we enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Service on 27 October 1941.