1. Personal data (name, surname, rank, age, occupation and civil status):
Volunteer Józefina Baumgarten, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
28 June 1940, deported.
3. Name of the camp, prison, place of forced labor:
Mariyskaya Republic, USSR, Nurumbal, camp 5.
4. Description of the camp, prison (grounds, buildings, living conditions, hygiene):
Pine forests, predominantly marshland; the barracks were dirty and infested with bugs.
5. Social composition of POWs, prisoners, deportees (nationality, category of crimes, intellectual and moral level, mutual relations, etc.):
Poles and Jews, a small percentage of Ukrainians, mainly intelligentsia, lots of children, mutual relations very good.
6. Life in the camp, prison (the course of an average day, working conditions, quotas and norms, wages, food, clothing, social and cultural life, etc.):
Very hard work from early morning to late in the evening – forest clearing. Norms that simply could not be fulfilled by unqualified laborers. Wages were laughable, especially as we had to pay for food and clothes. We did not spend much time together, nor was there any cultural life, for everyone was exhausted.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the surnames of those who perished):
There were two Polish doctors and two Red Cross sisters, so we didn’t use the medical care provided by the Soviets. The hospital was located in the nearest township (80 km). One Dąbrowski (I do not remember his name), a civil servant from Gorlice, and Captain of the Reserve Grols from Bielsko both died.
9. Was it at all possible to keep in touch with the home country and your family? If yes, then what contacts were permitted?
I received a dozen or so postcards from my family in Kraków.
10. When were you released and how did you get through to the Polish Army?
I was released on 8 August 1941 and three days later set out on a journey (at my own expense) to find the newly forming Polish army, in which I finally enlisted on 28 September 1941 in Buzuluk.
Official stamp, 12 March 1943