Senior Leader Józefa Dobrońska, nurse at the War Hospital no 3, unmarried.
I was arrested in Wilno on 15 June 1941 and deported to the Northern Ural, Sverdlovsk Oblast. I spent seven months in a labor camp there. Both the housing and hygienic conditions were deplorable.
A small group of Poles, comprising 25 people, was placed among 600 Estonians, who were very kind to us.
The work (sawing timber) lasted from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. In return for work we received only food.
The Soviet authorities were very hostile and full of sarcasm. They often addressed us with mockery, telling us that we would never leave the woods or go anywhere else.
The medical assistance was virtually non-existent. The mortality rate was very high. From six to eight people died on some days.
During the entire stay in the camp we didn’t receive any messages from our families and couldn’t write to them ourselves.
I was released from the camp on 19 January 1942. A month after my release I arrived in Yangiyul, and there on 1 March 1942 I joined the Polish Army. From there I was referred to Guzar, where I was to work in a hospital as a nurse.
Official stamp, 6 March 1943