Wilhelm Hadam, born on 26 May 1918 in Bartkówka, parish of Dynów, Brzozów district, Lwów voivodeship; Roman Catholic.
On 14 October 1939 I was arrested by the Soviets and imprisoned for three days in Lesko. Then I was transported to Lwów, to the prison set up in the Bridgettine Convent, where I was held until 28 December. Next I was taken to Dnipropetrovsk, where I stayed until July [1940]. In July I was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal border crossing and transported to Samarlag on the Volga, where I worked from 6.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m. for 700 grams of bread and sorrel soup, which I received two times a day. I worked with iron rails. I was a podsobnik [worker] and electrosvarshchik [electrical welder] for eight months there, and then we were moved north, beyond the Pechora River, to a railway construction site, where I received 500 grams of bread, watery soup, and large rotten fish, completely inedible, with no water to drink. If someone was sick, he would be locked up in the penalty cell. I worked there for four months. Mosquitoes and midges pestered us so badly that we could hardly work. The strelkas [guardsmen] tormented our people terribly and cursed us, saying, “ jobany w rot, job twoju w Boha krysta mać ” and many other things. Bolesław Goszczycki, from Warsaw, was shot because he spat at a strelka. Many others were also shot, but I’ve forgotten their names and surnames. We had to carry flour and groats for 12 kilometers. Four months later I was released from the forced labor camp and came to Pechora. I spent a month there, and then, on 7 October 1941, I was released. I received 217 rubles and paid 85 rubles for a train ticket; I paid for my journey from Orenburg to Chkalov with the money I had earned in Orenburg carrying suitcases. I arrived then in Tashkent. I spent a long time there, and wanted to enlist in the army. I spent three weeks in a hospital in Khujand, and later worked there for a month in the icehouse, following which I worked for two weeks in an Uzbek kolkhoz, where it was impossible to make a living. I took off from there – I had been bothered a great deal by lice. I went to Tashkent. I had no spare underwear to change into and wash the other pair. Fortunately, an army transport from Tatischevo had just arrived and I jumped onto the steps. I was caught by the commander of the train guard and brought to a major. A report of assignment was made and I was assigned to the 13th infantry division, 8th company in Jalalabad. Before I joined the military I had worked as a locksmith, gunsmith (in 1938 I worked in Germany, in Śląsk Opolski) and carpenter.
I wrote letters from the camp to my family, but I haven’t received any answer to this day and I don’t know the present whereabouts of my relatives.