1. Personal data:
Janina Królikowska, born on 14 June 1909 in Łomża, teacher.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was arrested on 10 November 1939 in Krajewo, Zambrów commune, Łomża district, on charges of anti-Soviet activity.
3, 4. Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site; description of the camp, prison etc.
From 11 November 1939 to 4 February 1941 I was incarcerated in the prison in Łomża.
Conditions: I spent two months all by myself in a single cell, and then I shared it with seven Polish women who had been arrested for crossing the border. The cell was damp, the walls were covered with mold; the food was lousy, and I wasn’t allowed to take a walk for 14 months. I was taken to the bathhouse once a month, and there was a bucket in the cell. I could wash myself every day. I had a doctor’s visit every day. There were no medicaments.
From 12 March to 6 September 1941, I was in camps (in northern Kazakhstan, in the gardens by Samarka).
Conditions: mud huts, sleeping on shared pallets, damp and cold in winter. No soap, no warm clothes and shoes for work. Poor food. Work: carrying snow on stretchers, and earth and fertilizer from the “steamers”, and in spring: planting, sowing, plowing, harrowing, and weeding.
5. The composition of prisoners:
a) Poles (approx. 30), mostly from the cities, of varying education and with a moral standing – with a few exceptions – that was very high.
b) Russians – the vast majority. Political prisoners, criminals, prostitutes. Moral standing – with a few exceptions – very low. Spiteful attitude towards the Poles. No cultural life. Soviet movies were screened from time to time, but they were always decidedly communist in character.
6. Life in the camp:
Wake up at 3.00 a.m., work in the fields from 4.00 a.m. Dinner break from noon to 3.00 p.m. From 3.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. (8.30 in summer) again work in the fields. Upon return at 8.30 p.m. we received a supper of kasha, usually without any fat. We went to bed at 10.00 p.m. Food rations: soup three times a day (kasha in the morning); dinner: soup, and for the second course either fish, a piece of meat or a lepyoshka, at first 600 grams of bread, then 400 grams.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
The authorities at the camps were hostile.
8. Medical assistance:
There was a nurse, but the sick were usually sent to the hospital in Samarka. The amount of medicaments was very limited. Towards the end we ran out of ointment against scurvy, and almost all the Poles suffered from this disease there.
9. Was there any possibility of getting in contact with one’s country and family?
I had contact with my mother, who lived in the district of Łomża, by post.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I was released from the camps on 6 September 1941, and after a few days of free labor at a railroad construction site (which I had to flee due to the awful conditions), I came directly to Buzuluk, and on 30 September 1941 I joined the Army there.