1. Personal data:
Section nurse Mirosława Maria Mańdziuk, 42 years old, nurse, married.
2., 3. Date and circumstances of arrest; name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Deported on 28 June 1940 to Czyngis [?], Novosibirsk Oblast, for registering to return home and for corresponding with foreign countries.
4. Description of the camp/prison:
Labor camp in a forest: deforestation and brickyard, conditions were very hard.
Barracks, bunk beds. Plagued by bedbugs and rats. Horrid sanitary conditions.
5. Composition of prisoners, POWs, exiles:
Various nationalities: Poles, Jews, Belarussians, Ukrainians and other nations of the USSR. Eight Polish women. Reasons: exile, deportation, criminal offenses, etc.
6. Life in the camp/prison:
A workday of 12 hours in the forest, without lunch – only a little bread and water. [Reaching] a quota was required. Clothing, footwear – all was in terrible shape. Work was obligatory for women from 16 to 55 years of age. There was no cultural life.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
The NKVD’s attitude was very hostile – nikagda i nikuda around the clock, Poland was no more and nie budiet. Communist propaganda was being spread at every step.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality:
Medical care was limited, a hospital was 40 kilometres from the worksite. Mortality: 12 per cent, most often Jewish.
9. Was there any possibility of getting in contact with one’s country and family?] I was in contact with the home country. I was receiving [letters] until June 1941.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?:
I was released on 5 October 1941 [and sent] to a new destination set by the NKVD, Altai Krai Barnaul – Bijysk. I worked there until February 1942, in the Government Delegation for Poland. On 12 February I left for Kermine, where I joined the ranks of the Polish Army, Sanitary Unit of the 7th Infantry Division.