1. Personal data:
Section commander Jadwiga Mansch, 35 years old, clerk in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lwów, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
Exiled on 13 April 1940.
3. Name of the camp, prison, forced labor site:
Semipalatinsk Oblast, Zharma district.
From 5 May to 1 October 1940 sovkhoz Zasiemówka [Voznesenovka?], from 6 October 1940 to 19 September 1941 kolkhoz Filipówka.
5. Composition of prisoners, POWs, exiles:
Mostly Polish families, intellectual standing average, mutual relations usually good.
6. Life in the camp/prison:
In the sovkhoz where I spent five months, there was forced labor. I was working in brick production, kiziak (fertilizing), at haying, weeding, digging clay, etc. Because I never reached the quotas, for 5 months of work I received 28 rubles. In the kolkhoz, where was no forced labor, I only took care of a household. Due to serious illnesses I wasn’t fit for physical work, and because in that village there was no other kind of work for Poles, I lived off trading, bartering or manufacturing and handiwork which I exchanged for food or sold in the markets.
In the last kolkhoz that I was in, there were only four Polish families, which nurtured very good mutual relations and supported each other.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles:
I didn’t have direct contact with the NKVD, but we were constantly watched and without the consent of the priedsiedatiel we could not wander off from the kolkhoz.
8. Medical care, hospitals, mortality:
There was one feldsher, and the closest hospital was 15 kilometers distant. There were no fatalities among us.
9. Was there any possibility of getting in contact with one’s country and family?]
I was receiving letters and parcels from Poland until June 1941.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
I received my udostowierienije on 23 September 1941. I was accepted into the army on the basis of the fact that my husband (in the rank of lieutenant) had gone with the 8th Division from Chokpar [Czokpak] in March 1942.