1. [Personal details:]
Janina Rodziewicz-Bielewicz, commanding officer of a staff platoon of the Women’s Auxiliary Service, born on 22 May 1918, in Wilejka Powiatowa, Wilno voivodeship.
2. [Date and circumstances of arrest:]
I was driven out from Wilejka on 20 June 1941.
3. [Name of the camp, the prison, the place of forced labor:]
Altai Krai, Charyshsky Region, Svalovsky sovkhoz.
4. [Description of the camp, prison:]
It was a mountainous place, very fertile ground, spring water. Houses were wooden and filled with worms. Even three families might live in one room, without beds, tables or benches. Hygiene was way beyond bad – there was no lavatory or soap. We Poles couldn’t get anything in the store because we weren’t members.
5. [Composition of prisoners, captives, deportees:]
There were twenty-one deported families in this sovkhoz. There were seventy-six Poles, including three Belarusian families that were integrated with the Poles.
6. [Life in the camp, prison:]
Generally, life in exile was terrible. During the first week two Polish boys, named Krakowiak, escaped. As the Soviet authorities informed us, they were captured and arrested. We were going out for work when it was still dark (the work supervisor was riding horseback behind us, rushing us on). Sometimes the towns we went to were very distant, 20 kilometers or more. We were working without any breaks until late at night, while they were urging us with the words “ davay! davay!” [come on!]. Sometimes we had to work even after dark, by the light of the moon. Of course, they didn’t recognize any holidays, there were no rest days. During the whole time I had only three free days – and it was against the sovkhoz director’s order – for my niece’s funeral. Her name was Danuta Majewska and she died due to lack of water during the transport to the place of exile, and so this 10-month old baby had to drink standing water or water from the locomotive.
Our work was to clean manure from the area, to scythe (men), to rake hay, to tie up sheaves, and to thresh during the nights. Here are some examples of our quotas. We had to: remove three cubic meters [of manure] to get 55 kopecks, rake 2 hectares for 110 kopecks, scythe 1 hectare for 103 kopecks, tie up 265 sheaves for 220 kopecks, take out 2 cubic meters of wood at a distance of 15 kilometers for 220 kopecks.
We were eating in the fields. A cook was coming to us from the center with lunch. Soup – it was water and [illegible] potato or very watery barley soup. Once or twice a month 20 grams of meat per person. We got 500 grams of bread for filling a quota, old people who didn’t work got 250 grams, and young people didn’t get anything.
We were wearing the clothes brought form Poland. There wasn’t any social life because we were working all the time. We didn’t have any cultural entertainment – we couldn’t even sing in Polish. Nonetheless, all Poles were talking only in Polish.
7. [The NKVD authorities’ attitude towards the Poles:]
The NKVD’s attitude was one-sided only, that means, they were organizing meetings and making us believe that Poland would never exist again and that we wouldn’t go back to our country. At the same time, they were constantly laughing at our Polish authorities, constitution, government and culture. Those who didn’t show up for work were refused bread, for themselves, their families and children.
8. [Medical care, hospitals, mortality:]
There was no medical care at all, there were no medications. A sixty-year-old Belarusian woman died, but I don’t remember her name, and 10-month-old Danuta Majewska.
9. [What kind of contact, if any, was there with your family and country?]
There was no contact with the country.
10. [When you were released and how did you get to the army?]
On 8 April 1942, I left the sovkhoz on foot, leaving my parents there – Jan Bielewicz, my
mother Alina and brother Jerzy (13 years old) – and I came to Yangiyo‘l, where I was accepted
into the ranks of the Women’s Auxiliary Service on 16 May 1942. My parents are still there.
Temporary quarters, 3 March 1943