Senior Rifleman Mikołaj Sławiński, 45, farmer, married.
[My arrest] was on 10 February 1940, in the military settlement of Wielkie Ostrowiecze, Zaostrowiecze commune, Nieśwież district. They came to my apartment at 2:00 AM, told me to lie down on the floor, then turned on the light, and started a search of my apartment. They then ordered me to take my wife and children, and loaded us onto a sleigh. Everyone in the village was gathered in the same way and brought to a school in the town of Zaostrowiecze. We spent the night there, and on the next day we were taken to Rejtanowo Station. All livestock, [both] alive and dead, were left [behind] and I do not know what happened to them. At the station in Rejtanowo, we were loaded into freight cars and locked inside. On the next day, the train left for the Russian border and further north.
The journey lasted 14 days, we only ate the supplies taken from home. We were taken to Siniega [Pinega?] Station in the Arkhangelsk Oblast. During the journey, two children suffocated to death and one died on the train. From Siniega Station, they transported us by sleigh up to Kaskawo poselok [rural settlement]. There were four barracks with two stoves, and here, five families (a total of some 25–30 people) were placed. Barracks were dirty, bug- ridden, lice-infested, [and] full of rats. There were beds in them – one for every two persons. About 164 people were placed in this poselok. There was a canteen and a shop there. The poselok was located in the forest, away from the town and the railway line. The deportees were settlers, gamekeepers, officials, and village mayors; the majority were settlers. The day after our arrival, we received axes and saws and they ordered everyone to prepare for work. Everyone was forced to work, both women and men, from the age of 14 and up. The work consisted of cutting trees in the forest, chopping branches, and cutting six to eight meter blocks. The quota was from five to nine cubic meters per person per day.
The salary was from 65 kopeks to 3.50 kopeks [actually rubles] per cubic meter, depending on the thickness of the tree. The wage was irregular because it was paid after a month, or even after one and a half months. Ten percent of the wage was deducted for the NKVD.
Six rubles per family were paid for the flat. The food was dependent on the canteen, where the soup was sold, [and] sometimes groats. A person working in the forest could buy one kilogram of bread, the one working in the poselok could buy 800 grams, and a non-working person could purchase only 400 grams per day. Clothing was not provided and was hard to buy; formally, we wore rags. There was no social or cultural life.
There was an NKVD branch in the poselok, where the head office was. The attitude [of the head] was reprehensible, he controlled whether everyone left to work and whether they were present.
There was no medical care, everyone was unaided, however, [our] health conditions were exceptionally good because only three people died of exhaustion and cold.
There was often a punishment [for] a proguł [being late for work]; this consisted of a deduction of 25% of one’s wage and imprisonment in the case of any disobedience. A few times a month, meetings were held at which people were told that Poland would no longer exist and that we should make a living here and work, because whoever doesn’t work will die. Communist propaganda was also widely spread. We received information from the home country frequently, but the letters were controlled and censored.
We received udostowierienija [document releasing from labor camp] on 30 August 1941. On 17 November, I left my family and departed for Tobolsk. First, I reached the kolkhoz in Samarkand Oblast, where I worked for a month, and after that, I was admitted to the Polish Army and came to Kermine on 19 February 1942.