Master Corporal Aleksander Świca, 46 years of age, shoemaker, married.
On 10 February 1940, I was deported to Russia. The reason for this was that I was a colonist. I was exiled to Arkhangelsk Oblast, Krasnoborsk district, Zapan-Permogoria settlement.
I worked there at timber rafting on the Dvina River. In winter, it was very hard work that involved tying very thick, nine-meter trees together into something like a raft, which in the spring the water carried away with the floods. I overworked myself and I got sick. They put me in front of a medical panel, and by virtue of its recommendation, I was laid off from that job and placed in the shoemaker’s workshop.
In this workplace there were only Poles. Mutual relations, except in some single cases, were generally good. The work began at 7:00 AM and finished at 5:00 PM. It is difficult to describe the quotas. I was not meeting them, anyway. I was with my wife and my five children. My wife was not working since she suffered from scurvy. I received on average 140 rubles of award [payment] per month. As a worker, I could buy a kilogram of bread, while my wife and [children] received 600 grams. With the outbreak of the war with Germany, I could only buy 800 grams of bread, and 300 grams for my wife and kids. Also, everyone had to buy clothes for themselves. Donkey jackets costed 60 rubles, padded trousers 30 rubles, and shoes 120 rubles. Cultural life was very poorly developed. There was a kind of club, but nobody attended. The children, however, had to go to school. The Russian teacher instilled in their minds that there is no God and that Poland would no longer exist. But children would not give up and would say: “That’s not true that there is no God because when we were at home, we went to school well fed and mom always gave us a couple of cents for candies, but here we are hungry”. And then later the NKVD would come to the parents’ house to tell them to calm their children down. At the beginning, when a child would not go to school, a Militia officer would come but having seen that children still kept their Polish spirit, they then refrained from forcing children to go to school.
The attitude of authorities towards Poles was such that if someone criticized the Soviet Soyuz or defended Poland, they were punished. But those who were completely indifferent were treated passably well. One girl, who was 18-years-old, persuaded all people on settlement not to go to work during Christmas. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison and taken away. No one knew where she went.
Medical care was good, but on the other hand the mortality rate was high. For example, almost all older people died, mostly from emaciation and starvation. I cannot remember any names.
After the amnesty, in October 1941, I went to Uzbekistan, Guzar district, Pyatiletka kolkhoz [collective-owned farm]. I worked there in the fields until May 1942. The award was such that those who worked received 500 grams of barley every second or every third day. Those who did not work received 250 grams of barley. The conditions in Uzbekistan compared to the conditions in Arkhangelsk Oblast was like between heaven and earth. In this kolkhoz, I lost my 16-year-old daughter, who worked with me carrying clay on our backs. Once they made a bag of clay and threw it on my daughter’s back. At that point, something broke inside her as she started coughing up blood immediately. Later, she lost her mind and after four days she died. Later, on 5 May I arrived in Guzar with my family and I worked there for social services as the head of a shoemaker’s workshop until my departure to Persia.
In February 1942, I appeared before the draft board in Guzar, but because of my stomach and leg disease, they did not take me in and I received a certificate stating I was unfit for military service. In Pahlavi, around 15 September, I appeared before the draft board for the second time, and 23 September in Tehran they called me up for military service. My family was still in Tehran.
28 January 1943